The second full-fledged DLC for Dragon Age 2, titled Mark of the Assassin, is now available for purchase. I say "full-fledged" because I'm not including the two item packs they released awhile back.
In Mark of the Assassin, the player is accompanied by an elven assassin named Tallis, who's voiced by geek heartthrob Felicia Day. The new party member—who actually teams up with the player—has her own unique combat style and backstory, which is explored throughout the DLC.
With Tallis at your side, you'll have to infiltrate an estate outside of Kirkwall to steal a precious relic called the Heart of the Many. As expected, the estate also houses numerous weapons and armor for you to pilfer—after you deal with the guards, that is.
Game designer Greg Aronowitz explains his inspiration for Tallis: "When I first started working on the Tallis costume, there were three major aspects I wanted to capture: First, that Tallis would be believable, second, that Felicia would look sexy as an Elf assassin, and not bulky or stiff, and lastly, that she could actually move in the costume. Felicia was going to be doing a lot of her own fighting, and I didn't want the design to restrict her. I chose earth-tones, predominately green for the coloring (both because it represents Elven environments, and looks good with Felicia's red hair!) and leather/iron for the materials. I studied a lot of BioWare art work and worked closely with the game developers to make sure I stayed within the style of the world they had created.
"I wanted the costume to look like it was leather and iron, but it wasn't actually constructed that way. Most of the actual costume was sculpted in clay over a fiberglass cast of Felicia, including the bodice, shoulder pads, thigh guards, wrist guards. The clay sculpts were then molded, and the final parts were run in a soft but durable foam latex. I chose to approach it this way so that we could create duplicate copies of the costume, and they would all be exactly the same. The belt buckle and hood clasps were also sculpted and molded, but those were cast in a rigid urethane. I painted all of the elements, and then they went to Shawna Trpcic, costume designer extraordinaire, and Antonina Grib, who worked magic with real leather to create elements like the belt and boots. They created the under-structure that made the whole costume functional. My team went on to create Tallis's daggers, but that's a story for another time…"
You can pick up Mark of the Assassin here.
