a crow never abandons a contract

according to legend, his mother, livia, was both high queen of tevinter and high priestess of razikale, the dragon of mystery. it's notable for it to be a woman holding such titles. tevinter is usually portrayed as quite patriarchal and with the conditional exception of maevaris in veilguard, all of the imperium's known archons have been men. there are couple of explanations for why livia might have been a different case. firstly, another queen in her own right is also mentioned in darinius' lifetime, so it's possible the region actually changed and became more patriarchal over time. secondly, later in darinius' story, a king is selected from among high priests. it's possible that as razikale is the only old god mentioned to be female, her high priests were allowed to be or had to be women, and were then considered as eligible for thrones as any other high priests. thirdly, livia had a brother, tarsian, who was specifically not eligible for the throne because he was not a mage. it may be that they were the only two heirs of a royal family and the rules of inheritance preferred a woman to a non-mage, which is an interesting little insight into the sort of ranking of cultural prejudices here.

naturally, livia's brother tarsian was jealous of his mage sister and also thought he had no chance against her in a fair fight. (you can really tell this is a tevinter story.) thus, he struck to usurp her throne while she was in labour with her first child. he slaughtered his way through the palace in minrathous, but when he came to the queen's bedchamber, he found it empty, save for one broken half of tevinter's royal signet ring. he tracked his sister from there to the temple of razikale, "where she waited, exhausted but fully armed and armoured." (i think this is a super fascinating description because livia is a mage. traditions where mages wear armour are afaik always characterised as originally elven, suggesting exchange of knowledge between tevinter and arlathan well before arlathan was destroyed.) tarsian defeated and killed his sister, though he lost an eye and an arm in the battle. however, no trace of his newborn nephew could be found.

meanwhile, in the city of vyrantium in the kingdom of neromenian, a woman named calpurnia was serving as a priestess of dumat. shortly after the violence in minrathous, she discovered a baby boy in a basket on the seashore, who had nothing with him but a blanket and half of a broken ring. calpurnia took the child in and raised him as if he were her own son, naming him darinius and not telling him of his origins.

this early part of darinius' story is absolutely full of real world mythological references and i'm sure there are many more comparable stories beyond the ones that jump out to me. darinius being cast out to sea makes me think of moses (especially with the basket) or perseus, and the fantastical background of a lost prince particularly brings to mind the legendary founders of rome, romulus and remus, who were suckled by a wolf after being abandoned to die by their great-uncle who had wrongfully seized the throne. it's a pretty standard tactic to mythologise the origins of a nation and afford it some legitimacy to say "actually our founders were the long-lost rulers of Somewhere Else, they weren't just unprovoked conquerors or ordinary people who scraped their way to power, they were righteous avengers reclaiming what was theirs". if darinius were just any abandoned child or priestess’ son, not a descendant of a proper dreamer lineage, he would be a much more difficult ancestor for tevinter's noble houses to accept because he wouldn't further their narrative that their magic is stronger and better and gives them a rightful claim to power.

but which aspects lift you Up 🤔🤔

schools of magic!! different approaches and specialisations. magic is varied and mysterious. it’s studied by academics but there is so much left unknown to keep it feeling mystical. specific spells are passed down and practiced but can vary from mage to mage, game to game, tradition to tradition, culture to culture, age to age.

magic as imagination and dream enacted into reality by willpower. also, templars and their ability to “enforce reality”, not to mention mages’ own spells to challenge other mages. fascinating!! so many implications as to how it works and so much left for us to imagine.

staffs. grimoires. enchantment. even styles of clothing specific to mages. all of these items and physical gear involved with magic. how much a mage’s personalised versions of these things could tell you about them.

blood magic and its complexity. the real dangers vs the real usefulness and merits vs the deep cultural stigma of it and how impossible it is for anyone’s understanding to be free of that, making these characters feel truly like a part of their world.

and overall i adore how embedded magic is into culture and religion and the world...

to be fair this is specifically very niche very irrelevant stuff so nobody should feel like they know no lore because they don’t know who thalsian is or whatever. i would be surprised if any of the people who wrote the games could off the top of their head tell you who thalsian is.