Hometown Breed

Hometown Breed
Act	2
Location	Decrepit Alley (Lowtown)
Start	Lowtown (night)
End	The Hanged Man (night)
Appearances	Dragon Age II

Hometown Breed is an Act 2 Gangs side quest in Dragon Age II.

Acquisition

The Dog Lords are trying to take over Lowtown at night. Killing the majority of them will reveal the location of their hideout and leader.

Walkthrough

Enter the Decrepit Alley and defeat the gang and its leader Cor Blimey. Afterwards, return to The Hanged Man at night and speak to A Friend for a reward.

Cor "The Bastard" Blimey

Strategy

The Dog Lords consist of the "Mabari" enemy type, immune to fire on Nightmare difficulty and weak to cold, applying to both the dogs and the two-handers, and the "Raider" enemy type for the archers, despite wearing the same leathers.

Combat begins as soon as you enter the area, so be ready to move immediately. Cor "The Bastard" Blimey is an Elite-ranked archer, not a rallying Commander or backstabbity Assassin, so a regular application of stun will keep him from being too much trouble. Unlike his subordinates, he belongs to the "Mercenary" enemy type, so he is immune to cold damage on Nightmare difficulty but weak to nature. In spite of this, the majority of enemies will be weak to cold, just like outside, so it is still your most useful element, and "The Bastard" is easy enough to grind down with physical damage. Thus, an Elemental mage plus Merrill with Primal investments and a warrior will cover all bases.

The stairwell you begin in is your most defensible position, so head to the top of the stairs and hold position. From here, it is possible to pull enemies a few at a time, then drop out of combat between kills to thin the pack. While the melees will come all the way upstairs, the archers tend to stop at the landing and take potshots, so hug the righthand wall to force them to come as close to the margins of the lowermost step as possible. AoEs like Tempest and Firestorm can help mark out this margin, damaging archers while keeping you hidden. If you enter the reinforcements' line of sight, you will draw them into battle much earlier than you actually have to, so advance no further than the distinctive corner column to stay out of sight. Mabari and other multi-legged enemies don't suffer from force to the same extent as the two-legged kind, but talents like Mighty Blow and Scatter, carefully aimed, are still useful to knock two-handers down to the landing. Because of the majority cold weakness, consider Brittle cross-class combos as well.

The spawn points for the reinforcements are in the top-left, top-right (where you entered), and bottom-left corners of the map, so holding your ground in the lower rightmost corner of the alley may allow you to drop out of combat and heal. Still, crossing the alley full of archers to reach this point with a perfectly good staircase right next to you may not be the best idea. With the right party it's easier to simply dispatch the top-right reinforcements, who will spawn on top of you, then remain in place.

Result

Hawke can now walk around Lowtown at night without being ambushed by thugs.

Rewards

• Random loot
• 2 and 500 XP (quest completion)

Notes

• "Dog lord" is a commonly used insult against Fereldans, and the fact that they fight alongside mabari suggest their origin. Indeed, when you acquire the quest, its description notes that the Dog Lords are giving Fereldans a bad name.
• A Friend only appears at night, in the back room of The Hanged Man. She will continue to give out rewards each time the player clears out a band of thugs in the subsequent side quests.
• Like all nighttime gang quests, several waves of enemies will not appear unless you change area and come back. Also like all other such quests, the hideout location will be revealed even if 1-2 groups of gang members have not been cleared (so as not to be rendered impossible to complete if another quest NPC is currently blocking a group from spawning in a specific location).

Bugs

• pcps3xbox360 The player may have to move around the hideout and all its small side areas repeatedly to get all of the enemies to appear.
• A few enemies may only appear when approaching Gamlen's door.
• pcxbox360 The player will sometimes be unable to leave the hideout after the quest is complete as there is no exit. This can result in a game breaking bug if the player happens to save in the hideout and has no earlier saves. Currently it is not known what causes this bug. However, an unmarked exit can be found at the most upper right corner of the map that leads to Lowtown.
• Game also can crash at entering the hideout. To fix this and similar crashes, swich from directx 11 to directx 9
• The Dog Lords may stop spawning prior to the map becoming available for looting, making the quest impossible to start. pcxbox360ps3
  • This may be due to a missed enemy preventing the next batches from spawning. Check Gamlen's front porch for an archer who can neither see nor be seen from the street.
  • This may be fixed by entering a building such as Gamlen's house.^{[confirmation needed]}

See also

• The Lowdown
• Ladies' Lights Out