#is going to be a dwarven crow lady for lucanis

[invinciblerodent]

going against the mold by not even entertaining the thought of rolling an elven Rook, so far my plans include two slighty dommy dwarf ladies and a veritable human disaster

[thedinanshiral]

Dragon Age 4 Short Stories

To celebrate Dragon Age Day 2020 with us, BioWare surprised everyone with a new version of the Dragon Age site and 4 short stories and illustrations. These short stories are heavily related to some chapters in Tevinter Nights.

The Next One

Tells us of Grey Warden Lwrence who’s already in the Deep Roads for the Calling, and despite his condition continues to fight, even as he could be about to die, when he hears someone in danger he goes to the rescue and this catches the attention of a spirit of Perseverance. The spirit takes possession of the body just long enough to save a dwarven girl and a sort of promise is made, that in return she saves the next person who may need it. The Grey Warden dies, Perseverance returns to the Fade, and the dwarven girl , Evka, becomes the Grey Warden from Tevinter Nights’ “Hunger”.

Ruins of Reality

Strife, whom we previously read about in Tevinter Nights’ “Three trees to midnight”, is in the Arlathan Forest, witnessing some sort of anomaly that defies his perception of time and space, and possibly of himself, as he tries to find his way in a maze where he can watch himself from moments ago heading into the same trouble he just barely got alive from. Holding a magical journal, a relic of Clan Morlyn that writes its own entries, trying to follow directions to find a powerful artifact, he finally reaches a point of reference, a Ghilan’nain statue holding a crystal halla figurine. Irelin shows up and both realise what they’ve been experiencing is very old magic, ancient. The shapeshifter turns into an eagle and takes the figurine while Strife has no option but to play bait to dangerous sylvans, and once the figurine is gone the forest suddenly, eerily,  returns to normal. 

The Wake

In this story we meet again some of the many Crows Tevinter Nights introduced. Viago and Teia from Eight Little Talons (previously from the comic Deception), and Illario from The Wigmaker Job. The latter is drunk and the other two are trying to get him away safely. Someone important, someone dear appears to have died and they were just at the wake. Illario laments the death of his cousin Lucanis, and drunkenly reminisces and tells anecdotes until his fellow Crows put him to bed. 

Minrathous Shadows

At an unidentified establishment, a magister lady is playing cards when a man sits at the table. The magister identifies him as a Templar based on his appearance and he joins the game, taunting the magister on her low bet as the dealer hands the cards. The Templar is named Tarquin, and he rises the stakes with a ledger that he implies contains information implicating this magister to the Venatori. She denies it, of course, and carries on with the game. Tarquin doesn’t have a winning hand -he wasn’t really there to play cards- so when the magister wins the hand, she tries to teach him not to threaten her. Magic begins to gather at her fist but is suddenly countered, nullified, and then she notices the dealer; shocked, she seems to identify them as “the Viper”, and claims they’re supposed to be “just a tale”. When Tarquin is about to leave the magister asks him who are they, what do they want, is it gold? Is it power? The Templar tells her they are the Tevinter they forgot. What could they want then? From behind the magister, the dealer put up his hood. “Everything.”

While the first three short stories call back to Tevinter Nights in both location and characters, Minrathous Shadows, with Tarquin and the Viper -and whatever tale is spun around that name- are new elements, and i’ll get to that soon.

As these are very short stories i’ll try a quick anaylisis.

The Next One: serves as a sort of “origin story” to Warden Evka, and also illustrates how spirits can work. Spirits are drawn, not only to where the Veil is thin or where there’s blood and violence and negative emotions and desires, but also to good intentions, hopes and values. Perseverance lends its force to Warden Lawrence when he, fatally wounded, still wanted to fight to save one more life, and when that last and desperate goal is achieved, Perseverance leaves.

Ruins of Reality: The journal from Clan Morlyn sounds suspiciously similar to the Emergent Compendium, a tome that writes itself found at the Black Emporium in Act 3 of DA2. As described in the codex entry, it produces pictures and lines of gibberish, which are writen in a cypher; the last entry recorded is in reference to Fen’Harel.  So to have the elves Strife and Irelin searching through an enchanted Arlathan Forest for a powerful artifact using a journal that one day started writing its own entries, well, there’s got to be something there. Specially considering as well the illustration that accompanies this story, where Strife is seen wearing clothes with suspended metal golden triangles much like one of the concept art pieces (that i insist could very well be ancient Elves and/or temple guardians.. Arlathan Forest has to have a temple or two) 

The Wake: personally i loved Lucanis Dellamorte and refuse to believe he has died before we got to see him shine in 4K. He was the grandson of the First Talon, leader of the Antivan Crows, and he was most likely set to follow in her steps and become First Talon himself eventually, but that’s not a fate he desires and there’s no denying Grandma Dellamorte, so...he could have easily faked his death in order to escape that. And the reason Illario is so broken about it is because in order to make it safer and more believable, he wasn’t informed of the plan. And this is the theory i’m running with until and unless BW reveals something different. Viago and Teia are suspiciously unaffected by the loss of Lucanis and we could say maybe they didn’t know him enough to care, but i’m saying maybe they know he’s not really dead. 

Minrathous Shadows: Tarquin is a templar and we know Templars in Tevinter are little more than law enforcement, they lack the templar powers their counterparts from the South have, which would explain the contempt the magister woman has for him on sight. A Tevinter Templar is hardly a threat to the power of a Magister, that’s why in response to his threat she attempts to strike him with magic she knows he can’t fight back. But she’s stopped by this other new character. Someone who the magister points out should be “just a tale”. And i suspect this would make the Viper a Templar who can actually counter magic, something that by all means seems is not allowed to exist in Tevinter.  She was just accused of having ties with the Venatori, going against current Tevinter law, and maybe thinks she can get away with a bribe, but that won’t cut it. These new characters now claim to be “the Tevinter you forgot” and want “everything”.  There are easily more than one way to read into that. Can’t be the Venatori, they were all about returning to past Imperium glory which was lost, not forgotten. No, what we get in this story tastes more like a claim for justice, like what the Tevinter the Magister, the powerful and self-absorbed, have forgotten is everyone else. I think this Viper and Tarquin could be part of a rebellion that’s been brewing in Tevinter for quite some time. Maybe they work with the Lucernis, maybe they are part of the Lucernis themselves, or belong to a different faction, but seems they’re ready to take the Magisterium trash out. Another possibility is they are Siccaris, Tevinter spies, working for the goverment cleaning house, the mention of complicity with Venatori being considered treason by the government adds to this. Either way, colour me excited about these two. Last note here, while we have nothing on the Viper but the name, Tarquin’s name has appeared before in lore, in a codex entry from Inquisition titled “Shriek”, as an entry in the Blighted Codex, a collection of studies on Darkspawn kept in the Imperial Library at Minrathous and accessible only to the Magisterium. Tells the story of the son of a Magister named Tarquin who was the sole survivor of a darkspawn attack on his unit. He was shocked, speechless, having nightmares, eventually improving only to speak the word “Shriek” over and over again. There’s no indication of when this recorded darkspawn attack took place, could have been centuries ago. And really all we can get for sure from this is that Tarquin is a Tevinter name. 

That’s it for now, please correct me if there is something about the Viper somewhere, i’m really not finding anything (other than vipers being snakes and snakes being symbolically smaller dragons and both snakes and dragons being literally on the Tevinter flag)