Old Crestwood

“Maker save us from a plague.^[1]”

Old Crestwood is a former village in Crestwood found south of the North Gate Inquisition Camp.

Background[]

Three Trout Pond hides a sinkhole hundreds of yards deep. Darkspawn emerged from this and other caves to attack Crestwood during the Blight. The flood that wiped out Old Crestwood drowned the blighted ones, and the excess water created the pond we see today.
—From the memoirs of Sister Vaughn of Crestwood^[2]

Involvement[]

This section contains spoilers for:
Dragon Age: Inquisition.

To access Old Crestwood, Caer Bronach must first be captured from the occupying bandits. Once the keep has been captured, head to the "Dam Access" located to the right of the newly appointed merchant on the keep's second level. Follow the path outside the keep until you reach the Rusted Horn, a tavern on the dam, which houses the controls to drain the lake. The controls can be found in a small room at the back of the tavern. Draining the lake will disturb the Northern Hunter high dragon, which can be seen flying overhead upon exiting the tavern.

The now drained region is haunted by demons and wraiths, though there are some of the latter kind who will not attack the Inquisitor's party. One of them can be spoken to initiating the side quest Burdens of Command. Bodies can also be recovered for Sister Vaughn via the side quest Homecoming. Besides freeing the area from undead and closing a fade rift in the Flooded Caves, the Inquisitor can uncover the truth behind the rumors surrounding the events in Crestwood and the mayor's story about antecedents during the Fifth Blight.

“It was not darkspawn that opened the dam and flooded Old Crestwood ten years ago. I did, in secret, the night they attacked. The undead you have been fighting are people I killed with my own hands. We'd taken in refugees from the Blight. Many were ill. We moved the sick to the lower part of Crestwood, and the refugees into the caves, to stop the disease from spreading. It didn't work. One confessed he'd seen blight sickness before. It was always fatal. When the darkspawn attacked, I knew the only way the village would survive is if the blight-sick drowned with the monsters. I cannot bear the sight of Old Crestwood now that the water is gone. I cannot stay. I'm sorry.” ―Mayor Gregory Dedrick^[3]