Dragon Age: The Veilguard Explores Emotional Journey with Griffon Companions

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is an RPG with many emotional moments of grief, worry, and even anger at times. This is a tough journey for the player-controlled character, Rook, and their companions to save Thedas from the evil machinations of the gods, and it does not come with guarantees of anyone surviving the ordeal. When it comes to animal companions, emotions can become even higher for some, and the threat of sweet animal friends being a casualty of war can be enough to cause someone to even turn off the game.

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. In reviewing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it was clear that one of the cutest characters in the game is a young griffon named Assan who is being raised by the Grey Warden, Davrin. While there used to be many griffons in the world, at the time that The Veilguard takes place, these mighty animals are thought to be extinct. The Grey Wardens have rescued a small clutch of eggs, however, and now a brood of baby griffons have been tucked away in a hidden aerie and are being trained to help with the battle against the blight.

The First Meeting With The Griffons Does Not Bode Well For Their Fate

Coinciding with the time that Rook and one of her companions come to find Davrin, a Grey Warden known for being a talented monster hunter, there is an attack happening on the griffon aerie where Davrin is at. This aerie holds many young griffons from the same family of eggs. This includes one named Assan, who Davrin has been helping to train. Rook finds Davrin and Assan in a dangerous situation and finds that all the griffons other than Assan have been caged up with special blood magic locks.

Rook jumps into action and assists Davrin in fighting off a large, blighted Ogre, but sadly, the group is unable to rescue the griffons before they are taken away by the infamous Gloom Howler. Nobody knows what the Gloom Howler wants with these griffons, but she has been previously seen to be killing off Grey Wardens, and clearly, her intentions are not friendly. Davrin's fellow Grey Wardens at the aerie did not survive the Gloom Howler's attack, and Davrin agrees to come help Rook, with Assan always by his side.

Assan And Davrin Learn To Trust Each Other

In between missions in the game, players can come and talk to Davrin to learn more about his character and see how he is doing. Many of these conversations center around Assan, as do several of the dialogues that happen between Davrin and other companions (at one point, Taash is even giving Davrin pointers regarding Assan's excrement). Eventually, Rook is able to progress Davrin's personal story arc, which involves tracking down information regarding who the Gloom Howler is and what she might have been planning with the griffons, and if it is too late to do something about it.

It is important to remember that Assan is not just a pet. Davrin's abilities and skills involve the use of signaling Assan to attack, and Assan shows up in the overworld at times when players need his assistance. He may not always be visible on the screen, but if Davrin is there, so is Assan.

That being said, whenever they are at the Lighthouse, Rook can pet, hug, and play with Assan. Likewise, players can pet most of the dogs and cats in the game, or play rock-paper-scissors with Manfred, the skeletal assistant of Emmrich's. However, none are quite the same as being able to hug the adorable young griffon.

Who The Gloom Howler Is And What Her History Was

Through talking with his connections in the Grey Wardens, Davrin is able to track down information on the Gloom Howler, and even the person who originally found the lost clutch of eggs that Assan and his siblings came from. They find that the Gloom Howler was, in life, a mage of the Grey Wardens named Isseya. During the Exalted Age, Warden Isseya was ordered to put all the griffons through a modified blood magic ritual similar to the Joining that all Grey Wardens undergo, which was supposed to make the griffons more powerful and immune to taint.

Unfortunately, this did not work as it was meant to, and the griffon species was entirely wiped out very shortly after the ritual, other than the last remaining clutch of thirteen eggs that included Assan. The blighted griffons did have greater speed and strength between the time of their modified Joining and their deaths, but they were also much more aggressive, even attacking Wardens. Not all griffons were put through this ritual, but sadly, their version of the taint became contagious and quickly spread to the entire species.

The Griffons Are Saved From The Gloom Howler's Plot

As soon as the Gloom Howler learned that Assan and his siblings existed, she was overcome with a need to perform the same ritual on them, in a twisted way of thinking that she was saving them and freeing them from the control of the Grey Wardens. As part of her plan, she also blighted several members of the Grey Warden faction and built an eerie alternate version of the Grey Warden encampment known as Weisshaupt.

Isseya was, surprisingly, also the savior of Assan and his siblings back when the griffons went extinct. She sacrificed herself by managing to remove the taint from the last eggs and took it into herself. After becoming filled with the taint, she was transformed into the ghostly creature now known as the Gloom Howler.

Davrin, with Rook and Assan, find this location and fight the Gloom Howler. Assan was the remaining griffon for the Gloom Howler's plan, and she attempts to lure him to her. After a close call with Assan about to be killed, the battle is won and all the griffons are saved.

Players Can Choose Where The Griffons Go After They Are Rescued

After Assan's siblings have been saved, Davrin calls together a few trusted individuals for his decision on what to do with the family. Over the time that Davrin has spent with Assan, he has seen the softer side of the griffons, altering his previous belief that they are only destined to be powerful hunters of darkspawn and Blight. The choice comes down to whether to give the griffons back to the Grey Wardens, as they once belonged to, or release them to be protectors of Arlathan forest.

This choice is turned over to the player, as Davrin asks Rook to help him decide. Either choice will lead to the griffons being watched over and cared for, with a bright future ahead of them following the events of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.