Dragon Age logo

BioWare

Dragon Age: Origins Nightmare Guide by David Milward


INTRO & ABOUT  |  CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES  |  EQUIPPING CHARACTERS  |  COMBAT GUIDELINES  |  CHARACTERS
Areas in Order of Appearance:  
Origins  |  Ostagar  |  Lothering  |  Circle Tower  |  Warden's Keep (DLC)  |  Return to Ostagar (DLC)  |  Stone Prisoner (DLC)  |  Brecilian Forest  |  Redcliffe  |  The Urn of Sacred Ashes  |  Orzammar  |  Deep Roads  |  Denerim  |  Final Onslaught  
Disable all ads!
Warden's Keep 
Soldier's Peak  |  Warden's Keep - First Level  |  Warden's Keep - Second Level  |  Avernus' Tower  |  Warden's Keep Restored  

WARDEN'S KEEP - LEVEL 2

Winter's Breath

The first part of this video is where we see what become of Sophia Dryden's ill-fated rebellion. This leads to a fight with an especially powerful Rage Demon. It has four Dead Warden skeletons that by themselves are weak, but will help keep the Rage Demon at full health, so they must be taken down before you can make any progress. Something that you need to keep your eye on is that the Skeletons will periodically rise, forcing you deal with them again before you can resume your efforts with the Rage Demon. *Note* If you do this fight at higher levels, the Rage Demon will also call in other Rage Demons as allies. It can also cause a spout of fire to emerge from the floor, causing continuous damage to anyone standing on it. You must therefore move your characters off the spout to avoid further damage.

I eventually manage to wear down the Rage Demon after the second wave of risen Skeletons. It leaves behind a Winter's Breath staff (+25% cold resistance, +15% cold damage). I don't really have any use for this staff though, other than to sell it. The problem is that it does not provide any bonus to Spellpower.

Raspberry Jam

I go through the door to the north, and then kill a few skeletons. The table has a jar of Raspberry Jam which, when clicked on, provides another Codex Entry pertinent to the Ancient History side quest.

Sophia Dryden

Now it is time to banter with the demonic spirit possessing Sophia Dryden's corpse. The spirit wants your help in luring the still-living Blood Mage Avernus to her so she can kill him. Her offer is to repair the breach in the Veil, and in return she wants to leave the Keep freely. I turn down her offer, leading to combat.

This battle can be tough. Sophia has a lot of health, and is a pretty heavy hitter. She also has a lot of skeletons helping her. My strategy was to have Leliana lock the Skeletons in place with her Captivating Song so that the rest of the party can make Sophia the first priority. Aldarion attempts to use Crushing Prison on her, but she resists it. He and Alistair then go after Sophia first and foremost until she dies. Wynne is of course keeping everyone healthy with her spells. Once Sophia dies the rest of the party then begin to cut down the Skeletons.

Leliana loots the two chests for random items. Aldarion now loots the Warden Commander's armor set from Sophia Dryden's body, which consists of:


This will make a good interim armor set for Aldarion. Note that there is a small chance that Sophia will also drop the Warden Commander Shield, which has the same stats as Duncan's Shield (more on that shield later on). The problem is that at lower levels the chance of getting the shield drop are pretty much nil, so I best just ignore the temptation for endless reloads and get on with the game.

Now I am ready to go to Avernus' Tower.

▲
▼

Amazon.com
Amazon.ca
Amazon.co.uk
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!
Disable all ads!