Back Alley (Origins)

Zevran at the Back Alley

Back Alley is a location for random encounters and scripted encounters when traveling through Denerim in Dragon Age: Origins.

Background

This is the default random encounter when traveling through the Denerim city map. Typically, you will encounter various bandits, often with various tricks, such as closing a portcullis on a party member and ambushing them, or setting up a fire trap and firing from behind barricades. There are also at least two event related encounters, as listed below.

Involvement

Pearls Before Swine

After dealing with the White Falcon mercenaries at the Pearl, you will encounter Sergeant Kylon who will show up to congratulate you. Unless you had killed the mercenaries at the brothel, their leader Cristof will appear and attack both the party and Kylon's men. You can loot the axe Aodh from Cristof.

Taliesin

This encounter will trigger after the Landsmeet when traveling on the Denerim City Map. Here, the Warden will meet Taliesin and an interesting dialog starts. After which there will be a popup screen if you haven't got Zevran in your party. You will be forced to pick Zevran and up to 2 other party members and then a combat starts against Taliesin and a lot of other assassins. If your approval rating with Zevran is not high enough, then he will side with Taliesin and you will be forced to fight him and the rest of the assassins. In this instance, you will be forced to kill him. If you have an approval rating that is above 35 but lower than 60 with Zevran, he may elect not to fight either with you or against you. In this case, if he is in your party at the start of the encounter, he will force himself out of your party.

Characters

Sergeant Kylon (during Pearls Before Swine)
Taliesin (after Landsmeet)

Enemies

Bandits (Human, Normal)
Cristof (Human, Elite)
White Falcon mercenaries (Human, Normal)
Taliesin (Human, Elite) - Assassin class (drops Gloves of Guile)
Assassins (Human, Normal and Elite)

Exits

Denerim

Notes

Kylon's health will never drop below one during the skirmish with the mercenaries, so he can easily tank Cristof and his men.
If you don't use Zevran that often, don't forget to equip him with some decent equipment before entering this encounter and as there are a lot of traps worth a lot of XP, it's good to take someone along who can disarm them.
This area has the same layout as the Dirty Back Alley.