#arlathan fell so deep onto the ocean floor

[andarateia]

UNDERWATER LOCATION IN DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD? "On the second day she drowned the giants of the sea, except those in deep waters, for they were too well-wrought, and Pride stopped her hand." Codex: The Ascension of Ghilan'nain

There's an eluvian in the middle of the ocean, and underwater elven ruins. Could these be related?

[felassan]

The Slightest Ones bard song:

Arlathan fell so deep onto the ocean floor

Dalish elven lore:

"It is said that the Tevinter magisters used their great destructive power to force the very ground to swallow Arlathan whole"

The Adventures of the Black Fox by Gaston Gerrault:

"The stories all agree that, at some point, the Black Fox disappeared: He and his fellow adventurers voyaged into the heart of the Arlathan forest seeking the sunken city of the elves and never returned"

Solas dialogue:

"Imagine [...] palaces floating among the clouds."

Codex entry: Vir Dirthara: Homecoming

"a city of glass spires so deeply blue they ache. The city's outskirts are wrapped in lakes of mist, and figures stroll along the pearly, glowing strips as if they walked on solid ground [...] other elves walk below a river churning along an invisible shoal in the air."

Tevinter tries to mimic some ancient elvhen magic and Minrathous has a floating castle.

Location in Dragon Age: The Veilguard -

Arlathan Crater: one, two, three

Definitions of "crater":

- a landform consisting of a hole or depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet - a bowl-shaped pit that is formed by a volcano, an explosion, or a meteorite impact

Was the city of Arlathan a floating city kept aloft by ancient elvhen magic in a way that was intrinsically dependent on the presence of the Fade, and when the Veil was erected, with that tie severed it crashed to the ground like an asteroid? Did the ground swallow it whole? When Solas created the Veil, in that reshaping of reality was it physically spacetime-displaced deep into the heart of the Fade? When he made the Veil, did it "fall" (warp) into the Deep Roads like the elven library found by Genitivi in Genitivi Dies in the End? Did it fall to the bottom of the ocean? Did it fall into the other ocean, the Fade (the "Waters of the Fade", "the sea of dreams", the "emerald waters", "vast oceans, containing not water, but memories")? The Fade sort've reflects reality and is shaped by dreams, so is The City [by this I mean The Golden/Black City] the Fade-mirror-image or echo of Arlathan as opposed to literally physically it? the wild and fun thing about Dragon Age is that more than one of these things could be true at once.

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[elkattacks]

I'm ambling through another run of Trespasser and noticed a tavern song I don't think I've ever heard before? It's called "The Slightest Ones"

This song includes the lyrics:

"Mercy for the elves who guard their lives with faith

Our hands do weight them down, but their kind hearts will forgive the weight

Arlathan fell so deep onto the ocean floor

Currents of hate will so challenge their fate"

And: "When the slightest unite, then a giant will rise"

Arlathan fell.. to the ocean floor?? 👀 how has this piece of information eluded me? Every time I play I feel like I learn something new. Also that seems.. really interesting regarding the new DA4 trailer we got.. "a giant will rise" oh boy..

Full lyrics from the wiki: https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/The_Slightest_Ones

[ettesims]

Mercy for the elves, Who guard their lives with faith. Our hands do weigh them down, But their kind hearts will forgive the weight. Arlathan fell so deep onto the ocean floor, Currents of hate will so challenge their fate.

[felassan]

Do you think that DA4 (or future games) can present different plans and realities besides the physical world and the Fade already known? In Tevinter Nights Dorian recalls a story he heard about creatures that are beyond the veil. Could they come from a different place? The Void for example? And what do you think of Thedas owning an underwater kingdom \ nation \ empire (like Atlantida) ?

Hello! This answer is under a cut due to length.

I think it’s possible, it feels like that’s what was being hinted towards in Luck in the Gardens in Tevinter Nights:

He looked pensive. “I was at a party with one of those necromancers from down south a while ago. Five cups in, she went on about things ‘past the Veil of our world,’ neither demon nor spirit. Perhaps it wasn’t the tipsy nonsense I assumed it to be.”

“Past the Veil of our world” could either mean in the Fade (which is on the other side of the Veil to the mundane world), the Void and/or* a different plane/dimension. The cekorax had eldritch abomination, illithid, Lovecraftian-vibes (which is to say, being-from-another-plane vibes). Perhaps it came from some frightening part of the Deepest Fade, but the Void feels like a great candidate for its place of origin, and when I read it I got the sense that it came from someplace other than the Fade itself. Other dimensions and planes isn’t an out-there thing in the lore either; the Crossroads is only one of the “places [in]between” and is a separate place beyond both the Fade and the mundane world, and the ancient elves were able to use their magic to create such pockets with their own rules of reality, from the very fabric of space and time. The time angle also reminds me of the alternate reality future we saw at Redcliffe and the time magic involved in In Hushed Whispers.

I’d be on-board with it being a thing in the next game too as the concept is so interesting. Wouldn’t it be cool? Something like the Wood Between the Worlds in The Chronicles of Narnia, only instead of ponds it’s eluvians which are the portals to different places.

When it comes to Atlantis and Thedas I’m always reminded of what is thought in-world to have happened to Arlathan! - “Arlathan fell so deep onto the ocean floor”, and the Tevinter history which says that the ancient magisters used magic to force the ground to swallow Arlathan whole. There’s also the mystery of the Executors... where do they live, why did the one we’ve encountered take such great pains to conceal its appearance, and why do they smell so strongly of the sea? “Those across the sea”, the wavy line sigil... There’s lots of things that they could be, but I can’t say that I’ve never wondered if they’re like, a race of sea-people lol. The “waters of the Fade” / Fade as the “sea of dreams”-stuff hints though that “water/sea” isn’t always literal but a metaphor/way of describing the Fade (or its essence?), so that loops back around to 1) the place Arlathan was ‘sent’ to is somewhere in the Fade i.e. it’s the Black/Golden City and 2) entities which are neither spirit nor demon (Executors don’t seem like either of these things) coming from the Fade or beyond it, and now my head hurts. :D

*and/or here because it’s not clear what or where exactly the Void is