On The Pitfalls Of Relying On Myth And Historic, Faded Strength During An International Emergency.
On the pitfalls of relying on myth and historic, faded strength during an international emergency.
Part 2 of a series of posts talking about the letters my first character received from the Inquisitor during the events of Veilguard, and why I am very excited about them and personally really enjoy what they have to say about the political and strategic situations in the South.
I am going to strongly recommend that you read part 1 first, especially if you find this post in isolation! I go into a lot of context there that sets the stage for this one.
However long this series winds up being, in the final post I will wrap up how I feel the letters tie into the overarching themes of both this game and the series as a whole, and my feelings as a narrative designer on how Bioware used these letters to thread an impossibly small needle. If I make any lore mistakes, my apologies! But I'm mainly going to be talking about strategy and political ramifications here.
So!
The first letter, with a load bearing middle paragraph, told us a lot about the starting position of the South, in particular, of Ferelden and Orlais, during the events of Veilguard.
In that paragraph, it evoked a LOT of history. Both in-world historical events prior to the games, and of our actions within each title.
The second letter, received after the fall of Weisshaupt, is even more densely packed than the first. I'll be presenting it in chunks and going through it bit by bit as a result.
From the title of this letter, it sets the tone. The fall of Weisshaupt, capitalized as The Fall of Weisshaupt, reflecting that this is an event of immediate major consequence in the now and historic record.
Weisshaupt, as a fortress that was constructed in the First Blight, and that has never fallen in all that time, is a location shrouded in legend.
Before we can go through this letter, we need to consider the circumstances in which it was built, and why.
To do that, we need to consider the first Grey Wardens. Per the codex entry from Origins of, The Grey Wardens, the original Wardens were former soldiers of the Tevinter Imperium. Their lived experience had been nothing but endless war and Blight, and they met in the newly constructed Weisshaupt fortress to discuss their options. Per World of Thedas, p. 156, Weisshaupt was built in an area strategically close to Tevinter, but not hit as hard by the Blight.
In a time when the Blight had been an omnipresent reality for 90 years, that's a very significant starting position for a new order to have. They renounced their nationality and political ties.
Weisshaupt becomes their base of operations, and while it is a considerably larger fortress, we can consider it analogous to Skyhold in Inquisition in several ways - both in Inquisition itself and in Veilguard.
Per the codex entry gained in Origins, The First Blight: Chapter 4, one of the first if not THE first major victory the Grey Wardens won was at the city of Nordbotten, circled in the screenshot above.
Reports of each Warden taking down 10-20 Darkspawn at a time - a number that seems almost ludicrously low compared to the expectations on them in current Thedas.
But the first Blight, while very long, also saw the Darkspawn divided heavily between their surface and underground activity. There were less of them overall, and they had to cut their way through the Dwarves in order to establish their underground hives that would allow them to become an exponentially multiplying threat.
Over the next hundred years, the first Wardens fought to establish themselves. They made treaties, they established conscription and did not discriminate by race or class or background. In many ways, their actions mirror those the Dwarves took in creating the first Golems, but that's a subject for a different post, maybe.
All of this builds up to saying:
Weisshaupt was critical as a strategic location when it was first used as a base of operations. That victory cemented it as the ancestral headquarters of the Grey Wardens in all the time that follows, but as time marched on it became less and less strategically relevant to subsequent Blights.
Its main value became symbolic - the last refuge, the place to make a last stand. Weisshaupt has never fallen, and while it remains standing, there is hope.
I am being handed a note. It's this note. We can talk about the rest of this note now.
With all that prior context established, we can look at the actions the First Warden takes here with a critical eye. Leaving aside the merit of some of the things he has to say to Rook in the game, when we consider the actual underlying positions that the First Warden holds, he is deeply conservative, and a hardline traditionalist. He is an old soldier, yes, but as has been seen by references to his actions in previous titles and in this one: he is largely a figurehead, caught up in politicking.
As a political figurehead, but one fully on board with the death-cult tendencies of the modern Wardens (obsession with past glory and future heroic, destined death; deeply secretive to its own organizational detriment; rife with paranoia), First Warden Glastrum is faced with a deeply unenviable burden: constant darkspawn activity and multiple Blights across what we can assume is his entire tenure in the position, since no reference I can find is made to his having been a newcomer to the role.
Already quite old, both by normal standards and ESPECIALLY Warden ones, the First Warden displays some irrational behaviours that made me suspect he was actively experiencing his Calling from our first meeting with him.
His fixation on due process struck me as a desperate attempt to seek control in the face of that, and the actions that followed reinforced my feelings that this was a man who wants to cement his own legacy while he still can.
Calling the Wardens back to Weisshaupt is a strategic choice that does not make sense outside of that framework, and it is reinforced as what is probably going on by the Veilguard codex entry: Every Warden's Journey.
Viewed through this lens, and with him experiencing the Calling later confirmed if you reason with the First Warden, we can see that calling the Wardens back to Weisshaupt was less about meaningfully combatting the new Blight, and more about forcing a last stand.
We know that all the Wardens are having a bad time once Ghilan'nain takes control of the Blight. We know, per Dorian, that the First Warden signed off on the plan to raise a demon army in Inquisition, a plan which involved active collaboration with the Venatori. It is not the first time he has approved Glorious Last Stands.
The First Warden is a perfect target to subvert if you are Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, and the Grey Wardens are a potential obstruction to your plans to consolidate control over the entirety of Thedas.
He wants to do right. He wants to fulfill his duty. He wants to die with honor, and make his mark in a way he has not been able too across the rest of the games, trapped as he is in the role of a figurehead.
And so he calls the Wardens, en masse, back to Weisshaupt. And we all know how that goes.
He concentrates them all in one place, which at this time in history, is a strategically useful location, but not for what we see it used for. Not as a border fort with immediate access to the worst off areas in this new Blight.
Weisshaupt would have been the perfect place to house refugees, and to use as a counterpart to Skyhold in the South. An information and logistics center.
Baiting the First Warden into a suicidal last stand serves multiple strategic purposes:
It consolidates the bulk of the Grey Warden order in a single, isolated location.
It pisses off everyone who currently really needs Grey Warden support.
It denies those people and places Grey Warden support, which as we will go over in the letter has devastating consequences.
It denies the forces in the North a powerful base of operations, as just outlined.
A victory at Weisshaupt is a devastating blow to morale across all of Thedas. It's fall robs everyone of the comforting myth that no matter what happens, they can always fall back to Weisshaupt and know that they will be safe. It sends a message: nowhere is outside of our reach, and there is nobody who can protect you.
We see how this unfolds in the next lines of the letter. The Grey Wardens withdraw, and it results in immediate losses of ground, particularly for Orzammar. It is a betrayal of one of the oldest alliances that the Wardens have, and one that will stoke the isolationist tendencies of Orzammar's ruling class.
If they are abandoned, once again, why should they show up for anyone else? And, indeed, I did not hear of them again until the final letter.
Orzammar has been dying a slow death across all of the games. The humans - and then the Qunari, in the events of Trespasser - have been trying to circumvent reliance on the Dwarves for access to the lyrium trade across all of the games and in the historical record.
There is a horrifying mirroring of the true history of the Dwarven people we learn about in the Descent DLC and the things we learn in Veilguard that we can see in these efforts.
And no matter who we made King, Orzammar has up until now refused to adapt and make the systemic change needed to reverse this slide into obliteration: the abolishment of the caste system. I want to go into the differences between Orzammar's approach and that of Kal-Sharok, but that will have to be a different post I think. Suffice it to say, based on everything we have seen of that city in prior titles, I expected exactly this result. Now Orzammar will have to contend with the same set of circumstances that Kal-Sharok was once forced into:
The unaddressed systemic cultural issues and generational trauma of the Dwarves of Orazmmar led to them becoming increasingly isolationist and reliant on the lyrium trade in order to tend to their daily needs. And without Grey Warden allies, and with their supply lines also affected by the same issues hitting Ferelden, their options dwindle sharply.
And a thousand or so Wardens die at Weisshaupt.
That is a devastating loss. We see what even a pair of Grey Wardens can do multiple times across the series.
With the loss of the Wardens and Weisshaupt both, Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan can launch the next stage of their offensives. Remembering that aside from being known as the mother of the halla, Ghil is the elven goddess of guides and navigation. We can subsequently intuit that she probably has a very firm understanding of how long it takes to get places, and she has control of the Blight and the Darkspawn - which means she now controls the Deep Roads near entirely unopposed. She's got the subway.
Coordinating an eruption of Darkspawn at historic sites terrorizes Thedas with what the Dwarves already knew: the Darkspawn are everywhere, in seething hordes, and surfacers will reckon with those numbers when Orzammar no longer holds them back.
So!
Per the last letter, the border with Orlais is being harried. The Darkspawn horde at Ostagar appears to have made directly for Denerim - another strong strategic move. Take out the capital, and theoretically you undermine the ability of the nation to organize and field meaningful resistance. Except, here, the less centralized structure of Ferelden society does it a firm favour. As we have seen in prior games, Denerim is not the only key location to locking Ferelden down. Redcliffe is also critical. I'm being handed another note, but that's a problem for future me and for future Ferelden.
The situation in the capital is grim, yes, but not currently totally lost. We have seen how stubborn and determined the people of Denerim are in the face of adversity in Origins firsthand.
Next up is the one part of this that I did not see coming after receiving the first letter - though I should have! I overlooked the implications of the Jaws of Hakkon dlc, having only viewed it through for the first time shortly before Veilguard's release.
When the political process is failing, when the establishments are tearing themselves apart, when civilians lives are on the line and there is an existential threat to everyone: the sorely neglected and othered often step up to provide the most critical support. So it is here, with the Chasind and the Avvar.
Relegated to the margins across all of the games, treated mostly by our viewpoint characters and those we interact with as backward and provincial at best, both the Chasind and the Avvar are substantial and mostly unrepresented groups in the franchise. They also occupy the most outwardly 'hostile' terrain in Ferelden, and know it like the back of their hands.
I got so, so excited when this popped up. The implications of this alliance were the most stirring thing to give me hope for the South. With access to the travel routes and supply lines, as well as remote and well protected territories, the potential to slip civilians out from the noose that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are tightening around Ferelden shoots up.
Troops can be moved, and so long as the Blight is contained and harried at by those who at this point have a great deal of learned experience fighting Darkspawn, this alliance marks a potential turning point both in the immediate moment we receive the letter, and in the long-term arc of history that will go on far past the events of the game itself.
It's exciting to me, and I'm excited to also dig into the next letter! As with the last one, nobody else has to like what they've done here, but I think it's great, and I'm really excited to share more of why.
More Posts from Worlds-of-thedas and Others
Today is 11/11 which marks 101 years of Poland regaining independence and I thought it is a perfect time to publish a post that I’ve been working on for a while.
Ferelden from Polish Perspective aka Why We Can Relate to Dog Lords So Much.
This is a sort of compilation of my own thoughts I had while playing the games and various talks with my Polish friends. It is not supposed to force any ideas or teach others how to interpret the game. I just thought it could be entertaining for anyone interested in history and culture. I was trying not to elaborate too much on the subject here but it still ended up being A Very Long Post TM. To make this post a little neater to read, I divided this post into 4 sections:
1. History
2. Fashion and Food
3. Politics
4. Relationships with Other Countries
I will be very happy if you find a minute or two to read some of my points. If you have any additional questions or comments feel free to leave me a message :)
And once again - enormous thanks to @aeducanka for proofreading. I would be a poor mess without you.
Keep reading
Thedas Elf Maker
Create an elf from the world of Thedas using this image maker!
I'm still willing to add features like more hairstyles and outfits per suggestion, but for now I'm considering this complete enough to release! I hope you have fun with it. 😊
One thing origins did is make me a Ferelden nationalist. That's my HOME COUNTRY right there and i want my MABARI. LONG LIVE YHE KING!
One of the craziest things about Dragon Age (and this might help those of you who don’t go here kind of understand what people are yelling about in the coming months) is its lore. But I don’t mean that in the way you’re probably thinking.
I mean, quite literally, the way it presents its lore to you. In picking up notes and books as you go along and sifting through the codex, the game effectively asks you to act as an anthropologist. You’re met with a host of primary and secondary sources, some many hundreds of years apart from one another, written by anyone from the highest Chantry scholar to John Farmer, and you’re meant to constantly be questioning every piece of information you’re given. What biases are present in what I’m reading? What is fact and what is complete fabrication and what is, potentially, a slightly twisted version of a fact? How does one source potentially contradict another? The lore is one giant mystery-puzzle that you get to piece together across three games, and what conclusions you draw are going to be entirely different from someone else’s, and so on.
And yet, the series still does something even cooler than any of that. You realize, at a certain point, that this idea you have been engaging with on a meta-level — this idea that history is biased and fallible, that it’s written by colonizers and conquerers, genocidal racists and religious zealots, that the ability to control historical narrative is the prize you win for spilling the most blood — that idea is one of, if not perhaps THE most important, overarching theme of the series. The way that we remember history — what we remember and what we don’t, and why — and the impact that has on people on a sociological, political, cultural and psychological level, on both a macro and micro scale. It’s the entire thesis of the series’ main villain’s whole motivation.
And there’s gonna be a lot of people that don’t care about all that but me personally it makes me want to gnaw on a cinder block and scratch at my walls
can you talk about misinterpretations of wynne and zevran's dynamic??? i'm chewing on your analysis
i think it’s a very basic case of people simply taking what is said at face value, in a way that comes up a lot with your classic zevran misinterpretations and uhhh oversimplifications. zevran and wynne’s banters are full of his classic exaggerated flirtations. all of their banters hinge on this joke and they’re very funny. but i’m always mildly stunned when i see people taking that as... zevran actually literally just being horny AGSHSKKSKS
i don’t think people give zevran enough credit for how clever he is at dancing around the other companions. nobody ever really gets one up on him. i can think of one specific instance in banter where i do think something gets under his skin, which i think oghren of all people manages essentially by accident the one time he’s actually not really trying
anyway: wynne opens their first banter with “you must know that murder is wrong, i assume.” it’s very wynne; she makes a judgement and announces it as fact. zevran is slightly stunned by this and also how funny it is: “i’m sorry... are you speaking to me?” with this incredible disbelieving pause because, like, he’s the party assassin. but he’s also playing for time quickly on how to react to this out of nowhere. wynne then explains the simple narrative she’s constructed that joining the party is due to a crisis of conscience on zevran’s part about being an assassin. and zevran immediately jumps into exaggerated agreement, and once he gets a better idea, the first of his flirtations with her, until she gives up in exasperation. it’s an evasion tactic zevran is very, very good at and has been doing to you, the player, since his first appearance on screen. he wants to play on the characters he performs when they’re useful shields, whether it’s the victim or the flirt or what have you. but also always with that ironic air that he’s clearly doing a bit; there’s the charm of letting you in on a private joke, but also he needs everything to be a faintly ridiculous game to him, so he doesn’t have to be affected
zevran keeps this joke up for the full extent of his banters with wynne through the whole game, because he finds it wildly entertaining, of course, and because he has no interest in ever inviting the conversation she wants. he so badly doesn’t want to deal with her asking this that he decides to run this bit into the GROUND, and starts doing it pre-emptively to ward her off even after she stops trying to instigate the conversation. bc wynne may be a good way off the mark, and, ironically for someone wanting zevran to take this seriously, not able to imagine that his life and feelings may be more complex than assumed (absolutely classic spirit behaviour once again), but she is needling at his reasons for leaving the crows, which is the last thing wants to be honest with anyone about
making the assumption that zevran is flirting with wynne out of genuine interest is, to me, the same mistake as thinking zevran when you first meet the warden is flirting out of genuine interest. this is how he knows to stay alive. if he let his guard down, he’d be dead; if he wasn’t charming, he’d be dead; and if he ever stopped to dwell instead of being the “eternal optimist”, always instinctually grasping at one more chance to live another day, he’d be very, very dead. he’s not going to casually discuss vulnerabilities for someone else’s peace of mind and he definitely doesn’t have the kind of insecurity to need to explain himself to people who don’t know him or what they’re talking about. so, rogue evasion abilities activate! it’s time for him to dodge! which is what he spends the entire series of banters doing. but also he’s just still finding it funny throughout. she just gives him so much ammunition. it’s like taking candy from a baby. zevran loves an old and terrible joke repeated for several months solid, they age like wine to him
i also think wynne’s comments are a light jab at how zevran does get read by players. he’s not ashamed of being an assassin. there’s this great line in one of his dialogues with the warden that asks why he shouldn’t continue to do what he’s good at when so few have come by his skills “honestly”, as he believes he has. there’s a tendency to characterise him and characters like him as, ah, the guilt-ridden victim in need of a pure-hearted saviour to show him the light, etc etc, but that’s never been who he is. there’s no ending where he suddenly quits being an assassin lmao
love how in dragon age you sometimes click on a random rock and it tells about some fucked up group of weirdos that lived 5 centuries ago who faced the horrors of the world and died.
Life in Rivain - What We Know Going Into Dragon Age: The Veilguard
For the first time in the game franchise, it has been confirmed that players will get the opportunity to explore Rivain. As such, we will finally be learning a lot more about Rivain upon its release. This piece is about the information we have thus far.
Location & Population
The Kingdom of Rivain, founded in -44 Ancient, is located on the northeastern peninsula of Thedas. Surrounded nearly entirely by water, its only land connection is Antiva.
Those native to Rivain are called Rivaini. Just like any nation in Thedas, there are different racial/ethnic backgrounds who live there – however, the majority of Rivain’s population is Black.
There is also a notable qunari population in Rivain, dating back to when they arrived in Thedas in 6:32 Steel. Kont-aar still exists as a large Qunari settlement in the northern part of the nation – it is regarded as peaceful.
The capital of Rivain is Dairsmuid, which sits on the Rialto Bay. Dairsmuid is the only place in Rivain that has any real Chantry control.
Relations
Because Rivain has a lot of flavour profiles found only in the northern part of Thedas, other nations highly value their food exports. As Rivain is friendly with the Qunari, they are willing to trade in Seheron, too.
Rivain has a “less-than-cordial” relationship with Tevinter. It also has an unserious rivalry with Antiva.
Culture
The Rivaini are traditionally a matriarchal society, believing that women are best suited to rule. Major decisions within a community rest on the head of elder women, who is often a Seer (see: Magic).
Rivain has a currency-based economy. However, there is, generally speaking, a greater value placed in making sure everyone has what they need over monetary gain. For example, if one community has a bad year the neighbouring communities will send supplies and labour to ensure its people do not suffer.
“The Rivaini people trace their roots to pantheist ancestors, and many in Rivain still believe that their god and the universe are one in the same.” —Dragon Age: The World of Thedas vol. 1
Rivain is has the most diverse range of spiritual beliefs in Thedas, because the Chantry failed to become the monopoly like they did everywhere else. The three most common spiritualties are Andrastianism, the Qun, and unnamed traditional Pantheism beliefs.
Daily life for an average citizen of Rivain differs greatly across the nation, because it is such a patchwork of cultures that co-exist in relative peace. Life in Kont-aar for example, is structured by the Qun, where life in a remote village in the southern tip would likely be highly influenced by the Raiders who call Llomerryn home.
Magic
Traditional Rivaini beliefs hold their Seers in high regard. Seers are female mages who specialize in peacefully communicating with spirits and even intentionally invite them into their bodies. They act as wise women and leaders of their communities, for whom people go to for guidance.
Twice a year, the Seers of Rivain gather in Dairsmuid to meet in council, forge trade agreements, and publicly pledge loyalty to Rivain's queen. This is called the Allsmet, and it is a fully celebrated festival with lavish feasts, gift exchanges, ceremonial gatherings, and music.
There was a single Rivaini Circle of Magi, located in Dairsmuid, but it existed largely as a façade to appease the Chantry. Unfortunately, when the Chantry sent Seekers to inspect the Circle in 9:40, they discovered the mages breaking Chantry law. The mages were allowed to freely be with their families, and were training female mages as Seers. The Seekers they invoked the Right of Annulment; they murdered all the mages of the Circle, and destroyed their library of books and artifacts.
Lords of Fortune
The Lords of Fortune are a guild of treasure hunters and dungeoneers, based out of Rivain. They can be identified by the decorations they were all over their body; trinkets they’ve collected over their years of treasure hunting. Sometimes they are hired by others to help out on a job, while other times they seek their own adventure. Anyone of any race can become a Lord of Fortune.
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References
Codex entry: Seers and the Allsmet (Dragon Age: Inquisition)
Codex entry: The Annulment at Dairsmuid (Dragon age: Inquisition)
Dragon Age: The World of Thedas vol. 1
Dragon Age: The World of Thedas vol. 2
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights
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𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑑𝑎𝑠; 𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑛 🌻 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑚 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑠ℎ 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑢𝑛. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑛, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝐸𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑄𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑟𝑖 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠. 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑠 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑟ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑙𝑙 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑎 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒. 8𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑠 / 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑏𝑒
A list of potential cures for the Calling, that we know about, that BioWare has apparently forgotten
Andraste's grace: it's not specified whether the flower the kennelmaster has you pick in the Korcari Wilds is Andraste's grace or if the game just needed a one-off asset and decided to reuse one they already had. However, in the dark future in DAI, Leliana is found to have unusual tolerance for the taint, and in DAO she talks about her mother pressing her laundry with dried Andraste's grace flowers, so it makes you wonder. Anyway, the flower stops Barkspawn becoming a ghoul and seems to make them immune to the taint from that point on.
Maric's longsword: he finds it in the Deep Roads and is suprised it isn't covered in the same Blight-rot as everything else - until, that is, he touches the sword to a patch of it and sees it wither away. Whether it's the dragonbone the sword is made of or the runes on the blade is difficult to say, though if it was just the dragonbone then it would make sense for that to be a more well-known property of the material (and would have been an interesting reason for why dragons were hunted to extinction). If Alistair carries it with him, doesit slow the progession of the taint through his body? Does he know its effects, and give it to the HoF to help keep them safer on their journey to find a permanent cure?
That obsidian dagger Duncan finds in The Calling: the dagger belonged to First Enchanter Remille - who also gave the expedition members brooches that accelerated the spread of the taint. iirc the both the dagger and the brooches are made by the Architect with Blight magic, which means the darkspawn magisters have more knowledge of how the Blight works than the Chantry attributes to them.
Whatever the fuck is going on with Avernus: he hasn't managed to cure himself yet, but he's managed to make it to 200 and the Warden can let him continue his experiments if they don't kill him - and he'd be a really useful resource if the Warden later wanted to send him other potential cures for testing.
Dragons: they have an ability to isolate the Blight in their bodies by forming crystaline cysts around the initial infection to stop it spreading. Useful if it can be more widely applied. Also, it's implied that Maric's reaver blood, which Calenhad gained by mixing his blood with a dragon's, is what somehow cured Fiona of the taint, kinda like a reverse STI, BUT in the Deep Roads they went through an area where the walls were coated in a pale, chalky substance suspiciously devoid of Blight-rot and she touched it, so I'm a bit suspicious of that.
Blood magic: makes sense since the taint is a problem that starts with infected blood. There are two major instances in DA canon where blood magic has been used to purge the taint from an object or being (both by elves btw). The first is Isseya using it to draw the taint out of a clutch of unhatched griffon eggs, which she says is only possible because the taint hasn't yet taken over the hatchlings' bodies to the same extent that it had with the adult griffons. The second instance is Merrill purging the Blighted eluvian in DA2. It's insane that Anders - who is a reluctant Warden and who possibly knows the HoF seeks a cure - isn't more excited about this. She literally removed the Blight from a fully tainted object. Since Isseya proved the same can be done with living tissue, it's probably the closest we've come to an actual cure, but since it also took years there's no telling if it could be a practicaly solution for all Wardens
Part 4: On logistical concerns and dread anticipation.
Hello!
This is part 4 of a series of posts in which I closely examine the letters my character received from the Inquisitor across Veilguard, and talk about the strategic and political implications of what we see within them.
I strongly suggest reading parts 1 and 2 and 3 before proceeding with this one, they contain vital context!
Part 1 can be found here!
Part 2 can be found here!
Part 3 can be found here!
This part is going to be much shorter than the others, because there's not a lot of strategic intel in it. Instead, it sets a tone for what we are currently dealing with, and on a design level functions as a heads up to players that this is a window in which we can attend to unfinished business without worrying so much that everything is burning to the ground actively.
As I will go into further in Part 5, this letter marks a turning point in the Inquisitor's relationship with Rook. They now regard Rook as an equal and peer, and I cannot state emphatically enough that that is terrible news for Rook as a person who lives in Thedas.
That's a big, "Sorry buddy, you're one of us now! RIP to your personhood, you have to be the one who keeps everyone together and can ill afford to show doubt to your allies lest it have devastating consequences on the outcomes of this fight."
The tone of the letters gets much more personal now. The Inquisitor is comfortable talking about the struggles they are dealing with - like needing to herd cats in keeping the alliance together, and the work that needs to be done to fix any issues that arise.
What we DO get here is alarming: where are the Darkspawn? In the last part I talked about the concerns I had surrounding the consequence of Ghilan'nain's morale collapse, and this little fragment heightened those to a fever pitch. "[Seeing] very little of the Darkspawn" means that they are being gathered, likely underground. That takes time, and is horrifyingly concerning. It indicates that when we next see them, it will be in far greater numbers than were previously being dealt with.
I'm no longer accepting the notes being handed to me it's fine. Everything is fine. [Everything is not fine.]
We also get confirmation that the Antaam are almost entirely gone from the mouth of the Waking Sea, which will be freeing up trade and troop movement pathways.
Mention of fighting the Venatori in the west rather than Darkspawn means that we can anticipate that these fights are happening in Orlais or on/along the border.
Using the map with its marks from part 3, I've circled the outermost areas I expect those victories to have taken place in the green lines, bearing in mind the previously stated lack of cooperation between the Orlesian forces and the Ferelden-based alliance. Any space cleared provides opportunities to stockpile supplies, to salvage and hunt. It's a deeply needed opportunity.
However.
This is a dangerous time, even as it grants us some breathing room to operate as Rook and to relax a little as players. As I expect most are familiar with, the time before an uncertain but known to be extremely stressful event is often the worst. Anxiety can rise, imagination can wreak havoc on mental health, and irritability can also shoot up. It is little wonder that this is the letter where the Inquisitor talks about some friction in the alliance.
And no matter how much you prepare for it and indeed the longer you have before disaster, when shit does hit the fan, the worse it will feel.
Could haves, would haves, should haves will all run rampant. It's a time in which we can expect to see acts of desperation, desertion.
We'll get into that in Part 5.
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A collection of canonical and non-canonical lore of Thedas, and archive of the amazing meta this fandom has produced. All work will be properly sourced and any use of other's work should conform to their requests. (icon made by @dalishious)
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