So yeah, I completely forgot how involved the Redcliffe quest ends up being if you do it first:
First you have to defend the village from the undead, and you can improve defenses to ensure more people survive or whatever, I don't really know.
Then you have to save Connor by infiltrating the castle and finding out what the fuck is going on. Then the mage Jowan lets you know how you can save the kid, but if you want to do it without killing Isolde then you have to go to the Circle Tower. And if you didn't do that first, then you have to do the entire Tower first, which would be even longer if I had kept the Fade section in (taking a 1-2 hour section down to 10-15 minutes was much appreciated). Finally you can take the mages back to Redcliffe to finally save Connor but you're STILL not done with Redcliffe.
At which point the Arl is still sick, so you have to find the Sacred Urn of Andraste which everyone hinted at as possibly saving him, which involves going to Denerim, going to an inn outside of the Circle Tower, going back to Denerim, then going to Haven at which point you start the quest to actually get the ashes. And I completely forgot what this mission was like except that a crazy person asked you to dump blood in the ashes. I think in my first playthrough I told him to fuck off, which meant that I had to fight a dragon to get to the Urn. This time I humored him, but I wasn't risking losing my precious Leliana over some dust, so I still opted not to defile them (I'm curious what actually happens other than fighting the Guardian, I assume).
Then, finally, you're done with Redcliffe. And he mentioned another thing I forgot: The Landsmeet. Which, if I recall, once you start it you're in the end game.
Honestly I think I'm just gonna rush through this so I have a save file for Dragon Age II. I always found that game way more fascinating despite it's obvious shortcomings.
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TheRock ~ I had a name, my father called me Blues.