Cousland Starting Weapons Tweak
🟡 Updated this yearPreview

🔍 Analysis
- 👍 3.7% endorsement rate — high engagement, a strong quality signal
- 🏆 #114 of 115 Weapons and Armour mods in this game by downloads
📋 About This Mod
A simple tweak that adds a greatsword to the Human Noble's inventory and optionally a better starting shield - for the son or daughter of Teyrn of Highever, a small, wooden shield is underwhelming. For rogue characters - a shortbow added.
There are a few mods that change or modify the Human Noble's starting equipment. But they can be rather extensive, like Human Noble Background Immersion, or they change the default armour to clothing. I don't mind the Cousland wearing armour by default, but a few weapon tweaks wouldn't hurt.
We can assume with confidence that the warrior Cousland was taught to fight not only with sword and shield, but with greatsword too, as befits a noble knight. This why I'm adding a basic greatsword (Tier 1), so that the player who plans to use two handed weapons, can do it from the start.
Another thing, the default shield - it's certainly too modest for a Cousland noble. Added the Cousland Guard Shield (Tier 1), it doesn't break balance but is more immersive.
In the opening scene, the player's character walks into the great hall and participates in the conversation with weapons on their back. I don't think it's immersive, of all the major characters, only Duncan has his weapons. But it can be explained, he's a guest, of a special kind (Howe is one too, but he's a close friend of Bryce) - whereas the young Cousland is at home, so there's no need to carry weapons right at the beginning. They are moved into the inventory, and wait for the player to equip them after the conversation.
Incompatible with any mod that changes the same file or modifies the starting equipment extensively.
1. 3
- reorganised the mod's structure
- made sure the custom items (shields and armours) use vanilla ID strings, so that the mod is localised for each language
- on @Kashenkon's request, a Warden's Keep tint version of the leather armour for rogue characters
- both the studded and basic leather (Warden's Keep tint) use now the DLC icons
- on @Apex720's suggestion, a vanilla tint version of the default warrior armour
- removed the Studded Leather item set fix in order not to duplicate the change; The fix can be found in Blick's Fixes - Qwinn's Reloaded
1. 2
- added a compatiblity of sorts for the Lore Friendly Cousland Guard Shield users, which fixes the Cousland Guard Shield heraldry, and replaces it with the Highever seal, as in the item's description. It would make our character also display that heraldry though. That's why I made the player's Guard Shield unique and with the Cousland seal on it.
The vanilla small shield, which remains in case of using the "Greatsword" version of the mod, is also unique now and bears the Cousland wreath on it, instead of being just a generic, small shield.
1. 1
- adds a unique Studded Leather armour from the Warden's Keep DLC as starting armour for the warrior class. By default, the items have identical stats to the set from the main campaign, but the look is distinctive.
📊 Mod Details
- Game
- Dragonage Mods
- Author
- BlickJustice
- Version
- 1.4
- Downloads
- 895
- Endorsements
- 33
- Category
- Weapons and Armour
- Created
- 2/24/2025
- Updated
- 5/8/2026
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