#codex focused

The vinyls

They are named “Golden City Merge” [blue-teal one] and “Black City Splatter” [Yellowish one].

Golden City Merge

It has a blue-teal colour around a yellow centre that may be golden.

One of these colours coincides with the codex Vir Dirthara: Homecoming, which claims that a “city home” is made of blue glass with spiralling up towers, so only through this detail in colour, and the shape of the city we see in the cover of the vinyl, we can assume that Elvhenan “homes/cities” may have been of this style too. Here, it’s all the lore we can link to these colours.

The only piece of [unreliable] lore we have to blandly link the Golden City with Arlathan is Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path. In it, the man who wanted Trydda’s hand in marriage wanted to lead an army to the North, in order to reach the Golden City.  From an Alamarri’s point of view, Arlathan was also in the north, crossing the Boeric Ocean [if we assume, too, that Arlathan was inside the Forest of Arlathan, which is a reasonable speculation given the peculiarities of the place, read The Missing for more details]. This information had been shared to him via dreams by a demon. It is a bland piece of lore because this is a tale that was transmitted through generations, orally, and we know how sensitive to change and modification this process is.

If we keep all these bland speculations, we can play with the idea of assuming that the Golden City may have been Arlathan. If Arlathan was surrounded by Arlathan Forest, the tree theme in the art of the vinyl would add more consistency to this speculation.

Black City Splatter

It has a black splatter over a worn-out, pale yellow colour. It may be considered a “sick” yellow even.

What we speculated from Corypheus’ design is that, due to the way his face was deformed and pieces of metal [or maybe red lyrium] were incrusted in him, it always looked like “something hot exploded” on his left side face [which, coincidental, it was the side which eye was, apparently, blind in his taror card, however, the unmatched eyes is completely inconsistent along art and games]. I talked about this long ago in the end of the post DLC: Legacy and in DA2:  Eyes. My point in bringing this desing detail is to say that, when the Magister stepped into the Black City, something “exploded” and melted them, and no matter the Andrastian Myth, we can see it clearly in the design of Corypheus and The Architect. That this vinyl has this colour design and name reinforces the idea that the Magisters unbalanced something when they entered, and it exploded, catching them in the explosion.

The Architect also has a design in his face that tells us that he was melted, and some things were incrusted in his body [I was always curious how a “dragon horn” seems to protrude from his neck]

Although they are focused on the Andrastian Myth, the Tevinter Mosaics seem to reinforce the idea that, when the Magister entered the Black City, they were burnt as well [again, the Myth claims it was the Maker, I suspect the truth is different, but the repetition of melting design in the only two Sidereal Magisters we saw can’t be overlooked].

As a speculation we can assume that the Black City was containing and working properly in the way that Solas had left it when he sealed the Evanuris, until the Sidereal Magisters entered and caused a “burning explosion”. It’s not clear if they caused it with their entering to the City, or  touched something that caused it.

the middle of the vinyls show the map of Fade we had in DAO

Curious thing, an extraction of this map from the DAO game files, shows that it was surrounded by thorny vines, or something that inspires the idea of thorny vines. And it covers a ring made out of mosaics, very similar to the style of the Golden Ring.

It is also interesting that each of the apexis in the vinyl shows a circle that, according to what my eye can distinguish in that small image, may represent another Golden Ring. These golden rings have been appearing all over the game, specially in DAI.

The back of the vinyl shows an eluvian floating on an isle, and two Elven Tree Statue. There is a series of detail we can notice here:

The eluvian is shattered. This gives us the idea that the system protecting the Black City, according to what we have concluded along the posts Murals in DAI: Basics and “The Creation of the Veil”, was broken and whatever kept inside is now free. 

Behind it, we see the shape of 6 more eluvians, in a pattern that looks like a flower. The flower may be a mere aesthetic for the vinyl, or could be a representation of the Elvhenan [since the elvhenan banner has a lot of flowers in it, check Elven Ruins to see it], or it may be related to the last bloom of a flower related to the codex “A Flowering Imago” [explanation attempted in the post Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara]

The Chant of Light, if it’s to be trusted with some grains of elvhenan knowledge that was leaked into its text, claims that the Black City has seven gates that, one shattered, will allow the pass of Darkness [Read exaltations in Chant of Light - Part 2]. Darkness has always been associated with the Blight, so I think this piece of info may have been part of elvhenan knowledge that made it into the religious text in ways I explained in “The Chantry and the Mythology of the Chant of Light“. If the Eluvians are gates to the Black City, the seven ones are represented in this vinyl illustration.

The Elven Tree Statues have been seen in many opportunities along the DAI game, and its symbolism is not clear. In the Shattered Library it appears as a source of Fade power, crackling with green energy until the Inquisitor approaches and absorbs it. In the Elven Mountain Ruins, appears as central along the corridor of the Forgotten Sanctuary, and as the main symbol of the Smoking Tower. In Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins I made a deep analysis of potential relationships of this tree with a source of power to create “in-between” spaces, as well as related to lyrium, the power of the Titans, a Titan’s heart, or Fade itself. It also appears as central in the puzzle of the Dead Hand, where energy is gathered in it, while being surrounded by Golden Rings.

What seems to have in common in all these analysis is that these trees are related to power, and potentially a power to create worlds that may be associated with Titans. Maybe they represent the power that Mythal found when she killed the Titan, according the mural “The Death of a Titan”, and this was the reason why the Evanuris killed her in order to acquire this power. What’s curious is that in this illustration of the vinyl, we see, for the first time, their roots. Which are quite similar to the design of the Mythal’s Vallaslin. 

What is this eluvian representing for the Golden/Black City?

The shape of the eluvian is not something to read too much in my opinion. We find these frames in many elvhenan buildings, with other gods too. Even with Andruil in the Shattered Library; Inverted Ward. I think that we have to read it simply as “Elvhenan style for frames” which is deeply related to the shape of door and window frames too, which also carries similar function in the Eluvians: they are “doors” or “windows” to other places in between. I think it’s the typical elvhenan style for frames in general [details in Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan]. There are tons of these tri-style eluvians without flanked beasts spread all over the Elven Ruins. The Crossroads or The Crossroad [Base Game] also show a lot of these eluvians, sometimes flanked by statues, sometimes don’t. A quintuple-style shape is also the shape of the big gates into the Temple of Mythal [check  Temple of Mythal, What pride had Wrought: Part 1]. The idea of this shape is that it’s an eluvian with smaller and broader eluvians at the side, overlapped behind, so the final outline looks like it.

The Eluvians are related to the Elvhenan, but also to the Titans in a design point of view: they glow in a similar way as lyrium does or have a similar colour to it. In DAO, we lost Tamlen because an Eluvian was infected by the Blight [and we can justify DAO eluvian as corrupted ones since all of them were non-working or blighted]. So far we know, objects can’t be infected by the Blight, only living things, hence the idea that Eluvian are made of “something alive”. It’s not clear how alive it has to be, since we also know a creepy set of objects that exude “life” in a weird way: The Taken Shape set.

The Eluvians we found in DAO were “Tevinter Eluvians”. It’s not clear if the Tevinter took elvhenan eluvians and modified them to make them work like “communication devices” [as Finn and Dorian explain], or they developed the technology itself. That would also explain why these Eluvians are mostly purple instead of blue [and decorated with human statues that tend to be associated with Tevinter, details in Merril’s Eluvian]. Unaltered elvhenan eluvians have been shown to glow in silvery blue [all of them present in DAI].

Red Lyrium is the product of lyrium being infected with Blight because lyrium is “alive”. So far, this info is what Bianca told us, who at the same time, was told from an unknown source, according to what she speaks about with the Tranquil Researcher in the Emprise du Lion [last part of the post Emprise du Lion: Suledin keep ]. Since we know that Lyrium is Titan’s blood, it makes sense for it to be able to be infected with Blight because Titans are living yet vegetative creatures. On the other hand, there is enough hints to suspect Titans are immune to the Blight, so the lore seems a bit inconsistent on that. More details about this in posts such as Songs and elements that sing and whisper in DA Lore and  “The Death of a Titan”.

We also know that the Elvhenan exploited Titan’s bodies in unknown ways, according to all the info we can obtain in the mural from Trespasser: “The Death of a Titan”. Maybe they created Eluvians after they discovered the powers of Titan’s blood. This is a mere speculation about why the eluvian look like made out of lyrium.

Eluvians, then, allowed Elvhenan to do something that, so far, we were told since DAO that magic could not do, according to The Cardinal Rules of Magic:  “No one has found any means of travelling—either over great distances or small ones—beyond putting one foot in front of the other.“

There is also a potential interpretation that some Eluvian, somehow, are Gates to the Black City, implied in the mural “The Creation of the Veil”. This information may have survived the ages while being altered into what the Chant of Light claims in Exaltations [Chant of Light - Part 2] as “the Black City has seven Gates”, which is the same amount of “weird bubbles” we see in the mural. It was never clear what’s the reason for having 7 gates to a city you want to seal completely. I have no speculation why Solas could not sealed them completely, and, as it seems, put dragons in them to keep them closed instead.

Eluvians have been used in different ways, as portals to access tombs where elves were slumbering or in Uthenera, but also as “doors to cells”. We have two examples of this: Merril’s eluvian, which, according to Marethari, was a means to keep its Pride demon trapped [details in Merril and the Eluvian ] or as the door to a place inside a pocket dimension called “The ancient Jail” that seems to be a place where slaves or maybe dwarves were taken prisoner by Elvhenan [details in The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]: Ancient Jail] which entrance has an unmistakable statue of Mythal in Dragon Shape. and inside of it, there are many broken eluvians.

The shattering Eluvian surrounded by two Elven Tree Statue is a similar image to the loadscreen related to Merril that I analysed in the post Merril’s Eluvian, which shows a symbol on the background that I’ve related to Flemeth/Mythal and potentially to Andraste too. Since Merril’s eluvian is related to a prison, maybe in the vinyls we are talking about the same: The Golden/Black city had become a prison for the Evanuris. We know this because Solas himself told us in Elven Ruins that he had banished them.

Therefore, a shattered eluvian seems to represent the destruction of a prison, in the same fashion it represented the escape of the Pride Demon in Merril’s quest [see that in the loadscreen gif above]

What the vinyl is telling me with the Shattered Eluvian and seven of them forming a flower, is that we are going to see the release of the Evanuris from their magical prison.

What have to do those trees in the illustration? It could represent the forest of Arlathan where Solas sealed the Evanuris in the city deep inside it. Another option is, that somehow, this prison is sustained/supported by Mythal, or was motivated by Mythal [probably with her death], since these trees seem to represent power, Titans, and Mythal at the same time. Trees are also related to the vhenadahl, which seem to hide a darker meaning that has nothing to do with what the Dalish or city elves believe about [more details in the section vhenadahl in the post “Red Lyrium Idol”].

Mythal as a motivator: If we take Solas’ words in the Elven Ruins, he sealed the Evanuris because they killed Mythal, but we also know in the Dev’s note from the mural “The Death of a Titan” that he really wanted to hide everything they were doing to no tempt anyone else to use this power.

Mythal as the last Guardian: We also know, according to Flemeth’s words in DA2, that Myhtal can exists in different places, as long as there is a “small piece” of her somewhere. 

Flemeth in DA2 says:

“I’m a fly in the ointment. I am a whisper in the shadows. I am also and old, old woman. More than that you need not know”

“Must I be in only one place? Bodies are such limiting things. I am but a fragment cast adrift from the whole. A bit of flotsam to cling to in the storm”.

In DAI she says

“Once I was but a woman, crying out in the lonely darkness for justice. And she came to me, a wisp of an ancient being, and she granted me all I wanted and more. I have carried Mythal throuh the ages ever since, seeking the justice denied to her. [...] But what was Mythal? A legend given name and called a god, or something more? Truth is not the end, but a beginning.”

“I nudge history, when it’s requiered. Other times, a shove is needed.”  [chuckles]

[Mythal came to me] “for a reckoning that will shake the very heavens.”

Morrigan: And you follow her whims? Do you even know what she truly is? Flemeth: You seek to preserve the powers that were, but to what end? It is because I taught you, girl, because things happened that were never meant to happen. She was betrayed as I was betrayed - as the world was betrayed! Mythal clawed and crawled her way through the ages to me, and I will see her avenged! Alas, so long as the music plays, we dance.

When elven inquisitor asks her

Inquisitor: Why haven’t you [Mythal] helped us? We’ve called to you, prayed to you. Flemeth: What was could not be changed. Inquisitor: What about now? You know so much.... Flemeth: You know not what you ask, child.

Flemeth, about Kieran:

“He carried a piece of what once was, snatched from the jaws of darkness.”

So I think this also may show that Mythal’s retribution is coming. Flemeth has been doing a lot of mastermind work along the ages to give Mythal her deserving revenge associated with the destruction of the Evanuris that, it seems, Solas will perform [since he absorbed Mythal’s powers]. These words were always present in any path you pick, so they are key. Flemeth says that she will stay in this path as long as the “music plays”. This seems to refer to the music of the Darkspwan and the Archdemons that, thanks to Avernus, we know it’s linked, at the end, to something calling from the Black City too [read Songs and elements that sing and whisper in DA Lore and the last part of DLC: Soldier’s Peak]. What I understand is that Flemeth will not be in peace until the Evanuris are destroyed completelly. Which seems to have been Solas’ goal since forever, but lacked power to do it in that moment and he only managed to seal them and borrow some time [and power, since the orb was gathering Fade energy for a millenia]. This plan, of course, was ruined by Corypheus. 

In short, considering Flemeth’s words about how shape is limiting, I wonder if there is a chance for Mythal to be in some shape or form, linked to the Golden City, in her Dragon Form, sealing the Evanuris. This hypothesis seems unlikely because Solas told us that Mythal died in some way. You can’t die and be a guardian at the same time. 

However, here comes the last hypothesis I can muster:  Mythal as the thing that was sealed in the Golden City, fused with the Evanuris. I think there is little to mistrust about the fact that the Evanuris indeed are trapped in the Black City, however, this illustration may imply that Mythal, in her dragon shape, is sealed there too. Considering Flemeth’s words, that sugest she is just a small fragment from the whole, cast adrift, and that can exist in different places at the same time, I wonder if Mythal, in a corrupted, draconic shape, belongs to the creatures that were sealed in the Black City. Maybe she is the ultimate danger, fused with the other evanuris, corrupted and mad by the Blight that “killed” her [when the Evanuris are hard to kill, according to Solas’ words in Somewhere[DLC Trespasser]: Elven Ruins]. This is a bit weird concept, to be fair, but I think that it tastes to “Bioware plot twist”.

The cover and the back

Let’s analyse the illustrations while constrasting these three hypothesis. They show two different versions of the same illustration, a non-corrupted and a corrupted one.

The front cover [details can be seen in this webpage ]: We see, in general, the Golden City with a Dragon behind, extending its wings onto the city, as if they were protecting it. I will call this image the “non-corrupted” version. Now, let’s go to the details. 

Facts that can be seen in a better quality image:

The dragon is black or dark coloured with a blue accent. It has slightly curved horns and red glowing eyes [image 1].  From their wings, a dense golden-like canopy raises. In some parts of the drawing it looks like a golden vine spread all over the dragon’s wings [image 2]. Despite being in front of the source of light, the dragon does not cast shadows onto the city. The illustration seems to inspire the idea of “guardian” or “protection”.

The lower parts of the Dragon’s wings show branches that have no leaves, but look like single insect wings pending from branches [image 2, arrows]. Could this be related to the codex “Flowering Imago” from Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara? I don’t know.

The area of the wings without branches shows a texture of red veins which can be perceived as veins of an animal as well as veins of a leaf [image 5].

Behind the dragon there is an Eclipse almost happening.

The cupule of the building shows small typical details of Elvhenan design that I talked and pointed out in the post Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan.  The windows look the same design that the elvhenan ones [image 3].

The four spires that can be seen in the city are repeated upside-down, in shadows, implying this place may be similar to the Inverted Ward [image 4, arrows].

The gates of the building resemble strongly the gate of the Temple of Mythal, displaying a draconic image, similar to the statue of the dragon shape of Mythal [image 7].

The trees that rise and entangle with the building seem to be one with the structure, giving it more stability. This gives me the idea that the Dragon, related to these trees through its wings, keeps giving protection and stability to the city.

The whole city lays on a small floating isle.

In front of the isle, there is a tiny humanoid figure with a staff that  displays the shape of one of the symbols of the Archdemons [image 6]. I talked a lot about this symbol in the post  “The Destruction of the Veil“, linking it to Darkspawn and The Architect. 

Around this figure, several birds or winged insects fly around [image 6, arrow].

The space around the city is bright and colourful, reinforcing the idea of a vivid city.

The back cover [details can be seen in this bigger image]. We see, in general, the Black City with a Dragon behind, extending their wings onto the corrupted city, as several faces with symbolic helms are fused in its wings. I’ll call this version the “corrupted” one.

Facts that can be seen:

The dragon is black or dark coloured with red accents. It has curved horns, and a second pair of horns protrudes from its jaw. It’s not clear for me if it has yellow glowing eyes or red ones [image 8]. These horns seem to have a resemblance with the Dragon version of Flemeth in DA2, but not in DAO [ but we know DAO engine was always poor for environmental telling and design details].  Flemeth’s hairstyle doesn’t resemble to any of these horns [image 8]. However, the strange tiara that Flemeth wears seems to coincide a lot with the horn structure of her Dragon shape in DA2 [the tiara has some curves on her temple that resembles the smaller horns in her dragon shape - blue and orange arrow-]. There is, of course, the meaningful yet mysterious central spike too. This spike, which relates Mythal with Andraste and other figures in DA lore, is not present in the corrupted dragon’s head. Considering how important this main spike is for lore, I believe that thinking in this dragon as Mythal may be a mistake [but then again, this is a corrupted dragon that may have suffered a transformation due to the Blight].

From its wings, a dense withered-like canopy dies. The corruption is deeper and more blackened the closer to the extreme of its wings. This corruption looks like black vines, but lacks of thorns. We know that thorny vines are related to the Blight since DAO games. We spoke about this in posts such as Murals in DAI: Basics.

Fused with the corruption of its wings, we see six heads, many of them with clear elven ears. All of them are wearing a helm with the symbols that we identified with the Old Gods / Archdemons in the post of the mural of “Red Lyrium Idol” and  “The Creation of the Veil” [image 9].

The area of the wings without branches shows a texture of white veins, and in some parts of this darkened area, bits of orange that seem to imply something is burning inside this corrupted body. Looks like small peeks of Red Lyrium [image 11] or lava. 

Behind the dragon there is an Eclipse happening, so the shadows projected by the dragon fall all onto the city. The Design of this Eclipse looks the same like the design of the (alternative) logo of Bioware for Dragon Age Dreadwolf [image 10].

The building is completely overtaken by these black vines, which destroy the infrastructure. It even destroys part of the isle where the city was built upon. We can see that these vines spread deep into it. The corrupted trees are not sustaining and reinforcing the structure of the building but attacking it. The Dragon “lost” its protective nature.

All these black vines remind me a lot of the strange Tentacles we find in the Fade of DAO [image 12]. They protrude from structures or the ground, and some of them even from statues. Maybe it was a concept related to the Old Gods when their design was more related to a Cthulhu creature with tentacles for feet. Check DAO screenshots in the posts The Fade - DAO  and The Fade: The Undying Blackmarsh – DA Awakening 

There is no tiny humanoid figure in front of the city anymore. However, the symbol that this figure had in their staff is the symbol we don’t see among the faces fused in the dragon’s wings [Image “?”]. This would mean that one of these creatures “escaped” this fate. 

The colour of the space around the city is darkened, desaturated, and with “smoke” vein in the air, reinforcing the idea that this space has been corrupted deeply. 

Speculations

The Dragon

The dragon and the dense vine rising along its wings, making it look like trees in the non-corrupted version suggests several potential representations:

1) This strong presence of the Forest theme in the dragon may relate this city to Arlathan, which was located in a deep, dense Forest entangled with the Fade, according to the comic The Missing. This would help us link Arlathan and the Golden City as the same place, since it has been very obscure in DA lore the whereabouts of the city of Arlathan. The only hints we have are the Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path, in which the man who wants to force Trydda in a marriage with him claims that  whispers told him to conquer the Golden City at the North of their lands, which is a location where the Forest of Arlathan, and potentially the gone city, fit. The unreliable Dalish tales also claim that Alathan was sunk into the underground by Tevinter [details in Arlathan codices from Ancient Elven codices; Din'an Hanin– Elgar’nan Bastion]. There is no more pieces of lore or hints that explain the whereabouts of Arlathan.

2) The dragon seems to be a symbol that may represent Mythal. Another speculation is that this Dragon was Mythal, and the Golden City [maybe Arlathan], may have been her city or the city where her fate was sealed.

According to the unreliable codex [The Temple of Mythal], it seems to be an archeological fact that the Elvhenan used to have a main Temple surrounded by a city developed around it. We know the Temple of Mythal lays in the Arbor Wilds, and we can see some ruins that may fit the idea of a “city/town” before reaching the central part of it [see Temple of Myhtal - Part 1], so the hypothesis that the Golden City was Mythal’s main city seems discarded. However, we also know that Mythal may have had many cities and the biggest ones among the Evanuris thanks to the codex "Song to Sylaise” from  Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal.This city can be one of the many that belonged to Myhtal as well as the place where her fate was sealed.

3) This dragon may represent one of the ancient gods that the Elvhenan worshipped before becoming gods themselves. This city also may have been the temple of an ancient dragon that the Evanuris worshipped in the begining [according my interpretation of the Elvhenan lore, explained here], but it is hard to speculate further. There is no much lore but some visual hints on this matter.

4) If it is the city where Mythal’s fate was sealed, we can imagine that the Evanuris, desiring Mythal’s natural Dragon shape, may have invited her here and may have made experiments with her [as we know some Ghilan’nair’s experiments were performed in Tevinter Nights: The Horror of Hormak, that may include some fusion of animals in order to modify their shape]. Let’s remember that the Evanuris were related to winged shapes, “a shape reserved for the Divine and their Chosen” [from the codex Ancient Elven Writing]. If this is the case, the corrupted version of this dragon may represent Mythal, corrupted, and also, displaying her recknoning upon the city, where the other Evanuris were sealed by Solas. She and the others are fused in the corruption itself released by this hypothetical experiment. 

There is also a chance that Mythal, in her dragon shape, is still protecting the city, trying to contain the spread of the Blight thanks to the natural Blight-resistance that Dragons have. This concept is only inspired by Flemeth’s words about hinting the fact that she can be in many places at the same time, and bodies are limiting things [there is also a strange hint in the old quest of the Blackmarsh, where a demon in human shape could be in the Fade while a dragon-like shape related to it could be in the Waking World, details in The Blackmarsh and the High Dragon]. Maybe some pieces of Mythal were spread in the world to preserve a bit of her, while her [corrupted] Dragon form remained sealed with the evanuris or maybe she is a guardian of the corupted city. Flemeth also claims to an elven inquisitor that Mythal “changed”, and according to the corruption version of this illustation, Mythal may have changed, and acquired a more menacing looking, as her horns changed too and lost her central spike, such an iconic element in her design.

The inner side of its wings are consumed by the Blight, but the top external side is still resisting. So, the dragon resists the Blight, protecting or isolating the city even though the dragon’s horns changed, and it is “a different/corrupted” dragon. To me this double image represents what the mural “The Creation of the Veil” implies: the Black city, for an unknown reason, has 7 gates that could not be closed and were protected by creatures that could resist this corruption as long as possible: 7 dragons. This idea is a bit supported by the fact that Flemeth always tried to protect Urthemiel’s soul by teaching to Morrigan to protect “what was once” and telling her to have the baby. Urthemiel cannot be an Evanuris that killed Mythal [remember that Mythal wants revenge for that betrayal]. And Urthemiel is a dragon, as we saw him in his Archdemon form, and Mythal/Flemeth is also a dragon, so maybe she is part of the group of these dragons that were powerful “ancient gods”, potentially worshipped by the Elvhenan in the beginning until they got their own divinity. From that moment on, these dragons became the Forgotten Ones, chased by Andruil to the Abyss, and later, worshipped by the Tevinter as “Old Gods” that reside underground. I explained a bit this idea in the post Attempt to rebuild Ancient Elvhenan History. 

5) This dragon maybe is not Mythal, but another archdemon, or maybe the mysterious 8th Old God. I never know what to do with that bit of information: the codices of the astrarium imply the presence of an 8th old god dragon that makes no sense to introduce in the lore so late [Constellation: Draconis]. Is this dragon related to this illustration? I don’t know.

As a detail, the wing veins in the non-corrupted version are red, and I am not sure we should understand them as veins of red lyrium. Because, first, it makes no sense to have red lyrium inside a dragon's body in a version which is not the corrupted one, and second, if it were the case, it would imply that Dragons, [these ancient dragons] used to have lyrium instead of blood, which would relate dragons to Titans as the same creatures. And despite the fact that the lore seems to show some similarities between these creatures when it comes to their powers of manipulating Reality or being underground, sleeping, it seems extremely odd. It’s too big of a concept inside the lore of Dragon Age to take it lightly, because it would imply that dwarves are “dragon children”, and things will get more confused when thinking in the “crafted race” of the Qunari.

The two versions of the dragon indeed look like different ones. I’ve been speculating long ago that, so far we can gather from comics and codices, the Elvhenan, in particular the Evanuris, were looking for means to obtain Divinity. The Dragons seem to be extremely old, and ruled the skies when “everything sang the same song” [Yavana’s words]. We can also suspect that the Great Dragons had somniari powers, meaning that they could change reality through the alteration of the Fade [The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak, Until We Sleep] and mortals could attain some degree of this power via their blood. On the other hand, we find in the last comic [The Missing] a mural of potential Evanuris wearing dragon-like outfits. This fits with the old codices of the Elvhenan we found in game, where “divinity was related to the shape of something with wings” that we can assume it’s a dragon. We have several hints pointing to us that maybe, the Evanuris, when they were generals and mages, worshipped “ancient gods” that were Great Dragons, until they found a way to manipulate their own shape to become dragons themselves. Maybe here the Titans appeared as the means for this transformation [in The Horror of Hormak we see that this process of fusing shapes include crystals that seems to be made out of lyrium, maybe these are the Titan’s heart?]

We know that Evanuris did something terrible with Titan’s power that forced Solas to hide all that monstrosity, collapsing the Deep Roads in order to avoid anyone attempting to reach that power again. The codex associated with this event may transpire hints that can be related to a terrible thing being unleashed that may have killed Mythal [or maybe corrupted her? Details in “The Death of a Titan”]. That could be the Blight, or the red lyrium, or something worse that originated these two diseases.

We also suspect that the Forgotten Ones and the Evanuris had been at war for a long time before the Titan War, so how did the Forgotten Ones fit in the reconstruction of this past? It’s hard to say with precision, but some bland and weak hints may imply that the Dragons that have been leading Blights are, in fact, the Forgotten Ones [the only weak proof we have about this connection is through Hakkon/Geldauran in Elvhen Tomb]. This means that the Forgotten Ones may have been dragons [or more likely Great Dragons] and not elvhenan, and, when the Evanuris released the evilness that they created [probably The Blight], it was the Forgotten Ones [naturally resistant to the Blight, read Josephine’s result in Learn More about Dragons] who became the protectors and the means to isolate that disease from the rest of the world until finding a solution.

The Eclipse

Eclipses are associated with Fen’Harel and the events to come, according the codex The Emergent Compendium: an ancient magical tome that produces images and text on its own [DA2]. One of the pictures it manifested was described as "Two shadowed spheres among stars", and it was accompanied by a subtitle that could be deciphered into the phrase "An eclipse as Fen'Harel stirred." [I talked a while ago about how "stir” seems to be used mostly to describe the movement of Titans in DA lore, so the word choice is quite peculiar here, details in “The Destruction of the Veil“].

Eclipses are also related to the dynamics of sun-moon hidding each other or projecting shadows over the other, which may relate Mythal [unreliably related to the moon, according the Dalish Tales/codex Mythal: the Great Protector] and Elgar’nan, who has several unreliable Dalish tales in which he “hides” or “shoves” the sun down into the earth. The concept that the Sun is hidden somehow is repeated in small details along the lore of these gods, even though all of these tales are extremelly unreliable in my opinion. It’s hard to appraise the grain of truth they must have.

If the Sun is related to Elgar’nan, and if the moon may be, somehow, related to Mythal, then, a [solar] eclipse is the moon [Mythal] overtaking the figure of Sun [Elgar’nan?]. The fact that Elgar’nan is associated with vengeance, while Mythal to justice but also revenge, seems to weakly push us in this direction when we remember that Mythal took the place of Elgar’nan as judge of the People. 

Let’s open a parenthesis here and refresh details before we continue further:

Mythal has always been a goddess of the Revenge as well, according to Solas in the scene of Altar of Mythal, which places Elgar’nan in a curious and questionable role. Elgar’nan was always related to fury, vengeance, and brutality. And we also know through the codex of The Judgment of Mythal, that she took the place of Elgar’nan as a judge of The People to avoid his fury which destroyed everything it touched. Considering this, it seems that Mythal has been shifting into a more “Elgar’nan”-like shape.

I can’t say Elgar'nan and Mythal are both the same entity, since the old codices of the Elvhenan present in the Temple of Mythal show two different Evanuris. However, the many aspects where Elgar’nan and Mythal overlap, the lack of much more iconography for Elgar’nan as the big “father” of the Elvhenan pantheon [which makes us suspect he was a really powerful Evanuris, probably compared to Mythal], and the repetitive concept of split personalities that some Evanuris seemed to have, make me play with the idea that Mythal and Elgar’nan are the same. After all, Mythral has different representations on statues: as a dragon, as a humanoid, and as an elf in mosaics [check Evanuris]. This is not a peculiarity of hers alone; Fen’harel also has 2 shapes: the elf and the wolf. And we also have the very vague case of Dirthamen and Falon’Din who seem to have different shapes but sometimes one takes over the other and it’s very unclear what’s the true nature of their situation: a lot of this has been speculated in Humanoid Dirthamen and in The Lost Temple of Dirthamen - Part 1-Part 2. Besides, Solas always warned us that the nature of Mythal was more complex than we can truly understand [read Temple of Mythal, Part 1, Part 2, and Solas sharing Lore: Part 1 - Part 2].

I’m not saying Elgar’nan and Mythal are the same [I don’t truly believe it yet], but sometimes I play with the idea, considering how little ancient art we have about Elgar’nan and how much of it is related to Mythal. If we think in Emerald Graves: Din'an Hanin, the place is called “Elgar’nan’s Bastion”, and even though the place has been altered by ancient Dalish, and there are plenty of statues that seem odd to be there [like the many Andrastes spread in the main hall], we still find many of Mythal’s presence in a central display. Now, this may be consequence of the ancient Dalish or may have been there long time ago before them; that we don’t know. We also have the mysterious Strange Idol [analysis] deep down in the tomb of this Bastion, surrounded by Mythal’s dragon shaped statues. It’s also true that these dragon-statues seem to be defensive devices as the scene with Corypheus entering the Temple showed us.

Another detail that always got my attention was that the mosaic of Elgar’nan, which I spoke about in Evanuris, shows a non-elven limb. His arm has the shape of a wolf’s or a “dragon’s” arm, with big claws, shoving down the Sun. We also know, thanks to Flemeth’s words, that bodies are “limiting things”, so Mythal maybe has been adopting different forms along her life or depending on the role she had to perform. This idea is very weak, supported barely by details that, I personally, don’t consider super strong, but still yet I think it’s worth commenting that maybe there is something going on about these Evanuris. Maybe we have, at the end of the day, less Evanuris [maybe four plus Fen’Harel?] than the ones we thought [eight plus Fen’Harel] simply because many of them were split in the Tales due to their different roles along their lives?: Falon’Din and Dirthamen as one, Ghilan’nain and Andruil as one, Elgar’nan and Mythal as one, and by discarding enumeration, June and Sylaise as one. Geldauran speaks only about Andruil and June [check Elvhen Tomb]. Solas speaks dismissingly about Falon’Din and Andruil [Temple of Mythal, Part 2]. How is it possible that Elgar’nan, as the “father” of the pantheon, and therefore probably one of the most important/powerful Evanuris originally, ended up being such a forgetteable figure in the art and places we found? It’s another mystery to me.

Anyways, this whole paragraph is an idea that has been flying around my head for a long while, and to be honest, I’m not super convinced about it. It seems very weak and baseless, even though there are some details that keep making it annoying to discard completely, specially if we take into account how fluid shape was among the elvhenan.

So, with all these details in mind, the eclipse as a concept of moon taking over the Sun could represent mythal changing or taking over Elgar’nan’s figure? Or it’s Mythal all along, but Elgar’nan is the corrupted or angry version of her, while Mythal is the gentle mother and what was left of her? Mythal, after all, changed; and could not help The People anymore. Something happened that was never meant to happen [Flemeth’s words]. However, I doubt this because the split is previous to her assasination.

Closing the Parenthesis and returning to the Eclipses: It is also true that eclipses are associated with darkness because they tend to block [the solar eclipses] the light of the sun. So the constant reiterative comment of the darkness in the Chant of Light or in Elvhenan codices may have a double interpretation: as the darkness=Blight but also as an allegory to the darkness that comes with an eclipse. To this point in the lore, and considering the last videos/trailers we were given, it’s clear for us that Eclipses are omens of something big that will happen.

If we allow the interpretation of an Eclipse to be a bit more laxed, we can also see it as an overlap of different spheres, and there is a common yet vague symbolism in these games and recent trailers about  “spheres” that may be related to eclipses too. Let’s numerate them just to have all of them in one place:

Mythal: the Great Protector: Unreliable Dalish tale, where we read that Mythal created a “pale sphere in the sky” which is one of the two moons of Thedas. This seems irrelevant but for completion’s sake I add it to this list.

The Emergent Compendium: I’ve refered to this codex in the begining of this section. It’s an ancient magical tome that produces images and text on its own, presented to us in DA2. One of the pictures it manifested was described as "Two shadowed spheres among stars", and it was accompanied by a subtitle that could be deciphered into the phrase "An eclipse as Fen'Harel stirred." It seems to relate Fen’Harel with an eclipse or the overlapping of spheres.

Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads, requeires Veilfire to read:  There is smell of blood followed by the image of green vines growing and enveloping a sphere of fire. A sphere of fire can be interpreted as a Sun too. The “original fire/sun” was sealed in a sphere, protected with vines. I spoke a lot about this “sphere of fire” in Murals in DAI: Red Lyrium Idol and The Death of a Titan. A lot of more speculation in Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara, and how the “sphere of fire” also leaked into the Andrastian faith in Andrastian Design: Stained Glasses. This particular sphere of fire seems to be important now, specially with the visual design of red lyrium and trailers of creatures or trees burning from the inside that Bioware shared with us lately. This sphere seems to be a container of something furious and destructive.

Raising the Sonallium tells us that there were thousand of elves maintaining a spell to pull raw essence from the Fade into a sphere in order to create pocket worlds, “planes in-between”, like the Crossroad. The sphere in this codex has a temple, in rust-red jungles with waterfalls. Spheres here are presented as we saw them in the mosaics of Fen’Harel, in Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins.  This sphere seems to be a container of a world or another plane of existence.

Old Elven Writing gives us the image of two overlapping spheres; “unknown flowers bloom inside their centres”.  We know that these spheres can be representations of pocket worlds, according to the previous codex in this list. Overlaping spheres can be also interpreted as an Eclipse. Flowers blooming inside is a bit odd. We didn’t see lore related to this image. If we see the banner of the Elvhenan [the brown banner I showed in Somewhere[DLC Trespasser]: Elven Ruins], they have a pattern of flowers, but this seems to help little. However, flowers may be related to the reiterative symbol of the vines. In a laxed way, this image brings to me a distant relationship with Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago, which is a codex that always got my attention due to its oddity and rebel nature to find a proper interpretation within the context of DA lore. I talked about it extensively in Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara.

Murals: In Solas’ murals, we see the representation of the Fade and the several barriers crafted to isolate the Black City as [sometimes red] spheres too [details in Murals in DAI: Basics and in “The actions of the Inquisitor”]. The Red sphere is always the one related to or encapsuling the Black City. In the mural  “Red Lyrium Idol” we see Solas figure walking inside or on the sphere that may be on fire. In this last mural, it feels like he will face and deal with the danger that was contained in the “fire sphere” long ago. 

As a final note related to Eclipses, I think it’s worth noting that the DA lore also has some details about the stars and the historical meaning of astronomy in few codices. Eclipses are events related to celestial bodies, so stars and skies must also have some significance in this lore. Trying to find this link, I found two codices that give us a bit of more context related to the inminent Eclipse that will happen and that will bring a deep, chaotic change. 

Notes on the Stars: is a codex found in Fallow Mire. It seems to imply that the sky has been shifting and changing slowly [”Looks like different sky“]  Although its interpretation may be left open, considering the fact that the sky is different in different hemispheres. However, I’m not sure Thedas is spread along different hemispheres but extended all just in one: the south hemisphere [Even though we don’t know the planet where Thedas exists, I suspect it is located on the South Hemisphere of the said planet: warmer and tropical to the north, and colder and icy to the south; which is how climate works, in broad lines, in the south hemisphere of a planet with a day-night cycle like Thedas]. So, in theory, that the sky is changing is not a comment to take as irrelevant, but as a piece of enviromental information which is telling us that the sky is changing and therefore, something big is going to happen at a global scale.

Astrariums: This codex gives us the unvaluable information that cults previous to the Andrastian conversion of Tevinter were deeply against the Magisterium system and wanted to be ruled by Dreamers. We also learn that the Sidereal Magister were related to astronomy thanks to this codex, since all of them were Dreamers too. Also, the word Sidereal makes sense now; “of or relating to the stars or constellations”. Maybe this is associated with the idea that “the dragons ruled the sky” [The Silent Grove], so Tevinter tried to approach their dragon divinities by studying the constellations.

These two codices give us a bit more of information about the importance of the sky within DA lore, and how the incoming Eclipse may be changing things already. 

The Tiny Figure

The figure with the staff is a mystery to me. I can link its staff’s shape with several things: 

from The Architect [items sold by the Nexus Golem in DA2] and a broad faction of mindless Darkspawn [darkspawn decorations in DAO], to a Great Dragon/Forgotten One used during the creation of the Veil [details in the mural “The Destruction of the Veil“ and in “The Creation of the Veil”]. This symbol is also present in one of the Fen’Harel’s mosaics, in Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins, from which drops of lyrium fall and a lot of speculation has been done around it. These small details keep telling me of the potentiality of relating the Titans to the ancient Great Dragons that slumber underground. We know that both creatures have the power to change reality through different means, although both have totally different kind of blood [dragon blood vs lyrium]. However, we also know that Evanuris exploited Titans, and Mythal [a dragon] may have learnt “something else” from them.

First speculation: The figure is Solas, and the symbol is Fen’Harel’s

The tiny humanoid figure is in front of the city in the non-corrupted version, while it is not there anymore in the corrupted one. Curiously, the symbol of their staff is the symbol we don’t see among the faces fused with the dragon’s wings, so I suspect it means it was the “Evanuris” that "made it", an Evanuris that escaped Fen’Harel’s banishment. Hence my suspicion that the figure could be Solas himself and that symbol Fen’Harel’s or Mythal’s. However, I think it’s impossible for this symbol to represent Fen’Harel: Solas is not a Dragon, he never was one, and his rejection to Divinity is present in most codices we explored. He did not take the divine shape of a “winged thing” [his shape, actually, has always been of a wolf, recently made “draconic-like” due to the absortion of Mythal/Flemeth’s powers], and he also was always Solas in the way he is now [Solas’ own words], so he was always a creature related to a wolf of six eyes that, probably, took the shape of an elvhen due to Mythal’s request [read details in “Solas’ Nature” in Solas sharing Lore: Part 1 ].

The most logical concept to explain that figure should be Solas, appreciating the city and the magnificent dragon [Mythal] he has praised in game a couple of times, before isolating it when the Evanuris went too far and corrupted it. But it’s a speculation without any proof, to be honest. And the fact that all these symbols in the helms of the elvhen fused with the dragon’s wings were dragons [read “The Creation of the Veil”], makes this hypothesis less likely. Solas was never related to a dragon shape, so these C horns could not represent Fen’Harel [we have suspected that all these symbols are related to Archdemons/Great Dragons thanks to the unmistakable symbol of Urthemiel, check “The Creation of the Veil”]. We also have to remember that this C-symbol is also used by Darkspawns, and Solas is even less related to them. With this idea, the mosaic of the creature bleeding lyrium is also nonsense: Solas has not lyrium blood, although his wolf shape has been painted once with eyes that may represent lyrium [I explained this detail in “The Destruction of the Veil“].

Second speculation: The figure is Solas, and the symbol is Mythal’s

The other speculation I can make is that this C symbol represents Mythal herself. Part of this symbol appears in the horns of the corrupted dragon. We know that Evanuris killed Mythal [but we suspect they did something worse to her since “Evanuris do not die easily”], and that may be represented in the mosaic of Fen’Harel with that figure bleeding lyrium [this, again, puts us in the uncomfortable position of making a comparison of a titan with a dragon; however, we know Mythal got something powerful from the Titan she killed in “The Death of a Titan”, and maybe this power is represented with the lyrium drops in such mosaic]. We know that Solas respects her enough to, probably, carry a staff with her symbol, and allow a representation of her assasination in the series of mosaics in his pocket world [Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins] to keep memory of what the Evanuris did to her. 

How does this interpretation explain the symbol carried by the Darkspawn? It’s true that the darkspawn keep hearing a song in their heads that, thanks to Avernus [ Soldier’s Peak], we know it comes from the Black City, even though it feels like it’s from the Archdemons. If we still try to stick to this interpretation, we are getting close to assume that Mythal, in her dragon shape, is still in the Black City, corrupted, maybe even fused with the rest of the Evanuris. So these symbols carried by the Darkspawn have always been representation of Mythal, who keeps singing a song with the other Evanuris from the Black City through the Archdemons to the Darkspawn. This idea seem to resound a bit when we remember Flemeth’s words: she is a fragment adrift in the storm, and she keeps doing whatever she is doing [we dance] “as long as the music plays”.

We also have the curious and forgeteable long quest of The Blackmarsh and the High Dragon in DAO which, despite being cryptic, can have an interpretation that makes us aware that in Thedas, there are means to have doble shape, and one of them, as a dragon. Of course, this is a mere obscure hint that shows a potentiality. It’s far away from being a clear canon concept still.

But returning to the interpretation of seeing this dragon as Mythal, there is more than one flaw in this interpretation: We have enough art of Flemeth to suspect her symbol is not this C-Symbol [read details in “The Destruction of the Veil“]. However, I noticed again that the corrupted dragon seems to have a similar shape of “horns” than the ones we saw in Flemeth’s art in the cutscenes of DA2, but still missing the iconic central spike. So, as we can see, the interpretation of this C-symbol, and the tiny figure is very, very obscure. None of the interpretations seem to fit every detail.

What we can link with some degree of certantity is that, now, this C-symbol makes sense to be present among the Darkspawn, since it seems to imply that this is the corrupted dragon/creature that has been "singing” throuhg the Blight and archdemons into the head of all blighted creatures. This corrupted dragon, whoever it is, resides in the Black City, maybe even fused with the Evanuris, probably victim of a process similar to what we saw in The Horror of Hormak [read the process explained by Jovis]. After all, Avernus [Soldier’s Peak] always told us that the Archdemons were not the true source of the song, but something inside the Black City itself. 

Art pieces in the vinyl book

These vinyls come within a “book” where each of them is placed in a double-sheet/envelop page. Each of these pages shows a very stylised image. We proceed to analyse each of them.

Update on Dec 2023: Here, someone compiled all the images, and can be seen a lot better.

First Image: The Gray Warden Image

This seems to represent a griffon. It’s an uncommon Grey Warden’s symbol, since I didn’t see it anywhere before. However, the presence of the chalice with a symbol of a drop of “black” blood makes it unmistakable. 

The sword that pierces the griffon’s neck also has a drop of blood, but it seems to be a white drop. Maybe this is related to the concept we learnt in the book Last Flight: as a last resource during the Fourth Blight, the Grey Warden started to force their griffons to a process similar to the Joining, but they didn’t handle the corruption well. Madness spread among the Griffons and most of them had to be sacrificed. This was the reason why the griffons went extinct.

The dagger that the griffon carries in its talons seems to pierce or be surrounded by something long and white that looks like tendrils or a snake with small branches, or a vine [which usually represents The Blight]. It’s not clear. 

On the background, there is a symbol that looks similar to the ones we saw for glyphs or for mage organizations such as the Circle. So far, I could not find the one matching this.

I think it’s clear that this vinyl will contain the music related to the game DAO due to its strong relationship with the Gray Warden symbols.

Second Image: The Hawk and Kirkwall logo

Twitter user Kiranox (@/veranox) was able to do some photo manipulation and have a better image of the second and third one despite the perspective.

As @felassan​ has pointed out, this symbol displays two unmistakable old ones:

The Hawke falling onto its prey, and the Symbol of Kirkwall on the background. 

 It’s curious that, in this vinyl illustration, both images are overlaped, as if they were trying to tell us that this geometrical symbol is a Hawk, when we know that, historically speaking, it was a rising dragon, from the time Kirkwall was called Emerius [more details in the post Kirkwall history and design].

When we have this image in high quality we will see it better, but the white figure also looks to me like a hawk falling free, and I can’t stop thinking in relating this to Flemeth’s words: "A word of advice, we stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment… and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap.” Her cryptic words were always interpreted by me that the world needs Hawke to stay in the Fade. Soon, Fade and Waking World will join again, and maybe what Hawke did in the Fade until their death will be extremelly useful and key in the world that we are going to face in DA4. 

This symbol also has what looks like a rope in a messy way, maybe even falling free too, with a knot in one side. The only symbol similar to this that I can relate to is Sylaise’s vallaslin, which looks like snakes or ropes in messy ways, but I don’t think there is any link between these. Is this image telling us that this is Hawke leaping into the abyss with a cut rope, and therefore, no way to return?

What I think it’s clear is that the vinyl placed in here will be related to DA2′s music due to its strong relationship with the hawk and Kirkwall symbology.

Third Image: The diagram and the hexagonal shape

If we continue this logic, this image should be a symbol representative of DAI.

What I see repeated several times here is a pattern of 6 circles, 3 of different colour and alternated. Inside of the central circle we have another set of three filled circles. This repetition of 3-circles is not something I can say I’ve seen in DAI. In fact, I’m nor really sure to what associate it with.  If these were a Quincunx, we would have a lot of speculation to make since it’s a symbol present in Thedas since DAO.

These six circles are inside an hexagonal shape, which is deeply related to Tevinter, as I described in details in Patterns and Styles: Tevinter. It has a potential to be related to focis, that potentiated the power of the dreamers or priests to communicate with their dragon gods. 

This design also looks similar to the diagrams that faintly appear in the background or on the body of some creatures that I talked about in Nation Art: Elvhen. However, none of them fits perfectly.

It is likely that this vinyl will countain all the music related to DAI due to the symboly of magical diagram and the presence of the Tevinter hexagonal shape. 

Fourth Image: The diagram and the spheres

This is probably a mixture of all previous games with some pieces related to the incoming game of DA4.

This figure, in general, shows a Quincunx, where the central part are the three overlaped circles with a sun or a star inside.

I don’t think it can be related too much to Solas’ tarot Card [which is related to Orlesian decoration of the Winter Palace, as we can see a rug with the same kind of Quincunx symbology on it in the book of Art of Inquisition [below]. 

Again, as I said in Patterns and Styles: Orlais, a lot of Orlesian design and art seems to be strongly influenced by the elvhenan, so maybe this symbol has a particular meaning to the Elvhenan, but so far, I can’t think much of it beyond the fact that it is a Quincunx.

If Anything, that tarot card is showing the Quincunx symbol in itself, with Solas being the central, and therefore, the important thing. Just because these symbols have a clear Quincunx in them, one could relate the three spheres and the star in the vinyl illustration to Solas. These three spheres look like overlaping one that has a “sun”, so the meaning of an eclipse seems to be implied. And we know that Solas, in his Fen’Harel representation, is related to an ominous Eclipse, according the The Emergent Compendium I spoke about in the section “The Eclipse”.

Let’s talk about these three spheres and the star present in the vinyl: The star has the same shape to the central star we see in Solas’ mural when he draws the Temple of Mythal in “The actions of the Inquisitor”. This strengthens the hypothesis that the dragon we see in these illustations may be related to Mythal in her dragon shape.

I’m not sure if this symbology of three spheres overlapping has something to do with the mysterious symbol found at Emerald Graves: Din'an Hanin. In it, we see three golden ring of the same size, aligned. The central one is surrounded by a bigger ring, which seems to be similar to the image we see in this black-and-golden illustration: Three spheres [blue and orange ones] with a bigger ring [yellow line]. In fact, it looks like a progression: The first stage is the one shown in Emerald Graves: Din'an Hanin, where the two orange sphere approach and try to overlap the blue one, which is inside a bigger ring. The second stage is the orange circles overlaping half of the blue one [this is seen in the trailer too], and the last one is this vinyl illustration, where we see that the three spheres are inside the bigger ring and we see the middle of the blue sphere: a sun or a star, or maybe a “sphere of fire”. I talked a lot about the concept of the “sphere of fire” in Murals in DAI: Red Lyrium Idol and The Death of a Titan. A lot of more speculation in Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara, and how the “sphere of fire” also leaked into the Andrastian faith in Andrastian Design: Stained Glasses. 

This Star [made of eight points] is the same one that we see in the mural of Temple of Mythal, but it’s also very similar to the yellow mosaic I talked about a lot in posts such as: “The Death of a Titan” and in the tag asterisk symbol. This links Mythal with this star, which can potentially be related to the heart of the titans and this mysterious power the Evanuris discovered aside Lyrium.

Why I don’t give to much thoughts to Solas’ tarot card? Because it’s a general  Quincunx which central important element is Soals himself. Similar Quincunx symbol appears in this vinyl illustration. In fact the circles that compound this Quincunx are very similar, but those in Solas’ tarot card’s present a series of small icons: a moon, a sun, undulating lines, and four dots.

We can assume that they may be related to magic, but so far we saw in DAO, DA2, and DAI, all these symbols come from the Circle, and therefore most of them keep recreating the Chantry icon, or are inspired in it: all of them are very close to the design of the sunburst. The Orlesian carpet has a small flower in it, which is a very typical icon present in all orlesian design.

But Solas’ tarot card has four clear symbols:

We can agree that Sun/Moon may have some relationship with Mythal/Elgar’nan, since there is information that relates them, but sadly the only source we have for that is the Unreliable Dalish Tales, so it’s hard to be sure. These both symbols are also related to the Eclipse symbology that, at this point, we can’t deny as related to Fen’Harel. 

The undulating lines have been associated with “shape and control” according to the info I gathered in “Murals in DAI: Basics” in the section “Undulating lines associated with Vallaslin or/and bound-slavery”. 

So far we saw [Chant of Light - Part 1 - Part 2 ], the faith of Andraste seems to mix in its myth several historical episodes and figures such as Andraste, her battles against the Tevinter Imperium, and her alliance with the elven slaves led by Shartan which ended up in the gift of the Dales where the elves established the Dalish Kingdom. All these events are more or less “well” recorded [they have a lot of mystical connotations to be considered truly historical] in books inside Thedas, and we can say with certainty that they were "real” events with some degree of erasure or fabrications in some moments due to political tensions. 

Now, the detail of them, the truth in each of these events, may have been twisted in order to craft an appealing tale. What I mean is that we are not so sure if all those battles that were so magically "won" by Andraste were so, we don't know how much true "betrayal" existed in Masferath’s actions, as he could see at his  back the many recovered Tevinter troops surrounding them, we don't know how key Shartan was for Andraste's armies to success, to the point that, maybe, without Shartan, Andraste and her armies may have been massacred by the brutal strength of Tevinter armies filled with mage warriors. Tevinter is an expansionist nation, after all, that despite Blights and constant war with Qunari, keeps an impressive strength despite its decadency. Any other nation in Thedas would have succumbed long ago, yet, Tevinter endured by any means. Specially if we take into consideration that the First Blight, the longest of the blights [it lasted almost 200 years] hit worse on Tevinter.

Now, these are the historical events that fuel the tale of the Chantry. There is, however, another component to it: the Maker.

The Maker is a fantasy character that seems to appear out of the blue in the history of Thedas with Andraste [check the brief timeline at the end of this post]. I mean, before her, this Maker was not even thought about. There was no history of the Maker before Andraste, not even proto-religions that we can assume to be related to him. There are some dark hints in Par Vollen, where the codex  The Pyramids of Par Vollen seems to imply the existence of a primitive religion based on the Sun that may have been part of the original tale from which the "Maker" was created, but sadly there is no much information about this, so it remains a mere speculation.

However, as we progressively saw in all the posts of the index Dragon Age Inquistion, the similarities of Fen'Harel with the first stanzas of the Chant of Light [ Chant of Light - Part 1: Threnodies], when the Maker created two classes of creatures [spirits and humans] and then sealed the former to protect the latter, cannot be missed. This is a tale not too far from “Fen’Harel sealed the Evanuris to protect the People”, and “Fen’Harel ‘created’ the free elves by removing their Vallaslin and showing them a life of freedom”. This may suggest that the Chantry also took Elvhen history from the escapee elves who had been transmitting this tale orally for generations, and incorporated their most beloved concepts into the Chant of Light, to appeal elves as well as humans. 

If we work on this train of thought, and keep in mind what we learnt about the faith that Fen’Harel inspired in his followers [Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins], I can see that after the creation of the Veil [which forced Solas to go into slumber to recover] Fen’Harel followers may have been left with the feeling of having been abandoned or forgotten [this coincides with the idea of the Maker abandoning his children]. 

With the mixture of races, specially with humans during the time of Halamshiral and the Dalish Kingdom in the Dales, I can see how the “tales of Fen’Harel”, coming from these elves were modified generation after generation and even permeating the human communities as more elf-blooded humans appeared, to the point that a figure, similar to the Maker, was all what was remembered from it. A figure that humans at that time used for political reasons as well as to conform a strong religion than may be appealing to elves as well [given the tensions that elves and humans have in different regions of Thedas]. Personally, to me, this explains quite well why Solas’ real story has so much resemblance with the first section of the Chant of Light that describes the Maker, and the prophetic similarities of the return of the maker with the “rise of the Dread Wolf”. 

In this way, the Tale that will be considered sacred for the Chantry starts like a Frankenstein of small pieces of each of these cultures in order to craft a social tool that would help Thedas to stay unified and together after the brutal hit that the First Blight represented for it, while creating institutionalised propaganda against Tevinter and mages in order to keep diminishing its power and maintaining a big hatred and mistrust towards Tevinter and mages that can clearly amass a lot of dangerous power.

Historical context: Times before the Andrastian Church

Before the creation and the strong establishment of the Andrastian Church, there were two historical events that scarred the mind of the thedhosians:

The first one is the First Blight, the longest Blight in history because there were no Grey Wardens to fight it at first, and there was no knowledge about the darkspawn, the Blights, and the mechanism of effective immortality of the Archdemon. This Blight lasted almost 200 years, and during that time, Tevinter mage armies controlled the situation as much as they could, stopping their expansion all over Thedas, abandoning all their settlements [for example in the Frostback Basin [DLC]: Ancient Tevinter presence, Speculation]. It's likely that the creation of the Grey Warden is related to Tevinter in big measure, since it's undeniable the presence of griffons in the Ancient Tevinter iconography. As we explored in the Western Approach [The Still Ruins, Main Chamber and Hall of Silence], there is Grey Warden iconography in pre-blight buildings which makes little sense unless they represented another thing back then. Tevinter always was into researching blood magic too, so it seems only natural that the process of the Joining may have come from their expertise. It’s also hinted that part of this knowledge comes, originally, from Arlathan, so in that case, it’s more honest to suspect that Tevinter’s constant co-opt of Elvhenan knowledge was the responsible of the creation of the Grey Warden [some details about the origin of the blood magic in the post “Tarohne, the Fell Grimoire, and Xebenkeck”]

In the book of tabletop of Dragon Age, there is a brief comment where the Joining is suggested by some tribe person from the Donarks [north of Anderfeles], who is presented to belong to a group of people who consume the blood of their enemies to absorb their power. It feels a bit "dragon blood drinker" vibe. Sadly, this corebook has always been a weird source in DA lore, since it's not clear how to treat it: completely canon or just slight modifications of it to make a role game possible.

In any case, this book adds the obvious conclusion we reached: the Joining process may have been consulted with Tevinter Magisters as experts in blood magic, and also with slave elves, who shared "their secrets of Arlathan" [implying that Arlathan made big use of blood magic as well], bringing more questions than answers [part of this topic is treated in “Tarohne, the Fell Grimoire, and Xebenkeck”].

Anyways, the effect of the First Blight was devastating even though Thedas probably survived more [on the surface] than what it was supposed to survive thanks to Tevinter knowledge and armies, whether they like it or not to acknowledge. Of course, we have to remember that by this time the golems of Caridin were created and the dwarves kept resisting the darkspawn underground.

The second event that marked the creation of alternative strange cults of Andrastian-based tales was the historical event of Andraste and Masferath invading Tevinter after the First Blight. With her death, a second hit to the Faith of the theodosians happened. That’s how strange Forgotten Faiths appeared:

The Empty Ones: A Nevarran cult created after the death of Andraste. It lived short and worshipped the Blight and the darkspawn. They saw Andraste’s death as the beginning of the end of the world, and the Blight was the hook used by the Maker to do so. By the Second Blight, they moved to the Anderfels.

The Daughters of Song: Hedonist cult of men and women who celebrated the union of Andraste with the Maker through wine, poetry, music, and sexual acts. Emperor Drakon wiped them out in his campaign to unify Orlais.

The Blades of Hessarian: Warrior secret cult that thinks Archon Hessarian’s slave, Trefir, who was an alamarri man, carried the Sword of Mercy that killed Andraste in order to bring judgement to the world. We find this cult in DAI in the Storm Coast.

The Disciples of Andraste: We knew about this cult in DAO in Temple of Andraste. They are supposed to be descendants of the first followers of Andraste and Havard, the Avvar warrior who carried Andraste’s ashes to install her temple in Haven where we will visit later in DAO and DAI. I always found very curious the iconography used in their church [the sun imagery looks a lot like a thorny vine] and the hierarchy they had looked more similar to Tevinter Imperial Church than the orlesian one: the priest was a man called Revered Father, and a healer mage. This group was isolated all those centuries, so it seems to be fair to assume they kept their traditions as similar as those that followed Andraste when she was alive, so whatever proto-religion she embodied, it was closer to this: with mage priests, blood drinkers, and a particular love for dragons and protectors of dragonlings and eggs [a lifestyle a lot more similar to the one performed by Yavanna if you look at it]. In any case, our intervention in DAO seems to wipe them out or make them flee somewhere else. It’s known that the intricate passages around this zone were not made by the cult, it was something already built here [The Cult of Andraste, was it an Avvar hold maybe? Or ancient Tevinter? It’s almost impossible to say since DAO design was not too detailed on that matter but we certainly find unique statues of man-dragons.] We can find ancient relics in this place with alamarri runes [The Secrets of Andraste]. Translating these runes seem to link the Guardian to an “ island off the northern coast” which may be a link to Jainen? Where they find the Guardian and some relics of minor importance [Upon the Waking Sea].

This shows the level of disconnection that the people had when different cults proliferate, and the frictions that can araise causing political instability. This is the main reason why always massive religions were the best ancient tool of mass control for empires. Faith invites less critical thinking and questioning, and encourages the homogenisation of the population’s beliefs while legitimating the radical erasure or removal of anomalous or dangerous groups [such as the mages/elves in the case of the Chantry]. Through “divine right”, the powerful, political elites can determine how the system works [this is well seen when analysing Exaltations from Chant of Light - Part 2, where Kordillus implies that in a vision, Andraste names him “the Blade of Faith” and the right leader for the future of Orlais].

The presence of the Maker before Andraste

So far the game has showed us, there were three main religions before the Andrastian church:

Elvhenan one, based on the Elven Pantheon with their system of Evanuris and Forgotten Ones that we have no information about, so far. In the end we learnt that the Evanuris were not “divine” creatures but powerful Mages. 

The human one in the North of Thedas, mainly Tevinter, worshipping ancient great dragons that embody the Old Gods that we have no information about either. We only know that Mythal seems to care about Urthemiel’s soul, but this tells us little about what the Old Gods truly are.

And the human one at the South of Thedas: Alamarri groups such as Chasind, Ciriane and Avvar, with their trinity of gods: The Lady of the Sky, Korth-Father Mountain, and Hakkon Winterbreath [there is also an oak-based god that appears in the canticles of “Andraste 1″ [Part 1] that I’m not sure if it was retconned or it’s a god exclusive of the Alamarri or Ciriane groups]. They seem to be one of the religions with the best comprehension of the spiritual world of Thedas.

There are also more religions or minor cults that should be mentioned:

It’s not clear for me if we can consider the Qun as another religion from the northern border of Thedas, since we don’t know exactly when the Qunari and the Qun appeared. Even though there are some in-game books and codices claiming they appeared later in Thedas, we can mistrust the accuracy of this claim due to the last reveal we had in DAI in the Tevinter Mosaics. 

There are some hints of even a more ancient religion based on the Sun in The Pyramids of Par Vollen, but probably this will be explored once DA:D is released.  We only have a single codex mentioning it.

Spread all over the continent, there were always cults and small religious groups that worshipped demons or dragons or any other local entities.

Curiously, there is no religion so far we know that looks like a proto-version of the Maker. One can guess that the Sun-based religion of Par Vollen [hinted in The Pyramids of Par Vollen] may be connected, but we have no more information about it at all. The other connection we have is what I've been saying in several posts before: The Maker is the humanised version of the tale of Fen'Harel, probably spread by former slave elvhen that began to suffer Tevinter slavery, the process of Dalishation, or were offsprings of interracial families [Exalted Plains].

The History of Andraste and the fight against the Tevinter Imperium

Along the games we have a broad explanation of the history of the Chantry in the codices The History of the Chantry: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4 where we are informed by Brother Genitivi about the following:

The Chantry appears almost 400 years after the First Blight [consider that the this Blight lasted 200 years mostly]. There is a clear socio-political configuration that allows it and makes it almost “needed”. Tevinter, which has been until then an expansionist empire, the only thing that looked like “Order” which had reached deep down the South of Thedas, begins to deal with deep weaknesses:

After the First Blight, people all over Thedas are devastated in terms of their Faith: their gods allowed this terror to happen. 

In Tevinter this has a worse impact causing Tevinter Faith crisis: one of their Old Gods [Dumat] had raised and attacked them, while all the pleas to the other gods were unheard. People begins to question their own religion and burn priests and temples to punish the Old Gods.

With a weakened inner structure, slave rebellions arise. Tevinter Magisters use demons and blood magic to control the situation.

Still, Tevinter has the largest army in Thedas, but it is scattered to keep control of its invaded territories and takes time to transport them back to home.

Seeing all these weaknesses the Alamarri, who had been exploited and slaved by Tevinter for an age, decide to begin an Exalted March against the empire after the end of the First Blight: their leaders are Maferath and Andraste.  

Clearly, the socio-political situation of Tevinter was a unique opportunity for this military attack.

From a Chantry point of view, they justify that this situation of the Empire was a "Maker's miracle", giving to the historical event a "divine" sheen. We know what a classic argument this is in terms of our real History.

With the Tevinter faith crisis, this Exalted March easily gets Tevinter followers who felt abandoned by the Old Gods and start to believe in the Maker and his Prophet: Andraste.

This point of History is written by the Chantry with a strong emphasis against the "mages of Tevinter". It claims that Tevinter needs to be invaded because they have misused the magic “to rule over man”, and they are straight blamed for the First Blight, which is something we already know it's a lie: The Magisters did not created the Blight with their break in, and it's not even clear if they brought it either, since lore-wise, there is something underground going on. The Dwarves have quite different explanations about the origin of the Blights. But the point is that the Chantry used the Blight to enhance, justify, and legitimate its future abuse upon the mages while increasing a fear and a hate towards Tevinter. Not that is not justified, Tevinter far from an innocent nation, but it's clear the political use of the Chantry faith against Tevinter. The truth of the historical events never matter when it comes to religion used as a political and institutionalised tool.

The Chantry usually likes to ignore or diminish the key role of Shartan and his people. Without the elves leading the slave rebellions inside Tevinter, the invasion of the Alamarri forces would have never been possible [The Dales, Glandivalis]

At the Battle of Valarian Fields, the Alamarri defeated the Tevinter Army. Here is where we find another potential nasty manipulation of the History in favour of the religious myth: the betrayal of Masferath is narrated by the Chantry sources as an act of jealousy: he could not endure the fact that he was a "second husband", and that Andraste was the one receiving all the glory for this campaign. So he handed her over to the Archon of Tevinter. A more realistic approach of this event is extremely obvious if we see the map of the conquering campaign:

As it can be seen, the further the Alamarri campaign went into Tevinter, heading to Minrathous, the deeper they were fighting in Tevinter territory with all the strategical advantages that such thing has for the Empire. As the Alamarri conquered and converted towns and cities, they could not leave parts of their army in these places to hold their control, so the numberless army of Tevinter easily recovered these places after the armies of Andraste passed by. When the alamarri army reached the Valarian Fields, and headed to Minrathous, the whole path previously conquered by the alamarri has been retaken by Tevinter again. Masferath, as a strategical leader of his people [he was the one who always led these armies, not Andraste], may have seen no way for his people to survive the retaliation but to make a deal with the Archon Hessarian that ended up with Andraste's public death but guaranteeing their survival and the lands of the South for all the alamarri tribes. Nasty decision but a more realistic one than “jealousy”, although one doesn’t exclude the other. There is a beautiful documentary that explains this strategy very well: Dragon Age Lore Documentary - Exalted March . So, maybe it was not jealousy what [mainly] motivated Maferath to hand over Andraste, but pure “greater good” philosophy. Again, this is a speculation, but it feels more realistic to me that “jealousy” in a culture [alamarri] where women were always considered equals to the point to be leaders without questioning [ Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path, and check what we know about Avvar, since they come from the alamarri].

Thanks to the key participation of the elves in this invasion, and due to Andraste's promise, the elves were granted the Dales [The Dales, The Long Walk] but later the Chantry expelled them after the event of the Red Crossing [The Death of Elandrin].

After Andraste's death, people thought that the Maker had abandoned them again, so they began to look for comfort faiths: demonic cults, return to the cult of the Old Gods, and even worship of the Blight and the Darkspawn [all the ones I mentioned before].

The Cult of Andraste survived as her ashes were recovered and placed in a secret temple. This cult spread and its songs, in the form of the Chant of Light, gave form to the current Andrastian Chantry.

By the time of the Second Blight, a lot of important powerful figures had been converted: among them Kordillus Drakon, who led Exalted Marches to unify Orlais and become the first emperor of Orlais, placed the main core of the Chantry in Val Royeaux, created the Circle of Magi, the Order of Templars, and the holy office of the Divine. He also wrote the last part of the Chant of Light [Chant of Light - Part 2, Exaltations].

In this way, the Chantry was created as a political tool to unify territories, create political stability, spread biased anti-Tevinter propaganda [The Imperial Chantry] and a general anti-mage sentiment [History of the Circle, An Honest Answer Regarding Apostates], and have control over a group of people that Tevinter example showed as a danger for Thedas: the free, self-governed mages.

The Founding of the Chantry and the compilation of the Chant of Light

To close up this analysis of how the Chantry and the Chant of Light became tools of manipulation, I’ve made a brief timeline of the verse versions that were used in the modern Chant of Light accompanied with some important historical events. In this way, we can see some odd details that can make us suspect about the intention of this sacred book in Thedas. [The TE year may have some differences of one or two years since DA lore tends to be a bit messy with their own equivalences between different calendars, don’t ask devs to have a consistent maths, that’s worse than consistent lore, lol]

TIMELINE:

800 TE: First Blight starts.

805 TE: Darkspawn decimate the thaigs of the Deep Roads then emerge around Tevinter spreading terror.

Around 890 TE: Founding of the Grey Warden. It’s not a clear, well specified date. They started as a mismatch of warriors against the darkspawn, and only decades later, they developed the Joining Ritual and acquired a deeper understanding of the darkwpawn.

925 TE:  Some versions of Hyms appear. The authors are unknown since this verse is a combination of tales of local god pantheons that were altered when Andraste cult began to spread.

992 TE:  End of the First Blight, Dumat is killed a second time, now for good.

992 TE: Andraste is born Denerim, though date and place of her birth are hotly contested. She was born from a Ciriane mother and an Alamarri father.

1008 TE: Andraste marries Maferath.

1009 TE: Andraste is taken by a Tevinter raid and is slaved. Maferath manages to negotiate Andraste’s release. This is curious: Maferath had already negotiated with Tevinter to get what he wanted. He had his ways with Tevinter, huh.

1015 TE: Andaste leads Exalted March against Tevinter.

1025 TE : Death of Andraste. It’s known that her disciples sang a Chant composed of: Threnodies, Andraste, Transfigurations, and Trials by the time of her death. Additional verses were added later.

1030 TE: Potential origin of Andraste Verses, which author is an “Andrastian cult”. There are five hundred versions, written in Alamarri saga style. It narrates how Andraste met the Maker.

1035 TE: Archon Hessarian converts to the Andrastian church and writes Silence Verses, narrating the story of the Magister Sidereal and the origin of the Blight that happened +200 years before, clearly its accuracy is highly questioned. It’s a text made of Pro-Tevinter, Pro-Archon, and anti-blood magic propaganda.

1055 TE: Elves start The Long Walk to Halamshiral [The Dales].

1055 TE: First versions of Shartan Verses; its author is unknown, probably an elf due to the historical context. They narrate the contribution of the elves and Shartan in the Exalted March against Tevinter led by Andraste and Maferath. It is removed from the Chant after the Exalted March of the Dales in 1301 TE.

1164 TE - 1184 TE: First versions Threnodies Verses,  its original author is unknown. It narrates the creation of the world, spirits, and humans.

1065 TE: First versions of Transfiguration verses, its potential author may be a Fereldan Andrastian cult. There are dozens of versions. They narrate  Andraste’s sermons about how to treat magic and about her faith in the Maker.

1065 TE: Creation of the first version of the Chant of Light.

1070 TE: Hessarian dies.

1095 TE:  Founding of the first Inquisition with Ameridan as leader. The institution pursuits heretics and apostate mages in the name of the Maker.

1095 TE:  Appearance of the current version of Apotheosis Verses, which original verse, now lost, may have been originated around 1030 TE. Its potential author may be the original Justinia, but it may have been Havard too since he was present in the meeting with Archon Hessarian and not Justinia. This text narrates the betrayal and death of Andraste.

1170 TE: Emerius falls under its constants rebellions, becomes free from Tevinter, and renames itself as Kirkwall.

1183 TE: Origin of Exaltations. Its author is Kordillus Drakon, emperor of Orlais.

1184 TE: As the religion of Andraste becomes more and more popular and spreads, Kordillus Drakon becomes a follower of it.

1195 TE:  Founding of the Chantry by Kordillus Drakon, Emperor of Orlais.

[Details of each verse and deeper analysis can be found in “Chant of the Light”, Part 1  and Part 2]

If we see a summarised timeline of the verses that belong to the modern Chant of Light, we can notice more easily all what it was commented before in this post:  Before the First Blight there are no cults or signs of the Maker in any other part of Thedas, the closest we get to a proto-tale of the Maker is Fen’Harel’s tale who created the Veil, sealing entities that harmed “The People”. This tale seems to be the one which inspired Threnodies, which preserved version was written after the establishment of the free elves in the Dales [1164/1184 TE].  We know that there are some more ancient versions of this verse [1025 TE] that do not belong to the current Chant.

Immediately after the First Blight, there are no versions of The Maker either, and we only find the Hyms Verses, a group of prayers to local gods that have nothing to do with the Maker and were re-adapted to fit Andraste’s interests later. They appear before Andraste is born too, and close to the end of the First Blight. It seems natural to think that these prayers had a deeper layer of despair and need for hope: by that time, people had seen Dumat being slain and reborn immediately afterwards.

After the death of Andraste, we can spot a “Chant of Light” composed only of four Canticles: Threnodies, Andraste, Transfigurations, and Trials. Sadly, we don’t have any non-Chantry-approved version of these to compare how the different versions differ one another. Ironically, we know that these verses existed in 1025TE but the Chantry only conserved posterior versions, when the former ones may have been closer to what Andraste truly spread. More in favour of the idea that the Chantry’s Chant of Light has been manipulated beyond imagination.

Archon Hessarian converts himself to the Chantry, probably to improve the general image of Tevinter or to improve the Faith state of the nation that has been declining since the Old Gods appeared as Archdemons. At the same year of his conversion he adds his text to the Chant of Light: Silence Verses, which are a pro-tevinter propaganda.  This canticle is removed from the Chant of Light afterwards, and with Shartan Verses, they belong to the Dissonant Verses [they do not belong to the canon version of the Chant of Light].

It’s also curious how the Verse of Shartan seems to appear during the time of the Long Walk to Halamshiral. Again, this makes us suspect that the mixture of elvhenan Tales with this Verse may have been a strategy to make the Chantry appealing to a great amount of immigrant free elves that establish themselves in Orlais [The Dales]. It’s better to co-opt than confront.

The current Chant of Light is finally created in 1065 TE, with a lot of verses which versions makes us suspect some manipulation.  Decades later after this document has been rounded up, the Inquisition is created to deal with apostate mages and heretics, acknowledging the problem of modern mages that “want to be like Tevinter Magisters”. Here is when Apotheosis “current” version appears, narrating how Andraste is killed by “Tevinter”, the embodiment of all the “evilness that a free mage can cause”. This version probably hides a lot of inconvenient details that more ancient versions, closer to the death of Andraste in time, may have. One of my main suspicions is if the original Justinia was truly the author of this text. If she was not, her name was manipulated to make her look so in order to reinforce the idea that the Chantry should be led and preserved by women. It makes more sense, if we believe the story of the meeting with Hessarian and so on, that the one compiling this verse should have been Havard.

Finally, it seems interesting to see how Kordillus, who is managing the Great Unification of Orlais, first writes the supposed visions he had [claiming Andraste told him that he is the right leader to follow], then converts to the popular religion that is spreading in his lands, and then a decade later, founds the modern Chantry, attaching it deeply to the Orlais Empire. In this way, the religion becomes a tool to pacify, unify, and control the masses of an heterogeneous population. He may have tried to do the same with the migrant elves in the Dales, but it ended up in political frictions [plus the Second Blight] that ignited, a century later, the conflicts that ended up in the Exalted March of the Dales.

I find very impressing how well played Kordillus Drakon worked with the Chantry. He didn't only unified the territory, he even wrote part of the prophecies of the Chant of Light and wrote in them that he was the “Blade of Faith”, the “divine” leader [The world of Thedas Vol 2]. Kordillus not only was the first emperor of Orlais, and founder of the Chantry, he also appointed the only female general of  his armies as the first Divine, guaranteeing a certain military and zealous mindset at the top of the Chantry.

As we continue getting deeper into this mine in order to stop the Qunari from mining more lyrium, we can notice an increase in dwarven style. The architecture, patterns, and decorations are not mixed with Elvhenan ones.

With Dorian's comment we know that there is something off with this mining. Another of his comment if romanced is:

Dorian [if romanced]: Cold stone, dark tunnels, and surrounded by extremely hostile Qunari. Not the place I'd have chosen for a romantic homecoming.

These comments make us aware that there is no molten rocks to illuminate these corridors (so typical in dawrven infrastructure), which seems to be a lead to help the player to consider the possibility that this "spring of lyrium" is some deep part of a Titan. This place, in fact, seems pretty similar to the Uncharted Abyss in its lack of molten rock illumination and darkspawn. I’m not sure if this means that we are in the Storm Coast and this is another part of the same titan we visited in The Descendant, or this is another titan, somewhere else.

There is a Charred Note that informs us that these deadly purple flames were cast by Solas. I find it a very curious element, because so far in the Base game, we didn't find this effect beyond some “purple effect” with necromancer spells or rogue powers [it feels more a game mechanics that something related to lore, to be honest]. However, it brings to my mind the old graphics of DAO where the Archdemon breathed upon the Warden and it was of similar colour, like purple breath [flames]. The note describes it as blue, so it could be related to Flemeth’s power that now belongs to Solas, although, somehow, the game shows it purple when we know it can show it in blue. Who knows.

As we walk upstairs to the mining and processing, we find big statues of Howling Fen'Harel.

The veins of lyrium are everywhere, even sprouting from small cracks in the area, surrounded by gatlok, ready to be exploded and have access to them.

Close to a cliff, we see the third part of the codex  Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 3. Due to the blood around the scroll we find, we assume the elf fell from the cliff and died. What this elf refers to can be summarised as:

Again, he is not an expert in Dalish Lore, but he remembers an old song about Mythal. As it belongs to the unreliable Dalish Folklore, it may have a hint of truth but it's hard to know in which part it is.

The song suggests a tranquil or a dwarvish state [empty/nothingness], something that is disconnected from the dreams. We know the codex Old Elven Writing from Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal that the elves perceived dwarves [the “workers of the titans”] as soul-less and witless creatures, so this song has a good chance to talk about dwarves.

The author of the song explains that Mythal gives them dreams, which is very curious since Mythal seems to connect with people through dreams: In Val Royeaux, we hear an environmental discussion between an elf servant and his master, in which the elf claims that Mythal appeared in his dreams and told him things. Apparently after that, he acquires a Vallaslin of Mythal [I can’t confirm this myself]. There is also another similar situation with Sandal in DA2, where I think he dreams of Flemeth [he sees ”an scary old lady” at night], but we don’t know how serious we can take this, since Sandal was always a joke for the devs.

So, Mythal gives dreams means that these creatures will be filled with something that makes the Evanuris proud. Even though this elf translates it as leaders, the original song speaks of Evanuris [hence I use that word]. What could make an Evanuris proud? probably magic, which is attached to dreams and souls/spirits. So, if these creatures are dwarves [seen by the elves as soulless] filling them with dreams, fade magic, or souls would make the Evanuris proud in their opinion [or so it thinks the author who clearly has no real idea about the true nature of the Evanuris]. Therefore, this song may be related to give magic to dwarves, or to give them a soul, which would mean to bind spirits to their “empty” bodies. Both possibilities are huge discoveries in the lore if they are true.

The last part of the song reinforces our suspicion that this song is related to dwarves and Mythal has given them something to make them dream/have magic [I wonder if this is related to Valta’s words spoken by the Titan about the history of the dwarves: the dwarves were broken in two kinds at some point, more details in The Descent – The Wellspring].

This song is material for high speculation, but sadly it's not too reliable: it is based on a Dalish song, and written and commented by a Dalish person who was not even a Keeper. However, there must be a hint of truth in it, since devs would not put 3 pieces of a long codex just to lie to the players. This is basically the main, central codex of all the Deep Roads in Trespasser. Its implications are enormous. 

By the end of the codex, it seems to imply that the light of this place died out and, trying to look for another source, this elf fell from the cliff and died.

As we continue this path, Cole says another comment: “songs are old here”. He speaks of old songs and old blood when it comes to Titans. But he also calls old pain to the elvhenan’s. “Sleeping sadness already forgotten” could be translated as the sadness of the Titans to have been defeated long time ago, and because their existence is quite vegetative since then, it’s already forgotten. This coincides with what Valta says by the end of the DLC that the Titan talking to her is sad [ The Descent – The Wellspring]. Another interpretation, related to the Elvhen and their Uthenera process, will be commented below. 

In the main bridge, we find another statue of the Moon-head creature. It's placed in the beginning of the bridge, looking into the chamber that the bridge leads to. At its feet we find Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 2 that can be summarised as:

The elf claims that these statues are older than anything they saw. Which is expected, since these statues were usually seen in ancient elvhenan temples that I doubt their clan may have found in their migration. However, it's not clear if they are including the statue of the Moon-head creature. If they do, they are not providing great insight: they are only saying it’s an old statue.

They recognises the mixture of dwarven and elvhen architecture in this place. They wonder what the elves were doing. If it was mining, why don't use dwarves? [because the Elvhen mining is different to the mundane one]

The author suspects that this aggressive intervention [bringing the elvhen gods to the dwarven kingdom] may have been a sign of War between the two groups.

Again, we have another Dalish Tale claiming that Elgar'nan's fire and the Sun are equals, and for that reason the dwarves feared them and lived underground. This idea links with the Dalish tales of Elgar'nan shoving fire inside the ground in the zone of Emprise du Lion [some tales claim it was the sun itself, but one can also speculate that it may have been Sylaise too, for more details Emprise du Lion: Pools of the Sun]. The only source more or less reliable that links Elgar'nan with a potential attack to dwarves and his manipulation of fire is in the codex Song to Elgar'nan, explained in Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal, where the codex relates "Elgar'nan's gaze”, with “burning the ground”, taming the land that "shakes" the elvhenan cities. This codex can be complemented with Vir Dirthara: Signs of Victory, from Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara, where Elgar'nan statue is erected using a collapsed mountain [potential allegory of a defeated titan]. All these details from sources a bit more reliable than Dalish tales [although equally vague] allow us to be more confident in believing that Elgar'nan led a war and won it over the titans and their workers: the dwarves. However, I must say that this seems strange since the codex Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads implies it was Mythal who defeated them; these vague overlapping concepts make me wonder sometimes if Elgar’nan and Mythal are not the same entity in similar fashion than Dirthamen/Falon’Din are, but this speculation is for another post]. In the process to win the war against the titans there was burning, apparently.  And if the song of the section 3 has some grain of truth, Mythal may have helped the dwarves to have souls and connect to the Fade.

Here is the bridge that the Moon-head creature seems to encourage us to follow. Its columns are typical dwarven-made.

As we walk in, Cole says: "This is where they dig". I would assume that "they" means qunari, this is a comment of the present.  "Tricks and trials so the singing stones don't kill them", implying what we learnt through the ex-templar human before: the qunari have been experimenting to try to mine lyrium without being killed in the process. So “singing stones” seems to mean here “lyrium veins”

As we enter, we see again elvhenan iconography and decoration. The dwarven details were left outside this building, and its interior seems to be focused on Elvhen design. A lot of golden details, yellow mosaics with the asterisk symbol on them, arabesque decoration, and more Howling Fen'Harel guarding the chamber inside can be found.

Since the Qunari are using this chamber, there is a lot of Qun decoration that has nothing to do with the ancient ruins: Qun banners and Qun drapery, gatlock bombs, desks with many details of the operation, etc.

Now, this is the important thing. We can't explore this chamber below, but I thinks this is the Elvhen mining. The first detail we see is the many sarcophagi below. We have seen these sarcophagi in the Solasan Temple and in the Elvhen Tomb of Frostback Basin. They are Elvhen. We know via the Masked Empire, that some of the nobles would be in Uthenera in beds, but we also have read that there were sarcophagi in these subterranean Uthenera chambers. So, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to understand that these coffins belong to Uthenera elvhen.

This massive well emanates pure blue light, making us suspect it's a pool of lyrium. The columns beside it are decorated with big statues of Humanoid Mythal.

The ceiling is clearly elvhenan-made as well.

Beyond the "well" there is more and more sarcophagi, indicating this chamber is massive and filled with a lot of elves potentially still alive in Uthenera.

The hole sadly has nothing interesting to offer when explored inside with flycam. Which makes sense, the devs never thought we would explore this via flycam.

One can understand that the hole is a place heading to the core of the lyrium spring [or the Titan's heart] which would explain why so much light is coming from it. This “well” could be considered an easy access to the heart of an already defeated Titan. I mean, we can see the mural and interpret it in two ways:

A “ray” [Mythal’s final strike] falling into the heart that slices the Titan in two and defeats/kills it.

Or a tunnel or “well” which gives easy access to the heart for mining purpose in an already defeated/dead titan. This is the option I’m inclined to, because it looks similar to what we are seeing in this chamber. This chamber does not show signs of battle or struggle [there was not fight in here]. Instead, this was built on a peaceful, calm surface: the titan may have been already defeated [if not dead].

As addition, Cole’s line gives us more context to understand the whole chamber:  Cole is confirming that these are elves in Uthenera. Singing a song in the dark.  My speculation tries to link this song with the Lyrium’s, as if these elves are part of it or use it, in an attempt to keep the Titan sleeping still. And this process may have turned the Titans into vegetative entities that only stir when big disruptive Fade-related events occur [like the access to the Golden City by the Magisters Sidereal or maybe the creation of the Veil, and recently, the Breach in the sky]. They are unable to wake up, they forgot how to do it, according to Cole’s comment. Maybe they forgot how to wake up because the immense amount of elvhen in Uthenera are preventing it somehow.

For a more integral interpretation of this, we can gather all the lines that Cole have been saying in Trespasser related to the Deep Roads:

When we entered to the Deep Roads Overlook: "Songs screaming far away. It wants to wake up but can't remember how. No one should be here." [Songs mean many, it’s not the “old song”=titan, so I understand this line as “the songs of the elves”, referring to all those elves in Uthenera coffins. Cole always said that elves have songs related to them. Immediately after this comment, he speaks about the impossibility of the Titan to wake up. This indirectly implies that the first sentence is related to the second one, hence my idea that Uthenera elvhen may be preventing the awakening of the Titans].

When we reach the darkest place of this zone: "It's singing where no one can hear." [This means the titan is singing too, this is the song of the lyrium itself]

Close to the bridge of this chamber: "The songs are old here. Sleeping sadness already forgotten. I can't help this hurt.” [This could mean Titans as well as Uthenera elves, both are always described by Cole as “old” songs, and both are sleeping in sadness. Since he uses the plural I’m inclined to think of the elves. Once more we can see that Uthenera is something rather more different than what we have been told since DAO. If we link this to the codex Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago, we can see that elves entering to Uthenera are always sad and weeping.]

As we cross the bridge: "This is where they dig. Tricks and trials so the singing stones don't kill them.” [We assumed this was about Qunari, and still sounds like that, so I will not considered it further, just including it here for completion's sake]

In the chamber with the coffins: “They are all singing. Coffers, coffins, corpses that aren't dead. A song crying out in the dark.” [Here is a clear confirmation that these are Uthenera elves.  The song in the dark feels more like the song of the Titan. This description also connects with Valta’s war table: “a cry in the dark”. In general, Cole tends to relate the singular song to a Titan.]

If we bring Sera, in the Overlook, Cole will reinforce the idea that the Titans are vegetative now

Sera: Why are dwarves so short but carve their tunnels so tall? Cole: Their ancient shapers were mountains drawn of all their wills, walking their memories into valleys of the world.

With Dorian

Dorian: All this lyrium. If the Qunari wanted they could make a fortune. Cole: The stone sings. The song scares them. It’s the wrong song, the wrong blood. They don’t know how we stand it.

With all these vague tiny bits, and this massive chamber, I came to the conclusion that the Uthenera of the past, when the Veil did not exist, could not have had the same goal than it has nowadays. There was no reason for immortal elvhen to go to sleep forever to live in the Fade, when they already lived there. 

That ancient Uthenera had another goal, and I suspect that it may have been related to keeping the Titans sleeping, calmer, so the elvhenan empire, so fragile to the "reinforcement of reality" of the Titan's powers [Valta's sudden appearances of reports all over Skyhold] could exist without struggle. However, the Evanuris may have learn something of the power of this reinforcement of reality and “shape”, since the Vallaslin and the murals of the elvhen seem to suggest that the slaves of the Evanuris may have been victims of "the shape" via vallaslins made of lyrium. 

Sadly this place is lost forever: when we destroy the Qunari operation, the whole place begins to collapse and flood. All those ancient elvhen are finally dead.

Codex without the need of Veilfire

 [meaning that non-mages can read]

The Temple of Mythal, at the entrance of the Temple of Mythal

We are informed that Genitivi was not right about his interpretations of ancient elven culture and structures, which is a surprise to no one.

This is written by Atronus, an antivan scholar.

These temples were wrapped by cities. Since this scholar is basing this hypothesis on extensive diggings, it’s safe to assume that most elven temples were surrounded by a city. Each of them with a different set of rituals and details according to the god.

He assumes that the old elven gods, if they truly existed, were demons. Of course we can’t know if he is referring to the Evanuris, or the ancient gods that the Evanuris worshipped time ago, before the war with the Titans. He also asks what greater power over them could have existed.

I consider this codex mixed in value. The fact that the temples were wrapped by cities seems to be based on extensive observation, while the concept that the Evanuris worshipped demons is more like an hypothesis pulled out of his ass.

The Mystery of June, found in Hall of Shrines, mosaic in entryway to one of the ritual rooms

Not much to say about it.

This is written by Senallen Tavernier, an orlesian scholar, who was commissioned by Celene. We can see here too Celene’s interest for the non-conventional knowledge.

They think that each elven god represents an aspect of their civilisation. Probably this scholar is basing part of their ideas on the Dalish Tales.

June is the least understood god with less depictions.

The oldest depictions of June have none of the tools that the Dalish associated with him.

They assume that June’s role has changed over time or can’t be understood today.

It’s worth noting that this mosaic shows June with an anvil, clearly a tool of the dwarven, not of the elves. And his mosaic is one of the most geometrical ones.

I consider this codex reasonable in value: it talks about an observation in depictions. However, I feel it’s strange for it to appear in the Temple. It’s still the exterior zone of the temple where a scholar could have access to, though.

The Rebel God, room with the first ritual, statue of Fen’Harel.

Once more, this codex belongs to the orleasian scholar Senallen Tavernier, who, curiously, seems to have a much better grasp of the elves than Genitivi.

"Harellan" is a term that means "traitor to one's kin”, and it’s a word that doesn’t appear in any elven text before the Tower Age [this is very interesting, it means that it appeared after the Second Blight but before the Third one. We can see this in Dinan Hanin: the presence of the wolf as a protector and a rebel, as well as a much benign connotation of Fen’Harel was still present during the time of the Emerald Knights. This means that the conceptualisation of Fen’Harel as a deceptive god started after the Second Blight and during/after the Exalted March of the Dales.

They suspect that Fen'Harel's name is related to rebellion, not deception.

I consider this codex useful because it speaks of an undeniable fact: a word that didn’t appear before certain period of time. And the period of time associated with is related to a convulsive event: The Exalted March.

Even though this codex is written by an orlesian, and it seems too strange for it to be present in an ancient elvhen temple, I assume this could have been an exploration of the scholar, who looked around the temple, and saw these statues outside of it. A different thing happens with the next codex, where the codex is in the depths of the Temple itself: 

Twins in Shadow, found in inner sanctum, after meeting Abelas, mosaic.

Once more, the orlesian scholar Senallen Tavernier wrote this codex.

This information comes from scraps of elven stories after the fall of Arlathan and transcribed into Tevinter. Which means that this information has been butchered by the elves escaping Arlathan first and by Tevinter later. Plus the loss of details in the translations.

This text claims that Dirthament and Falon'Din are considered as "twin souls", without a family connection. With all the butchering no wonder it makes so little sense to speak about twins without family connection. This codex is such a mistreated piece of information.

Oldest stories never name them directly, one is the shadow or the reflection of the other. Falon’Din is called “Dirthamen’s shadow,” and Dirthamen is “Falon’Din’s reflection.”

This scholar suspects the bond was not romantic, and assumed elvhen relationships may have been too complex for current parameters to understand.

I have a mixed judgement about he value of this codex. Even though it is butchered, this is a piece of information I would trust more than a Dalish tale, simply because it's older and conserved by Tevinter. If anything, we know that Tevinter always co-opted elvhen knowledge, so they are good at it. However, the problems of the translations may have made it more confusing that it had to.

This concept of "twin souls" or this shadow/reflection duality is something present in other codices. It makes sense if the world where they lived was shapeless, bending to their whims.  All the lore we find about one of them seems to be always too entangled with the another. Considering the unusual situations we have seen in the game series, we could suspect they had a relationship similar to Anders and Justice or to Flemeth and Mythal.

We know that back then, elves and spirits lived together [Vir Dirthara: Attentive Listeners], but there are no reasons for one of them to possess the other, unless Falon’Din, in his desire to amass more worshippers, bounded Dirthamen to him. After all, we know that the elves, and Dirthamen in particular, had a deep knowledge of twisted bounding rituals.

My main concern about this codex is how in the hell a treaties of a contemporaneous scholar of the University of Orlais [the same one that Celene commissioned on other matters] managed to be imprinted in a temple which has not been opened for visitors since the time of the Evanuris. And we have some certainty about this simply because we saw the Elvhenans and Abelas defending this place. I have the impression this codex is a mistake in its location.  Unlike the rest of the codices, this one was not written by “uknown author” [meaning, a follower of the gods who wrote it in ancient times].

Elven God Andruil, found in Hall of Shrines, mosaics in room of the corridor to the temple door.

This is a very juicy codex. The source is unverified, but it comes from ancient elvhen. If anything, it's information closer to the time it happened, and even in the case of being a text written by a worshipper of the goddess, it will have a less degree of inaccuracy than any Dalish Tale.

Andruil hunt mortal men and beasts. [I'm not sure how to interpret men. Did she hunt humans when they appeared in the world? But that took a lot of ages... She also hunt mortals meaning that she was not in the Fade? Because the creatures in the Fade are immortal. So, she hunt in the waking world? were Ghilan’nain’s creations the beasts she hunt down?]

Bored, she stalked the Forgotten Ones.

The Forgotten Ones are described as wicked things living in the abyss. Due to this description, we can suspect that the scribe of this codex was an elf worshipper of the Creators gods.

It also implies that the Abyss= Void was where the Forgotten Ones had been living to avoid the Evanuris. [So, Fen’Harel did not trick them to seal them in the Void; another thing that the Dalish Tales got wrong]

The Void affects the Evanuris. In Andruil's case, she suffered longer and longer periods of madness after returning from the Void.

Despite this effect on her, she made an armour of the Void and everyone forgot her face. This implies that the armour may have had some mask or helm.

She made weapons of darkness, and plague ate her lands. This implies that she brought the Blight to the lands. All over the series we find a constant metaphor of the Darkness as Blight.

She *howled* things meant to be forgotten, and the other gods became fearful Andruil would hunt them in turn. The gods feared this madness, considering she was going to hunt them down soon. Maybe this line, putting these two concepts in the same sentence, implies that she threatened the Gods? Did she discover secrets of the Evanuris in her travels to the Abyss? Or it was just the mere madness that the exposure to the Void caused on her?

Mythal turns into a great serpent and awaits for Andruil to hunt her at the base of a mountain.

They fought for three days. Andruil wounded Mythal [slashes] while Mythal sapped Andruil’s strength [entropy magic?], stealing Andruil's memory of how to find the Void. [This power looks similar to Fen’Harel’s. We see by the end of DAI that Solas makes Cole forget and severs the connection between them.]

Losing that knowledge, Andruil could not return to  the Abyss anymore and "peace returned".

I'm not so sure how much to trust about this “returned peace”. The whole process of how Andruil lost her mind, and began a war race, with the following fight with Mythal was too detailed, but then the last bit is just a vague “the peace returned”.  It feels like something else happened, but the story was chopped off.

Due to the description of the symptoms in Andruil, we could guess that the madness she suffered could have been caused by Blight or Red Lyrium or even normal Lyrium. The three elements can produce madness when exposed to them.

An armour made of Void is weird conceptually. The only Void we saw in DA series is the anvil of the Void, an anvil surrounded by lyrium veins, which allowed Caridin to bound dwarven souls to stone golems and make them alive. If her armour was fused with Lyrium veins, no wonder she went mad.

There is also another reference to the Void if we can make the equivalence Void = Abyss. In the DLC The Descent, the Uncharted Abyss is a series of levels below the Deep Roads where we find the most pure lyrium veins and the Titan’s guardian. It’s also in this place where there are no darkspawn.

Another ominous items associated with the Void is Staff of the Void.

A weapon that stills the air around it. The inscription is old Tevinter Imperium: "There is strength in absence. Absence of weakness, and of limitation. Absence of caution, and of mercy. The Void has always been within."

It implies that the Void is a powerful force, since it represents the absence of weak aspects of humanoids: weakness, limitation, caution, and mercy.  If we associate The Void with The Uncharted Abbyss, and the latter to the Titan, we obtain by transitive properties that the Titans are strong, have no limitations, no caution, and no mercy.  The last sentence seems to emphasise that the Titans have always been “within” the ground.

There are other objects related to the Void, like Robes, boots, and gloves, but they belong to DA2, and have no description in the items.

A weapon of darkness sounds more like a weapon carrying the Blight, hence the next information is about a plague eating her lands. What we can suspect, if the orlesian scholar is right, is that The Temple of Andruil, a temple with its city wrapped around it [The Temple of Mythal], is a plagued place.

I also wonder how Andruil recovered herself after this contamination. The codex finishes too soon. It seems like after weakening Andruil, Myhtal managed to deal with her, probably imprison her. But this is speculation on my part.

Another piece of speculation is related to what Solas said in Tresspasser: Evanuris are not easy to kill. The concern they had about Andruil hunting them, could have been because she had now weapons of darkness and armour of the Void. This could imply that these weapons can kill the Evanuris [her golden spear], or at least corrupt them. This was such a danger for them, that Mythal intervened personally and removed Andruil’s memory.

Song to Elgar'nan, found in the inner sanctum, mosaic,

There is no author, but clearly depicts a song celebrated by those who worship the god.

He seems to be associated with Wrath, Thunder, and Lightning

It implies that Elgar’nan led the fight to the “Earth that shakes their cities”, calling them usurpers.

“Ask him to burn the ground under Elgar’nan’s gaze” seems to have a visual resemblance with the image in the codex of [Vir Dirthara: Signs of Victory]. This brings once more the Dalish Tale idea that Elgar’nan is related to “bury the sun”. He is usually burning or grabbing something that burns and throwing it into the ground.

He brings "Winged Death" to those who shook the cities [throwing down the Evanuris’ work], implying the potential control he has on Falon’Din.

They speak of taming the land instead of shaping it / bending it, implying that they treat those who shake the Earth like animals or beasts. If we think they are referring to dwarves / Sha-brytol, they see them as soulless creatures, not much better than an animal [Old Elven Writing].

It's clear that the enemy are the titans. They are usurpers because, like the elves, they like to shape. The stone was there first, for titans to shape in the same way that the Fade was there for elves to shape. The elves did it in a more incorporeal way, while the titans shaped it on the stone, hard to change.  It seems to be a war caused by their common ability to shape reality. Now, how both creature live in the same world is strange to me, since this world is a combination of Fade and Waking World.

Winged Death is a very curious word choice that, by no chance, is written with capital letters. It  seems reasonable to assume that Winged Death is Falon'Din, since in the same temple, in [Song to Falon'Din], it explicitly says that he has wings of death.

One can speculate that Elgar’nan may have had Falon’Din as a general under his command. There is also the possibility of having him bounded or turned into a general of death when Falon’Din lost his duel against Elgar’nan in  [Vir Dirthara: Duel of a Hundred Years].

Song to Falon'Din, found at the Hall of Shrines, mosaic in room of the corridor to the temple door.

There is no author, but it seems to depict a song sang by those who worship Falon’Din.

The people swore their lives to him.

He has control of "the dark that lies"

"His shadows hunger" and his "faithful sing"

Wings of death thick as night surround him

Lethanavir may be his original name.

He is called master-scryer, meaning someone who see beyond the horizon, beyond the lands we all see. He was like a scout or explorer of shapeless worlds and airless skies.

That the people swore their lives to him seems to imply a lot of slaves, which seems reasonable with what Solas told us about him.

He has control of the dark that lies, which is something I can’t point out what could mean. The closest to the concept of Dark we have in these codices is the Void, and saying that it lies, it would mean that the creatures lying in the Void lie? The titans? It makes no sense, so I will place it aside for the moment. 

But the “faithful singing” sounds something similar to Uthenera. We see in the Deep Roads of Trespasser, a chamber where elvhen in Uthenera are singing. In fact, putting things together, the “dark that lies” could be related to Uthenera as well because we don’t know what exactly Uthenera is [for the Elvhenan]. The closest to the truth is in [Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago], in which the person going into Uthenera is hinted to be part of a metamorphosis process. 

His “shadows hunger” is a curious word choice if we think in [Twins in Shadow,] where Falon’Din is named Dirthamen’s Shadow. Could be Dirthamen be related in this codex as well? After all, we can’t differentiate one from the other. 

He seems to be called “Wings of Death” or “Winged Death” [Song to Elgar'nan,] and gives me the impression he is under control of Elgar’nan. Maybe as a result of his defeat in the [Vir Dirthara: Duel of a Hundred Years]. 

Probably due to his winged form, he had the role of a scout or scryer in the Fade [shapeless worlds and airless skies].

Like Solas or Abellas, he has an “original” name: Lethanavir. Probably this is his name before being a god.

Song to Sylaise, found in inner sanctum, mosaic

There is no author, but it depicts a song made by her servants [“We give ourselves gladly to your service”].

There is a series of comparisons with the other gods that make you think she is all about rivalry, jealousy, fire, and damage. She also seems to be the golden child, good at every main skill that the other gods have.

This song is the closest one in the games that describe Sylaise more accurately without being a Dalish Tale.

Her breath rivals with Andruil's spear. 

Her temples are as big as Mythal's cities [the cities wrapped around the main temple?]

But she also is a crafter like June. This song says her skill rivals June's craft. And she gave the Sonallium of the grand architects to June as a thanks for a favour. [ Vir Dirthara: Raising the Sonallium]

She is competitive, fire-related, and a crafter.

The most curious detail here is that her breath is compared with Andruil’s spear. We know via [Unreadable Elven Writing] that Andruil’s spear is a brutal weapon, likely made of lyrium powder that glows due to its heat. How could Sylaise’s breath rival with this weapon? this makes me think she breathes fire.  The symbol of fire is emphasised a lot in Sylaise.

The Ascension of Ghilan'nain, found in inner sanctum, mosaic

There is no author, but it seems to be written by a worshipper of her.

Ghilan’nain was part of the People, but isolated herself.

She created chimerical animals with her powers: the ones in the skies were called monsters, the ones on the ground, beasts. Andruil hunt them all, approaching Ghilan’nain after a year of hunt.

Andruil proposes her that the Evanuris will share their godhood secret with her if she destroyed her creations. The reason for this is said to be too dangerous for the People, but I hardly believe it.

In three days she killed all her creations with some exceptions such as the air creatures she presented to Andruil as a gift. She "drowned" the giants of the sea, except those that dwelt deep in the waters. They were too well-wrought and Pride stopped her hand.

In the lands, she killed all beasts except the halla.

Ghilan’nain is presented like a mad genetic scientist, who mixed creatures to create chimeras. This was useful for Andruil who liked hunting them in order to avoid boredom [Elven God Andruil]. After a year of playing this game, Andruil proposes Ghilan’nain to become a goddess. The only condition is to kill all her creations because they were too dangerous for the People. I hardly believe this. Andruil, as a goddess of the hunt and the sacrifice [Solas’ words], would care little about the People. I’m sure there were others reasons.

In a more benevolent interpretation of Ghilan’nain, one could say that she was creating beasts as a way to create an army against the Evanuris. In this interpretation, Ghilan’nain being an isolationist would have meant that she was a rebel, and therefore, apart from the People. This interpretation implies that Andruil hunt all those creations as part of the battles against a rebel elf, not just out of mere boredom.  After a year of fight, seeing that this situation had no end, Andruil tempted Ghilan’nain with the secret of godhood under the condition of destroying her creations. The only reason I see why an Evanuris would ask the massive extermination of creatures is because these creatures may have represented a threat for the Evanuris themselves.

Whether Ghilan’nain was a rebel or not, she accepted the proposition to became an Evanuris, and proceeded to kill her creations in three days:

First day: air creatures were eliminated, except those presented to Andruil. There is no more information to suspect which ones are these.

Second day: she drowned the water creatures, which sounds like an oxymoron. You can’t drown a creature which breathes in water. The exception here are the ones living deep into the waters. It’s impossible to know what means “well-wrought” in terms of chimeras, that made even Solas stop her. The fact that Pride is capitalised could be a wrong translation that the inquisitor does of the word “Solas”.

The third day, she killed all the land beasts, except the halla.

There is no mention of creatures living underground. Maybe there were none, or maybe those were her secret ones, pilled up in the underground. Or maybe after she became a goddess, she shared the secret of the creation of her beasts, and the Evanuris created their own army of chimeras, which is what we see in [The Horror of Hormak].

Codices with the need of veilfire.

Ancient Elven Writing, found in the inner sanctum, runes revealed by Veilfire on wall.

Only translated with the whispers of the Well of Sorrows

A sinner took the shape of the gods, and flew in the skies.

The sinner is a servant/slave of Dirthamen [it uses the word “belong”]

The slave claims that he took wings encouraged by Ghilan'nain.

He asks protection from Myhtal despite being Dirthamen his owner.

Mythal does not intercede in his favour and let Elgar'nan judge him.

There is a shifting shadowy image with blazing eyes, whose form may be one or many.

Considering how sacred dragons are, not only for Tevinter but for Yavanna, who was raised by Mythal, we can suspect that the shape of the divine is dragon like. Another example is Flemeth, who turns into dragon.

The sinner was a slave of Dirthamen who took divine shape at the urging of Ghilan’nain. There is nothing hinting it, but since this sinner calls for Mythal’s favour instead his owner [Dirthamen] there is a slight chance that this happens when Dirthamen disappeared under unknown reasons  [The Lost Temple of Dirthamen] and very likely during the time when Fen’Harel spread the idea that the gods were false, since this sinner challenged the gods showing that he also could take that shape.

In fact, if we take the interpretation I suggested in The Ascension of Ghilan'nain,  where I offer the hypothesis about Ghilan’nain being a rebel at first, her encouragement for this sinner to take divine shape may be another proof in that direction: she was telling to someone else that the divine shape can be taken by regular people.

It’s also reasonable that, as a follower/slave of Dirthamen, this sinner would have known the “secret” of divinity. I’m not sure why Ghilan’nain would want him to take this divine shape if she was not a rebel. Maybe she was working on another experiment and wanted to prove it? It’s hard to guess it outside the hypothesis of being a rebel. But clearly a part of the secrets of her creatures must have belonged to Dirthamen as well, since by no chance Ghilan’nain’s red mosaic appears in the Lost Temple of Dirthamen. Dirthamen and Ghilan’nain may have had a relationship based on the secrets/knowledge of the divinity shape.

Finally, we know he is judged by Elgar’nan, whose wrath is brutal. The little we know about  other codices would allow us to link this sinner to Geldaunan, who speaks of false gods [Geldauran's Claim]. Since we find him in this temple in Frostback Basin, and we know that Solasan, similar temple, was also used as a prison, we can suspect that Elgar’nan final judgement was to seal him. But all this interpretation is under the hypothesis of the sinner being Geldaunan.

The final image is a shadowy mass without shape that has blazing eyes. The mass changes to one or many forms. I think this last image can be Elgar’nan giving his final judgement, or the sinner himself after it.

The blazing eyes is something more related to Elgar’nan while the shadowy form feels more fitting for a slave of Dirthamen, the god of secrets and shadows [specially if we keep in mind that there is almost no difference between Dirthamen and Falon’Din. So this slave could also be Falon’Din’s]

Unreadable Elven Writing, found in inner sanctum, runes revealed by Veilfire on wall.

This is so ancient that defies translation.

Andruil is represented by blood and force

Andruil is making a weapon, with something that sounds like lyrium powder in a shaft of gold.

There is an image of an elaborate golden spear glowing in unbearable heat.

Here we see that the Dalish tales wrongly kept the information about the weapon being made by Creators and the Forgotten Ones. There seems to exist a powerful weapon being created, but it was by one of the gods in particular, Andruil.

The description of “shaking the radiance of the stars” sounds like the lyrium we saw in the Uncharted Abbys caves of the Descent: the ceiling looked like a starry sky. This is what makes me assume this shaft of gold is filled with normal lyrium powder [“the radiance of the stars, divided them into grains of light, then stored them in a shaft of gold”]. We also know that the Sha-Brytol have a particular technology to make lyrium weapons.

We know that Andruil went to the Void and made "weapons of darkness" [Elven God Andruil], but curiously, the description of this unreadable Elven Writing is too fire-light related to assume this was one of the “dark weapons”, unless it’s just a metaphor, of course.

This weapon she did was a golden spear glowing in heat, and I assume this weapon in particular is the one that Sylaise’s breath rivals with, [Song to Sylaise].

Untranslatable Elven Writing, found in inner sanctum, runes revealed by Veilfire on wall

It’s so old that can’t be translated into any known language.

This is Abelas' confession.

He and his people are trapped in this Temple.

The elders weep as they enter Uthenera, knowing what they lost

The new ones, despite being faithful to Mythal, don't understand what she was in her fullness.

Without the “wise to lead them, they will lose what they should have been”, and Abelas promises himself to be the wise who will teach them “to serve” because they must prepare to fight those who cast Mythal down.

There is a detail about elven names: Abelas seems to have had an elvenhan name which was abandoned when he took his vows to serve Mythal, and then he changed it again when Mythal died.  He is now called Sorrow= Abelas.

Maybe this has to do to some magical vow, but this codex starts saying they are trapped. Meaning they can’t abandon the Temple. By the end of the quest of recovering the Well of Sorrows, we know that Abelas can leave this place because there is no more well to protect anymore. So probably his people were oath-bounded to this well.

There is population in the Temple of Mythal, since "the new" ones means they still keep having children that, despite being faithful to Mythal, don't understand what she was in her fullness.

These elvhenan are experimenting a lose of culture and meaning, a soft "Dalishization", not because brutal conquer of humans, but simply because passage of time and lack of context. The new ones are incapable of appreciating things in the same way than the elders simply because the world around them changes, the passage of time, and the rise and fall of empires.

The connotation of teaching the new ones to “serve” before “losing what they should have been” sounds like a process of Dalishization, in which these elves are losing the elements that make them elvhenan. They have to prepare the new generations to face those who cast Mythal down, so I understand there is a battle incoming. It’s not clear against who in particular, but clearly they are awaiting Evanuris to attack.

The way it’s described the image of the elders weeping as they enter Uthenera, knowing what they lost, feels a bit similar to [Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago]

Old Elven Writing

In this place is where they prepared to hunt the “pillars of earth”, aka titans.

The “pillars of earth”’s workers are scurry, witless, soulless.

The death of the sha-brytol will make the Earth blossom.

There is an image of two overlapping spheres; unknown flowers bloom inside their centres

We find this writing in the Temple of Mythal, so we can assume that it was in this place where the efforts against the Titans were made. Myhtal clearly was a leader of the group who destroyed titans.

It seems to mention the Sha-brytol [the titan’s workers]: they are scurry, witless, soulless workers, and killing them was considered a merciful act.

There is once more a repetition of the pattern of blooming earth.

We know that these spheres can be representations of pocket worlds, in-between spaces like the Crossroad. Flowers blooming inside would represent colossal ones in pocket worlds. This brings the image of [Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago] to me.

The Judgment of Mythal. Found in inner sanctum, mosaic that needs Veilfire light.

There is no author, belongs to the Story of Mythal.

Elgar'nan's fury "destroys all what it touches", that’s why the People did not call him for revenge.

Mythal asked permission to Elgar'nan to be the one imparting justice to avoid his Fury.

Seeing her wisdom, Elgar'nan allowed this and gave her total power: everyone had to follow her verdicts.

Mythal would struck down those lying and those with weak heart that tried to have some benefit from her being the current judge. Those with open hearts and clear minds were granted protection and judgement.

Elgar’nan represents a very destructive fury. This codex basically explains why Mythal’s myth has a dual nature: the mother that nurtures, but also the vengeful, destructive aspect that resounds in her and has so much in common with Elgar'nan's.

As we can suspect that her being the new judge of the People must have brought some frictions among the Evanuris, her judgement may have annoyed some of them, specially Andruil considering how many shady things she did [Elven God Andruil and Unreadable Elven Writing], so it seems reasonable they may have started to plot her assassination. It also seems to imply that Elgar’nan, as furious as he is, after Myhtal’s assassination, may have exploded in uncontrollable rage, “destroying” everything he touches with his “fury”. 

I’m tempted to link Elgar’nan’s fury with Red Lyrium but we have more evidence against it than in favour. Red Lyrium is not just one person, but a collective consciousnesses, as we know due to the note [Whispers Written in Red Lyrium] in the Fade. By the nature of this note, I have the impression that red Lyrium, as well as Lyrium is where the consciousness of the elves in Uthenera go into. They can exist inside the lyrium while their bodies die. In the case of the Red Lyrium is corrupted.

Now, so far I know, we didn’t find any codex or note that would suggest against the idea that Elgar’nan’s fury is the Blight.  However, the symbols associated with him are more related to the Red Lyrium than the blight: he is related to anger and heat; which are not characteristics that the Blight has. So, it seems to be a link with these three concepts, but at the same time it doesn’t. 

On the other hand, killing Mythal should not have been easy. Solas says that killing an Evanuris is not easy, so the Evanuris must have done something terrible to kill her, such as corrupting her soul. This speculation links the potential origin of the Blight or the Red Lyrium as a tool made by the Evanuris to kill Mythal. Hence the hypothesis that maybe the red lyrium idol represents the death of Mythal.

Who is Tarohne? She is not a big central character of DA2, but she is the first char we are presented who has some understanding of what Xebenkeck truly is.

To put it shortly in context, let’s refresh some quests in DA2

Everything starts in the coast of Kirkwall, where we find Cullen with a Templar recruit called Wilmod who he suspects is meeting escapee mages. He tortures Wildmod until he turns into an abomination, presenting to us a unique piece of lore up to this point: that mages are not the only ones who can become abominations as the Chantry has been telling us so far. Of course, Templars didn't know about it, as usual.

After some tracking of the responsible of the disappearance of Templar recruits, we find Tarohne who despite being a "sort of" unreliable narrator, she puts in context several points we learned or inferred from the codex The Enigma of Kirkwall: with the assistance of a mage, demons can possess anyone: a Templar, a noble, etc. In ancient Tevinter, she says, they could hold demons as allies. This is something that we see in DAI when Corypheus teaches the Venatori how to bind themselves to demons. This is the lore that explains all the plot about the Grey Warden raising an army of demons. I'm not saying the Grey Warden acquired this mastery, since it was altered [every time they bind to a demon, they became puppets of Corypheus], but that plot of DAI allowed us to see that the ancient Tevinter had a deeper knowledge of the demons to control them in similar fashion as Tarohne claims.

Later, we find Keran, a Templar recruit, restrained in a magical cage, tortured by nightmares as, I imagine, the demons keep pushing him in order to accept the possession. 

This situation immediately brings to my mind what Flemeth said to Morrigan: "a soul cannot be forced upon the unwilling". This is a lore deeper and truer than any Tevinter knowledge we can get in DA series, since it comes from one of the first Elvhenan: Mythal. So I’m going to assume this is the true statement to understand what’s going on, lore-wise. 

It's never explained explicitly what happens if a soul is forced upon the unwilling. I can speculate two options:

It may produce the destruction of the souls, since it seems to be the procedure that allowed the Grey Warden to destroy the Archdemons, preventing their further rebirths.  

Another possibility is that this is the case when abominations occur and demons take total control of the person, changing their bodies into grotesque shapes. 

However, option 2 seems to contradict a lot of situations where we saw a mage accepting possession willingly and becoming a deformed abomination afterwards. One could argue that this is because these abominations were product of accepting the possession of a spirit with "negative” behaviour [rage, desire, pride, etc], while the non-abomination possessions we know in DA series have occurred with gentle, kind, and positive spirits, for example, Flemeth [with Mythal, uhm...I know, she is not super positive as a goddess of Revenge], Wynne and Evangeline [with a spirit of Faith], Anders [with Justice, who didn't transformed Anders even when Justice transformed itself], Sigrid Gulsdotten [with some kind spirit  of teaching for sure]. There are other anomalous cases of possessed people that were un-possessed later, like Fiona and Mihris, but I'm not counting them. They are not possessed anymore.

If we see what Keran says, it seems to show a small contradiction with what Tarohne said: the demons can’t simple take control of the person without their acceptance first. So they try to push and tempt the person in question, torturing and tempting them in dreams, but never forcing the possession straightforward. We can infer that in nightmares, Keran was tempted to accept the possession but he "resisted". If we keep into consideration Flemeth's words and all what I said before, it seems that only through a willingly person the possession [with or without a deformation of the host body] can be performed. Certainly, in all the instances where we saw possession in DA series, we saw demons making deals and tricks to convince the mage to accept them. So Flemeth's words strike true, and I'm inclined to think that the only situation where we see unwillingly possession is when the Grey Wardens kill the Archdemon, and it ends up in a blast that destroys both souls. If this is true, this could explain why the souls of all the previous archdemons were not born again after being slain, as the Avvar and Solas told us that it happens with spirits [Urthemiel can show this with Kieran too].

In any case, when we get rid of Tarohne, and save the Templar Order in Kirkwall from a wild corruption of Templar abominations, we assume this quest has been concluded. However, years later, in the following act, we have this curious quest of collecting "Evil tomes". As we collect them, we obtain the complete version of the codex Forbidden Knowledge, where we learn several interesting things gathered by Tarohne:

She has been studying other mages that made contact with something called Xebenkeck, a Forbidden One. It requires a lot of blood for that.

She claims that the first mention of the Forbidden Ones is in 4:2 Black [1495 TE]. This is after the Third Blight and the Schim of the Chantry between the Chantry of Orlais and the Imperial Chantry of Tevinter. To me, it looks like a very late age for listening about the Forbidden Ones for the first time, specially if we keep in mind that Tevinter have always been in contact with spirits or “Old Gods” before. That this denomination appeared so late makes me suspect that they were named in another way before [maybe Forgotten Ones?].

Her research seems solid because she wrote that the first contact with  Xebenkeck was done in the "deep Fade". We had found a soft connection between the more reliable codices of the Elvhenan:  Exile of the Forbidden Ones and the The Deepest Fade, which makes us suspect that maybe the place of exile of the Forbidden Ones had been the Deepest Fade, and it is there where these first Tevinter magus went to contact Xebenkeck. It’s coherent, at least.

She implies that the Fell Grimoire has the names of the Forbidden Ones and names them: Xebenkeck [DA2], Imshael [The Masked Empire, DAI], Gaxkang the Unbound [DAO], and The Formless One [I bet, in DA:D].

It is stated that it is they who taught Blood Magic to humans. This is very interesting, because Solas claims this is a school of magic like any other [check section “magic” in Solar shares lore: Part 2].  Solas’ comment makes us infer that this was part of the Elvhenan arcane culture like any other magic school, and it may link the Forbidden Ones as part of the Elvhenan society at some point. We also know that Solas never saw spirits and demons as different entities, but the same one with twisted purpose. Considering this knowledge, the main question is why the Forbidden Ones became what they are? What were they forced to do that twisted them so much into what they are now? Was it the war against the Titans? Could it have happened that Forgotten Ones that were forced to the Evanuris and twisted their purpose to become Forbidden Ones? Or the Forbidden Ones are simply another way of being elvhenan, and since they were not forced into shapes like the elves, they remained spirits? Certainly, all of them have less impulsive desires, and can be very civil talking to them [For example, Felassan speaking with Imshael]. Sadly, there are no many answers to these questions, only speculations.

Tarohne claims that Andraste was a deluded fool and the Maker is a hoax, which is a sentiment that other characters who understand this world much better seem to share. Solas prefers to remain silent when it comes to Andraste and the Maker, but his most direct agent we knew about, Felassan, claims that the Maker is a human invention [** check the end of the post for the cite].

She claims that there is more evidence about the Forbidden Ones than the Maker, and we, as player, can totally support this statement.

As we seek all these tomes, we end up in a Forgotten Lair, in Darktown, where we find the copy of the Fell Grimoire made by Tahrone.

The Fell Grimoire is an important book in DA lore, it appeared in the codex The Enigma of Kirkwall, in particular in two sections that imply part of the story around this book:

In the back alleys of Lowtown you can find extraordinary things. Priceless tomes of knowledge can be bought with a handful of gold: The Chant of Archon Lovias, a whole chapter of the Midnight Compendium. Some of these books were thought lost forever!

And these are no forgeries. I've verified their authenticity myself. The fences have no inkling that what they're selling has value. Where did these books come from?

After several failed attempts, I got my answer underneath the city. There is a hive of hidden passages in Kirkwall's sewers. Now and then a lucky "sewer rat" comes across an unlooted chamber, and then a cache of ancient Tevinter relics spreads through the black market. We must search below the city.

—Underneath a cobblestone with curious markings, faintly glowing. It is signed, "The Band of Three"

A recent trove was uncovered. This one was big, perhaps the archon's visitation chambers.

And a flood of tomes is on the market. Even the simple fences know something is amiss—they've raised their prices at the frenzy of collectors. One said he sold a copy of the Fell Grimoire! I doubt he would lie; how could he know that tome is a mere legend?

If that is real, then what of the Forgotten Ones? This journey has taken us to many strange places, and made us re-evaluate many former truths. Where will it end?

—Hidden under a cobblestone with curious markings and signed, "The Band of Three"

So, long time ago, when Kirkwall was Emerius [Kirkwall history and design], an underground network of arcane research was developed. The relics left there reached the surface via the black market when looters explored this underground network and could unlock new chambers. That's how we track the rumour that someone may have got a copy of the Fell Grimoire. This book, somehow, ended up in Tarohne's possession, who made another copy to preserve the knowledge.

The book is supposed to teach how to summon the Forbidden Ones, ancient demons that, so far, we only know they are four: Xebenkeck, Imshael, Gaxkang the Unbound, and The Formless One. Each of them known and fought in each game of DA with the exception of the Formless One [probably they will be present in DA:D].

Now, up to this moment, this is all the information we have about the Forbidden Ones in the games. We have a more broad vision of Imshael's personality in the book The Masked Empire, but there is no mention of the Forbidden Ones  or their history. The only mention in the book is that Celene has studied about them.

However, as we saw in the codex The Enigma of Kirkwall, one of The Band of Three has a kind of a leap in their thinking process and realises that if they found the Fell Grimoire--which was supposed to be a book of legends and myths--now any legend and myth acquire a degree of truth: hence, the Forgotten Ones may also be truth. The last note of the codex straightforwardly connects Xebenkeck with a Forgotten One:

We went to the center of it all. F. is dead and I am alone and injured. I must go back and put an end to it. The maddening thing is there is still no answer. But the Forgotten One, or demon or whatever it is, must be destroyed. I fear one may already be unbound.

I foreswear my oaths. The magister's lore must be burned and the ashes scattered. No good can come of it. And Maker help us if someone does answer what we could not.

—Hidden near curious markings and signed, "The Band of Three"

At some point one suspected this was a typo in a rushed game, since Forgotten Ones and Forbidden Ones are names that can be easily mistaken. However, the World of Thedas book came up with the true intention of that last sentence:

This exchange of letters between Seekers claims information we didn't see in the Enigma of Kirkwall:

Blood magic origin is not from Tevinter but from Arlathan. This is a very interesting piece of information because coincides and makes sense with the information we got about the Joining ritual of the Grey Wardens that faced the First Blight: they created the ritual and consulted Tevinter Magisters and Elves, who shared "ancient knowledge of Arlathan". This is not new for us after all the analysis we did with Murals in DAI, Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins, The Lost Temple of Dirthamen, and  Vir Dirthara, but we can appreciate the lore consistency in the details.

It claims that, at least, is worth investigating if there is a link between Forgotten Ones and Forbidden Ones. It doesn’t straightforwardly says that such link exists, but it’s something given to the player to consider.

As a final detail that I’m not so sure how much to read into it, is that Xebenkeck  drops “Voracity”, a staff which has the same design than “Valdasine”, which is the only curious object we can find in the Vault of the Primeval Thaig.

Voracity has no lore in its description. Its design looks like a dragon’s jaw. There are some spikes of orange crystals that may or may not be a representation of red lyrium. Its stats only show that it’s related to blood magic, which makes sense since Xebenkeck seems to be deeply related to that magic. 

On the other hand, Valdasine, found in the  Primeval Thaig and tied to the codex  Valdasine, is described as “a staff of strange metal, it looks like lyrium and chills one's heart like a remembered sorrow.”  Sadly, sorrow is something that, lore-wise, we can relate to elvhes and titans alike.

-----------

[**] Felassan in The Masked Empire:

We know, guided by Gatsi's opinion, that these mosaics belong to an early age of Tevinter. So they are supposed to be earlier than the presence of the Qunari in Thedas. Even though Gatsi does a good job to read these mosaics, I want to be very aware that his vision and interpretation of them tend to be based on modern biases, specially andrastian one.

We also know that all of them [at least the original ones] were made by the same person, a woman that Gatsi describes as having a deep knowledge of the stone, being Tevinter, and dealing with self-hate. I personally wonder how much of a possibility is for her to be a dwarven too, since the relationship between dwarves and Tevinter is really old and predates the blights.

The title of the following sections offers a link to Gatsi’s original explanation of each mosaic.

The Mason's Tales: Freed Are Slaves

Information given by Gatsi:

Gatsi implies that this mosaic shows something different from what its title means.

This carving has been done with two different hands meaning the original one was modified later. It implies that the magister and his company replaced seven figures that were in the original version.

The slaved qunaris are from the original piece.

Speculations and inferences:

The slaved qunaris are from the original piece, so this means that qunari existed and were slaved to Tevinter long time ago before the first record of seeing them in Thedas. This makes more concrete the idea dropped by Corypheus about the Qunari being a crafted race / mistake that was tried to be hidden a posteriori.

If originally there were seven figures, it seems reasonable to suspect they used to represent the original sidereal magisters that entered the city. Shamed by the responsibility of being the reason why the Blights developed later, the mosaic may have suffered this change in the amount of leader figures on top of the slaves. Or like Gatsi says, maybe a rich person acquired the mosaic and wanted to be part of it. 

The Mason's Tales: Invasion

Information given by Gatsi:

He identifies seven magisters. Only five detailed. The other two have been chipped away with a rock [probably vandalism, done poorly due to lack of time or fear]

He suspects that those that were chipped away displayed symbols that may have brought some conflicts.

There are no stairs.

The castle is too high, giving the impression that it's falling on its own weight. [He says this is obvious for anyone with a sense of Stone, which gives the impression that the information we are receiving here is that this place belonged to the Fade, where the physics are unnatural, The Laws of Nature in the Fade]

There is a mishmash of styles. He is expecting only Tevinter, but he can see elven style in the background

Speculations and inferences:

We can see the drawing much better in the concept art. The perspective messes a bit the shapes.

The magister far at the left seems to have a spike-hat and, what caught my attention a lot, seems to be bare-feet. Which is an impossible habit for a Tevinter, but a natural thing for an elf [1].

The second magister on the left, close to the camera, has a bald head and a symbol of an eye. Along the game, there are many symbols of the like: we have seen one in the mural of Titan's heart: a single eye on its  head [5]. There is also an ancient constellation currently called Visus, which represents an eye with “spikes”, similar to this symbol. Sadly, we only have the explanation with chantry biases. It seems that the ancient interpretation has been lost [these ancient interpretations predated Tevinter Imperium and some of them seem to be related to Elvhen]. Another Eye I found in concept art is Flemeth herself. Sadly, none of these eyes reproduces exactly that symbol. 

I'm not so sure if we can assume that the symbol on the back of the magister is Urthemiel's hat or Falon’Din’s.

The third magister seems to have a strange hat with many pointy things. It's not clear if the pointy extensions at the sides of the head are pointy ears. It could suggest another elf.

Two magisters have a staff. One of them looks like a three or two headed-dragon staff [not sure if we can relate it to Tyrdda's Staff model, or to staff of corruption, the other, the one called Architect's Legacy or stormbreak.

The background looks like elvhen architecture 

The Mason's Tales: Sacrifice

Mosaic that shows two hands: meaning the original mosaic was altered later.

It has detailed faces of those who are sacrificing creatures. It means they wanted to be remembered. They are important people.

The sculptor hates this scene, so she carved a "do not do this" mosaic.

Gatsi suspects the sculptor to know the stone deeply [he says it in the mosaic of Freed are slaves] and suspects she is Tevinter who hates these Tevinter costumes. He describes it as self-hate.

He identifies the many skulls around as representation of sacrifices, but two of them stand out: two horned skulls of bigger size that remind him of Qunari. He understands it's natural to see qunari so early in the history to appear in these mosaics simply because the hate that Tevinter has to them in the way they treat mages.

He suspects the presence of Qunari so early motivated the Magisters to rush into the invasion to the Fade.

He identifies a third Qunari: the victim in the middle. But its horns have been chipped off to make it look like a human sacrifice.

Speculations and inferences:

Clearly for the player, this mosaic, in combination with Kieran's words and Corypheus' words in the final battle, gives us a good hint to consider the Qunari not only a crafted race, but most probably created by Tevinter as sacrifices to potentiate their blood magic rituals.

The faces of those who observe the sacrifice are, in my opinion, covered with masks. Some of them remind me a lot to the profile of the Colossus statues, others look like wearing masks of demons or even Orlesian ones, which makes no sense. [updated note below]

It’s interesting how they removed the horns from the central figure here, but not on the skulls or in the mosaic Freed are slaved. My supposition is that this sacrifice may have been an important figure among the qunari, maybe a rebel, maybe one of the few figures from the Qun which image would have increased the rage and feed rebellion of the slaved qunaris. Another possibility is that it would give the idea that sacrificing qunari provides more power [or harder consequences] than using elves.

Some of these masks seem to have a slight resemblance to the dragon masks/skulls we saw in DAO.

[updated note]: It makes a lot of sense for these Tevinter masks to remind us the Colossus, simply because they belong to Tevinter design. There are a set of images where the devs gathered all the elements of Tevinter to have an overall idea of how its design looks like, and in it, they added the Colossus, so it seems reasonable to assume this is Tevinter. 

On the other hand, There it a drawing in the Chant of Light from the book World of thedas Vol. 2  which depicts an Old God whispering that looks pretty close to these Colossus as well as the masks. [the ironical resemblance of these profiles to Thane from Mass Effect may not be casual]

  The Mason's Tales: The Archdemon

Information given by Gatsi:

He says it represents a single archdemon, and head is a reaction to one of the lines coming from the magisters.

There are seven magisters

The dragon doesn’t care about the magisters that seems to hit it, however, it gives an eyeful to the one who misses the ray. 

There are no faces on the Magisters, so they are not important. There is a purpose on this: she wanted to carve Tevinter ages itself, so these magisters are, in fact, Tevinter ages: four ages of Tevinter where they are part of the dragon, two of them where they damage it, and one where they miss the point entirely and eats them.

Speculations and inferences:

I wonder if this is truly an archdemon, considering these carvings may have been older than the time of the Blights, this is why I like the concept that Gatsi explains: about being part of the dragon, or the "old god"

The concept art calls this piece “dragons”.

This mosaic is totally original, without alterations.

Sadly, there is not much to speculate about this mosaic because the games have not given a lot of information about the “ages of Tevinter”.  There is not much information to understand what means “ages when Tevinter was part of the Dragon” or “Ages that hurt the Dragon”. Tevinter is a very old Imperium, and its History has never been shared in the South, apart from the Chantry version of the invasion to the Golden City. 

The Mason's Tales: The Fall

Information given by Gatsi:

He remarks that the characters are in fire.

The seven magisters entered the city and became “blighted” [even though he has just said fire a moment ago], unable to distinguish which way is up as a form to represent madness.

Gatsi explains a detailed polish technique that seems to be on the tower and on the bearded skull mainly, and a bit more on the rest: it makes the stone look like a glass and shine, as if they were burning

The bearded skull was the main target of this effect, the one who may have "opened" the door.

Speculations and inferences:

I like the concept of the fire, because despite being blighted, Corypheus and Architect both have a design that seems to imply that their skins were melted, not only blighted.

The beardy skull may have been Corypheus, as leader of the sidereal magisters. However, it’s strange since it has pointy ears.

Gatsi is assuming every figure here is a Tevinter (human), but the main target has pointy ears

The background shows typical elvhen towers falling, which makes sense since it has been implied in Trespasser that the Golden City may have been an elvhen palace.

There is not much "blight" in this scene, but fire. It makes you wonder what this event was about and how much of this event has been reflected in local tales where fire consumes people or cities.

Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago

The image of a immense graceful vine is described.  Blossoms are bigger as ponds, petals as tall as men, and its scent is citron, sky, and carrion.

The creator of the memory weeps, and before entering Uthenera, they record the image and the sounds of the flower.

The title of the codex speaks of imago. Imago is the name that insects receive in their adult stage, it’s the last stage of a metamorphosis process.

It’s not clear if the vines we see in this description or the person who enters in uthenera is the one which has an insect-like connotation due to the title. The obvious bloom comes from the vine, though.

Potential Interpretations

Interpretation 1

This vine represents several interconnected pools, each of them similar to a “well of sorrow” filled with the essence of the priests that go to Uthenera.

The image given with its comparisons suggests that the blossoms, all connected to a vine, have the size of ponds. Blossoms are made of many petals, and each of them has the size of a humanoid. So these flowers give us a dual image: a blossom opening as a flower with many petals, and a pond filled with many humanoids.

The vine flowers with the sunset [symbol of the end of the day or life], and puffs a scent of carrio-death [more emphasis in the end of life] emphasises that these humanoids filling the pond are “dead”.

To me this looks like what Abelas said about the Well of Sorrow: in their last days, the servants left their knowledge/persona in the well [ponds] prior to their "death" [hence the flower puffing death smells]. Not by chance the text shows an elf recording his lasts memories before entering Uthenera. The elf as well as the vine are “dying”, it’s a reflection of one another and one inside the other. The elf preserves the last of the vines recording the flowers and its sounds. So, if we keep sustaining the parallel, it could mean that via Uthenera, we preserve the elf as well. 

Another interpretation, if we consider only what we know in the game, this vine seems to be the origin of the wells.

Interpretation 2

We have again the idea of the vine, which so far along the games had a deep relationship with the Taint and Darkspawn. This plant smells of death because it feeds on death of humanoids. The comparison of its blossoms as ponds reminds me the pools of The Horror of Hormak; the petals are humanoid-sized, all these humans inside a pond/pool exuding a scent of death [however, in the book, it was the scent of brine]. This vine is the origin of these pools producing the last stage of the insects [imago].

Vir Dirthara: Attentive Listeners

The title emphasise the listeners, which in the description seem to be the elves.

This codex shows how elves and spirits lived in that time, constantly interacting with each other. It's not clear what happened with the less friendly spirits.

The world around them bends and change to fit their needs. [amphitheatre out of a living wood]

Indirectly it makes us know that they knew of the existence of the material world, but it seemed to be a different world than the one they are living in.

They called the material world as unchanging world. It's described as stubborn, with potential for disaster when it comes to powerful spells, and has rules of how fire and water and rock should behave.

"The unchanging world rings with its own harmony." Once more the recursive concept of sounds/songs that are related to the stone. This may give us a clue about what Cole says: Solas [and elvhens in Uthenera] sing a quiet song inside them. The Lyrium has also a song to which Valta is connected to. The Red Lyrium has another song in it, angrier. The Archdemons also have a song that commands the darkspawn, a corrupted, mad song. So far, we can identify different songs in different groups.

This, with all the lore we manage, seems to bring reminiscences of The Stone and the Titans. So the unchanging world may be a reference to the Titans

Interpretation: This gives us the general image of a congress: two elves and a spirit of learning give a lecture about the use of spells in the material world. Maybe is the beginning of the attention of the elves in this world and the power of the magic in it. The last line of the spirit suggests me that these three researchers encouraged the elves to pay attention to the waking world.

Vir Dirthara: Birds of Fancy

The title suggests birds, but it seems to be likely related to the expression lovebirds.

The pair in the codex is never described what they are... if they are spirits, elves, birds. It's just a "pair".

The description of what they do seems to be basically making love.

What it's important in this codex is the fluidity and the non-shape of everything. This is the world where the Evanuris existed. Shape did not exist.

Interpretation: Basically two souls making love and promising eternal love. The lack of shape and the fluidity of their bodies/souls makes me think that, these people, in this time, would have considered slavery anything that would have forced them to get stuck in a shape. And considering the true lore about vallaslin, I wonder if the original elven slaves of the Evanuris were not forced to stay in one shape, elven shape, with the blood magic of the tattoos on their faces.  

 Vir Dirthara: Duel of a Hundred Years

Duel in the plateou of a mountain. Two armoured figures fight in the snow: one is gold and the other is black.

The black loses since a blade parts his throat.

The text gives us more context of this duel: Mythal suggested a duel of champions between Elgar'nan and Falon'Din.

This duel prevented the declaration of war among the gods

Since Elgar'nan is related to light, fire and Sun, seems logical to think the golden armoured figure was his champion, while the black one, Falon'Din's who is associated to shadows and death.

Interpretation: The place where the champions fight is on a top of a mountain, in the snow. Elgar’nan and Falon’Din had an argument that they resolved with a battle of their champions to avoid war among the gods. It says among, not between these two gods, so this gives me the impression that Elgar'nan and Falon'Din were leading different factions among the gods.  So far we have read, we know that Elgar’nan, despite his choleric personality, had a good relationship with Myhtal. Because the whole game of DAI we know that Fen’Harel and Mythal were good friends as well. And because Solas has spoken so bad about Andruil and Falon’Din, they may have been the ones of the other faction. Sylaise and June are impossible to guess since there is almost no information about them. We can suspect that Sylaise, as competitive as she was, had her own faction. Dirthamen is one of the most silent ones in terms of visual design: most of the things we see of Dirthamen look more like Falon’Din’s. The only big hint of Dirthamen we have is in the Fade of Flemeth, where we see his humanoid statue bleeding over avvar elements, with a sword on his back: the clear representation of betrayal.

Vir Dirthara: Exile of the Forbidden Ones

The Evanuris are shown as blazing figures. This could be mere propaganda.

They banish a *howling * spirit from the deepest Fade that attempts to reach their lands.

This spirit is accused of abandoning the People when they needed help; for casting aside form and go to the deeper Fade where the "Earth could not reach".

Xebenkeck is named, a Forbidden one. Apparently there are many, and seems to be creatures of demonic nature. However, they avoid form, not look for it, as we are informed that demons work.

Then, they are accused of being familar with shape, meaning that shape allowed them to explore places that the Evanuris could not without help.

They are bound [to shape?]

Thel last sentence says "Forbidden from the Earth that is our right".  Does Earth mean this place of shapeless form?

This shows that the Evanuris where the ones who banished the Forbidden ones [demons in nature, to say it simple], not Fen’Harel alone. They were accused of not helping the people in their time of greatest need. Because we know little of this ancient history I would guess that time refers to the time in which they fought the Titans. Apparently, if I’m not misunderstanding the following line, the Forbidden Ones may have been part of this war, acquired a form to face the titans, but then they cast it aside and ran away into the deepest Fade where Earth couldn’t reach. This sounds very strange to me because we know the Forbidden Ones love the waking world, so probably it was here where they found out their interest in the shape.

We find a familiar name that we met in DA2: Xebenkeck. They were exiled from the Evanuris lands. They are accused of being too familiar with the shape that allowed them to walk paths without help. Maybe in this time of the world, where the waking world and the Fade were the same, the Forbidden Ones, thanks to their shape, could have easy access to the lands of the Titans, lands a lot more concrete and “real” than the Fade. And this is the reference of “travel paths unaided”.

There is a curious line: “they may be bound”, exactly after talking about the shape. This line triggers my suspicion that in those times without shape, shape was considered a kind of punishment and slavery by the elves.

It’s a bit confusing that the codex first speaks of the Forbidden Ones being exiled from Evanuris lands, and then claiming they are Forbidden from the Earth that belongs to the Evanuris. This makes me suspect that the exile of the Forbidden ones may have happened after the Evanuris conquered the Titans.

In the same fragment of information we have Gods and Evanuris. If this is a recent time after the end of the war against the Titans, the Evanuris had been known as generals, while this reference to the Gods is related to the original Gods the Evanuris also worshipped [Solas says this in his romance scene: the Vallaslin are the symbols of the gods worshipped by the Evanuris that they branded on their servants. There existed gods before the Evanuris. Ancient gods that we don’t know nothing about.]

We also know that Xebenkeck  is related to the teaching of blood magic [DA2 codices]. She is also confused or considered to be related to the figure of a Forgotten One by the researchers in the codex The Enigma of Kirkwall.

Vir Dirthara: Homecoming

It's a description of and elf returning to a city he loves. The city is made of blue glass spires, surrounded by lakes of mist. The groves of trees around bend to create the spaces that the elves want in that moment. It shows how elves could bend reality without effort in their daily life. What I like to highlight is that Felassan and Solas described similar descriptions for Arlathan in book and game.

Vir Dirthara: Raising the Sonallium 

We see well-dressed elves arguing inside an arched pavilion in a floating island. This looks like the shattered library. So the nature of this place was a bit like the library: islands floating in the void.

In the background we see thousand of elves maintaining a spell to pull raw essence from the Fade into a sphere. A communal spell which uses Fade essence. 

This is how they create pocket worlds, “planes in-between”, like the Crossroad. The sphere has a temple, in rust-red jungles with waterfalls. 

The argument increases so much that one leaps another with a burning knife of prismatic flame.

(The architects of) the grand Sonallium was a gift from Sylaise to June as a thanks for a "great favour". This allows us to suspect that Sylaise and June teamed up in the war of Evanuris.

Sylaise is described as Blessed, while June as Clever.

The "caption" of the memory is even more interesting. These elves are architects, and we are seeing that they are not friendly debating, so it's clear that this line in the codex is lying. So it also must be lying about what they are talking about: it has to be something serious and not the colour of the palace's roof.

It gives the impression, since both situation are cinematographically in the same shoot, that the argument is about the use of Fade in creating world, or maybe it's about the creation of the world itself.  

As part of the speculation, this makes me wonder if creating and keeping that world in that sphere is a concentration spell, meaning that it falls apart if the elves stop the spell. This would mean that to keep pockets worlds it will be needed thousands of elves concentrating on spells. Which brings to me the idea that maybe this is the true reason of why Uthenera exists in a world that doesn’t need Uthenera to “walk in the Fade”, but to maintain the unstable nature of the shape of worlds. 

It’s not clear what is the gift to June: if the grand Sonallium alone or the architects as well. Considering how brutal Evanuris were I added the second option as a potential possibility, despite being more natural to think in the Sonallium alone.

The detail of the prismatic weapon called my attention too. In game we have two weapons of prismatic power. Their blades are not there until you attack, and one of them is a reward for learning more about dragons. 

Vir Dirthara: Signs of Victory

Elgar'nan figure is made in a lump of fallen stone as large as a collapsed mountain. It’s not a stone as big as a mountain, as a standard comparison of gargantuan size would be expected. It’s a collapsed mountain. 

The monument is made by thousands of servants.

Elgar'nan, of whom we never had any image beyond its vallaslin [which depicts chaotic thorny vines] now is described as a creature of narrowed eyes and open, snarling mouth.

The collapsed mountain speaks to me of using servants to arrange breaking titans, dwarves or the stubborn world into the shape of an Evanuris. The symbol implies a victory over the defeated, broken mountain. We see Elgar’nan being erected upon the rubble of the conquered mountain.

Finally we have a description of Elgar’nan, which resembles  The Strange Idol. 

I was going to suggest Korth too, but his design doesn’t have an open mouth, only a snarling one, and his eyes are not squinting. Plus, Korth is not related to elves for it to appear in Elvhenan codices.

Vir Dirthara: The Deepest Fade

These are instructions to reach the deepest Fade.

This makes us infer that there are parts of the fade that dreamers have no access.

It seems to be written by a spirit.

It requires a mind smooth as a mirror and still as a stone. [curious that a spirit would make such a comparison]

It’s inferred that the deep Fade has “stillest roots”. Once more, quite a word choice.

Interpretation: There is not much to say. It clearly gives us the information that there are parts in the Fade unexplored for Dreamers, and to reach them, you need a mind smooth as a mirror and still as a stone. The word choice makes me think a lot in Sandal. The fact that they are using a stone for this comparison implies a dwarven nature, which would mean that maybe dwarves have the skills to reach wthere the “roots are still”. Again, roots is something you find beneath the ground and more related to dwarven environments. That the Deepest Fade is described with so many hints of dwarven makes me infer that maybe the place where the Dreamers can’t reach are those closer to the Reality, which is what Titans are: a reinforcement of Reality.

Maybe this interpretation can make more sense if we think that during this time, Fade and Waking World were the same, and maybe at some point they called Deepest Fade to the Waking World, which was really hard to reach for a Dreamer, because it was more real than fluid. Maybe this piece of codex is too ancient, even before than the lecture of the waking world.

The con of this hypothesis is that it also speaks about spirits who never manifested outside the Fade, so there is still a line between both worlds that can be crossed. Unfortunately, I have this problems with these codices: they claim that the Fade and the Waking World are one, but then they speak as if both were separated, which we know it was not like that until Solas created the Veil. This always confuses me a lot in the interpretation of the ancient world pre-veil.

Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads requeires Veilfire to read.

The Inquisitor, upon reading the runes (if The Descent DLC was completed) says "The runes say the Evanuris fought the Titans. They mined their bodies for lyrium and... something else. It's not clear." Sadly what the inquisitor does not say seems to be shown in the mural: the something else seems to be the heart of the titans with the powers of reality and making things “real” and “shaped”.

The words in this veilfire coil and uncoil like snakes

A thunderous voice claims that Mythal struck down “the pillars of the earth”, known as a metaphor for Titans. She shared the titan’s demesne with “the People”.

There is smell of blood followed by the image of green vines growing and enveloping a sphere of fire. The “original fire” was sealed in a sphere, protected with vines.

Eons pass, and the runes crackle, filled with angry energy.

Elves collapse caverns, sealing the Deep Roads with magic and stone. They have terror as they cast the spell.

A voice whispers that the greed of the Evanuris will end them all. Recommends to forget the place where this evil was buried. No one should wake its anger.

The voice suggests that the People should rise before their false gods, the Evanuris, destroy them.

Interpretation: I think this is the origin of the Red Lyrium.

Thunderous voice tend to be associated with Elgar’nan, who is also related to Thunder and Lightning. 

Mythal struck down the Titans, and due to the drawing of the mural, we can suspect that Myhtal found a way to amass power from the heart of the titans and craft their orbs of power. These orbs are tremendously powerful as we know with the orb of Fen’Harel who allowed him to create the Veil.

Apparently, Mythal shared this power with the Evanuris [it seems this is what Solas was referring to by the end of DAI when he asks the inquisitor what he will do with the power of the Well of Sorrows, and suggests not to share it with a group, because greed will always make the group abuse of such power]

I think that the smell of blood represents the assassination of Mythal. First, because the cinematic described here has just told us how important Mythal was for the People. “Praise her name forever”. But she was betrayed [said by Flemeth and Abelas] and killed. And Second, the blood of the Titans is lyrium, with a scent that is not like blood, so this smell can’t refer to titan’s blood.

The green vine and the sphere of fire are really hard to interpret. The combination of both brings me Elgar’nan to my mind: 

The unreliable Dalish Tales keep saying something about Elgar’nan fighting the sun [a ball of fire] and burying it into the ground. We truly have no means to understand which part of that story is the small bit of truth they managed to keep. 

We only know via the codices in the Temple of Myhtal and in the Shattered Library that Elgar’nan and Mythal had a friendly relationship to the point that Elgar’nan trusted Mythal’s wisdom and allowed her to pass judgement in most cases to avoid Elgar’nan’s fury [a fury that could destroy the world, they said]. 

Elgar’nan’s Vallaslin is a clear thorny vine. But again, the whole series of games since DAO have shown the vines as a representation of the Blight or the Darkspawn, and even though one can suspect that the Blight can be related to Elgar’nan’s fury, the true is that we have little information about him in general. 

Elgar’nan is indeed related to fire and anger and vengence, so both elements could represent him.

However, the growing vines look like a means for sealing the fire. Maybe Elgar’nan’s symbol of the vines is because they contain his fury? 

Anyway, thing is, these elements are a bit more complicated to understand.

The following text is vague about the runes: are vines and runes the same here? or are runes over the vines, sealing them? Sadly the text doesn’t say. 

The following scene shows elves in terror casting spells to collapse caverns of the Deep Roads. “No one wakes its anger” seems to be related to the fire trapped inside the vines that these elves sealed underground. In a sense, the elves buried a ball of fire, not Elgar’nan. The whisper, in my personal speculation, is Solas: he is the voice that calls the Evanuris as False gods, and proposes rising in order to avoid destruction.

If I allow myself to speculate with all this and let some gaps exists, I could develop the following hypothesis:

This codex is about Elgar’nan. We start with his voice claiming the defeat of the Titans thanks to Mythal, and the share of their power. 

After the death of Mythal [smell of blood after praising her], Elgar’nan [represented with the vines] contained a fire that could be a symbol of his own anger for the death of Mythal [they were close friends, apparently].

There are magical runes sealing the vines [I guess], or vines used as sealing runes that contain Elgar’nan’s fury that destroys all what it touches. 

We also know that the orbs of the Evanuris are created or related to the heart of Titans, so the sphere we see in the image can also represent Elgar’nan’s orb [which contains his fury]. 

But his fury also has a unique characteristic: it destroys what it touches, which can be considered a destruction via corruption. 

Over the eons, his fury [fire] corrupted [detroyed] the titan’s heart [his orb].

So Elgar’nan, or at least his own fury contained in his orb, embraced corruption as a vengeance giving birth to the Red Lyrium, which has similar description to Elgar’nan’s fury: it’s an angry energy, it destroys/corrupts all what it touches, and when the Evanuris wanted to use his orb, they discovered the red Lyrium and sealed it.

Overlook

The first thing we notice in this strange Deep Roads is the mixture of unequivocally dwarven and elvhenan architecture. The rocks also have a slight blue hue that the rest of the Deep Roads we explored before do not have [but this may be a trick of the light due to the presence of lyrium]. Unlike the other explorations of the Deep Roads, its lack of lights stands out: we don’t see the usual lava-based illumination system. In fact, most of the light comes from the depleted lyrium veins. This makes me suspect a certain resemblance with the Uncharted Abyss of The descendant [The Uncharted Abyss, Forgotten Caverns, and  Bastion of the Pure].

The eluvian we have just used is flanked by two Howling Fen'Harel statues.

In the distance we can identify a massive statue of a Humanoid Mythal. This statue will be recognised by any modern elf. As well as the statues of Fen'Harel.

We can see in the distance several structures, a bridge, and a big vein of lyrium over a gigantic Mythal statue.

With the first steps into this area, Cole says something that will be mysterious all along the DLC but also, will give us vague links to concepts I will develop later: here, when he is saying that songs are screaming far away, we cannot understand him much, but we assume, later, that he referred to all the coffins we found in the inner temple of the Lower Walkways: a group of elvhen in Uthenera. In the same sentence Cole uses an “it” to describe something that wants to wake up but forgot how to do it. “It” is the way that Cole usually uses to refer to a titan in general. So, we can understand this as a titan: A titan is sleeping, and can’t awake despite wanting to.

As we explore and walk deeper into the Deep Roads, we see the operation that the qunari are leading here.

We find a lot of Howling Fen'Harel statues, in pairs, flanking the corridors, protecting and guarding the building in its original purpose. 

There is a blocked path that will be available once we have the ability to destroy objects with the discharge power. This leads to a small room with an eluvian that will transport us to an unknown ruin where we find the mural of the titan’s death. Details of this part can be found in “The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]: Deep Roads; Unknown Ruin”.

As we head to the Qunari operation, we find a corridor with a strange statue. Back watched by Howling Fen'Harel statues, this one is what I called it Moon-head creature. 

Its style is the same one as the Sun-head creature that we found in “The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]: Entrance“. It is placed in the centre of a big yellow elvhen mosaics with the asterisk symbol. The base of the statue is a rock, similar to the sun-version. Its body is fused with the rock, and has the same body and wings that the sun-version, but the difference is in the shape of its head.

Of course this is a statue that represents one of the imminent dangers in DA:D, as the mural of Solas showed in the trailer. Personally, I think this is one of the lasting Archdemons, which shows that they [or the original Myth that evolved later into the Archdemons] were also part of the Elvhen religious system in a way we can’t explain in detail yet. This statue is flanked by Fen’Harel as well, protecting it. 

If we keep in mind the concept art about the sea-creature shared recently, and the codex about The Ascension of Ghilan'nain [explained in Temple of Mythal], where Solas stopped Ghilan’nain from destroying the sea creatures that lived deep into the waters, one has the suspicion that this is one of those creatures, and Solas has always protected it [as the Fen’Harel statues watching on its back seem to imply]. 

At the base of the statue there is a bedroll with the scroll  Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 1. The information of the codex can be summarised as:

The author is a clan-less dalish elf who survived the Blight that took his clan, and went to Kirkwall, embracing the Qun after the ruin of the city. Now the Qun sent him to the Deep Roads as if they were an expert in elven lore.

This is very important: the author is telling us they are not an expert in the statues we see and what represents. They are already stating they are not reliable. They have some degree of Dalish knowledge to recognise the Myhtal statues [in humanoid form] and of Fen'Harel, who is perceived still as a creature of negative connotations. However, this person makes no reference about the Moon-head creature, beyond the fact that it's well preserved like all the rest of the statues.

They recognise that Fen'Harel statues are always placed in positions of guarding. Fen'Harel as a protector conflicts with their Dalish basic knowledge. 

Mythal is placed in "honoured" ways.

This codex is basically telling us that despite this person has a good degree of understanding of the representation of the placement of statues, his lore is not deep, and it’s mostly Dalish, hence fragmented.

This place is also filled with deepstalkers.

Excavated caves

As we enter this zone, Cole adds some extra comment: he uses the "it" once more, meaning the Titan is singing where no one can hear. Could this mean that the titan is singing in a part of the Deep Roads where there are no one to connect to it as Valta did with the titan below the Storm Coast? Does “It” still represent a Titan? How does this comment relate to the final chamber we visit? This is not clear to me.

This place is filled with more deepstalkers. We also find a human ex-templar from Kirkwall who has recently embraced the Qun and shares some information about the operation happening here:

There is a high-rank inside the Ben-Hassrath called Viddasala, specialised in Magic: how to find it, study it, and stop it.

This part of the Deep Roads is a lyrium mine and a centre of lyrium processing.  Given the amount of statues and the presence of an elvhenan large structure here, maybe this could have been a centre of elvhenan mining long time ago, maybe the same one which is referred to in the mural of the Titan’s Death.

Saarebas are presented as mages of more power. This makes sense if the theory/suspicion that the Qunari are a race made out of Dragon blood turns out to be true. We know that dragon blood is even more powerful than the elvhen blood for blood magic.

As we know via lore, mining lyrium kills the miners, unless they are dwarven, since they can endure it with their natural resistance. The first Qunari in mining the lyrium here died, but then started to solve the situation using gatlok and making the excavations explode. Quite a reckless decision if we keep in mind that sand lyrium can have explosive properties as well [as we are reminded by Dworkin Glavonak in Awakening].

This place is close to a "lyrium spring".