#tumblr falls apart...

[lairofsentinel]

Info compilation of Lucanis Dellamorte (part 2)

Warning: I’m using the incorrect lore that this game has since it is the one that they built the game upon. Inconsistent things such as “The Lighthouse is in the Fade” or “Mind imprisonment” nonsense are not dismissed during this compilation even though they are strongly questionable.

Unfortunately, Lucanis character has a lot of issues in his writing; sometimes conversations feel like they were written by three different persons and the game ends up with a frankenstein dialogue which can be barely followed, and one needs to fill in the gaps to keep it somehow cohesive and coherent. Besides, there are several times where he suffers narrative inconsistency: he says something that gets contradicted mid-game without being part of his “development”, if he has any.

Also, I apologise in advance for my bitterness that sometimes spills into the text like the Blight when it comes to the murder of the Lore that Veilguard has done to the DA world.

The current post has the following sections [bold ones]:

Approvals and disapprovals

Body Language

Eyes

Why the pantry?

High focus, cool head, and professionalism

Food and cooking

Mage-killer specialisation and previous jobs

Death and Life

Crows and Family

Spite and Possession

Sleep and Coffee

Flirt and Romance

Lucanis’ Logbook

Others

Info compilation: Part 1 || Part 2

[this post will be likely updated briefly after I do a playthrough without saving Treviso in case additional information is shown, but probably won’t be much]

Spite and Possession

The possession process suffered by Lucanis meant to force him to eat something that had Spite in it as if it were a parasite. This process was inspired by the cult we saw in Cassandra’s personal quest [DAI] in which Seekers were forced to consume red lyrium despite their resistance to its effects [Banter Lucanis-Bellara].

The original intention of the experiment was to cultivate twisted spirits inside the body of mortals and let them erupt from the body as full demons like a “moth emerges from a cocoon” [what’s lore?]. We can see this in some codices along the Ossuary, where prisoners were used as incubators, from which demons emerged and were sent to Vyrantium or Marnas Pell, calling them “successes” [Recruiting mission]. Lucanis prevented this fate by doing a deal with Spite [Banter Lucanis-Bellara], so he was perceived by Zara as a failure [Recruiting mission and Inner Demon quest]. This deal is the one related in the scene where Rook can finally talk with Spite: “Break our chains, kill, escape, and live”. Since his self-acceptance as an abomination is a process that Lucanis has encapsulated in his mind, he is not aware that the prison still exists in his mind and forces Spite to remain there, somehow [what’s lore?]. This situation makes a constant violation of the deal that saved Lucanis’ life.

“Whatever else I am, I’m a professional” is one of the lines after failing the first attempt in killing Ghilan'nain that shows how much of a conflict his possessed condition interferes with his professional, cold side. He tries to process the trauma through work, doing exactly what he had been doing before, to a point in which he does not realise he has compartmentalised the Ossuary in his mind.

Lucanis’ vial of blood in the Ossuary is quite big, implying that he has been bleeding a lot during that year. The torture he experimented for a year was enough to make him forget how Caterina was like [Recruitment quest]

He survived the Ossuary by “shutting down completely, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, except what was needed to escape.” [Davrin-Lucanis banter]

He describes his possession state as something similar to “touching something vast and eternal. A well, deep inside”. He also confesses that the possession terrified him in the beginning, and shares with Harding the impression that their condition is just “the beginning” of something deep down, waiting. [Harding-Lucanis banter]

Even after Inner Demon is complete, he claims to be “a real monster” as an abomination, showing two potential things: 1) that his shame and fear for his possessed condition is not resolved despite all the hints that tell us so [Spite less noisy, Lucanis’ magic around him is more harmonic]. This is a reflection he does when he compares his return to life as a “real monster” with Bellara’s brother [Bellara-Lucanis banter]. 2) Narrative inconsistency [which plagues his character].

Spite can be heard by Emmrich when he is close to Lucanis. [Lucanis-Emmrich banter]

Lucanis claims that Spite is obviously present in his body when the wings are shown: “the wings are a giveaway” [Davrin-Lucanis banter]. The spread of wings is not a voluntary action either [Harding-Lucanis banter]. We assume this situation is like this up to Inner Demon, where he manages to harmonise with Spite to the point where both work together and become more blended. But we cannot know, since all this may be a consequence of narrative inconsistencies too.

Spite focuses a lot on smells, and understands people based on that [Inner demons quest]. This may be a parallel to Lucanis’ year of imprisonment where he claimed that smells and tastes were the aspects that brought him more memories [Coffee with the Crows scene]. Lore-wise makes no sense for a spirit, in its spirit form, to smell anything [what’s lore?].

The Ossuary had a bad smell to the point that Lucanis claims that Kal-Sharok smells better. [The Waiting Stone quest]

It’s harder for Spite to take control of Lucanis’ body when he is awake. When Lucanis falls asleep, Spite takes control, and among other activities [such as sleepwalks] he likes to write cryptic sad poetry [Lucanis’ Logbook].

He spoke to Neve and Bellara about ways to control Spite, but avoids Emmrich since he is uncomfortable in the way he sees him, more like a thesis to study.

His sleepwalk stops once Lucanis and Spite are released from their mental prison, and this also allows Spite to start “understanding space”. This made them reach an equilibrium in which Spite is less noisy. Emmrich claims that thanks to this balance, “the magic around Lucanis has much finer etheric transfusion” [Emmrich-Lucanis banter]. Apparently, the deal made with Spite in Inner Demons implies “fighting enemies together and then having coffee afterwards” [Bellara-Lucanis banter]. This brings balance to both of them, allows Lucanis to have more control of Spite in his body, and implies that he recovers (a bit) his normal sleep patterns. We tend to see him drinking coffee after missions from this moment on [only in scenes after missions]. But then, he is drinking coffee right before the last mission, so… consistency problems again [we are not seeing the changes of his arc development truly sink in].

Spite is a source of shame. Every time he fails in his target, in his composure, in his professionalism, and in keeping control of Spite, he speaks looking down or aside, as shame washes him over. He feels he has let down Rook and Caterina for not being able to control this level of chaos he is holding inside him. For a character so focused on self-control, this situation puts him in a very shameful and vulnerable position.

Every time he is called an abomination there is a small remark on his part that shows he is not comfortable with it [who would?]. He avoids to call himself as such, and opts to use the word “possessed” and its variation.

He claims he never had magical abilities, so his possession is a rarity [not so much for the player if we remember DA2 where mages could force demons into Templars, read Tarohne, the Fell Grimoire, and Xebenkeck for details] but certainly his natural ability to perceive magic is more than strange: itch or pain in the back of his eyes [Bloodbath]. This symptom is triggered sometimes just by casting magic, other times by Fade presence, and it’s worse when blood magic is involved. In Tevinter Nights we learn he can even have deep headaches because of it. Lore-wise, this is a very, very, very questionable ability for a non-mage character and belongs to the big bag of messed up lore we started to see in the DA media after Gaider left Bioware.

Lucanis claims that Spite is impossible to reason with, he “listens to no one”. However, along the game, we discover that Spite truly listens to Rook mainly and Emmrich [Emrrich-Lucanis banter]. So… inconsistency? Or on purpose? Who knows.

In the Codex Questions On Demonic Possession we learn that Lucanis has been studying possession topics in the Lighthouse, finding that all the information that exists is focused on mages. “Every text says I should be dead or impossible”

Spite shows a high level of possessiveness: He claims Lucanis is his so no other spirit or demon would dare to claim him. He also is possessive of the revenges that Lucanis wants to collect: he breaks Lucanis’ awakened control when Illario kills Zara. And by the end of his personal quest, there is a degree of possessiveness with Treviso, claiming he will remove the Antaam from it.

By the end of Lucanis’ personal quest “Murder of Crows” there are two potential Veilguard skills that can be unlocked: Demon of Defiance or Demon of Rebellion, each of them associated with a particular legendary armour. Due to the description of each of them, we can assume that Spite enhances and accentuates his relentless,“spiteful” nature in Lucanis when Illario is imprisoned, while the description of the Demon of Rebellion, that implies that he learns the importance of saving a life over ending it, enhances the resistance aspect of Spite: an attitude of continuing and enduring “out of spite”.

Sleep and Coffee

He liked the beverage before his possession, but now he abuses it to remain awake as much as possible. He claims that Spite can’t easily take control of him when he is awake, but he has no defences when sleeping [sleepwalk scene]. His sleepwalks frightened him [romanced scene], most likely because he fears to kill people he loves. He is a character too focused on keeping control of himself and his life, but Spite breaks this security.

He tries not to sleep much, even less in Treviso. During his wakefulness, he cleans his gear, does exercise, works on his Orlesian vocabulary, and knits strangling cords [Harding-Lucanis banter].

He seems to have a lot of dreams related to work and work failures or situations where the work gets more complicated because the situations are against him [Harding-Lucanis banter]

As part of the jokes around the theme of coffee, we find that Lucanis is offended by Neve’s coffee: prepared with boiled water and somehow ending up in something that is not liquid anymore.

After Inner Demons, he uses coffee as a reward to relax after a job, and it is part of the deal with Spite. However, this is not always shown properly in the rest of the game [narrative inconsistencies].

Flirt and Romance

He is good at noticing flirtation. It makes sense since he was raised among seductive Crows such as Illario and Teia who use flirting techniques among their strategies of attack. He is even more aware than the player when Teia is flirting with Rook, so we can assume that he chooses not to engage to Rook’s flirting due to professionalism or/and the shame he is carrying for being an abomination. It can also be interpreted as a consequence of his inexperience, so he doesn’t know how to answer a direct flirt aimed at him despite noticing it [Personal quest scenes]. Another option is narrative inconsistency and poor writing, as always.

When one of the first flirts [“you are a courageous man”] is detected [is that even a flirt?], he breaks eye contact, and diminishes the compliment [“a stubborn one, perhaps”], while at the same time, thanking it. This proves, more or less, that he recognizes the flirts, but does not engage them. But it’s not a pattern we can follow in each scene, so we can assume narrative inconsistencies.

He is confused by what people expect from him in terms of flirt or “charm”. So he asks for advice and executes the advice between a given context [Taash telling him to spread his wings in private with Rook, or Rook encouraging him to keep feeding Neve things she likes]

When other characters point out his soft or romantic side [Neve, Teia, Bellara, or Rook in scenes or banter] he does not shy away from recognising it. Teia would tease him claiming that he is showing a soft heart, to which he would not care to respond. Neve and Bellara make remarks about his romance [with Rook or Neve] that he takes without a hint of fluster, nervousness, or anything else but a “fact”. With a romanced Rook, Neve would easily make him confess that Rook is good for him without any coyness [Neve-Lucanis Banter, Taash-Lucanis banter, and Bellara-Lucanis banter]. He reinforces his confusion about what Rook sees in him, but he accepts it anyway and doesn’t shy away from openly claiming that Rook makes him happy. We can interpret that despite not being sure what to offer as flirting or charm to his Love Interest, he is not shy about it, and embraces his relationship openly.

Whenever he tries to imply any sense of seduction or flirting, he always adds a line “I hope”, or “I suppose”, reinforcing the concept that he has no idea what’s he is doing when it comes to seduction or flirt; hence why he picks any suggestion given by Rook or Taash. For example: he tried to compare the technique of killing mages to a dance or a seduction, but ended up not being sure about the latter.

Apparently, he has a romantic, sentimental side. He describes coffee blends like a goodbye kiss, bitter and sweet, while a first kiss is sweet like honey and intriguing like lavender cream. He also seems to understand that “on the matter of the heart one must be discerning”. When Rook questions what matters most for him, his answer is more sentimental than what we could expect: the people he cares about. [“You never thought about changing the course of your life? Change for the things that matter to you?” “Perhaps what matters is who I am with”]

He prefers to read romance [Harding-Lucanis banter] which fits with what was explained above.

Lucanis admits that Rook’s/Neve’s relationship is his first one, and he had an attempt to get romantic attention from Viago, but it was ignored [Emmerich-Lucanis banter]. He had given him a dagger as a present.

Lucanis’ Logbook

From this series of codices, we can infer he really likes making and following schedules. He exercises, maintains his weapons, and prepares meals as a way to avoid falling asleep [all this is confirmed later via banter too]. He has regular meetings with other party members to talk about the mission they are working on [Bellara, Neve, Harding, and Emmrich] or about Crows [Taash]. He also spends part of his time “studying”. Even if the logbooks don’t say what he is particularly studying, we can infer in the codex Questions On Demonic Possession that he is searching for answers about his possessed condition.

He is a bit uncomfortable with the lack of cycle day-night in the Lighthouse, comparing it to the timeless sense of the Ossuary [Lucanis's Logbook, 1 ].

At times, the logbooks break the schedule, and we can read exactly where Lucanis fell asleep and Spite continued writing. Spite seems to cryptically refer to something which is “a piece cut from the whole” [using playful wording], a protection cage with golden stranded weaves. Spite also draws decagonal diagrams [Lucanis's Logbook, 2 ]. My personal interpretation is Spite’ call for help since he is still in the mental Ossuary, trapped in a cage that means some protection. The “piece cut from the whole” may have some reference about the fragmented state in which Spite and Lucanis are at this point, but also may have some potential interpretation of Spite being part of a “whole” previous to his torture at Zara’s hand. This second interpretation is linked with the second poetry that Spite writes in the Logbook 3.

As Lucanis said in the quest “Coffee with the Crows”, the smells and tastes are the things that bring the strongest memories, and we also find this aspect in Spite, who seems to smell something from the “beyond” and remembers with burning pain [grieves?] his time before being twisted and tortured [Lucanis's Logbook, 3 ]. He claims he was “infinity”, not a shade, not a claw in a gut [which may be how he sees himself in Lucanis’ body: a painful sharp claw hooked in his guts]. Basically, we read in a cryptic way how Spite mourns his own change due to torture, his twisted present, and even maybe his effect on his host. Spite is as hurt in this situation as Lucanis is with his possession.

In Lucanis's Logbook, 4 we can see that Lucanis finds more clarity in the presence of Rook [“It is an hour found. An hour more clear than any other”].

If Miranthous was saved, Lucanis focuses on studying ways to recover his city while reading about possession in a very intense way. Thanks to the unique scene we obtain in this path, we know that Lucanis is determined to find a way to separate Spite from his body [Lucanis's Logbook, 5 ] and by contrast with a Lucanis whose city was saved, we can infer that the mental Ossuary was never solved, and his body is a constant battlefield for control between himself and Spite.

If Treviso was saved [Lucanis's Logbook, 5 ], Lucanis does not read about possession, and instead, we find another poem by Spite who seems to appreciate Lucanis and the sensations of his body [the wiggling toes while drinking coffee], while at the same time, he uses 2 interesting words: a small shade, repeated from the previous poem, and a “wounded spirit”, which seems to imply Spite is seeing himself as such, and not entirely as a demon. However, the small shade was a description already used in his previous poem that seemed to imply Spite, so the wounded spirit is Lucanis? If we assume these writers are using the word “spirit” as synonymous of “soul” [it would not surprise me, considering how careless and messy they are with the lore in general] this wounded spirit could also be understood as Lucanis, since a possessed person always gets “wounded/scarred” and easy to possess later if they managed a solution [but all this is real DA lore that I doubt these writers truly considered]. In this poem Spite repeats the concept of Infinite, as this original source he mourns to not to belong to anymore, but instead of a Cage, he describes a Shelter now [Lucanis’ mind is now a shelter?], and then a Storm, which may have a cheap “foreshadowing” implication with the last chapter of the game. In any case, we can read here a calmer Spite, and this last logbook even leaves a bit open the interpretation that a path for Spite to become Determination again, or being a bit closer to it, is possible.

Others

He claims he only knows how to solve problems with knives. [Bellara-Lucanis banter] which explains how difficult it is for him to work around non-death related situations or romantic ones [after all, his interest in Viago was also “solved” with a knife].

Lucanis may divide people as three different kinds: Enemies, contracts, and family [Inner Demon]. It’s clear over time that family is a broad concept for him, since it would eventually include his love interest and the team.

He doesn’t seem to be fond of promises or do not trust them [Coffee with the Crows]. This may be related to his vision of life and death, since everything is destined to die and fade, same as promises.

He has never been in Ferelden despite the Crows taking contracts from all over Thedas. He explains that since the Fifth Blight they don’t work there anymore because of Loghain. He adds that House Arainai embarrassed themselves so much that the Crows buried six different Eight Talons—probably a soft reference to Zevran and his assassinations of the guildmasters that followed years later after the end of DAO—[Harding-Lucanis banter].

He has a snake pet [Tassh-Lucanis banter]. It’s not clear if this comment is a real fact, and he has a snake as a pet or he is referring to Illario, to whom he describes as a snake a couple of times after the discovery of his treason.

He liked wyverns as a boy. He was not aware that they could be kept as pets until Harding narrates a bit about what we played in DA2: Mark of the Assassin . He considers that keeping a wyvern cannot be worse than keeping Illario. He took contracts in Orlais but never in the countryside, so he laments not having taken a target and disposing of the body as bait to watch wyverns closer [Harding-Lucanis banter].

If the resolution of the quest that describes an affair between a Venatori and a Crow ends up killing the lovers, he will say “tragic end, but a Crow’s heart is pledged to Antiva”, which may justify why he is locked out of romance if Treviso is not saved [ironically, only for Rook, he has no problems with Neve; narrative inconsistency, I suppose].

During the extended version of Lucanis’ quest [shopping with Lucanis] we learn that he has expensive tastes. He acknowledges that he lived a very comfortable life before the Ossuary, which is quite clear once we see the Villa Dellamorte.

[charbroiledchicken]

"you're the writer, you control how the story goes" no not really. i wrote the first sentence and then my characters said "WE WILL TAKE IT FROM HERE" and promptly swerved into an electrical fence.

[greenbeany]

27th Of February, 2024

[blu-ish]

How tf is he even getting reception up there—

Continuation off of this post 😔

[magentasnail]

I wanted to make art inspired by the idea of "embracing your imperfections" and the universe said "bet" so I don't like this drawing, but oh well

basically, with all the AI stuff it feels like humans are in a fight with the machines

machines are built for accuracy, everything they do has to be exact and measured and calculated, which is the antithesis to humans - which are inaccurate and unpredictable. a machine will always make a perfect copy, while a human can only create something unique

and that's the beauty of humans - we are not meant to be perfect, we are meant to be different! anything about you is going to be unique to you, because of these imperfections and I think that's pretty cool!

[virartz]

day 70 - free fallin

[aggressiveviking]

billy hargrove wearing my stupid outfits (fall/winter edition)

[martyryo]

*posts and crawls back in hell*

[erebusbored]

Guys I want her so bad it's not funny

[leosulfurous]

Destroyed my inhibitions. Please accept my humble contROBution to the tawog community

[marutchi]

(more) spoiler under the cut

they are landing on their feet yet skwisgaar still ends up in tokis arms 😭😭

[axiseart]

"Fight." Commanded the Angel.

[a-queer-of-color]

[2sw]

hey guys. I don't mind people reposting my gifs on other sites to express their own love for sam, I love to see it actually, but please do not use mine for archive/gif accounts. thanks xx

[literaryvein]

L. V., i found this poem wilting in the garden