#western approach

[roguetrevelyan]

Adamant Fortress, Western Approach.

tap on gifs if they’re showing up blurry

[dragonageconfessions]

CONFESSION:

It was during the pandemic/lockdown when I discovered if you go in and out of the Still-Ruins, the tier 3 craft items on the desk respawn if you leave one of them.

[elluvians]

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Western Approach

[theluckywizard]

In the Shattering of Things, Ch. 80: Blood

Cullen x Trevelyan | Hawke x Trevelyan | DAI | Epic | Multiship | Slow burn | Fast burn | Complications While Saving the World

Chapter Summary:

Rose prepares to confront the sins of the Grey Wardens at the ritual tower in the Western Approach.

Fic Summary:

Lady Rose Trevelyan's idle, aristocratic life blinks out in a haze of irrelevance when the breach destroys the Conclave. She may be soft and coddled when she joins the Inquisition, but there's a fierceness inside her she's yet to fully recognize. Armed with only a few relevant skills and the mark that makes her a legend, she is thrust onto a path delivering hope where it’s long been scorched away and finds comfort in the grumpy, handsome stick in the mud charged with her protection and training. As she stumbles her way across southern Thedas, she begins to realize she's tangled at the center of machinations she barely understands, and she's not alone in that. Enter Hawke.

Excerpt under the cut 👇

As we push ahead inside the shimmer of overlapping barriers, I realize that amongst the Wardens are demons, docile and awaiting command— the forge-glow of rage, the hunched husk of despair and of course, terror, all limbs and teeth and sinew. To the right is a preliminary heap of Warden bodies, unspent blood commingling in one black puddle reflecting the sibling moons. But without our back up, we are overpowered nearly four to one. I pray they’re willing to talk.

“Wardens!” calls Stroud, cleaving the silence. “You’ve been misled. Abandon this madness while you still have some dignity!”

The shuffling and shrieking of suddenly drawn weapons surround us. Venatori and Wardens alike, ready to destroy us with a word. The man pacing on the dais turns to address us, descending and then skirting the altar.

“Inquisitor Trevelyan. I’ve been expecting you,” he says. Something like delight drips from his voice like syrup, intolerably smug. His dark hair glistens with pomade in the firelight and a mustache curls down around his sneer. My companions part to let me come forward.

“I’ve never had the pleasure,” I call, faking courage.

“Lord Livius Erimond,” he says with an extravagant bow almost certainly meant to mock. “At your service.”

“You’re no Warden,” says Stroud. I glance at the glow of the rage demon, wondering if it feeds the tremor in his voice.

“And you are. You must be the ones Clarel let slip. And then you found the Inquisitor to try to stop us. Shall we see how that goes?”

“My friends. This man is deceiving you,” says Stroud. “He serves an ancient Tevinter Magister who wishes to unleash a Blight.”

“That’s a very serious accusation,” says Erimond, raising his brow. His staff, uncommonly ornate, bounces from one hand to another in a brassy show, about as flashy as most of the Tevinters I’ve ever met. I wish Dorian was here to knock him down a peg. “Shall we see what your friends think? Wardens! Hands up!”

The mages standing beside their bound demons comply. 

“They’re bloody slaves,” mutters Alistair and then louder to Erimond, “What did you do to them?”

“They did this to themselves. Desperation is a powerful thing,” he says. “And if you think you’re in any position to negotiate, well, you’re in for a surprise.”

Erimond reaches out and by some unseen force, seizes me by the anchor, tearing me from the barrier that’s meant to protect me. Before anyone can react, I’m snatched halfway to him by the curse in my hand, my feet scraping across stone, a web of agony racing up my arm and into my head, my vision haloing, bile creeping up my throat. Erimond holds me half-suspended, like he’s gathered all the threads of the anchor and squeezed.

“You see, the Elder One taught me how to deal with you if you interfered,” explains Erimond, coming closer. The man stinks of lavender and rust. I hold my breath. His eyes whip past me to my companions. “Move and she dies.” 

He strokes the golden point of his finger— some kind of bladed false tip— down the mark over my jaw and neck. Stripping off my glove with his free hand, he appraises the glowing tendrils of the anchor up my wrist and then trains the beads of his eyes on mine. 

“He’ll be delighted when I present you as a trophy. And who knows. Maybe your blood can be useful too.”

Erimond’s taunting look at my companions cuts like razor as I grind my teeth to near breaking. He rakes the apparatus along my wrist, the sharpened point incising my skin and then with greedy eyes, without a hitch in his grip, summons a wisp of my blood into the air and beckons it to him. It atomizes into a dark cloud in the too-small space between us and then— just like snuff or levigated ghoul’s beard— draws it into his nose sharply. Erimond’s eyes gleam a sudden unholy violet over the curl of his satisfied lips.

His eyes grow distant, considering. “Mage lineage. Dilute, but there.”

“You’re disgusting,” I spit. Erimond only smiles.

“Bring the next one,” he commands, still gripping me by that unseen hold.

Read the rest here!

Start the fic here!

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[knuttydraws]

The Western Approach I learned to love this place but it’s a tough love 😆

Please remember that Farie Lavellan is not an Inquisitor.

[warpedlegacywrites]

How about West Hill Brandy, Western Approach, In the tower located between the Craggy Ridge Inquisition Camp and the Underground Cavern above the astrarium cave, climb the east side and head up the ladder (Giant's staircase. Also features skeletons and a giant wheel of cheese) for Theresa and Dorian? Happy writing!

Thanks for this one! I really need to write more of these two just collectively sharing one brain cell, and this was a great excuse! I might even expand on this eventually. @dadrunkwriting

“You’re kidding me! Never?” Dorian’s disbelief echoes off the sheer cliffs' edges that rise on either side of them, dizzyingly high.  “Well… no.” Theresa pauses halfway up the ladder, not liking the look of the next rung. Or the one above it. “Go back down. This isn’t stable.”  They retreat to the platform below, reassessing their ascent. The Giant’s Staircase is living up to its name – they’ve had to backtrack three times now. Theresa wipes the desert dust from her palms onto her breeches as she squints up to the sun. Four hours ‘til sunset still.  “What would be the point of ‘Never Have I Ever’ in a Circle?” she asks Dorian. “We all lived the same lives, and everyone knew each other’s business.”  “Hm, true.” Dorian hums thoughtfully as he energizes a discarded stack of debris to make a walkway. “I suppose that would make the game very boring very quickly.”  They cross one at a time, but all they find on the other side is a long, slow walk around the cliff to the pathway that will lead them up and out of this infernal ravine. Dorian and Theresa exchange a weary look, sighing with resignation.  “Well…” Dorian reaches into his pack, pulling forth a nearly full bottle of West Hill Brandy. He waggles it tantalizingly before Theresa. “Now seems like a perfect time to learn.”  Theresa looks from the bottle to him, then accepts it with a pensive frown. “Never have I ever… “

[daitranscripts]

Western Approach Masterpost

Griffon Wing Keep

-

Professor Frederic

-

Ambient Dialogue

Coracavus The Still Ruins

Locations Masterpost

[justyeghost]

Dragons of the West (a Dragon Age: Inquisition stream)

Heading back into the Western Approach (again) to finish up some stuff and maybe even fight a Dragon.

Catch the possible Dragon slaying on my VStream Channel or click on the image up top.

[lairofdragonagelore]

Western Approach: Griffon Wing Keep

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

This is the keep we can take for the Inquisition.

At the sides it has enormous spikes. It looks like a design to prevent attacks from a big unit like archdemons when they are approaching the Keep. Although it looks more like a design choice to make it look cooler than functional. Especially if we think that this fortress was Tevinter, originally. 

Before being reclaimed, it’s decorated with mostly Tevinter iconography. However, there are a pair of griffons beside a “diapason” object that makes us suspect some Grey Warden influence. In principle, it makes sense since these buildings were reclaimed by the Order during the Second Blight, but after the Still Ruin and, in particular, the Hall of Silence [check the post of The Still Ruin] I began to doubt if these griffons are truly Grey Warden iconography or they are just a new Tevinter icon subtly incorporated in DAI [more details about these doubts can be find in the banners found in Hinterlands: The Unknown Ruin [Mihris]]. 

Aside from these griffon, the rest of the fortress is filled with undeniable Tevinter icons. 

Among the curious Tevinter objects displaying Tevinter style, we can see the decoration of the door: it’s quite unique. It has a symbol we didn’t see before, and which resembles, ironically, the symbol of the Templars; a sword in the middle, and instead of flames, snakes.

These are Tevinter banners. They have pointy design and resemble the Elvhen banner we found in the Elven Ruins [Trespasser], check Nation Art: Tevinter for a better explanation of the banner. 

These black things appear in many different Tevinter ruins. Sometimes just as decoration on the ground, other times placed on a wall as if they were canons to defend an entrance [The Still Ruin], and in Razikale Reach they are shown as water taps. Honestly, the last function seem to work in all the other cases as well, granting access to fresh water in the building they are placed, or in the entrance, as a decorative fountain. This is why I will call them “water dispenser”.

These things seem to be torches, but they do not always appear on columns. Sometimes they are just dropped on the ground. The metallic, pointy design speaks of Tevinter style.

Inside the Keep there is another elven artefact.

Once reclaimed, the Keep changes a bit its design, and removes all the Tevinter decoration, replacing it with the inquisition.

In the region, half covered in sand, with the entrance barely noticeable, we discover gates of an enormous Tevinter “wall” [using the natural canyons of the region] which encloses Coracavus, and a minor fortress called Echoback Fort. 

One side of this wall triggers a landmark called Gates of Andoral, god of slaves; the other one is related to Toth, god associated with destruction, burn, and pain inflicted upon victims. Both use the same door design:

It has the typical Tevinter hexagonal figures, a central one with the shape of two creatures with beak. This is the door I commented about in the post Hinterlands: The Unknown Ruin [Mihris]. In the concept art, this door had a more “grey warden” flavour to it, that was toned down with this symbol, removing the wings and only leaving the screaming heads of griffons.  Apparently, griffons has been part of Tevinter culture in ancient times, and may have some unknown relationship with the Grey Warden. 

The top of the door has another familiar resemblance: it looks like the “Dirthamen’s wisdom”, a shield found after the exploration of the Lost Temple of Dirthamen. It’s true that this design is not unique [we find several shields with this same skin, so it can be a mere reuse of assets], but at a first glance, it looks quite Tevinter. It’s surprising [or maybe not] that such element could be found in ancient Elven temples [the hypothesis of this will be explored in the post The Lost Temple of Dirthamen]. [Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

[drawingsphopho]

touching that staff in the Still Ruins

[corffiser]

dragon age : inquisition - 12 / ∞

[pinacoladamatata]

My spouse, my beloved, who has never touched a dragon age game when I rant about the lore for 30 straight minutes

[dragonageconfessions]

CONFESSION:

With the way my Inquisitor walks away after claiming Griffon Wing Keep, I always picture them climbing on the little wall and jumping down while the companions look on in disbelief and call after them.

[zhaitansvisage]

Shoutout to Guild Wars 2 for having extremely diverse dragon designs.

[theluckywizard]

In the Shattering of Things, Ch. 79: Hope is a Brittle Thing

Chapter Summary: As the Inquisition settles into camp in the approach, Blackwall seems to be struggling with the presence of a dozen fellow Wardens, plans are hatched to deal with the Wardens and Venatori at the Tevinter ritual tower, and Rose hopes to extract a certain romantic declaration from Garrett.

Fic Summary: Lady Rose Trevelyan's idle, aristocratic life blinks out in a haze of irrelevance when the breach destroys the Conclave. She may be soft and coddled when she joins the Inquisition, but there's a fierceness inside her she's yet to fully recognize. Armed with only a few relevant skills and the mark that makes her a legend, she is thrust onto a path delivering hope where it’s long been scorched away and finds comfort in the grumpy, handsome stick in the mud charged with her protection and training. As she stumbles her way across southern Thedas, she begins to realize she's tangled at the center of machinations she barely understands, and she's not alone in that. Enter Hawke.

Excerpt under the cut 👇

We both quiet down again, ceding the moment to the other, but the hush fills up with crickets and distant coyotes and the din of camp a quarter mile away. I melt further into him, hoping he’ll take advantage of my silence, but he only kisses my temple and rakes his fingers over the rising goosebumps on my skin before wrapping me tighter inside his warmth.

“I’m scared to face the Wardens,” I admit. “I grew up hearing legends of them. And the Blight — it just feels wrong to oppose them.”

I feel a cool huff in my wet hair. “I know. But even heroes can take a turn. What I saw the other day— sacrificing their own to summon demons?" He grumbles a sigh. “Do you know how much I hate having my worst fears confirmed?”

“The pitfalls of perceptiveness,” I say against his skin, his arm hairs tickling my lips.

“I’ve been in the world long enough to know that hope is a brittle thing. Every time I’ve dared to hope, I’ve been disappointed,” he says. He laughs softly and then tightens his arms around me. “Well. Not every time.” When I look up at his smiling eyes, I’m sure I could drown in my own happiness. He pinches my nose gently. “I just— even with Alistair and Stroud and the rest, I’m worried.”

“When you’ve crossed a line like that is there any turning around?” I ask, hanging onto that brittle hope.

“My father was forced to use blood magic once. Did it to save his skin, to have a life with my Mum. But I’m not sure he ever forgave himself. It had a terrible cost. Demons flocked to him, almost like the veil had thinned at the very point of his existence. He talked in his sleep. And some things you can never unhear. These people didn’t just offer up a splash of their own blood. They’re looking demons in the eye and asking what the life of their comrade will buy them.”

Read the rest here | Start the fic here

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[6blues]

i can't remember if i dreamt up a book/paper about the transmission of 19th-20th century european orientalism and exoticism/fetishisation into shoujo and yaoi manga especially irt sexuality and male sexualisation or if it exists. does anybody know anything about that