Captain-Lavellan

“The elves believe their gods remain trapped in the prison to this day, as Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf, gleefully patrols the Beyond to feast upon the souls of the dead.”

And they all disapprove. 🤣

from the dalish's (accurately cautious) perspective, if their campsites or common migration routes get discovered, they're doomed, and will immediately get cornered by the chantry or the nearest noble who dislikes elves. so they're incredibly hard to find to begin with, and if they do get found, it's in their best interest to leave zero survivors and then vanish immediately.

plus, they have slightly better night vision on a physical level, as well as being well versed in outdoor stealth from a very young age. plus they have mages. plus they're very frugal and don't have any real material goods. and they would be very averse to anything like a "fair fight" bc it's not like they have... soldiers who are actually expendable. anyone who gets hurt or killed is meant to be doing another job as well to keep the clan running, and is a beloved small community member as well.

so i think a lot of their Terrifying Reputation is bc they do (seemingly) completely unprovoked attacks that can look like this:

some human expedition goes out into the wilderness for logging/hunting/fishing/herb gathering/bald/nuance, sees zero sign of any dalish around

suddenly, they all get completely massacred, at night, with no warning or mercy shown, and with half the dead creepily strangled by tree roots or smth, and their entire campsite picked over for valuables. which looks like theft was the motive, but in an extremely ruthless and unnecessarily cruel way.

when a revenge party is sent out, there's still no sign of the dalish, aside from an abandoned campsite and no clear tracks leading anywhere

Veiltober Day 8: Strife

presumably, the pre-veil immortal elves didn't have very many Physical Children, bc... otherwise the population would've exploded and it would've been crazy. and it's not like they need kids either, in the pragmatic "i need someone to take over my business/take care of me when i'm old" type of way. for the most part, the only times they'd ever have kids is when they actually want to raise a child. even with all the wars and stuff they were getting into - on a purely pragmatic level, it's way better to get a spirit to turn into a fully grown elf that can be drafted immediately, rather than have a child who takes 20 years to grow into a soldier.

and also, solas is from the first few rounds of elves that even existed in physical form! they were born as fully fledged, if inexperienced and eccentric adults - i can only imagine the first few times they even saw a Physically Created Baby, it was such a novelty that they all just stood around going "waow. amazing. showstopping. incredible. unprecedented," and taking notes and politely clapping every time the baby so much as sneezes, ahaha. and they're immortal, so they'd probably be very very careful with their kids, and have a prolonged period of "adolescence" before they're considered full adults? if vallaslin were applied only when they're considered "of age", then who even knows WHEN that is for immortal elves?? 50 years old or something? their entire life cycle and society would be so alien.

and then, in modern thedas... there's like 30-50 feral unwanted orphans anywhere you look, rampant child labour and abuse, and the dalish putting on the very painful vallaslin at what would seem like a shockingly young age... probably extremely depressing by comparison.

also, solas would've just... never seen an old person physically at all??? like presumably he knows about them As A Concept from the fade, but, fhsdjfhdfdg. i think it would be like this:

someone's like "ahhh, my arthritis!! ha ha, you know how it is!"

People like to act like solas is just a garden variety racist sometimes but he is dealing with emergent entities, and like…idk the equivalent of AI almost, a creature divorced from any basis for a soul and operating on pure algorithm. I think it’s valid for him to be skeptical.

to me, i think all the pre-veil people had some inherent ~magic vibes sense~ that was a secondary mode of communication? their "soul" or spirit or whatever could show itself outside the physical form, when unrestricted by the veil. and then without that, to solas, the whole world seems like walking corpses, bc they don't have that signifier of life that he's used to seeing.

and then he wakes up as an elven mage, who has trouble shutting up about his opinions... during the mage/templar conflict, in a human-dominated society. in which he really should not yap, for his own safety haha. and presumably he gets attacked a few times by the dalish too, when he tried his terrible "hi i'm the dread wolf! i hate your entire culture and religion btw 🥚👍" approach to talk to them.

so his initial impression of people would be really negative! and like "wow they're mostly really dumb, and really violent, on top of seeming like lifeless husks. i just killed the last friend i had on thedas bc he was seemingly about to betray me?? for these pathetic creatures?? hate it here, i miss my home". and then if the inquisitor is too low approval to really make him develop enough personal connections, he continues in that mode largely unchecked fndhjsfgf.

also i think some of the "they're basically tranquil" is partially... self-justification. bc solas knows the world is going to end with the blights if left unchecked, and he'll HAVE to kill tons of people to reset it? so it's in his own best interests to try and keep his conscience clear by thinking of it as, "well, they're barely sentient! so this won't be too bad, at least! but there's no need to be cruel to them, so i'll be kind when i can". and he can still do his little inquisition tasks of helping refugees and whatnot to soothe his morals, while maintaining a level of detachment from them.

2026/4/13 Today's drawing.

Sera we need to lock in