Companions are the heart and soul of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Recruiting these fascinating to your party happens automatically, but maintaining your relationships with each companion takes time and effort.
The most important part of that process is completing each companion’s personal quest and spending enough time with them to max out their respective bond level. Strong bonds aren’t just important for battle (though reaching new bond levels does give you skill points to spend on companions). It can even make the difference between who lives and dies.
Our Dragon Age: The Veilguard guide breaks down all companions who join your party, how to start their companion quests, and how to keep relationships strong during your journey.
Image: BioWare/Electronic Arts via Polygon
Dragon Age: The Veilguard puts seven companions in your path, and since you gather them as part of the main story during Veilguard’s first half, it’s impossible to miss any of them. Each companion has a predetermined class, and is associated with one of the six factions in The Veilguard. And yes, you can romance all of them.
At a glance, your companions are:
Scroll through the image gallery above to see each companion. Below, find some details about when in the game you’ll recruit each of them.
Lace joins your party automatically during the prologue mission, “The End of the Beginning.” She remains with you throughout the game. However, if you choose to take Harding when you bring down the statue and stop Solas’ ritual, she’ll suffer injuries and behave differently for the next few missions.
Neve also joins your party during the “End of the Beginning,” and, if you take Neve to stop the ritual instead, she gets injured and alters her attitude toward you for a short time after.
You find Bellara in Arlathan Forest during “In Entropy’s Grasp,” and she joins you immediately.
Finding Lucanis takes a bit of effort. At a fork in the narrative, you’re given the chance to visit Dock Town or Treviso. After going to Treviso, you speak with the Crows’ leader, then end up in a rogue mage’s underwater research lab, where the “Sea of Blood” quest starts. You’ll find Lucanis partway through the mission, doing rather well for himself against a group of Venatori.
After an interval back in Dock Town, you’ll travel to the hinterlands for the mission “A Warden’s Best Friend.” Davrin joins at the start, alongside his adorable griffon friend, Assam.
Emmrich is your guide to Nevarra’s Necropolis, and he tags along during the “Where the Dead Must Go” mission. You can also choose “The Dragon Slayer” instead and recruit Taash first. The mission order doesn’t matter.
Taash is on a mission for the Lords of Fortune in Rivain, one that puts her in conflict with the Antaam in “The Dragon Slayer” quest. She joins as soon as the mission starts.
Image: BioWare/Electronic Arts via Polygon
Characters can die depending on how strong your bond is with each party member, but Veilguard makes it plain when they’re in danger. Without spoiling anything, you don’t have to worry about companions facing mortal harm until much later in the game.
As far as we can tell, companion approval is separate from their bond level. We made several choices that Harding disapproved of in the first few missions and irritated her during conversations, and she still had the highest bond level by the time we’d assembled the entire Veilguard.
Completing their faction and personal quests and speaking to them when the time-limited conversation icon pops up next to their location icon at the Lighthouse are solid ways to ensure your bond remains in good shape. Make sure not to ignore companions — or the ones you like, at any rate — and don’t worry too much about making the wrong choice during dialogue.
That said, choices you make throughout Veilguard will influence your relationship with each companion, and some may leave for a time and come back changed. For example, one early mission tasks you with deciding to save one city over another. The companion with ties to the city you don’t save will be unavailable for the next few missions and comes back “hardened.” The hardened state increases the power of their physical attacks, makes them unable to use support abilities, and influences their attitude during conversations with you.
Image: BioWare/Electronic Arts via Polygon
Every Veilguard companion has a lengthy questline. You can tell when a character is ready to chat — starting their companion quest chain — by opening the map when you’re at the Lighthouse, your primary hub. If a character’s icon is marked with a yellow exclamation point, talk to them.
While these are technically optional, completing them increases your bond with the companion in question, and you’ll often get gear for them during the quest as well. Some pop up shortly after a companion joins you, but several — especially those for companions who join you a bit later on — only show up after you’ve progressed the story further.
Even if you don’t care much for them or plan on using them in battle, it’s worth completing companion quests to unlock their exploration abilities. Harding’s ability, for example, moves stone and makes it possible to reach previously inaccessible areas, and as far as we can tell, you don’t unlock it unless you complete the first part of her companion quest.
Every companion questline consists of four or more quests, of which at least two are classified as “Outings.” Outings are smaller, more focused quests where just you and the companion in question complete a specific task, and in addition to increasing their bond level, these Outing quests usually present you with several opportunities to improve your approval rating with that companion.
Each companion questline also has one major choice near the end that determines how your companion will handle a serious issue they face, and they also earn different rewards or learn different skills depending on your choice in that moment.
You can also purchase gift items for each companion at merchants in cities with ties to specific companions – for example, the Warden merchant in the Hossberg Wetlands sells a curio for Davrin. These are logged as quests, but completing them is just a matter of purchasing the item and giving it to the right person. It’s a straightforward task, since the gifts are marked with a companion icon, and you can’t give them to anyone else.
Companions will often give you faction quests as well. In our experience, completing these makes no difference to your bond with a companion, though if you want to max out faction reputation, it’s still worth your time to take these missions on.
The first part of Harding’s quest is called “An Unfamiliar Sense.” Speak with Harding at the Lighthouse after retrieving Solas’ dagger from Arlathan Forest during “The Singing Blade” to add this one to your journal.
Harding’s quest centers on how she reacts to her newfound powers after coming into contact with Solas’ lyrium dagger, and it’s tied to a fair bit of dwarven lore as well — something rarely seen in Dragon Age games.
“Echoes of the Past,” Bellara’s quest, also shows up after you complete “The Singing Blade” and can travel freely to locations on the world map. Speak with Bellara in her workshop to get started.
Bellara’s quest follows her attempts to understand the Archive, the strange, broken spirit you encounter near the start of the game. However, it’s just as much about Bellara learning to understand herself as it is about her relationship with technology and magic.
You can begin Neve’s quest after finishing the “Shadow of Minrathous” mission. Speak with her in her room at the Lighthouse, and she’ll recommend going back to Dock Town, which adds “A Study of Dock Town” to your journal. This quest becomes unavailable if you don’t complete it before the dragon shows up and if you choose to head to Treviso over Minrathous.
Neve’s quest is essentially a deep dive into the seedy underbelly of Minrathous. It’s like one of her detective stories, only you get to take part in it and learn more about Neve and her difficult past as a result.
“Coffee with the Crows” is Lucanis’ first companion quest, and you can grab it by speaking with him at the Lighthouse after saving him during the “Sea of Blood” quest. Like Neve’s companion quest, “Coffee with the Crows” is blocked off if you don’t complete it before the dragon shows up and if you choose to head to Minrathous over Treviso.
Lucanis’ quest explores what happens to the Crows after the dragon attack and uncovers dark secrets at the heart of Lucanis’ past — and family. Spite, the demon living inside his head, also has a role to play, and as you’d expect from a story about demons and assassins, things get pretty dark.
Davrin’s quest begins with “How to Train a Griffon,” an outing mission that becomes available after you first speak with him at the Lighthouse once the quest “A Warden’s Best Friend” ends.
Davrin’s quest explores his relationship to Assan and tasks him with deciding the fate of griffons in general viz a viz the Grey Wardens. All this takes place as he hunts the Gloom Howler, the Blighted creature who first appeared during the mission where you meet Davrin.
Emmrich’s quest starts with a trip back to Nevarra in the “Walking the Graves” outing. It should become available after you finish the main story quest “Where the Dead Go,” which is when Emmrich joins you, but you might have to leave the Lighthouse and return a few times to get through an event with him and Harding to receive the first Mourn Watch faction quest.
Emmrich’s companion quest is, perhaps unsurprisingly, rather more on the esoteric side of things, and it explores views of life, death, and the nature of existence in northern Thedas. At the center of all this is Manfred, his skeleton assistant, and the lengths Emmrich will go to in order to save him.
Taash joins you during the Dragon Slayer main story quest, and her first companion quest, “Fire on the Sands,” unlocks soon after. As with Emmrich, you may need to get through other events first before Taash broaches the subject of her personal problems. It’s worth the hassle, though, as you’ll get access to the Hall of Valor and Isabela’s fighting arena.
Back to Taash, though. Her quest digs into Qunari culture and identity while also exploring that curious little matter of Taash breathing fire — generally something most Qunari can’t do.
For more Dragon Age: The Veilguard guides, see our guides on the best class to pick and the best faction to join, plus explainers on how to romance party members and how to change appearance, and a list of all apply and detonate combos.
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