#dao mage tower

[dwarvenwarden]

THE CIRCLE OF MAGI // DRAGON AGE ORIGINS

Finally making some dao gifs :)

[elfsidian]

Spent too long on this, the dream would be to do a piece like this for all my DA OCs :,)

[wyllzel]

alistair has like 20 pixels put together and his hair makes him look like a doofus but why's he kinda... 😗✌️

[endawn]

crazy idea but i’ll change my name to percy for the time being. see how i feel about it idk

[sealeneee]

this might be silly but i like making suboptimal and bad choices in games for characterization and just to make my character less perfect. looking at you zielle

[elek-tavor]

the thing about dragon age is that it doesn't sound fun to try a playthrough doing the opposite of what i usually do / agree with because they barely let me actually do what i want to do. while playing bg3, i wanted to try every possible option in the book, all of them being equally interesting and none of them feeling like "the right thing" or like something the writers were actively pushing. trying the templars route never appealed to me, not because i am incapable of playing a character i disagree with, but because neither da2 nor dai truly allowed me to take the mages route in a way that's satisfying.

[ustalav]

damn ive never asked him for information twice in a row so ive never gotten this dialogue in lothering before?? wild

[apricoctopus]

My comic for the grand total of 5 people who remember how in DAO, if you chose Mage Origin, you could take a possibly cursed staff from the tower basement and then tell Irving that you didn't do it. While holding the staff. I'm replaying DAO now and it's still so much fun. Great game but I didn't remember combat being so annoying.

[inquisitorismone]

ok so the point i was going to make re: the circle tower and ferelden geopolitics was that the fact that all of ferelden only having one single circle, is CRAZY. orlais, a country of similar size, has FOUR; each(!!) marcher city has their own. antiva and the anderfels also have 1 circle each and they are respectively #1 a nation the quarter of the size of ferelden and #2 a barren wasteland of a place. and this is pre-blight! and i can believe that ferelden has a lower population than orlais, but i struggle to accept that ferelden has a quarter the population that orlais does. even nevarra, by all accounts an old and dying state, has 2.

there are clearly templars stationed at many chantries throughout ferelden, but the idea that they could possibly find every single mage in the country and send them to the tower is preposterous. ferelden simply does not have the infrastructure for that, neither to spread out over the whole country to hunt apostates nor to contain them all in one place. (how many people can that tower handle???)

this suggests that ferelden is generally more lax about apostates than elsewhere, which is reinforced both in da2 and inquisition when we get word that alistair (in da2) offered refuge to escaped kirkwall mages in ferelden and that alistair and/or anora (in inquisition) allowed the mage rebellion quarter in redcliffe. you could argue that alistair's decision might have been influenced by the events of dao but anora is (i say this lovingly) a bit of a hardass! rather than being moved by mage assistance in dao i would suggest instead that she is reflecting a larger ferelden attitude towards mages, which is less harsh than orlesian or marcher attitudes

we know that mages in the circle can be called upon in times of war to assist their country's army (i think that was mentioned in dao but it's stated several times in the novels). something to consider, then, is that circles are not only for containing mages and protecting people from them; but they are also for the consolidation of magic as a military power. orlais and the marcher states are creating armies. ferelden, with its sort of implicit acknowledgement that the tower doesn't hold all the mages in the country, lacks that military resource. even in the stolen throne there's only one single mage working on the ferelden side in contrast to quite a few on the orlesian side

which is why it's #1 crazy that the fereldens successfully liberated themselves from orlais #2 crazy that they defeated the blight and, most importantly, it's why you should NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A DOG LORD!!!!!

[vigilskeep]

was looking thru ur old romance polls bc im planning on playing a new surana and im trying to decide whod be the most interesting romance, and i looked at the zevran sweep like huh i guess ppl really have an opinion. completely forgot u used to be zevsurana 😭😭 i know its bc of ur oc but do u have any general surana and zevran thoughts abt whatd make them good together?

i may no longer be tumblr user zevsurana but i am still zevran/surana truther number one

an elf is separated from all family & community & their own kind, and raised and trained in a place where they’re never safe, by people who never had their best interests at heart and who pressure them to betray the ones they love the most. and there’s someone else just like them in this, born worlds apart. but by chance and mishap and devastation they find their way to each other!!! and see a mirror!!! and fall in love!!! gets me every time

surana might never see this, but zevran is the one who most fiercely argues against a warden who tries to annul the circle. he’s got your back. the warden being dangerous is one of the things he admires in them, and no fear of magic or threat of templars could ever make him turn away. not to mention that zev literally approves of you considering making a deal with a demon... the dragon age gold standard of boyfriends for blood mages right here. get u a man who would absolutely steal ur phylactery for u in an instant

i just think it’s crazy to open the story of dao with a mage warden in the fade during their harrowing, the black city looming above with the weight of mages’ guilt, the blights always punishment for their sins, and to have zevran say at the end: for the chance to be by your side i would storm the black city itself. i’d damn the world all over again if you led me there. it would be worth it. wtf. wtf!!!

umm what else... i mean its literally a dashing rogue and tower princess (gender neutral) pairing... what more could u want

[crows-of-buckets]

Arcane warrior being a specialization in dao is so funny considering the mage origin. Guy who has never stepped foot outside a tower left to join the wardens and is now regularly decapitating men. 10/10 no notes

[appleebees]

Like. You grow up in a mostly human environment*. But you're not a human. You go and visit the elves. But you're not elven enough for the Dalish (even though you had no choice) (it's how you were raised). The elves in Denerim's alienage could maybe understand but you haven't lived like they do. There's no place for you there either. And because you're a mage, everywhere you go, no matter if you're an elf or human you are always different from everyone else.

[grinding my teeth] playing as an elven mage in the Circle in dragon age origins captures the feeling of being queer and mixed. And I'm not joking.

[hyperions-light]

Good riddance to that mess: Thank the Dread Wolf we’re done with the Mage-Templar conflict

(because magic in Thedas is more interesting this way)

Okay the people who love conflict have won and I am going to talk about this now lol

I've decided to stick within the framework of the world/story for this particular post, because I think you could talk about the issues with the mages/templars in connection with how they relate to real-life groups for an entire essay AT LEAST, and I want to focus on magic here, so I don't think it's that germane to the discussion. If you all want to talk about that later, I can put it on the pile.

It turns out that Jenny Nicholson was 100% right about the efficacy of numbered lists on the internet, so this essay will be hybridized into a list. Here are the reasons I'm glad the mage-templar conflict is gone and hope it never returns:

It limits storytelling avenues I understand how they arrived at this dichotomy as the logical extrapolation of a minority of people in Thedas being born with magic BUT it's very boring and it doesn't facilitate interesting stories. If you have this strict system and hierarchy that means that every mage has to live in the tower or they're a) a criminal or b) Dalish, that seriously limits the kind of characters you can make who are mages, which is dull as both a player and a writer.

Trying to make it nuanced is difficult Attempting to show that everyone has a point in a situation is difficult when one group has absolute power over the other and can kill them whenever they feel like it. Also, with the abuses the Templars regularly perpetuate against the mages established in DAO and DA2 any attempted justification reads as the story sanctioning an oppressive force. If they try to demonstrate the danger of magic, they end up with the 10,000 blood mage problem from DA2. It's a hard thing to do within the framework they set up, but they also haven't been particularly successful with it, imo, so abandoning it is a better choice.

It's the most reductive version of the conflict Reducing the entire discussion to whether magic is good or evil, whether mages should be free or confined is really boring. It's a false dichotomy that promotes extremism in characters on either side of the conflict who never interact with one another. "Is magic bad?" is a useless and uninteresting question. Who cares? What does it do?; Where did it come from?; What different ways can you use it? are all better questions.

Makes it difficult for the audience to learn more about magic If the only characters the audience ever meets are people who come from the Circle, Dalish mages, and apostates, the amount they're going to learn about different perspectives on magic and its various uses is limited. Part of the reason Jaws of Hakkon was such an interesting DLC for DAI is because the Avvar have a completely different philosophy about magic and spirits. It was refreshing after several games of having the same ideas about magic shoved down our throats to hear someone give a different perspective and ACTUALLY NEW information. Everything I needed to know about the mage-templar conflict, I already knew by the end of DAO, but I had to sit through two more entire games while people discussed it at length.

Magic in the North is fascinating Now that we're finally rid of that conflict, look how many different kinds of magic we get to see in DATV! We get to meet a Rivaini Seer, a Mortalitasi (who can use magic to TALK TO REAL DEAD PEOPLE!!!), a non-Altus mage from the Tevinter Imperium; we get to see magic as it was utilized by the ancient elves and how it interfaces with technology. We got DWARF MAGIC!! Finally, an answer to what Sandal was doing! We found out you can use it to turn yourself into a LICH!!! All of that stuff is so cool, and we had never encountered it before this game! It brings up so many new questions about the nature of the Fade, the source of magic itself, the strength of magic in Thedas relative to other places in the world. And NONE of it could be discussed in the South because they are too busy arguing about fucking towers!!!

tl;dr: The mage-templar conflict was a boring and reductive lens through which to view magic in the DA universe, I'm glad it's gone, I hope they continue what they started in DATV and explore different ways magic can be used in the future.

[endawn]

so, the replacement for vampires in his da verse would be hunger abominations. so, what led to his undeath was him and his men walking into a trap set by what remained of the mythic dawn cultists. who willingly allowed themselves to become possessed by demons in order to have a change to fight the detachment of legion soldiers pax brought with him. keep in mind, one abomination is a massive problem for multiple templars. in this case, the bulk of what they fought were abominations. the mythic dawn no longer had the numbers, so they turned to other means. pax and his men walked to their slaughter.

[valgeristik]

'Tis the dragon age season, and i am here with a DA Oc Lore Post.

Not about every single one of them (yet? question mark?) but a general...timeline. Mostly about Zea and Lora. An explanation of why i keep saying 'its honestly a wonder Zea turned out as well adjusted as they did'

putting it under the cut 👍 it got LONG (also, Veilguard Spoilers Tm closer to the end of the text, so uve been warned)

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So basically, in my heart in my mind all three of my DAO wardens exist at the same time:

Lora (elf mage), Nikolai (dwarf commoner) and Noel (human noble)

(for those unfamiliar with DAO, each of those have their own origin story. i linked the wiki but tbh tbh tbh i highly recommend playing DAO for urself instead. is it old with old graphics? yes. is it an absolute banger regardless? YES.

I tweaked a few things here n there for each of the backstories, but maybe i'll elaborate on that in a separate post. who knows!)

Anyway. Somewhere along the way the team would come across a village in the middle of a darkspawn attack. They get there early enough to save some people, but too late to save the village itself. You know, Blight things.

This is where they'd find Zea, who survived only because, well, turns out they're a mage! and the magic got triggered by the fact that they were sosososo scared. They are also 5 years old at that point in time.

Lora is the one who finds them, which is fortunate, because they DO try to hit her with some lightning. Which she's well-practiced with redirecting. (u know those big AOE elemental spells you can get in DAO? my main tactic while playing as Lora was to just stack those three on top of each other. So.)

Anyway, she calms them down n gets them out of the building that used to be their home. Whatever family they had is dead, and Lora does realize that

1. Zea is a mage

2. and also an elf

So the chances of them being raised in a nice loving environment are pretty low. And let's be honest, Lora would feel incredibly opposed to the idea of this little kid suffering any more than they already did (<- already getting attached)

It's like finding a blind baby bird on the ground and not being able to put it back in the nest.

Zea would also immediately latch onto Lora as the first like. Adult that they can rely on now that their own mother is gone. (i have not thought about their family too much, but leaning towards the idea that they were being raised by a single mother. )

Lora would make them feel safe, even if she isn't the best parental figure, being 19 (JUST had her Harrowing) and this being her first time in her memory that she gets to leave the mage tower and travel the world. And, you know, having to help stop the Blight. She's got a lot going on.

The initial plan is to either find someone in some town who could help, or give Zea to the dalish, possibly. Wynne suggests the mage circle, but Lora is very much against it, for reasons mentioned above. (and some others. like the fact that the Fereldan mage circle was just completely fucking wrecked.)

But they don't find anyone in town, and by the time they get to the dalish everyone kind of decides that it's not been too bad, actually, and maybe the kid should stay with them. Especially because Zea would probably (definitely) cry a lot if they were to be left somewhere with yet another bunch of unfamiliar people.

Zea is pretty much being raised communally. Nikolai is actually the one who's the best at being a parental figure, as Lora...again, does not think of herself as a parent for the longest time. (Which, who can blame her, really)

And Noel is. Well. Noel.

A brief aside.

Zea, being 5, is old enough to remember things from before the darkspawn attack. They would know

their name and surname

exactly two lines from a song their mother used to sing to them when they were scared or upset

enough of their childhood for the memories of it to haunt them on n off forever ✌️

along with other things that will fade away with time, like their mother's face and what her voice sounded like. etc.

Anyway, that is to say, they will develop a habit of singing those two lines from the song to themself when they need to calm down or distract themself or the like. A self-soothing method, if u will. (<- link to a thing i drew about it)

I have this image in my head of this toddler noticing that Lora is having a rough time at some point (maybe just got woken up by one of those archdemon nightmares) and coming over to sing it to her....because even at that young age, they want to help (foreshadowing)

(the song is actually this one bcs those two lines got stuck in my head while i was playing DATV for the first time n then i was like hey. i could use that....... the specific lines are from 0:37 - 0:49, if u care)

Anyway.

The wardens do what wardens do and end the 5th Blight. Yuppie!

The group splits, with some going their own ways, and some sticking together.

Nikolai and Alistair become like the Normal Uncles to Zea, who occasionally babysit them when Lora is off in the deep roads or whatever.

As for their primary caretakers. well.

My opinions have changed many times over the years regarding the question of Who Would Lora Romance.

At first the answer was. No one.

And then i thought it would be really funny if it was Zevran.

And THEN i thought that it would be even funnier if Noel was their occasional third.

She is the cool aunt who comes over a few times a year to give Zea the most expensive ass gift and to flirt with their parents and then fuck off again.

So Zea is essentially being raised by Thedas' weirdest polycule.

No wonder they can't help but disrespect authority. And. Well. [gestures vaguely in their direction] Other Things.

Now, you can sigh with relief, i'm not going to describe every year that follows.

But there are a few Key Events.

1: The Accident

As mentioned before, Lora did not really consider herself a parent. She wasn't cold to Zea or anything, but she did not take a lot of responsibility, and also did not consider how much her actions and demeanor might influence Zea. Who, let's be honest, would kind of end up idolizing the lot of them, but Lora especially.

So, a couple of years after DAO ends (or maybe During? I haven't quite decided yet, but it's before they turn 8), Zea gets it into their head to try and imitate not-mama.

They've seen her stand in the middle of a lightning storm she summoned on the battlefield, and they were like. Well, lightning kinda comes easier than other things, so let me try that too!

And it goes terribly wrong.

They end up almost dying, but Lora is quick enough to react and get them help. (Which, it had to have been someone else. Maybe Wynne. Because I don't think Lora would know or be any good at healing magic, and I'm SURE she felt so normal about that fact in that moment.)

And this is the event that really hits her over the head with the realization of just how much influence she has on the kid.

So, when Zea recovers, Lora takes it upon herself to teach them how to use magic Properly. Which, hey, ends up working out great.

This is kind of a pivotal moment for her, because she realized just how attached she's gotten, and how easy it would be to lose them. And if she becomes a bit over-protective for the next few years...well. Who Can Blame Her.

This is the moment when she starts thinking of herself as a parent.

2: The Talk (the birds and the. archdemon blood)

As mentioned previously, and even several times, I believe, Zea would idolize Lora and the others, and by extension, would think that grey wardens are the coolest people in Thedas.

Zea is also what I would describe as a bright-eyed idealist. They want to leave the world a better place. They want to help people. And most of all, they want to prevent what happened in their home village from happening again, wherever they can.

They also think their mama is Stronger That God And Will Never Die, and they want to be just like her! 🤗

So they voice as much, when they are about 11-12. They tell Lora that they want to become a grey warden when they grow up.

Now, her plan for them was simple: she wants them to live a long and happy life. Which does not go hand-in-hand with being a warden. She also knows she won't be around forever, even if she's actively searching for a way to prevent the Calling. And also also, she couldn't give less of a shit about the secrecy of the order when it comes to her kid's safety.

So she tells them everything. From the Joining to the Calling, every little detail of being a warden, every drawback. She makes it sound as unappealing as possible, trying her best to discourage this dream of Zea's.

What she doesn't consider is the fact that...Well.

Even if they know they will suffer, they will do it anyway.

Zea has an uncommon relationship with death, lets say. They know that it will happen. To them, and to others. It's not something to be afraid of, necessarily, on the grand scale of things. Suffering must be prevented as much as possible, of course, but death itself does not bring suffering with it on it's own. And so, if they're going to die anyway, what's 30 years or so if they can help save so many more lives? To them, it sounds like a sweet deal.

Sure, they could dedicate their life to saving people in some other ways. But the topic of the blight and darkspawn is particularly personal.

And, knowing about the Calling now, they know that Lora will not be around by the time it's their turn, and so will not be hurt by it.

If they survive the Joining, that is, but eh. Details.

(Although they were fully aware they might die. And they prepared accordingly. With a letter to their family and all, in case things went bad.)

They join the wardens when they turn 20, without telling anyone.

Lora only finds out afterwards.

Obviously, she's not happy about it, but it's not like she can reverse it (yet?..).

So, they talk, they argue, they make peace, and she supports them as best she can, while also redoubling her efforts to find a way to prevent the Calling.

The events of Veilguard happen when Zea is 27.

(spoilers start here)

Lora and co. are in the south of Thedas, helping fight the blight there, and so they cannot come and help out.

And Zea doesn't want them to. They want to prove that they can handle it all on their own. They don't even tell their family that they're involved with All That until shit really hits the fan.

Even after Weisshaupt.

(They try writing a letter to Lora to tell her that they're alive, after. They can't finish it, because they hate how it keeps spiraling. They don't need her to come over and fix everything, they can stand on their own two feet, they have a Team, they WILL handle it.

But, damn, they do want that Mom Hug.)

Before all that, they never really encountered a situation in which they thought they will die. Not since they were 5.

It tests them, their bright-eyed idealism, their inherent urge towards kindness above all.

(Yes, they did punch the First Warden. And yes, they did feel incredibly bad for him once they found him in the underground Weisshaupt replica later. And yes, the memory of his death does haunt them sometimes, even if killing him was an act of kindness.)

But in the end, no matter how angry they were at Solas, or how much they wanted to punch him, too, they chose to talk him down instead.

Because, despite it all, they still want to leave the world better than they found it.

Thats it, thank you so much for attending this lecture 🫡

(and also, yes, Noel DOES teach Zea how to stab people so so so well. It's her own way of caring)

[apostacism]

If your concept of wardens is not informed by the brutal reduction to their life expectancy (both from the Calling AND from the fact that they are fighting darkspawn on the regular), then what is the point?? DA pointedly made all their military groups have glaring issues for all their members in one way or another, people think that's on accident, I suppose?

idk, maybe my Mahariel run in DAO told me about loss of freedom in a different way from Amell/Surana, where you are trading one prison for another, but it really feels like if you know Anders and Bethany, you should know the wardens aren't a fix-all for mages either. It's a guaranteed life sentence with a lot of turmoil before the end.

Not only that but the isolation, both physical (wardens strongholds, as we've seen, are often in shit places) and in terms of alienation from non-wardens (whose reception to wardens may range from admiration to disdain, depending on how recently wardens have been useful for anything and how much wardens are viewed as stateless leeches in that particular place and time). The loss of the opportunity for reproduction and family life (obviously different for mages, but the loss of being able to fantasize about something can still be a genuine loss). The fact that you are now permanently part of a military force and will spend the rest of your short, painful life in conflict when there's a very good likelihood that combat was never something you wanted at all.

People have a tendency to play their Amells/Suranas as rebels and freedom-seekers - and no shade for that, my Surana CERTAINLY fits that description - who prize being out of the tower/outside of Templar purview above all else. And sure, if an individual warden feels that way about the wardens - whatever. I'm not saying that no individuals ever prefer the wardens to the other life they might have had. I'm saying that as an analytical framework and a holistic view of the wardens, that lens is missing the point.

It's just as easy (maybe even more so!) to play an Amell/Surana who was happy in the tower. That backstory casts you as a prodigy and shining pupil, an example of success among apprentice mages. That is easily the kind of circumstance which could shelter a young mage from the worst of the tower and lead to them growing up with the mindset "yeah there's downsides but this is the best and safest option for everyone. I'm fed I'm cared for I have no material worries I'm in community with people who understand me and are like me etc etc" and for becoming a warden to be a PROFOUND violation.

With Mahariel especially the loss of agency and freedom are a striking theme but there's no particular reason that Surana/Amell should regard their conscription with YIPPEE except that players are coming in with meta knowledge and rightful anger towards the chantry and the circles versus softness towards the wardens informed by biased viewpoints from characters they favor (despite, again, those characters being DISAPPOINTED by the ultimate reality of the wardens).