#( which pits them against orlais & tevinter )

[endawn]

cyrodiil has a beef with tevinter & orlais.

[common-blackbird]

it’s time... for a dragon age 2 playthrough post. scroll on!

The things i loved most:

1) the frame of the game - Cassandra interrogating Varric.

What a great way to get hook the player. Like, the opening of guards dragging this poor dwarf with cuts of the title, and then Cassandra demanding answers... Whoaaa! I have no idea if that’s usually done in games or not, but it’s definitely such an amazing intro with characters introducing themselves as well as the story so perfectly, it captivates instantly. The tutorial has a charm to it bc varric is messing around. Which serves to show more of his character. Cassandra’s personality was pretty much blank here but her presence is so powerful. Something happened, something huge and they know and i was about to find out. I can’t describe how excited that intro made me feel. Each time the scene cut to the interrogation scenes, my eyes were glued more than ever. Just GREAT.

Also it makes for a very convenient scapegoat for every plothole ever with the argument “it’s just his version of the story”.

2) The story.

It’s tragic. It’s amazing! The further you play, the more you can see that no matter what you do, everything leads to a disaster. Hawke doesn’t want to take sides, tries to mediate, does not want to get involved, but just can’t stop it. For every thing gained, Hawke loses two more. Your friends come with packages that get you involved in terrible stuff. Your good intentions result in disasters. The whole game you spent time climbing  the social ladder not only to reach the top hauntingly alone after losing all of your family, but also losing even that empty title and watching as the city you started to find your place in fall apart in blood. UGH! GAH! FEELS!

3) Kirkwall.

“ But, I beg you my dear readers, never forget that, no matter the subject of any story that might ever be explored between the cliffs of Kirkwall, She will find a way to steal the thunder of the protagonist. Or become the antagonist. Kirkwall is never a mere background. We could even understand it so: the challenge for you dear readers is to prevail against the smokescreens and observe to what extent our characters are players or played by the merciless black souled stone giant. Enjoy playing the dare of the ages between the lines of these humble memoirs. “

Memoirs from the Downfall - Act I. Mirage    by Pfefferminze on ao3 (fic rec!)

This paragraph summs up what Kirkwall is better than I ever could. This shrouded mystery that surrounds Kirkwall keeps you on toes. From the first intro when Varric describes it (paraphrasing from memory) “Kirkwall. The city of chains. It is a free city - keeping in mind i use the  the word loosely”. You already start seeing how dark Kirkwall gets. The name, that derives from its black walls (interestingly, the walls in the game aren’t black...), the history of slavery etched into every corner of that city  and its surroundings - the names (The Gallows, the Bone Pit, the Wounded Coast, the pub The Hanged Man), the scenery (sculptures of slaves, the sunken ships by the Wounded Coast, slums and underground of the Lowtown and the Darktown).

I was really digging the History of Kirkwall and it loved it. Kirkwall has a history of violence, from the times of slavery of the Tevinter Imperium, to Qunari conquests and liberation from Orlais. Many revolts and uprising. And though free now, it’s suggested that, seeing that the Templars hold the most influence, Kirkwall is in the hands of the Chantry.

It’s full of cultures mixing together. I love how not one of your companions is a native to Kirkwall, and it feels like a crossroads to every character’s life. a very tragic crossroads in their life, seeing there’s nothing ever good waiting for you in Kirkwall.

Also there’s these codex entries you look for about the Enigma of Kirkwall. It was when i started digging that up that i fell in love with the city and all. Combined with the History of Kirkwall and every codex entry for every place in and out of Kirkwall, I was pulling my hair out reading about the Enigma. I..i’m still not quite sure what happened. Did the magisters use blood of thousands upon thousands slaves to unbound a forgotten one? if so, is that corypheus? And around what time did that happen?? I get that part (or all?) of Kirkwall’s mysterious violent agency is owed to corypheus slumbering relatively close to the city, but is that all? or is there something more? In either case, the Band of Tree are my heroes.

4) The characters.

I’ll talk more about them later, but in general, i just love how they oppose each other, how complex they are, and there is just not pleasing everyone. They feel genuine. They are all deeply flawed. They all have a solid background that makes their beliefs and actions convincing. The friendship/rivalry points are shaky though, and sometimes really don’t fit the character, but i guess there must be someone hating/loving your bad choices for the sake of the game regardless of characterisation. But all in all, i really appreciated each and every character, and loved how their viewpoints challenged me.

First i want a disclaimer: i love each and every character in the game, whatever i say against them doesn’t diminish my liking of them. My issues really aren’t significant. Also, i might and probably will say smth wrong bc i’ve only played it once. I’m a baby.

let’s start with Family:

Mama Hawke:

i really loved mama hawke. after reading her codex entry and an excerpt of some book on this site, i really feel for her. I mean, imagine going back to your home city where you only remember being respected and wealthy only to find out everything you remember is gone, you are forced to live in poverty, your kids are doing dangerous jobs and you can’t stop them bc you do need that money, you write letters trying to get the old connections but keep failing (at least it was implied?), it’s really been hard for her. I get why she was so obsessed with her legacy. She wanted her childhood home back. She can’t feel like Kirkwall is her home until she is home.

Also loved her antagonism towards Hawke. It seems she can no longer treat him like a child, so she criticises him instead. and honestly, hawke is doing some crazy things so he defintiely deserves some criticism. And stopping Hawke from taking carver with him is just logical to me, idk. since she knows she can’t stop Hawke from going, she will at least attempt to prevent the last kid from going into mortal danger. I’d do the same. AND AFTER HAVING CARVER DYING IN DEEP ROADS I AGREE WITH HER

All in all, i don’t think she’s a perfect mom, but there is no perfect mom, and Leandra does care a lot for her kids. The All that remains killed me too :’(

Bethany

RIP :(

Her codex is not long, but i guess she wasn’t happy with her magic :(

CARVER

My favouritest bestest bro in the game. A secondary character with an inferiority complex towards his sibling, with no sense of humour, blaming everyone else for his inability to get a life? I see a lot of myself in him.  He is sooo bitter, but doesn’t even realise (or at least doesn’t admit) that he’s his biggest obstacle. He feels like it’s Hawke’s fault for Carver not getting his place in the sun, but honestly, it’s Carver’s devotion to Hawke that keeps him from getting a life. He’s just tied with that responsibility and can’t break from it unless forced to.

His interactions with other characters are so funny. Either he’s bitter or he’s awkward, i die every time ;;__;;

Anyways, he became a templar in my game and i thought it fits better thematically (throughout the game the grey wardens felt more like a fanservice material since they really aren’t connected to the story), but after reading that meta about carver and seeing the striking difference between warden!carver and templar!carver i wanna reload and redo everything ;;__;;

i mean... carver isn’t exactly a templar material. The codex entry for templars says that the wanted characteristics of templars are strong faith and utmost  obedience, none of which carver really has... . But that moment when he stands up against meredith was *chefs kiss* worth it. I’m just wondering what happens after, is he still a templar? is he with hawke? is he in Kirkwall or if not, where did he go?? so many questions ;A;

Uncle Gamlen

I feel bad for him. Mostly he’s mean but i like to think it’s bc he’s so ashamed that his sister sees what he’s become. And he’s bitter about his own life. I was so happy when i realised he has a personal mission ;__; I feel bad that he didn’t come to live in the hawke estate tho, especially since Hawke is also alone there :(

COMPANIONS!

Varric

There are no words that can properly convey the amount of love for this guy. He is simply flawless. He’s a charming godfather of the dwarven mafia. I wanna have a charming godfather of the dwarven mafia in my life... He already becomes interesting with the intro, and i gotta say, out of all ~storyteller~ types of characters, he is the best. he puts a disclaimer at the beginning with that game tutorial, and during the whole interrogation he’s like “well, how do you know i’m not lying? i could be.” Also, his voice is the second best voice in the game. 

As for his personal missions, oh wow, that thing with his big bro really hurt. I also gave him the red lyrium... was that a mistake? will i regret it? ;__; I know the true friend would prevent him, but i also trust that varric knows how to handle dangerous stuff...

On a side note, since i’ve read the comics (no self control whatsoever), i loved the beginning of the Until We Sleep, where varric mentions it’s easier to imagine all the people he had to kill were evil than to face the fact that those were normal people just doing their job or trying to survive. Man, it hurts TAT

*garret hawke’s voice when he looks a certain way at the family crest in the hawke estate* ISABELA!

Ok ok, so, i love Carver bc i relate,  i love Varric because he’s simply perfect. But I love Isabela because she’s the most intriguing.

She just crashed in Kirkwall and really didn’t sign up for all the trouble she got. She never likes to have deep conversations, she is always downgrading herself and you just wonder, what is it that happened in her life, and you know her past mistakes haunt her, and she’s doing her best to move on. Her arc was i think my favourite. I think the comic Those Who Speak really adds a lot to her arc in DA2 and makes some of her choices more understandable. Her whole story is about her internal conflict of whether to survive or do the right thing. Her story about freeing the slaves got her ship wrecked is great and all for making her be a pirate with a golden heart, but that story about her drowning all the slaves few years previous make this freeing of slaves a big character moment for her. She finally did the right thing. And she got for it was more trouble, because she’s a pirate which means she can’t afford to just do the right thing. And throughout the game, that same story is going back and forth. She runs off with the Relic bc she’s done the right thing before and it got her nowhere, so now she decided to put her own survival as a priority, but comes back bc she’s too kind to just leave Hawke standing like that. And again, with the slaver papers, it’s the same reasoning: it’s her or the higher cause. She needs that ship. She chooses herself. It’s her biggest flaw. But hey, between pros and antis in your party, it was really refreshing to have someone who, along with varric, just gives you a break with moral high-grounds.

I only wish we actually got to see her more as a captain in power in the game or that she showed me that amazing hat she saw in lowtown. It’s cool that it’s implied that her crew doesn’t like her and she also lost most of them during the crash while the others probably left her after.

I love it when she says she goes sometimes to the docks just to watch the ships. That there is no feeling like sailing. I just want a spin-off with captain isabela’s terrible adventures (´A`)

Also, isabela’s VA is my fave, she really did an amazing job. she voices so smoothly, i wouldn’t know if i was playing a game or watching a movie. And has such a pretty way of talking...

Aveline

I’m really neutral towards Aveline. I like her personality and i like that she’s found herself a purpose and advanced in the guards, and she’s always looking out for everybody. I just wish her personal missions went in the vein of the one in act 1... i feel it would have been more interesting to see her having trouble in her position and that you can’t just waltz into Kirkwall and take command. It’s implied she’s being pressured, so i guess she’s just dealing with it herself, but i just... eh. She’s ok.

Merrill

Merrill actually has one of the if not the most tragic story-line that really challenges you both morally and emotionally. 

Her cheerful and cute personality is dampened by her constant dark leitmotif of willingly practicing blood magic. And i think her story really showed well the indirect consequences of it.

Not in one instance was Merrill’s practice of blood magic an active culprit for all tragedy that surrounds her. First, it seems that blood magic is practiced in the clan, seeing there is no freeing Flemeth without it, but i’m guessing it’s seldom practiced and with great caution. So Merrill wasn’t in any danger of being prosecuted for her blood magic. It’s actually her wish to study it further with the help of the demon that makes her an outcast. That and the magic mirror that apparently is forgotten for a reason. Also, it’s made quite clear that Merrill would be welcomed back no questions asked if she at any point decided to ditch the demon and live without the study of magic mirror. She, on the other side, is driven by the higher cause, the idea that figuring out the forgotten purpose of some evil mirror might help her clan, and is willing to be an outcast if it means reaching her goal and helping her clan. Fast foward to act 3, the clan is still there when they should have moved away, and it’s only when you face the demon possessed Keeper, you realise why. She knew Merrill would sooner or later bargain with the demon again. And she sacrificed herself, trapping the demon within her, as to prevent it. And i think that is why the clan stayed so long there. She waited for Merrill because she wanted Merrill to kill her, and hopefully with her the demon. It didn’t go as planned, obviously, but i really think she had good intentions. When Merrill does manage to kill the Keeper she’s forced to face the clan and i chose the wrong option of telling the truth which resulted in a massacre. Merrill gets back and regrets everything. She, however resolves to help the alienage.

The thing is, there is no one to blame Everyone had the best intentions. Everyone is working for the safety of the clan. it’s a story of sacrifice and when sacrifice feels like the wrong choice (whether it truly is or isn’t depends on your worldview) and it’s really done well.

But here are my issues with Merrill. I love her as a character, but i don’t agree with her decisions.  It’s a personal issue. Merrill is giving up everything as to help her clan by learning history of the evil mirror. And while this is a game where old things are important and significant, her mission is always explained as this duty of preserving history. And while i agree that preserving history is very important, there is a limit to it. you should never put history before the present. If your research endangers the present, you give up on that line. The other is that you need to make peace with the fact that many, many things are forgotten and will be forgotten. It’s sad, but you gotta make peace with the fact that some things are just gone.

And Merrill, who is a magic historian, fails to see that. So that kinda irks my historian moral codex. And in the end, as far as i know, Merrill doesn’t succeed in reviving the evil mirror and dedicates herself to help the alienage. It was a terrible way to learn that some things aren’t worth it.

The other, less personal issue, is that none of this had to happen. I mean, the keeper obviously didn’t think Merrill was experienced enough to actually deal with demons and therefore distrusted her and warned the clan about it. So, if Merrill was a little bit more patient she could have just studied normally under the keeper, and when she herself becomes the keeper, she could have fraternize with that demon however she wanted without much complications. So yeah... i guess youth is made of idealism.

But as i said, minor issues. Her story is really, really great.

Fenris

Fenris and Anders are my “i love you but i am soo annoyed by you but i still love you” characters. Half of the time they’re just there to make you feel guilty for being a neutral party. Which sometimes has me rolling my eyes. If Fenris and Anders actually got along with each other, slavery and mage oppression would have ended in 2 days. Which makes it all the more frustrating that they do not.

Fenris.. his voice. What a nice voice colour. So elegant, but kinda rough, sometimes he talks like he’s 80 years old, sometimes like he’s a teenager. I love it.

As for the rest, i mean, i don’t agree with his methods, but very often, the guy’s got a point. I get his experience with mages colours his view on them, so while i symphatise, it’s really hard to have him on my “free mages” missions when he’s my best tank and i want him to be on friendly terms with Hawke so this makes things... difficult. That aside, it’s interesting that fenris doesn’t see mages as evil per se, but rather victims who, in his experience, will always, always going to succumb to a demon. It’s an inevitable reality to him. And this makes me wonder if he ultimately, despite being his friend or lover, is just waiting for the day he will be forced to kill Hawke too :(

As for his missions, they were ok, it led up to culmination and i didn’t let him kill his sister bc Hawke has just lost his mom, don’t do smth you’ll regret ;__;

also, somewhere around the end of act 2 i decided to romance fenris bc i love to suffer, so i worked the whole act 3 trying to get more aproval points and also wondering why are there no romance options when i talk to him... turns out that one night stand with isabela romanced her and canceled fenris. But i never even finished the romance with her so i’m just ??? about it all.

I wish it was more explained about the tattoos fenris has? I just thought the tattoos would play a big role somewhere in the game and it just never happened. There was a banter with Merrill about how his tattoos are similar to valaslin, so i thought, hmm, interesting, maybe the two are connected. But nah they just glow in the dark and make you pass through walls. Whatevs.

also dude just goes and kills without a second thought, i’m just “mate, you gotta calm down”. But that’s his thing. He’s constantly bitter and is very bad at anger management. I can’t blame him, considering he lacks around 10- 20 years of experience due to amnesia.

He’s the only one who left me when Hawke sided with mages, and i was like, “ok i getcha, it’s been nice knowing you”, but then when i asked him to join me 5 minutes later he just went “ok changed my mind” which was so funny, like, where did all that integrity dissappear??? It would have been more impactful if the dialogue went in the line of “i want to stand by my principals but you’re a living breathing proof that not all mages are weak to succumb to demons so i’ll join you in the end” (and then side-eye “i told you so” when orsino turns into a demon)

And i wanna read the fenris comic now bc my question for every character here is what is their fate after kirkwall. I only know that isabela & varric are working for alistair and merrill wants to help the alienage. Aveline is i guess either dismissed from her job or got a pass after cullen took  the command.  But Carver?? Fenris?? Anders?? They never talked about long term plans...

Anders

ooh boy, here we go. there are many questions i have for him and am generally just hmmmm. First, as for his pro-mage rights - it’s like opposite fenris so i just have the same feelings: you mean well, i don’t agree with your methods, your experiences define your worldview so i let some things slide, but other things i will not agree with. Though, question: in how many circles has Anders been? He knows the kirkwall circle, he knows the fereldan circle. Seeing he has excaped 7 times, did they send him to a different circle each time or was the fereldan the last one? or the first one? Or maybe it was his boyfriend they transferred? did i miss something?

I’ll just whisper: awakening!Anders >>> da2!Anders. I just miss the old anders. Which says a lot bc during the awakening i was just “shut up anders”. I miss his bad jokes, his terrible attempts at flirting, his enjoyment of freedom, nagging all the time, and generally being more moderate in pro-mage rights. Like, in awakening, because it was not the only thing he talked about, it felt more personal and intense. Here mage-rights are the only thing he ever talks about + justice. I mean, please correct me if i’m wrong, this was just general impression. But to defend da2!Anders here, it makes sense that merging with mixed both of their personality, and i like that they did that. It’s also very sad.

The thing is, when i’m thinking about anders, i love his story and character. Just as it’s terrible that Fenris, having no memory from before being Fenris, Anders can never go back to being just Anders. And this, people, is why you don’t fraternize with spirits. He’s obviously afraid of how justice is affecting him and there are some bare traces of his old personality and i guess he wouldn’t be as radical if he didn’t have justice personality that can’t stand the injustice. And in combination with anders quite selfish personality (form awakening, and i say that lovingly), it makes him do things that justice wouldn’t condone. Anders is literally a walking bomb.

Again, same problem as with fenris, i really thought that the justice glow would have a incredibly significant culmination, and it didn’t, it was just to show that anders and justice are very bitter. Eh, ok.

Also, i let anders join after he blew up the chantry, bc he started it, so might as well follow it through.

Some minor characters that i remember

Senechal Bran for the next Viscount! He hated hawke so much but still put up with him.

Feynriel is the coolest mage in Kirkwall. I think his missions were my favourite. Dude goes from “oh no i’m a mage” to “i will just dreamwalk to tevinter and learn control the reality” to “i dream-killed bad people from thousands of miles away”. Does he appear in the next game? I want him on my side. He’s so cool.

I think the Maker is sending Cullen signs to quit being a templar. First job: evil mages that tortured you. Instead of “this job will kill you” h took it as  a “never trusting mages again, got it”. Second job: your boss is evil possessed paranoid maniac. Man, talk about bad luck.

What is the story of the Lady Elegant?

Flemeth had that big great talk at the beginning of the game and i thought by the end of the game i’d realise what it meant, but nope, still no clue.

Ok so I defeated Corypheus, but there was this looong shot of Larius walking away. Corypheus possessed larius, didn’t he? He’s out there. In a madman’s body. I know he appears in inquisition.

Many thoughts

I gotta say, in Kirkwall, at least, it didn’t feel like much of a challenge to pick a side. Like, there was no mage who said “hey i actually really like it here in the circle, the templars aren’t so bad”, and having templars actually smuggling mages from the circle says a lot to say the least. Every time a mage talks to you, unless you go with “oh they’re 100% lying”, their stories invoke sympathy and of course you want to help them. And then in 99% cases they turn to blood magic bc there was no other way. Except that dude who always hanged out with the wrong people, he only did blood magic to save Carver. But yeah, that turning to blood magic was like having Fenris side-eye me with an unspoken “i told you so” bc every mage, whether in desperation or hunger for power, will turn sooner or later into a demon. Regardless, blood magic was always in the act of desperation and self-defense. The only times where magic was actually evil was the slavers and the serial killer, who is a madman.

When i was reading the Enigma of Kirkwall, there was a part that talks of a blood-mage conspiracy and i was all, oh shit, there is a reason why templars are mean to mages! maybe the conspirators are framing innocent mages on blood magic crimes that they actually commit, maybe Meredith is actually on trail of the conspirators, maybe there is a reason for animosity on both sides. After all, Kirkwall was known for having a bigger number of apostates, a bigger number of blood magic cases and far more ruthless templars. It added up.Thinking back now, i never even got any specific reason why meredith was so intensely anti-mage, other than going mad.

But yeah, no conspirators. Just sad mages and mean templars, and good templars that get screwed by desperate and mean mages.

While in Kirkwall it’s easy to be a pro-mage, i was thinking a lot about mage-rights in general so let me indulge myself: there are circles, but the mages aren’t oppressed. Rather, the circles would be educational centres and society in every larger city where one learns how to properly handle magic bc magic is dangerous. You can leave when you pass the final exam and also come back anytime to hang out with mages who decide to live there since the institution would support mages.

Also, when one gets possessed, i’d invest more into “walk into their head and free them of demons” specialists. It’d be cool if you could have a dreamer who does that bc no lyrium spent. Honestly, why don’t they ever do that? How did the keeper do that rite for Feynriel? Was it blood magic?

I guess, you’d still have to answer for your crimes, tho no death punishment and degradation allowed. Blood magic wouldn’t be punishable by death, but rather have specialists who study it, but practice with extreme caution and use of another person’s blood is strictly prohibited.

Templars would still exist but completely reformed. No more “mages are all potential disasters”, but i’d rather make it that mages can too be templars, since they both have abilities that prevents the others from casting magic. This way the control system would be much like the dalish: if the keeper(mage) is possessed, the clan (which means the non-mages and the first(mage)) need to kill them. You could argue that you don’t need templars as non-mages, since mages can do it too, but seeing that in general people fear magic and feel inferior to it (since there’s a collective memory of the great tevinter imperium), having non-magic specialists would make them feel like on equal ground. The extra-reformed templars would be under Circle, not under direct command of the chantry, and circle, depending of whether chantry is reformed, might or might not be under chantry.

(a side note, i was thinking about templars recently and i can’t recall an instance where it says who had the clever idea to chew lyrium first? i just wanna know)

I know that DA2 wasn’t about grey wardens and therefore not about darkspawn, but seeing as in legacy we get corypheus being... an evil version of the Architect(??), i was only wondering do we get more answers about the darkspawn? is there hope for them? is the Architect still alive?

And oh, to turn to the Anders question:

Is he a terrorist, or was that just activism? I mean, i don’t see why those two can’t go together. blasting a building with a symbolic significance killing and harming many innocent people to get a message of your radical activism across belongs into a schoolbook of terrorism. Does he have a good cause? He sure believes so, and i, too, agree that mages should not be oppressed for just being mages. But does that mean this is the right way to do it? Personally, i do not condone any act of violence in service of a political or religious cause. I know it’s sometimes inevitable, but i like to believe there are more diplomatic ways, or at least not including an attack on civilians.

That aside, the moment where anders goes in front and just announces that the church was gonna blow up in a minute was the best anders moment for me. Until that point i more or less just viewed his activism as a hobby since he just did it in his free time, but now he put his money where his mouth is and freaking went all out. Cool character moment. And incredibly heartwrenching. He was aware of how many innocents he killed, but just didn’t see other way to get the point across.

I still don’t agree with his idea of blowing up the church tho. Maybe if he told Hawke, they could have done something to empty the church previously and further people away from it and then blow it up?

But still, blowing up religious buildings isn’t the answer. If i was the radical mage activist, i would have gone for the open assassination. Seeing it worked in WW1, i don’t see why it couldn’t start a fantasy war.

Some random things i liked:

uniportant but lovable interractions in the house: it starts innocently with gamlen’s house, to see how you’re doing, and becomes really fun during act 2 when you see your friends have been here and left you things. In act 3, however, it feels melancholic. no more family to come back to, just ghosts of friends that have visited, Bodahn and Sandal being there for you, Orana still not getting some sunlight and your dog at the fireplace. The Hawke Family Suite is playing, and you feel older than you are, lonlier than you should be. just... ouch. I hope Bodahn adopted Orana and took her out of Kirkwall :(

t i named the dog “Maker” which is very funny to me bc every time i summon the dog i just imagine Hawke yelling “Maker help us”. Carver hates the name bc he needs to chase the dog often in the streets. Mama Hawke never ever calls the dog Maker, but she never has to call the dog anything: he’s super obedient towards her.

Fighting wasn’t as hard as in origins, i like that.

The haunted house mission was so cool.

When random people greet aveline in Hightown.

And that’s i think about it. There are probably plenty more things i loved, but i think this is already enough. if somebody told me i’d be playing so much this year, i’d laugh, but I already want to play the next game ;;___;;

[pikapeppa]

Felassan/f!Lavellan: Ar Lasa Mala Revas

Chapter 27 of The Love That Grows From Violence (post-Trespasser Felassan x Tamaris Lavellan) is posted!

100% fluff, smut, and more feelsy fluff. ALSO GIFT ART, which needs its own post because I am beside myself with feels. 😭❤️

~9700 words so long omfg. Only the first part is posted here. Read the whole thing on AO3. 

*******************

A few days later, when the sky was a curtain of deep midnight blue studded with stars, Tamaris sat on the roof curled into Felassan’s shoulder, watching as the smoke of their shared joint drifted from his mouth in delicate wisps and curls. 

He offered her the joint, and she took it and brought it to her lips. “What do you think we should do when we finally leave this house?” she asked.

He leaned back casually on one hand. “It depends on what’s happening in the world by the time we are ready to leave. Who knows? Maybe the qunari will start moving south by then. Or maybe Tevinter will succeed at pushing the qunari back.” He smiled cheekily. “Maybe someone will assassinate the Emperor of Orlais in a sudden coup d’état.”

Tamaris lifted an eyebrow and blew out a stream of smoke. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to set up for such a coup.”

“Would that I had the resources to set up something so devious,” he said. “But that would probably plunge your world into even more chaos, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Thank you for that very wise spy advice,” she said wryly.

He nodded politely. “You’re very welcome.”

She smirked and took another drag from the joint, then blew out a little cloud of smoke and held out the joint. “Seriously though. Isn’t there anything you want to do? Barring the stuff that we might have to do. Isn’t there anywhere you’d like to travel to?”

He took the joint. “It would be interesting to visit the Arbour Wilds — to see the Temple of Mythal again.”

She raised an eyebrow. “There’s no one there anymore.”

“Exactly,” he said. “It’s perfect for scavenging. There might be clues as to where Mythal’s dragon or her amulet are being kept, or whether her dragon is even alive anymore. It is possible that the Well of Sorrows was not the only sacred treasure they were guarding.”

Tamaris raised her eyebrows. “Oh shit. That’s true. Okay, we should go there.”

“We could,” Felassan said. “Or we could go somewhere else.”

She gave him a chiding look, and he smiled unconcernedly and handed her the joint. “Where do you want to go, avise? Which direction would we strike out in if you were given the choice?”

She sighed and gazed idly at the smouldering tip of the joint. “I… ah, I’ve been thinking for a while that I should go see my clan. Those who aren’t in Wycome still, I mean.”

“Where are they now?”

“They’re a short ways from Starkhaven right now,” she said. “It’s not that far from Kirkwall, so I don’t really have an excuse.”

He cocked his head. “You were avoiding them?”

She hesitated. She genuinely hadn’t had time to go see her clan after the explosion at the Conclave, and things had only gotten busier from a political and peacekeeping standpoint after Corypheus was dead. 

But if Tamaris was honest, it was more than just Inquisition business that had stopped her from visiting her clan. And there was a reason she had volunteered to spy on the Conclave in the first place, all those years ago.

She brought the joint to her lips. “I was avoiding them, yeah.”

“Why?”

“I was…” She sighed, then gave Felassan a hard look. “I love my clan, all right? I love them, and I think they’re great. But Dalish clans grow up knowing every bit of each other’s business. We’re very close, and it’s very hard to keep secrets. It’s part of what makes us such a tight community — the entire clan is really just one big family. There are no strangers in a clan, only family.” She ran her hand through her hair. “But it also makes it difficult to… to forget when something bad happens to someone.”

He tilted his head. “You were constantly reminded of Marin.”

“Yes,” she said. “And – look, it’s not that I want to forget him. I – I’ll never forget him. He’s been dead for years and I still think of him almost every day. But it’s one thing to think of him randomly because something reminds me of him, and it’s another thing to think of him because he’s all anyone ever sees when they look at me. When he’s all I ever thought about when I looked at my parents.” She exhaled hard and rubbed her forehead. “The Inquisition was a pain in the ass a lot of the time, but I was able to… I wasn’t ‘poor Marin’s sister’ anymore, and that was… gods, I feel like an asshole saying it, but it was a relief.”

“You had a chance to start over,” Felassan said.

She looked at him. His tone was neutral but his eyes were warm, and her shoulders loosened at his lack of judgment. “Yes,” she said. “I was able to… to be someone who wasn’t forever tied to my failure to protect my family. And as the Inquisitor, I became the opposite. I was the person they saw as the one who protected everyone.” She snorted and lifted the joint to her mouth once more. “Fucking ironic, isn’t it?”

“Did your clan really see you as someone who failed to protect your family?” he asked.

She blew out a mouthful of smoke. “I was someone who failed to protect my family. He got dragged off because I couldn’t talk the Templars into calming down.”

Felassan smiled faintly. “I hardly believe that the Templars were inclined to listen. Especially if Marin had already hurt some of them.”

Tamaris swallowed hard. “He, uh… he killed one of them, actually. And hurt a couple more. But he didn’t mean to.”

Felassan nodded an acknowledgement. “If that’s the case, his fate was sealed, and not by you. That wasn’t your fault.” He took the joint from her fingers.

She frowned at him. “What do you mean, his fate was sealed? You really think there was nothing I could have done?”

“Oh, something could certainly have been done,” Felassan said. “But I doubt your clan was willing or ready to start a war against the Chantry.”

Tamaris stared at him as he brought the joint to his lips. “You’re being pretty cold-hearted about this,” she accused.

He released a mouthful of smoke before replying. “Cold-heartedness is not my intention. My intention is to point out that it was not your fault. Look at the bigger picture, and you’ll realize that short of pitting your clan against the Templar Order, there was little you could have done.” He held out the joint to her.

She glared at him, then looked away and took a breath to calm herself. He wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t told herself at one point or another, though she never quite believed her own pep talks in this regard.

She believed Felassan, though. Galling as it was to admit, it meant more to hear him saying this than telling it to herself. 

He was still talking. “There was little you could have done at that time, at least. From what I read in This Shit Is Weird, you certainly had a hand in what happened to the Templar Order after the Conclave.”

She frowned slightly as she took the joint from him. “What do you mean?”

“You publicly supported the mages over the Templars,” he said. “The Templars’ ranks were decimated, save for those who came over to your side.”

“Yeah, but the Templars still exist,” Tamaris said.

“You tore them down to their foundations,” he said. “And the person who ultimately controls them now is your former spymaster. They may have taken Marin from you, but you saw that they were taken to heel. It took time, but you got your justice in the end. The hottest flames take some time to build, avise,” he said knowingly. He pulled from the joint, then exhaled the smoke and shot her a sly smile. “Some might even say you took the Vir’Felassan.”

The way of the slow arrow, she thought. She gazed at him with a combination of exasperation and affection. Trust him to find some way of seeing her haphazard stumbling with the Inquisition as a convoluted but purposeful path toward a bigger goal.  

She pulled from the joint, then let out a sigh of smoke and leaned into his side once more. “Anyway, that’s, um… yeah. That’s part of the reason I haven’t been back to see my clan.”

“What’s the rest of the reason?” he asked.

She lifted an eyebrow sardonically. “Um, that I was fucking the Dread Wolf and didn’t know it?”

He snorted a laugh. “Letting the Dread Wolf take you would have caused a stir, I imagine.”

Tamaris smirked and held out the joint, and his fingers brushed hers as he took it. “Are there none in your clan who joined his ranks?”

She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “There were some. Maybe a dozen in total.”

Felassan smiled faintly. “Whatever happened to ‘the clan is family’?”

Tamaris tsked and punched him lightly in the arm. “Don’t be an asshole. We’re a family, not a bunch of single-minded drones like the qunari. If some of them got swayed by the messages that  Solas’s operatives were putting out, I can’t blame them.” She shot him a resentful look. “You know what does piss me off, though? Solas looked down on the Dalish so much, then he goes and recruits us anyway. That’s pretty fucking manipulative.”

“It is, yes,” Felassan said.

She frowned. “That’s all you have to say about it?”

He gave her a knowing look that was tinted with melancholy. “Don’t tell me you never manipulated anyone during your time as the Inquisitor. Don’t tell me such a lie.”

She wilted. “Fine, fine, you have a point.” Truthfully, she didn’t have it in her to be particularly angry anymore about the little things Solas had done. With everything that was brewing across the continent these days, it almost felt like she should save her anger for when it would serve her the most.

There was another brief and slightly morose pause as they passed the joint back and forth. Then, as usual, Felassan broke the silence. “So you want to go visit your clan, then?”

“I should,” she said.

He nodded and blew out some smoke, and there was another pause — one that felt loaded this time. As the silence stretched between them to an increasingly awkward degree, Tamaris’s heart began to thrum with nerves. 

Just fucking ask, she scolded herself. She chewed the inside of her cheek, then took a deep breath. “Felassan, will you come visit my clan with me?”

“Of course,” he said easily. “What else would I be doing?”

Her heart flipped in her chest. She stared incredulously at him until his lips curled in a smile. “Why are you gaping at me?” he asked.

“I…” She trailed off for a second, then gave him a skeptical look. “What, no questions, no complaints? Just yes?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “Was I unclear when I said we would be travelling together when we leave this house? If you’re going to see your clan, then so am I.”

A warm feeling spread through her ribcage and up to her cheeks. “But you don’t like the Dalish,” she said weakly. “You think we’re close-minded and all that shit.”

He shrugged and extinguished the butt of the joint on the roof. “It’s possible that I was wrong. About your clan, at the very least.”

She scoffed. “Possible, huh?”

He gave her a chiding smirk. “I can eat my own words, avise. They’re especially tasty when you slather them with evidence of the ways that I was wrong.”

She grinned goofily at him, then laughed and tucked a stray lock of hair over her ear. “A man who happily admits when he was wrong? What a catch. Maybe I shouldn’t take you back to the clan. All the unattached hunters will try to snap you up.”

“They can’t snap me up,” he said. “You’ve already caught me.”

Her heart leapt. She suddenly remembered the conversation she’d had with Dorian — that conversation where she’d described her feelings for Felassan: he caught me thoroughly. Now, to hear Felassan describing himself in a similar way…

He chuckled. “Tamaris, if you smile any wider, your face may split in two.”

She laughed giddily and shoved him. “Fuck you.”

He hooked his arm around her neck and pulled her close to kiss her temple, and they scuffled playfully for a moment before settling together once more.

Tamaris sighed happily and patted his thigh. “My mother might ask what your intentions are for me.”

“Hm,” he murmured thoughtfully. “Then I should probably come up with an answer that won’t make your face turn a deep and charming shade of red.”

She scoffed. “You’re such a fucking menace.”

“Thank you, Tamaris,” he said pleasantly. “I try.”

She beamed at him, then settled snugly against his side. They were quiet for a moment, and Tamaris indulged herself in a girlish fantasy of Felassan meeting her parents and telling half-sarcastic stories to her clan, then curling up with her in an aravel in the fragrant quiet of the woods: a stolen moment of peace before they went on to do more important things. 

She eventually squeezed his thigh. “Is there anything else you want to do when we leave the house? Like… trying to find Briala, maybe?”

He huffed in amusement. “You really want me to find her, don’t you?”

“I just think it’s sad that she doesn’t know you’re okay. Or that you’re even alive,” Tamaris said. “Whether you think she needs your help or not, I bet she’d want to hear from you.”

“She will,” Felassan assured her. “We’ll get a message to her.”

“How?” Tamaris asked.

“I was thinking of scratching obscure symbols into trees for her to find.” He smirked at Tamaris. “It’s the kind of thing she used to think the Dalish would do.”

She gave him a chiding look. “Felassan.”

He sighed dramatically. “All right, since you insist. I was thinking about coded letters, sent to different places where her most loyal cells used to be. The code would have to be premised on knowledge that she and I share, but not something Fen’Harel would know as well.”

She straightened with interest. “Do you have a code like that already?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “But I’ll think of something.”

Tamaris nodded, then hesitated before asking her next question. “Do you miss her?”

“Does a dandelion miss its seeds when they drift away to conquer new fields?”

Tamaris tsked. “You’re dodging.”

He smiled faintly, then leaned back casually on his palms. “Truthfully, I didn’t have time to miss her. I was made Tranquil the same night that I left her. Then I had no capacity to miss anyone or anything. When Cassandra restored me, I was… I felt too much of everything. How can I know if I missed her when I was caught in a cycle of euphoria and misery and rage?” He glanced at Tamaris. “A better question might be whether I thought of her, and the answer is yes; I thought of her often.”

Tamaris nodded. “I bet she misses you.”

Felassan gave her a chiding smile, and she nudged him with her shoulder. “I’m serious. I bet she would love to see you.”

“She doesn’t need to see me,” Felassan said. “I taught her to stand proudly on her own bare little feet.”

“Who cares about needing to see you?” Tamaris retorted. “I’m sure she wants to see you. Besides, you can’t possibly think the only value you had to her was as her teacher.”

Felassan made a mock-sad face. “That almost feels like an insult to my value as a teacher.”

Tamaris turned to face him fully. “You’re not just a tool, Felassan,” she said fiercely. “You’re not just here to be useful to people. There’s no way Briala spent sixteen years learning from you and didn’t give a shit about you.” She lifted her chin belligerently. “I think we should find her.”

Felassan smiled. “Is this going to be your mission, then? To broker a reunion between me and Briala?”

“If that’s what it’ll take for you to see that you’re worth more than your value as a spy or a teacher or a source of fucking information, then yes,” she snapped.

His smile softened, and he gently chucked her chin. “Easy, avise. You’ll set your hair on fire if you burn any brighter than this.”

She glared at him, irritated by how dismissive he was being. “You’re important, okay? And not because you’re a good spy or a useful ancient elf or any of that shit.”

His eyebrows rose. “Only a good spy? You wound me.”

“Shut the fuck up, will you?” she snapped. “I don’t care about the spy stuff or the mage stuff or the fact that you know shit about the past. I… those things don’t matter. You’re…”

She faltered, feeling awkward about the depth of her feelings, but Felassan’s smile only grew wider. “Go on,” he said. “Don’t stop yourself before you get to the good bit.”

She curled her lip. “Are you looking for me to list all your best qualities?”

“If you’re so inclined, I wouldn’t say no,” he replied.

She scoffed. He was so annoying. “You want me to jack you off while I’m at it?” she said snidely.

He burst out laughing. “How can I say no to a seductive offer like that?”

The treasured sound of his laughter rang straight to her heart. She tutted and folded her arms, and Felassan chuckled and pulled her against his side. “Are you aware that your pouting just makes you more charming?” he said.

“You’re smart, all right?” she burst out. “You’re so smart and perceptive. You can see both sides of things — well, most of the time at least, and when you don’t, you own up when you’re wrong. You make me laugh and you’re so fucking patient and–”

Felassan laughed and wrapped his arm around her. “Tamaris, you can stop. You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes I do, because you need to hear it,” she snapped. “Your value isn’t what you can do for people. It’s who you are. I don’t give a fuck if you never became a spy again or if you couldn’t cook or if you can’t totally control your magic. I’d still love you anyway.”

He grinned at her, and Tamaris’s heart somersaulted in her chest; his mouth was curled with mirth, but his beautiful violet eyes were glittering. 

He smoothed his hand over her hair. “Affectionate and abrasive at the same time. That is one of the reasons that I love you.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to shut the fuck up. Instead, she cradled his cheek in her palm and kissed him. He pulled her closer as he returned her kiss, and by the time he broke their kiss to pant against her parted lips, she was practically sitting in his lap. 

He brushed his lips to hers. “Let’s go inside,” he murmured.

Read the rest on AO3 because I’m a monster and a horrible tease. 😂

[v-arbellanaris]

in addition to the above... 

on the subject of ableism, mages are routinely lobotomised (in some places, specifically as a punishment to themselves or other mages, but even in places/situations where this isn’t the case, like that’s still fucked up). you can make mages tranquil in inquisition only if you are a mage yourself, further playing into the idea of minorities being responsible for their own oppression, when historically templars made mages tranquil, often for the most minor of infractions such as sending love letters (maddox and karl). the treatment of samson as a “bad addict” all throughout dai, starting from da2, is also ableist. making anders a “violent terrorist” (debatable but that’s the agenda bioware is pushing) and then insisting he’s also bipolar is ableism. the writers often insist that the best romance for anders (has bpd) and merrill (coded autistic) is the rivalmance which is abusive to them -- this is ableism. 

da2 is especially heinous for ableism -- the narrative often leans towards killing “crazy mages” because there’s no other help for them, because they’ve murdered/killed/hurt people (because ofc that’s what crazy people do). kelder’s mental health issues (hearing voices, etc) seem to... that’s right. make him kill elven kids. and the options are to either return him to prison (which gets you rivalry points from everyone) or do the “merciful” thing and simply kill him. the way fandom and the writers react as if it’s a mercy to have killed anders at the end of da2. 

additionally, the options for samson at the end of best served cold are to either ask for mercy from the mages, thereby leaving him to suffer from his lyrium addiction on the streets, or to support his return to the templar order, and continuing his lyrium addiction which is! you guessed it, ableism. unless anders is in the party, there’s no indication that bartrand could be healed or brought back from his red lyrium addiction and the “merciful” option is presented as killing him rather than let him suffer from being insane. which. again. is ableism. dismissing all of meredith’s actions as her being insane from red lyrium is ableism, and so is the fact that despite her apparent “insanity” there’s no option to spare her (even if it’s not a route most players would go through with, it’s.... interesting that you can spare loghain, who knowingly sold elves as slaves to tevinter, in dao but not meredith, who is advocating for the slaughter of every single mage in the circle and is “insane”, in da2) and the pc automatically fights to kill her, which is... ableist.  

bioware also really loves to pit mages and elves (and their oppressions) against each other, and some fans play into it, to a degree that frankly makes me extremely uncomfortable. you see it in da2 with bioware pitting anders and fenris (and merrill) against each other. in dai, bioware gives us sera, a city elf, who is uncomfortable with magic; vivienne, who cares greatly about mages but makes several pointed and racist comments about the dalish; solas who seems to identify more as a mage than an elf despite being a literal elven god. the false dichotomy between the two issues is something bioware constantly pushes, as though the issues are mutually exclusive, and as though mage freedom must mean elven oppression or vice versa, and not an issue of the chantry (tevinter or orlais) oppressing both mages and elves.  

you’ve also got inquisitor ameridan -- a dalish mage and an elf -- who only goes missing after the nevarran accord is signed, which creates the seekers and templars, whose job is to drag mages to the circle. like. inquisitor ameridan, a mage, is implied to be responsible for the creation of the circle, which imprisons mages exactly like him, to be looked over by templars. and there’s already red flags that even as early as that the templars were going to abuse mages; haron, a knight-templar “friend” of ameridan, was already all too happy to kill mages, often to telana’s discomfort and protest. and yet ameridan somehow, for some reason, supported the idea of the circle’s creation being overlooked by templars? he “warns” them of the potential abuse that the rite of tranquility could bring to mages and then seems to have simply... caved with regards to it’s use when they “promised” that wouldn’t happen? how does that even make sense? once again, mages are responsible for their own oppression. and i’ve spoken at length about the portrayal of the mage rebellion in dai and how it’s framed in such a way that mages seem to want to be in the circle, and insisting on mage freedom despite that is painted as oppression of mages who want to be in the circle.

i think with regards to tevinter, i wish they’d just stuck with tevinter being white from the start instead of adding dorian to be brown later and adding all the codified SA/SEA’n stuff for tevinter in tevinter nights. writing tevinter to have colonised the entirety of thedas is really... white history. 

and like this isn’t to exclude imperialism or colonialism in non-western countries  which is extremely important to be aware of. i don’t want people to fall into the trap of thinking imperalism and colonialism can only be done by white people in the past, because non-western colonialism is happening today and oftentimes gets dismissed as being something else. we need to understand that shit happens and we have to expand our understanding of colonialism so we can spot it when and where it’s happening. 

but like... that’s not the purpose or implications behind making tevinter brown. like, the rigidity of the caste system in tevinter, the pantheon of old gods essentially being “replaced” with the worship of the maker, the conflict with the qunari could’ve been some fantasy allusions to things like the mughal empire, or the indian caste system, but then, by having that Very White narrative of them having almost conquered the entire world at one point gets... messy. nasty, even. it certainly reads as an attempt at “reverse racism” hot take bioware is trying here -- in particular, their take on elves (historically in literature an “elevated” or superior race) being an oppressed minority in thedas suddenly reads as kind of disturbing when they’re all white elves being oppressed by nasty poc humans. (like literally in those who speak, the elves that isabela -- a black woman -- is transporting are all white. it’s SO fucked up.)

and it’s not even limited to the history between tevinter and the elves. in addition to the grossness of having the elves be coded white and invaded/colonised by a brown tevinter, like... andraste herself was alamarri, who are white, and a slave of tevinter, a country of brown people. especially considering the british colonisation of india like?? like hello? what the fuck?

I’m a Dragon Age fan who’s also mentally disabled and a person of color.

and let me say this;

i need more people to start criticizing the Dragon Age ‘elves are an oppressed race’ allegory.

and i need people to STOP criticizing the Dragon Age ‘mages face institutionalized ableism’ allegory.

the ancient slave-liberating elf deity Solas is a bald white man, while the colonizing slave-owning Tevinter nation is based off of brown people. this should not be okay with you.

meanwhile, people are real recipient of the idea that mages are prone to having ‘weak minds’ that make them criminally violent.

it doesn’t matter if an individual is stronger, or more powerful than you, nothing justifies forced institutionalization based on mental profiling.

it doesn’t matter if a fictional race has a similar written history, making them white-looking (while their oppressors are brown, no less) is whitewashing.

[dread-wolf-walking]

Pride and Honor

The 3000+ words that got me stuck in this hell

Solas x Nevas Lavellan

One Shot, for now

Warnings: Angst (SO MUCH), Sorrow, Implied Harm, Implied Mind Control, Implied Suicide, PTSD-ish, Psychological Warfare/Torture, Spirits, plus more content heavy in the mental sense. You have been warned

I’m so nervous posting this, it has been sitting doing nothing for months!

‘Everyone is doing something, they are all out there, trying to make this world a better place…..and what am I doing? Sulking in the darkest pit of my mind, having lost my love and all my friends…..The Dread Wolf took everything, without even knowing. And yet, why am I still trying to change his mind?’

A hand clasped over a worn and pale face moved to pinch the bridge of her nose, eyes closed, creasing as though in pain. It was not physical torment, but mental. The other hand propped against the table, palm flat against the surface. A map of Thedas was rolled open over the table, markers indicating scouting patterns, the state of war across the country shown by two swords in an ‘x’ shape where armies had clashed, the bulk of which encircled Tevinter.

All this caused her grief, there was so much to do and so little she could help with.

The hand against the table curled into a fist as the other sought to shield her eyes, tears at the corners threatening to stream down her face. “War is everywhere, and no one understands the real threat, yet again. How do I protect a world that doesn’t see what is hiding in the shadows?”

The Dread Wolf had indulged her of his plans to tear down the veil, burning the world she knew to re-build the world he lost. He had laiden her with this knowledge, knowing full well she was the only one who had a chance to stop him. But, he also knew her mind would fight against her, warring over what was right, in which would give him time to lay his plans. He loved her dearly of course, but he had a duty to his people, to fix his mistakes.

He suffered almost as much as her. But She would never know.

“Lavellan?” A figure in the doorway, paused for a moment as they took in the sight of an Elf weeping. It was not a scolding tone, but one of concern that came next, “You should be sleeping.” Cassandra rounded the table, standing beside Nevas, a hand on her shoulder for comfort.

“Everytime I sleep, he is there…” She said with an angry cry. “I’m exhausted, afraid if I blink he will be there. I can’t focus while awake because of this lack of sleep,” Nevas cursed Fen’Harel, “It’s madness! I can’t take a step without the world looking, and I can’t bare them to see me…..” Tears rolled down the pale face as she buried her face in the Seeker’s shoulder. An odd spot to find herself, had she not known the Elf and considered her a great friend her reaction would have been less warm. She wrapped an arm around the smaller woman without a word and let Nevas weep, maybe this would give her strength to push forward, even if it was just a few steps.

There had always been an enormous weight on Lavellan’s shoulders ever since she met her, the founding of the Inquisition as a Dalish Elf bearing a mark of unknown magic, becoming the leader of The Inquisition before taking down an Magister bent on Godhood. It wasn’t fair that even now, after they had saved the world, there was still so much Thedas asked of her friend. With the Inquisition disbanded however, their help was too little, and before long those that had sung them praise now shunned them, sneering that the once Great Dragon Inquisitor had fallen from Grace.

Once a Hero, now, a traitor to the world.

Now they were a small band of rebels trying to reach out to an Ancient Elf bent on burning the world to bring in the next. Cassandra had wondered if he was worth saving when they found out he was the Trickster God of Elven tales, thought to be only a symbol of legend to scare young elven children. Lavellan had begged them to find a way to change his mind, and at first it seemed to be working. Rarely did they find resistance to their cause, but little did they know Solas had been undermining their efforts, plucking the strings they had not noticed. Only a few months since The Exalted Council too; Nevas told them how he visited her in her dreams, The Fade and teased her heart, only to betray her again. Thedas was turned on them like a poisoned dagger from the shadows.

Love was a wicked thing and though her friend battled a Great Dragon, becoming a Reaver and had roared in the face of The Darkspawn Magister, Love brought everyone to their knees. She wondered if Solas had felt the same clawing desperation as Nevas did now.

The Seeker sighed heavily, “Shall we go over what we have found?” She asked gently.

Nevas was still trembling against the other woman, but she lifted her head to nod. Cassandra shifted the smaller woman to her side, but kept one arm wrapped around her shoulders; a warmth only those close to her knew. Something The Seeker rarely had granted to her; warriors carried their honor, strung high from those around them; offering this closeness to a fellow warrior was the least she could do.

“Most city Elves and those serving in Orlais have feld, those that were in service to The Inquisition also disappeared. Leliana’s contacts said they were heading towards dense forests said to hide Elven Ruins.” The Seeker pointed to parts on the map as she spoke, making sure Nevas was watching. The elf had wiped her tears away, but it was still clear the sadness was clutching onto her heart. Cassandra cleared her throat and continued. “Solas has gone completely now since your dream, but his agents remain everywhere. We believe he is trying to find more Foci, similar to the one that was destroyed two years ago. Both Fereldan and Orlais are in shambles, trying to fend off rogue attacks, each blaming the other; they are on the brink of war. Tevinter is trying to hold against the Qunari, there are heavy losses on both sides it seems, but Dorian is making progress with the artifacts they have found in ruins..”

The Seeker’s voice started to fade, sounding distant as she continued. Nevas looked up at her friend, but found the image blurred almost. A frown pulled at her brows as she reached for the other with both hands, as though to see if she was really there. A twinge of panic filled her mind, something certainly wasn’t right, her eyes darted from Cassander to her hands; there was only meant to be one, wasn’t there?

Or atleast even a device that Dagna had made?

Cassandra seemed completely oblivious, still speaking over their plans, even as her hands started to shake and teeth ground against themselves. Nevas flung herself at The Seeker believing herself to be trapped inside this memory and that a Demon was impersonating her friend, instead she fell through her image, like mist and tumbled onto the ground. She snarled, reaching for a dagger with the arm Dagna had made to strike again when her eyes caught her own image, now with a single arm, still beside Cassandra and faulted.

“What…” Nevas whimpered. If it wasn’t a Demon controlling her memory, then what was happening? And why had she started this memory with her arm in tact?

Cassandra and her double played out the memory without a mistake, citing major plans to attack trade routes and intercept spies. Nevas felt her anger rising, frustrated she couldn’t do anything; she went to the door an attempt to leave but was meet with a invisible wall. Growling Dalish curses, she ventured across the room, fingers curling into a fist as she punched forward, hoping the break the wall. Again, she was met with a force that stopped the memory from being broken. She was trapped within her own mind?

“They are using Eluvians to move quickly across Thedas, but Leliana might have some ideas on where these mirrors are hiding.” She heard Cassandra say, a slight chuckle at the end of her words. “There are also whispers of a temple hiding a powerful artifact of your people…..”

Somewhere within the memory, a voice whispered for more, as though watching from a place unseen.

Nevas looked up to find the source of the whisper, but it was darkness above her; shouldn’t there be a ceiling there? The Elf stepped back from the wall, ignoring the pair still staring at the map, trying to see if there was a way out above her. She threw small stones she fumbled for and while they did not hit anything, they did not come back down either. There was a flicker of hope, an idea, if this was a memory, her memory, maybe she could change it. No harm in trying.

She calmed herself, breathing in deeply as she closed her eyes, envisioning the particular memory playing out before her. Starting off small, Nevas sort to change the clothing she had worn, sure it had been Dalish Leathers rather than her nightdress, her hair pulled back into a braid rather than a messy, unbrushed nest. She even imaged Cassandra with long hair rather than her short almost shaved style.

After a moment deliberating with herself and certain of her thoughts, Nevas slowly opened one eye, only to gasp at the memory now before her. It had changed. Her clothes and hair; Cassandra looked rather dazzling with long black hair pulled high to fall from the top of her head.

Without another thought, her eyes closed again, and she set to work changing everything she remembered, being sure it was her own memory. The map disappeared in a flame of embers as did the table, though the pair standing before it didn’t miss a beat until Nevas thought otherwise. The scene of the dank dungeon fell from around them, twisting into the ground before the ghosts of her mind did the same. Nevas’s still had her eyes shut tightly as she remembered nothing but a black void without sound, not even the whispers from the Well of Sorrows sung to her.

There was an angry snarl unseen, it ripped through her being, however, her eyes snapping wide open looking for whatever had made such a terrifying noise. A pair of red eyes shone in front of her making her very soul shake as the slitted pupils focused on her. Nevas bared her own teeth in retaliation, instinct kicking in, and dagger held in her only hand ready to defend herself. Though such an image would frighten most, Dalish especially, she sought to fight against that which trapped her here.

“Clever little Warrior,” came a voice she knew, “But you cannot simply forget everything you know!”

Pain pressed hard against her mind, she cried out, writhing against the pressure. Harder and harder still it pushed, as though two hands clung to her head and sought to wring her memories like water from a wet towel. The void filled with images, memories playing back, voices whispered from each. Nevas struggled against the invisible force, teeth grinding to try and hold back more of her mind slipping from her hold. The voice was right, she couldn’t simply remove her memories, not without losing what made her, but it was the only way she could stop who-ever it was from taking what they were after. Every memory that was pulled before her she blacked out, one from her childhood, a couple of past mistakes, but when it came to her time as The Inquisitor, she couldn’t…..

“If you just let me see what I want, it wouldn’t hurt. Nor would I have to tumble through all of them.” The voice whispered, as a smaller pair of eyes opened above the larger set, glistening ruby. But pain meant she was still alive, pain made people stronger, and she would not give in to the promise before her, even as four blood red focused on her with a cold glare. These memories however….

She couldn’t bring herself to forget those years. She reached for the voices from The Well, pleading them to tell her what was happening; her mind lingered on the memory that was her drinking from The Well. Solas had begged her not to drink from it, her love had said nothing more on the matter, his voice a hard edge and expression cold, but she did anyway. Bound to Mythal for all time, her actions all for the Lost Elvhen God. Whispers started as mist to her response, but before she could hear them clearly they were silenced and she felt her bond with them burn.

“That is not my will, Vhenan!” The voice hissed, another pair of eyes opening just below the first, however smaller, the intensity in which they held her was still the same. The Voices were pained for a moment, yet she could not understand their murmurings. Again, she tugged for more, her eyes shut tightly as a hand clutched at her temple. If only she could just focus!

She cried out as a seething burn flashed within her, the bond with Mythal subduing her again. That voice had not been Mythal’s, but Solas’s? The Well cried foul, how could The Dread Wolf use the bond to Mythal? How could he sully that bond!? How dare he use it to his own wishes! Mythal surely did not live on through Fen’Harel!

A maul of jagged teeth opened below the eyes, fangs of the wolf. A cold breath dusted over her form, as though Fen’Harel’s breath bore a blizzard.

The Dread Wolf had come to claim her memories, but why!?

“Show me what you know, Vhenan!” Solas’s voice raged around her as the jaws of the wolf opened wide, as though he was about to devour her.

Images of him leaving her by the large eluvian flashed before her, Nevas felt her body stiffen from that memory, that pain. And so The Dread Wolf broke her defences, able to sift through her mind like sand; the pace in which she saw her memories quickened before settling on one very recent. Nevas stood with Morrigan surrounded by rubble from a ruin since taken over by the forest, but what lay before them was what the Dread Wolf was after. Her ghost image reached out to touch the orb cradled within the hands of statute, one that depicted Falon’Din, but Morrigan pushed her hand away as the orb hummed, pulling the magic within the long forgotten temple towards it. Her Reaver blood burned with rage, “No! Solas!” She roared and in her attempt to halt her mind, Nevas clutched tightly at a dagger she held and positioned the tip of the blade against her temple. Almost instantly, the ghosts of her memory turned to mist and the pressure within her head faulted, leaving completely. She could not allow him to see the rest, even if the bond she had to Mythal ignited within her chest.

“Mythal lives within me now!” Solas called, frustrated, “You are bound to Mythal’s will, my will! Please, I do not wish to push harder, but, I will see what I want!”

“You will see nothing if I am dead, Fen’Harel!” Her voice snapped, laced with a bitter coldness as the blade tip pressed harder against her.

“I can’t let you do that!” The wolf snapped it’s jaw shut, but Solas’s voice growled.

“I will be dead before you can press further!” Nevas spat, tears in her eyes, as her fingers tightened around the blade and started to press it harder to her temple. Pain blossomed forth as did her blood as the tip pressed against her skull, though before she could plunge blade to cease her memories another voice whispered to her. Not from the Well, not Solas’s, a new one.

“Da’len, stay your hand!.” It cried, “Your soul will be a slave to The Fade if you die here!”

“How many seek my memories!?” She growled, her eyes opening to gaze back at the six in front of her. Nevas’s sneer dropped as her gaze focused at the ethereal hand placed against her chest, she felt another against her forehead. In a moment of panic, she struggled to move her head until she looked to her side, and saw someone beside her.

Now she knew why the Avvar seemed so puzzled when questioned about their mages keeping bonds with a spirit.

“A spirit?! Leave this place!” Solas’s voice demanded. His tone hinted that the spirit did not wish her memories, but was here to help her, protect her?

“I cannot leave her!” It called back, sounding like many voices speaking at voice, “But you did, Dread Wolf! The pain you cause, you carry the burden of your people, but you shame them with what you are doing to her.”

“Who are you!” Nevas whispered, almost sobbing again as the Dread Wolf howled in response. The spirit shone bright, aura the same shades of blue and red within her own eyes, before moving to stand behind the Elf. The ghostly hands now placed at her shoulders, squaring her off to gaze back at the Dread Wolf still haunting her mind. However, her fingers still held the dagger against her temple, though she trembled.

“We share the same name, Da’len…..” The spirit spoke softly now, trying to calm her. “And I won’t let you die here, neither will he….”

The dagger fell from her hand, becoming sand within the void, as did the spirit. They faded downwards, her eyes watched them for a moment before looking back upto six that still focused on her. The spirit was right, Solas did not wish for her to walk to her death here; not in the way The Dalish believed the Dread Wolf would; to be lead to the void, trapped forever.

The blood red eyes closed leaving her to the void of her own mind for a moment before her own closed, exhausted and wounded, even as her blood burned for a fight, she just wanted some rest.

“Wake up.” Solas whispered, igniting a memory she wished would leave her alone.

[daughter-of-the-prophet]

Free Marches

The Free Marches encompass a group of city-states situated in eastern Thedas (south of Antiva and the Tevinter Imperium, east of Nevarra, and north of Ferelden). The three real cities with any semblance of power in the Marches are Kirkwall, Starkhaven and Tantervale, each led by a titled official with the special right to name their city’s Champion.

The “Marchers” are independent-minded descendants of tough barbarians. Their cities have formed a loose confederation that rarely unites on any matter. In the event of aggression from larger neighbors, however, the Marchers can assemble a joint military front that even the greatest powers cannot dismiss.

During the Fifth Blight, many Fereldan refugees fled to the Free Marches.

Settlements

Ansburg - located in the eastern Free Marches, alongside the Minanter River. Though it’s a bustling center of agricultural trade, Ansburg is frequently called a “backwater”.

Hasmal - its position on the edge of the Silent Plains means a regular influx of Tevinter refugees (usually escaped slaves).

Hambleton - located near Markham

Hercinia - a palatial city-state on the Amaranthine coast. Known for its taxes and frequent raider activity.

Kaiten

Kirkwall - as the gate for nautical trade moving into and out of the heart of the continent, Kirkwall is the major trade hub of the Free Marches.

Markham - Ansburg’s more cultured sister city, located in the southern Free Marches, not far from the Vinmark Mountains. Markham is a center for agricultural research and home to one of the largest universities in Thedas.

Ostwick - its position on the mouth of the Waking Sea made it the Qunari’s first landing point in the Free Marches. Famous for its double walls.

Starkhaven - largest city in the Free Marches. Located alongside the Minanter River.

Tantervale - located in the western Free Marches along the banks of the Minanter River. One of the three most influential cities in the Free Marches. Chantry law is all but absolute, and the city guard is obsessed with enforcement.

Wycome - located on the Amaranthine coast, near the mouth of the Minanter river. Widely regarded as the most free of the Free Marches and the revelry capital of Thedas. Notable for being the second-greatest importer of Antivan wine after Orlais depite having less than a third the population of Val Royeaux.

Regions

The Bone Pit

Estwatch

Green Dales

Minanter River

Planasene Forest

The Wounded Coast

Vimmark Mountains, including the Sundermount

Culture and Society

Marchers were once known for raiding the northern seaboard of Ferelden. Nevarra started out as a member of the Free Marches, but has expanded in size and power far beyond its former peers.

The Marches were once part of the Tevinter Imperium, evidence of which is found in the architecture of cities - high buildings built almost all in white stone.

The Free Marches are known as the breadbasket of Thedas; its farms along the banks of the Minanter River are the source of much of the continent’s food. Starkhaven, the largest of the cities in the Free Marches, is situated on this waterway.

The central location of the Marches relative to the other lands of Thedas makes the population very culturally diverse. The movement of goods and trade brings people from across the continent, and many native-born Marchers are born of parents from elsewhere. That being said, the region is not completely welcoming to newcomers. Many Marcher-born citizens resent the presence of foreigners and see the influence of outside nations and cultures as a threat to their way of life. In the wake of the Fifth Blight, Kirkwallin particular suffered from an outgrowth of nativist sentiment, as the presence of so many Fereldan refugees and a force of marooned Qunari led to a backlash from Marchers angry at what they saw as a takeover of the city by foreign powers.

Despite the cosmopolitan tendencies of the area, rivalries between Marcher cities usually take precedence over the common bond of “being a Marcher”.

The Grand Tourney

One of the Free Marches’ most celebrated events is the Grand Tourney. Participants from all over Thedas converge on this festival of martial skill and valor in a competition to crown a champion of the games. The victor is awarded a coronet of sage leaves and a trophy blade known as the Celebrant, which is inscribed with the names of every champion since the first Tourney. A letter by a Free Marcher reads: “The most important thing to know about the Free Marches is that we’re free. We determine our own destiny, and thatpleases us. Beyond that, the only other time we coalesce is when Grand Tourney comes to town. Then we boldly express our pride to any foreigner who’ll listen. We’ll kiss freedom on the lips and even lock arms with a proud Starkhavener! Alas, it lasts only a day, but there’s no harm in that, right?” The tradition of the Grand Tourney is considered one of few common bonds that every Marcher shares happily, and is a notoriously jubilant phenomenon despite its brevity.

The most recent Grand Tourney was held in the Nevarran city of Cumberland and was sponsored by Rainier Aehernthal, a merchant of impressive means.

Politics

The Free Marches have no central government, no king and no capital, making the whole region difficult to protect and its economy disparate. Each city is self-governing and wary of intrusions by its neighbours, frequently leading to tensions between them as they jocky and vie for power. The government of each state also varies, the seaport of Kirkwall, for example, is officially governed by a singular ruler in the form of the Viscount, but real political authority rests in the heads of the local chapter of the Templar Order.

During times of crisis, the most powerful merchants, generals and rulers of the Free Marches can convene to deal with the issue, similar to the Landsmeet of Ferelden.

Duke — the ruler of Wycome. Known Dukes include:

          - Antoine - the Duke of Wycome in 9:41. A corrupt ruler who sought to purge  Wycome of its elves using red lyrium. 

Lord Chancellor — the ruler of Tantervale. Known Lord Chancellors include:

          - Joffrey Orrick - Lord Chancellor in 9:29.

Margrave — the ruler of Ansburg. Known Margraves includes:

          - Thalia Aurum - a Margravine ruling in 8:93 Blessed during the Fereldan Rebellion and maternal aunt to Eamon Guerrin and Teagan Guerrin.

Prince — the ruler of Starkhaven has been ruled by a number of overlords seeking extravagant titles, the latest being King Ironfist. After Ironfist’s rule was peacefully ended, the city’s people begged the noble who led the successful protest - Vael - to be their new king. Feeling no one was worthy of such a title and that it would encourage corruption as it had with previous rulers, Vael refused, declaring Prince to be Starkhaven’s supreme title. Known Princes include:

          - Lord Vael - the first Prince of Starkhaven.

          - Artesian Vael - a Prince who ruled during the Exalted Age.

          - Goran Vael - a cousin of the main Vael family who was placed on the throne as a puppet by Lady Johane Harimann, who had the previous Prince and most of his immediate heirs assassinated in 9:31.

Teyrn — the ruler of Ostwick.

Viscount — the title given to the rulers of Kirkwall and Kaiten; it originates from when the lands of the Marches were part of the Orlesian Empire. Known Viscounts include:

Viscounts of Kaiten:

           - Khedra - a venerated ruler who was possessed by a Pride demon.

           - Ravi - overthrew the corrupt Khedra and became the next Viscount of Kaiten.

Viscounts of Kirkwall:

            - Ser Michel Lafaille - the first Viscount of Kirkwall. An Orlesian who led an army of chevaliers against the Qunari occupying Kirkwall, he was appointed Viscount by the Emperor in 7:60.

            - Chivalry Threnhold - became Viscount at the beginning of the Dragon Age. The father of Perrin Threnhold.

            - Perrin Threnhold - assumed the title in 9:14, notorious for attempting to expel the Templar Order from Kirkwall in 9:21. He was ousted and imprisoned until his death by poison two years later.

           - Marlowe Dumar - the Viscount of Kirkwall from 9:21 until his execution by the Arishok in 9:34.

          - Bran - Provisional Viscount of Kirkwall by 9:41.

- Varric Tethras - Voted Viscount c. 9:43.

For everybody else, Serah and Messere are common, gender-neutral forms of address within the Free Marches. Serah is used when addressing someone of equal or lesser status, while Messere is for a person of greater status.

Champion

This title is bestowed, only by a city ruler, on an individual who has proven her/his dedication to the city in blood, sweat, and leadership. The title is not necessarily a sign of honor, for a Champion can utilize methods that evoke love or fear. There have been Champions of Starkhaven, Tantervale and Kirkwall.

Known Champions Include:

Unnamed Champion of Starkhaven who fought during the Fourth Blight, including at the Battle of Ayesleigh.

Cade Arvale - originally from Rivain, named Champion of Tantervale in 8:82 Blessed for stopping Nevarra’s expansion into the Free Marches.

Areida Hawke - first Champion of Kirkwall. Named in 9:34 Dragon for repelling the Qunari during the First Battle of Kirkwall.

Notable People with Free Marcher Origins

Blackwall

Charade Amell

Donnic Hendyr

Gamlen Amell

Grace

Inquisitor Rosabelle Trevelyan

Leandra Amell

Marlowe Dumar

Meredith Stannard

Orsino

Saemus Dumar

Sebastian Vael

Varric Tethras

Vivienne

[qcdastuff]

Carding the Veil

Prologue

Thedas is a world in chaos. And nearly always it has been a world at war.

There have been wars between nations that decimated bloodlines and wars between species that tasted like genocide. There have been Exalted Marches against infidels and civil wars so bloody they threatened to fell the nation in on itself. Now, however, it seems the south of Thedas is embroiled in a war between mages and everyone else. But the south of Thedas is not all of Thedas.

In the North, the Tevinter Imperium has stood strong for over two thousand years, even as whole nations have been carved out from it's once-expansive territory. It still manages to be a powerhouse, a terror - a nation feared by all others - if for no other reason than that it is run by Mages.

Run by Mages on the backs of slaves - the last nation to officially keep to the institution. The majority of the nation is non-magical - sleepers - ‘Soporati’. But it does not matter; the nobles are all Mages themselves, and they live in decadence hardly seen elsewhere. They practice their arcane arts in prestigious colleges and circles, learning and expanding the breadth and depth of what magic can do. All of their progress, however, comes as a price - the lives and blood of elves and non-magical poor alike, reduced to chattel. But for all their extravagance, for all their callous disregard, they also play a vital role in Thedas.

The Imperium is nearly the only thing holding the Qunari in check. ‘Ox-men’ they are sometimes called, but never to their faces, not when they’re armed. Not unless you outnumber them. They are, as a people, tall and broad-shouldered; great horns curling from their heads, and to the Tevinter mindset, they are bloodthirsty savages.

While their appearance may cause fear or distress or disgust, it is their beliefs that cause them to make war against the rest of the world. For the Qunari themselves believe that they were once savages. Once bloodthirsty barbarians - Kossith. And then Ashkaari Koslun wrote ‘The Qun’, and his people fell upon it - consumed it - were consumed by it. It brought order to their chaos and purpose to their lives. They became The Qunari - the People of the Qun.

It is the Qunari’s mission to spread this message, this enlightenment, this order across all of Thedas. And they know what the Tevene know, and what all the rest of Thedas fears: If Tevinter should fall - all of Thedas will fall.

So yes, The Tevinter Imperium is full of slavers and power-hungry mages stabbing each other in the back over land squabbles and slave gifts and seats on the Magisterium. But they are also Thedas’ last line of defense against the Qunari menace, and so they get away with doing as they please.

For no other nation in Thedas can claim that they are ruled by mages. The Rivaini may have their Seers and the Avaar Tribes their Augurs, but these are not who rule their people. They merely provide counsel. The Rivaini have a working relationship with their magics, and the Avaar practice theirs under the watchful eye of benevolent spirits. It is because these peoples do not subscribe to the predominant religion of the continent that they have such a tolerant view of magic.

For the majority of nations, magic is not something that is allowed to run free. It is not something that is allowed to be practiced out on the streets or out from under the watchful eye of the Chantry.

It is the Chantry - the Church of Andraste, blessed Bride of the Maker - that truly holds most of Thedas in an iron grip. It is the Chantry which demands, more than guides, the mores, the conventions in Thedas. ‘Magic is meant to serve man’, cries the Chantry, and with this one snippet crushes magic under heel.

Ferelden, Orlais, Nevarra, The Free Marches, Antiva, and even the vast wasteland of the Anderfels all march to the Chantry’s tune. Mages are rounded up, as soon as they manifest their power, and are taken to be locked away in towers called Circles - for their own good. On the surface, it is claimed that these Mages, these children, are taken there to teach them control. To teach them how to make the magic serve them. But in reality - they are prisoners. For the only way a Mage actually leaves a Circle is by running away - which is never permanent. Or death.

The children are trained up and given a choice. They may participate in a ritual where they are thrust into the realm of magic, facing off against a demon in a Harrowing that will try to possess them (which of course they must resist) - or they can be made Tranquil. Cut off from magic, the Tranquil are also cut off from their emotions. They tend to become alchemists and storeroom clerks in the Circles - for even a magicless Mage cannot leave.

The true horror of the Circles, for most, comes with the arm of the Chantry stationed in every tower to watch the Mages. Templars. Trained in how to resist magic, in how to snuff it out, the Templars are said to be shepherds for their little flocks of Mages. In practice. In reality, they are jailers. They oversee the Harrowings and behead the Mages who fail to resist possession. They hunt down escaped Mages, and collect children to be brought to the Circle. They mete out punishment for any wrongdoing by Mages, and are the ones trained in performing the Rite of Tranquility.

In the best of circumstances, the Templars work with the Mages. They are there to protect them - from the outside world, from demons, from themselves if need be. They only kill who they must. They only make Tranquil those who know they are not strong enough to battle a demon and win.

But anyone alive can tell you how often the best-case scenario plays out. At their worst, they are corrupted by power. Abusing their charges in any way they see fit - because there is no one to stop them. Making Tranquil those who speak up against the abuse, those who would not submit. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. A lesson learned, and a scenario that played out in the Kirkwall Circle, in the Free Marches.

Kirkwall had once been a part of the Tevinter Imperium - as had all of the Free Marches - and it had been a hub for the slave trade. The City still looks it - giant golden statues carved and mounted into the rock face of it's main harbor of slaves in chains. The city itself is physically divided - the higher the social status, the higher in the city you live. Many even live below the city, where the slave pits used to run.

By most accounts, it is in Kirkwall where the flame of the Mage Revolution began. The Kirkwall Circle was more corrupt than most - it’s Templar Knight-Commander Meredith, a tyrant. She wielded the brand of Tranquility as easily as a sword, snuffing out resistance and letting her favored minions do as they would with their new playthings. She only grew more mad and corrupted as the years went on. She was helped by a sword she had commissioned - carved entirely out of red lyrium.

Lyrium in itself was dangerous, as anything in the wrong hands. Useful in the right ones. When distilled and blended properly it gave boosts in magic endurance and strength to Mages. It allowed Templars their ability to suppress magic. It was used in enchantments, and potions,  and the construction of magical staves. And always, always, that bright, electric blue.

Red Lyrium was and is still yet a bit of a mystery - corrupting and turning to madness anything that stays too long in its presence. Including the Knight-Commander. Meredith had hallucinated insurrection where there was none and corruption everywhere except within herself. Until finally - she snapped - and ordered the Annulment of the Circle.

Every Mage was to be put to the sword. Every man. Every woman. Every child.

According to most, an Apostate Mage - an escapee of a Circle - was the one who started it all. The one who could no longer tolerate her cruelty and lies and persecution. He blew up and destroyed the Kirkwall Chantry - the supposed seat of power for the Templars, though Meredith had long stopped listening to their edicts. He bombed the Kirkwall Circle and led the Mages to freedom - escape and riot and revenge against their oppressors.

The innocent and the guilty alike burned in those fires, and the outrage was immediate. Those who knew nothing railed against the Mage who destroyed the Chantry - feeling justified in their fear of Magic, in their belief that Mages should be locked away.

The Mages, however, saw their opportunity. Saw their chance. Even without knowing the full scope of the horrors of Kirkwall, every Mage knew what the worst of their situation would look like. Many had experienced it first hand. And so, because the liberation of Kirkwall had succeeded, all across Thedas, Circles rose up in open rebellion. Mages were no longer willing to be shackled and caged - they wanted freedom , and they wanted it NOW.

But the Chantry cannot allow such a thing. For magic to serve man, it needs to be controlled . Regulated. Put in its place. Templars have done their best to fight the Mages at every turn. To hunt down these rebel Mages; they seek to drag them kicking and screaming back to their towers, or else see them dead.

Brutal fights rage across Thedas as the Mages and Templars each try to see the end of the other, and so many innocents are caught in the crossfire. So now, the head of the Chantry, Most Holy - Divine Justinia - has called for a truce. A meeting of minds. To discuss the future of Mages and to bring peace to Thedas. For this war cannot be sustained. It cannot be borne by the common folk without destroying life as everyone knows it.

Thus, the Conclave was called. At the Temple of Sacred Ashes, where the last remains of Holy Andraste, Bride of the Maker, are ensconced. Mages and Templars alike are to come to the Conclave under a banner of truce, to meet, and to discuss the direction they will go into the future together .

There are many who think Most Holy mad - who think this cannot work. But as religion unites countries, so too does it unite people. No one can deny that Divine Justinia is a fair and just woman - chosen by her peers for the position, of course - but also blessed by the Maker.

And so they come - from the Free Marches and Ferelden and Orlais and Antiva and Nevarra and the Anderfels - they come. Up to the Frostback Mountains, up to the Temple. They come to listen to Divine Justinia and what the Maker might tell her. They come and they pray there is a solution to this that doesn’t burn down all of Thedas.

...

Chapter 1

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23582437/chapters/60499582

[lyonface]

World building, characters, and the DA Fandom’s propensity to ignore nuance.

I have borne witness to both some serious Cullen Critical posts and Pro Anders posts in the last twenty-four hours and...ugh. I feel the need to put something out there.

As people who have played the protagonists of the Dragon Age games, we are skewed to be more magic-leaning and forgiving than the normal, average joe of Thedas, and it’s disheartening and irritating that a lot of the fandom seems to have a very basic issue with noticing this and applying that mindset when they look at issues in the game, particularly with certain characters.

Under a Read More for length, and there’s a TL;DR at the bottom.

We started off as a member of a very misunderstood sect of warriors that dealt with a very vague threat that most people do not understand and were recruited into that militia/army/whatever 70% of the time due to committing crimes or somehow acting against an authority that forced us into the ultimatum between choosing the Wardens or death/imprisonment/banishment. In other words, we were Wardens only because we already were unsatisfied with the way things were, whether we were a City Elf murdering an entire estate of corrupt rapist humans or a Noble Human dealing with the politics and uncovered atrocities of their fellow countrymen. Or, you know, we could have started as a mage going through the Right of Passage and starting in the Circle to witness all that fuckery first hand. Basically, none of us were average by circumstance, otherwise we would never have become Wardens to begin with. Even then, the wealth of very diverse people we meet and fantastical circumstances we encounter educate us and change our mindsets regardless of our starting point.

Then we go to DA2 where we are just another run away Ferelden trying to escape the Blight. Again, luck and circumstance elevate us to extraordinary, and we are pitted firmly between fighting powers of protection and freedom, between Templars and Mages, among plenty of other shit. We, by that point if they had played Origins, are already predisposed to the plight of mages, we know to some extent what they can go through thanks to Wynne and Morrigan as our previous companions, doubly so if you play Awakening and meet Anders pre-Justice. Although Origins was decently framed as morally ambiguous between helping or hurting mages for various crimes (killing/helping the Circle mages or Keeper Zathrian or Jowain, etc.) we are forced to pick a side in DA2 and, not for nothing, but mages were the very clearly oppressed people in that game. It was a lot less ambiguous, despite the rampant blood magic because it was clear that most cases went to it out of desperation and not the pure desire for power over others. Meredith, no matter how she’s framed, is wrong with flexibly “good intentions” and Orsino is the only thing stemming the incoming tidal wave by Act 3. Origins is not ambiguous about the plight of elves, or the urgency of the darkspawn threat, or the danger presented in Ferelden’s political arena, but it leaves magic more or less up to you. DA2 does not.

In Inquisition, the civil war is in full swing and, if you were hot on the heels of it after DA2 like I was, the image of the Chantry exploding is one of the freshest things in your mind. By then, you understand at the very least the sheer power of magic when concentrated into one place, and you also understand that fighting magic with non-magic, by and large, does not work. You must use magic to curb magic. If you start Inquisition without playing the others, the prologue only further demonstrates this with your magic mark being the only thing that cures magic tears. In the beginning, most long term players go to help Redcliffe because of our nostalgia for it from Origins, or because we’ve known since Origins that Tevinter Magisters are shit and that’s only been reinforced for the last two games. If you’re new, Alexius is basically painted with a “Evil Bad Guy” brush and also time magic is terrifying; fuck the Templars, whatever their issue is isn’t nearly as bad. It’s a no-brainer. The only thing that really tests our understanding of things in Inquisition is nearly 90% about the Fade and magic and Elvhen history, a little less if you have Descent and you played it, then a bit about Dwarven history, but it turns out that just relates to Elves too, in the end. Magic is acceptable in Inquisition, as far as the narrative is concerned, and there is really no room for those that contest its merit or the use of it that can break that idea. The only character who comes close to being persuasive about Circles is Vivienne, and she harbors the middle ground and comes from a place of being a mage, but she has a high social status, so if you weren’t interested in playing the middle ground or being challenged, you can easily dismiss her.

Throughout the games, no matter where you start, the narrative increasingly treats magic as not only something that is normal for someone to accept but is harbored by people who are seen and generally treated as lower class, and thus are the most sympathetic and in need of assistance. Tevinter is an exception, but being a nation that uses people for sacrifices and slave labor can make it hard for people to find redeeming qualities in other practices. Before Dorian, all we saw of Tevinter were magisters that manipulated for power and elven slaves, so whatever their progressive stance on magic is gets covered under the oily grime of awful practices and racism. Dorian is an exception to his countrymen, even in Inquisition, and he’s framed that way in the narrative.

It’s easy to forget when we’ve been surrounded by magic and the Fade and spirits and shit for three games that mages make up just a fraction of the population of Thedas, and the Circle is just a concept to most of the people that live there. The average person in Thedas doesn’t encounter magic on a daily basis and isn’t educated or experienced in what mages are like or what the Fade does or how spirits work. In Ferelden, Orlais, and much of the Free Marches, the average citizen is educated through history and the Chantry which tells them that magic is dangerous and that Circles are to benefit mages by teaching them control and protecting them from hurting themselves or others. We have only seen the absolute worst case scenario for Circles, the one at Lake Calenhad and the one in Kirkwall, the former which fell apart and most only saw it in that state and the latter fucked up the second you reach the shores of the island. We’ve never seen a Circle function as its intended unless you played a mage origin in Origins, and that goes to shit real quick, so most players when proposed with the idea to reinstate them will obviously reject it.

Pro-Anders posts and Anti-Cullen posts seem to all stem from this predisposition about magic, both in terms of forgiving Anders for his terrorism and condemning Cullen for his words and mindset in DA2 and thus using it to dismiss his character arc in Inquisition. It is apparently very difficult to keep in mind what the normal, average, standard Thedasian thinks about mages and magic and I get that it’s stupid to dismiss what we’ve learned in the meta narrative, but it’s important to contextualize where characters are coming from and the application of their actions in the world they live in. Anders came from a place of oppression, pain, and fear due to his capabilities. Cullen came from a place of mental torture, pain, and fear due to the misuse of those capabilities. That helps to explain their actions, but it does not excuse them, and people like to excuse one and explain the other when they’re only showing their bias by doing so.

Let’s break down the viewpoints:

- Anders blew up a large facility that housed hundreds of people, including Chantry affiliates and leaders as well as low ranking sisters and other members of the faithful. These were people who had not contributed to the pain mages experienced in Kirkwall. Yes, they didn’t help them, but they didn’t help Meredith either, and remained neutral until their demise before Meredith or Orsino could argue their case to the Grand Cleric. Anders killed these people to make a statement, costing the lives of everyone inside that building for a political and social idea. In doing so, not only did he plunge the continent into civil war, he helped bolster the Andrastian narrative to the uneducated masses: that mages are dangerous, that magic can result in massive loss of life, and that people who wield it cannot be trusted at face value. An average citizen isn’t going to care about the oppression or tensions or abuse on either side, and they’re likely never going to hear about Anders’s good deeds in having that clinic in Darktown for all those years either; they’re going to care that their livelihood and their families are in danger as a direct result of his actions. That is why Varric speaks ill of Anders and why people do not forgive him for his actions en masse. No matter his agenda, murdering innocent people and thus causing the deaths of so many more due to some upheaval is not worth his intangible ideas.

- Cullen facilitated and assisted Meredith in the capture, torture, and deaths of mages and his fellow templars during his station in Kirkwall. No matter how you dice his conversations, particularly in Act 1 where he’s pretty fresh from the Calenhad Circle, he is terrified, severe, and staunch in his distrust toward mages and easily sanctions death as a punishment for blood magic. Meredith wants order, and he wants order, so he does what he’s told in eradicating rebel groups and assisting in keeping his men in line. Players seem to forget that Cullen gradually over the course of the decade starts to question Meredith more and more. When it becomes clear to him that she’s unhinged he tries to lie to himself about it until it’s far far too late. Normal Kirkwall citizens are going to see his actions as a good thing, despite the fear of Meredith. Once she uses her status to usurp control of the Viscount station is when they start to feel uncomfortable or afraid. The average person is either going to see Cullen as just another templar or recognize his services, and only a few will consider his actions to be against the common good. When he finally turns against Meredith, his loyal men follow him. He leaves the Order not long after that due to his disillusionment in what the organization stands for and what it actually does, including his own actions.

Thus, due to his previous ideas and oft-quoted “Mages aren’t people like you and me,” any chance that Cullen has for redemption is scoffed at despite his obvious change and his struggle to be a better person than he believes he’s ever been. Does his redeeming himself and being better excuse his actions? Of course not. Should his struggle to be better count for something? Yes, it should. Leaving behind his PTSD, his trauma, his lyrium addiction, the basic fact that he is doing better or attempting to be a force for positive change for the future of Thedas is a great thing and should at least be recognized, even if you don’t like him as a character for his past actions or his personality. Likewise, people can actively give Anders a pass in agreement or a chance to redeem himself as Hawke, but so far in the story we have not seen Anders or heard of him attempting to redeem his actions or reconsidering whether he did the right thing or not. By the end of DA2 and from what a romanced Hawke says in Inquisition, Anders assists Circles in disbanding to join the rebellion and aid the conflict in the civil war. At least for the foreseeable future, Anders continues to support his decision and assist in freedom despite the consequences to his fellows and to others.

Jesus this has gone on far too long. Let’s just...try and summarize whatever the fuck is in my head before this becomes a dissertation:

tl;dr - The average person of Thedas is told to be weary and distrustful of magic and mages and anyone who grows up in any place that isn’t Tevinter or a wandering tribe of Elves or Avaar is predisposed to think this way. We as players are in a unique position to see Thedas from many angles and thus experience and see things in the world that most people would never have the chance to encounter or understand. People don’t dislike mages because they’re unjustifiably prejudiced: they do it because there is a cultural and social predisposition to do so. Anders does not understand this, and thus only exacerbated the problem by committing terrorism, and continues to do so due to his continued assistance in the war effort without offering a proper solution. Cullen does understand this, but also learns that mages are not creatures to leash, and thus attempts to rectify not only his transgressions but help those that are being hurt.

Feel free to like/dislike either of these characters; I’m not here to police anyone’s opinions or their rights to have them. Just make sure that when you make an opinion and decide to stick to your guns that you’ve attempted to  consider everything that goes into it. Thedas has a lot of layers to it, just like any culture does, and no action from any character is as simple as “He hurt those people” or “It’s what needed to be done.” You don’t have to participate in character discussions or discourse either, but when you write something like that, expect criticism or responses. I always do.

[lobselvith8]

Dragon Age Questions

Based on the post by @raesand.

01) Favorite game of the series?

Dragon Age: Origins. I had a lot of issues with Dragon Age II and especially Inquisition.

02) How did you discover Dragon Age?

I heard you had player choice in Origins so I thought it would be entertaining. I honestly didn't know too much about it and I was pleasantly entertained.

03) How many times you’ve played the games?

I have played Origins the most. Before the recton, the Magi Boon made me pretty happy as it was the option my Surana Warden had chosen to emancipate his people from servitude to the Chantry of Andraste and the Order of Templars. The Magi Boon recton and the rather questionable creative choices for the elves subsequently soured the game for me.

Runner up would be Dragon Age II, although that's because I did a canon run; I wasn't too pleased with how the game was incomplete and how passive Hawke was throughout the narrative, such as doing nothing about Meredith's dictatorship for three years. Hawke being religiously Andrastian no matter what (Gaider forgot that he included an option for the player to be an atheist in the Human Noble Origin in Origins, and similar options were available for the elven protagonist and the Warden-Commander in the Awakening expansion) and the poor paraphrasing with the dialogue options also made me feel disconnected from the character.

The Last Court was pretty fun. The Elegant Abbess brought Carver to my Marquis of Serault. The Cult of Masked Andraste reminds me of the mythos of Silent Hill. The Horned Knight was very interesting (the presence of the dryads and fauns present at the Heartwood Feast was a neat addition to the lore). The Dashing Outlaw was fun (she gets a full pardon).

I pretty much gave up on Inquisition after an initial run; I tried doing a canon run but the anti-Dalish sentiment I kept running into made the game extremely unpleasant to play through as an elven protagonist. Generally, I was extremely unhappy with the railroading (like being forced to side with the Chantry, despite Gaider and Laidlaw claiming before release that this wouldn't be the case) and the poor treatment of the Dalish elves.

04) Favorite race to play as?

Elves.

05) Favorite class?

Mages.

06) Do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

In Origins I entertained different choices with Zathrian's clan and the choices in Orzammar before coming to a canon decision.

07) Go-to adventuring group?

I prefer mixing it up.

08) Which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

My Surana Warden. Unlike some fans I do not imagine him wearing the Grey Warden armor introduced in Dragon Age II - he wears the Reaper's Vestments. "Reaper was an apostate mage who evaded the templars for many years before being captured. Part villain, part folk hero, it is said he led a charmed life avoiding dangers that would have killed lesser men."

His mother was one of the Night Elves during the civil war against Orlais. He was born in the Denerim Alienage, was forcibly taken from his mother by the templars at a young age, grew up to resent the Chantry controlled Circles (he was ideologically a Libertarian as he wanted the Circles of Magi to be autonomous), and he was a brilliant student of Irving's.

During the Fifth Blight, he was pragmatic, choosing to help Branka (since the Anvil historically provided a century of stability against the darkspawn), supported Taoran Hawkwind, aided the Antivan Crows, recruited Loghain to bring an end to the civil war and fold the tale of the Hero of River Dane into the story of Grey Wardens (to counter the anti-Warden sentiment that was established because of the tyrant Arland Theirin), killed the Messenger and opposed the Architect (there was a rather lengthy discussion at the now defunct BSN forums that brought up the prospect of sapient darkspawn wanting women to turn into Broodmothers in order to create new darkspawn that greatly shaped my decision).

His mother escaped captivity from the Tevinter slavers who had enslaved the Denerim elves during the Fifth Blight. Her freedom was due to the intervention of the Dalish in the Free Marches, including Clan Lavellan, attacking and killing the slavers, as the clans liberated many elves from the human slavers. His mother ended up joining Lanaya's clan when she discovered one of the pregnant elves was carrying her granddaughter.

My Surana Warden leaves the Warens to spend his remaining days with Morrigan and Keiran (who has black hair like both of his parents and looks Latino Antivan with an olive skin tone). Presumably his knowledge of blood magic should stave off the Calling if he was not able to find a way to rid his body of the taint (I lean towards the idea that he found a way).

09) Favorite romance?

DAO: My Surana Warden with Morrigan.

DA2: Merrill. Even if she was too good for Hawke.

The Last Court: The Elegant Abbess. My Marquis of Serault also discovered her role with the Cult of Masked Andraste.

DAI: No one. Although I like to imagine Revas meets Merrill post-game (I like to think Varric gifted my protagonist with the Hawke estate as part of the Comte boon).

10) Have you read any of the comics/books?

Yes.

11) If you read them, which was your favorite book?

None.

12) Favorite DLCs?

Awakening. Although my Surana Warden leaving with Morrigan in Witch Hunt makes it a close second for that alone.

13) Things that annoy you.

Inquisition's tendency to refuse to allow the player to have positive Dalish content without some anti-Dalish dialogue coming at your protagonist from advisers, companions, and even minor characters. It was getting incredibly annoying to deal with the incessant anti-elven rhetoric in a game that never held the Chantry of Andraste to account for the monstrous actions it committed for centuries, like criminalizing the elven faith or purging those of other faiths, or even being able to criticize Andrastians like Celene, who committed literal genocide in Halamshiral.

Also, why is the gameplay content in the occupied nation of the Dales, a predominantly elven region, focused on humans? And what is with the weird habit of the developers making characters of color into white characters?

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

Never Orlais, although I'd prefer the autonomous Dales freed from the Orlesian occupation.

15) Templars or mages?

Mages.

16) If you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

I don't have multiple characters in Dragon Age. Each game has a respective protagonist since certain choices have no appeal to me (like supporting the templars or tradition in Orzammar).

17) What did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc.)

DAO: Dumat. My Surana Warden had a sense of humor.

DA2: Andoral. It had to do with the Archdemon who was slain during the Fourth Blight and the Hawke family connection to the Free Marches where the Archdemon was slain.

DAI: Sadly, there was no mabari. Maybe Andoral had puppies who stayed with Merrill.

18) Have you installed any mods?

I am on console, so unfortunately no.

19) Did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

My Warden wanted freedom from the Chantry at any cost.

20) Hawke’s personality?

That was determined mostly by Bioware, like being religiously Andrastian. Leaned mostly diplomatic after Act I.

21) Did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

No.

22) If your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

I'm sure Revas would stop Solas much sooner if that was an option.

23) Do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

The 'three mage' recton has no place in my canon. While Inquisition prohibits the elven protagonist from doing anything to substantially help their people (which bothers me given the nature of the Inquisition), I prefer to imagine that Revas used the considerable fortune of the Inquisition to purchase land in the Free Marches for the clans of the Dalish to reside, and that the clans who worked with Revas would settle near Kirkwall. Revas uses the knowledge of the Well that he possesses to assist the Elvhen.

Revas would establish contact with the dwarves through the thaig in Sundermount for the lyrium trade, using the Nexus Golem there to incentivize them.

The Bone Pit (there are no monsters there anymore), which now belongs to Revas (along with the extensive Hawke estate), would be used to employ the Kirkwall Alienage elves. The Estate is where the plans against Solas take place.

Merrill and Revas get together (I imagine they met before during a previous Arlathvhen that took place). They get married. They have children. Revas does not have to sacrifice his beliefs or his culture for an Andrastian significant other.

The prospect of Merrill using her Eluvian knowledge to gain access to some of the Eluvian network, and establish a sanctuary for the Dalish away from the harmful Andrastian Chantry in Thedas, is also a very appealing one. So much about how this franchise presses the reset button on any elven progress annoys the hell out of me so keeping the Dalish on a continent full of bigots and genocidal leaders isn't really my ideal option.

24) Are any of your character(s) based on someone?

No.

25) Who did you leave in the Fade?

Hawke. Given his role in setting Corypheus free it was fitting that he gave his life to stop Nightmare.

Warden Loghain should have stayed to lead the Orlesian Wardens (which he would have hated) during this crisis with the Rift; it was a missed opportunity (then again, so many decisions in that game baffle me - like reducing a continental war to a small regional conflict and having the Wardens led around by the nose by a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain).

26) Favorite mount?

I wanted Revas to have a halla mount.