How Does Dao Leliana Romance Affect Awakening DLC?

Man, this is one of those cozy Dragon Age conversations I love diving into — the short take is: romancing Leliana in 'Dragon Age: Origins' won't make her pop into the party in 'Awakening', but it absolutely colors the story beats and the epilogue flavor you get when you import your world state. I always treat romances in Origins like planting little emotional flags: some of them are mechanical (companions who stick around), and some are narrative threads that show up later as lines of dialogue, notes in the epilogue, or mentions by other characters. With Leliana, the practical upshot is that your relationship gets preserved in the imported world state and shows up as flavour rather than as direct gameplay changes in the expansion.

If you care about continuity (and I totally do; I used to obsess over every saved file and epilogue slide), the thing to do is finish the Leliana romance arc cleanly in your Origins save before importing it into 'Awakening', or set the same romance status in Dragon Age Keep if you’re using that. Make sure she’s alive and that the relationship has reached the point where she clearly considers you her partner — that increases the chance that the writers’ epilogue text will reflect a more intimate future between her and the Warden. In my playthroughs, when Leliana was romanced and assigned a stronger ending, the epilogue references read like a small but meaningful nod: she’s mentioned differently in the narrative wrap-up and you get to feel the continuity even if she isn’t physically present during the new missions.

It’s also worth noting that 'Awakening' focuses on new Grey Wardens, the political fallout, and the internal threats inside the order. So mechanically, your Leliana romance won’t change party composition, new companion banter, or major quest lines in the expansion. Instead, the impact is emotional and meta — it reshapes how your imported Warden’s life is described, how certain NPCs talk about past events, and how later games (if you take your story forward) can build on your choices. I love that approach because it makes the universe feel alive: even absent companions have lives that ripple across sequels. If you want the romance thread to be as visible as possible, I’d import a finished save rather than a half-done romance, because half-formed romances sometimes get awkwardly downplayed in the epilogue text.

Finally, if you’re playing through everything as a marathon, keep an eye on how your choices echo into 'Dragon Age II' and especially 'Dragon Age: Inquisition' — Leliana’s role grows later, so the emotional investment you make in Origins can pay off in much richer ways down the line. For me, romancing her in one playthrough and then seeing little references in the next game was one of those warm continuity thrills. If you want, try two saves: one where you romance her and one where you don’t, then compare the epilogues — it’s a simple but satisfying way to see how Bioware rewards those long-term attachments.