#dwarven lore

So this is going to sound like massive amounts of copium, but hear me out:

Why does the veil not collapse immediately after Elgar’nan’s death?

It is made out of and tied to the life force of the Evanuris, so with all of them dead it should fall, right? But it doesn’t - it holds long enough for Solas and Rook to have a heart-to-heart. So what gives? Are there some leftover life force from the other Evanuris ? Are they not as dead as we are led to believe? Falon’Din’s owl statues are certainly hinted at being somehow important since we can happen upon multiple of them and see they are tied to some sort of weird magic.

Or has the dagger preserved a fragment of those it has killed (just like it did with Mythal), and that is what’s keeping the veil up? Since all it takes to be tied to the veil is a cut (apparently), it begs the question: can a mortal be tied to the veil?

Lyrium is such an interesting aspect of Dragon Age lore, and it seems to work as a vessel for spirits: it is what the ancient elves used to bind themselves to the physical world; it is what held Mythal’s spirit fragment inside the dagger; it might be what the dwarves are actually referring to when they say they “return to the stone”; it might also be why lyrium sings, and “Isatunol” would be the accumulation of dwarven spirits flowing through the rivers of lyrium within the Titans.

In that way, Varric might actually have been the first dwarf in a long time to “return to the Stone” - and what happens to Harding when she touches the dagger? She becomes something very much like a titan! Her magic might literally be Varric’s spirit coursing through her body - her body does become lyrium-infused as you see in her romance.

So is it possible a piece of Varric lives on in Harding? Absolutely. It would also be another explanation on what the Varric who visits Rook in the prison of regret actually is. If he is tied to the veil he might have had access to the prison somehow. Solas’ blood magic should have ceased by now, since any further use would be unnecessary and cruel (which would be out of character for Solas), and the only other explanation for him being there, that I can think of, would be as a guide that Rook has conjured up subconsciously and is part of the magic of the regret prison just like whichever companions you chose to sacrifice.

Helping to hold up the veil while Rook deals with Solas just sounds like something Varric would totally do (and I can’t help becoming a bit misty-eyed thinking he might be there with us in the final hour) - of course it might be Ghilan’nain’s fragment doing the heavy lifting here, but it’s not nearly as poetic.

In the ending scene we see a picture of Varric in the skies: it might be a way to honor the end of his story arc, or it might be a way to imply him watching over us still (maybe both).

It is going to be interesting to see which direction the next Dragon Age game will take: the Executors and Those Across The Sea seem to have a connection to not only Qunari and the Elven Gods, but to death as well. We hear how everything turns cold around the executors and hear the same whenever we meet a lich or Vorgoth in the Necropolis. We are also told the Watchers guard many secrets, so who knows, maybe the next game will explore more about what happens after death to the inhabitants of Thedas, and in that (lyrium) vein maybe if we’re really lucky we’ll get to dive more into dwarven lore as well.

I would be more than happy to help with that!

Unfortunately, it's not as much as you might have hoped. The years between Smaug's coming to Erebor and the retaking of Erebor are known as the years of exile. In that time, we are told of the deeds of the exiles of Erebor as well as the fates of several members of the line of Durin. During this time, the Battle of Azanulbizar was fought, and Azog was slain by Dain. This had the additional side effect of killing so many orcs that Eriador was nearly completely free of orcs all the way up until Frodo carried the ring. Unfortunately, a LOT of dwarves died as well.

Most of what we do know about Thorin setting his people up in the Blue Mountains can be found at the end of the Return Of The King in Appendix A, in section III: DURIN'S FOLK. The little we do know of that time can be easily accessed in the below. Tolkien Gateway is a very good source of information. Most of it has little to do with Thorin and more with Thrain. The Blue Mountains were the dwarven capital up until Thorin's death. Dain dissolved the capital, moved it to Erebor, and renamed the settlement Thorin's Halls.

We're back with another Dragon Age Video, this time on Dwarves!

We learned a lot about Dwarves in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, so I went back to the codex entries written by good ol' Brother Genitivi to get his take on the culture.

Since you've mentioned that you're working on a dwarven lore masterpost, what is your favorite part of dwarven lore so far? And what is the thing you most hope gets explored in Veilguard for them?

Thank you!

Favorite dwarven lore is also by far the most frustrating for me. It is from the tabletop, but from what we can tell with the descent dlce it is carried through there. It is the depth of the Deep Roads and the fact that they are so cold you'll freeze and is why they use lava to heat and light the roads and thaigs.

It is my favorite because it is fascinating, frustrating because it is breaking some rules without really explaining why/how it works. So it is definitely something I hope is explored a little more.

Generally speaking, the deeper you go into the earth the more stable the temperature. There are a ton of factors that dictate the temperature of the cave/are you're in but generally from my research it is warm. And we know that Thedas does have geothermal activity, they built the older thaigs in magma chambers after all and there is a ton of volcanic areas in Thedas. So, I'm curious as to why its cold.

This folds into something that is more specific to dwarves themselves and not just their enviroment. One of my favorite things, that you only see in written lore and not in-game is the dwarven resistance to lyrium. Due to their proximity to it and constantly being around it while underground, they have a resistance. It is why they can safely mine it, yes? But they lose that resistance the longer they are on the surface. The game doesn't reflect this too much as you don't have non-dwarves dropping sick when too close to raw lyrium and mages aren't just getting sick when at a certain distance of processed lyrium and straight up dying when near the raw stuff (cause that isn't fun, casual game play.)

But we also see surface dwarves mining lyrium, both the red and blue stuff all willy nilly. Not all carta dwarves are underground dwarves. And we know there are lyrium mines in Tevinter, the Anderfels, and other areas away from Orzammar. Which implies that surface dwarves are doing the mining and transporting. Now, this can easily be explained that they're recently surfaced or they were miners/casteless that went to the surface and immediately joined the carta elsewhere. But, I really hope that this is explored/explained more in the future because if dwarves can regain the lyrium resistance that fades within their lifetime on the surface, that is huge and opens up the question of: What is the Stonesense, since if it connected to the Titans, why isn't it recoverable like lyrium resistance which is literally of the Titans. It is their blood. What is the difference, there has been suggestion that the Stone and Titans are two different entities, with Titans being the children of the Stone themselves and dwarves the children of Titans.

CONFESSION:

Dwarves are almost completely magically inert. While there are few exceptions (esp wrt multiracial ppl), they largely evolved in a planetary magical dead zone. No full blooded dwarf is born with natural magic ability.

Bonus thought:

A dwarf with knowledge of dwarves pre-fade seperation or even pre-andraste, someone who doesn't peddle the elven pantheon or andraste but instead finally gives us dwarven lore! So far we only have dwarves who "don't care" about their history or never knew it.

So this is going to sound like massive amounts of copium, but hear me out:

Why does the veil not collapse immediately after Elgar’nan’s death?

It is made out of and tied to the life force of the Evanuris, so with all of them dead it should fall, right? But it doesn’t - it holds long enough for Solas and Rook to have a heart-to-heart. So what gives? Are there some leftover life force from the other Evanuris ? Are they not as dead as we are led to believe? Falon’Din’s owl statues are certainly hinted at being somehow important since we can happen upon multiple of them and see they are tied to some sort of weird magic.

Or has the dagger preserved a fragment of those it has killed (just like it did with Mythal), and that is what’s keeping the veil up? Since all it takes to be tied to the veil is a cut (apparently), it begs the question: can a mortal be tied to the veil?

The veilguard do touch upon the subject when discussing what to tie the veil to: they come to the conclusion that it is safest to try to bind it to an elven god, since they are what it was made from in the first place. But could a mortal have worked? We don’t know. And could part of a mortal be preserved in the dagger just like the elven gods? We don’t know enough lore about what people ;(and particularly dwarves) are compared to spirits to answer that question.

Lyrium is such an interesting aspect of Dragon Age lore, and it seems to work as a vessel for spirits: it is what the ancient elves used to bind themselves to the physical world; it is what held Mythal’s spirit fragment inside the dagger; it might be what the dwarves are actually referring to when they say they “return to the stone”; it might also be why lyrium sings, and “Isatunol” would be the accumulation of dwarven spirits flowing through the rivers of lyrium within the Titans.

In that way, Varric might actually have been the first dwarf in a long time to “return to the Stone” - and what happens to Harding when she touches the dagger? She becomes something very much like a titan! Her magic might literally be Varric’s spirit coursing through her body - her body does become lyrium-infused as you see in her romance.

So is it possible a piece of Varric lives on in Harding? Absolutely. It would also be another explanation on what the Varric who visits Rook in the prison of regret actually is. If he is tied to the veil he might have had access to the prison somehow. Solas’ blood magic should have ceased by now, since any further use would be unnecessary and cruel (which would be out of character for Solas), and the only other explanation for him being there, that I can think of, would be as a guide that Rook has conjured up subconsciously and is part of the magic of the regret prison just like whichever companions you chose to sacrifice.

Helping to hold up the veil while Rook deals with Solas just sounds like something Varric would totally do (and I can’t help becoming a bit misty-eyed thinking he might be there with us in the final hour) - of course it might be Ghilan’nain’s fragment doing the heavy lifting here, but it’s not nearly as poetic.

In the ending scene we see a picture of Varric in the skies: it might be a way to honor the end of his story arc, or it might be a way to imply him watching over us still (maybe both).

It is going to be interesting to see which direction the next Dragon Age game will take: the executors and those across the sea seem to have a connection to not only Qunari and the Elven Gods, but to death as well. We hear how everything turns cold around the executors and hear the same whenever we meet a lich or Vorgoth in the Necropolis. We are also told the Watchers guard many secrets, so who knows, maybe the next game will explore more about what happens after death to the inhabitants of Thedas, and in that (lyrium) vein maybe if we’re really lucky we’ll get to dive more into dwarven lore as well.