#Orzammar dwarves

[knife-eared-jan]

I can’t even remember the dwarf brother’s stupid name, but my stupid brain won’t let me make a stupid Chantry clothing mod if it doesn’t cover ALL the stupid chantry characters so here we go I guess...

WIP.

[feeshies]

The people's pint-sized princess, Kozda Aeducan

I don't think I'm going to have her romance everyone because my heart belongs to the doomed bodyguard romance from the prologue

[thecrowroad]

I wish we spent more time with the Dwarves in Dragon Age.

There’s a near-unimaginable scale of loss, too big to look at, it seems - an entire continent-spanning civilisation, reduced to two cities. Millenia of history, erased, lost and unrecoverable. Even the reemergence of Kal Sharok is tinged and tainted with the echoes of betrayal and abandonment, the relationship too delicate and strained to celebrate. Do we even know who the Titans truly are, to the dwarves? Gods, creators, progenitors? A symbiotic relationship where one part is dead and gone?

The genocide of the Titans goes almost without mention. Elven gods butchered Titans and used their bodies to enter the world and build their empire, and we only mourn Elvhenan. Solas and Mythal severed the remaining Titans connection to the Fade, making them Tranquil. The severed dreams of the Titans mutated and became the Blight that the Evanuris weaponised for their own ends. That blight has been killing the dwarves slowly ever since. War with the darkspawn, the loss of the Deep Roads and the other thaigs is the visible loss, but there’s also a steady decline in population numbers as blight exposure reduces fertility. The dwarves are barely holding on by their teeth.

Dagna, writing to Harding, suggests that Isatunoll was once a sort of collective unconsciousness between Dwarves. Losing access to the Fade lost the Dwarves access to Isatunoll, and now Orzammar has erased mention of the Titans from the Memories, to help maintain and enforce the caste system. To survive, Dwarves seemingly have two choices - to continue the work started by the Evanuris and keep mining the blood and bodies of their Titans while fighting an unwinnable war against the Darkspawn, or abandon it all - their culture, their history, their tenuous and fragmentary connection to the Stone Song - and live safe on the surface as little more than short humans.

Isatunoll - I am/we are (still) here. There are so many juicy, challenging stories here. How could I not want to know more about them?

[illusivesoul]

That line that Corypheus says after being released in the Legacy dlc while he's all confused "Be these some dream I wake from? Am I in dwarven lands? Why seem their roads so empty?" highlights how in his time, the Deep Roads really were the commercial and trade arteries of Thedas, and how they must have been constantly bursting full of people and merchants trading and going from one corner of Thedas to the other.

Tevinter controlled most of Thedas, but below the surface, the dwarven empire was what truly connected it, all the distant Thaigs and cities bringing lyrium and other things all over the continent, and even trading with the Chasind and the Avvar as far south as Ferelden (and according to Bianca, its possible the Deep Roads might have gone beyond Thedas itself)

And then Corypheus wakes up a thousand years later and assumes he's on the Deep Roads and is puzzled as to why it all seems so empty and lifeless. And the irony is that, even though he doesn't know it yet, thats what the Deep Roads and all the dwarven lands except for Orzammar and Kal'Sharok have become. A dead, lifeless carcass filled with darkspawn, with decaying statues, crumbling Thaigs and a few squads of the Legion of the Dead representing the fading memories of the glory of the past that once was and will never be again, and slowly fading into history like the dwarves themselves.

[nose235678]

Veilguard Spoilers (Harding)

So, I’ve decided I’m always gonna take Lucanis on Harding’s personal quest, because she says this little line:

“We will thrive, in spite of you.”

Which reminds me of the Hebrew proverb:

“Living well is the best revenge.”

And to me? In my mind? As my Rook and Lucanis both embrace her as she’s having this revelation and in saying that? It feels like Spite was there, too. Giving her the little nudge she needed to power through the bulwark of her grief, as Lace Harding. Not just a Child of the Stone. To live her life as a wholly free Dwarf that no longer requires the presence of the Titans in order to be “enough.”

To become her own person and truly be.

Because it’s hinted/shown in the art book that the Dwarves already existed when the Titans were walking around, but solely served as the caretakers of their giant bodies. Sort of swarming out of them like ants to clean up the hive after a storm.

So, maybe the sundering of the Titans granted them freedom? Free will, even if it came without dreams or magic? Certainly something to think about.

[chialattea]

“go to hell” is basic. “I hope your favorite dragon age faction gets revealed as a bunch of fucking losers who fucked up so bad and for no reason whatsoever rendering their later attempts at surviving a skill issue” is smart. it’s possible. it’s terrifying

[mabaris]

the thing I’m very interested to see is Harding’s relationship to other dwarves as her weird magic manifests.

she’s a surfacer; I feel like no matter what happens, Orzammar dwarves are going to point at her as an example, saying, “this is what happens when you lose your stone sense, you basically become a human, and this is why you should stay underground because we’re safe down here”

[nudgeling]

Updated Aeducan siblings, forgot her tattoos the first time around

[burning2know]

Some kalsharok dwarf ambient dialogue really rubbed me the wrong way.

There was an Orzammar trash fest mainly consisting of "the old dwarves in orzammar are so backwards for having so much prejudice! Class system? nah. we're the cool dwarves who think the surface is cool actually and dream of going to the surface" and it's giving grovelling for a place in the imperialist surface-dweller-supremacy (see uncle ruckus from the boondocks)

the Kal-Sharok is a secretive and isolationist underground society (literally and figuratively). Nobody besides them and their titan even knows that they exist, and they intend it to be that way. Why would aspiring to the surface be a common thing among them? Why is trash-talking Orzammar the main perspective to present to the players? They have a right to exist on their own, not only relative to others of their kind. Kal-sharok need not be the model minority to justify their existence in the game.

[lizzybeeee]

Children of the Stone 🪨

[bhaalspawnshitposting]

The contrast between Broodmother, and the fertility to produce an army of soldiers forced against her will, vs the anvil, and the inability to create any manmade life, so it must be stolen. Both are being used for such a twisted purpose, war, slavery, and the exploitation of women and men. The act of creation itself corrupted and done through force, while he true act of creation being based in love and motherhood.

"No mere smith, however skilled, has the power to create life"

Not to mention, Broodmother is entirely organic, as it is, opposite the anvil. The anvil can claim creation, but it is really transmutation. Broodmother can claim creation, but even Hespith calls it the darkspawn *remaking Laryn in their image*

Its just such a good trope that I've never seen in horror, and they make such good foils of each other one immediately after the other, how both darkspawn and greed corrupt even the most holy and well-intentioned acts. It makes sense when you consider the darkspawn are the Golden City's reflection of man's sins.

[atypicalacademic]

Thinking out loud here, one of my favorite elements of dwarven culture is the existence of sacrifice as a shared understanding without really prizing austerity as a way of life. I know Orzammar is deeply fucked up and the caste system is indefensible, but something that I strengthens the hope for change there, despite everything, is a kind of honest hunger for life that seems to be part of dwarven ethos. They live a nearly eternal blight, many of them stalwart warriors nurtured into the inescapable duty of preserving the city for just a few years more, a few years more, like their ancestors before them. The smiths, the armourers, the artisans, the sculptors, the Shapers, all of them, regardless of how much they personally think of it, are part of this social contract to keep Orzammar on its feet. There's sacrifice involved, to be sure. To die in battle is a glorious thing for them. War is a fact of life for them. The Legion of the Dead literally partake in their own funerals to give themselves to Orzammar entirely. The Silent Sisters forego speech itself. The Deep Roads are full of the proof of so many sacrifices, many remembered and many forgotten.

Still, the dwarves are far from austere. Pragmatic they may be, but they don't glorify self-abnegation. They live and announce their existence, in towering statues and high ceilings and technology that pushes the bounds of the possible. They drink and feast and joke with abandon. They make art. They plan circles around each other to their own detriment. They're ambitious without apologizing for it. (Remember Rica telling Brosca, deep in the smoke-pits of Dust Town, that she believes she's meant for great things? Remember how you could agree, say you'll become Great, despite how hopeless and empty such an endeavour may seem? Hell, Remember Rica herself, navigating the pit of vipers that is the nobility so whichever way the wind blows, she comes out standing). Everyone from my Warden from Dust Town (even her Ultimate Sacrifice was an aspiration to Paragonhood, not an honest desire to die) to the King himself is driven by the possibility of life, glorious life. The worst of them, the cowards and traitors and tyrants, are often a perversion of that very desire to live and live well. Everyone wants to live and live well, of course, but I find the dwarves have a straightforward honesty about that desire, as if the perpetual blight at their heels and the many social pressures only strengthens their resolve, even with the magnitude of sacrifice that it demands. For all the reputation of Orzammar dwarves being grim or stodgy, I find them delightful for this. A hunger for life isn't "selfish" there, but welcome. I also wonder if this honesty has something to do with the stereotyping of them all as "greedy," among topsiders, because time is running out and life is far too short to hide your hunger.

[feeshies]

if I were Gorim I would have waited at least another month before giving up on her and marrying someone else. just saying

[thekingofwinterblog]

Varric Tethras - The Proud Dwarf

So it's not a big secret that the best companion Bioware ever created was Varric Tethras, the lovable rogue, crossbowman, author and handsome Viscount of Kirkwall.

There are ao many reasons to love Varric, but one I don't see much discussed, is the subtle, and contradictory relationship Varric has with his own race, the Dwarves of Thedas.

Varric makes it a point of always putting his seeming disdain for his own people out in the open, always making it clear how much he dislikes the traditional Dwarven culture, wqy of life and so on.

He describes Orzammar, one of the great wonders of the world as cramp tunnels filled with shit and body odor, he never fails to mention how much he hates the deep roads, and he often mocks dwarven pride at any opportunity with his usual wit and charm.

On the surface, Varric might seem like he has a lot in common with Sera and her racist views on all elvhen kind, but that really, really is not the case.

Because under that exterior of seeming disdain, is a man who both understands Dwarven Culture in all it's flaws, but also loves it and hates it in equal measures.

Varric has always made it clear how much he loved the Hanged man, and essentially made his room there his office, his real home away from the uber dwarfish merchant guild.

And do you know what he fills it with?

The dwarfiest architecture you can imagine. Varric has a dwarf table, a noble dwarf chair, dwarven artwork on the wall, and even a dwarven stone bed.

All expensive and traditional stuff which he would have had to had personally paid for to transport into this room out of his own pocket.

Varric for all his harsh words on the Dwarven people, WANTS to live in a home that looks utterly Dwarven.

The most obvious moment that puts Varric's love for his dwaf ancestry on full display is of course the act 2 quest from da2, where he and an insane(temporary lucid) Bartrand has a heart to heart where both puts their real feelings on the tragedy of their situation on display.

Varric chastises Bartrand for in his madness having thrown away every bit of his dwarven nobility and honor on a stupid trinket, and Bartrand ends up begging his brother not to let house Tethras fall with him, in this display of utter madness and dishonor.

The entire thing is a deeply tragic display where the two brothers show that deapite all their differences, they really did love each other deeply, as well as the fact they had a shared love of their ancestry as Orzammar Nobility.

Of course Varric almost never comes out and says it nearly this clearly anywhere else, as showcased in another side quest where you give him back the Tethras family signet ring that Bartrand had to pawn to finance the expedition.

He doesn't come out and say it, instead focusing on the bad aspects of Orzammar in this quest, but unless hawke is rivaling him when he gives him the quest, varric has a huge approval boost in response to getting his family ring back, showing the thing really did mean a lot to him, despite his disparaging it and Orzammar in said quest.

Later, in Inquisition, Varric never misses a chance to badmouth Orzammar and tradition, but he reacts with incredible sadness at the prospect of Orzammar one day possibly falling.

When Solas asks him about Dwarven literature, and whether there is a lot of Dwarven tricksters, varric gives a smartass remark summing it up as Dwarves tend to write how they want the world to be, while humans write how they think the world is, eith the latter being clearly superior.

It's a good scene, but it has a deeper meaning that ties into Varric's deeper views on Dwarven culture.

Varric knows how Dwarves write, because he has read Dwarven liturature, and understands it completely as both a dwarf, a reader, and a writer, and how it in turn differs from human literature.

For all his grumbling on dwarves in Orzammar being obsessed with their ancestors, he himself is the exact same way as shown in legacy when you find the original Tethras and gives him to the stone, able to shortly remember every bit of his own family lore on the spot and being moved to tears by the tragedy of it all.

Varric defends both surface dwarves and Orzammar dwarves against Solas accusation that they have given up against the darkspawn threat, though in his usual way, he makes it out like surface dwarves are clearly superior.

Varric genuinely loves and cares about so much of Dwarven culture and history, and he understands it deeply.

Which in turn also is the reason he genuinely hates so much about it.

Like all of the DA2 companions, Varric has something he is deeply, deeply obsessed with, something that drives him as a person, and motivates his actions through the entire story. The difference between him and everyone else, is that this obsession never reached a conclusion, because Varric doesn't get to actually face it, and confront it.

That obsession is, of course, the Dwarven Merchant Guild.

Varric HATES the Dwarven Merchant guild, and though he uses his regular humor to portray it, in this case it's actually the opposite of the way he will always be critical of the Dwarven people. Because Varric hates the guild far, far more than he ever pretends to hate Orzammar.

Varric always talks of how shitty the guild is, how it embodies the absolute worst parts of dwarven culture, and essentially how it ruined Bartrand from ever being able to function as anything other than a cutthroat businessman. He time, and time, and time again, refuses to interact with the guild, breaks the law hard to not have to participate, and all in all cold shoulders them and their cutthroat culture completely.

There is a very important, significant moment in act 3, that is incredibly easy to miss, but completely recontextualizes varric's entire motivation for wanting the deep roads expedition.

Varric talks about the real reason why Bartrand wanted to go through with the expedition, of how it represented the one chance he had to get AWAY from the guild forever, just by being rich enough he no longer had to deal with them anymore.

Varric portrays it as Bartrand's big wish and motivation, hut it's incredibly obvious if one pays attention that this was a wish the two brothers actually shared, a mutual desire in the world. Which in turn is one of the reasons why Varric is so incredibly angry at his brother when he goes off the deep end due to the idol and betrays them.

Him and Bartrand got into this venture to finally, once and for all get out of having to deal with the worst parts of surface Dwarf society, and here his brother seemingly willingly turned his back on all of that, showing the only thing he ever cared about was pure greed.

In other words, everything both he and Bartrand hated about the Merchant Guild.

Varric hates the Caste system. He hates the division between surface and "regular" dwarves, and he thinks Orzammar's nobility has a collective stick up it's ass. And yet despite all of that, he loves the Dwarves. He loves the idea of nobility and the ideals it is supposed to represent, he loves Dwarven architecture, their grand ability to make shit, and the incredible grit and romanticism about the Dwarves long, unending struggle against the darkspawn.

The only part of Dwarven society Varric has no love for, is the Merchant Guild. It is Orzammar's nobility without anything resembling virtues, nobles who lost their caste, and yet still enforces a brutal hierarchy of blood, and cares for no ideals, no honor, no cause, except for the clink of money.

Varric is such a deep character, and I really wish that in the future, we get to see this aspect of him fleshed out even more.

[illusivesoul]

Hey everyone. My community about Dragon Age dwarves got approved.

Interact with this post if you would like an invite.

[vancalox]

ok so apparently elves can join the tevinter military provided they aren't slaves or members of the liberati (former slaves) ???? so that opens up the possibility of rook at least being adopted by an elven family. not sure about dwarves and qunari i cant find too much on that but for elf!mercars it seems possible that they wont have to haave a default human family