Dragon Age - Blog Posts
La danza de los dragones.
Milenios después de que la devastación atacara las tierras que los dioses le otorgaron al mundo, Hubo belleza inundando cada plano de esas bendecidas tierras, las especies vivían todas en paz, lo inimaginable sucedía como actos comunes, la vida, en pocas palabras era tranquila.
Cada ser cumplió con su deber, las sirenas habitaban el mar, las hadas plagaban los bosques, los dragones surcaban sus cielos, y el sinfín de animales y habitantes mágicos acogió sin dudarlo a la especie que se consideró lo único simple en todo el lugar, los humanos formaron parte. El mundo tenía paz.
Hasta que la perdió.
Los humanos son imperfectos por naturaleza, no es que desearan serlo simplemente no podían controlarlo. Por eso cuando la envidia envolvió las venas de los primeros hombres nadie pensó que tendrían que interferir, los dioses no pondrían a seres destructivos en la tierras que contenían la paz ¿Cierto?
El resentimiento es una enfermedad aérea, los humanos, anhelantes de peculiaridad fueron la mejor forma de contagio. ¿Por qué los otros tenían magia y ellos no? Las innumerables cuestiones los hicieron envenenarse de envidia; decidieron entonces, si no podían conseguir la magia, la arrebatarían. Los primeros levantamientos iniciaron un día de pesca, con cientos de barcos llenos con marineros que zarparon con el único objetivo de poner un ejemplo. Miles de sirenas cantaron su tragedia aquel día.
Aquellos que alguna vez fueron respetados, incluso apreciados, esta vez fueron temidos, ya no había más debilidad en los cuerpos mortales, en su lugar se alzaron lentamente contra la magia que les había sido gentilmente mostrada. Años de sangre y lucha después; poco quedo de lo divino en el mundo de Modrum. Entre la crueldad de la guerra dos figuras singulares resaltaron. Sus caminos se marcaron por sangre, ambos con la amarga ambición de un mundo diferente
Aliados, compañeros, enemigos.
La sangre y el oro coronaron a los primeros reyes humanos, avariciosos y ciegos tomaron sin dar a cambio. El poder fue repartido en dos grandes reinos, Aurelen la tierra del oro y las hadas extintas y Sylvarith la montaña de bosques y dragones. Modrum fragmentado había perdido la gloria de sus grandes días. Las hadas desaparecieron, las pocas que quedaron fueron convertidas en esclavas, y las sirenas preferían mantenerse en lo profundo, donde su belleza no cautivaba y sus cantos se ahogaban junto a marineros de poca importancia. Poco a poco no quedó rastro de lo hermoso y divino que solía ser el próspero mundo de Modrum.
Entre todos estos seres solo uno fue considerado digno de permanecer. Con vida y relativa libertad, los dragones altos e imponentes sobre cualquier otro ser, lo suficientemente sabios para callar y tan audaces para no escuchar, Estas denominadas indomables bestias, fueron los compañeros perfectos para aquellos despiadados reyes que buscaban el control de tierras que no les pertenecían.
Hace cientos de años, el cielo se iluminó con un suceso histórico, la danza de los dragones expandió el poder de aquellos que se coronaron a sí mismos en cenizas y sangre. Ambas casas ahora convertidas en nobles palacios de reyes y jinetes se atravesaron en la guerra por el control de todo. El fuego envolvió el cielo con su calor y la sangre y el oro adornaron las cicatrices en las manos de los jinetes. Cuando finalmente todo termino no había mucho que salvar, las cenizas aun ardientes se forjaron en el terror del pueblo y la poca paz que pudo conservarse era sostenida por un par de manos débiles, un tratado de paz demasiado delgado impidió una segunda gran guerra. Sus coronas se consagraron con el poder absoluto.
Aquellos días oscuros se habían alejado de ambas familias, ahora un par de décadas después la fragmentada paz que se había conseguido después del baile de los dragones, estaba pendiendo de un diente de león. Los nobles herederos de ambas familias, Plint y Creed una vez más unidos por poco más que un hilo de odio fino, el destino de un mundo colgaba del espacio entre sus dedos entrelazados.
Oliver Plint no era un luchador, prefería entre todas las cosas montar a su dragón y escapar, aunque fuese por pocos minutos del legado que le precedía. No era un sanguinario ni un prodigio de la espada, si algo lo definía era su absurda gentileza. Todo lo gentil se extingue en el mundo, la amabilidad no coexiste con la fuerza.
Kaius Creed estaba preparado para una matanza, la espada y su dragón eran sus únicos aliados y además de su ambición por la corona de Aurelen, no había nada que le importara, era un guerrero un rey nacido en la corona, envuelto en brazas y oro, echo para odiar y destruir así tuviera que morir para lograrlo era un sacrificio digno de tomar. Nada duraba para siempre, a excepción del honor.
Los dos reinos se tocan de nuevo durante una gala particularmente absurda y cuando un par de movimientos en falso podrían destruirlo todo se necesita de dos almas corrompidas para evitar que los dragones vuelvan a danzar.
For scientific purposes, who was your FIRST romance in each DA game.
The funky little spirit man is growing on me
hell yea he got the moves
COMPANIONS WEEK!!! GET DAVRIN'ED!!!!
✨ OCTOBER 31ST IM SO EXCITED!!!! ✨
HAVE AN ANGRY FENRIS!!! 🐺
I can't believe I've never showed off my wonderful Inquisitor, Oromis Lavellan. Living rent free in my head since 2014, here is the boy !
Playful and charming, his flirting is as sharp as his arrows. Beware of his frivolous manners, he's more likely to order an assassination than extending a helpful hand with no strings attached.
Bonus outfits : Haven winter coat, dalish summer, Orlesian party
WIP Wednesday: working on another tarot themed illustration for my Rook Raevan as the Ace of Cups card
patreon * twitch * shop
💜 this piece means a lot to me! 💜
2014 to 2024, this is my character Asala Adaar, a qunari mage from dragon age: inquisition. 10 years of art progression & dragon age obsession.
[ID: two digital illustrations of a gray-skinned horned woman with yellow/red eyes and white hair, posing in a heart symbol. she appears young and timid, staring at the viewer tentatively in 2014. she appears confident, smirking, and takes up more space in the updated 2024 version. in the 2014 version, a green light crackles in the palm of her left hand. in the 2024 version, a glowing crystal prosthetic has replaced her left arm.]
Concept art of my inquisitor Sevra Lavellan. was going for a tarot style piece like in the games going for the Moon Arcana
XVIII - THE MOON
Upright: illusion, intuition, uncertainty, confusion, complexity, secrets, unconscious
Reversed: fear, deception, anxiety, misunderstanding, misinterpretation, clarity, understanding
A little Cole Chibi! I may make him into a stick as well as the rest of the Inquisition Crew!
✨If you want a chibi of your own or just want to support me, feel free to send me a kofi! :D my commissions are open~
Couldn't pick which one I liked more but Varric Tethras is done ❤️ I hope nothing happens to him, I will cry
A quick Fenris doodle in time for DA:D! Might draw others too 😁
I have a hot take.
And I understand that a lot of it comes down to opinion and interpretation. The "official canon" for the game is your own damned canon, and I frankly love that for all of us. It's beautiful and freeing and sets us up to celebrate a variety of different worlds and that's pretty rad.
But (of course there's a "but") I'm coming to understand that…
…my canon interpretation of this line is very different from a large majority of this fandom.
And I guess it's not really a hot take. No one's interpretation is wrong, and I would never want someone to think that. No one should ever have their fun taken out of the game, it's a game. I think mostly I'm just looking for folks who read this the same way I do. Because to me?
Solas' greatest fear is not to literally die all alone.
Like, all by himself.
Not only do I believe that that's a large oversimplification of the meaning behind that statement, but I'd also argue that dying all by himself is precisely what Solas intends to do. He has had every opportunity to avoid it, especially in a Solavellan run, yet he's made zero moves to do so whatsoever.
At the end of Inquisition, he was still a member of the single most powerful and influential religious and paramilitary organization across the entire southern half of their continent. Aside from defeating a sea of demons and darkspawn horrors, and closing a breach in the sky between the Fade and the material world, they've also singlehandedly redesigned the flow of commerce between two nations, they've seated a ruler on the throne in Orlais, and chosen the next Divine to serve on the Sunburst Throne in the Chantry. They're responsible for shaping the future for the whole of southern Thedas, and the leader of that organization is potentially very sympathetic to Solas' beliefs and perspectives. There was much they could have accomplished together, and yet…
He left. Vanished into thin air, even, for two years. With no word.
And when we finally got the chance to confront him, and wrestle a larger kernel of truth out of the man, he told us that he walks the din'an shiral. A journey of death. And he made it unequivocally clear that he intends to walk it alone.
By himself.
There are a lot of ways to interpret what the din'an shiral even is, but the solemnity and weight he used when he referred to it carried a sense of finality. He intends to bring about the death of the world, that much we know is true, whether he sees it that way or not. But could his own life be the cost?
His ritual artifact is a blade, believed to have been fashioned from his red lyrium idol after having been recovered and cleansed. But it could've remained an idol, or it could've been made into an orb. It could've been a staff or a crown, or a necklace with the jawbone of some other critter. But it's a blade. Is it simply because rending the veil involves a certain act of piercing or tearing? Or is it still a weapon? An implement of violence or self-defense? Or even… of self-harm?
Regardless of the interpretation, there's nothing about Solas' future that suggests to me that he's safe. Or accompanied by anyone who intends to keep him safe. And there's nothing about Solas that suggests to me that he isn't acutely aware of all of this.
I don't think Solas has any fear whatsoever of literally dying all alone, at least according to my personal canon. To me, I think Solas views his death as his duty and he will not bring anyone down with him.
I believe that "dying alone" means something much bigger and deeper and more meaningful to Solas than it does to us, the player. And he goes to great lengths to identify and define what this fear means to him through a series of conversations he has with Varric during party banter.
There's quite a bit of self-discovery Solas conducts through this dialogue. It starts when tells Varric that he read Hard in Hightown. He then asks him if there are other trickster figures in dwarven literature, presumably because stories of Fen'Harel stated he walked as kin amongst both the Evanuris and the Forgotten Ones and there could could be some tie or some clue about that here, whatever that means. He goes on from there to begin asking pointed questions about Orzammar and what he perceives to be a lack of dwarven ambition. He makes remarks about how they could have a larger hand in shaping global affairs through their control of the lyrium trade and he seems genuinely confused why Orzammar would never consider reuniting with Kal-Sharok.
But he really circles down into the heart of the matter when he asks Varric if he ever misses a life beneath the stone. Varric responds by asking how he could miss something he'd never had, having been born a surface dwarf. And he tells Solas that even if the stone called to him in the manner he's describing, he's very happy with who he is and the life that he has, and he has no wish to change anything.
And from there, we watch Solas grapple with his answer. To him, Varric is someone who is just as sundered from his own identity, and he cannot fathom finding satisfaction in a life like that - a mundane life without magic or the song of the stone. He cannot rationalize it against his guilt and his regrets and his pride, and cannot let it go. So he then spins up an anecdote of a man he saw in the Fade.
He saw a man, alone on an island. His tribe had fallen to beasts and disease, and his wife had died in childbirth.
He was the only one left.
He could have left to find a new land or a new people. But instead he stayed. He spent his days catching fish in a little boat and he spent his nights watching the stars and drinking fermented fruit juice. (That's wine, Solas. That's called wine. You can just call it wine.)
To Solas, this man has surrendered to his defeat. And he gives us our first glimpse into what his fear might actually mean, right here.
"Knowing it will all end with you."
From there, Varric even asks him, "What's with you and all the fallen empire stuff, anyway?" And they go on to discuss what it means to give up and what it means to fight back, what costs are truly associated with each, and how those meanings can vary so widely between individuals whose lives have been so different. The analogy we didn't see at the time however, that we can now examine through hindsight, is that the man on the island wasn't just a representation of the old dwarven empire, but also of the Elvhen.
The man on the island was supposed to be representative of Solas himself.
(I also think it's cool that Varric mentions Orzammmar being too proud to ask for help.)
We are supposed to hear the anguish in his voice when he asks Varric whether he has any concept of what his capitulation to live as a surface dwarf has cost him.
Because Solas knows. For whatever reason (that we're about to discover in Veilguard), the remaining Evanuris were so horrific after the death of Mythal that the only solution he could devise that had any hope of protecting the world was to create the Veil and drive a wedge between the dreaming and waking worlds. To create a divide between magic and reality. To silence the song from the stone. To create a barrier that the blighted gods could never cross.
But one that also trapped the spirits.
And afterward, while he slept a dreaming sleep for centuries, the toll of creating the Veil having been so great, he watched as his people also began to quicken and die. He watched as their spirits also crossed the Veil to be trapped behind it forever. Everyone he ever knew and loved. All the chains of slaves he broke were for nothing. They simply traded one cage for another. Because of him.
And while Abelas and his company still guard the Well of Sorrows, they are bound to Mythal. (Also, I'm pretty sure you can make a choice to kill them? I never have, but I think you can?) They are still creatures that are beholden to her, and thus they are expendable. Mythal was even willing to sacrifice Flemeth to gift her power to Solas, to cure his weakened state after waking from uthenera, and hopefully prevent the risk of future mistakes being made. Like Corypheus.
Even Solas is expendable in the line of his duty, if it means he will succeed. He would gladly sacrifice himself to rectify his greatest mistake, and restore his people to themselves. Because they've been sundered for so long, they've forgotten who they are. And they are not his people anymore. He will make them remember.
He will restore their connection to the Fade, he will reveal lost paths to ancient libraries, and he will reawaken their relationships with their spirits - archivists, and spirits of purpose and wisdom and valor and faith and all of their ancestors that lived before them. He will make them what they were, as they were when he knew them. Because without that, they are incomplete. The spirits are incomplete. He is incomplete.
Our job in Veilguard will be to either help him find a better way to accomplish his goal, or help him find a way to find satisfaction and completion in this world. (Or, you know, kill him, but not in my canon, thanks.) Either way, we have to get him to accept help.
Because the burden that he carries within himself is the sole memory of a vast nation, and it is heavy. Far too heavy to bear alone. He is the last living key, a fragile remnant, a final, solitary link through dreams to the history, the knowledge, and the entire cultural identity of the Elvhen people. (The People people? Is that redundant?)
And without him, all of that is lost.
Forever.
To him, he is the last of the Elvhen.
So, my interpretation of Solas' greatest fear is not that he is afraid to die all by himself. It is something I feel is truly much more heartbreaking.
It is that he is afraid to die the last of his kind.
He is afraid to die alone.
to be clear, i love all you freaks <3 (and am one of you) did a little sketch comic about the awakening of the fandom
Dragon age: Origins - 9:30 Dragon
Dragon Age: Awakening - 9:31 Dragon
Dragon Age II - 9:37 Dragon (act 3)
Dragon Age: Inquisition - 9:41 Dragon
Dragon Age: The Veilguard - 9:52 Dragon
We know literally nothing about the age of some characters (like Oghren). I used canon information and/or logic. If empty - the character has not yet been born or has already died.
About Cole - since he died as a human, I didn’t add a year to him.
About Solas - for the year of "birth" I used the approximate date of the founding of Arlathan
Revisiting DAO and my original Feral Short King™, Tamaris. I'm too broke for new PC
I've been watching some videos about plot choices in DA:O and DA2 that I've never seen, and Merrill has this amazing line in the Gallows at the end of Act 3, if you side against her and the mages. It speaks to everything I adore about her character, and sums up the central conflict of the entire Dragon Age series so poignantly:
"If I leave these mages to die, or I help you kill them, what then? Magic can't be made safe, and it can't be destroyed. Fear makes men more dangerous than magic ever could."
That's the thing I love about Merrill. Out of all the mages we encounter throughout the series, on both sides of the mage-templar conflict, Merrill has always been the one who, despite her flaws, or maybe because of them, understands the hard truths about magic that almost no one else seems able or willing to accept.
This line in the Gallows reminds me of another line she has, a banter line with Anders after Justice takes over and almost kills that one girl.
Merrill: Are you all right?
Anders: I nearly killed an innocent girl. How could I be all right? There's no definition of "all right" that fits this state.
Merrill: I'm sorry.
Anders: You're sorry? For me? This could be you. You could be the next monster threatening helpless girls.
Merrill: Anders, there's no such thing as a good spirit. There never was. All spirits are dangerous. I understood that. I'm sorry that you didn't.
Merrill understands that magic is not safe, and will never be safe. And until the rest of Thedas is ready to accept that, the mage-templar conflict will never end. Because until you can accept that there's no silver bullet solution to the problem of dangerous spirits and mages who choose to hurt people, you'll never be willing to do the hard work it takes to co-exist.
It's the da2 Motif of haunting. "In the days of Arlathan the elders came here to sleep. Uthenera, they called it, the endless sleep. But they don't sleep peacefully anymore". Bertrand's Haunted House. The sibling who stands shadowed out as you select your party. The other sibling dead at the beginning but constantly on your mother's lips. Your mother; a literal corpse brought to life by a man who was so haunted by his dead wife he remade her. Merrill, haunted by the Warden, by her friends who died to the mirror, and by Arlathan. Anders, haunted by Justice and the friends he used to know that he fears he broke; as well as the years in solidary confinment. Fenris; the blue wraith, the lyrium ghost, haunted by slavers and by a master who even now he struggles to be free of. Avelines dead husband. Isabelas mistakes. Abient dialogue; you remind Isabela of a dead sailor she used to know. Malcolm Hawke who you never meet but stands like a ghost at every turn in the narrative. The fact that the villians won't die. Haunting is in da2s bones I'm obsessed with it.
“Sera was never quite the quietest girl— Her attacks are loud and they’re joyful. But she knew the ways of nobler men, And she knew how to enrage them.”
"I think you should paint me," she says, leaning her head back to elongate the line of her throat, eyes closing. "I think I should like to be muse tonight."
the fox and the wolf [x]
Amell, a decade or so before the rather catastrophic events of 9:31 Dragon
1 and 2 from the Inquisitor as a companion meme for Aran :D
Under cut!
1 - If not for the Conclave, what would drive your character to join the Inquisition?
Aran lost their only remaining friend to the Conclave explosion, and afterwards didn't really have anything else going for them other than the burning desire to find whoever was responsible for her death and kick their teeth in. They'd been extremely reluctant to join the mage delegation in the first place, and once most of the surviving magi opt to indenture themselves to a Tevinter magister instead of trying to figure out what happened at the Conclave, Aran just nopes out and starts searching for another way - quickly coming to the conclusion that the Inquisition is looking for the same answers as they are. When it becomes apparent that the Inquisition might be more than simply an upstart organization that'll shrivel within weeks due to chantry opposition, Aran seeks them out themself. Tbh at first they're mostly just driven by their desire for vengeange, but gradully they begin to see the organization as a possibility of bringing on a more lasting peace to Thedas.
2 - How would they meet the Inquisitor?
Even if the top brass of the chantry has openly discredited the Inquisition it's still an organization stemming from it, making Aran initially slightly wary of them. Chances are that they'd would spend some time scoping out their operations before deciding to intercept the Inquisitor on the road – giving them the possibility of backing out and running in case the Inquisition would rather opt to execute Aran on sight as an apostate instead of hearing them out.
Aran and Issala’s ridiculous difference in size gives me life ok
For the Inquisitor drawing challenge: 3. Their portrait as done by some fancy Orlesian court artist because Josephine insisted.
a bit sketchy still but I refuse to spend any more time on this, so yeah let’s just take a while to pretend that fancy Orlesian court artists have the same goldfish-level attention span that I have
RULES:
Followers only, new ones are just as welcome as old ones, I love all of you! Though please don't be that one person who only follows for the prospect possibly of getting something for free and leaves when the giveaway ends. You'll make me sad
Please have your askbox open around the time the giveaway end so I can contact you. If you don't answer within a day, I'll be picking a new winner
Only reblogs count as entries. You can reblog as much as you want and it'll boost your chances, but please be considerate towards your followers and others taking part in the giveaway
If you want me to draw something I can't find good reference for within 10 minutes of googling (an OC for example), I need you to be able to provide visual reference
No giveaway blogs. I will be checking and I will be frowning in your general direction if you do so
Giveaway ends 9.-15.4. depending on how my school schedule happens to line up, I’ll let you know the exact date closer to the end of the giveaway, but for now I love you all and good luck!