#ALSO THE OLD GODS ARE PROBABLY ANCIENT ELVES | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lucalicatteart · 11 months

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Finally finished my weird hanging painting thing (originally a secondhand partially-done 'paint by numbers' kit that I found at a thrift store and kept to repurpose lol)! Imagery somewhat based in my own worldbuilding projects, and text written in my constructed language for one of my fantasy species, but also vaguely inspired by old tapestries and illuminated manuscripts and etc. I've never been great at neat clean patterning or text, but it looks cool from afar, and I always enjoy making "props" or things that are somewhat like real objects that might could exist in my world. :0

(additional pictures/info under the readmore)

Here's what it was originally! I probably didn't have to actually have a river running down the middle because it further makes the composition of the whole thing weird (various connected yet separate locations and things happening, instead of one unified event being portrayed), but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to fully cover up the already existing paint that was there.. and I can also kind of justify it by going with a more "all the imagery is just symbolic so it doesn't have to make exact sense" approach lol.. How is one half of the grass green and the other is suddenly snowy? shhhh.. it's not literal.. shhh...

Made a vague sketch, then painted over it, and then added more distinct lines in black pen. Center image first and border second.

The very last thing was the text, which actually took forever to translate because my conlang is still only like.. partially done, and some of the grammar is not worked out exactly how I would like it to be, so a few sentences I had to think about for a long time before just going "eh, this is probably not how I would do it if I considered it more, but I'll go with it for now" lol . I also am not entirely satisfied with all of the characters for the writing system, but again, it's good enough for a quick project, it doesn't have to be 100% accurate and perfect because it's a fake language that nobody knows anyway lol.

I thought about breaking down the text and translation here like I have for some of the tidbits of Avirrekava (the language) in things I've posted in the past, but I think it would take too long and is not interesting to anyone but me ghghj, so for the sake of getting the post out quickly, I shall not spend an hour typing All That lol.

The general jist of the writing though is that it's just about the Avirre'thel being cast out from the other elves, after abandoning their magic for immortality as a means to truly attain perfection (an important concept in elven culture), the usual, blah blah blah, but how it's Actually A Good Thing, because the gods are wrong and immortality is Cool actually and they like the shitty frozen lands they were sent to, so it's fine that everyone else is being a Hater about it lol

Lastly, here's a few photos outside in the sun to TRY and show the gold detailing actually shimmering or showing up! It really doesn't come through in photos, but there's plenty of little golden spots to highlight light or Importance.

Mostly the fire, the pink sparkle that represents magic, the red drop that represents blood, the light behind Inaashi's hands and head (common symbol for the elven religion/one of their main gods, shout out to anyone who read the ancient elven religion post and recognized that lol), the sun, and the symbol for the Avirre'thel/country of Navyete at the very top. I did a few other gold bits, but they're not highlighted because they're Significant, more just that it looked more symmetrical to have some gold on the border too lol.

Other things of note: The animals are not actually significant to Avirre'thel culture really, I just wanted to put a cat and a bird because I like them lol. (I also wanted to have a few funny looking creatures, as I was slightly trying to go with the 'in some old medieval painting the anatomy and perspective is very weird' vibe, though I think some of the other parts of it look too Normal to pull it off entirely). Same with the four leaf clover, which means nothing in their culture - but these are the only areas where stuff was just added self-indulgently .

Bligabata (giant cabbage that grows along rivers in Navyete) making an appearance! The architecture of the building IS based on actual concepts for ancient elven/older Avirre'thel architecture and metalwork. The Avirre'thel who's turning away from Inaashi/elves/magic and collecting blood, is doing so in a Special Bowl, as is part of their culture (collecting it in the hands, or just in a normal vessel would be disrespectful, they have Specific Bowls which is the only thing blood can be kept in, etc.).

The figure that represents Jhevona (and thus, a closer connection to magic, celestial imagery, etc.) is in weird ugly teal, which is not necessarily a color or design associated with them, as I don't have much common culture (like clothing) worked out for Northern Jhevona (who the avirre'thel would have come into contact with) yet, BUT everyone else is in more Typical colors (a northern elf in green, Inaashi in lavender + white + blue, an Avirre'thel in darker purples and reds).

Some things, like the four figures in the corners, and the two people + fish in the stream, do not currently have a meaning, but in-world they would.. Like, I could make up lore for how they're culturally significant and it would be true because I am god of the world, but I don't have anything currently. But just know.. they DO mean something, I just haven't decided it yet, maybe kind of fill in as I go, come up with a meaning later lol. Probably along the lines of an old myth from the ancient elven religion, a story, etc.

I don't know, probably other stuff, but that's my Trying To Keep It Short rambling for now lol. I'm just glad I finally finished this! For how vaguely sloppy it is up close (everything being completely freehanded, only used rulers once when doing the initial sketch and lining where the border should be + my hands are shaky + the canvas is bumpy + my handwriting is scratchy and terrible + etc. etc.) it still took a REALLY long time, even when not trying to make it all perfect. Especially if including the text translation + writing, which took like 3+ hours itself.

Maybe all the asymmetry/lack of things being centered is NOT because I was too lazy to measure anything, but is actually because in-universe, it's a practice illustration made by some young apprentice who has to work on little canvases for years before he can be trusted will a full sized mural or tapestry. It's his first week on the job! of course he's uncoordinated! don't laugh at him!!! lol

#worldbuilding #elves #I AM WORKING ON A NEW PAVENTURE POST also !!!! I know I keep being like 'oh I'm going to get back to that! I'll stick to it this time!!'#and then another whole month goes by without me posting a new poll adventure - however - this time I DID fully intend to so #*do another one soon but my beloved beautiful perfect cat unfortunately passed away AND there was a heat #wave ANd I felt sick for a while for unrelated reasons so I just genuinely was not focused on posting online at all #I am trying to get back to it though along with other things hopefully so.#ANYWAY #avirre'thel #irithoas #maybe???? not super relevant to elves but I'll keep it intheir tag anyway also. Just since their lore is so closely tied with avirre'thel s #stuff and they're mentioned in the post. Or the gods are. Inaashi is.#OIGUGUGUGUHH I should have done a tapestry with the FCJhjkING triplets!!!!! Sehalanora Semoniyare and the other one whatever the hell #his name is. ... sehalanora my beloved .. (I'm referencing the ancient elven gods - for those who dont know)#It's funny that I rarely watch tv shows and when I do I rarely if EVER care about characters at all in any capacity #with maybe like a handful of even then extremely minor exceptions so I cannot relate to the concept of like 'having a blorbo' or whatever #but then for my extremely niche worldbuilding content #.. it's like OMG MY FAVORITE character!!! my favorite obscure god from a religion #that I entirely made up myself for a cultural group that I also made up that literally only I and maybe like two other #people who are able to sit through my novel long dry and wordy worldbuilding posts care about!! you all know them DUH!!#even WITHIN modern elven culture in the world at the moment in current day most people do not give a shit about them hghj #BUT .. I should have made a painting of the siblings actually!!! I stand by that!!#I mean I like Inaashi and Nisateyu and everything too. Actually all of them are fine except for Ea'ivuyera I guess. whoever the #like War and Order bootlicker god is basically. and the Evil dumbass one. but all the others are fine. I'm suprised I'm even able to rememb #that many ancient elven goofily long names ghgh.. But I could have maybe made it about the elven gods #The thing is just that.. i Don't have ancient elvish worked out as a language and I knew I wanted to put text on it #so it kind of HAD to be something written/drawn by the Avirre'thel #Knwoledge of the ancient elven gods is still a thing in their culture. But usually more as a joke or just a common fairytale knowledge #sort of thing. not really something to make a painting of. Inaashi is here less because of Inaashi The God being genuinely significant and #and more just she's there to Symbolize the elven religion as a whole. just like all the other figures are mere symbols of things. etc.

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jestandvex · 8 days

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Ludinus theory -> a big question

I've seen a lot of re-iterations of a Ludinus theory that I personally think makes a lot of sense, but then raises huge questions.

Theory: Ludinus was a consecuted mage of some sort in the age of arcanum, who died and was sucked into a beacon during the calamity. He was reborn years later, and started to research his past as he remembered it, investigating the Aeorian ruins, recovering a beacon, and trying to recreate the factorum malleus. He was pissed bc everyone and everything he loved was destroyed by the gods; he wants revenge.

Why this makes sense: Ludinus knows too much, but also is probably not 800 years old since elves don't usually live that long. He talks about the Calamity like he was there. However, if he was alive the whole time, it's strange that he would start researching Aeor at some random point around 580 PD. He could've done research any ol time; makes me feel like he started regaining his pre-Calamity memories in Molaesmyr or right before he got there.

Subsequent question: If that's true, then the Aeorians understood consecution. So how come there aren't a bunch of ancient Aeorian mages remembering who they are and re-starting the god hammer agenda in their new bodies just like Ludinus? Surely they could all work together or find each other. Something isn't adding up.

Tinfoil hat theory 1: The gods (perhaps miss Raven Queen) have some say in which souls actually get to come back into bodies, and the Aeorians were not deemed acceptable. That would explain why Ludinus is so conerned with her ascension.

Tinfoil hat theory 2: Ludinus died next to a different beacon than the one that was on Aeor (he was elsewhere for some reason) and the Aeor one was destroyed, which is why he's so angry about everything being destroyed.

I really feel like Ludinus being a consecuted Aeorian makes sense because of his general timeline, obsession with being close to beacons, etc. But I also feel like that leaves a HUGE plot-hole: where tf are the rest of the Aeorians, if they figured out consecution???

plz drop your theories below.

#critical role #ludinus #cr theory #critical role theory #ludinus da'leth #critical role spoilers

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felassan · 1 year

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Excuse me, you are so good at finding information and having a very organised blog. I remember reading or watching from an official source [like, a dev or Darrah or someone who worked for Bioware] explicitly say that the Old Gods are NOT the Evanuris. I can't find the source anymore, and would like to know if you have some idea who may have said it? Google results are all about theory-crafting by fans T_T. Have a good day!

hello! thanku ^^ what came to mind was this old post on the old BioWare forums by David Gaider, it's not explicit but could this be what you're thinking of? the post is from ~2009, before DA:I, the Flemythal reveal and all the DA:I dragon-Mythal iconography.

"The cult of the Old Gods (I don't call it "the Tevinter religion" mainly because that, to me, speaks of the Imperial Chantry -- which is based in today's Tevinter Imperium) didn't contradict the existence of the Maker. Quite the opposite. The people of ancient Tevinter were aware of the existence of the Golden City and ascribed to "the Maker" (though this Creator was not called this until the appearance of the Chantry) the creation of the world. The Old Gods were not creators, though they were supposedly also not created. The Old Gods were outside of the Creator's Plan and showed up to whisper to mankind and teach them magic. According to the Chantry, they turned mankind away from their regard for a remote Creator (who ruled remotely and never interacted with his own creations) and that this is what made the Creator abandon the Golden City... though there is argument that the cult believed the Creator had abandoned it long before and that they were adrift, rescued by the Old Gods. Modern sages say that this is attempt to explain the hardships that the early human civilizations faced, and not evidence of the Maker actually being absent.

So when Andraste showed up much, much later, she was advocating a return to the "rightful" worship of the Maker... it was not a belief that came out of nowhere.

As for the elves, their understanding of their own religion is incomplete. The whole truth was lost along with Arlathan and their immortality -- much of their lore was kept by a tradition of apprenticeship, handed down from the knowledgeable to the young, and this relied on the fact that the knowledgeable were eternal. Slaves also had less opportunity to spread their lore, so the sudden aging of the knowledgeable meant that much of this information was simply gone after several generations. This, of course, is their belief: the ancient Imperium maintained that the elves were never immortal to begin with, and that their lore was lost simply because the Imperium forbade its teaching.

Even so, the ancient elves did write things down, and so some scraps have been recovered. Thus the Dalish have slowly reassembled a religion from those pieces of lore, though how complete it is cannot be known. Even so, a few things are factual. For one, the original elven religion predates the cult of the Old Gods by a long time. Could the Old Gods have been based on the elven gods? Possibly, but there's nothing to suggest the elven gods were ever dragons, and certainly the contempt the Imperium held for elven culture makes it unlikely that they would think elven gods were worth worshipping. Consider also that it was the Old Gods that taught humanity its magic and encouraged them to destroy Arlathan -- why would elven gods do this? One could point to the Forgotten Ones (look at the codex entry on Fen'Harel for their mention) and suggest that they had reason for vengeance, though that would probably be against Fen'Harel and their good brethren and not against the elven people themselves, no? Still, all of that depends on how much of the knowledge given by Dalish tales is complete."

#dragon age #bioware #mj replies #lairofsentinel #video games #solas #hope this helps #lmk if this sounds familiar #and have a good day too!

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bumblewarden · 2 years

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I recently played Jaws of Hakkon and am still fuming at the DLC’s burning intent to justify the March on the Dales. Obviously, there’s nothing that could justify Orlais’s invasion of the Dales and the subsequent genocide and that i could be massively missing the point by so much as constructing an argument to refute it as though it is something that could in some universe be justified, but i’m doing it anyway.

Just from a logistical standpoint, how long can they (the writers) carry the excuse that elves don’t deserve sovereignty because they didn’t do enough against the Blight?

This is a lot of the distilled essence of the nothing ramblings of an old man, so i’m putting it under a readmore out of the common dignity i can afford. This probably qualifies as discourse or critical, so read ahead at your own risk, but as i’m half asleep writing this, i will not be taking criticism. These ramblings are posted only so as to not be left entirely alone to fester with my thoughts. Expect incoherence.

The origins of the Joining, just like everything else around it, are not exactly widely held knowledge, but surprise! Elven slaves contributed what they remembered of their ancient magical knowledge in exchange for the promise that after the Blight, the Grey Wardens would turn their attention to liberating the elves from slavery in Tevinter. Guess what didn’t happen. At least they kept the other half of their promise of letting elves join the Order as equals. I’m sure they kept their word on that half purely for altruistic purposes.

But as a quick aside that you may or may not deem relevant: Why should the elves of the Dales be expected to keep their end of the oath to combat future Blights when the Wardens did not keep their end of the oath to free them from slavery after the First Blight?

Now let’s go through a quick list of the Wardens who ended the Blight.

The Second Blight was ended by a Warden named Corin, and the Third Blight was ended by an unnamed Warden (DA2 Codex: Vestments of Sacrifice; DAO Codex: Thorn of the Dead Gods). Neither Warden’s race is specified to the audience. The Fourth Blight was ended by Garahel, who is famously an elf, and while forgotten by history but hopefully not the writing team, his sister Isseya was also hugely important to the effort. The Fifth Blight is of variable status, but because this ramble was sparked by a post relevant to my canon worldstate which boasts a Warden Tabris, i’m marking it as an elven Warden.

Skimming through Last Flight, because of the emphasis on Garahel as the one hero all elves across Thedas can look up to, we can assume the Wardens who ended the First and Second Blights were not elves. What’s not said is just as important as what is said.

The Chantry is obviously not above erasing elves in their histories (ie. Ameridan and Shartan), but it’s simpler for this exercise to operate under the assumption that these Wardens were human, especially since their remains are at Weisshaupt. Whether or not their bodies decayed (heavily Blighted areas are known to halt the process of decay), the size and form of their armor would give some indication of the likelihood of them being elven or not.

The First Blight is a bit more of an asterisk. According to tertiary-level canon lore, nobody knows who slayed Dumat. The exact quote:

“The Order’s histories do not record which Warden gave up their soul to destroy the Archdemon, for many Wardens struggled against Dumat, and the dragon’s very death throes slew seven or more of the Order’s warriors.” (Dragon Age Roleplaying Game Rulebook, p. 253)

<Tangent> Personally, i think this is because the First Blight was ended with the same ritual Morrigan offers to end the Fifth which here produced the old god baby Andraste, whom i also headcanon to be an elf. She’s very invested in the welfare of her contemporary elves, the Tevinter slave caste of which she was a part was almost entirely comprised of elves in this period, and most damningly, it’s a suggested name for elves in the 5E PHB. Look me in the eye and say Dungeons & Dragons had absolutely zero influence on the development of Dragon Age. Is this not by the same company that developed the original Baldur’s Gate trilogy? But none of that is actually relevant at the moment! I just wanted to get that out there </Tangent>

And while she’s not a Warden herself, because she was in the post that sparked this, i do have to bring up Wenna di Ladia. She proved that elves will take an active role against the Blight in the first one after the Fall of the Dales. In the Third Blight, she played an important role in rallying Thedosian forces against the darkspawn because it’s okay when humans sit on their hands against a Blight. Or does she not count because elves would eventually use her name as a rallying cry themselves as they defended themselves from injustices granted to them by humans? (DAI Codex: Tenasarin)

Let’s revisit our abbreviated tally on major elven contributions against the Blight.

First Blight: Contributed as much as anyone and helped developed the Joining to create the Grey Warden Order. It is unknown if an elf, human, or dwarf slayed the archdemon.

Second Blight: Minimal contribution.

Third Blight: Wenna di Ladia inspired Thedas to arms.

Fourth Blight: Garahel killed Andoral, and Isseya fought by his side as a fellow Warden the entire time.

Fifth Blight: Tabris killed Urthemiel.

So: We have 2 out of 4 confirmed Blight-enders were elves themselves, and elves are mentioned at points to be vastly outnumbered in population by humans across the totality of Thedas. On top of that, they have even less access than humans to the martial training necessary to make an effective Warden. In many places, it’s forbidden by law for elves to wield weapons, and all Orlesian Chantry Circle mages are being suppressed in their combat abilities regardless of species. Yes, there are the Dalish, but they are a small percentage of the already-minority elven population of Thedas. Even if they produce skilled combatants at the same rate as humans, the total number is going to be tiny in comparison.

It’s of huge statistical significance that 40%, of Blights are confirmed to have been ended by elves. Yes, yes, small sample sizes and all, but these are the numbers we are dealt. Do we need another hundred Blights before this statistic can matter? The elven Hero of Ferelden, especially, is the one who coordinated the entire response east of the Frostbacks to the Fifth Blight after the massacre at Ostagar despite the active bounty on his head.

If the elves lost their second homeland “because they didn’t do enough against the Blight”, have they not done enough to make up for that?

Despite their presentation in Inquisition, the Dales are about the only major location in modern Thedas that has a majority elven population. It is true there are small human populations there that would have to either accept elven rule or leave for other parts of Orlais, but it’s not like there are massive swathes of people that will be forcibly displaced if the sovereignty of this hostilely occupied territory is restored.

Or was it never more than the chosen propaganda of a bloodhungry imperialist nation to excuse conquering and enslaving the nation of the oppressed Other refusing to involve themselves in the war outside their borders?

The answer may (not) surprise you!

#dragon age #novhen tabris #ranting about 1s and 0s

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wyyrmwood · 1 month

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Settle down for a green text formatted tale my friends, I have a taste of a new classic fantasy book I think you all may enjoy. Its a little long, so I added a show more break for convenience.

I present to you the plot of The Troll's Grindstone. Cannot recommend it enough and there's so much good shit I left out for the sake of not just rewriting the entire book. Its got everything, cool horses, a Kronk parallel character down to the evil right hand status and everything, your dads weird friend that you have beef with, some hot lake monster girls that totally won't eat you ahahahahah come closer baby, elves getting their pompous asses WHOOPED, ghosts, and a main character who is just a guy. No inherent powers, just a decent swordsman who really really didn't want to be here but literally can't leave (because he got teleported to the elf realm)

Imagine:

>You are an evil wizard night elf who wants more power

>tired of smelly light elves crashing your sick parties

>corrput a light elf prince who was well known for greed, arrogance, and kind of just being an all around d-bag

>"hey kid want some magic get in my van"

>commence world domination to get rid of the stinky day fairing elves

>cash in on the troll alliance aw yeah

>going better than expected, elf prince is such a little asshole that he fully doesn't care he's leading his race to extinction, just keeps betraying entire cities for you

>feeling pretty good, but poison him with fantasy heroin that only you can get for him anyway for good measure

>"yeah yeah ill give you coke or whatever just keep betraying your people and leading my little crusades"

>he does

>sick

>world domination complete, pretty easy just massacred some magic pussies and desecrated some sacred locations so I own the magic there and also kind of dunked on the sacred sites and magics ancient far more powerful race of magic elves too because I hate them and the light elves worship them as almost gods.

>kill elf princes little prince brother too for shits and giggles, takes his sword and uses it to curse all other swords in the realm to decay and never sharpen

>back to the stone age with you, fucking nerds

>"ok freaky little guy go away"

>kick out elf prince because ew light elf, he crawls back to his father and is banished for betraying his people, facing punishment for his crimes etc. etc. etc

>like 100 years pass life is ez elf prince is probably dead from super heroin withdrawal by now so no worries about him coming back

>what

>he assasinated* you (you're an evil wizard, you just turn into a giant bear for a while) and also he's back

> yeah he's actually back, he looks great and also is mad asf saying he will kill you

>also hangs out with his dads useless wizard and some coked out old homeless guy

>kind of weird but you basically made this guy and know he's a bit of a coward so its no problem to just manipulate him again, bros probably also absolutely FEINDING for more heroin because fantasy heroin withdraws last forever and also kill you so there's that

>oh yeah and everyone hates his guts for destroying their civilization and holy sites

>haha loser

>prince begins on a quest to undo your destruction of the magical sacred sites and also kick dark elf ass just because

>he's kind of actually doing it

>"ok what the fuck guy if I give you heroin will you stop look here's some heroin"

>its not working he doesn't want the heroin

>proceeds to kick your ass all over the map and purify sacred sites and everyone starts loving him again

>aw hell

>keep trying to manipulate mansplain malewife him but it isn't working like it used to and also he's not dying from the death heroin but you KNOW he loved drugs so whats up with that

>also his pet wizard is kind of getting good from all this ancient site purification

>wizard kicks your ass and destroys your cool monsters

>AW HELL

>finally get his ass and sell him as a thrall after kicking his ass for once

>"see u later smelly"

>says I'm a cunt, correct but ow

>"remember ur dead brothers wife that you are kind of into but respectfully just friends ? i have her captured and shes also a thrall now haha look"

>oh he actually got really mad about that, probably shouldn't have said anything

>guy I'm selling him to is really not into having an extremely agressive servant who would absolutely kill him so I cut his knee, bye bye leg

>holy fuck this owner guy is throwing a bitch fit about now having a lame thrall fine ill buy him back and just have him work in the mines to desecrate another sacred site

>pain in my ass but he's balls deep in a mountain that used to be a giant now mining out its heart

>huh

>what's that

>HE BLEW UP* (catastrophically flooded and collapsed) THE MOUNTAIN WITH HIS BITCH WIZARD AND OLD HOMLESS MAN?

>awwwwww hell

>find his ass outside the mountain with dying coked out old homeless man and wizard again, this is so embarrassing

>????? Wait What why is everyone laughing and not shivering their timbers

>ITS NOT EVEN THE ELF PRINCE

>A HUMAN MAN HAS BEEN WHOOPING YOUR ASS THE ENTIRE TIME PRETENDING TO BE THE ELF PRINCE

>THE COKED OUT DYING OLD HOMELESS MAN WAS THE PRINCE ALL ALONG

>the guy you've been fighting is just some guy that looked like the prince a bit who the actual prince abducted from his human realm and forced into pretending to be him

>you, a powerful wizard and nigh immortal elf, lost your entire kingdom, power, status, and prestige to Mr. Normal Human Man who didn't even want to kick your ass to begin with and got roped into all this magic shit because he went poking around the wrong barrow over in Human Land

>he kills you

Thank you all this has been the plot of The Trolls Grindstone.

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st-just · 2 years

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Hi I'm here to give you an excuse to write up what WoW should have been

WoW dream build

I’m glad you asked!

So, you know how the whole entire plot of Warcraft 3 was about the various non-Scourge factions finding common ground to live alongside each other and unite to stop demons from destroying the world? How Frozen Throne’s whole pseudo-Wow epilogue was about Jaina’s dad showing up with a fleet and trying to restart the race war, and Jaina sided with the Horde against him?

So, first things first, in the base game, there are no factions. If you’re a tauren or troll or orc you start in Orgrimmar, if you’re human or dwarf you start in Theremore, if you’re a Night Elf you start in whatever the night elf capital was called after Archimonde blew up the old one. Thrall, Jaina and Tyrande are political leaders and there would be some tension,, and quest-lines based around hardliners and agent provocateur from one faction or another, maybe getting to the point of creating battlegrounds in places, but officially speaking everyone is Kumbaya.

Speaking of – as of vanilla, the entire game map is Kalindor. Because one giant continent should really have enough content. The main questlines would be stuff like putting down radicals trying to restart the war, dealing with scourge agents trying to create beacheads, satyr and fel orc dead-enders trying to call the Legion back, Old God cultists corrupting/awakening ancient spirits, centaurs and quillboars, and just general fantasy adventure stuff. You’d need to make a bunch of raid bosses for endgame content, but I assume people who care more about warcraft lore than me have ideas for that.

Then, expansions! Each one would, of course, expand the map.

First, a really big one that opens the Eastern Kingdoms back up. Each sectioin is kiiiind of a complete clusterfuck, because of course it is.

-Londoner is zombie apocalypse 101, with Kelthezad’s generals fighting the Forsaken and scattered remants of living survivors (or escapees, because evil undead mad science needs fresh corpses,and that means people farms), mostly organized by the Scarlet Crusade

-The dwarf mountains in the middle are a second, unrelated clusterfuck where Ragnoros’s whole empire of enslaved dwarves and elementals fight the dwarven holdouts

-Stormwind! Which would feel the sorely missed niche of fantasy-racists with a real power base, and consider all the Kaldindoran humans/elves/dwarves basically race traitors. Just real assholes about it. Even before you add in the disguised dragon playing grand vizer to the king, who absolutely isn’t helping but also isn’t at all solely to blame.

(This is also where you’d add Forsaken as a playable race.)

The second expansion would be Outland. And really I can see two ways of going here.

First is that this is where you add faction conflict – Naga, Blood Elves, and Dreanei are all now playable races. They start in Outland, working for Kael’thas, and oh boy are their a bunch of battlegrounds and conflicting quests. The whole ‘all of us are utterly fucked, and totally reliant on the goodwill of an archdemon to not waste away and die/find a home’ is a pretty good motivation for faction cohesion, really, and who doesn’t like playing the bad guys? (the dreanei you see in WC3 to be clear, not the basically unrelated goat-angels in actual WoW)

Alternatively, they’re the main antaongists of expansion, all sympathetic anti-villain like, Outland falling apart around them. The rest of the zones would be filled up with fel orcs and demons, probably.

Aaaand that’s as much actual thinking about it as I’ve actually done.

#reply #circletofcircles #in this essay i will #warcraft

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theeighthtitan · 2 years

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Dragon age thoughts...

I'm replaying dai and I'm getting the vibe that Andruil might have been the one to create the blight.

Reason one: when you talk to Solas about the grey wardens and their plan to find the old gods and kill them before they could start a blight... He is just so unbothered by the IDEA of the blight that it's just not something you would go to that extreme over.

Reason two: Andruil went to the void and fought "forgotten ones" and got sick in the head over it. Mythal had to stop her and take the "knowledge of how to get to the void" out of her brain

Reason three: That makes me wonder if Mythal/Flemeth know how to deal with/not get the blight. She rescued the grey wardens out of a dark spawn filled tower... She lived in the kokari wilds, where the blight started, where the dark spawn were swarming. The dark spawn that poison and blight anything they're even near.

Reason four: here we get to my wild supposings... The eluvians and access to the crossroads were turned off following a war between the elves so enemies could not get to them (as stated by a morrigan who drank the well and did not have keiran)... There is also a codex entry where if the inquisitor drinks the well talking about the elves at the temple of mythal. It says they are "trapped" (probably when Solas erected the veil) and "the ones born here do not understand the keeness" of what they have lost, or "why so many elders weep as they enter uthenera." What if the ancient elves had like... Tons of little pocket dimensions right? Accessible thru elluvian. I'm assuming bc, when you go with morrigan the to the crossroads the gate you come out of has like little statues on either side of each elluvian. What if the elven gods all had their own little pocket dimensions? And the black city is Andruil's bc ........ She also has this entry where her followers were begging her not to use a big ol weapon on them. What if it was the blight? Or an anti blight weapon? But! What if the magisters entered the fade and went to like a quarantine zone (bc they say they tried going to the golden city and it was empty). What if it was blighted, they got blighted and brought it back to the "real" world?

#dragon age origins #dragon age inquisition #dragon age lore #andruil #evanuris #mythal #wild ravings #dragon age theory

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shepherds-of-haven · 2 years

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Same person with more nitpicky lore questions! How exactly are Mages “kin to the Ket”? Was Duelki magic originally based on arma, or was it the other way around? Are their languages related? I have a conspiracy theory that Mitna’s the patron deity of the Changelings on account of all the secrets, shifting forms, and importance to magic-users— they just don’t really seem like Althea people. Am I on the right track?

Hi, thinking that Mages are "kin to the Ket" is just an Old Faith interpretation that doesn't really have much academic basis: it's just an idea that the Mages and the Ket are two halves of one whole because they can be interpreted as exact counterparts to each other--the Mages' power is based in their intellect, mental willpower, and their minds (while often being stereotyped as more physically weak and scholarly, at least in the past), while the Ket are valued for their physical strength, physiological skill, and arma, which is thought to be rooted more in the body, while historically more scornful towards pursuits of the mind and scholarly activities. According to the texts of the Old Faith, they also both showed up in the world around the same time, whereas traditionally the Elves are always thought to have been born first and the Norms were thought to have been born last, so they're usually paired as "twins" in the metaphorical family of the Children of Light. However, this is all a faith-based and religious explaining of the world, like how the Ancient Greeks explained lightning and thunder as Zeus waging war, so it shouldn't be taken as strictly literal. Duelki magic was not based in arma (or vice-versa: arma is an in-born trait like blood or muscles while battle-magic is a craft or specific discipline), and the languages are not actually related. In fact, the Mages and the Ket were probably the two races who were historically at war the most throughout history, outside of the Norms v. various parties and not counting war among the same racial group, and there was a lot of bad blood between them up until shortly before the Castigation!

Re: your conspiracy theory, I won't say too much in case of spoilers, but yours is a good guess! The Changelings actually don't worship the Old Faith at all and have their own belief system and god, though traditional believers of the Old Faith believe that Thimben is their creator (they just don't care much about him, and neither does he for them--he's kind of just happy to chill). I hope that makes sense!

#Shepherds of Haven #worldbuilding #gods #races #Mage #Ket #Changeling #changelings #spoilers #heavy #alpha build #alpha preview #mages

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noodlesarecheese · 1 year

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Soooo Ludinus may have seen the Calamity, but maybe not, so I’m going to throw a bunch of theories with varying levels of plausibility out and ramble for a while. SPOILERS for campaings 2, 3, EXU Calamity, and minor spoilers for The Nine Eyes of Lucian. Under the cut because it go annoyingly long.

1 - Maybe he lived through (part of) the Calamity. He seems to imply this pretty heavily, although he doesn’t actually mention the calamity by name. The calamity happened over 1000 years ago, and lasted for over 100 years, so for him to remember the calamity itself he’d be super old, even for an elf. In regular 5e, elves can live to around 750 years, and we don’t have any evidence that Exandrian elves are different (although they could be), and 750 is significantly less that over a thousand.

So how is he that old?

1.a - He used life extension magic of some kind, maybe something from Aeor, maybe some illegal soul-sucking magic, could be anything.

1.b - He’s secretly a lich or other type of undead. I certainly don’t remember if anyone’s ever pinged him to see if he is, and although he doesn’t look undead he’s a powerful wizard and could use a super special glamor. Brennan does mention casually in EXU Calamity that some government officals were probably undead or using magic to extend their lives. One flaw is he does use some kind of anti-magic thing when meeting with Essek on the ship. It dispels Essek’s disguise, so it would probably dispel any he had as well.

1.c Body swapping. Old evil wizard taking over the body of a younger person to live forever, it’s a classic.

1.d He’s an old soul in a new body, but in an anamnesis way not a possession way. The beacons might have been made or studied by Aeor, perhaps he died near one. That beacon then made it’s way south, shedding Aeorian souls as it went. Weirder things have happened.

1.e The Aeorian time bubbles. Although the Mighty Nein aren’t able to release them, that doesn’t mean that no one can. In The Nine Eyes of Lucian, we see that very thing. Page 121 - “Whatever magic protected that ancient had also preserved them, and within several heartbeats, they began to disappear, turning to dust,”.

So they can be dispelled, but the people in them turn to dust after. It seems like the magic was intended for short term protection, not long term stasis, and the people probably either lived their normal lifespans in some kind of stasis or horrifically died of dehydration when the bubbles didn’t release as they were likely intended to - let’s pretend it’s the first for my sake.

If someone had been released from their bubble earlier, when their body was still living, perhaps they wouldn’t crumble to dust. That does raise a flaw (which is a flaw they all share to some degree and I’ll talk more about later) - if Ludinus was released early, why wouldn’t he set the other Aeorians free too? Maybe he didn’t want to, maybe he couldn’t, or maybe he was from another city and all of those citizens were freed but they didn’t go to Aeor.

1.f He’s secretly an Aeormaton. I don’t think this one’s it but wouldn’t that be cool as fuck?

1.g He went to the Feywild, where time is a weird soup. We know that most of the fey left Exandria at the beginning of the Calamity, and we know that elves have fey-ancestry and, in modern times, at least one major elven city travels back and forth from the feywild to the material plane. While we know that this wasn’t offered to elves (or else both Patia and Laerryn would have gotten it too), perhaps he was special somehow, or has closer fey ancestry, or hell maybe he’s secretly fully fey like a Changeling or something.

So, that’s how he might still be alive. But that raises a the question of why he waited so long to act. If he’s been hating the Gods for over 1000 years, why start plotting against them just now?

1.1 He didn’t blame the Gods until recently. He’s just been going through the stages of grief very slowly, and has only now hit anger.

1.2 - He didn’t know about Predathos until recently. Maybe he’s wanted to do something for a long time, or maybe he’s been doing other things to try to take on the Gods, but he just now learned about the Godkiller trapped in the moon.

1.3 He was waiting on the moon to be strong enough.

1.4 He was waiting for a super special ultra powerful apogee solstice, which happens to be this one.

1.5 He forgor :( He just didn’t remember the Calamity until more recently.

2 - He didn’t live through the Calamity itself, just something also caused by the Gods or by the Calamity, specifically Molaesmyr. It was a city of elves on Wildemount. According to the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount Ludinus lived there at one point, surviving the destruction of it. The corruption that destoryed it was caused by something from Aeor, though Ludinus may or may not have known that.

2.a Combining this with an earlier theory, if the elves were bringing things out of Aeor, who’s to say they didn’t also bring back a beacon? If Ludinius had memories of the Calamity and lived through Molaesmyr, he’d certainly be extra pissed.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #critical role theory

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lairofdragonagelore · 1 year

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DAI: Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal

Here we will read codices that have a good degree of certainty, closer to the truth of what happened in the time of the Evanuris. I’ve collected all the codices in a given area and I’ve summarise them in bullet-points, adding implications and speculations later. Since everything requires Context, some of them will be accompanied with the current location in the game, in order to give us an extra bit of understanding. This analysis avoids the unreliable Dalish Tales.

This is a good source to understand the time of the Evanuris, since this temple has not been altered by humans, as Abelas says. We explore this temple during the quest What Pride Had Wrought.

This post contains the brief analysis of the following codices/notes

The Temple of Mythal

The Mystery of June

The Rebel God

Twins in Shadow

Elven God Andruil

Song to Elgar'nan

Song to Falon'Din

Song to Sylaise

The Ascension of Ghilan'nain

Ancient Elven Writing

Unreadable Elven Writing

Untranslatable Elven Writing

Old Elven Writing

The Judgment of Mythal

Codex without the need of Veilfire

[meaning that non-mages can read]

The Temple of Mythal, at the entrance of the Temple of Mythal

We are informed that Genitivi was not right about his interpretations of ancient elven culture and structures, which is a surprise to no one.

This is written by Atronus, an antivan scholar.

These temples were wrapped by cities. Since this scholar is basing this hypothesis on extensive diggings, it’s safe to assume that most elven temples were surrounded by a city. Each of them with a different set of rituals and details according to the god.

He assumes that the old elven gods, if they truly existed, were demons. Of course we can’t know if he is referring to the Evanuris, or the ancient gods that the Evanuris worshipped time ago, before the war with the Titans. He also asks what greater power over them could have existed.

I consider this codex mixed in value. The fact that the temples were wrapped by cities seems to be based on extensive observation, while the concept that the Evanuris worshipped demons is more like an hypothesis pulled out of his ass.

The Mystery of June, found in Hall of Shrines, mosaic in entryway to one of the ritual rooms

Not much to say about it.

This is written by Senallen Tavernier, an orlesian scholar, who was commissioned by Celene. We can see here too Celene’s interest for the non-conventional knowledge.

They think that each elven god represents an aspect of their civilisation. Probably this scholar is basing part of their ideas on the Dalish Tales.

June is the least understood god with less depictions.

The oldest depictions of June have none of the tools that the Dalish associated with him.

They assume that June’s role has changed over time or can’t be understood today.

It’s worth noting that this mosaic shows June with an anvil, clearly a tool of the dwarven, not of the elves. And his mosaic is one of the most geometrical ones.

I consider this codex reasonable in value: it talks about an observation in depictions. However, I feel it’s strange for it to appear in the Temple. It’s still the exterior zone of the temple where a scholar could have access to, though.

The Rebel God, room with the first ritual, statue of Fen’Harel.

Once more, this codex belongs to the orleasian scholar Senallen Tavernier, who, curiously, seems to have a much better grasp of the elves than Genitivi.

"Harellan" is a term that means "traitor to one's kin”, and it’s a word that doesn’t appear in any elven text before the Tower Age [this is very interesting, it means that it appeared after the Second Blight but before the Third one. We can see this in Dinan Hanin: the presence of the wolf as a protector and a rebel, as well as a much benign connotation of Fen’Harel was still present during the time of the Emerald Knights. This means that the conceptualisation of Fen’Harel as a deceptive god started after the Second Blight and during/after the Exalted March of the Dales.

They suspect that Fen'Harel's name is related to rebellion, not deception.

I consider this codex useful because it speaks of an undeniable fact: a word that didn’t appear before certain period of time. And the period of time associated with is related to a convulsive event: The Exalted March.

Even though this codex is written by an orlesian, and it seems too strange for it to be present in an ancient elvhen temple, I assume this could have been an exploration of the scholar, who looked around the temple, and saw these statues outside of it. A different thing happens with the next codex, where the codex is in the depths of the Temple itself:

Twins in Shadow, found in inner sanctum, after meeting Abelas, mosaic.

Once more, the orlesian scholar Senallen Tavernier wrote this codex.

This information comes from scraps of elven stories after the fall of Arlathan and transcribed into Tevinter. Which means that this information has been butchered by the elves escaping Arlathan first and by Tevinter later. Plus the loss of details in the translations.

This text claims that Dirthament and Falon'Din are considered as "twin souls", without a family connection. With all the butchering no wonder it makes so little sense to speak about twins without family connection. This codex is such a mistreated piece of information.

Oldest stories never name them directly, one is the shadow or the reflection of the other. Falon’Din is called “Dirthamen’s shadow,” and Dirthamen is “Falon’Din’s reflection.”

This scholar suspects the bond was not romantic, and assumed elvhen relationships may have been too complex for current parameters to understand.

I have a mixed judgement about he value of this codex. Even though it is butchered, this is a piece of information I would trust more than a Dalish tale, simply because it's older and conserved by Tevinter. If anything, we know that Tevinter always co-opted elvhen knowledge, so they are good at it. However, the problems of the translations may have made it more confusing that it had to.

This concept of "twin souls" or this shadow/reflection duality is something present in other codices. It makes sense if the world where they lived was shapeless, bending to their whims. All the lore we find about one of them seems to be always too entangled with the another. Considering the unusual situations we have seen in the game series, we could suspect they had a relationship similar to Anders and Justice or to Flemeth and Mythal.

We know that back then, elves and spirits lived together [Vir Dirthara: Attentive Listeners], but there are no reasons for one of them to possess the other, unless Falon’Din, in his desire to amass more worshippers, bounded Dirthamen to him. After all, we know that the elves, and Dirthamen in particular, had a deep knowledge of twisted bounding rituals.

My main concern about this codex is how in the hell a treaties of a contemporaneous scholar of the University of Orlais [the same one that Celene commissioned on other matters] managed to be imprinted in a temple which has not been opened for visitors since the time of the Evanuris. And we have some certainty about this simply because we saw the Elvhenans and Abelas defending this place. I have the impression this codex is a mistake in its location. Unlike the rest of the codices, this one was not written by “uknown author” [meaning, a follower of the gods who wrote it in ancient times].

Elven God Andruil, found in Hall of Shrines, mosaics in room of the corridor to the temple door.

This is a very juicy codex. The source is unverified, but it comes from ancient elvhen. If anything, it's information closer to the time it happened, and even in the case of being a text written by a worshipper of the goddess, it will have a less degree of inaccuracy than any Dalish Tale.

Andruil hunt mortal men and beasts. [I'm not sure how to interpret men. Did she hunt humans when they appeared in the world? But that took a lot of ages... She also hunt mortals meaning that she was not in the Fade? Because the creatures in the Fade are immortal. So, she hunt in the waking world? were Ghilan’nain’s creations the beasts she hunt down?]

Bored, she stalked the Forgotten Ones.

The Forgotten Ones are described as wicked things living in the abyss. Due to this description, we can suspect that the scribe of this codex was an elf worshipper of the Creators gods.

It also implies that the Abyss= Void was where the Forgotten Ones had been living to avoid the Evanuris. [So, Fen’Harel did not trick them to seal them in the Void; another thing that the Dalish Tales got wrong]

The Void affects the Evanuris. In Andruil's case, she suffered longer and longer periods of madness after returning from the Void.

Despite this effect on her, she made an armour of the Void and everyone forgot her face. This implies that the armour may have had some mask or helm.

She made weapons of darkness, and plague ate her lands. This implies that she brought the Blight to the lands. All over the series we find a constant metaphor of the Darkness as Blight.

She *howled* things meant to be forgotten, and the other gods became fearful Andruil would hunt them in turn. The gods feared this madness, considering she was going to hunt them down soon. Maybe this line, putting these two concepts in the same sentence, implies that she threatened the Gods? Did she discover secrets of the Evanuris in her travels to the Abyss? Or it was just the mere madness that the exposure to the Void caused on her?

Mythal turns into a great serpent and awaits for Andruil to hunt her at the base of a mountain.

They fought for three days. Andruil wounded Mythal [slashes] while Mythal sapped Andruil’s strength [entropy magic?], stealing Andruil's memory of how to find the Void. [This power looks similar to Fen’Harel’s. We see by the end of DAI that Solas makes Cole forget and severs the connection between them.]

Losing that knowledge, Andruil could not return to the Abyss anymore and "peace returned".

I'm not so sure how much to trust about this “returned peace”. The whole process of how Andruil lost her mind, and began a war race, with the following fight with Mythal was too detailed, but then the last bit is just a vague “the peace returned”. It feels like something else happened, but the story was chopped off.

Due to the description of the symptoms in Andruil, we could guess that the madness she suffered could have been caused by Blight or Red Lyrium or even normal Lyrium. The three elements can produce madness when exposed to them.

An armour made of Void is weird conceptually. The only Void we saw in DA series is the anvil of the Void, an anvil surrounded by lyrium veins, which allowed Caridin to bound dwarven souls to stone golems and make them alive. If her armour was fused with Lyrium veins, no wonder she went mad.

There is also another reference to the Void if we can make the equivalence Void = Abyss. In the DLC The Descent, the Uncharted Abyss is a series of levels below the Deep Roads where we find the most pure lyrium veins and the Titan’s guardian. It’s also in this place where there are no darkspawn.

Another ominous items associated with the Void is Staff of the Void.

A weapon that stills the air around it. The inscription is old Tevinter Imperium: "There is strength in absence. Absence of weakness, and of limitation. Absence of caution, and of mercy. The Void has always been within."

It implies that the Void is a powerful force, since it represents the absence of weak aspects of humanoids: weakness, limitation, caution, and mercy. If we associate The Void with The Uncharted Abbyss, and the latter to the Titan, we obtain by transitive properties that the Titans are strong, have no limitations, no caution, and no mercy. The last sentence seems to emphasise that the Titans have always been “within” the ground.

There are other objects related to the Void, like Robes, boots, and gloves, but they belong to DA2, and have no description in the items.

A weapon of darkness sounds more like a weapon carrying the Blight, hence the next information is about a plague eating her lands. What we can suspect, if the orlesian scholar is right, is that The Temple of Andruil, a temple with its city wrapped around it [The Temple of Mythal], is a plagued place.

I also wonder how Andruil recovered herself after this contamination. The codex finishes too soon. It seems like after weakening Andruil, Myhtal managed to deal with her, probably imprison her. But this is speculation on my part.

Another piece of speculation is related to what Solas said in Tresspasser: Evanuris are not easy to kill. The concern they had about Andruil hunting them, could have been because she had now weapons of darkness and armour of the Void. This could imply that these weapons can kill the Evanuris [her golden spear], or at least corrupt them. This was such a danger for them, that Mythal intervened personally and removed Andruil’s memory.

Song to Elgar'nan, found in the inner sanctum, mosaic,

There is no author, but clearly depicts a song celebrated by those who worship the god.

He seems to be associated with Wrath, Thunder, and Lightning

It implies that Elgar’nan led the fight to the “Earth that shakes their cities”, calling them usurpers.

“Ask him to burn the ground under Elgar’nan’s gaze” seems to have a visual resemblance with the image in the codex of [Vir Dirthara: Signs of Victory]. This brings once more the Dalish Tale idea that Elgar’nan is related to “bury the sun”. He is usually burning or grabbing something that burns and throwing it into the ground.

He brings "Winged Death" to those who shook the cities [throwing down the Evanuris’ work], implying the potential control he has on Falon’Din.

They speak of taming the land instead of shaping it / bending it, implying that they treat those who shake the Earth like animals or beasts. If we think they are referring to dwarves / Sha-brytol, they see them as soulless creatures, not much better than an animal [Old Elven Writing].

It's clear that the enemy are the titans. They are usurpers because, like the elves, they like to shape. The stone was there first, for titans to shape in the same way that the Fade was there for elves to shape. The elves did it in a more incorporeal way, while the titans shaped it on the stone, hard to change. It seems to be a war caused by their common ability to shape reality. Now, how both creature live in the same world is strange to me, since this world is a combination of Fade and Waking World.

Winged Death is a very curious word choice that, by no chance, is written with capital letters. It seems reasonable to assume that Winged Death is Falon'Din, since in the same temple, in [Song to Falon'Din], it explicitly says that he has wings of death.

One can speculate that Elgar’nan may have had Falon’Din as a general under his command. There is also the possibility of having him bounded or turned into a general of death when Falon’Din lost his duel against Elgar’nan in [Vir Dirthara: Duel of a Hundred Years].

Song to Falon'Din, found at the Hall of Shrines, mosaic in room of the corridor to the temple door.

There is no author, but it seems to depict a song sang by those who worship Falon’Din.

The people swore their lives to him.

He has control of "the dark that lies"

"His shadows hunger" and his "faithful sing"

Wings of death thick as night surround him

Lethanavir may be his original name.

He is called master-scryer, meaning someone who see beyond the horizon, beyond the lands we all see. He was like a scout or explorer of shapeless worlds and airless skies.

That the people swore their lives to him seems to imply a lot of slaves, which seems reasonable with what Solas told us about him.

He has control of the dark that lies, which is something I can’t point out what could mean. The closest to the concept of Dark we have in these codices is the Void, and saying that it lies, it would mean that the creatures lying in the Void lie? The titans? It makes no sense, so I will place it aside for the moment.

But the “faithful singing” sounds something similar to Uthenera. We see in the Deep Roads of Trespasser, a chamber where elvhen in Uthenera are singing. In fact, putting things together, the “dark that lies” could be related to Uthenera as well because we don’t know what exactly Uthenera is [for the Elvhenan]. The closest to the truth is in [Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago], in which the person going into Uthenera is hinted to be part of a metamorphosis process.

His “shadows hunger” is a curious word choice if we think in [Twins in Shadow,] where Falon’Din is named Dirthamen’s Shadow. Could be Dirthamen be related in this codex as well? After all, we can’t differentiate one from the other.

He seems to be called “Wings of Death” or “Winged Death” [Song to Elgar'nan,] and gives me the impression he is under control of Elgar’nan. Maybe as a result of his defeat in the [Vir Dirthara: Duel of a Hundred Years].

Probably due to his winged form, he had the role of a scout or scryer in the Fade [shapeless worlds and airless skies].

Like Solas or Abellas, he has an “original” name: Lethanavir. Probably this is his name before being a god.

Song to Sylaise, found in inner sanctum, mosaic

There is no author, but it depicts a song made by her servants [“We give ourselves gladly to your service”].

There is a series of comparisons with the other gods that make you think she is all about rivalry, jealousy, fire, and damage. She also seems to be the golden child, good at every main skill that the other gods have.

This song is the closest one in the games that describe Sylaise more accurately without being a Dalish Tale.

Her breath rivals with Andruil's spear.

Her temples are as big as Mythal's cities [the cities wrapped around the main temple?]

But she also is a crafter like June. This song says her skill rivals June's craft. And she gave the Sonallium of the grand architects to June as a thanks for a favour. [ Vir Dirthara: Raising the Sonallium]

She is competitive, fire-related, and a crafter.

The most curious detail here is that her breath is compared with Andruil’s spear. We know via [Unreadable Elven Writing] that Andruil’s spear is a brutal weapon, likely made of lyrium powder that glows due to its heat. How could Sylaise’s breath rival with this weapon? this makes me think she breathes fire. The symbol of fire is emphasised a lot in Sylaise.

The Ascension of Ghilan'nain, found in inner sanctum, mosaic

There is no author, but it seems to be written by a worshipper of her.

Ghilan’nain was part of the People, but isolated herself.

She created chimerical animals with her powers: the ones in the skies were called monsters, the ones on the ground, beasts. Andruil hunt them all, approaching Ghilan’nain after a year of hunt.

Andruil proposes her that the Evanuris will share their godhood secret with her if she destroyed her creations. The reason for this is said to be too dangerous for the People, but I hardly believe it.

In three days she killed all her creations with some exceptions such as the air creatures she presented to Andruil as a gift. She "drowned" the giants of the sea, except those that dwelt deep in the waters. They were too well-wrought and Pride stopped her hand.

In the lands, she killed all beasts except the halla.

Ghilan’nain is presented like a mad genetic scientist, who mixed creatures to create chimeras. This was useful for Andruil who liked hunting them in order to avoid boredom [Elven God Andruil]. After a year of playing this game, Andruil proposes Ghilan’nain to become a goddess. The only condition is to kill all her creations because they were too dangerous for the People. I hardly believe this. Andruil, as a goddess of the hunt and the sacrifice [Solas’ words], would care little about the People. I’m sure there were others reasons.

In a more benevolent interpretation of Ghilan’nain, one could say that she was creating beasts as a way to create an army against the Evanuris. In this interpretation, Ghilan’nain being an isolationist would have meant that she was a rebel, and therefore, apart from the People. This interpretation implies that Andruil hunt all those creations as part of the battles against a rebel elf, not just out of mere boredom. After a year of fight, seeing that this situation had no end, Andruil tempted Ghilan’nain with the secret of godhood under the condition of destroying her creations. The only reason I see why an Evanuris would ask the massive extermination of creatures is because these creatures may have represented a threat for the Evanuris themselves.

Whether Ghilan’nain was a rebel or not, she accepted the proposition to became an Evanuris, and proceeded to kill her creations in three days:

First day: air creatures were eliminated, except those presented to Andruil. There is no more information to suspect which ones are these.

Second day: she drowned the water creatures, which sounds like an oxymoron. You can’t drown a creature which breathes in water. The exception here are the ones living deep into the waters. It’s impossible to know what means “well-wrought” in terms of chimeras, that made even Solas stop her. The fact that Pride is capitalised could be a wrong translation that the inquisitor does of the word “Solas”.

The third day, she killed all the land beasts, except the halla.

There is no mention of creatures living underground. Maybe there were none, or maybe those were her secret ones, pilled up in the underground. Or maybe after she became a goddess, she shared the secret of the creation of her beasts, and the Evanuris created their own army of chimeras, which is what we see in [The Horror of Hormak].

Codices with the need of veilfire.

Ancient Elven Writing, found in the inner sanctum, runes revealed by Veilfire on wall.

Only translated with the whispers of the Well of Sorrows

A sinner took the shape of the gods, and flew in the skies.

The sinner is a servant/slave of Dirthamen [it uses the word “belong”]

The slave claims that he took wings encouraged by Ghilan'nain.

He asks protection from Myhtal despite being Dirthamen his owner.

Mythal does not intercede in his favour and let Elgar'nan judge him.

There is a shifting shadowy image with blazing eyes, whose form may be one or many.

Considering how sacred dragons are, not only for Tevinter but for Yavanna, who was raised by Mythal, we can suspect that the shape of the divine is dragon like. Another example is Flemeth, who turns into dragon.

The sinner was a slave of Dirthamen who took divine shape at the urging of Ghilan’nain. There is nothing hinting it, but since this sinner calls for Mythal’s favour instead his owner [Dirthamen] there is a slight chance that this happens when Dirthamen disappeared under unknown reasons [The Lost Temple of Dirthamen] and very likely during the time when Fen’Harel spread the idea that the gods were false, since this sinner challenged the gods showing that he also could take that shape.

In fact, if we take the interpretation I suggested in The Ascension of Ghilan'nain, where I offer the hypothesis about Ghilan’nain being a rebel at first, her encouragement for this sinner to take divine shape may be another proof in that direction: she was telling to someone else that the divine shape can be taken by regular people.

It’s also reasonable that, as a follower/slave of Dirthamen, this sinner would have known the “secret” of divinity. I’m not sure why Ghilan’nain would want him to take this divine shape if she was not a rebel. Maybe she was working on another experiment and wanted to prove it? It’s hard to guess it outside the hypothesis of being a rebel. But clearly a part of the secrets of her creatures must have belonged to Dirthamen as well, since by no chance Ghilan’nain’s red mosaic appears in the Lost Temple of Dirthamen. Dirthamen and Ghilan’nain may have had a relationship based on the secrets/knowledge of the divinity shape.

Finally, we know he is judged by Elgar’nan, whose wrath is brutal. The little we know about other codices would allow us to link this sinner to Geldaunan, who speaks of false gods [Geldauran's Claim]. Since we find him in this temple in Frostback Basin, and we know that Solasan, similar temple, was also used as a prison, we can suspect that Elgar’nan final judgement was to seal him. But all this interpretation is under the hypothesis of the sinner being Geldaunan.

The final image is a shadowy mass without shape that has blazing eyes. The mass changes to one or many forms. I think this last image can be Elgar’nan giving his final judgement, or the sinner himself after it.

The blazing eyes is something more related to Elgar’nan while the shadowy form feels more fitting for a slave of Dirthamen, the god of secrets and shadows [specially if we keep in mind that there is almost no difference between Dirthamen and Falon’Din. So this slave could also be Falon’Din’s]

Unreadable Elven Writing, found in inner sanctum, runes revealed by Veilfire on wall.

This is so ancient that defies translation.

Andruil is represented by blood and force

Andruil is making a weapon, with something that sounds like lyrium powder in a shaft of gold.

There is an image of an elaborate golden spear glowing in unbearable heat.

Here we see that the Dalish tales wrongly kept the information about the weapon being made by Creators and the Forgotten Ones. There seems to exist a powerful weapon being created, but it was by one of the gods in particular, Andruil.

The description of “shaking the radiance of the stars” sounds like the lyrium we saw in the Uncharted Abbys caves of the Descent: the ceiling looked like a starry sky. This is what makes me assume this shaft of gold is filled with normal lyrium powder [“the radiance of the stars, divided them into grains of light, then stored them in a shaft of gold”]. We also know that the Sha-Brytol have a particular technology to make lyrium weapons.

We know that Andruil went to the Void and made "weapons of darkness" [Elven God Andruil], but curiously, the description of this unreadable Elven Writing is too fire-light related to assume this was one of the “dark weapons”, unless it’s just a metaphor, of course.

This weapon she did was a golden spear glowing in heat, and I assume this weapon in particular is the one that Sylaise’s breath rivals with, [Song to Sylaise].

Untranslatable Elven Writing, found in inner sanctum, runes revealed by Veilfire on wall

It’s so old that can’t be translated into any known language.

This is Abelas' confession.

He and his people are trapped in this Temple.

The elders weep as they enter Uthenera, knowing what they lost

The new ones, despite being faithful to Mythal, don't understand what she was in her fullness.

Without the “wise to lead them, they will lose what they should have been”, and Abelas promises himself to be the wise who will teach them “to serve” because they must prepare to fight those who cast Mythal down.

There is a detail about elven names: Abelas seems to have had an elvenhan name which was abandoned when he took his vows to serve Mythal, and then he changed it again when Mythal died. He is now called Sorrow= Abelas.

Maybe this has to do to some magical vow, but this codex starts saying they are trapped. Meaning they can’t abandon the Temple. By the end of the quest of recovering the Well of Sorrows, we know that Abelas can leave this place because there is no more well to protect anymore. So probably his people were oath-bounded to this well.

There is population in the Temple of Mythal, since "the new" ones means they still keep having children that, despite being faithful to Mythal, don't understand what she was in her fullness.

These elvhenan are experimenting a lose of culture and meaning, a soft "Dalishization", not because brutal conquer of humans, but simply because passage of time and lack of context. The new ones are incapable of appreciating things in the same way than the elders simply because the world around them changes, the passage of time, and the rise and fall of empires.

The connotation of teaching the new ones to “serve” before “losing what they should have been” sounds like a process of Dalishization, in which these elves are losing the elements that make them elvhenan. They have to prepare the new generations to face those who cast Mythal down, so I understand there is a battle incoming. It’s not clear against who in particular, but clearly they are awaiting Evanuris to attack.

The way it’s described the image of the elders weeping as they enter Uthenera, knowing what they lost, feels a bit similar to [Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago]

Old Elven Writing

In this place is where they prepared to hunt the “pillars of earth”, aka titans.

The “pillars of earth”’s workers are scurry, witless, soulless.

The death of the sha-brytol will make the Earth blossom.

There is an image of two overlapping spheres; unknown flowers bloom inside their centres

We find this writing in the Temple of Mythal, so we can assume that it was in this place where the efforts against the Titans were made. Myhtal clearly was a leader of the group who destroyed titans.

It seems to mention the Sha-brytol [the titan’s workers]: they are scurry, witless, soulless workers, and killing them was considered a merciful act.

There is once more a repetition of the pattern of blooming earth.

We know that these spheres can be representations of pocket worlds, in-between spaces like the Crossroad. Flowers blooming inside would represent colossal ones in pocket worlds. This brings the image of [Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago] to me.

The Judgment of Mythal. Found in inner sanctum, mosaic that needs Veilfire light.

There is no author, belongs to the Story of Mythal.

Elgar'nan's fury "destroys all what it touches", that’s why the People did not call him for revenge.

Mythal asked permission to Elgar'nan to be the one imparting justice to avoid his Fury.

Seeing her wisdom, Elgar'nan allowed this and gave her total power: everyone had to follow her verdicts.

Mythal would struck down those lying and those with weak heart that tried to have some benefit from her being the current judge. Those with open hearts and clear minds were granted protection and judgement.

Elgar’nan represents a very destructive fury. This codex basically explains why Mythal’s myth has a dual nature: the mother that nurtures, but also the vengeful, destructive aspect that resounds in her and has so much in common with Elgar'nan's.

As we can suspect that her being the new judge of the People must have brought some frictions among the Evanuris, her judgement may have annoyed some of them, specially Andruil considering how many shady things she did [Elven God Andruil and Unreadable Elven Writing], so it seems reasonable they may have started to plot her assassination. It also seems to imply that Elgar’nan, as furious as he is, after Myhtal’s assassination, may have exploded in uncontrollable rage, “destroying” everything he touches with his “fury”.

I’m tempted to link Elgar’nan’s fury with Red Lyrium but we have more evidence against it than in favour. Red Lyrium is not just one person, but a collective consciousnesses, as we know due to the note [Whispers Written in Red Lyrium] in the Fade. By the nature of this note, I have the impression that red Lyrium, as well as Lyrium is where the consciousness of the elves in Uthenera go into. They can exist inside the lyrium while their bodies die. In the case of the Red Lyrium is corrupted.

Now, so far I know, we didn’t find any codex or note that would suggest against the idea that Elgar’nan’s fury is the Blight. However, the symbols associated with him are more related to the Red Lyrium than the blight: he is related to anger and heat; which are not characteristics that the Blight has. So, it seems to be a link with these three concepts, but at the same time it doesn’t.

On the other hand, killing Mythal should not have been easy. Solas says that killing an Evanuris is not easy, so the Evanuris must have done something terrible to kill her, such as corrupting her soul. This speculation links the potential origin of the Blight or the Red Lyrium as a tool made by the Evanuris to kill Mythal. Hence the hypothesis that maybe the red lyrium idol represents the death of Mythal.

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

#codex focused #dirthamen #mythal #elgar'nan #Ghilan’nain #Falon'Din #andruil #evanuris #elven pantheon #High speculation

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ren-c-leyn · 2 years

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Happy STS Ren^^

So other than asking for an update for your projects in general (twice a week to be informed these days :D) I would like to know, are there any skills characters across your wips are good at but don't like to use for whatever reasons? And specifically in Shackles of time universe - is there a skill or knowledge that would be frowned upon knowing?

@writingonesdreams

Happy STS to you too, Dreams ^^ I hope you're having a lovely one, thus far.

lol, to be fair, if you didn't request a twice weekly update, I'd probably never think to them on my own. It never really feels like I have anything exciting to talk about, you know?

Hm, this is a tricky one. Here's your read more.

There are, there most certainly are, but I can't talk about most of the ones that came immediately to mind because of massive spoilers. Let us just say, The Plight of a Sparrow's cast have very, very complicated backstories and relationships to magic and the world state in general.

One example that I can, and have talked about, is Thistle from The Firewalker. She has a wide knowledge of both how to save and end lives, as she is a former thief/assassin and is currently a traveling healer. She doesn't care much for poisons, picking pockets, or breaking into people's homes and hates using it, but she is good at it. She can't quite seem to get fully away from her dark past, but she's trying to. Unfortunately her old associates and Valerian's enemies are not making it easy.

I imagine Silver knows how to poison people, with her knowledge of herbs and wild plants how could she not? But it never comes up and she never uses it, and that makes sense since she follows Cordial. Cordial's law of hospitality forbids the harm of hosts or guests after food or drink has been shared. Which means she'd probably get some divine punishment for it if she poisoned someone, and whereas she has Eternity's magic, poisoned blades sound like more effort and risk than a bolt of magic to the face at a distance is. So, best to skip the poison and just make tea.

Sparrow, from The Plight of a Sparrow, has a lot of skills she either can't use because of the difference between her modern setting original home and her new fantasy home, and some skills from her past life and some knowledge about the game world she tries (and usually fails) not to use because she's scared about how everyone will react to finding out her full story. Though, the longer the story goes on, the more she questions if she really knew all she thought she did or not....

As for The Shackles of Time universe, none of the characters have skills like that, that I know of, at this moment. That's not to say there won't be, or that they aren't hiding them from me :/ My chaotic writing process is prone to surprising people, especially me. XD

As for knowledge that would be frowned upon in The Shackles of Time, I think that depends a lot on the region and culture you are dealing with, much like our world.

A knowledge that would be universally frowned upon is knowing how to break The Time Keeper's seals. If you let the Mad God out or open The Shadowed Gates, you're gonna be the most hated and hunted person on that world and nothing you do is ever going to make it up to them. Even in death, you will be maligned for as long as you are remembered. There may also be some lost magics from eras past that may be universally maligned, such as rituals like the one that made the Shadows and Shade-kin and a bunch of different undead monster types. The ancient magics are powerful, and not always nice, so using them without knowing what they are for or how they work can, and has, caused massive damage and long-lasting consequences. I don't have a whole bunch of the ancient magics fleshed out, yet, so that's my only example for the moment.

The rest would probably be on a culture by culture basis. Like say you could bind greater spirits to your will with a very powerful magic tradition, the wood elves would not let you anywhere near their forests since the greater nature spirits are very important to them, their culture, and their way of life. The Auroral Mountains probably wouldn't appreciate powerful fire-based casters since those mountains are literally the glacial/stone body of an ancient dragon and they don't want their homes to melt away.

So, yeah. It's hard to find a generalization for The Shackles of Time, partly because my world building is not as finished as it may seem and partly because the world building I do have is way more complicated than originally intended, and unfortunately my characters who don't like to use certain skills tend to like to try to bury those skills under 20 layers of secrecy and plot and sometimes don't even tell me about them until I'm halfway through a project and need to go back and foreshadow a bunch of stuff to make it fit right XD

Writing updates ~ None. So sorry, life and stress got in my way the last few days so I haven't had the energy/mental space to work on my writing. The only thing I can think of is I added two more questions to that moral quandary list for my dnd players.

I do, however, have something writing adjacent I was able to work on: The third follower celebration post. I finished and scheduled the second one to post, my writing partner loved it and so did my housemates. (I still find it cute and funny that they all want updates for the anniversary specials of a series they don't even read.) Then I got started on the third one. It's going to take a lot of work and some time, and it's definitely out of my comfort zone creative-wise, but it's turning out better than I expected ^^ Having a few difficulties with it as I'm working on it now, but I'll work them out eventually.

Thanks for stopping by, Dreams~! I hope you have a lovely day/evening.

#sts #The Shackles of Time #Thistle #Silver #Sparrow #the plight of a sparrow

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anghraine · 2 years

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@venndaai, I hope it's okay to answer your reply in a separate post! This is likely to be long (since I'm incapable of not rambling when it comes to GW, lol), so I wanted to be able to put in a cut.

Ah, thanks for this response! I was feeling a little worried my ask had been annoying so I’m glad it wasn’t!

Oh, not at all! I was so thrilled to get a GW2 ask that it took awhile to organize my thoughts, lol, and also was just busy with some RL things (including crafting my first legendary for my mother's birthday present when I only had the resources for a staff and no Artificer character >_>). And then it happened again sans legendary, but! I've been looking forwards to being able to reply properly :)

Honestly, thinking about it, I think I abandoned my human character because playing them felt like I’d skipped a lot of homework and I just didn’t know the lore that would have made the story and the locations feel meaningful? The Sylvari and Asura characters feel the most accommodating of my ignorance- everything about the Sylvari is new, and the Asura don’t care about anything outside their personal projects.

That makes a lot of sense! Even though human characters aren't (IMO) allowed to "lean in" to their culture in the way of the other playable species, so it's not quite as bad as it could be, there are a ton of references to a lot of things. Part of my undying Ascalonian rage is that it's continually fed by references that aren't necessary to understand to play, but like ... for instance, in the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon, Rytlock goes on about how Master Ranger Nente killed his (Rytlock's) ancestors like a coward by hiding behind his beasts and shooting ye olde Charr full of arrows. In GW1, before the Searing, Nente is one of the first teachers for Rangers and the one you have to talk to in order to get a pet. (The context of him shooting the Charr full of arrows is pretty clearly their invasion of his home, since he's stationed in a zone with zero Charr until the Searing.)

You don't need to know that to play the dungeons and it's not hard to guess that Rytlock's version of history is slanted, but yeah, it is a richer experience that way.

(Additionally, I tend to prefer fantasy human characters in general, especially magical ones, and since GW2 humans get the kind of spirituality, familiarity with magic, and weight of ancient history that often goes to Elves or whomever, while still being very recognizably human, it triggers a similar affection to what I have for Númenóreans and such—they're special and weird but their culture and history are nevertheless essentially human and shaped by being human. Even my aasimar D&D character was basically the same type in that respect: sure, she has lots of cool powers and is very tall and lives to be 160, but her sense of identity and culture has been profoundly shaped by her ostensible humanity and the aasimar arc resolves with her accepting her celestial and human sides as both essential to who she is.)

Totally agree on Trahearne and Mordremoth being well integrated into the Sylvari storyline. But I think the Crystal Desert and Cantha probably work better with human characters? Not to mention the Bloodstone stuff and all the Mists and gods content. My reaction to Balthazar was very “well I never voted for you, whoever you are”

Oh, true! I have terrible altitis and mostly play in Central Tyria with the various characters I've accumulated over ten years, lol, so I didn't think of that. But yeah, essentially part of the promise of the expansions was that we'd get to go to GW1 places that didn't originally show up in GW2 (the maps are a bit strange because GW2 is much bigger and more expansive to experience, but covered less actual territory than even the first GW1 game (which included the Crystal Desert, Ring of Fire islands, etc). But since the GW1 places and cultures were largely human-dominated and humans were the only playable species back then, a lot of the lore for those regions is human-oriented and much more rewarding if you play as human, even without necessarily playing GW1.

(Like, Kasmeer's angst over Balthazar makes perfect sense if you play as a GW2 human and are constantly encountering human spirituality, hearing "Balthazar bless you with courage" etc etc all the time and you yourself refer respectfully to the gods often enough. I like this despite being agnostic IRL because it's one of the ways in which human PCs do get to embrace a widespread aspect of human culture despite being railroaded into being more "reasonable" than many humans in other respects, so—yeah, I do agree here, though I do low-grade resent GW2 retconning human lore yet again.

I have a post in my drafts about it that I probably won't bother posting, but one of the kind of fun though ultimately pretty inconsequential aspects of choosing human in GW2 (which you may already know) is that the abilities you get from your species all come from the human gods. That's a cool concept IMO, even if most of the abilities kind of suck—and until you get well into the game, the best one is pretty indisputably the fiery hounds that Balthazar gives you (esp if you're a squishy spellcaster who could really use a couple of elite meat shields). So this god who had been comfortably established in the franchise for well over 10 years and always seemed cool and helpful being turned into the main antagonist is kind of /sigh, here we go again.

I would love to hear rants about Gwen! Whenever she’s appeared in GW2 I go “oh it’s blorbo from Elizabeth’s game!” but don’t know what to think of her otherwise.

Awesome. She is very definitely Peak Blorbo for me, so I'll talk about her in a separate post where I can give her full attention, haha. But thanks <3

(I had just over 700 gems left over from something I bought recently and suddenly realized that would just cover Gwen's outfit in the gem store and Althea could dress up as her hero for Halloween. It's 100% going to happen, lol.)

Haha, I did get my map completion, but I also realized the real reason I hadn’t finished Ascalon, which is that the Charr heart quest givers are so deeply unpleasant to deal with if you’re not playing a Charr and have no real reason to want to help them.

Yes. Like, the responses seem to either assume you are a Charr or at least are going to be totally chill about destroying historical artifacts of humans driven from their homes by the Charr reconquista, and there are a couple I simply refused to do the "short" way and instead just completed by killing enemies within the range of the heart. Or, even aside of human stuff, the one where you're supposed to like ... whip prisoners who are the real labor force fueling the Charr war machine is just mind-boggling, or "kill the dredge who are just singing happy communist work songs to steal their resources" are just like ... jfc, why should my character feel the slightest desire to do any of these things whether I'm human or any other non-Charr species??

I really really want to get Crystal Bloom armor but I’ve gotten distracted trying to unlock my roller beetle. After that I’m going to be grinding on Dragonfall which seems like a really really fun map.

Ooh, cool! I hope you either are enjoying or did enjoy doing that. I've been scouring the Silverwastes for crafting resources, which somehow I hadn't done before, and it's actually been really fun to do RIBA runs and rake in the rewards. (I think I've gotten 4-5 mastery points out of it? It's very satisfying.)

#venndaai #respuestas #nice things people say to me #anghraine's gaming #ascalonian grudgeblog #gw fanwank #long post

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