#the denerim alienage

[heniareth]

Genres of popular Alienage songs, some specific to Denerim (many of these and especially the last one are courtesy of @bumblewarden ):

We Have To Work Tomorrow, Let's Get Drunk

We Have Finished Working For The Day, Let's Get Drunk

That Bastard Drank Away All The Money, Hope It's Nice To Sleep On The Street You Utter Moron

Love I Am Sorry For Drinking Away All The Money - The Hell You Are! Now Go Away (a soprano-barritone speak and answer duet)

Damn I Hope Work Finishes Soon

I Want To Kill My Boss (with metaphors)

I Want To Kill The Tax Collactor (with metaphors)

I Want To Kill The Local Lord (so many metaphors)

Ailill Got Into A Fight And Escaped The Guard

Ailill Got Into A Fight And Got Hanged For It

Little Lilan Killed A Rat

I Am A Woman And Violence Has Been Done Unto Me

I Am A Woman And Violence Has Been Done Unto Me, So I Am Poisoning Them

My Child Is Leaving For Their Wedding

I Am Leaving For My Wedding And I Can't Wait To Get Out Of Here

I Am Leaving For My Wedding And I Really Really Don't Want To Leave

Aw Fuck I Don't Like My Spouse

Holy Shit I Really Like My Spouse!?

Holy Shit I Really Like My Neighbor's Spouse (with metaphors)

Hey I Saw You Kissing Your Neighbor's Spouse (no metaphors)

Beware The Sea It's Full Of Monsters (in which the monsters are metaphors for slavers)

Garahel Killed The Archdemon

Garahel Killed The Archdemon And Still They Treat Us Like Shit

Hey Loghain We Fought With You Where's Our Reward (with some metaphors)

The Exploits Of The Hero Of Ferelden (with metaphors)

Alidda Killed The Chevaliers (so many metaphors)

The Exploits Of The Dark Wolf (ALL OF THE METAPHORS WHAT ARE YOU A SNITCH!?)

[shewolfofvilnius]

so a couple weeks ago I decided that my Rook in Veilguard was going to be a little girl who grew up in the Denerim Alienage and remembered Tabris from when she was a little kid and looked up to her. And I decided to replay the female City Elf origin since it'd been six years Y'ALL THERE ARE A LITTLE BOY AND GIRL PLAYING IN AN ALLEY. AND YOU CAN INTERRUPT THEIR GAME AND TELL THEM A STORY OF A HEROIC ELF AND IF THE KIDS BUY IT THEY GET SO EXCITED AT A STORY OF A HEROIC ELF.

Y'ALL this little girl is absolutely, positively, my Rook.

YOU CAN ALSO TELL HER (and the boy with her) THAT A ROGUE HERO TOOK FROM THE RICH (ie nobles and leaders) TO HELP THE POOR, AND THAT WHEN THE TIME CAME, SHE TURNED HERSELF IN IN ORDER TO HELP PEOPLE AGAIN.

That is QUITE LITERALLY Warden Rook's backstory minus darkspawn. Rook helped people, nobles and Warden brass got really REALLY mad about it, Rook stood in account but also stood proud and defiant.

I swear to the Maker I didn't KNOW about the kids when I planned this out but WOW WOW WOW.

[linka-from-captain-planet]

funny to see that Cousland is the/one of the most popular Origins, which has Duncan deliver the paper thin recruitment rationale of “I will rescue ur child from the siege ser… but in return I must conscript them… for you see… the Blight” which we would NEVER hear the end of complaining about being “bad writing” if it were in Veilguard

[abyssal-ilk]

okay but a denerim city elf inquisitor romancing sera has so much potential. do you see it. do you see the vision. bioware why did you lock me into being a dalish elf, let me return to being a city elf pls

[dragonageconfessions]

CONFESSION:

I know it's insignificant and unlikely, but I've been wanting to go to Tevinter since my family was sold into slavery in DAO and, like.... I just want to know if Valora is okay? If Bioware could put her name above an NPC's head or something, I'd be happy. My poor Tabris never got to rescue her, and I need closure.

[regalpotato]

My Rook might be my favourite Dragon Age protagonist.

An elven Grey Warden, who wanted to be a hero, who preens when Neve calls the griffons and wardens heroes.

Who punches first and asks questions only when the punching hasn't worked (and everyone's looking at her as though she's lost her mind - and maybe she has, maybe she's finally snapped. Worms indeed, Assan).

Who's so very kind, even when people are really damn frustrating and unkind to her.

Who's fiesty and fierce and loves so damn strongly. Who gets emotional, and will throw herself into danger to protect anyone she can.

Whose persistant 'live for the moment' attitude - because she knows one day her blighted blood will catch up to her - slowly breaks down the barriers of one cynical, afraid to love detective (who eventually learns to follow the 'live for the moment' mantra)

(and don't think about how blights quicken the calling and the limited time they might have together).

Everything's falling down around her pointy ears, and she still finds the time to help the downtrodden, her new friends, all whilst hallucinating her mentor is still alive, and suffering the constant song of the blight.

A real hero, just like she wanted to be. And she tries so hard to live up to that. "No sleep for heroes?" indeed, Neve.

I just love her (and her detective girlfriend) a lot.

[vounoura]

I love the SDs I really do but did literally all of their leadership except one guy really need to be Altus mages. Does the entire abolitionist movement need to come out of Tevinter’s nobility, who have never faced the serious threat of being a slave, being forced into indentured servitude (a system Tevinter has that the citizens can sell themselves into) to pay off debts or whatnot, living as second or third class citizens in a constant cycle of poverty, having their literal human rights determined by their caste system, who are never going to be forced into a forever war as cannon fodder for the Seheron meat grinder like the Soporati are, being forced to be part of the rat race the Soporati are in terms of moving up to Laetan, or being used an abused by the upper echelons of Tevinter society who don’t give a single fuck about them

[redlyriumidol]

Sera and character development

So Sera is a character who (imo) gets somewhat the short end of the stick in terms of character development. She's a very polarising character and many people can't stand her- personally I love her now but I wasn't keen on her at all when the game came out. She's brash, rude, has very strong opinions and freely expresses them to the Inquisitor and to others. Sera is also very young, the youngest out of the companions, and I think her immaturity is obvious. She's got internalised racism up to her eyeballs and this makes it particularly unpleasant to romance her as a female elf, which I think was a disappointment to many.

I don't think this initial characterisation is a problem, the problem is that unlike some of the other characters we never really see her tackle her issues over the course of the game. It's easy to blame her for her opinions about elves, but realistically, this hatred includes herself, and therefore it must actually be very painful for her. it's also somewhat antithetical to her goals as a character as someone who stands for the little people- anyone can see that in Thedas, these are disproportionately elves, so caring about elves would actually be logical in her position. Sera's alienation from her identity as an elf is severe, and while I actually do think her feelings are worthy of sympathy (again, this is internalised racism, not a human character who is bigoted towards elves) they're not healthy, they actively obstruct her self-realisation. it's herself that Sera blames for the situation with the baker, it's herself that she hates, her own identity. she's from the alienage but hates people from the alienage. that's really sad, honestly.

In the breakup dialogue with her she says (about herself) "You'd get it if you were smarter. If you understood what it meant to be elven." That's pretty telling of her insecurities and self-hatred, in my opinion.

I think it was a massive wasted opportunity in terms of writing and character development not to give her a questline that interrogates this issue and helps her move past it. The temple of mythal is very personally, viscerally upsetting to her. Despite her repeated denial of it, she does feel connected in some ways to her heritage and I think it's obvious that it's painful for her. So why is it never explored??

In Trespasser, two years on, we do see a Sera who is beginning to grow up. She's very likable in Trespasser imo, her diary gives her a lot of depth. She cares about absolutely everyone. If the Inquisitor is an elf, this is added: "Is s/he all right with the elfy stuff?" and she even shows empathy for the dalish at one point: "Not as bad for dwarves as was for Dalish. Maybe." That's coming from someone who once reacted with disdain towards an elf inquisitor. She's still sceptical, but is slowly becoming less extreme. I'd just have liked for us to see it more explicitly in the actual game.

[louminiferous]

So I was reading up on what happened to the Denerim Alienage after the epilogue and my eyes were not pleased with what they read.

[lelianaslefthand]

like what is wrong with them

morristen confirmed

[msommers]

did you mean: blorbo with eternal anger issues

[templates: 1, 2]

[sexygayvampire]

okay this is all based on thoughts i’m throwing together like a wendy’s soda fountain nightmare potion. but my theory is that the forbidden ones are only able to be summoned in places where the veil is thin, on account of their immense power and their being imprisoned deep in the fade by the evanuris. based on encounters with the forbidden ones, examples of such places are:

- kirkwall (xebenkeck). we know this for certain, as the veil being thin there is the reason behind kirkwall’s bullshit city planning and the fact that a lot of blood magic and possession happens there. the ancient tevinters who built the city did so specifically in a way that would allow them to take advantage of the thin veil and further wear it down so that they could do powerful blood magic there, presumably planning to summon xebenkeck, who is later actually summoned by tahrone

- emprise du lion (imshael): okay i’m not 100 that imshael was summoned in emprise du lion. but that’s where it’s encountered. it was summoned by keeper thelhen of clan virnehn in 9:40 and bound and then later michel released it. but a) emprise du lion is known to be a place where the veil is thin (as evidenced by a number of things while exploring there), and b) i don’t know where thelhen summoned imshael and i’ve given up trying to dig through the masked empire to figure out where specifically clan virnehn was located at the time. but i think celene and co. went southeast from halamshiral, which is where emprise du lion is. gave myself a headache with this one

- the grand necropolis (the formless one): this tracks. it’s full of wisps and spirits and demons. i don’t remember if it’s specifically mentioned that the veil is thin there but like it seems pretty likely. the formless one has been locked in the necropolis since the storm age. unclear how it got there or who summoned it but it sure is in there and also possessing a high dragon’s corpse which emmrich was sure to remind me every time i died and had to restart the fight against it. which was a lot

this all lines up with that theory well enough. right. which leaves us with:

- the middle of denerim apparently (gaxkang): is there any evidence that gaxkang actually was summoned/got into the mortal world in whatever way in denerim? not really. just the note from an unnamed guy saying that he “heard the same tales as a lad in denerim, felt the same pull” re: gaxkang, implying that it’s set up shop there, and that’s also where we fight it. but allegedly it has been jumping from body to body for millennia and thus has probably traveled all over ferelden if not all of thedas. there’s no reason for it to have stayed in one place unless it can’t go anywhere the veil is thicker (which could be something but is an idea based on almost nothing). HOWEVER the point of this post is i think the the veil being particularly thin in denerim would be really funny

[shewolfofvilnius]

I was able to faithfully create an authentic looking 30 year old woman in Dragon Age Veilguard that looks EXACTLY like the grown up version of an ~8ish year old little girl in Dragon Age Origins.

When I say Veilguard's character creator is goated, I MEAN IT.

[shungieshrieks]

Finally got around to making an outfit sheet of my Hero of Ferelden, Warden Linus Tabris! Plus the party that carried him through the game (including love interest Leliana <3)

Bonus: Linus looking good over the years

[abyssal-ilk]

warden tabris falling in love with king alistair? tired, done, old news. warden tabris falling in love with queen anora? THATS new. surely that can't go wrong.

[heniareth]

Alienage Lullaby

Part of the Alienage Soundscapes series created for @cityelfweek

“They changed that old nursery rhyme ma used to sing! Heard it yesterday. Why'd they add stars and wolves?” “Are you daft? Do you know nothing of what that nursery rhyme actually is?” “Well… no. Was it supposed to be anything else?” “Not here. Wait until we get home and I'll tell you.”

—Conversation between two elves in the fish market of Denerim (This song could not have been created without @bumblewarden , whose warden Novhen Tabris is a joy and an inspiration and the best Dark Wolf the Denerim Alienage could ever ask for)

(Lyrics and song without sound effects under the cut)

My darling, my darling, come lie down to sleep. You see through the window the darkness in creep. In here it is dry and in here it is warm. No darkness can touch you, no fire, no storm.

If dogs come, my darling, go run and go hide. Come to me, run past them, strike a path well wide. I will keep you safe and I will keep you warm. The dogs will not touch you, will not bring you harm.

My darling, should you find yourself lost in night, Don't cry and look up at the stars shining bright: The stars, they will lead you back home here to me The stars, they will guide you once you can run free.

If you find yourself beneath trees deep at night Go run on, my darling, to fireshine bright. Round fire there's music, and dancing, and song. Go run there, my child, that you may sing along.

If you find yourself amid ashes and scars My darling, don't fear, take the brightest of stars. The star in the gold field of daylight's bright dawn, That star is the place where free people belong.

If you find yourself in a darkness and fear, Then listen in case there's a wolf you might hear. The grey wolf is stronger, the dogs are his prey. And if you then call him, he might come your way.