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lairofdragonagelore · 1 year

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DLC: Jaws of Hakkon - Frostback Basin, Razikale’s Reach

Razikale’s Reach is an outpost of Tevinter, developed before the Blights to reach Razikale when she went silent. The underground level of the building seems to function like an aqueduct that drained the lake that was placed where the swamp Kulsdotten is now. The level seems to host a generator of energy.

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

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

Outside we see the “diapason-like” device that later we will understand its function: they carry energy. The outpost is decorated with typical Tevinter style, claws, and dragon gargoyles. There are some devices on its battlement that are related to the activation of the bigger mechanism inside the outpost.

The entrance

Close to the entrance stairs, the codex called Razikale's Reach can be triggered. The source of this codex is Ser Niguel, a scholar that Collete respects. Ser Nigel is an orlesian knight and explorer we know little about to truly trust. Since he is not a man who lived during the Ancient Tevinter or the Elvhenan time, clearly he will always use worn-out information and interpretations that will reflect his own culture. So I would not trust him when it comes to understand these ruins.

The codex tries to explain why the Tevinters left this place, but this is based on what some Avvar believe [not on the opinion of an Augur, which communication with the spirits allows them to have access to information of better quality], so in short, Nigel never knew. We could suspect that maybe it’s related to the elven temple underneath, since this Avvar says that he suspects the Tevinters did “something terrible” but the avvar did not explained. Maybe they were the ones that forced Hakkon into the flesh of a dragon and this abomination killed them all. Somehow, from this situation, the ancient Hakkonites took advantage and control on Hakkon ages later. Sadly, all this is speculation since there is no real evidence of what made the Tevinter disappear in the region.

As a nice detail to make us suspect that the Veil is very thin in this area we see a pair of Felandaris at the entrance.

The entrance of Razikale’s Reach has a door with the same characteristics than the doors of the fortresses we saw in Western Approach. So these doors seem to be related to ancient Teviner buildings independently of the gods associated with those constructions. [For more details about the symbol on this door, read The Still Ruins, Main Chamber and Hall of Silence and The Unknown Ruin [Mihris]

When we bring Kenric to this place, he will tell us things we suspected already: this place is a secondary building, like an outpost that warned the big citadel at the East.

On the battlements we have several elements, among them a big hexagonal structure that depicts two dragons eating each other. This element is repetitive in Coracavus and in the Still Ruin: we see these dragons in white columns eating one another in straight lines along the walls.

In concept art, these dragons belonged to a very intricate device or object that was supposed to be part of the astrarium but it never made it into the game.

Beside this hexagonal piece, there are two small buildings with claws and spikes that have at their front the typical Tevinter dragon gargoyle,

On its back, two massive Avvar statues can be found. This is not strange, Kenric told us in the same moment we started this DLC that buckles are an amalgamation of different times and elements that speak of the history of the whole thing. This is what happens with these ruins. Originally Tevinter, this ruin was abandoned mysteriously by them, and were taken by the Avvar, so they decorated them with their own elements. Later, Ameridan activated and used this place, adding elven and andrastian elements to it.

To a side of the battlements, we can trigger a note called Tevinter Inscription. It looks like one from the time in which this fortress was made. It gives the impression this is written around the time the First Blight. We know Tevinter suffered a lot during that time and was forced to focus inwards, leaving all the dependencies they had in the south to their own devices. This is what looks like in this note: Razikale, like Dumat, had fallen silent long ago. Now, Tevinter itself [Minrathous] falls silent too, with unanswered letters and no supplies.

Behind the big hexagonal snake device we find this one which seems to have some Fade-essence or Veilfire in it. It’s aligned so that it can feed energy to the main mechanism inside the big chamber of Razikale’s Reach to redirect it along the map and reach the citadel’s gates.

In the central part of this ruin, in the middle of this diapason-structure, we see one of the Tevinter artefact with spikes [the spikes are looking at the wall] which function is still not clear. The “diapason” structure has been seen before in the Fade under the quest “Broken Window”.

The Tiles and Side Rooms

The ground has several tiles that Kenric explains they were used for locking and unlocking doors. They are located in front of the Tevinter artefact with spikes . The tiles are made with the same hexagonal object that decorates the door that opens up when we solve all the astrariums of a given region. Kenric also tells us that these ruins are pre-Inquisition, which is something we have guessed already just by reading the Tevinter Inscriptions.

If we solve the tiles, we have access to two roofless rooms that contain loot. One of them is Hakkon’s Mercy, which I suspect means that the Hakkonites already knew how to use these rooms. And the other room triggers the note Tevinter Carving (The Old Drains). It seems that during the First Blight, the people in here started to fight each other for a throne that doesn't exist. It's said that blood sacrifices on the stone are the only truth they reveal. Quite cryptic.

The other chest only contains fade-touch materials and crafting materials, implying once more that this place has a very thin Veil [we have exotic plants in the altar, felandaris around, and fade-touched animals].

The Aqueduct

Due to the name of this note [Old Drains], and due to the configuration we see underground this ruin, one is inclined to think that Razikale's Reach was meant to drain the lake that was in front of the citadel.

We have access to a door that lets us enter to the Old Drains, where we find Tevinter doors and ancient Tevinter constructions. We reach a stairs that lead us down to an aqueduct system.

Here is where we see these canon-like artefacts with the function of pouring water, hence I called it Water dispenser. Clearly there is an abuse of usage of assets, like placing that diapason-like artefact on the ground to make it look like a mesh strainer.

At the end of this narrow corner, we find another Tevinter artefact with spikes. It triggers the note Tevinter Carving (Razikale's Reach). In which we read that after assuming that Tevinter had fallen, probably due to the lack of communication, the Tevinters in this are planning to build a new Minrathous, referring to the Citadel they built at the East of this region. And those who serve the twisted path [probably meaning Razikale’s priests and disciples], were going to form the new magisterium. Probably this situation is what made them fight each other for a "throne that doesn't exist" as it says in a previous inscription.

River Varsdotten

If we continue and explore this place we find a long cave with an inner river from which a lot of overgrowth extends.

Some iconography of Fulmenos / Hakkon and Korth, the father-mountain, are found. This information comes from the analysis of the game files [Korth | Hakkon]. The wall triggers the codex A Celebration Of Wardens which I don’t think it brings much information. An analysis of this codex in particular can be read [here]. Sadly this codex doesn't say in what date it was written, or who is this Lady Locke. We only can trust that maybe, at some point, during a time of no Blight, an earthquake opened the land to give darkspawn access to the surface. This seems to be a fact because the zone looks like an underground river, but if we see it from above, the land seems cracked open. However, along some parts of the crack, there are Tevinter columns with claws on their tops, so it’s not clear if this crack is related to this earthquake or it’s Tevinter’s doing.

All this place looks cracked in the map and crossed by roots.

According to A Celebration Of Wardens, after several days of fight, the Avvar and the Grey Warden drove back the darkspawn and celebrated. This Lady Locke says that these paintings are from this celebration, showing the alliance between Avvar and Grey Warden and she claims that there are many of these around the basin. We know there are not. This person did not know about Avvar iconography enough to recognise their gods in those paintings. Instead she implies seeing in them the object of her current study: Grey Warden-related things such as darkspawn.

To me this scholar seems to be unreliable, like the guy from the Exalted Plains who called "broken dog" to a Fen'Harel statue. Lady Locke seems to want to write a compilation of the history through the eyes of Grey Wardens, without any other cultural context to understand what she sees. And once more, the game is telling us to be careful on what we read, interpret, and see.

The Ancient Elvhenan Temple

Along this cracked cave we find fade-touched animals [reinforcement of the idea that the Veil has always been thin in this area, reason why the Tevinter built this series of constructions in the Basin: they thought it could allows them to speak with Razikale again]. There are hanged dead bodies that we can’t speculate at all since all dead asset is the same along the game; another isolated painting of Fulmenos, which at this point, it could have been done by the Hakkonites that inhabit this place. And the most important element here: a very ancient Elvhen temple/tomb.

It has all the ancient elements that we have found in Forbidden Oasis: Solasan Temple.

It can only be opened with shards; on its top it has this particular pattern of five rhomboids piled up, some fading swirly arabesques below, and columns that have Tevinter patterns. By analysing the construction, it seems that Tevinter built their outpost around and over this Temple. Once more we have this impression that Tevinter located their main buildings in places that seemed to be related to ancient elvhen temples. The Still Ruins, [Inner Sanctum] is another potential case. Forbidden Oasis has a lot of Tevinter urns and Tevinter presence in a very subtle way as well.

Inside we see the same elements of ancient elvhenan details: columns with bases that are like pilled-up squares and fading patterns of circular flowers.

Behind the Tevinter artefact with spikes we see a barrier of Fade-green colour, meaning it’s related to the Fade. Kenric reads some tablet at the sides of the entrance that are what I called Elvhen funerary lid. Here they are used more like an asset. It’s what usually happens with DLCs, they reuse some elements that seemed to have a particular meaning in the base game, and they just smash them in some places to create quick environments in DLC format.

Confirmed by Kenric, this barrier is made of “dream light”, aka Fade essence. Since this place was last used by Ameridan, we realise that ancient Dalish, the ones that belonged to the old elven Kingdom in the Dales, had access to a magic deeply related to the Fade: rift magic, that even allowed them to keep things suspended in time.

Main Chamber of Razikale’s Reach

Inside the main chamber of Razikale’s Reach, we see an amalgamation of styles and statues: andrastian, Tevinter, and Elven [like the buckles that Kenric spoke about in the beginning of the DLC]. We find a statue of Andraste, the same one we see in the Fade, which according to Kenric, belongs to a pre-divine age [meaning, probably after the First Blight]

She holds two harts, that apparently, represent Ghilan’nain according to Kenric, to which Solas doesn’t correct or comment anything, so I assume this supposition is kind of supported by Solas. Ameridan made this shrine as a way to honour both mortal figures that reached godhood in different religions.

At the sides of this altar, we see these Tevinter containers we saw in many places already, with the symbol of a sun [I wonder, could the proto-Chantry find inspiration in some sun-like element from Tevinter?]

At the base, we see an Elvhen funerary lid with dark marks.

Let’s remember the chronology of Razikale’s Reach to understand what we see: the land was taken by Tevinter who built several buildings; they did not last long in the area and disappeared. Then, the Avvar who had been around before the Tevinter took control of these buildings, and for that reason we can find some isolated Avvar decoration in them. Around the Second Blight, Ameridan came, and altered these buildings with rift magic and added elven and andrastian elements, because the Dalish of his time had Andraste in high respect for her help against Tevinter slavery and for the promised lands she had given to them [ the Dales]. All this amount of history is somewhat displayed in this altar. It’s like a buckle, Kenric would say.

On the ground, non-native vegetation grows with some sparkles of green that may suggest presence of Fade-leaks that feed them. In all this DLC, rifts and Fade-leaks have been shown to have a more beneficial and positive effect on the environment than the base game. In this case, there is a very curious overgrowth in the Basin that seems to be originated mostly around regions where the Tevinter ruins are located.

At the sides of the humble altar, there are some devices that were crafted by clipping and pilling up assets that were already in the game: we see a diapason-like device, the same one that in the Fade was related to the Broken Window quest, overlapped with a torture bed, and at the sides, two Water dispenser. This configuration makes me doubt how much I should keep thinking on these elements as objects with a unique purpose that help us to understand the environment. On the other hand, this outpost is related to the aqueducts that drained water from the lake in front of the Frozen Gates [citadel], where the ancient jail is located.

We also find a Tevinter scroll-library and the inexplicable coffins with the lids of Razikale Ceremony and the Horned warrior holding a sword. There are several of these coffins. The only reason I can imagine to explain why these objects are here is that they transported humanoid sacrifices. In some codices we read that they will keep spilling blood to reach Razikale's voice once again [ Tevinter Carving (The Old Drains)], so maybe to think about these coffins as means to transport several sacrifices is not too odd.

If we study the machine, we realise that Ameridan or his lover Telana [also Dalish dreamer] not only knew how to use Tevinter devices, he even combined their meaning with passages of the Canticle of Light, with ancient verses that don't belong to the current Chantry anymore [for example, the one related to Shartan]. This reiterates the implicit information that the ancient Dalish did not only respect Andraste, they could be andrastian at the same time they followed their elven gods. This confirms a lot of suspicions and objects we saw in Din'an Hanin and Elandrin’s Tomb; both buildings of the Ancient Dalish Kingdom when they lived in their own lands: the Dales.

The working mechanism

As the group activates the system, we see the spikes-claws charge with Fade/rift energy and a diapason-like artefact accumulate it to beam at the trail marker.

Kenric hypothesises that the way the ancient Tevinter left this place was through the citadel, closing the “door” with this energy that creates a wall of ice.

Once again we are reminded that Ameridan knew how to use Tevinter devices. It could mean nothing, since he could have used it as the inquisitor now is using them. The curious detail is that he used them in combination with Chantry verses to “instruct” its usage. I think this may be a link for us to explain the defence system we find in Exalted Plains: Citadelle du Corbeau, where the device that throws the deadly ray over the citadel is Tevinter but it has been assumed to be Elven, used during the time of the Exalted March.

This is how a concentrated beam of fade-essence starts to jump into different trail markers, making its way to the Frozen Gate. Curiously Solas adds a comment that it shows to me some confidence in how these things work.

Finally, we transport the energy beam to the citadel and it unlocks part of the ice, having finally access to the Frozen Gates.

#Playing DA like an archaeologist #dlc #Frostback Mountains #Frostback Basin #dragon gargoyles #Tevinter design #Dragons in a circle #avvar design #Keepers of Fear #Tevinter artefact with spikes #Water dispenser #shard #Elven Ancient shard-based door #Elvhen funerary lid #Andrastian design #tevinter artefacts #Horned warrior holding a sword #Razikale Ceremony

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