#* / codex : meta !

[dalishious]

BLESS whoever wrote this codex entry.

Finally, a voice of reason behind the revelations about the Evanuris... It still doesn't excuse the the genocide inflicted upon the elves by the human settlers! It still doesn't mean elves can't mourn the culture, history, and freedom that was stolen from them!

And I really love Strife's comment at the bottom, about how whoever wrote this letter is not alone in their feelings. This is especially nice coming from Strife, because per Tevinter Nights, we know he wasn't even born Dalish, but joined a clan later in life. It goes to show that it's not just a Dalish thing; it's an elven thing as a whole.

[mearchy]

I really love Jaster Mereel, the most “fine then I’ll do it myself” guy of all time. Like, after he killed his corrupt superior UHC style and got exiled for it he could’ve been on that vigilante shit. And he did come back ready for a fight- but not with a battalion, or another assassination. With a fucking entire new system of living and governing contained in a codex he wrote himself, based on ancient laws he wanted to resurrect. By all accounts he wasn’t even in academia or government before that moment, he was a cop. And the best part is he fucking managed to create a majorly consequential schism in Mandalorian society purely on the strength of having actually really good ideas in that big-ass academic magnum opus he spite-wrote. That’s some Protestant reformation shit!!!! I wonder if someone said to him during his sentencing like “you can’t just make up your own laws because you disagree with the ones we have” and he said oh word?? Insane, I love him.

[nadas-dirthalen]

Whoever writes the codices over at BioWare has my eternal thanks, because I'm out here misty-eyed about Kal-Sharok just reading these tiny little mementos. Weeping about Emmrich consoling Harding on the nature of spirits, souls, and the spirit-soul exchange across the Veil.

I still think that the next game (or the one after) is going to show us that a mass movement of spirits is what's going to fix the Titans, and I'm in mourning over it in advance, because this is a wound that's stayed open, barely allowed to scab, for millennia.

Thank you BioWare for making me mourn... the ground. The sky. Everything that ever was and ever will be. Thank you for wrapping that up in Paragon Metez.

[picaroroboto]

thing that kills me emotionally the most in LobCorp is dialogues like this:

This implying that there were loops where Angela did genuinely wish for X to be happy, other things that suggest that she didn't always hate him. Actually I'm not even sure if "hate" is the right word, because by the time of the game it's already been so many repetitions that any sort of positive or negative feelings she had towards him have atrophied. There's the time that she mentions once where X suddenly started apologizing to her, and how she didn't like that - even as he's trying to make amends for the things he did to the Sephirah apologizing to her comes as too little, too late.

[thekingofwinterblog]

So we got some artwork for a section of the black codex, the original full history of what actually happened in Thedas history.

I just thought i would go over it.

So we get some insight into how the war between the Elves and titans looked, and how an actually awake titan looked like.

We also learn that though the Elves modelled themselves on Humans, they actually got the inspiration for wanting bodies by looking at the Dwarves.

Also i honestly dont get why Solas was so obsessed with burning everything in Veilfire to restore the old elvhen empire, pre-veil Thedas looks pretty chill.

Certainly nothing like the hell Cory tried to unleash by keeping the worlds sorta half connected.

Also Early dwarves werent just drones, but seems to have lacked the true spark of individuality, just tending to the titans.

Most importantly, as we'll cover below, All The titans power was sealed in a little black box.

So... This shot. Here we learn a lot of things.

Firstly if you finished Origins, you will recognize the aura around the square containing the Titans power.

Though it looks calmer, it's the same energy as what explodes out from Urthemiel's corpse after you slay the archdemon at the end of origins, a massive wave of power that surges through the sky.

It recontextualizes the energy that was building up before the explosion. It was the power of the titants finally being unleashed back into the world.

Which in turn explains why the titan under Ferelden began to awaken again, finally getting jolted back up after the breach. The energy was finally free, from from the box, free from the blight.

Secondly we finally get an explanation of how the dwarves ended up underground, and why they shunned the surface so much, having literarily fleed it so long ago to live in the corpses of their creators.

Thirdly... Well it turns out that the people who speculated that the golden/black city was Arlathan wasn't entierly off... Cause it seems that whatever the hell the city actually was, the seat of the maker, a relic of some older civilization, or actually made by the Elves after all, the city's original location was in the aky ABOVE Arlathan.

Meaning the city of Arlathan was founded BELOW the place where the Evanuris kept the box.

That is... interesting.

What i also find interesting is that there is a clear disconnect between the buildings we see here, and the buildings of actual ancient elvhen architecture we see everywhere else.

Clearly there was a MASSIVE shift at some point.

From this, I can see two possibilities.

1. If the Golden city was indeed made by the ancient elves, then it remained as a monument of this early style, a more "primitive" and experimental style that the elves eventually abandoned, but remained in the great prison in the sky.

2. If the Golden city existed before them, and they choose to found Arlethan underneath it as they put the box here for safeguarding, then it is perfectly logical to assume that the Elves innitially modelled their first building style after this monument of power that predated even them, which they may, or may not have known the origins of.

If so, they eventually abandoned the Golden City's architectural style entierly.

Regardless, as Solas notes in Inquisition, the Elves did indeed build palaces in the sky as we see in Veilguard with this entierlg seperate floating city, so it is entierly possible they created the entire thing themselves.

The only question that remains is the chicken or the egg. Did the elves make the golden city and model their future floating cities on it, or did they find it preexisting, and model their later creations on it?

So here we get an actual explanation of how the blight actually began.

Blood magic.

It wasn't just the anger and souls of the titans becoming twisted that created the Blight.

It was the Evanuris, who wanted more power, who used blood magic to enhance the already incredibly mighty and volatile power of the Titans to even greater heights.

THIS was what created the blight as we know it.

What turned the Golden city from a center of power to a prison, but the power was not yet unleashed.

It adds a lot of context to the Evanuris not yet embracing the blight at first, and innitially being weary of it.

They first was terrified... Then eventually decided they needed this power to defeat Solas once and for all.

And the rest is history.

Then next, we get a look into why Solas disliked blood magic.

Turns out the whole binding the Evnaruis and creating the veil wasn't just a blood magic ritual that used their own power to trap them and make the veil... But it also used his own.

And as we see here, whatever the origins of the Golden City, it was THIS ritual, the creation of the Veil, that turned the city black as his little black cube presumably blew up, releasing all the power of the Titans into the now prison of his fellow gods.

The final art piece isnt as interesting, but it does give us some context into the first meeting between tevinter and the Elves.

History of course remembers the Tevniters as the bloodthirsty, slaver imperials that would subjugate the elves... But as we see here, that wasn't quite how it started.

Rather than attacking and enslavging the Elves of this nameless city, the ancient Vints look... Kinda sad.

This wasn't an army that had come to conquer and destroy, probably just an expedition that stumbled unto a massive and brutal slaughter in the Elves civil warring, and looking over a pointless slaugther.

There is a sense here that the Tevinter Imperium didn't necessarily have to go down the path they did... Of course that is not what happened, but it does add some much needed bit of depth to the ancient vints beyond moustache twirling villains.

They CHOOSE to later go down the path of slaver based empire. But it was just that. A choice.

Other than that, there is what we already know, cory and the rest found the city blighted.

All in all though, it's a rather facinating dew pages.

[crossdressingdeath]

Did You Know: Bioware put the codex in the game so you could read it. Did You Know 2: They've been putting interesting and important lore details and clarifications in the codex literally since Origins. There's no excuse not to read it if you're going to engage with meta.

[marmota-b]

Justice for Fenn Shysa!

Well, that may be too strong a wording, but, seriously, Fenn Shysa deserves a lot more respect than he seems to get these days. Turns out I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on the subject, but the thing is, they're based on canon. (Legends canon, but considering how little new Disney canon ended up giving us, that still is where most Mandalorian discourse is happening to begin with.)

Fic writers (at least on AO3) who are into Mandalorians seem to love, love, love Jaster Mereel. They seem to think Jaster Mereel would have fixed everything, if only he had lived. There is an image of Jaster Mereel people have built up, and which they love, and hold up as a metric of what a good Mandalorian and Mand'alor is like.

I love it myself, but. But. Most of it is pure fanon.

Fenn Shysa's accomplishments aren't. Fenn Shysa is canonically great. Where are all the Fenn Shysa fics?!

Fenn Shysa, who incidentally has a lot in common with Jaster, actually did fix everything.

And it's a very interesting comparison to make because the two actually do have a lot in common, on a superficial level. They're both Mand'alors who started out as policemen, and don't come from a big established clan. But it seems to me that they took very different lessons from their experiences, and as far as I can see Shysa comes out the better from the comparison. Mereel, heralded as the reformer, by all appearances (including what lessons Jango seems to have taken from him) still doubled down on certain hardwired Mandalorian stock responses. Shysa moved on from them. Shysa overcame the biggest Mandalorian shortcomings.

(As far as I can see, the only thing Jaster might canonically have over him is taking in a ward (did he ever actually adopt Jango?) when Shysa remained without any family. Considering the truly hard times Shysa lived in, considering he spent a good deal of his adult years as a guerrilla fighter desperately trying to save people from the Empire, I can't find it in myself to hold it against him.)

And it's also interesting for a Mandalorian fan inclined to draw never-stated conclusions to compare them just by how they present. To look at Jaster Mereel, and look at Fenn Shysa, and see one wearing the colour of justice, and the other the colour of duty. Neither is necessarily wrong, of course, but in-universe, it probably does say something about them. We first meet Jaster fighting a civil war, bent on eliminating his opponents; we first meet Shysa freeing enslaved people. Their reasons for fighting differ considerably. And so do the results of their actions.

And it's the actions where Shysa shines. Where it's Shysa who is the real reformer.

Fenn Shysa actually united Mandalore. If you draw conclusions from the shifting canons the exact same way you do with Jaster, Fenn Shysa actually managed to work with all the factions and gain their respect: the fact that he was an undisputed Mand'alor after the fall of the Empire is Legends canon, not just fandom speculation of what the situation was and could have been.

Based purely on actual established canon events, Fenn Shysa was just about the best Mand'alor ever. Not flawless, of course, but better than most Mandalorians, able to rise above their common failings that have kept dooming them all throughout their history. He did not hold grudges, he wasn't isolationist, he wasn't inseparably married to the idea of warrior glory, while still maintaining warrior honour and a certain sort of proud independence. But he was not too proud to ask the Rebel Alliance / New Republic for help when Mandalore was attacked and overwhelmed - and not too proud to work with them. He also forgave and helped his enemies when it turned out they may have had somewhat justifiable reasons for their attempts at conquest, and immediately offered them Mandalorian help in reclaiming their own home. (Isn't one of the biggest failings of the Mando'ade how much they hold grudges, dooming any attempts at fruitful collaboration through old blood feuds and petty disagreements?) And he worked with the nascent New Republic, yet without giving in an inch of Mandalorian independence. He united the things the various factions wanted: he was an honourable warrior upholding the Supercommando Codex, he achieved peace within the system and peace with the Republic, and he gave rabid traditionalist Mandalorians actual wars to fight in which Mandalorians could prove their mettle before the Galaxy - just not destructive wars of conquest. It's not like the GFFA is short on villainous factions to try and stop.

It's Tobbi Dala who touches on it out loud in the comics, not Shysa specifically, but he obviously echoes Shysa's ideals: Their highest purpose as warriors is to protect. That's what the Resol'nare say, nothing else. Shysa started out, in the Clone Wars, as more or less a mercenary, like Jaster, but I think, outside of situations when he did have to be pragmatic about things like making a living, he outgrew it into something even greater.

Fenn Shysa may not have written a neat manifesto, but I bet he actually lived it. He was the best Mand'alor Mandalore had had in ages. Fenn Shysa was exactly the Mand'alor the Mando'ade needed, when they most needed him. He revived their spirit and their purpose after centuries of strife and defeats.

More respect for Fenn Shysa, please. Much, much more.

(I guess the unquestioning love of Jaster at Shysa's expense is excellent proof of the truth of that one Mandalorian saying: "He who writes, remains." 🙄)

[grackle-draws]

Day 6: Secret Vtuber identity @codex-week

Rex thought his cool Mandalorian Vtuber would help keep his identity a secret.

Three years later, Cody is still in the dark. But his mod team is not. And they’re gunning for a face reveal at the end of his charity stream.

[amaryllis-sagitta]

Some interesting loose lore ends after DATV 100%

The pre-Qunari Kossith migration from the North is revealed as proof of them losing to some terrible enemy. Looking back at Corypheus's claim that "the Qunari are a mistake", what did he mean by the mistake? The suppression of their draconic gifts? Or something else than that?

When DATV is wrapped up, Minrathous has fallen and has a new progressive Archon, and the South has been ravaged by the "Blight to End All Blights". With this, every major race in Thedas has now lived through at least one downfall, or has come close enough.

In his "good ending", where he is released by Mythal and binds himself to the Veil willingly, Solas mentions that he won't remove the Blight entirely, but he will try to bring some relief to the Titan's sundered dreams.

The Blight persists, and it channels a source other than the Evanuris/ Archdemons - the "deeper thing" sensed by Antoine.

Solas's warning about a great threat to all existence, mentioned by him in Tevinter Nights, that presumably made him feel so pressured to take down the Veil ASAP, was left unaddressed. But he most certainly isn't done. Even if he changed his mind on the Veil, his Dinan'Shiral is not over, and his promised atonement to the world only begins. Solas is bound as the keeper of the Veil in every possible of his endings, which can serve as a new intrigue centered on him in the future.

One of the companions gets blighted in Act 3 after being mind controlled by Elgar'naan, and as soon as the threat disappears they... get cured? Get the Blight inside them suppressed?

The origin of humans - still uncertain. There's still a trail of the Peraquialus legend, where the first humans arrived from the North, analogically to the second Qunari landing. Did early humanity face the same threat as the Kossith and fled to our known continent?

Still very little known on how the ancient elvhen society actually worked. Did all of them manifest all at once? How many were there, really? Did stuff like physical needs and physical reproduction only come to them with the Quickeniing?

This one comes from the Peace achievement with the flowers: a free roaming Despair demon, defeated in the material and presented with something that countered its nature, turned into Hope. Compassion in Minrathous turned into Eulogy. Spirits are shown to switch concepts both towards "healing" of a demonic nature and outside the usual oppositions of concepts - possibly "specializing" into more specific concepts.

THE ROLE OF DRAGONS THEMSELVES - crickets, aside from the adaari trail - that dragon powers helped the Kossith fend off their original enemy.

Still nothing about the far West beyond the titanic (literally) mountain ranges, and looking at the Executor twist, this might be a future destination.

THE FREAKING EXECUTORS HAVE A KEIKAKU; something about the overarching plot so far has planted a "poisoned fruit" that will now ripen. Both the removal of the Evanuris and the "defanging" of Fen'Harel tipped the scales in their advantage. We should remember that Solas has successfully dispatched an Executor during the Teahouse meeting in Tevinter Nights, and explicitly warned Charter about their group. That means Solas probably will be needed as a fickle ally again in the future.

[constantlymisspelled]

I’ve had a great deal of really good feedback on specific sections of the Codex recently, so I’ll be working on updating some of it shortly! I’d like to thank everyone who has given me ideas and advice so far, you’ve been invaluable.

[wingsy-keeper-of-songs]

Gimme more turian culture. Gimme decorations like piercings in the side fringe or feathers from animals on Palaveni braided in-between the blades. Colorful colony tattoos if it's just the pattern that matters and not the color. More clothes that drape and emphasize parts that turians find attractive like the hips and waist. Give me even more insight into their language and what the sub-vocals mean to them. More turian art and music and folklore that doesn't focus on their military service.

I dunno I just want to know more things about the space raptor-cats along the lines of what we learn about the quarians, krogan, and asari.

[tragedia]

While House Lazar does not have a talon among their ranks currently, and so can't be exactly considered a major Antivan Crow house, it's also very rich and has survived the guild in-fighting for a very long time partially because of their wealth and connections to nobility outside of Antiva. They have a branch in Treviso, but their major headquarters is actually in Antiva City, which is where Harlan was trained. The guildmasters are old money nobles, with the major grandmaster (for Harlan's story) being Valentin Lazar, who recruited Harlan personally and assumed his position after poisoning his own father, the previous grandmaster, when Harlan was already in training. Valentin's mother came from a noble house of Nevarra, so he also has family estates in Nevarra due to that connection, one of which he uses as a vacation house. Nevarra City is where Harlan was picked up as a child by Valentin himself.

Although House Lazar follows the standard guidelines of an Antivan Crow training and recruitment, their reputation and specialty lies with more subtle work, focused heavily on silent killings, critical strikes and, in particular, espionage and long-term operations (although not exclusively). Basically, there's a big chance that somewhere important, there's a servant trained by House Lazar feeding their contractor information.

Harlan's training was initially the same as that of a regular crow: tight headquarters, torture, in-fighting between recruits, traumatizing gauntlets. Later on, he was chosen by Valentin to be something like his personal attendant, often posing as his servant while Lazar handled his matters. That promotion was met with disdain and envy of his peers, however the reality of it was much more sinister. While Valentin certainly had his moments, making sure to give Harlan the highest form of training and education, he was also a cruel master, who could go from a friendly mentor and an almost parental figure, to a vicious jailer in an instant. Harlan had suffered a great deal during his time with Valentin, who was a control freak obsessed with political power and considered Harlan's particular set of skills and fade sensitivity as an asset to help him achieve his goals, thus trying to control virtually every aspect of his life. While he claimed that he was raising Harlan almost as a son or a younger brother, the truth was he was more of a prized pet that could never rise above standing in the shadows.

After Harlan's desertion, while their particular relationship spared each other's lives one last time (Valentin because of obsession, Harlan because of trauma), there was still more than one contract sent Harlan's way, all of which failed. While Harlan vowed he would kill Valentin if he ever saw him again in person, after the few assassination attempts had failed, he was eventually approached by Valentin's right hand man and bastard son, Catalan Lazar, for something of a truce (outcome of this depends on the verse). This event also marked the beginning of Catalan's ploy to usurp Valentin's spot. By the events of the Veilguard, Valentin is either dead, or has fleed, while Catalan is the current Grandmaster.

[mysticalblizzardcolor]

HAKAN HISIM ~CODEX 2.0

Page 03 (153) // Navigation: Meta-molecular synthesis of trance states #codex

[briarhearted-fool]

I completely forgot that thedas either has vampires or at the very least the mythology of them

Now I'm imagining a vampire oc for thedas, hm...

(source: Demonic Possession; Codex 82, Dragon Age Origins)

[broodwoof]

I will say that I really like the concept of Solas as a spirit originally, bc I've always wondered how he fit in with the Evanuris. like, yes, Fen'Harel, got it, but how does Fen'Harel fit? and as I've looked into the Evanuris I saw this

"There are also references in elven mythology to another race of gods, called "The Forgotten Ones", the enemies of the elven pantheon. It is said that Fen'Harel was the only one able to walk freely between the two clans, and they both thought of him as one of their own."

and thought it was REALLY interesting. so just offhand without doing more digging, I'm kinda wondering if the forgotten ones were all spirits - the Evanuris were mortals (well, immortals ig) but it would track that one of their enemies could be spirits, bc iirc weren't spirits also enslaved in Elvhenan/Arlathan? I might have that part wrong tho. but say they were, or even if not that they certainly weren't respected as individuals, then I could see them becoming a real enemy of the Evanuris. AND it would make sense, then, how Fen'Harel goes between both groups

I like this idea bc I feel like the forgotten ones were just mentioned offhand then dropped, but if they were like... okay, so even Solas describes spirits as "simple" - not unintelligent, but pure, driven only by their interests/passions/motivation (autistic.... but that's not the point of this post!), but say the forgotten ones were "complex" spirits, able to retain what made them spirits rather than mortals without having to rely on a simplistic, pure existence

if Solas was originally one of them, imo saying he was originally a spirit makes a little more sense. bc I can't rly think what Kind of spirit he'd have been otherwise. wisdom? sure, he has it, but he's angry, too. wrath? pride? but he's not a demon, unless that's what he is as the six eyed wolf. idk. I just can't cram him into the pure and streamlined narrative of any single spirit, but being part of a group that guided spirits, that sought to preserve their access to the world, that worked to liberate them when used or dismissed by the Evanuris...? it's interesting!

[deathsyphn]

ON BEING AN APOSTATE : DEVELOPING MAGIC

much of vesa's magic developed after she was conscripted into the wardens. prior to that , it was whatever scraps she could get her hands on to learn &. testing minor abilities on her own. there was innate talent but it took experience &. further knowledge to increase her power exponentially. i've noted her reasoning for expanding certain skill tress along with explanations of the condensed necromancer specialization &. her custom one i've called decay.

ARCANE TREE ATTUNEMENT : fade shield , elemental mastery , attunement , time spiral

this is the main form of magic that vesa started with. technically it's not available until awakening but i say otherwise. it's a sort of specialized general magic , as much of an oxymoron as that sounds. it's related to spirit magic , which is one of her primary trees &. more useful than the other basic mage spells.

SPIRIT TREE DEATH : walking bomb , death syphon , virulent walking bomb , animate dead ANTI — MAGIC : spell shield , dispel magic , anti — magic ward , anti — magic burst TELEKINESIS : mind blast , force field , telekinetic weapons , crushing prison

interest in the spirit tree over all began as a morbid fascination stemming from the death &. destruction she experiences from the moment of her origin. it was easy to utilize what was already around her into one of her main forms of magic. it's good for crowd control &. debuffs , especially against other mages , which is her primary combat style.

ENTROPY TREE DRAINING : drain life , death magic , curse of mortality , death cloud SLEEP : disorient , horror , sleep , waking nightmare HEXES : vulnerability hex , affliction hex , misdirection hex , death hex DEBILITATION : weakness , paralyze , miasma , mass paralysis

entropy skills are related to the death magic vesa already purses , so it was a natural next step also from her morbid curiosity. in fact , she ends up with more skills in entropy than spirit. these synergize well with her debuff build as well , along with some crowd control too with the strongest spells.

SPECIALIZATION TREES POWER OF BLOOD : dark sustenance , bloody grasp

vesa chose to drink avernus' alchemical concoction , which granted her access to the mage power of blood abilities. the use of this , along with her strange magic , developed into her custom specialization.

DECAY : sanguine call , repercussions of the grave , reaping , wither the soul

decay is a sort of combination between her specializations &. primary spell trees in terms of vibes / classification. it also stems a bit , as i mentioned above , from her blight magic from urthemiel. i have the basic outline of the powers below : sanguine call rouses the blood in her &. her enemies , particularly the undead &. darkspawn. it works to repel &. damage other creatures who try to get close to her with spirit energy as an ongoing effect that lowers the mana cap. repercussions of the grave causes a small amount of spirit damage to enemies who cause damage to her as a passive effect. reaping is also a passive effect , &. whenever dealing spirit damage , the caster will have a portion of their mana restored. wither the soul is spell that debilitates enemies while invigorating vesa.

NECROMANCY : spirit mark , blinding terror , wisps of the fallen , power of the dead

i have taken elements from the inquisition skill tree &. condensed them into the four levels of origins. spirit mark : you mark a target with an attacking spirit , inflicting ongoing damage. if the target dies while marked , the spirit mimics the victims body briefly to fight on your behalf. blinding terror : you have learned to leave enemies vulnerable in their terror. enemies that are panicked take increased damage from all attacks. wisps of the fallen : you can now have multiple marked targets with spirit mark. when a marked target dies , a wisp appears and attacks with you for a short time. power of the dead : killing enemies attracts spirits that increase the power of your spells for a short time.

BLOOD MAGIC : blood magic , blood sacrifice , blood wound

given that vesa was already well into magic that is questionable &. frightening , blood magic was also a sort of natural next step. she pursued it as a result of working with avernus rather than making a deal with the demon possessing connor. it's her least explored specialization as it's more to augment her other abilities rather than a mastery of it. forbidden magic is like catnip to her &. she has unrestricted access most of the time to try to learn more.