Dragon Age Meta Nexus

Before the fall of Arlathan, even before Arlathan itself, the civilization of the elves stretched across all of Thedas like a great, indolent cat. This armor was made for temple guards in a time when the Creators still spoke to the elves. The techniques of its forging, even the name of the metal it is forged from, have long since faded from memory.

The sun in the centre, with eight rays, breaking the twenty-four segments of the outer ring into sets of three. If I assume midnight is the line marked by the top of the sun's rays, the arc under the sun sets off the period from 04:30 to 19:30, which is 15 hours, but a weird 15 hours. I still have a sense this might be the daylight hours at the summer solstice, somewhere in Thedas.

This statue is named in two places: In the Western Approach (DA:I), it's 'the Thing in the Dark' In the base of Corypheus's Prison (DA2), it adorns the 'Altar of Dumat' (and, presumably, is taken to represent Dumat in some way) I don't think either name was given by anyone who had the slightest fucking idea what they were looking at.

If this is a deepstalker matriarch and her eggs, then deepstalkers only lay one egg at a time, because one of those is most of the size of her body, between neck and tail. So, if that nest has five intact eggs, like I think it does, this suggests that it takes at least four times as long for a deepstalker egg to hatch as it does for the matriarch's body to create one. The structure of the nest versus the size of the deepstalker also suggests they don't brood, but I'd imagine the Deep Roads are fairly consistent in temperature and humidity.

So alistar's mum was a grey warden but was cured by his dads dick essentially ? Is it known if she was cured as soon as she fell pregnant or if it was after the birth? And it's hard for gre Wardens to fall pregnant but has there been others who have and their child have been born a ghoul or grey warden or something or were they cured as well but the grey Wardens didn't want to keep a record bc ppl aren't meant to kno abt the taint part to begging with Things I'm pretty sure of: It may be possible to affect a Warden's fertility with magic. I'm pointing to Morrigan, here. Re: Fiona, her recovery has everything to do with dragons, and their resistance to the Blight. And here's the Theirin Dragonboner meta. [part 2] Which is to say, that's not a normal part of Warden pregnancy, as far as anyone's aware.

did u kno that harpies exist in thedas??? i saw a painting with two of them in redcliffe castle during hushed whispers…. hell yeaH [...] Whatever the fuck these things are, though, they're creatures of Fereldan legend/history, because the rest of the images in this set are ones I recognise from houses in Crestwood - I'd say 'because obviously, they're in the Ferelden section of the texture index', but that's less compelling than you'd think once you've been through it a few times.

Redcliffe has really fucking obviously been moved from where it was intended to be, initially. Assuming the 'sole land route' into Ferelden is Gherlen's Pass, as it's the only road through the Frostbacks that's marked on maps, then Redcliffe is nowhere near it, and you can dodge West Hill, Highever, and Amaranthine, before riding into Denerim in a straight line along the North Road without ever passing Redcliffe. The southern route takes one straight through Redcliffe, Lothering, and South Reach, before reaching Denerim, which is a moronic thing to do with an invading army which is probably intent on sacking the capital.

A fun fact from Codex: Darkspawn: Sister Petrine appears not to be a contemporary scholar. The last Blight was in the Age of Towers, striking once again at the heart of Tevinter, spreading south into Orlais and east into the Free Marches. She's apparently writing this piece of Ferelden: Folklore and History between the Third and Fourth Blights, so somewhere between 3:25 and 5:12, and probably closer to the Exalted age end of that, given that she seems not to be in the Towers Age. Because that is a perfect description of the Third Blight, so it's not just a matter of writing the wrong age.

hello - what do you think came first: red lyrium or the blight? and why? Red lyrium predates the Blights - as in things that involve an archdemon terrorising the land and fucking shit up. Why? Because there's a decent chance that red lyrium is one of the original sources of the taint. So, here's how the theory works, and let's see if I can remember all the parts of it, because HR's not around to correct my ass any more.

I've seen one or two (really good) posts about Thedosian cuisine, but I haven't seen a compilation of canonical foods/drinks to date. So I've made one. Obviously this isn't only what's available to eat in Thedas. This is just a list of things that have been mentioned in canon. This could also helpful for breaking down the ingredients for other foods! Sources included at the end of the post! I will try to update it as I stumble upon more, but I'm calling it extensive enough to post now. :P

Codex and banter from the Temple of Mythal

"Fear is a very old, very strong feeling. It predates love, pride, compassion... every emotion save perhaps desire." The first time I did the fade portion of Here Lies the Abyss I was intrigued by this line and the idea that emotions had arose over time. I wondered what the implications of that could be. Apparently there have also been emotions that have disappeared, that are no longer experienced by people in modern Thedas

The Beyond is a place. It's medium is the Fade. The Earth is a place. It's medium is the Stone. The Abyss is a place. It's medium is the Void.

Made a note of all of this since I write Merrill so often - sat and listened to it all waiting a good few hours for it all to trigger in my game - and thought it might be useful for anyone else writing Merrill / Clan Sabrae to refer to! Perhaps I'll provide a map of where each elf in these dialogues is standing, but that will have to be for another day. There's… a lot of dialogues.

- He once traveled to the Western Approach and nearly died from thirst. - He uses magic to prevent sunburn on his bald head. [...]

"Signs of Ferelden's Alamarri Barbarian roots persist, even as the Chantry has taken firm hold of the nation's social order. While Chantries stand in almost every village and town, signs of the old deities remain a common sight in Ferelden."

But Elthina? Elthina is exactly where she wants to be. She is managing a city in perpetual crisis. She is claiming to be a voice of reason and moderation. She is using 'diplomacy' on those who either have to obey her orders or outright rebel. She is earning unwarranted respect by 'managing' this situation. Where Viscount Dumar was stressed by the unrest in his city - because whatever his failings as a leader he did genuinely care - Grand Cleric Elthina is in her element.

It's a system of socioeconomic and racial and religious oppression from which only sparingly few people benefit. And none of those people are rank-and-file templars or Chantry sisters or clerics, or anyone else who has been lied to and manipulated in the name of a Maker they've been taught to fear. The mages have been taught to hate the templars, but it's not the templars who oppress and jail them. It's a system and an institution built on centuries of privilege and greed and wealth and power that's grown so bloated not even the Divine can tear it down. Divine Justinia was trying, before the Lord Seeker annulled the Nevarran Accord and the templars went rogue. She and Leliana and Cassandra, the three of them were trying to chip away at the rampant corruption within the Chantry's ranks, but it's a system too deeply rooted in centuries of political maneuvering and self-preservation. And I think we're going to find going forward that this system has its roots in the Exalted March on the Dales, and the fall of Halamshiral orchestrated by Divine Renata I and Emperor Drakon's son.

Here's a master post of all the staves & upgrades as well as non-crafting unique staves.

So, there's sun imagery in both elven and dwarven art, and in specific, there's a mural in Trespasser with a glowing orb at the centre of a titan. Which is, obviously, the heart depicted above. And that is what reminded me that I hadn't actually written a post about the dwarven - or at least Orzammarran fear of falling into the sky. Notably, they're all looking up. They fear falling into the sky on the surface. But, I offer you the codex from the Wellspring, of which that is a screenshot.