Should you save or leave the mayor in Dragon Age: The Veilguard?

Dragon Age: The Veilguard mayor choice - Dragon
(Image credit: Bioware)

Choosing whether to save or leave the mayor of Dmeta's Crossing is one of the early decisions you'll have to make in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but after traveling through the blight ruined village to find him at the end, it'll feel like a significant one. As with any choice in a BioWare game, it may have an unexpected outcome later on.

If you're not so big on uncertainty and want to know what either choice will do, I've laid out either option below, including the immediate approval changes from your companions and longer term consequences.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Save the mayor or leave him?

When you reach the end of the blighted village and find the mayor trapped inside some blight, you have two choices of what to do with him. He'll ask you for mercy, saying that he was being controlled by the gods and that they possessed him, but you might not believe that considering he's surrounded by gold and ill-gotten gains. 

Here are the immediate outcomes for each choice:

  • Save the mayor: Neve approves of this but Bellara disapproves
  • Leave the mayor: Bellara approves and Neve disapproves

If you save him, the mayor will also warn you about the gods' indoctrination abilities, though this doesn't actually affect anything. It's ultimately not that significant of a choice. If you leave the mayor, however, it will have one knock on effect. While exploring Arlathan Forest later in the game, you can find a big blight in the location of the screenshot above that you can investigate.

Doing so will start the A Growing Corruption quest. I won't spoil anything, but this quest explains what happened to the mayor as a result of your choice. As far as I can tell, this big blight and quest won't appear if you saved him, so if you want an extra little sidequest, go with the leave option.

Sean Martin
Senior Guides Writer

Sean's first PC games were Full Throttle and Total Annihilation and his taste has stayed much the same since. When not scouring games for secrets or bashing his head against puzzles, you'll find him revisiting old Total War campaigns, agonizing over his Destiny 2 fit, or still trying to finish the Horus Heresy. Sean has also written for EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, EGMNOW, and Inverse.

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