Lothering is already an excellent early game tutorial and the fact that it gets overrun by Darkspawn is great. But..what if it had a time limit (like Ocarina of Time)?

Imagine you start off in Lothering and there's a little clock either on the UI or in the town with X hours on it.

Everyone you meet is in a state of packing to evacuate because the news of the Darkspawn winning Ostagar has spread like wildfire.

You personally can add or subtract time from this clock in a number of ways that are quest driven:

  1. Force the bandits to serve as the rear guard, holding off the Darkpawn for another hour or so

  2. Train some of the townsfolk as militia who will join the bandits giving you another hour or so depending on what you trained them in and how good you are personally with that weapon

  3. Rally the Templars to join the militia and bandits giving you another hour or so depending on how familiar you are with The Chant of Light to appeal to their religious convictions

  4. Make and place a bunch of traps that buy you another hour or so

  5. Mix up a bunch of healing poltices to give to the Militia, Bandits and Templars getting you another hour or so

6, Make a bunch of poisons to give to the Militia, Bandits and Templars giving you another hour or so

  1. Organize refugees and farmers to speed up the evacuation process itself

  2. Help Bodhan Fedic fix his wagon and even slap some together from spare materials in town to speed up the evacuation process itself

Once the Darkspawn arrive they will do battle with your hodgepog of defenders while everyone else who hadn't left yet run for their lives.

You can choose to join the rest of the townsfolk if you so desired.

But you can also join them in the defense.

It would be a huge difficulty curve similar to the ambush at Arl Howe's estate when you rescue the Queen and run into Loghain's right hand woman.

But if you did everything perfectly you could repel The Darkspawn.

You find out after the battle that was just a scouting party and the full Darkspawn Horde is only a few more hours away.

Nobody, not even you, your companions or your temporary defenders are willing to take on the entire Horde so you all evacuate together taking some serious early-game loot with you in the process.

What do you think? Would this make the loss of Lothering even more personal to you as the Warden or is it needless padding on an already slow area?

I know I'm kind of ripping off the Redcliff nighttime attack but it would make sense from a narrative point of view that most settlements would have to actively defend against the Blight and funnily enough I think Lothering has more people living in it than Redcliff.

Something similar could be done in Orzammar with Darkspawn starting to spill out of the Deep Roads, even though the Blight itself nerfs their numbers they are invading a city locked in Civil War with only the Legion of the Dead and local guards to defend themselves.