#faerelden

The Old Gods and the Evanuris are one and the same.

This is going to be expanded upon, but I just typed this up to explain it, and it’s the most coherent form so far. Developed over weeks of playing Dragon Age with @faerelden​

My friend and I have been developing a theory over the last few weeks that the Tevinter Old Gods, and the Trapped Evanuris are one and the same. 

We know that Tevinter took on a lot of Elvhen lore/language/places etc, it's not crazy to think that they would reappropriate the Elvhen pantheon, in a similar way to how the Romans took on and redesigned the Greek Pantheon to suit their own needs. 

The Tevinter Magister's learned magic, when their Gods whispered to them from the Fade, where the Evanuris were conveniently entrapped. 

The Old Gods forms are, conveniently, Dragons. You can't tell me that Mythal being able to shapeshift into a dragon is, then, a coincidence. 

The Old Gods dragon forms are, conveniently, sleeping. Strangely similair to the way ancient elves would have entered Uthenera? 

There are 7 Old Gods, and 9 Evanuris... but Mythal was presumed dead, and Solas wasn't trapped inside the Fade, that makes 7 and 7. 

Solas is not pleased to find out that the Grey Wardens have been 'killing' Old Gods. This is where our theory gets a based a bit more on assumptions that canonical evidence.

We are told in game that when anyone other than a Grey Warden kills an Archdemon that it's soul passes to the nearest tainted body. When a Grey Warden kills an Archdemon, it is the closest tainted body, and that it somehow destroys the Archdemon... but it wouldn't be the first time Bioware has 'told' us something, only for us to learn more later, from a different source, that what we were believing was wrong for some reason. (Lyrium being a mineral springs to mind).

We also know that if the Old God soul jumps to Morrigan's child, it's no longer an Archdemon, but seems to be a purified version of the soul. 

Add in that during Jaws of Hakkon, a DLC that revolves around killing a 'God' so that it's spirit/soul can be 'purified' or reset, and Faerelden and I believe that the Grey Wardens haven't been killing the Archdemons, so much as purifying their souls of the Blight, and simultaneous unlocking the door to the jail cell Solas threw the Evanuris into.

(Another Headcanon/Meta post developed with @faerelden. Just a little one this time, but I like this and the way it would intertwine the ancient beings of the elves and spirits of the Fade.)

The Forbidden Ones were once Elves, who then Allied with the Forgotten Ones/Rebel Elves.

1. The Forbidden ones were originally elves, slaves to the Evanuris, and shed their physical forms to flee and/or hide, either from their masters, or from the Evanuris' war with the Titans.

DAI Codex: Vir Dirthara: Exile of the Forbidden Ones - "for casting aside form to flee to where the Earth could not reach"

2. The Evanuris banished the Forbidden Ones spirit forms to the furthest reaches of the fade. Lyrium powered magic [Earth] could not kill their spirit forms. We know that spirits cannot be killed only banished. We also know that the Evanuris twist things to their advantage.

DAI Codex: Vir Dirthara: Exile of the Forbidden Ones - "The pages of this book—memory?—show the blazing forms of the Evanuris banishing a howling spirit from the reaches of the Fade that touch their lands. A voice rings out, stern and imperial"

This comes across as propaganda, and if you flip the information, then it implies that the Forbidden ones did not abandon the Elvhen people, but possibly betrayed the Evanuris.

3. Forgotten Ones were probably the Rebel Elves.

DAI Codex: Fen'Harel; The Dread Wolf - "The legend says that before the fall of Arlathan, the gods we know and revere fought an endless war with others of their kind. There is not a hahren among us who remembers these others: Only in dreams do we hear whispered the names of Geldauran and Daern'thal and Anaris, for they are the Forgotten Ones, the gods of terror and malice, spite and pestilence."

DAI JoH Codex: Geldauran's Claim - "There are no gods. There is only the subject and the object, the actor and the acted upon. Those with will to earn dominance over others gain title not by nature but by deed. I am Geldauran, and I refuse those who would exert will upon me. Let Andruil's bow crack, let June's fire grow cold. Let them build temples and lure the faithful with promises. Their pride will consume them, and I, forgotten, will claim power of my own, apart from them until I strike in mastery."

DA2 Merrill to Hawke, The Betrayal - "Long ago, there were two clans of gods. The Creators looked after the People. The Forgotten Ones preyed upon us. And one god who was neither. Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf."

This theory is expanded upon further in @faerelden‘s Meta-post HERE.

4. During the Elvhen uprising, the Rebel Elves (Forgotten Ones) needed a source of magical power stronger than their natural connection to the Fade, to combat the Evanuris' use of Lyrium from the felled Titans. This was probably blood magic, which they learned from the Forbidden Ones, previously banished Elvhen slaves.

DAI JoH Codex: Geldauran's Claim - "Their pride will consume them, and I, forgotten, will claim power of my own, apart from them until I strike in mastery."

DA2 Codex: Forbidden Knowledge; Tarohne's Beginning - "The first of the magus cast themselves deep in the Fade in search of answers and power, always power. They found the forbidden ones — Xebenkeck, Imshael, Gaxkang the Unbound, and The Formless One. Many conversations were had and much of the fabric of the world revealed. And thus the magic of blood was born."

Assuming that "Their Pride will consume them" is a reference to Solas, then the discussion with him in Dragon Age Inquisition is also relevant to this point.

You know you’re DEEP into Solavellan Hell when an innocent Meme on Facebook gives you plot bunnies ^_^

Pride and his Vhenan....

@faerelden

“Just... Just stop, Solas!” Kita shouted, the winds swirling around them almost stealing the words, ripping them from her lips and dragging them across the half lowered veil.

It was like Solas had summoned a storm instead of lowering a veil, and chaos had begun erupting around them as people panicked and spirits clamored to the forefront with curiosity, only to be met with open hostility and fear.

"I can’t,” Solas said simply, and she would have thought him stubborn except for the pain in his eyes. ‘Another mistake’, his gaze said, another failure as he watched the spirits he so adored become baffled and confused by the world they had been separated from for too long.

“It’s too late, Vhenan, the process has started. I can’t stop, it’s impossible... Fenhedis...” the ancient elf cursed, hands lifted, shaking, and glowing green as he held the half cast spell. Neither completing it or releasing it, and Kita took a step closer, and then another, until she could lay a single gentle hand against the center of his back.

Solas’ head bowed, and his shoulders shook beneath her tender touch and Kita felt her breath catch when she spotted a single glistening tear trail it’s way along his cheek.

One last plea was all she had, so she stepped closer still, her other hand sliding along his arm, settling against his wrist just shy of the glowing green light of Solas’ spell.

“Just... try.”

Tagging forward to anyone who wants to take part, in addition to… @rivainisomniari @lyrium-lavellan @schoute @perhapsrampancy @in-arlathan @solas-disapproves @pikapeppa @cornfedcryptid @skekiss @faerieavalon @elveny and @ranawaytothedas if you haven’t already done it :D

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As the glow settled in the palm of her hand, still painful and unstable, she began to suspect that Corypheus had seen it as corrupted because the anchor was no longer linked to the Foci of the Dread Wolf.

Lokita could use it and control it because it was hers, an extension of her own magic but wild and volatile and too much - too much - for a mortal body to contain.

Panting with the exertion needed to corral the anchor to her palm, and simply keep it there, her colourless eyes, lit green with the glow from her hand, widened in realisation, and the sweat dripping from her turned chill and cold.

She needed her own Foci.

My friend, @faerelden​, and I rewrote the lyrics to ‘Arabian Nights’ from the 2019 Aladdin Remake, to fit in with the release of the new Dragon Age book, Tevinter Nights, coming out in March...

So, for your viewing pleasure, and my absolute embarassment.... The audio (in case you don’t know the song/tune) and the new Lyrics...

Oh, imagine a land, it's a faraway place, Where the marvellous mages roam, Where you wander among every culture and tongue, It's chaotic, but hey, it's home.

When Elves move from the east, And the Wardens from west, And the Seheron sand is right, Come on down, stop on by, Hop a Griffon and fly, To another Tevinter night.

As you wind through the streets, sneak the famous bazaars, Between the elfoot-smelling stalls, Catch the glint of a knife, While you haggle the price, Of the silken Magister shawls.

Oh, the music that plays as you slip through a maze, In a haze of sand and sunlight. You are caught in a dance, you are lost to a trance, On another Tevinter night.

Tevinter nights, like Tevinter days, More often than not are hotter than hot, In a lot of good ways. Tevinter nights, like Tevinter dreams, This mystical land of magic and man, Is more than it seems.

There's a road that may lead you to good or to greed, Through the power your magic commands. Let the darkness unfold or find fortunes untold, Well, your destiny lies in your hands.

Tevinter nights, like Tevinter days, They seem to excite, take off and take flight, To shock and amaze. Tevinter nights, 'neath Thedas' moons, An Elf off his guard could fall and fall hard, Out there on the dunes...

Additionally, if anyone would like to retweet it, I was encouraged to @ PatrickWeekes on Twitter with this Rofl... Link

@elveny -- Thank you for the tag! Tagging forward to anyone who wants to take part, in addition to... @rivainisomniari @lyrium-lavellan @schoute @perhapsrampancy @in-arlathan @solas-disapproves @pikapeppa @cornfedcryptid @skekiss @faerieavalon and @ranawaytothedas if you haven’t already done it :D ~*~*~*~*~*~

He was gone. Solas had left through an Eluvian. Had promised to never forget her…

Something in her knew that it had been Fen'Harel who stepped out the other side, determined to do what he felt needed to be done, but Lokita didn't care about that.

The mark was killing her, but she didn't care about that either.

In an attempt not to overpower my Inquisitor in battles and fights, (since it’s the easiest thing in the world to overpower a magic-user character), I spent several hours figuring out which spells she knew, pulling from all the games, making any small edits for my Inquisitor’s backstory, and deciding when and under which circumstances she learnt them. WIP but I wanted to show my friend what I had so far...[Edit: This is taking forever to work out and type up *sobs*]

Natural Inclinations/Starter Spells

A) Veilfire - Age 6

Kita learnt Veilfire as her first spell by conversing with Spirits in the Fade. She only stopped speaking to the Spirits when the Keeper of her Clan finally realised the girl had magic, and began warning her of the dangers of Demons, forbidding the girl from interacting with the creatures of the Fade if she wished to stay with Clan Lavellan and her family.

She knows how to write with Veilfire, a skill thought lost to the ancient elves, but after her Keeper’s reaction to finding out she even knew how to cast the comparatively simple Veilfire flames, Kita has kept that piece of information a secret from everyone except her mother, and later her sister.

1) Winter’s Grasp - Age 7

The caster locks their target in a thin sheet of frost and ice. Some targets can be frozen solid, the smaller the target the higher the chance of it being frozen. The target gives off waves of cold that can cause discomfort in other nearby enemies. A frozen target takes additional shattering damage from a melee blow.

This was the first spell Kita cast outside of the Fade. Her mother would tell stories of how, when her daughter’s porridge was too hot, a small shower of snowflakes and frost would settle across it’s surface.

I was tagged by @solas-disapproves (Consider yourself tagged back :D) last week, and have been carefully keeping track of the days to make sure I didn’t miss joining in! Also tagging @faerelden, if you have anything in progress <3

The mage bolt ripped through Solas’ people without warning, screams of agony, and death cries rose up and Kita’s head whipped around to stare across the village, crystalline eyes seeking out the cause of the chaos.

She had expected a demon. They were rare now, but not entirely eradicated. She did not expect to see an elvhen woman almost glowing with power.

“Solas…” she warned, her voice soft and low despite the urgency there and the elf beside her offered a small sound of acknowledgement, drawing her gaze back to his spellcasting.

It only took her a moment to figure out where he was up to and to realise that Solas couldn’t stop. If he let the spell loose now, it would crash the veil down all at once, flooding the area with demons. Combined with the threat the Evanuris now represented, it could decimate both their forces, and Kita bit her lip, mind seeking out a solution.

“Who-”

“Andruil,” Solas answered quickly, and Kita felt her breath catch, “Evacuate everyone,” Solas said, storm-cloud eyes settling on her briefly before he refocussed his attention and Kita nodded, heart in her throat.

The last thing she wanted to do was leave his back unguarded but Nel and Cullen were there somewhere, and there were dozens of unarmed villagers-

Another round of screams went up when a new bolt of magical energy blew through their people and Kita didn’t hesitate again.