#Solas: freed the first slave

[dalishious]

Everything Known about Shadow Dragon Rook

A collection of canon information about Rook, when choosing the Shadow Dragon faction/background.

(I will add more if more comes up.)

Rook was adopted by a military commander, who found them as a baby on a battlefield near Ventus, after a skirmish. If Rook is non-human, they were kept home a lot growing up.

Varric asked the Shadow Dragons for help freeing an old friend - a dignitary who was captured by Venatori - in the city of Nessus. Rook believed the safe plan created by the Shadow Dragons would not work, and decided to go off the book and stage a rescue attempt themself, with the help of Varric. Rook successfully led an armed rebellion of freed slaves and rescued the dignitary too. However, the magisters cracked down hard in retaliation, and the Shadow Dragons decided it was best for Rook to stay underground for a while.

About six months prior to the game, The Viper reached out to Rook via letter, suggesting that an alliance with Varric would be beneficial to the Shadow Dragons.

Rook has worked with Tarquin and the Viper before. Additionally, Neve knew of Rook's work in Nessus, though prior to the game they never formally met.

Rook watched Maevaris Tilani argue against slavery in the Magisterium prior to Mae's removal.

Rook is wanted by the authorities for numerous offences, including theft, murder, and destruction of property.

Rook's father is likely Legatus Charon Mercar. [X]

-----

SOURCES:

Character creation faction description

Dialogue with Rook unpacking their belongings

Dialogue with Varric about why he recruited Rook

Dialogue with Solas about why he should work with Rook

Dialogue with Maevaris about her past as a Magister

Dialogue with the First Warden about Rook's reputation

Codex entry: A Letter Dated Six Months Ago

Codex entry: The Soporati

[crimsonphantasmagoria]

Veilguard is not about regret

I've seen a lot of discussion going around about the themes of regret in Veilguard. In particular I've seen a couple of related claims thrown around: one, that Rook and the Veilguard companions are supposed to act as parallels/foils to Solas, an example of how to deal with regret healthily, and two, that Rook is a terrible foil to Solas because there's nothing that they've actually done that's worthy of regretting, and anything that they theoretically should regret (like helping disrupt the ritual that freed the Evanuris, whether you think that's a deserving accusation or not) they simply don't. I'm here to tell you that both these perspectives are true, and it's because Veilguard isn't actually about regret.

Let's start off by talking about the companions shall we. Let's list off the regrets in their storylines. Bellara regrets not being more careful and not somehow saving her brother. Taash regrets not making up with their mother before her death. Davrin doesn't actually have one of his own, instead the regret in his storyline is Isseya's regret about what happened with the Griffins. Emmrich's storyline is more about wavering on the brink of a choice, which may cause regret, though I suppose we could include regret about where his friend has ended up in life. Lucanis regrets what happened to his relationship with Illario. Neve regrets Aelia remaining free, and the death of Rana's partner. Harding regrets not seeing through Solas earlier, and also I suppose the fate of the Titans, though I'm not sure I would categorise what she feels about that as regret.

Are you seeing a pattern here? Let's elaborate on it further. While in the Regret Prison, Rook is confronted by three regrets: the loss of the secondary team leader, the loss of the companion who disabled the wards, and the loss of Varric. And the solution to all of these regrets is this: it wasn't your fault. Those companions, they knew the risks, and they volunteered to go into danger. It was their own choice.

Now Solas. Solas has a great many regrets. He regrets tranquilising the Titans. He regrets taking a body. He regrets killing Felassan. He regrets killing the fragment of Mythal that was in Flemeth. He regrets creating the Veil. He may even regret starting his slave rebellion, given everything that followed after, though that memory is unclear what the actual regret is. These are all active choices he made. The only comparable regrets amongst the companion's storylines and Rook are Isseya's, and sort-of Emmrich's. I'll come back to Emmrich later. Isseya's regrets are actually a pretty good comparison point, except, as is obvious, that's not actually Davrin's storyline. Davrin's regrets on the Griffon front are more institutional, and feed into his storyline about having been made into a weapon, and what to do with yourself after your purpose as a weapon has been served. Actually a pretty good parallel with Solas! Except, once again, it wasn't really his choice, was it? And it's certainly not a choice about a horrifying atrocity he comitted.

Which brings us to Solas’s final regret. He regrets Mythal’s death (the first one). Except, that isn't his fault, is it? She chose to go and confront the Evanuris, rather than join the rebellion or run away with Solas. All he did was give her the information that they were interfering with the Blight, information that she would almost certainly have learned for herself eventually, and assuming she would have made the same choice to confront them would still have resulted in her death. The solution is: it wasn't his fault.

This is the regret that is being paralleled, by an overwhelming majority. And they're right, it isn't his fault and he should forgive himself for it. The thing is: this isn't regret. It's a twisted form of grief. Once you realise this, the whole theme starts unravelling, because not all regrets are created equal. I think this is why some people accuse the narrative of excusing Solas, or trying to sweep aside the things he's done: because it is. The whole message of Veilguard is that you should forgive yourself for the things you had no control over, except that Solas did have control over all those other regrets I listed out earlier, and I say that with a great deal of affection. He did that. He can't forgive himself because it wasn't his fault, because it was. Not all regrets are created equal. And the focus on the narrative of 'it wasn't your fault' means that people look for the person whose fault it was, and that blame lands on Mythal. Who does share some responsibility for some of those acts, but again the narrative is about deliberately pushing away culpability. I suppose one could make an argument for blaming Elgar’nan for everything? I think we should blame Elgar’nan for everything.

Indeed, the narrative focuses so hard on the idea of Solas doing everything because of Mythal, because of that twisted grief, that it completely loses sight of the actual reasons he had for doing the things he was doing. The spirits are trapped in the Fade, many of them yearning to access a world they naturally should have access to. The elves have been enslaved for millenia, and have lost almost everything about themselves, including their origins. Mages are either feared and reviled, or use their overwheling power advantage to lord over those who don't have the same access to magic. And let's not forget, two more Blights and the Veil comes down anyway, releasing the Turbo Blight (which he created) onto unsuspecting Thedas. Not to mention there were suggestions in Trespasser that there was something going on with the remaining ancient elves in Uthenara, who apparently vanished from existance along with his agents.

I mentioned earlier that I would come back to Emmrich. That's because his storyline, in my opinion, is the only one that actually depicts the theme they should have been going for with DA4, namely, when presented with a difficult moral choice, what will you do? What are you willing to sacrifice, and for what? In theory, as has been pointed out before, Bellara's archive choice might once have also been this: it is implied by the phrasing of 'free the spirit' that the Nadas Dirthalen was supposed to be a trapped sapient spirit, forced into servitude, rather that a fantasy VI, and the choice at the end would have been do you free the innocent at the cost of the knowledge you could extract? These naturally feed into: do you bring down the Veil, causing a great deal of sorrow and harm but also potentially creating a better, more equal future, or do you refuse to make such a great sacrifice of lives? At the very least, I think this theme would have stayed more true to the setup of Trespasser, as well as the design of the companion binary choice system, and who knows? Perhaps there might even have been a third option.

[smitten-miqitten]

Post-Veilguard Solavellan and Rook headcanons:

Because Lavellan is directly in the Fade with no Veil to separate her from it, it becomes a (relatively) simple matter for Solas to reconnect her to the lost immortality of the Elves. It only works while she's physically present in the Fade however, and at first he has to function as a go-between until that connection is strong enough on its own(like an unused muscle).

Lavellan no longer NEEDS food or drink as a result but being without it is extremely uncomfortable. Feeling like you're starving constantly sucks, even if it might not kill you.

This is fine though, because Rook teams up with Dorian to make a plan. The Sending Crystal Dorian gave Lavellan is infamously always on her person, so can act as a beacon to her location. Dorian gets things sent to the Lighthouse, and Rook facilitates the delivery of the goods via helpful spirits with the Sending Crystal being their guide.

Rook works with Archon Dorian Pavus to crush any black market slave trading that they uncover. The Lighthouse is used to ferry the freed people to safety, as it was in the past.

Rook becomes the new master of the Lighthouse. They end up getting a Sending Crystal pair of their own to share with Solas, and he and they collaborate on things as needed. It's an odd friendship. Bitch to bitch communication. It's scathing but heartfelt. They both know he needs a buddy.

Eventually Rook also is reconnected enough to the Fade to the point they also stop aging, but anytime they enter Thedas proper it resumes for the duration they are there. As a result, they will likely either eventually die like normal, or choose to work via proxies while remaining in the Lighthouse physically.

Lavellan and Solas, wherever their vague-ass destination actually is, end up creating a fairly comfortable home despite how 'terrible' wherever they're at is supposed to be.

Cole warns her when Dorian is about to pass away of age, and she says her heartwrenching farewells in his final dream. Dorian wills his Sending Crystal to Rook, with the stipulation that Rook find Lavellan someone equally charming to chat with so she doesn't lose her connection to the real world. It's...a tall order 😔 Dorian is no less dear to Lavellan than Mythal was to Solas, for perspective.

As the one who accompanied the Dread Wolf into exile, Lavellan becomes a mythological figure amongst the few Dalish who still keep to some of their ways, more or less against her will. Her name, Ellenere, means nothing in Elvish originally but becomes the name of the goddess who serves as the heart and guide that endears The People to the trickster Fen'Harel. Statues of a female wolf are placed outside of camps next to those of Fen'Harel, so that she will placate him and he will not trouble the clan. She and he guard or stalk the dreams of the world... depending on the story.

Clan Lavellan is an awkward guest at the Arlathvhen because of their former-First's new deific status. Members of the clan also no longer choose to receive Vallaslin as adults.

In the far, far future Solas and Lavellan have children. This follows the spinning of myths by the Dalish that claimed they already had, which flustered Lavellan greatly and prompted a conversation about whether such a thing would even be possible, let alone advisable. Being born in the Fade, these children do not lack the connection their cousins in Thedas would and are therefore immortal like their parents, at least until they leave it (they do).

Solas and Lavellan fuck like...a lot. There are Dalish myths about that too, eventually 😂 Like when a thunderstorm is happening, they're being too rowdy. The person who started these myths may or may not be The Iron Bull.

[roarrrgame]

I read Tevinter Nights and found that Solas said “you are free” when he freed a wisp in there, too. I realised Solas said “you are free” to Lavellan after removing her Vallaslin, as well as to the ancient slaves he freed and removed Vallaslin for.

Removing Lavellan’s Vallaslin was perhaps the first time he’d done so since he woke up. I wonder what he was thinking at that moment. What feeling did it bring up?

Because this time, it’s not someone who'd been enslaved, it’s his lover, whose Vallaslin is now removed because he avoided the real issue. It’s another of his failures, along with the failure to stop the Evanuris from reaching godhood, which led to his People being enslaved.

His vhenan’s existance is also a consequence of his failure, one he wouldn’t regret much, but it probably reminds him of his present duty nevertheless.

Lavellan, to him, is not free, if she continues to be with him. He cannot subject her to what he’s been putting himself through. Lavellan is also not free, because she’s not living the life elves should be living. She’s only a shadow of what she could and should be, even though she’s already enough for him.

That's the tragedy of it, is they are both what they want, but to him, that's not it because of what could have been. The present universe is not the universe he thinks he should be in, because he made decisions he still regrets far back on the timeline. That means he cannot have what he wants in this universe, because it’s not the “real” universe, and he's going to amend that by forcefully bringing the two timelines together.

Even though he has someone, who’s all that he desires, right here.

When he said “you are free” to each and every one of the creatures that had been enslaved, did he wish that he was the one being freed?

It’d be sad if he said “you are free” to Lavellan out of muscle memory because removing Vallaslin and saying “you are free” is what he resorted to after chickening out of telling the truth the last second. It’s baked into his reflexes since he'd been doing that for centuries. He kept doing that because he allowed the injustices to happen. He woke up and immediately started fixing things again, old and new and newer problems caused by his mistakes.

[mogwaei]

Everyone is always asking where is Solas and what is Solas doing

but no one ever asks about that stick he's been carrying around. It's clearly very important to him. Wolf has favourite toy ball and stick?

Jokes aside, I'm genuinely curious about the story behind it--like the jawbone amulet! As far as I know, that staff doesn't appear in the game anywhere, but it's in a lot of important imagery. And we know the artists are insanely meaningful and intentional with everything they do, so there is a story.

My basket of little headcanons & more below the cut

>Branch from an important tree, maybe related to the Tree of Mythal (seen in the vallaslin design)

>It looks vaguely wolf shaped, or halla shaped, and maybe he was literally like "this is hilarious" and went with it. Because he would. imagine if Felassan had been there when he got it and it was an inside joke and now he can't throw it away

> We know Skyhold isn't the original structure (at least, there are few pieces of the OG remaining if I recall) but I also entertained the Peace Tree.

There could have been several Peace Trees, idk. BUT, could it be possible the War Table is actually old as fuck and Solas took a branch for himself?

>Solas stole/took the branch from someone. Maybe from Andruil since she has a lot of Tree-themed stories (lol)

>It was a gift from someone important to him.

>Some headcanon from my fic:

"It was an old thing with a natural shape and a gnarled head, little more than a bough that looked as though he'd simply prised it from the roots of a tree and decided no other weapon could compare. There was no telling whether its length had been weathered smooth under the path of his hands or if the magic focused through its grains for years had changed its composition. It looked out of place with all the silver and gilded metal he was otherwise clad in. No one knew where he'd gotten it, or the story behind it—only that he'd had it the day he freed the first slave and every instance after. It had been in his hand the day of her liberation too. All accompanying him knew the staff. Along with the wolf, the bough had become a symbol known amongst them as one of peace, friendship, and freedom. And all of them had been in bondage—a handful of healers and ex-sentinels—but now they were liberators. They followed Fen'Harel with his staff, fearless and proud."

Okay I'm gonna stop myself there because I can and will go on forever and then I will never do art or writing again.

BUT WAIT: bonus on the Peace Tree thing, cause this is fucking hilarious to me:

[coriphallus]

DA: The Veilguard Spoiler Review pt3 - Politiks

oh my little void in this world wide web, we are really in it now.

a little PSA before you read this word vomit, i am from westernmost middle east, and that will inform much of what i know about the topics i discuss. i wont know about race politics of america or the intricacies of it beyond what i can see online but as an immigrant i do have some perspective on western experience. so when i talk about heavy topics it will come from a foreign place. i do understand and admit that i cannot ignore that BW is a north american studio and that colours every theme they touch.

so there are two angles to approach this, 1st is to assess DAV on its own and 2nd is to assess it as a part of a whole and continuation of a franchise.

lets get 1st out of the way, its safely uncontroversial beyond taash's story. and eff-plays voiced my feeling verbatim on that subject more succinctly than anything i can possibly write.

2nd is very, very grim.

every DA game that came before had been interlaced with politics of its world so severely that its absence is disorienting. every game you were given the choice to change the political landscape of the countries youre playing in, for better or for worse. even the 2nd game with its vastly smaller scale sees hawke trying to navigate through their life as an immigrant, even at the games climax you are given a choice to drastically alter how this uprising will be remembered and it tells hawke that there are no half measures, they need to pick a side.

"Slavery or no, flesh is always for sale."

in my very first DAV playthrough i picked a shadow dragon elf, i didnt give her any backstory as i though being an elf in minrathous would shape her world view regardless.

first scene i got when organising my room rook pulls out the SHACKLES of a slave shes freed as she reminisces about how much good shes done, and puts them on her bedside. then proceeds to talk to a book and say "everybody looks down on elves but we were here first >:c"

(at this point i rerolled my character so i dont yet know how shadow dragon background plays out.)

at the very beginning of the game we see similar shackles and varric informs us that solas hates slavery, hes been freeing them.

when we make it to minrathous we learn that these people in neves circle have been freeing slaves.

alright so, the heavy handed deliveries aside, what purpose do all these scenes/expositions serve?

well, it makes these people look good. we know theres slavery in this part of thedas and these people are fighting against it not by any elaborate means but dont worry kitten <3.

[i had to look up the english for some of these terms so feel free to correct me if im wrong] patterson describes slavery as "one of the most extreme forms of the relation of domination, approaching the limits of total power from the viewpoint of the master, and of total powerlessness from the viewpoint of the slave". death of the soul, death of what makes one human -and for the purposes of this section- death in the eyes of state. slavery has such a long history that predates early modern colonization of africa by thousands of years. it is a staple of human history and where we have come from shapes what we are now. we can shun it, call it abhorrent but we cant pretend it never happened. theres always been people dead in the eyes of state.

heres the uncomfortable truth, there aint never been enough steel in the world to hold every hittite or mittani slave. to assume slavery is people getting abducted and put to irons is as naïve as human trafficking being a rando ruffying you and hauling you across the sea in a crate. yea, it could happen but 99% of the time its just a waste of time to physically hold someone against their will by force. and this idea makes us think its this far off thing that happened thousands of years ago by bad individuals doing very comically bad things, which is a very deliberate choice, because to depict period accurate slavery would be to portray social and economical classes, and that would be confronting how little we've changed in certain aspects.

people were born into that caste, shaped by it, worn down by it, and abused by it systematically.

in DAI Dorian says something -apparently- very controversial that i dont think this fandom has fully unpacked, and i aint gonna do that here either because im not remotely qualified. he likens the working class of south to slavery of north, theres no way to engage with this argument in any meaningful way, even as an elf, and in general people brush it off as dorians pro-slavery rhetorics.

try as DAV might to disregard, we actually did meet an ex-slave and trafficking victims on three separate occasions, and the games have set a premise already. we got to talk about their unique circumstances, and they were handled with some measure of dept. maybe you liked them, maybe you didnt, but you knew them and that makes a difference. they had agency in their own stories. a far cry from DAVs nameless faceless props for righteous gentiles to circle jerk about.

but, sure, lets tell ourselves showing them would be too gratuitous.

can you imagine how batshit insane it would look if zevran kept the belt her husband used to beat isabela with as a trinket, to display in his tent? that scene with rook disturbed me more than most anything in this entire franchise and coming from an anders supporter, thats saying something.

this is how little the writers were willing to engage with their source material. this is how little they are willing to engage with the world around them.

which makes the next blunder inevitable.

alot has been said about the absurdity of elves feeling responsible for the events of DAV, but maybe this hasnt been said enough; this is a blatant fascist rhetoric.

i will spell it out though, even though i never thought it needed to be said, the social performance of accountability indicates that the party who has done harm has benefited and continues to benefit from that harm, this is why reparations are paid, and thats what "check your priviledge" means. elves in DA have never benefited in any way from the warmongering of evanuris, they were enslaved by them.

to say that these people should feel some sort of responsibility towards what befell dwarves is a fascist rhetoric used irl to offload responsibility and divide and alienate the opposition further from eachother.

i cant tell you if this mouth piece is same everywhere but i know a few people who have clocked it immediately so im gonna assume it was obvious. and truthfully, i wouldnt even be annoyed if i thought it was intentional. genuinely, one of my favourite games is an unapologetic military propaganda whos protagonist would make ayn rand write sonnets about, and the game knows what it is. but no, i fully believe the studio tried to address the criticism they got about their lackluster handling of elves and either completely misunderstood or willfully disregarded the experiences of marginalised peoples that the games drew inspiration from.

the writing is so hollow beyond horrible dialogue that when writing an enby character whos also multicultural they didnt even notice the parallel theyve created. i know this because after an entire plotline about their struggle with binaries their story concludes with a binary decision on their culture. this just confirms to me that any dept this game has is completely accidental.

imma level with yall i dont subscribe to the belief that you need to have some type of experiences to write some type of characters and i find that "ofc a white person wrote it so..." response very tired because yea we should be allowed to expect more from white people. i too had OCs of different cultures that i wasnt very familiar with and handled poorly, but unlike me, a company can afford a consultant.

i played greedfall recently, and sure the maori tattoos were a shit decision, and im disappointed that after all the criticism they still stuck with it, and yes maybe its story was not sensitive enough but you know what? as the person whos recommended it to me said, i rather have a story who boldly engages with its own themes than one whos terrified of them. say what you will about its shortcomings but at least at the end of that game you can have an ending where the colonizers leave for good, and yes their plague is not healed but the narrative doesnt punish the natives for their isolationism. i am glad that the game allows that catharsis to its players.

DAV could have had 300 well thought-out endings and still not please everyone, but the endings they chose to include directly implicates the group theyre trying to appease and its literally just people who either want to punch or kiss solas, thats how fucking deep they think their fanbase it. not the people who wanted to end slavery, or achieve equilibrium with beings no matter how alien they are. or people who wanted to see a culture connect with its roots etc etc.

and maybe they were right, many people have been enjoying this game immensely and i am just, so fucking jealous. i wish i liked this game and enjoyed it and didnt want to tear out my hair every second i spent in treviso. i wish i wasnt seething white knuckling my sink like an insane person when a little kid wrote to crow rook that hes recruiting orphans now. i wish i had any belief in this game to read that as satire.

at least i wish i felt any form of vindication when i immediately realised this game was going to be a soulless cashgrab that unashamedly uses the name of a popular IP to push a sub-par product earlier this year, i just spend 80+ hours watching a company parade the carcass of a franchise i loved and beat it like a pinata as it continuously slapped me on the face with a botched wax figure of it.

i just feel this profound sense of sadness. i wish this game didnt exist. and no i dont feel any kind of brand loyalty, even when i actively enjoyed their work i didnt but i definitely dont now, not after 3 consecutive games that theyve delivered with more or less the same problems. as the company is today, i dont care whether bw survives or not, its been made clear time and again that the bw i liked is long gone and bw today is clearly not interested in making games for me.

even as i write this i dont feel fuelled by my anger for DAV but by the love a have for what came before. i still think the story deserved better, the fans deserved better, the people who contributed into making DA universe what it was before DAV deserved better. and, as rook told harding, our anger is justified.

but, hey. hair looks really good.

[cadaveerie]

spoilers for DA2, DAI, DATV (from things seen in the first Dragon Age: The Veilguard gameplay reveal, and from the character designs and descriptions) and Tevinter Nights (The Horror of Hormak)

Trying to guess what gods Davrin and Bellara's vallaslin represent

Long post ahead. TLDR at the end!

I suppose that someone has already made some comparison like this, but I couldn't find any post that compares the images like this so I'm doing one!

Firstly, the source: The chart in which the vallaslin were assigned to their gods for the first time was posted by Matt Rhodes (post).

The vallaslin used in that chart are from Dragon Age: Inquisition, so we don't have an official confirmation for the vallaslin of DAO or DA2. The designs are different in those two games, but they're similar enough to make a guess. For further reference, aside from the confirmed DAI version I'll try to assign the vallaslin that I suspect might be Davrin and Bellara's to their respective DAO version.

Now, the post itself is under the cut:

Davrin - Ghilan'nain

Ghilan'nain is the elven goddess of guides and navigation. She is often called the Mother of the halla—white deer-like creatures revered by the Dalish and used to pull their aravel, or "landships".

Comparison to DAO's, this is the most likely to be Ghilan'nain's vallaslin, in my opinion. This image belongs to codexapocryphal, who made this post. After looking at all the vallaslin, I agree with them that this is the one that's most likely to be Ghilan'nain's.

Ghilan'nain is my best guess for Davrin.

The reasoning:

Theme

The Mother of the Halla, a goddess closely related to animals, who loves and protects them, and who herself became the first halla. The goddess that created countless monsters so wild that she had to destroy most of them after her beloved pleaded her to stop (Codex: The Ascension of Ghilan'nain). And possibly, she might have been the one responsible for the events of The Horror of Hormak, a story in Tevinter Nights that narrates how two Grey Wardens find a temple that, coincidentally, is full of halla horns symbolism in its columns, and in which from a strange pool come out horrifying mutated darkspawn and monsters. There's also some other symbolism in the story that suggests that it might be Ghilan'nain's doing, but that's the most obvious one (aside from the fact that the pool is straight up creating monsters, as Ghilan'nain is known to do).

She is also said to help Dalish hunters find their way home when they're lost. And all of that -- the hunter, the monster and the animal elements, sound very accurate to Davrin, who is both a monster hunter and one of the Grey Wardens that were assigned to raise a griffon (perhaps he loves animals like she does, that'd be cute :D).

Additionally, if it turns out that it's indeed Ghilan'nain's vallaslin, we will probably end up getting this information in-game, since Ghilan'nain is one of the gods that Solas (and Rook) freed by accident. Oops.

Design

Based on the design alone, I think you could easily see a halla's horns in it. However, I think it can be a little hard to properly identify which vallaslin we are talking about by only looking at the forehead, since some of the designs look very similar to each other, especially in the forehead region.

Having said that, I think that if we look both at his forehead and chin, the Ghilan'nain vallaslin design from Inquisition is the most similar to Davrin's, since both vallaslin occupy the forehead and the chin only and the "horns" are making similar shapes.

Other reasons

One of the reasons why I believe it might be hers as well is because it would make a very interesting conflict for Davrin. The monster hunter who has to fight this... monster-looking creature, that on top of that is the goddess his vallaslin represents?

And it's even crazier if we consider what Solas reveals to f!Lavellan in one of their romance scenes: that the vallaslin are actually slave markings that nobles forced their slaves to get. I wonder what Davrin (and Bellara, and a Dalish Rook) would think if they knew this... And I wonder what a god would think if they saw an elf with one of their symbols on their face. Would they believe they're a slave dedicated to them? Who knows, if some of the theories out there are true, perhaps the gods themselves could have some control over them. Not sure how likely that is, but it would be interesting and add yet another layer of drama (and maybe it's reaching, but it reminds me to what happens if you bring Anders with you to the Deep Roads in the Legacy DLC, that he turns against the team. I wonder if something like that would be possible if you bring Davrin along and have to fight this goddess at some point. tbh I love this trope.. I know it's too extra but I hope it's true lol).

Other options

If not Ghilan'nain's then I believe the other most likely options are the following:

Mythal's (complex version), The All-Mother, the patron of motherhood and justice (the flip side of vengeance):

and Falon'Din's, the god of death and fortune who guides the dead to the Beyond:

And the both of them is because even if they have a cheek part that Davrin's doesn't have, it's similar enough to his in both the "horns" aspect and the chin. At least enough, I suppose... I still think it's way more likely that it's Ghilan'nain, though. For the rest I can't seem to find enough similarities to even suggest them... but here is all of them, in case you want to check:

link!

Bellara - Dirthamen

Dirthamen is the elven god of secrets and knowledge.

Comparison to DAO's, this is the most likely to be Dirthamen's vallaslin, in my opinion. This image belongs to codexapocryphal, who made this post. After looking at all the vallaslin, I agree with them that this is the one that's most likely to be Dirthamen's.

I know that for this one, the DAO and the DAI one don't seem that similar to each other, but I believe that there's still similarity, especially in the cheeks. Since this is speculative it might not even be the right comparison, but it's not that relevant either way.

Dirthamen is my best guess for Bellara.

The reasoning:

Theme

The Keeper of Secrets, he is the god that gave the elves the gift of knowledge. Both him and Falon'Din, his "twin brother", would venture into The Fade often to learn secrets. He's also said to have gifted the elves the gifts of loyalty and faith in family.

It's pretty clear that this would make sense for Bellara, since she's a Veil Jumper, the people that explore the ancient ruins of the Arlathan Forest looking for ancient secrets of the elves. And Bellara herself is described in the EA website as "obsessed with discovering the ancient secrets of ancient Elvhenan". This god seems to be a perfect patron for her.

Contrary to the dynamic that Davrin might have with Ghilan'nain, the other god that escaped as we saw in the gameplay reveal was probably Elgar'nan (if you want to know why, you can watch this video by Jackdaw). So if Bellara's vallaslin is Dirthamen's, then she wouldn't have this sort of connection to one of the gods that escaped as Davrin does for having Ghilan'nain vallaslin (although it would have been funny, but I suppose it's better this way, to give each character their own personal struggle facing this. And at the end of the day, both of the gods that escaped are still part of the pantheon she follows, so it'd be significant for her as well regardless of who was released).

Design

Compared to Davrin's, this is a bit harder to figure out, as the two vallaslin look significantly more different. To me the most relevant part when we compare DAI Dirthamen's design to Bellara's are the geometrical shapes, especially the triangles, as this shape (in this form of... dots, almost) is never found in other vallaslin.

And I think that the design in her cheeks is also kind of similar to Dirthamen's in DAI, as they are little triangles/diamonds that go across a longer curve. It could be a reach though... I'm not super confident in this one, but considering the other options, this one seems like the most similar.

Other reasons

Relevant to her overall design and her vallaslin, it seems that the triangle (and geometric shapes, but mostly the triangle) is a relevant motif for her. She's full of them all over her outfit... although as seen in the concept art below, it's not so much a "her" thing as it is a general theme for Veil Jumpers. I also suppose that they took a lot of their style from the elvhenan and their ancient artifacts that they found in the Arlathan Forest.

Other options

The one that in my opinion looks the most like it could be Bellara's, aside from Dirthamen's, is June's, the elven Master of Crafts, a god of crafts and building. I believe this because of the little dots June's has under the eyes, which I think look similar to what Bellara has in her cheeks, and also to those she has right below her eyebrows. The forehead part also looks... kind of similar to hers. One of the biggest differences is that June's DAI vallaslin goes down the neck, and hers doesn't (and doesn't even have anything on the chin, but Dirthamen's DAI one also has something on the chin).

I've also seen some people suggest Sylaise's (the complex version), the goddess of all the domestic arts, or Falon'Din's, the elven god of death and fortune who guides the dead to the Beyond... but to be honest I just don't see enough resemblance, and I don't think thematically it makes as much sense as Dirthamen's does.

And once again I leave the picture of all of DAI's vallaslin in case you want to check:

and the link, again!

And that's all! Sorry if this was too long!

Keep in mind that at the end of the day we know that the vallaslin are different depending of the region, so that's the in-game reason why they're different. That and of course, there can always be slightly changes, especially in this game since it's been 10 years since the last one came out.

Do you agree or have any other take? If you have other theories for this or you spot any mistake, please let me know! Thank you for reading :D

TLDR: It's Ghilan'nain for Davrin and Dirthamen for Bellara, probably? But we're just guessing here.

the DAI vallaslin images from the wiki, they were uploaded by KeladinStorm and  Evamitchelle so shoutout to them!

Edit 1: Confirmation for Bellara

[thegoblintreasure]

Shani Mercar

Rook

My contribution for @rookappreciationweek Day 5- Mercar. Thought it would be a good time to formally introduce my Rook to y'all

General

Name: Shani Mercar

Race: City Elf (Ferelden)

Gender and Pronouns: Transgender Woman (She/her)

Class: Mage (Orb and Dagger, Spellblade, former blood mage, Fire proficiency)

Sexuality: Ace flux, heteroromantic

Romance: Davrin

Best friends: Lace Harding, Neve Gallus, Bellara

Backstory

Shani, born Seann, was a young elven child of Denrim's Alienage, where the Hero of Ferelden lived. At the age 4, during the Fifth Blight, Seann was taken by Tevinter slavers and was sent off to Tevinter by ship. Unfortunately, the ship wrecked during a storm, and Seann was left as the only survivor. He was found wandering a battlefield, lost and confused, before Charon Mercar, an esteemed Lieutenant of the Minrathous Army, found the child and took him under his wing, swearing to raise the child as his own

During his time under the Mercar family he had to pretend to be an elven servant. He had no relation to Charon's wife, who married him for political reasons, but was close to his father. Eventually, it came to light that Charon was having a sexual/romantic relationship with a Qunari Mercenary, making his name disgraced across Tevinter. Charon freed his elven servants and took Seann with him as they joined The Mercenary company of Charon's lover, Sarebaas. The two men raised Shani as their own, and Seann formed a close bond with his new Baba, as he travelled with the Mercenary company across Tevinter and other nearby countries.

Lots had happened during Seann's teenage years. At 14, his magic manifested and he was taught by Sarebaas to use it. At age 15, she came out as transgender, changing her name to Shani and began her transition with the support of both her dads. At 18, she learned about the Shadow Dragons, expressing an interest in them. Because she was an elf, her fathers both tried to discourage her from joining, but at 20 she left the company without a word and joined the Shadow Dragons in Minrathous. She initially was sent on small errands, her elven status used to help disguise her as a servant/slave before she took on larger roles. She was called "Rook", short for "Rookie", and she hates both names

Shani eventually dabbled into Blood Magic when a Venatori infiltrator disguised as a Shadow Dragon recruit began to persuade her into doing so. She managed to keep her blood magic a secret for a while before she used it out of desperation during the mission with the dignitary, forcing her to leave the Shadow Dragons. She encountered Varric during the mission, and impressed with her determination, he recruited her to his cause to find Solas, because "I've met enough weird people to be used to this shit. Oh, Daisy would love to meet her."

Personality

Shani regularly puts on a mask. To the world, she is a charming, funny and charismatic elf who's main priority always seemed to be to put a smile on people's faces. She has a sarcastic streak to her, and always seem to have a comeback ready. No one would know how she manages to hit where it hurted the most, or come up with some of the most hilarious comebacks she can.

Shani is also someone who cares deeply about justice. It was one of the reasons she joined the Shadow Dragons in the first place, having idolized them the moment she first met one. Shani wants to be able to make a change for people like her, especially elven slaves, and takes her work as a Shadow Dragon very seriously.

Deep down, however, she is a shy, frightened girl, a side only few people have seen. Everything about the scenario frightens her, she wonders if she annoys people or makes things awkward unintentionally and she is ashamed of the past and wants to go back to the life she had of care-free exploration. But she has to put on a brave face for everyone. To the entirety of Thedas and beyond, Shani is their last hope.

[deilmo]

The first freed elvhen

"He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face."

The recent discoveries made about ancient Elvhenan revealed a story painted with much more gray areas than was first believed. Some of these new historical documents depicts Fen'Harel as a liberator of enslaved elvhen, removing their markings and welcoming them at his side to fight the Elvhen gods' seemingly tyranical and crazed leadership.

While the veracity of these discoveries are yet to be proven, it has irremediably changed the field of Elvhen studies moving forward. Some historians hope to find written records to link to this new discovery. While unlikely, as the Elvhen seemed to favor frescoes to teach the illeterate masses, a record of the freed slaves could help historians draw a tangible timeline of the late days of the empire. Similarly, crawling back up those same records to the first freed elf could help scholars to single out the trigger that launched Fen'Harel into action.

Professor Bram Kenric - 9:49

-

Useless details to throw at you:

Solas is wearing an archer's armor, hence the gloves, the forearm brace, half plate and single shoulder pad concentrating on one side. Legends in game describe him as a warrior, an archer, and Inquisition as a mage so i picked an archer. Though I picture him more like those veil jumpers archers we've seen in DA4 multiple trailers that seem to use a mix of archery and magic.

His hair ornament is inspired by Mythal's statue in Trespasser having a reversed moon instead of her head

Yes, his scars are there, and they're fresh!

I tried to recreate a lonely and isolated feeling that I think would illustrate the sadness of Solas freeing himself. Alone. As the trailblazer, no one would have been there for him except himself

There's two version of this drawing but I'm posting this one first because it's closer to the vision I had

This idea is at least a year old, I remember making a thumb-sized sketch in a corner of a work sheet when I had it, then promptly forgot about it until this week-end. I ended up drawing it while watching the XBOX Showcase live.

[apothe-cary]

Companion Au: Liana Mercar

Origins

Where do you find them?

Liana can be found in the Shadow dragons hide out sitting in the little lounge area where the Eluvian is.

What’s their recruitment mission?

Liana Finds information about slavers traveling to Minrathous. She is highly against it and moves to end the slavers. Liana gets a team together and having heard about the Veilguard personally reaches out to rooks team.

What’s their skill for recruitment?

Liana is a healer, that is her main skill and works a lot with the blight in particular. She specializes with working to heal those blighted in her research. While there’s no break through she can at least delay blighted companions.

What’s their companion Campaign?

When dealing with the slavers in her first companion mission with her. The Head of the operations get away but they saved the people and it was a choice to chase them or leave the people. Liana chooses to save the people. She talked to Neve about getting more information with what they got from the people they freed. Liana then uses the information about their whereabouts and find out they are hiding in Antiva. She tells rook to help her end them which they do and save another dozen people. Who were suppose to replace the other freed slaves.

Dialogue

Combat

When rook kills an enemy:

“Remind me not to piss you off.”

“Oo that one was so nice!”

If Liana is romanced:

“Did I ever tell you how much I admire your work?”

“Maker must have blessed me.”

Injured Companions

If Rook is hurt:

“I’ll get ya patched up, okay?”

“Quick Fix! I’ve got ya!”

if Liana is romanced:

“Dear..please stop making me worry.”

“Makers Breath, don’t worry I’ll tend to you personally!”

Banter

If Liana is romanced:

Harding: You know you’re weirdly cheerful with rook?

Liana: What?! I’m always cheerful and maybe I just like being extra happy with rook

Harding: More like extra sappy

Liana: Oh? Like you and Taash? Wouldn’t kill you guys to be quieter.

Harding: LIANA!

Liana: -singy song- that’s what I thought!

If Liana is romanced and there was a sex scene:

Rook: I was scared you know? Losing you. You push me forward with that brightness

Liana: Rook, I can only shine this bright with you. You’re so much more than your fear. And I’m here every step of the way. I was scared too. But I believe and kept believing your place is right next to me. And thank the maker you came right back to where you should be

Flirting with other companions

Davrin: You’ve never been in a relationship?

Liana: it’s not so much that, it’s the physical part I don’t try without being close to someone

Davrin: So we need to get more physical?

Liana: more talk then we will talk about touch.

Companion Banter:

Davrin: So you and Solas—

Liana: Did you just put me in the same sentence with the rat bastard?

Davrin: Liana you and him—

Liana: Choose your words carefully or you won’t have the manhood you so desperately cling to.

[maxx-the-queer]

Veilguard Spoilers Below, discussing Vallaslin and Ancient Elves, as well as a potential change I'd make to the game's story if I could.

So, the reveal that elves come from spirits that took physical form by taking Titan's blood was very cool but it got me thinking.

We know that spirits can have their nature corrupted and twisted against them to become demons - Justice becoming Vengeance, Wisdom becoming Pride, Determination becoming Spite - and it is pretty much outright stated that Solas himself had his nature changed from Wisdom to Pride by Mythal.

In the time of Elvhenan, the Evanuris would mark their slaves with vallaslin, including Mythal.

Blood magic is one of the few things that can bind demons. We see it with Spite and Lucanis in Veilguard and we see it with Solas' wisdom spirit friend in Inquisition.

Vallaslin translates to bloodwriting, which at first seems like just a fancy fantasy way to say tattoo, but in my mind that seems to indicate Actual Blood Magic.

The vallaslin aren't just cosmetic markings of ownership, they're actual physical blood bindings to allow the Evanuris to control their slaves and prevent them, even as the horrors of slavery twist their spirits into demons, from exercising any free will.

And when thousands of years later, Solas wakes up to find the Dalish wearing those same markings without understanding their history in blood magic, of course he's horrified.

How many years did he spend breaking those same bindings from his people, only to see a pale reflection of them wear them willingly as a cultural badge of honour?

In a worldstate where Solas removed the vallaslin from a romanced Inquisitor Lavellan, the gesture is not purely symbolic. It may very well have been preventative, in case anything like what happened in Veilguard happened and the Evanuris were set free.

Imagine a Thedas where dozens of Dalish suddenly found themselves bound to the service of corrupted Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, where even a Dalish Inquisitor themselves could very well be bound to them.

The Dalish don't just up and leave for promised 'Elven Glory' because they're suddenly all about revenge at any cost. They have no choice but to because of the blood magic hold over them.

I feel like this would have better tied into the themes Veilguard was trying to hammer home with Solas. Having small stakes Dalish villains to contrast with the true overwhelming power of Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain (like Samson or Alexius were to Corypheus), who could be redeemed and freed from their bindings would have strengthened the idea that Solas himself was worthy of such a redemption.

It would have shown Rook, at least one who tried to redeem others, that it was possible and have an actual reason to do so for Solas other than "he feels really bad about it :("

[heroofshield]

Rook Wednesday: Faction

How Did Your Rook Join Their Faction

The Lords of Fortune attacked the slave ship that she was on, freed everyone once the captain & first mate were killed and said that if anyone could join the Lords if they wanted to. Zea decided that being with them was better than nothing. Also she liked the bright and flashy outfits they were all wearing so she figured that given enough time, she'd be dressing like them as well.

What's Their Relationship Like With Their Faction Leaders

Isabela was on the raid that freed Zea, and the red hair plus sharp comebacks for almost everything reminded her of Hawke so she decided to keep an eye out on the newest recruit. Didn't want to seem like she was playing favorites, so she let others train Zea but made sure that she was on her first raids and showed her a few tricks that she didn't tell just anyone.

The relationship was still somewhat formal, but Isabela gave her a ribbon for winning her first Hall of Valor fight and if she found any books always sent them her way since Isabela knew how much Zea liked to read.

It did sour when Zea had to be sent away, and she spent the longest time being angry at Isabela- but when she goes back to Rivain during the game, the anger is mostly in the past and she's glad to see her old mentor (they still have an informal fight in the hall of valor over it though).

Why Did They Get Sent Away? Does It Follow The Reason Ingame Or Is It Something New

Same as in-game. Zea has A Thing about not leaving people behind, so when the Rivaini noble wanted to...well she didn't want them on the trip anyways. She's more upset over the fact that she couldn't plead her case to Isabel (she was in the Lords's infirmary recovering from injuries related to said incident) and was hastily told that she needed to leave and not really given a full explanation. Isabela did write her a letter to explain everything, but Zea didn't read it at first because it just made her angry. All she knew was that she was being bundled out of the encampment in the dead of night and told that Isabela's friend who had also been on the treasure hunt was going to help them.

It was only midway through their Solas Hunt did Varric tell Zea how he knew Isabela and the highlights of some of their hi-jinks in Kirkwall. Then she read the letter from Isabela and realized why she'd sent Zea away (that and some personal items finally made it to Zea and seeing that it was from Isabela made her soften).

If They Could Join A Different Faction, What Would It Be

Shadow Dragons 100%. Her anger/unresolved issues regarding her time in slavery means that she'd be an easy recruit for them (although that would also lead to the reason SD!Rook got booted from them as well, because she wants it to go up in flames). Also her book knowledge would be a bonus because who else would want to read some thick book for hours? Tarquin would like her if only for that reason.

@anderfels

[hoboblaidd]

random headcanon question: Where does Solas sleep during Inquisition? Is it that couch? Does he just collapse at his desk sometimes? Or is there a bed secreted away somewhere we don't see?

For a while I thought it was the couch, but thinking about it it's too exposed. Sleeping out in an open air rotunda with at least three points of access is not going to jive with his rebellion mentality of watching his flank. So I imagine that on the way to Cullen's tower, before leaving the rotunda proper, there's another passageway like that from Josie's corridor down to the cellar. There must be servant's quarters in a fortress that big, and I think Solas dropped his stuff on one of the beds down there and claimed it as his own.

He has his own room, like that of a housekeeper or butler so he has some privacy, but it's nothing fancy. Sparsely furnished, and the woven bedframe and thin mattress provide little comfort. The vermin situation is also not great, though luckily they're higher in the mountains so it's more persistent roaches and rats than the more annoying flying insects.

While he never thought to have belongings, since this was supposed to be a quick fix and then on to the main event of tearing down the Veil, he accumulates a host of dog-eared books, weathered scrolls, dubious artifacts, recovered instruments, etc., as the year drags on. He keeps them all in his organized mess of a room, including whatever notes he took during the day at his desk. He also fills it with paintings - nothing as grand as his rotunda frescoes, but more like those smaller paintings we find during Veilguard, and all over the walls (you can't vandalize a fortress if it was your fortress first). Painting helps him think, or sometimes more importantly, not think, so he's doing it constantly.

He'd never admit this, but he also likes living amongst the servants. Were they 'people' to him when he started in Haven? No. But for thousands of years at the Lighthouse or the elven ruin barracks we find in Trespasser, he's lived among hundreds or thousands of refugees and freed slaves learning what it was to be free. The din of servants talking, laughing, gossiping, etc. is so painfully familiar to him. It's like the best sort of white noise. It helps, too, that most are elven, just because that's how it goes in Thedas. He learns to see them as people, to hear their struggles and their lives in alienages or Orlesian slums. He grows to care for them as well as the nebulous "People" he let down.

Plus, it makes eventually recruiting them as agents or using them as soft spies that much easier, because they all know him as simply Solas, the Inquisition 'advisor' who humbled himself to live amongst them instead of the more comfortable rooms for higher ups. He's one of them. Older and wiser maybe, but just another elf. It's an incredibly useful recruitment tool.

But yes, he’s also absolutely fallen asleep in that ridiculously plush chair in the rotunda.

[ell-vellan]

Okay so I'm trying to piece together from memory all the lore about ancient Thedas and in the correct order of events, with all the details I can recall, because I feel like I'm missing things.

There's plenty of holes, but I'm attempting to follow the thread of logic that leads from one thing to the next, using Solas's memories as a guide - trying very hard to understand the relationships among the creation of the Veil, the Titans and the Blight, and the Evanuris and the Archdemons, and what that might mean about Andraste/the Maker and other implications.

Any input or help is welcome lol

-Spirits use Titan blood to craft bodies for themselves, not realizing that it's blood of living things. These are the first elves, and among them what will become the Evanuris. Mythal coaxes Solas to form a physical body and join her

-in the beginning, Titans roam the earth and shape Thedas to their will, using song that connects them all somehow. Humans and Qunari aren't in Thedas yet. Spirits roam freely in the Fade without the Veil (?) Dwarves may exist underground? exist as part of the Titans, their children.

-the Titans fight back against the use of their blood. Long horrible battle against the elves, where the Evanuris come to power as generals leading the fight. Solas comes up with the idea to sever the Titans from their dreams (whatever this means? Did they have a connection to the fade at some point?) which I guess puts them in endless slumber, becoming part of the earth and letting the earth be still and unchanging for the first time. The severed dreams become the Blight, full of the Titan's nightmares and anger and loss and confusion - though the elves don't yet realize this yet. (?) dwarves possibly arise now, as children of the fallen Titans/their spilled blood/dreams/something. But since the Titans can no longer dream, dwarves can't either, and have no connection to the Fade or magic (despite Titan blood basically powering magic.)

-the Evanuris become powerful tyrants that bind other elves to them as slaves. Solas disagrees with this, Mythal doesn't listen. At some point, Solas burns Mythal's vallaslin from his face, leaving a scar.

-the Blight is a source of great power and destruction. The Evanuris realize they can use it to become like gods, and do. They each bind themselves to a (blighted?) dragon, thus making themselves effectively unkillable so long as the dragons live. (But if this is the case, were non-evanuris ancient elves without dragons also immortal, or just long-lived? And how is Mythal's spirit still alive after Inquisition - didn't get dragon die fighting Corypheus's dragon?)

-Solas leads a centuries-long rebellion against the Evanuris, setting up a network of spies, soldiers, and hideouts all across the Fade and Thedas, to help ferry freed slaves to safety. The growing threat of the Dread Wolf pushes the Evanuris to tap into the Blight (either they started this in response to Solas' war with them, or they ramped up their use, not sure) to defeat him.

-Solas panics, begs Mythal to stop the Evanuris from using Blight. It seems at this point (according to the Solas memory) that Solas is already leading his rebellion as he asks Mythal to leave the Evanuris and join him. She doesn't, but she does approach the other Evanuris about their use of Blight, and they murder her.

-at some point, humans arrive on Thedas from somewhere. In a memory, Solas (as a spirit) said he had no desire to live as humans do, so they must have existed in ancient Thedas as well, somewhere.

-To seal away the Blight, the Evanuris, and the Forgotten Ones(?) (rival elven warlords to the Evanuris) he tricks them all into an ancient elven palace and creates the Veil, which is held in place by their now-immortal lifespans. The Evanuris are meant to sleep forever in this prison. Their dragons go...underground somewhere and Solas forgets about them, or something? And become known as Archdemons.

-Arlathan falls, all ancient elven knowledge and power lost due to the creation of the Veil, elves flee and scatter and lose all culture. It's possible Solas didn't intend for the Veil to surround the entire world, not just the Evanuris prison, or to destroy the elves, but something does go wrong at the end, and Solas is knocked unconscious for several millennia as a result, waking up nearly powerless a year before the Inquisition.

-humans of fledgling Tevinter scavenge what's left from Arlathan to become a great empire ruled by mages. Some mages can freely enter the Fade at will: dreamers, or somniari.

-the sleeping Evanuris can apparently still whisper to human mages in dreams (not sure why some humans can access the Fade and some can't) via the fact that their dragons exist physically in Thedas (?) and influence the minds of somniari. It's through this method they learn blood magic, and the whispers of the Evanuris via the dragons become what the Tevinters call the Old Gods. The Old Gods are given names and worshipped by ancient Tevinter. The Evanuris cajole the magisters to tear open the Veil in order to set them free, and they do so - instead unleashing the Blight. The first magisters, Corypheus among them, are infected by the Blight and become darkspawn. The "Golden City" (the Evanuris prison) is now called the Black City, as it is Blighted.

-Darkspawn are mindless killing machines (a few have some higher intelligence) connected to Archdemons by the song of the Blight, and are driven to dig underground unceasingly to find and free them. Cycles of Blights are unleashed on the world, with Archdemons leading darkspawn in mass world destruction. Grey Wardens are created in response to this threat, possibly influenced by the host spirit of Mythal's wisdom and knowledge of how to kill the Archdemon.

-at some point, a human (possible mage) woman named Andraste is said to be born in the Almarri tribe near present day Denerim, who becomes enslaved, and will lead a revolt against Tevinter. Her story gives rise to Andrastianism. It's hinted that she was a carrier of Mythal's spirit. She was said to have troubling dreams from childhood of a being she called the Maker, a supreme being who she believed abandoned the world when humans began worshipping the Old Gods. According to legend, her singing called to the Maker, and he invited her to his side, and she would encourage him to rejoin humanity and forgive them. Ashes reportedly belonging to Andraste were protected by at least one guardian spirit and had curative properties. The Chantry becomes the dominant religion of humans in Thedas.

-At some point, Qunari come to northern Thedas, chased from their home by something called "The Devouring Storm," and begin a long-standing war with Tevinter. A select few are born with the dragonlike ability to breathe fire, and dragons are held as sacred as anything is held in their culture.

-During the events of the Inquisition, Solas becomes very upset at the very idea of Grey Wardens, calling them fools who are bad at battling the Blight. He asks Blackwall what the Wardens intend to do when the last Archdemon is slain. He says, "Without the Archdemons, there can be no Blight. Is that the reasoning?" Blackwall confirms it is and asks where he's going with this. Solas says mildly, "Nowhere. I hope they are correct."

-Morrigan is able to use a ritual that captures the soul of a slain archdemon, untainted by Blight, into an embryo of a child fathered by a Grey Warden. (Is this the fragment of the Evanuris that was put into the Archdemon? And where did it go when it was taken by Mythal - and then, both presumably taken by Solas? Did he simply gain their power and wisdom?)

-With each Archdemon slain over the course of Theodosian history, the Evanuris assumably become mortal and die - thus the Veil must have grown weaker around the Evanuris prison, allowing more Blight to escape. Likely this is what so worries Solas?

From all this it seems it goes something like: Titan blood leads to Evanuris. Evanuris taking Titan blood leads to war. War leads to creation of Blight and destruction of Titans. Evanuris using Blight leads to Archdemons and then the Veil. Archdemons lead to Old Gods, Tevinter, the Black City, and darkspawn. Darkspawn unleash Archdemons, leading to Blights. Killing Archdemons leads to Veil weakening, freeing Evanuris and more Blight. End goal of Evanuris = ??? Blighted world??

Regardless, everything is Solas's fault.

Question I still have:

-What were the Archdemons attempting during each Blight - were they being directed by the Evanuris, or simply mindlessly, furiously destroying the world out of pure Titan anger and rage and revenge? If directed by the dreaming Evanuris, what was their end goal? Revenge on the world?

-If Solas never bound a dragon to his life force, why is he still immortal? Were all elves immortal because they were connected innately to the Fade? We know Felassan also survived into the modern era.

-Why is all this revolved around dragons, why are they special like this?

-If anything about Andraste was true, who was she getting visions of in her sleep? If she was a carrier of Mythal's spirit, was she getting some of Mythal's memories about Solas?

-There were hints that griffons were already in existence before Ghilan'nain made her creatures, and that they had a special hatred of darkspawn and the Blight. Why?

-if the Inquisitor goes with Solas into the Fade, is she going to now be immortal?

-Solas was able to cure the Blight from his red lyrium dagger. How? And how does he plan to call the Blight in the Fade? I assume it has something to do with atoning for his part in its creation, but...how? We know a select few cases where the Blight was cured from objects and people, but not HOW.

-the red lyrium idol. First, what WAS it? Did it depict Solas and Mythal? Why was it blighted and underground? Tbh, I'm sure a lot of this is just something they had to hand wave away for game mechanics and story purposes but I want to UNDERSTAND.

[sweatandwoe]

bioware da:v stuff

Ohhhhhhh, I forgot about it being multiplayer originally urrrggHHGGG nightmare nightmare

EA/BIOWARE execs I hate your flaccid brains.

They do claim to "have a mastery of the frostbite engine now" but an RPG should never have to be forced into that FIFA engine! It looks so "bloomy" & waxy, the camera jerks around to be "immersive" when the character runs. It feels like they were told to keep adding post processing effects so some suit could say he punched it up.

I still hope the gameplay will be fun/wellmade but I have to admit I personally don't care about how heavily the story is going in on elves as the one important™️ race to the world setting.

I'm playing BG3 & DOS2, trying to tell myself I can't compare Bioware to Larian as they are very different styles of RPG studio but oogh more time passes & the more I enjoy the way Larian does it. As an ancient Bioware game fan, it stings.

BIOWARE CRITICAL (I ranted more than I thought)

Frostbite Engine is probably why we also got an art direction change, that feels closer to Fifa. It wouldn't surprise me if that's also where the hair physics comes in, as Fifa does have that. It doesn't look bad to me, however, I saw someone describe it as Pixar-lite and I can never unsee it. Also, the Megamind Qunari was certainly... a choice.

Also Frostbite used mostly for multiplayer games and the scrapped live service/multiplayer DA game, also got used here. From just a lot of elements that I don't wanna go into here (this post is already very long)

I think the combat actually looks fun but I've seen people call it CRPG still and no, it's an action RPG. I wouldn't expect anyone to go and expect BG3 combat (Or story elements). I do wonder if it'll get old quickly though, and also that the monster designs aren't scary at all and look really goofy. The Ui/hud stuff during fights is also pretty messy and I hope they have options to remove things from it at launch.

Putting the rest under a readmore, I went in depth lmao

Elves are taking certain front, but also it feels like in a weird direction. We're in Tevinter, Dwarves have strong relations with Tevinter but there isn't even a faction related to them? Also, we have a high focus on the elves, which is to be expected with the plot of the last game.

But also we're in Tevinter and I haven't seen, ya know, any mention of the slavery, which elves are a major portion of. Like none of the ads talk about it (which could make sense). No articles I see mention it. It feels... weird. Especially given we're seeing Solas' backstory in this game, and how he freed slaves was important to his character but yeah little to no mention of it

That being said I also have heard nothing about the story spoilers, besides what some people posted on Twitter, and it was scraps. A lot of people who just played the first 7 hours, are releasing their reviews and say the story is good, but won't go into details because of spoilers? Make a spoiler video, I'll watch it, but I wonder if Bioware/EA didn't allow the mention of any story elements to preserve "their surprise choices" (and any story elements hardcore fans would get pissed at)

FOLLOWING IS A SMALL SPOILER (TWO LINES) FOR VEILGUARD, I think it's important to see before you buy it but BE WARNED

God this line pisses me off so much

Solas should have negative traits, actually, and make huge mistakes, like he was known to do in the last DLC released, a decade ago. No matter how many plans he has, he usually fucks it up by going too big.

He literally was chumming it up with Mythal, "she was the best of them", yet here he is pointing at (probably) her and Elgar'nan as they become Gods. I think making him fully against the system from the start and not someone who once enjoyed some benefits of the system, even if he didn't engage in the slavery aspect of it, to become friends/rivalry with the Evanuris but as they grew in power, and eventually murdered the only one of them he considered actually good, the light bulb went off in his head, is like, really a big character retcon to me.

Despite how bad they were, Solas didn't want to lock them away. He despised and loved them. He never killed them, he couldn't, either do to his limited power or due to his friendship with them. He loved his People, that he would cast everything he loves, all away for their freedom.

And when he returns, he doesn't even see the Dalish as elves. He think he's failed them and wouldn't care if they all died, if he could bring back the power to restore his People, even if it means bringing back the Evanuris. And if they go "well he was going to break the veil without trying to actually awake/unlock them", that is dumb writing. He understands that they are the consequences that he will unleash onto the world at the end of DAI and that he thinks life with magic is better to bring back the People, even at the cost of the world itself or the People's freedom at that. The People who he doesn't even consider are modern elves. He doesn't give two shits about modern elves, only the ancient ones he's lost. He seems them as his failures and instead of, ya know, actually trying to help them regain their lost cultures and lands he jumps to "actually you all are horrifying, you can die while I regain my own world"

The Elf!Inquisitor is the only elf he truly sees as a person, the potential to be a member of the People in his eyes. Everyone else is a fool or a tool to him.

BG3 and DSO2 are such healing things for the RPG fantatic soul. They have their problems, but the quality is so much higher than I ever expected to see. The way choices actually matter and have direct consequences in the one game vs having to wait until the sequel to see if collecting ten bear asses for that one dwarf lady gets you a special dialogue option.

Larian has got my support always, they made DSO2 so good, that I pre-ordered BG3 all the way back in Oct 2020. I have no desire to ever pre-order another Bioware game, except maybe some remasters.

[sun-marie]

HI if you're still taking prompts, 9 and 14 for Calypso? c:

helloooo thank you for the ask!! <333

9. Does Rook have a ‘day job’? If so, what is it? Does it help the Shadow Dragons, or is it just to keep up appearances/make enough money to make ends meet?

Hmm, after thinking about it, I think she's probably a full-time Shadow Dragon by the time she joins the Veilguard, trying to live simply and doing her best to stretch her savings from both her previous jobs (which ranged from the mundane construction worker to the exciting, but time consuming, falconer's assistant) and a bit of money her parents gifted her after she first moved out to help her get on her feet. Maintaining a job as a Qunari in Minrathous was no easy task, and wearing a hood only did so much for so long. When she first joined the Shadow Dragons, she was working as a line cook at the Cobbled Swan, but found the strain of both was too much for her. She has dedicated a great deal of her life to making Tevinter a safer place for people like her, and being sent to the Lighthouse with Neve by Tarquin was a small blessing after the Minrathous attack.

14. Does Rook like traveling with Varric & Harding? What do they think of each? What do they think of the mission to stop Solas? Were they worried about returning to Minrathous as part of the mission?

Joining the team shortly after Minrathous was sacked, Calypso never met Varric 🥲 If she had, I think she'd have liked him well enough, though probably found his penchant for tall tales a little irritating. She likes Harding though! They bond a lot over both being scouts I think, and she finds herself fascinated with Fereldan cuisine (which she is unfortunately only exposed to through. Harding 💀)

While Calypso is 1000% on board to take Elgar'nan and especially Ghilan'nain down, she has mixed feelings on doing the same for Solas. Sure, if he's really trying to destroy the Veil, she obviously doesn't want that to happen. But she also remembers the slave-liberation jobs she's gone on in the past where said slaves were already freed by the time they got there, citing "The Dread Wolf" as their savior, or the agents of Fen'harel she's crossed paths with who gave the Shadow Dragons vital information on the Venatori. And if he's helping Rook in the fight against Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, then surely he can't be that bad. She's probably the most sympathetic person to him on the team, besides maybe Harding, and the only part she really has issues with is the "destroying the Veil" part.

Rook Origin Prompts: Laidir (Lydia) and Mercar (Calypso)