#hey guys. remember that one codex entry from Neve’s research that says Zara funded research projects in Minrathous

[beepoven]

Codex Entry: Demonology Rebuttal

Lady R,

I write again in profuse thanks for your sponsorship. Please know that while I regretfully understand your desire for anonymity, should your circumstances ever change I would happily provide you a tour of the Necropolis. You would not be the first scholar from Tevinter to benefit from the cultural exchange of our homelands. You will certainly not be the last, either!

And I hope that it is not too forward to presume your origin. Your Nevarran, My Lady, is flawless, but your talk of demons gives you away.

While I agree that Southern categorizations are uninspired at best and invalid at worst, I find Tevene conceptualizations of 'Demonology' similarly limiting.

Rage may be another facet of Passion. Pride may be another branch of Self-Esteem. In this sense, I fail to grasp the point of identifying 'demons' from spirits at all, unless it is for the Chantry to prescribe morality on beings detached from Andrastian doctrine.

If there are to be 'demons' distinct from spirits -- I hypothesize that the catalyst must be stress. When a spirit is forcefully pulled through the Veil, we understand that their forms transmute into the classically 'demonic' due to the shock of being thrown from one reality to the next.

More, we understand that these forms are intrinsically unstable. Spirits need homes. Anchors. Vessels.* When the vessel is alive, they are called an abomination. When the vessel is dead, they are called undead. (When laid out like so, My Lady -- how backwards it all seems!)

In your last missive you alluded to a vital question: if a stable spirit were to be anchored to a vessel that was subjected to stress, would it become a 'demon'? While this line of questioning is best kept hypothetical, I have attached several notes on the matter.

Yours,

Ingellvar

(A letter dated 9:52 Dragon. Translated from Watcher’s Nevarran. Recovered from the Ossuary.)

*(Translator’s note: Watcher’s Nevarran is most distinct from Nevarran Trade thanks to its antiquated verbiage. Linguists theorize the dialect could only survive in an isolated commune such as the Grand Necropolis, where Watchers live in close quarters with ancient nobility. Here the writer has attempted multiple Trade translations of an ancient Nevarran term.)