Hitting you with another spicy Dragon Age news update! We have a new comic book on the horizon from Dark Horse, as a direct continuation from Dragon Age: Deception's plot with fan-favorite Fenris taking the lead this time around!
The same creative team behind Knight Errant and Deception are returning with a novel by the name of Dragon Age: Blue Wraith! An amazing title, if I do say so!
We have Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir on the writing front, artist Fernando Heinz Furukawa and colorist Michael Atiyeh with covers done by Sachin Teng. Each returning from previous Dragon Age comics!
Comicbook.com has the full scope with a small description on the newly announced graphic novel:
Dark Horse Comics is returning to the world of Dragon Age once again in the newly announced comic, Dragon Age: Blue Wraith. Blue Wraith follows other critically acclaimed series like Knight Errant, and will feature a returning fan-favorite Dragon Age 2 character: Fenris, the former elf slave that hunts mages, set after the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
"Dragon Age: Blue Wraith starts off with the fanatical Qunari seeking to topple the Tevinter mageocracy. Caught in the middle, one powerful young mage’s desperate search for her father brings her face-to-face with a notorious mage hunter—Fenris, the Blue Wraith."
Regarding the nature of Fenris and his mage killing, Nunzio cleared something up for us:
"Fenris frees slaves. In doing so, he has killed a fair amount of mages, and the "Blue Wraith" is feared throughout the Imperium as a Mage-Killer as a result".
For anyone wondering who the mage is in Blue Wraith, both the lead writers Nunzio and Christina confirmed on Twitter that it is Francesca. The Venatori mage from Dragon Age: Deception, apparently: "She's got a lot to figure out in this new mini." In addition to Francesca, other previous comic characters will be returning too! Thanks to Caitie who was prompted by this reply from Nunzio - "While this is a story about Francesca and Fenris, Vaea and Autumn are huge parts of the story as well".
We know that Nunzio and Christina create new characters simply for the purpose of serving the novel's story. Of course, they'd love to see their characters transported into a game for a future narrative, but that's not their purpose.
At this time they exist to push the narrative since Inquisition forward, with no objective to appear in Dragon Age 4 yet. So, with that tidbit - how are the Dark Horse writers able to tackle characters like Dorian and Fenris? Characters who're already established in the franchise and seemingly have plenty of plot to go forward in the next game?
Well, Patrick Weekes has helped clarify this, they were asked how much of the narrative and character decisions came from the lead DA writers, and how much is up to the comic authors. He replied saying:
Tricky question! Short version: - We at BW (me, Matt Goldman, Nick Thornborrow) give a high-level “Here’s what kind of story we’re interested in.” - Comic writers (Christina and Nunzio currently) propose a story based on that. - We at BW offer lore adjustments as needed."
"So the great folks at Dark Horse, and Christina and Nunzio specifically, are telling a story they own, and we are making sure it fits with where we want to take the franchise."
This gives me hope that we could not only see Fenris in the future, but other comic characters that we've grown to love like Vaea and Ser Aaron, even Calix and Francesca, and don't even forget Autumn! With that in mind, the comics are leading the way for Dragon Age 4's grand narrative issue by issue, paving the way!
So, I'm super pumped to read the comic book, delving into many things like Fenris and his lyrium manifestation, Derenius' Estate, the Red Lyruim idol/sword and of course, the returning comic book characters!
The cover of this novel interestingly enough the main Dragon Age font follows silver accents as opposed to Deception's gold, this title reminds me of Dragon Age: Origin's colours. And I'm admiring Fenris' new hair style too! He's looking not too shabby!
Dragon Age: Blue Wraith #1 is set to release on January 15, 2020 with the following two issues releasing after that. Judging my Dragon Age: Deception's release, each of the issues launched one month after the other. So, we can expect the narrative to finish around March. The same month that Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights will launch! We're going to have a lot of Dragon Age reading material to talk about early 2020!