Codex (Dragon Age II)

The Codex is a collection of lore that Hawke can build in their journal during their campaign. Codex entries give information about the world of Thedas, including stories of historians and scholars, and about the mechanics of the game and certain creatures, characters and items. Gathering codex entries rewards the player with experience (EXP) and can open side quests and dialogue options with other characters.

The information in the Codex comes from within the setting, and thus may not be completely accurate or even self-consistent.

Codex Categories
Codex entries are grouped into categories. For information about specific codex entries, see the relevant category article:

Finding codex entries
The Codex entries are unlocked in a variety of ways: through dialogue, eavesdropping on someone’s conversation, reading books, collecting items and killing enemies. (Like Bioware's last RPG Mass Effect, the Codex is received in full only by choosing all of the available options of dialogue with a particular character.) Once the entry is collected, it can be viewed in the Codex tab of the journal. Unread entries will be highlighted.

In many cases, collecting a new codex entry will reward the player with EXP.

To help find Codex entries, it is possible to set an option to make all items of interest sparkle gold on-screen. In the PC version of the game, pressing the TAB key will highlight all items that can be interacted with, making it much simpler to find hard-to-spot books and notes containing codex entries. In the console version of the game, pressing the left trigger serves the same purpose.

Context-sensitivity and codex updates
Some codex entries are context-sensitive and/or are updated during the campaign depending on Hawke's experiences and decisions. A codex entry for a Companion may change depending on how well you get to know them, what you do with them - or even whether you recruit them at all. Creature codex entries can also be updated as you find additional variations of the same type of foe.