One of my favourite companions in Dragon Age: Origins is Shale. She's a deadpan, dry-voiced golem with a hatred for pigeons that does credit to her dwarven, grudge-bearing heritage. She was also a day-one DLC character but, while discussing her, series creator and lead writer David Gaider reveals that was mostly due to a lack of time, and the fact she was downright impossible to write.
During a recent saga of Bluesky threads shared by the writer on the series' many companions, Gaider reveals that Shale was initially the darling of a BioWare writer who wanted to bring her stony-ness to life: "Shale was initially taken on by Jay Turner, then one of our junior writers," Gaider explains. "Jay had an idea to make Shale more of a robot, an emotionless automaton killer... think HK-47, but without the layer of sarcasm. I was leery, and told Jay he'd have to be very careful. 'Emotionless' can very quickly turn into 'boring', after all, unless you're VERY careful. But Jay was determined."
