#elvhenan

They really did let Solas do all the heavy lifting, and than carry all the guilt. 😭

hi, here is an argument that felassan's name actually means bomb.

1. the story felassan tells briala about the origin of his name — a slow arrow the dread wolf shot into the sky so it fell when the beast's mouth was open and the beast was vulnerable — obviously isn't literal. one explanation is that felassan was sneaking around while solas "left" so they could catch the "beast" at a vulnerable moment, and in future retellings the name felassan was reinterpreted as a real arrow. personally i like this! but that still leaves the question of why he was called felassan in the first place, especially when felassan was an alias.

2. in tevinter nights ("half up front") there's an ancient device that absorbs magic from the surrounding area, then uses the absorbed magic for a town-leveling explosion. this device uses a rune that someone activates while saying "felassan" over and over. there are a lot of possible explanations for that, but one is that it is just what the thingy is called, because the ancient elves were poetic nerds who totally would have named a bomb in a metaphorical way like that.

3. in the veilguard artbook, the depiction of solas's rebellion features a bombing, too.

4. a device that requires time to collect power (and leaves those around it vulnerable, since it also absorbs magic and turns enchanted objects into dust in the process) before exploding slots pretty neatly into the general shape of a story about solas walking away while leaving something behind that killed a threat, albeit not as quickly as people wanted or perhaps with some collateral damage.

5. the ancient elvhen word for something that lowers defenses before inflicting big damage would also be a great nickname for a spy/saboteur/anyone both charming and ruthless. or someone who was routinely sneaking around to leave timebombs ticking on solas's behalf.

Really happy with how this turned out.

"A thunderstorm is interesting, a wildfire is interesting; I have stood in the middle of both and watched things change."

~ The Masked Empire

Felassan 📸

Managed to rush something for @dafuckedupshipsweek , yaaaaay. I think Dirthamen and his thrall count 👀