#Thedosian Artists

[daflowerzine]

APPLICATIONS OPEN

Contributor applications for 🌷ARDENT BLOSSOM🌷, a Dragon Age flower zine, are now OPEN!

We're looking for artists and writers to help us explore the world of Thedas through the lens of flowers and floriography. Mods envision something in the classic style of Victorian floriography or botanical guidebook, with the lore and characters tied to the cultural meaning or context surrounding Thedosian flowers. We can't wait to see all your ideas!

Reblogs & signal boosts are appreciated.

Application Period: Oct 14 - Nov 11

🎨ARTISTS: [LINK]

📝WRITERS: [LINK]

📒 GUIDELINES: [LINK]

[quitefair]

Dragon Age Lore Breakdown: Gereon Alexius

Started working on my accursed DA fic again, and the research rabbit hole led me down the In Hushed Whispers path. And I found out a bunch of things about this dude that I realised I never knew before.

Anyway, ramble under the cut.

Before he became a Magister, Gereon Alexius was first and foremost, a researcher of magic. One that was trying to push the boundaries of what magic could do, particularly in the field of ‘traveling through and controlling both time and physical space’.

His research partner (and eventual wife) was Livia Arida, a researcher who focused specifically on the Veil.

Gereon’s father, Magister Alexius, was your typical Tevinter upper class dude – focused on power and bloodlines and image. House Alexius wished Gereon focused less on the theoretical and more on magic with practical uses.

Gereon's father thus gave up his post as Magister to his nerdy ass son in the hopes that he would become more invested in politics like he himself was.

Instead, Magister Gereon used his position to ‘became a tireless champion of education, criticizing his peers for pouring the Imperium's funds into the war with the Qunari at the expense of the Circle and demanding better schooling and institutions of higher learning for the Soporati.'

His codex entry is more telling of his backstory and character than anything he's displayed in game lmao.

He continued his research in a diminished capacity, and subsequently married his long-time sweetheart and research partner Livia Arida. He also took a position as professor of thaumaturgy at the Minrathous Circle.

[They use the word ‘thamaturgy’ here very liberally, and I’ve not seen this anywhere else in my Dragon Age research. We all know the DND connotations, but I would like to take the meaning of the term as ‘boundary breaking magical research’, since that’s what Gereon is known for. Like idk the Thedosian equivalent of fringe science.]

[[This also assumes a scientific hierarchy within the study of magic within Imperium society, which I doubt they will explore in DA4, but gods that would be so fucking fascinating.]]

Anyway, Gereon and Livia had a son, Felix. Despite both his parents being mages, and particularly gifted ones at that, Felix was a very weak mage, one that could only cast very simple spells and with great effort.

Gereon’s father saw Felix as a weak link, described him as ‘just barely more than a Soporati’. Because of this, he tried to have Felix assassinated. Typical Magister behaviour.

Livia, being absolutely… livid (yeah I went there lmao), intercepted the assassin, and in turn, fucking had Gereon’s father assassinated instead. This ensured Felix's safety and secured Gereon as head of House Alexius.

Anyway, if it wasn’t clear how much Livia and Gereon loved Felix, you should know by now. Since he couldn't learn much magic, they brought in tutors from all fields – history, art, music, literature, etc, ensuring that anything the boy could study was offered to him on a silver platter.

And although Felix wasn’t a powerful mage, he seemed to have inherited his parents’ analytical minds, and therefore was a gifted mathematician. Recognising this, his parents sent him to study at the University of Orlais.

In the meantime, both Gereon and Livia continued their boundary breaking research. At this point, they decided to take on assistants and apprentices, since they could not involve their son in their research.

While Livia took on ‘half dozen of the most promising young students of the Fade and the Veil throughout the Imperium’, Gereon chose only one apprentice.

You know who it was.

So they continued their research – with Gereon and Dorian focusing on breaking the boundaries of magic itself, while Livia and her apprentices sought to determine the effects of such magic on the Veil. Kind of like an unstoppable force vs immovable object situation.

[There's also what I can only assume is an artist's rendition of their notes in The World of Thedas 2, which is... well.]

[The description included: Careful study is paid to the eyes of the nug. Based on the drawings and a limited deciphering of the text, the author seems all but obsessed with understanding what animals see and how this might differ from our own perception of reality.]

[[Edit: apparently the images above aren't from Gereon's notes, but from a book called Grim Anatomy. Dissecting this book is a whole nother post so we'll leave it at that.]]

They were apparently super close to a breakthrough. But we can’t have nice things in Thedas, can’t we?

In 9:38 Dragon, Gereon and Livia travelled to Orlais to visit Felix. As the family travelled back to Minrathous (or Hossberg - Dragon Age is never consistent with the lore), they were attacked by hurlocks. For some reason, Gereon wasn’t with his wife and son when this happened.

Livia is killed and Felix is tainted.

Gereon is obviously filled with survivors guilt, the grief of losing his wife, and the fear of now losing his son to the taint. He stopped caring for anything other than his son’s health, and this affected his relationship with his research, and by extension, Dorian.

This led to an argument over how distant and strange Gereon was becoming, and eventually Dorian parted ways with Gereon.

In the gap between this and the events of Inquisition, Gereon is now part of the Venatori. It can be assumed that the reason he joined was because of promises made that the Elder One can save Felix from death.

[We can probably extrapolate that Gereon somehow understands that Corypheus is a darkspawn, and so that adds to the weight of his belief that Corypheus can cure Felix.]

It is this time and space bending research that is the foundation of In Hushed Whispers.

Once Gereon is defeated, you can judge him in Skyhold. If you decide to take him in as an agent, he can continue his research for the Inquisition. (Though canonically all it yields is this amulet. Which isn't even unique, you can get it in random loot drops anywhere. Sad.)

[fatalexmonstrum]

Worldbuilding: Pre-Veil

Important character info for DA!Verse that is private; unless discussed that you know this fact or explored.

Kar is primordial liminal spirit that now straddles the Fade and the waking world. They have an affinity towards the dark and deep. Think of the void of space or deepest depths of the sea, those are what they evoke. Not inherently in the evil sense– the Thedosian equivalent to a chthonic entity meets more elder one (who likes people too much to act entirely on their nature). One could not fully comprehend everything, and trying to would be an enormous task. They are clearly something old, something powerful.

And yet, you could say she is an aspect Inspiration or Innovation. Fueled by innate drive, or need for pushing the boundaries of the world. The Promethean spark, so to speak. Drawn to and inspiring artists, scientists, rulers, etc, ideally for good, but somewhere along the line it can be twisted against her intention.

And her breadth of skills an knowledge is that she just spent centuries fucking around and keeping busy while unwittingly inspired some scholar to write that revolutionary theory, or motivated some radical to cause that revolt.

As for her time before the Veil I'd like to keep vague, mostly because I have not fucking clue what direction to go without people getting annoyed or what I want from that.

I DO want to keep the whole "spirit forced/coerced into a body during their conflict with those over the sea" part of her past-- but which Evanuris' court would she best fit? Elgar'nan and Ghilin'nain could be obvious, but as she's a inspirational-type being, could she not fit just as well with June or Sylaise? So that's vague until I get a better vibe.

Regardless, she's freed in the rebellion, and basically sundered from her memories to keep her from becoming altered/corrupted, something something shit happened during the creation of the Veil so she can't remember shit before the Fall of Arlathan-- things to hammer out with people as I write I guess.

What does she learn regaining those memories? How she works through it? Those I'd like to explore with my partners, I hope.

[thedosianarchiveszine]

Hello fellow Archivists! We would like to introduce @silverdelta , an artist contributor for this issue of Thedosian Archives.

Twitter

[felassan]

Nevarra (Nevarra City?) in Dragon Age: Absolution

Nevarra City, a Nevarran tomb and Cumberland from World of Thedas

(ノ°▽°)ノ the Absolution artists referenced existing Thedosian architectural styles

[wintercourtart]

Yawelor Adaar, belonging to @thedosian-cabbage

Had a lot of fun with this, also used her as an excuse to test some color stuff, for the most part, it went well, considering I don’t know shit about color.

White sleeves because I like the idea of blood mages with white sleeves. If anyone can get bloodstains out it’s a blood mage so it’s fine.

[ao3feed-fenders]

listen, the snow is falling

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/f8mPp3R

by Anonymous

Fenris sees snow fall for the first time.

Words: 0, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Anders (Dragon Age), Fenris (Dragon Age)

Relationships: Anders/Fenris (Dragon Age)

Additional Tags: Art, Fluff, Snow, Snuggling, the artist took liberties with thedosian weather phenomena

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/f8mPp3R

[dragons-and-ages]

Planning out the new worldstate here…

My best-loved worldstate is Surana->mage!Hawke->mage!Lavellan.

I prefer mages for both gameplay and story reasons. For race, I love the elves, both city and dalish. In terms of romance, I enjoy mages with non-mages, and romance crossing race lines. (Honorary shout-out to the raw, started-from-the-bottom storylines of Brosca and Tabris. I love them so much!)

But… I’m gonna keep this new play-through boring. All human ladies.

Since this is my lore refresh play-through, I’m sticking with humans, as the narrative seems to favor them at times. Particularly in the case of Cousland and how they fit in with the nobility of Ferelden and the sub-plot with Arl Howe. So, yeah. Gonna give up playing a mage warden. Also, with a Trevelyan, I won’t feel as compelled to drink from the well of sorrows as I was with Lavellan. (How dare Morrigan say she was the better option when a Dalish elf is literally standing right there) Even with these deviations, I’m sure I’ll enjoy the play-throughs. They’re all just gratuitous self-inserts and I’m still gonna make all of my favorite choices. I’m a creature of habit.

So we have:

Amalthea “Theo” Cousland (rogue)

Ayesleigh Hawke (mage)

Augusta Trevelyan (mage)

Artemisia *surname TBD* in DA4

Human she/theys with “A” names. I’ll call it my Andrastian worldstate lol. …Although all of them were raised in the Chantry faith, they’re all different levels of non-belief now. I can’t bring myself to play a Chantry lover. Yikes.

Amalthea is one of the names used by Divines and I’m headcanoning that it’s an old Cousland family name, including a use by Teyrna Elethea Cousland for one of her daughters. Also headcanoning that it was Divine Amalthea I who wrote a favorite hymn of Cousland’s mother, Eleanor. However, she(/they) prefers to go by just Theo.

Ayesleigh is, of course, the name of a city. One that was the final battleground of the Fourth Blight. In my headcanon, Leandra chose this name for her first child after Malcolm’s work with the Wardens. He never revealed to his wife what the Wardens had forced him to do, but she was aware that they were instrumental in her release from her father’s house. Also, that makes the Hawke siblings start with A, B, and C in order. Leandra strikes me as the kind of mom to do that.

Augusta, in meta was originally going to be the name for Andraste, which is why one of the months in the Thedosian year is August. I’m headcanoning that Augusta was the name of an early and vocal proponent of the Andrastian faith who lived in the hundred-some years after Andraste’s death and before Emperor Drakon established the Orlesian chantry. The Trevelyan family are very pious and many of their traditional family names I’m sure are taken from ancient Chantry faithful. My Augusta is not super fond of her name, especially since her brother calls her Gussie to get a rise out of her. They often just go by August and is actually a bit relieved when folks start calling them The Herald/Inquisitor.

Artemisia Gentileschi is a favored artist of mine and the name sounds like it could be possibly from Tevinter or Antiva. For now, it’s a placeholder. We’ll see if it changes as more info come out about the DA4 protag.

…I really hope the DA4 human option isn’t a noble again.

[dragonagestoryzine]

Greetings Thedosians! Meet our zine artist, Arimesi! ✨

★  Find him on Tumblr (@arimesi) and Twitter! ★

[chride]

Please say more about thedosian pottery

Oh wow, anon, thank you for asking! I did not just spend my whole Sunday typing this together Long story short, I got inspired by the Great Pottery Throw Down to write a DA:I MGIT fic that features a potter as the POV character. But, the foolish fan of vernacular materials that I am, I didn’t want to simply invent where this person would source their materials, or what type of kiln they’d build, so I went on a deep dive of traditional homestead pottery youtube videos, wrote an essay on raku ware, sifted through my pottery notes from uni, ran around Thedas, read way too much on the wiki, and kind of ended up with this:

A “short” treatise on Thedosian Pottery, or, thoughts on ceramics in the world of Dragon Age

A caveat before we dive in: I am not a geologist, archeologist, environment artist for games nor a potter, but I dabble and am an enthusiastic educated guesser with art teacher and training. If, uh, I’ve made any substantial factual errors let me know. These are pretty much all speculations and observations since the canon lore doesn’t speak much about pottery in any form. I didn’t look at dwarven items however, or visit every area on the map, and I haven’t played all of DA2 or any of DA:O, so there is probably a wealth of pottery I’m not going to go into.

What struck me as perhaps most curious was the lack of specifically ceramic containers in the games. Ceramic wares are so common in cultures around our world that I imagined they’d be plentiful in Thedas as well. But, I came up with a theory around why this is as well:

Metals are common in Thedas, and found as rich ores or minerals close to the surface. As seen in the smeltery of DA2, the world is, while seemingly pre-industrial, manufacturing metals quite efficiently. We see plate and molded metal items such as tankards, pitchers, plates and tin cups almost everywhere from Val Royeaux to Redcliffe, to . These would be generally more durable than crockery, and are apparently quite affordable, which would mean pottery isn’t needed as much. Heck, even the spittoons at the Hanged Man are brass or copper. For less important and sturdy items, wood or glass is used - so there are some wooden cups and wooden cooking equipment, and glass bottles all around (with one exception which I’ll get to).

So, this would mean pottery would be in use mostly by peripheral cultures that perhaps do not have the means for metalworking - and indeed, it’s among the Dalish we find most pottery in the game. Visiting the Dalish encampment in the Exalted Plains, you’ll see there are jugs kept half-way in the ground, perhaps to keep them cooler. The jugs are fairly similar to those that Varric’s room at the Hanged Man contain in DA2, however, so they could just as well be stone as a light-colored stoneware clay. 

Then there are covered pots at shrines. The darkness of the finished urns suggests the material is carbonized red clay; by taking the pots out of the fire when they are red hot and dipping them in water and burning them with combustible materials such as plants. This is a reduction firing; the burning of the organic material uses up the oxygen of the oxides in the clay’s surface. The red ferric iron turns into black ferrous iron, and the pots become black, shiny, more heat-resistant and, most importantly more waterproof, which is important since low-fired clay is generally less waterproof. This type of process can be found all over the world, from Japanese or American-style raku firing, to Etruscan and Greek pottery, to contemporary African pottery. In a nomadic culture in the plains, they would probably be fired buried in a firing pit, which is a fairly slow low-firing process, or a firing pyre, which would allow easier access to the items for the carbonizing process.

The burial urns, as seen for example at Var Bellanaris, are fascinating to me - they got me thinking that perhaps pottery is not so much seen as a practical craft among the Dalish, under June, but more under Falon’Din’s jurisdiction. The urns are also more like an amphora in design in that it is not free-standing, which might be why so many of them are cracked from falling over.

In all honesty though, to test my theory further I went running around Stone Bear Hold and well, for a fairly isolated culture that uses pelts and animal hides in their armor, they sure do have the exact same metal and wood items in their kitchens as Ferelden or Kirkwall homes. So in essence, inconclusive. 

There is one type of drinking vessel that I believe is salt-glazed red stoneware. I did most of my digging for shards in Inquisition, and then thought, hey, I could take a look at what goes on in DA2, and well, it turned out that there’s a lot of recycled assets between the smaller props of the game. The same red container you’ll spot both in Gamlen’s house, in the Black Emporium, and in Var Bellanaris in DA:I. Lore-wise this would mean there’s either a whole bunch of raided Elvhen pottery in Kirkwall, or then the Dalish are okay with some Free Marcher wares in their tombs.

But, I found this one shelf that judging by how the items reflect light, there’s at least one type of thrown, glazed drinking cups in the games (DA2 & DA:I), and I believe they are salt-glazed. The second salt-glazed pottery I could find, would be the Grey Warden ritewine bottles, which there are plenty of at Skyhold:

Salt firing is a kiln-firing technique. In it, sodium is added at the end of the heating process. It vaporizes and condenses on the crockery (any surface really). It can create an orange-peel texture, or the streaky, shiny surface that we see in the game.

All of these items are red clay. Red clay is clay that is iron-rich. It’s easy to build large items from, and quite common in soil. The downside to red clay is that it does not withstand high heats, since it will melt and ultimately boil at high temperatures (past 1050 degrees C) due to the iron. This process of the clay melting is called vitrification, and it starts at around 600 degrees C, and is essential to make the ceramic wares transform from porous earthenware like flower pots to non-porous stoneware or porcelain, like plates or cups.

In Thedas, all of the Ferelden regions have Iron, and therefore I believe these are iron-rich soils and most clay would be iron-rich. However, even areas like the Forbidden Oasis and the Hissing Wastes seem iron-rich judging from how red the soil is (I assume it’s red shale, which is a sedimentary, iron-oxide containing type of rock). You’ll find red clay items in Kirkwall, and Bram Kenric has a flower pot in his window in the Frostback Basin that looks like red clay with a slip decoration. The Avvar have a pretty neat-looking statue next to Svarah Sun-Hair up in Stone-Bear Hold. 

In general, the crafting materials are a completely indecipherable mess pretty wild, and I’m definitely not through with figuring out everything, but areas with Obsidian - a felsic volcanic rock - might be iron-free. We can see some yellow pots in Val Royeaux; they are sturdy, and unglazed, so I assume there’s a sallow earthenware clay somewhere in Orlais as well. There are also some rather fascinating items at the Val Royeaux market place, so who knows - I didn’t have a good save game to run around Halamshiral in. They could be enamel metal items as well, but look like ash glazes to me:

But, what about other clays, like porcelain? Well, my most educated guess is that the continent of Thedas does not quite have it, and doesn’t quite have the craftspeople to create it. On earth, porcelain clay consists mostly of the mineral kaolinite, in its purest, ground form, kaolin, named for the Chinese village of Gaoling where it was first achieved some 1200 to 2000 years ago. It’s mixed with mica or feldspar to form porcelain clay, and fired at temperatures from 1200 to 1400 °C, and can be decorated in wonderful colorful ways. Kaolinite is very common on earth, but pure white kaolinite is not, and figuring out a recipe for a clay that gives the durability, translucency, whiteness and thinness of Chinese porcelain took Europeans very long. 

Still, from running around Thedas I noticed that in the Emerald Graves, many of the pebbles lining the paths are quite bright white. So, with that in mind, it isn’t a terrible stretch that there could be a deposit of kaolinite, and thus a possibility of porcelain. Perhaps those Dalish jugs are porcelain after all?

Anyways, thank you anon for asking! I am of course only speculating with all of these, so don’t take them for fact :’)

[curiousthimble]

Through Another’s Eyes

A CHARACTER MEME, by  Raqonteur 

There are many, many character interview memes out there.  There are short ones, long ones, sexual ones, pretty much every question you could think of has been asked of your OC.  But have you ever thought about what other characters really think about your character? That's the point of this meme.  Choose a character who is familiar with and interacts a lot with your character and answer the questions from their point of view.  Alternatively, your character could answer the questions about another deviant's OC whom they are familiar with.

I’m tagging @elveny, @kunstpause, @thebakinglibrarian, and @padawanhilary

This is pretty long, so I’m putting it under a cut.

King Zeus of Ravenloft enters the room alone- unusual for him, but this is an important interview and he has no intention of allowing anyone else to hear his conversation with Messire Tethras.

And after, he would find out how the dwarf found his way to Ravenloft in the first place. INTRODUCE YOURSELF 01 – What's your name? “King Zeus Vladislav Drakul of Ravenloft.”

“That’s a mouthful,” Tethras chuckles, his quill scratching in his book. “Is your sister’s like that too?”

Zeus gives him a sharp smile and raises an eyebrow. “I was under the impression you already spoke with my sister.”

“She’s...secretive.”

“I know.” 02 – Are you male or female? “Male, although I must say you Thedosians ask this question a lot.” 03 – What age are you? “A gentleman never says.” 04 – Describe yourself. “I have skin so pale I look as though marble has only just learned to blush. Eyes the color of sapphires lit by moonlight. Cheekbones that would cut the lips who dared to kiss them. Silken hair that flows like a river over my shoulders, so pure a white as to make milk curdle with shame. Lips-”

“I think I’ve got it.”

Zeus shrugs. “You asked.” 05 – What do you do for a living? “I speak. Or don’t speak.”

This time the dwarf doubles over laughing. “I understand completely,” he says, wiping his eyes. 06 – Choose five words that describe your personality “Bacchian. Luxurious. Protective. Devastating. Roguish.”  INTRODUCE YOUR SUBJECT 07 – What is their name? “Queen Hera of Ravenloft.” 08 - How do you know them? “We are half of one another.”

“That sounds...odd.”

Zeus shrugs. “And yet true.”

09 – Describe them in three sentences. “She is more stubborn than a mountain, more fluid than the willow tree. She is as timeless and beautiful as a diamond. More dangerous and duplicitous than a viper.”

The quill pauses. “Duplicitous?”

“The longer you know my sister, Messire Tethras, the more likely she is to lie to you.”

“Duly noted.”

PHYSICAL TRAITS 10 – Are they male or female? “Again with the gender.” 11 – How old are they?  “I have no intention of losing my head by telling you.” 12 - Describe them “Have I not done so already? 13 – Do they have any distinguishing features; scars or tattoos? Zeus’ face contorts in a flash of grief before it smoothes back into a peaceful smile. “There is a scar that bisects her eyebrow. It is the only one she bears.” 14 – Are they fit; Athletic.  Do they do any sports? “Incredibly so, but not because of sports. She does enjoy riding, hunting, and the like. She has a great love for dancing.” 15 – What about Illnesses, War Wounds or Physical Disabilities? “The scar is a war wound.” SKILLS AND ABILITIES 16 - What would you say is their best ability? “Her ability to capture the heart and earn its loyalty.” 17  - What do they think their best ability is? “Knowing my sister, she would assume it is something as dull as sex.” 18 - What else are they good at? “She’s quite good at being a queen. She cares a great deal.” 19 - What are they not good at? “My sister is no siren. She will not enrapture you with her voice.” 20 - Do they have any artistic talent? “She has the rudimentary skills taught to us both. It is enough.” 21 - What about Musical Ability? “She plays the lute rather well.” 22 - Are they good at a particular sport? “Riding.” 23 - What about combat; can they fight? “She is the one called the Hero of Ferelden, is she not? Her title speaks to her ability.” 24 - Do they have any... powers or abilities you would describe as supernatural or superhuman? Zeus laughs, showing a flash of a long, pointed tooth. “Naturally. There is nothing about her that is natural or human.” “Nothing?”

“Almost nothing,” he amends.

PERSONALITY  AND INTERESTS 25 - If you had to choose one word to describe their personality; what would it be? “Perfect.” 26 - Can you expand on that? “Can anyone? I would like to see them try.” 27 - What do you like best about them? Zeus thinks a moment, trying to find a word that encompasses “everything” and still answers the writer’s question. “Her heart, I suppose,” he says finally.  28 - What personality trait or behaviour particularly gets on your nerves? “I do wish she would be more selfish. This generosity of hers does get rather annoying.” 29 -  Are they sociable; do they mix well with others? “She is a chameleon, able to fit in with anyone.” 30 - Do they dress well?  Are they Fashionable? “She sets fashions.” 31 - What would you say is important to them? “Me. Her people. Ferelden. That...man,” he sneers.

“Do you mean the King of Ferelden?” Tethras laughs.

“I do. Do not say his name.” Do you know of any deep, dark secrets they keep buried? “Once I could say I knew all of them. But now...your world changed that...and it changed her. There are things she keeps from me now.” 32 - Would you want them as an enemy; What sort of enemy would they make? “The Queen of Darkness? As my enemy? I would sooner have a hive of bees shoved into my wardrobe. Formidable and terrifying are not strong enough words.” YOUR RELATIONSHIP 33 - How did you first meet? “In the womb.” 34 -  Are you friends? “Yes.” 35 -  Are you rivals? “Yes.” 36 - Are you Lovers? “No.”

37 - Do you love them? “Endlessly.” 38 - Do they love you? “Yes.” 39 - Who, if anyone, do you think they are in love with? The sneer returns. “That man.” 40 - Are they currently in a relationship? “I suppose that’s what you might call it.” 41 - Do you like them? “No.” 42 - Do they like you? “I do not care. He will never be rid of me.” 43 – How do you think they feel about children?  “It is not an option for her, sadly.” 44 - What about their family? Zeus opens his arms, indicating himself. “I am her family. And our Uncle, of course, though that is not a true blood tie.” 45 – And finally.  If you could change one thing about them, what would it be? “I would have her love me more than him.”

Tethras clears his throat. “That’s a bit selfish, isn’t it?”

Zeus sighs and waves a hand carelessly. “If you had her love, you would understand.”

[thedosianarchiveszine]

Hello fellow Archivists! 

 We would like to introduce InkdEyes, an artist contributor for this issue of Thedosian Archives.

Twitter

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[labhra-setablaze]

Excerpt From World of Thedas Vol. II

Thedosian Artists: Ambrose Dumont

From A Still Life of Modest Artistic Discernments: Thedosian Artists Through the Ages by Plume

A newly discovered talent, Ambrose Dumont has quickly become a darling of the Orlesian court. Older and of more humble origins than the usual newcomer thus favored by the peerage, he has nonetheless settled into his newfound popularity quite well. Dumont’s patronage now includes many nobles and richer merchants. Indeed, it is rumored that the empress herself has commissioned a unique set of precious woodcuts and prints. Dumont’s work ethic is irreproachable, the volume of his pieces since his ascent to preeminence having fulfilled even the most ambitious of commissions.

Dumont’s determination to craft every single one of his woodcuts, rather than allow an apprentice to handle his work, has drawn the glowing approval of his patrons and a very high price for original woodcuts of his own carving. Though some would argue that the work of Dumont is without equal, it is perhaps hasty to offer him such accolades with other promising artists rising to fame, most notable among them the young Griselda Reiniger. It is, however, absolutely correct to attribute to Dumont the most sought-after trifecta of Orlesian skills: impeccable composition, discerning use of rare materials, and a newly discovered yet dazzling social acumen. One could point to his modest and somewhat drab attire as a possible flaw, but rumors of his consultations with the distinguished clothier Selvages should lay this issue to rest.

Dumont’s gift of an exquisite series of woodcuts to the University of Orlais is now being used as the primary reference for any naturalist wishing to study the philosophy of livestock and other such manner of creatures. A smaller and equally detailed series on the anatomy of nugs can be found in the Great Library of the University of Orlais.

It was briefly rumored that Dumont made use of blood magic to transfer his work to the woodcut with indelible artistic fidelity. These accusations were first levied by the once-notable art critic DeCassoulet during the beginnings of Dumont’s fame. However, no proof was ever brought to light, and DeCassoulet has since fallen from grace after consorting with art forgers.

- World of Thedas Volume 2, page 25

*the above image is sourced from the Dragon Age wiki*

[kurosmind]

5, 6 and 15 for the Artist Ask!! C:

5. Answered here 6. What’s your least favorite thing to draw? 

UH. Vehicles. Perspective. Anything mechanic xD possibly mounts too 

15. How long does an average piece take you to complete? This is very difficult to answer actually. What is my average piece in the first place? It also depends on the amount of details it has and the level of concentration I have (I can’t seem to focus most of the time :/). I’d say something about two  hours for something like this? When I am at my best I can do it in an hour too. But like. That never happens aha 

Artist Ask!