Side Quests

Any quest that does not fall into the Inquisitor’s Path quest lines is an optional side quest. Dragon Age: Inquisition contains a massive amount of side content, much of which can be done in any order you see fit. When you pass by a potential quest, be it a person in a village or a note in the hands of a dead body in a ditch on the side of a road, your maps will be marked with an exclamation point. Many quests are simple: Go here, kill that, go back and report. Or sometimes they are a simple delivery job. However, some quests get slightly more elaborate, requiring you to travel across entire locales, or multiple locales, before the job is done.

Why do side quests at all? For power, experience, influence, loot, and the approval of your fellow party members. Additionally, you can find a lot of interesting codex entries while traveling on these assignments, while other codex entries are granted as rewards for completing a quest.

One of the most important resources earned through side quests is power. You need power to unlock new locales on the war table at Haven or Skyhold, or to accomplish certain tasks during side quests.

Experience means going up in levels, and you always want to do as much of that as you can. Later missions on the critical path can get very challenging if you haven’t been doing a lot of fighting or questing.

Lastly, influence is a measure of the Inquisition’s political and social strength across Thedas. It is tracked the same as your character levels are, and when you go up an influence level you can select an Inquisition perk.

Treasure Maps

There is a certain group of side quests that start when you find a sketch or crude map of a location where treasure has apparently been hidden. You must then follow the clues on the maps to find the location of this treasure, and then use your Search ability to scan the area until you uncover the treasure. We’ve marked not only the start for these quests on our maps, but the locations of the treasure themselves. You’ll thank us later for this, trust us.

Fade Rifts

Fade rifts are places where the Veil was so weakened by the creation of the Breach that demons from the Fade tore their way into our world. Those tears, or rifts, in the Veil allow demons to pass through unhindered, and left unchecked they will eventually overwhelm Thedas. Fortunately, the Inquisitor has the means to close Fade rifts.

Closing a Fade rift is the same no matter where you go: approach the rift, slay the demons guarding it, kill the reinforcements that spill from the rift, and then seal it with the mark on the Inquisitor’s hand. The major differences come from the types of demons you face at each rift. The further into the game you go, the more powerful the demons become, and that’s matched by the increasingly more exotic demons that make up the forces you face.

Requisitions

Requisitions are quests offered by Inquisition scouts found at camps you establish throughout a locale. These quests are about delivering a list of items to the requisition table and then crafting the desired item. These quests are constantly offered, allowing you to gain power so long as you’re able to deliver the goods.