I've seen it a few times now; people don't like the Lost in Dreams sequence. I don't see where this problem lay, I find it rather fascinating; in the barest sense, it ties a lot of things together. It's my own baseless speculation, but are those who don't like this part, religious themselves?
When you talk to Wynne at Ostagar, she mentions the connection of of the fade and darkspawn. She'll also let you know, later on, about the spirits which don't show themselves; like Valor, if you did the mage origin; and if you notice, Lost in Dreams is lacking in any of these spirits. It's rather interesting, that "civilized virtues" are considered benevolent spirits (justice, valor, faith, etc.), while base instincts are considered demons (hunger, pride, desire, rage, etc).
It's only here that you'll find a lot of codex involving the black city (whether it was ever gold or not, is purely speculative on those who never deal with the fade... that would be the chantry folk). It's hinted - and I admit that I haven't read everything through - that the black city has always been black with corruption, and the first mages to get there, didn't corrupt it, but were corrupted by it. After all, this did happen centuries before Andraste.
For strictly combat reasons, Lost in Dreams gives the Warden several permanent attribute points. Most of these points must be won through combat, of which, differing methods must be used depending on your class; for the most part they force you to break from the kick in the door and slaughter everything. It was here that I learned the joys of long cast large AoE spells; being a SH/AW in Mage Asunder is meaningless, you are a pussy, end of story. For rogues, poisons and stealth suddenly have meaning. For warriors, you end up seriously accessing the worth of your armor and accessories. Often you find yourself in strategic dilemmas.
For all the cursing and cussing I did playing this mission of madness, I loved it. In the purest, it gave you an idea of the danger mages are always in. And showed you the power ranking the demons used amongst themselves; the stronger the demon, the more underlings, and everyone had a pecking order. It was a much more in-depth version of the mage's harrowing.
And just for shits and giggles. I love touching the lyrium veins; the Warden looks like s/he's orgasming. Shadizar666 (Ruck Rules) 22:08, February 26, 2013 (UTC)
I have a baseless speculation about the corruption in the black city. I think dwarves in the primeval thaig were older than the ones we know and they could be mages. However they made a cruel experiment in Fade, which caused a cataclycism and caused their extinction, now they are merely rock wraiths with no memory of previous life. Red lyrium is a corruption from the black city, when darkspawns are mutation of the corruption. Dwarves don't remember that because the 7 founders wanted generations with no memories of the dwarves from Primeval thaig and that's why sharper don't acknowladges events older than the memories. As I said baseless speculation made by using imagination.62.87.147.163 (talk) 22:24, February 26, 2013 (UTC)