Unbound

Unbound is a side-quest.

Background
In Orzammar you may come across a nervous dwarf in Tapsters. He's panicked and after a frightened few comments, he disappears. You need to track down the individual mentioned in the new quest 'Unbound' and find out why he is terrifying everyone he encounters.

Walkthrough
In order to obtain this quest you need to do three things (in no particular order):
 * Get the letter off the dead adventurer's corpse located down the first hallway on the left when after entering the Ruined Temple during the quest line for the Urn of Sacred Ashes.
 * Go to Tapster's Tavern in Orzammar and talk to the nervous adventurer in the north-west corner. After some dialogue, he will give you a set of notes.
 * Go to the Elven Ruins in the Brecilian Forest and acquire the notes from the bone pile of another dead adventurer. It is located on the left side of the large "fire trap" room in the Lower Ruins.

Once all three are completed, travel to the Dirty Back Alley in southeastern Denerim. Interact with the door to a Quaint Hovel and ask about Gaxkang to initiate dialogue and a difficult battle.

=Strategy= Gaxkang's Capabilities

As you damage Gaxkang, he will shift between forms that resemble an Arcane Horror and a Revenant. For an overview of the spells and abilities in each form, see Gaxkang.

He resists most spells, and freezes and hexes warriors into uselessnesses quickly. Glyph of Neutralization renders him useless and increases all damage your melee heroes do.

Equipment Recommendations
 * Runes contributing to Spell Resistance are always a plus.
 * While melee and magic do little-to-no damage to Gaxkang, several consumables (most notably acid flasks) do full damage. Try configuring your poison-using melee to drop acid flasks frequently, and this fight will go quickly.

Party Combinations
 * A group composed of Alistair, Shale, Dog and a healer can make this fight an aggro fest. With Shale gaining aggro using taunt and your healer spamming, Gaxkang will die slowly but surely.
 * Alternatively, a group consisting of Shale, Wynne, Leliana (as a ranger), and a dual-wielding Templar Hero with Momentum can quite effectively dominate Gaxkang without much difficulty at all. Shortly after starting the fight, he'll be limited to trying to Hex you and can rarely get off any kind of freezing strike, and Shale can easily handle his physical attacks. With all the melee (including the ranger pet), he'll never get to Wynne even if he happens to aggro on her over Shale anyways.
 * A possible combination is, if you're an archer, Sten, Morrigan and Wynne. Let Sten do some damage and use his stamina to taunt whenever possible while the mages alternate between healing of Sten and ranged staff attacks. The sphere spell is handy if you find yourself lacking in the healing department. Once aggro is established you can start letting arrows fly with your archer. If you keep it at a nice pace you won't find Gaxkang any trouble as long as you make sure he's positioned away from the ranged attackers.
 * A party with both Oghren and Sten will make quick work of him if they both have stunning blows.

Class Specific Information
 * It might not hurt to set each character to use the weakest available health poultice whenever their hp dips below 50%. Stock up on tons of lesser health poultices, and do be shy about using 2-3 at a time with Alistair.
 * Mage
 * The most effective spells against Gaxkang are Mana Clash, Death Hex, Cone of Cold, Affliction Hex, Mana Cleanse, Misdirection Hex (when he's in fighter form), and any kind of weakness spell. Maximise the spellpower of the mages casting those spells by using Spell Might and Spell Wisp to avoid Gaxkang resisting them.
 * If you have a mage with the spell Mana Clash, this can cause huge damage to Gaxkang in his Arcane Horror form. At lower levels, Mana Clash has a high chance to be resisted. However, if you cast it on Gaxkang as the fight begins (pause and cast it on him as soon as possible), it appears he is unable to resist it, giving you a nice lead. If the mage(s) in your party have spellpower higher than 100-120, Gaxkang rarely resists hex type spells and Mana Clash thus you may choose to leave the fight until you reach higher levels.
 * Warrior
 * Position Gaxkang facing away from your group
 * Stack massive spell resistance, such as Key to the City, Knight-Commander's Plate and Spell Ward
 * Keep threat high by (1) ensuring you have Threaten on, (2) using taunt whenever it's off of cooldown and (3) pouring massive damage when Gaxkang is in caster form, using any damage abilities your tank has.
 * Utilize your templar's mass dispel
 * Spam health poultices and pray when Gaxkang is in melee format
 * For this fight, it may be best to control the tank to ensure proper positioning. If your tank is a Templar, such as Alistair, be sure to cast Cleanse Area whenever Gaxkang switches into caster form and renders your melee useless.

Result
Upon defeat, Gaxkang the Unbound will drop the Keening Blade and several other items. There is a chance he will drop the Fade Wall shield and up to 5 on his body (this chance increases significantly if you switch to nightmare difficulty, which can be exploited by taking down Gaxkang's health on Casual then switching to Nightmare just before the killing blow). In addition, you can find around 10 and Elementalist's Grasp in the chest in the back room.

After defeating Gaxkang, the Dirty Back Alley will disappear from the Denerim Map. The area will then be inaccessible. It is therefore advised to complete the quests Blood of Warning and Notices of Death prior to Unbound.

Trivia

 * Gaxkang seems to be a reference to an opponent in Baldur's Gate II: Kangaxx. Like Gaxkang, Kangaxx had two different forms: once his initial lich form was defeated, he transformed into a demi-lich.