Royal Palace – Dragon Age: Origins Location

This guide will walk you through the “Royal Palace”, in Dragon Age: Origins. We will go through how to go through this area, as well as any secrets you can find.

Map

Legend

1. Ser Cauthrien
2. Landsmeet Chamber

Exits:

• W. World exit (Denerim).

Royal Palace

When you enter the Royal Palace, you’ll be confronted by Ser Cauthrien (#1), provided that you didn’t kill her in the Arl of Denerim’s Estate. Ser Cauthrien won’t want you to “desecrate” the Landsmeet, but if you’re persuasive or intimidating, then you might be able to convince her to stand down. Otherwise, you’ll have to fight her and the half dozen guards with her. If you kill Ser Cauthrien, then you’ll find The Summer Sword on her corpse, and picking it up will give you the Items codex entry for The Summer Sword.

When you enter the Landsmeet Chamber (#2), you’ll start a long cut scene where you’ll get to say a few words and make a few accusations, and then the lords will vote either for you or Loghain. There are a few ways that you can gain votes:

• Bann Vaughan will vote you if you let him out of prison in the Arl of Denerim’s Estate.
• Arl Bryland (South Reach) will always vote for you.
• Bann Alfstanna (Waking Sea) will vote for you if you completed the quest “Lost Templar” (covered in the location entry for the Arl of Denerim’s Estate).
• Bann Sighard (Dragon’s Peak) will vote for you if you completed the quest “Tortured Noble” (covered in the location entry for the Arl of Denerim’s Estate).
• Arl Wulff (Western Hills) will vote for you if you say “The Blight is the threat here, not Orlais!”
• Bann Ceorlic will always vote for Loghain.
• An anonymous noble will sometimes vote for you, and sometimes not. We’re not sure what controls this. He might be swayed by the quality of your arguments.

Note: It seems like Anora, Loghain and Eamon should all have votes as well, so there might be more votes being cast than the ones shown during the cut scene (which is perhaps why you can lose if the votes appear to be in your favor).

At the conclusion of the voting, one of two things will happen:

• If Loghain wins, then he’ll accuse you, Eamon, and Alistair of being traitors, and he’ll order the three of you to be executed. Eamon won’t stand for this, and he’ll order his guards to attack, which will throw the entire room into battle. You should take down Loghain’s mages first, and then whittle away his other soldiers. Once you’ve done enough damage to Loghain, Grand Cleric Elemena will step in and stop the fighting, and you’ll decide to have a duel.
• If you win, then you’ll jump right to the duel.

When negotiating the duel, you can choose to fight it yourself or have one of your companions fight it for you. If you choose Alistair for this, then he’ll always kill Loghain at the end. With anybody else, you’ll get to choose what happened to him (see below). Since your character should be more powerful than your companions (thanks to the Fade, if nothing else), we’d recommend fighting the duel yourself.

The duel itself should not be too difficult. Loghain will hit you hard and sometimes knock you down, but he won’t have access to any potions, and so you should be able to wear him down. Then once you’ve done enough damage to Loghain, he’ll surrender, and you’ll have to make a choice. If you decide that Loghain should die, then either you or Alistair will have to strike the final blow, and that will be that (but remember that Anora won’t marry the person who kills her father). If you decide that Loghain should become a Grey Warden, then he’ll survive the Joining and become a companion, but Alistair will leave you (and perhaps get himself executed to boot).

Finally, you’ll have to choose between Alistair and Anora for who should be King or Queen. This won’t really change anything during the remainder of the campaign, and you can choose regardless of whom you agreed to support prior to the Landsmeet, so feel free to pick whichever candidate seems the best to you.

After the Landsmeet has ended, either King Alistair or Queen Anora will put you in charge of Ferelden’s armies, and you’ll be ordered to head to Redcliffe, where you’ll finally be allowed to take on the Blight.

Note: For completing the Landsmeet, you’ll gain 1 talent point.