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Dragon Age is less than a week old, but there is absolutely no shortage of extra Downloadable Content (DLC). Most of these items are free, but some require work or even cash. However, with a little digging around (and $15), you can unlock plenty of extra content right from the start of the game.

Pre-Order Content:

• All Pre-Orders - Memory Band: +1% experience.
• Amazon.com - Lion’s Paw Boots: Bonus to armor, dodge, and evading missiles.
• Direct2Drive - Dalish Ring: Bonus to healing, Darkspawn damage resistance, and health regeneration.
• EA Store - Band of Fire: Bonus to stamina and fire/spirit resist.
• Game Crazy - Guildmaster’s Belt: Bonus to money drops, cunning, and dodging.
• GameStop - Feral Wolf Charm: Bonus to armor and health regeneration.
• Steam - The Wicked Oath: +1 armor penetration, +1 stamina regeneration in combat, and +10% critical/backstab damage.

(Please note the details for Memory Band and Steam’s The Wicked Oath are exact specifications. All others are rough descriptions.)

Now, most of these offers are gone if you did not pre-order the game. The major exception is retail stores that have physical cards. GameStop especially gets vast numbers of cards in, so try your luck asking an employee if they have any to spare. They are often very friendly and more than willing to hand over a card even if you did not preorder at that store, or even GameStop, depending on the availability of code cards.

Character Creator:

• The Lucky Stone: +1 to all attributes.

Prior to even buying the game you can download The Dragon Age Character Creator. Simply toss it your EA.com login information, then create and upload a character to your EA.com profile to seize The Lucky Stone. The Character Creator is harder to find now that EA/BioWare have pulled most the official links to it (since it was a pre-release item to make it quicker to get into the game), but you can still find plenty of links on third-party download sites.

Dragon Age Journeys:

• Embri’s Many Pockets: +5% resistance to fire/cold/electricity/nature/spirit.
• Helm of the Deep: +2 constitution and +10 mental/physical resistance.
• Amulet of the War Mage: +5% damage to fire/cold/electrical/nature/spirit.

Dragon Age Journeys is an official Flash mini-game (of sorts) for Dragon Age. It is an episodic pay-for product, but the first chapter is free and contains three items you can unlock for the full game. The game is short, taking no longer than three hours if you take your time, do not know your way around the world, explore every nook and cranny, etc. You will easily get two of the three unlockable items during your first play-through permitting you read the requirements and watch out for them (such as one requiring you to have full health at the time when you defeat an ogre). The third is more of a hassle requiring you to beat the entire game three times, once as each class. Subsequent runs can take under an hour, but this is enough of an annoyance that you may want to consider if Helm of the Deep is worth it.

All New Purchases:

Blood Dragon Armor: Some truly exceptional plate armor as well as a similarly themed suit of armor for Mass Effect 2. The set consists of:

• Blood Dragon Plate Helmet: Tier 6, 3.15 armor, 3.75% fatigue, and +1 armor.
• Blood Dragon Plate Gauntlets: Tier 6, 2.63 armor, and 3.75% fatigue.
• Blood Dragon Plate: Tier 6, 18.38 armor, 26.25% fatigue, +3 strength/willpower/armor, +50 health, and -10% fatigue.
• Blood Dragon Plate Boots: Tier 6, 3.15 armor, and 3.75% fatigue.

Obtaining this set of armor is simple enough; buy the game new! EA/BioWare is taking the carrot approach here to motivate new sales versus used, so every new copy of Dragon Age includes a code for this armor and its Mass Effect 2 counterpart. Due to the massive fatigue hit this set is really only useful for warriors, however 35 hours into the game has not shown equipment even comparable to this set yet. (A single helmet thus far has been better than the sets helmet, but if used would cost the loss of the set bonus to defense and armor granted by having all four pieces of the set worn.)

Collectors/Digital Deluxe Edition:

• Bergen's Honor: Tier 7, 3.75 armor, 3.90% fatigue, +2 armor, +6 attack, and +25 physical resistance.
• Final Reason: Tier 6, damage 6.00, armor penetration 35.00, distance 56, spell power 6, +3 damage, +10 spell power, and +15% fire damage.
• Grimoire of the Frozen Wastes: Provides you with three attribute points and one talent point to spend as you desire.

In addition to the three exclusive items above, the Collectors/Digital Deluxe edition includes the two for-sale DLC packs available at launch, Warden’s Keep ($7 separately) and The Stone Prisoner ($15 separately). Warden’s Keep includes a new area with a few quests. The major attractions include a suit of armor, two new talents, and a storage box similar to a MMO’s bank. The Stone Prisoner includes a new area with several quests, but the major attraction is a new party member, the stone golem Shale. Shale compares to BioWare’s earlier Star Wars: Knight’s of the Old Republic’s character HK-47, meaning Shale is a hilariously sadistic character. He has an acute fear of birds and a love of crushing heads, or really anything, and his voice acting is some of the best in the game.

Warden's Keep and The Stone Prisoner sell for $22 separately, versus the $15 markup for the Collectors/Digital Deluxe edition. If you have any interest in the DLC, go ahead and spring for the higher-end version of the game as you are effectively paying for The Stone Prisoner and getting Warden’s Keep free. Of course, besides saving $7 you also get the three exclusive collector's items just mentioned.

That is all there is to it; you can unlock a fair amount for free, but the extra $15 for the Collectors/Digital Deluxe edition of the game is worth it for the added items and gameplay. One downside to note is that like prior BioWare DLC this content is restricted to your EA.com account (similar to previous titles being locked to your CD key), meaning you must be online and able to authenticate with EA/BioWare to be able to use the equipment. Therefore, if you take the game with you on the road on your laptop and cannot get online, you may just login to find your character naked and unable to access the DLC areas.

UPDATE: I have written about the two upcoming pieces of DLC, being the first two post-launch.

UPDATE: A quick piece detailing the stats of The Edge and a Hot Topic t-shirt tied new piece of DLC.