Once the zone has been drained, we have access to the Old Crestwood; several  statues of the Dwarf with long limbs surround the village. This is a very curious detail, specially if we think that below this city there are dwarven ruins. In previous posts I had concluded that these statues were pointers or markers. Maybe in this case they are pointing that this area is where a dwarven ruin entrance exists. Now, one also wonders why don’t they show the typical statue of the generic paragon holding a hammer over his head. These probably were the markers done by the Avvar or alamarri. Or maybe these are a group of dwarves related to the Avvar and independent of Orzammar’s. We need to remember that both groups [Avvar or alamarri] had deep relationships with the dwarves to the point to produce offspring, something we never saw dorectly in DA games. Only in tales of the past Dwarves and humans mix.

We can find the old house of the Mayor where we discover that the one who flooded the town was him in order to prevent the spread of the Blight.

In a falling apart house we find a Spirit of Command who wants us to kill a rage demon. For that, we need to access to the lower caves of the village.

To complete this task, we head to a gate we find in a corner of the village that sends us down into the deep caves. Here it’s where we can see bodies and remnants of what happened ten years ago: people who had taken refuge in these caves died when the water raised.

Walking further, we discover that this underground contains Dwarven ruins.

At the end of the exploration, we find the rage demon, probably fed by all the rage that this flood caused in the victims ten years ago. This place where we fight the demon has columns decorated with  dwarven sarcophagus lids.

In particular, and one of the most surprising elements I found in Crestwood, is this pair of strange sculptures that we only saw in two other places: in DA2 in the Primeval Thaig [check Primeval Thaig and Red Lyrium ], and then in the Descend, in a chamber where they are accompanied with Claws of Dumat.

This place seemed to be important, since it is decorated in this fashion. It’s even present in the book of Art of Inquisition [with the presence of a head in between the columns that we never saw before.

If one is careless, they can be mistakes for Claws of Dumat, but they are not. They share the same style than the claws: they are Tevinter, with a bird-like or dragon-like shape to it. In my opinion, they look like a Tevinter translation of the elven representation of the Dragon Myhtal statue.

Later on, I found a plaque close to this place, in a locked room, that seemed to imply this was a route that connected Aeducan Thaig with Gundaar Thaig [another famous Thaig, and one of the first in falling under the darkspawn threat]

This place, aside from those strange Tevinter-like statues, is filled with elements of Dwarven art: chairs, banners, table, rugs, statues, elven-tree-like statue in Dwarvish style, etc.

At the background of this chamber, we find the standard dwarven sarcophagus, the usual dwarven table, and an elven artefact.

When the breach in the lake is closed, the whole region looks much better and brighter [I know, I should have done the exploration using the daylight. My bad].

As something curious to notice in this game:  they say that the rifts alter animals, but the only one we have seen mad were black wolves. And not only it’s a behavioural detail, it’s in their glowing green eyes. Their eyes glow as if they were coloured with Fade. They don’t have a pupil but a black crack, same as Corypheus has in the final battle. 

We know in the quest of Hinterlands: Wolf Hollow how sensitives wolves are to the presence of the breach and demons. Maybe it’s just a narrative concept to emphasise Solas’ story.

In the ruin where we found the Ferelden Wyvern statues, the dragon finally shows up.

And of course, as it could not be missed in Ferelden regions: there is always some isolated remnant of Avvar art. So far I explored, this is the only one in Crestwood. So Avvars existed in this region [which makes a lot of sense with the tale of Tyrdda Bright-Axe [her clan lived here or nearby before heading to the mountains]]

First thing we find when we enter the place are these geometric trees. The way they decorate the streets of Orzammar made me remember a faint concept of the crossroad trees. I like to point out this detail because it seems to speak how deep elven culture has been present in dwarven history, but it had a dwarven evolution. The elven object was adopted in their culture, but reshaped to fit their own cultural style. This is so accurate from an anthropological point of view.

We also find minor objects that I want to highlight  to have them present just in case. These strange orbs are used as mere decorations in Orzammar, so far I saw.

There are carved pictures all over Orzammar that contain codex information. This one in particular has been picked because it seems to have a relevant place in Kal'Hirol [see the related post]. It's the figure of mountains, one made of gold. Mountains are important to Dwarven because they are the children of the stone. In a broader aspect, we know the mountains are related to Titans too. We also know that the Avvar have a Father-figure among their deities: Korth, the Mountain-father god. Mountains are present in many cultures of Thedas, but so far we still cannot say with certainty that all of them have the same link/meaning. It could be.

Following minor details of decoration, we found in Orzammar and in most Thaigs, a small set of decorative tiles with inserted gems in them.

They are usually red, green or yellow, the one in yellow seems to have a particular shape. It's the oversimplification of a figure, that seems to be present too on the top of most doors in Orzammar or other Thaigs. The only similar icon I can associate it with is the U horns that the Darkspawn seem to worship.  

There is also a small figure on the table that, so far, it doesn't make me relate to anything. The closest one but without any meaning, is the constellation of Silentir, a constellation related to Dumat, but constellations have little meaning among the Dwarves.

There are many geometrical patterns everywhere in Dwarven culture too. This is important to notice, especially when seeing the few iconography we have of June, elven God of craft [See post related to Elven pantheon].

As it's not strange, Dwarves have lyrium decorating their walls even in curious ways, like these apparent sections in the walls where you can see Lyrium veins and the “veins of the stone”

We also find this strange decorative piece that will be part of not only Orzammar decoration but also of most thaigs we visited. It's a stone that looks like a C covered in almost-geometrical swirls. This pattern is very present in Avvar architecture too, more in a curvy way [see the Mage Tower]. That the Avvars and Dwarven share this decorative pattern is not a mystery, since both cultures have developed close relationships all over Ferelden. Who influenced to whom is impossible to know. Now, what those swirl patterns mean? As I said in the post of Tower of the Circle of Magi [here] for the Avvars the swirls may have a representation of the Fade, always above and ever present in their buildings. In the case of Dwarves, it looks like more the representation of the “veins of the Stone”, aka the lyrium. An obvious pattern is seen in the Anvil of the Void.  It's also interesting to see that the thorny vine we saw in the presentation of DAO [here] becomes into these kind of geometrical swirls in the presentation of Awakening [here, work in process]. So the hidden meaning that this could be the representation of “healthy” blood of the Titan since it lacks of thorns, in contrast with the Blight=tainted blood=Red lyrium=thorny vine is present too.

Heading into the Deep Roads

We find a lot of items related to the Dead Legion in the Deep Roads. Statues picturing the legionnaires, rune-stones narrating part of their encounters, even special chambers where items of dead legion warriors are found. From all of them, the most curious item I saw was a helm which had lyrium on the inside. It made you think in the Sha-Brythol, even though there is no connection between the Legion of the Dead and them.

There is also a part in the Deep Roads where there is a Mystical Site of Power where you can summon a demon. Strange place considering that so far, Orzammar had no link with any other surfacer to dwell in blood-demonic-magical arts.

Then, deep, deep into the Deep Roads, we find the Anvil of the Void, where Caridin is secluded. The security Chamber has a lot of lyrium on its roof and its system is related to consume souls into the mouth of these masks.

After that chamber we finally reach the Anvil of the Void. Taking into account the place and how it looks like, there is a lot of lyrium around. Thick tentacle-like shaped veins emerge from the sides of the cliff of lava and the anvil itself is filled with lyrium. Like Amgarrak showed us, the process of inserting a soul into an object needs a lot of lyrium. And this particular place of the Deep Roads has more lyrium than any other place we saw in game. I like to speculate this is a place close to a titan's heart. We know that Lyrium veins indicate that we are inside a titan’s body. 

Then, the final detail of all Orzammar is this codex.

We read here interesting thaig names: Hormak, Kal Sharok, and Gundaar.

[Spoiler of Tevinter Nights] Hormak is where the story The Horror of Hormak is narrated. A place where elves lived and created monstrosities by combining living creatures into one, a similar fashion to what we saw in Amgarrak to create the Harverster or what Caridin did during the creation of golems.

Kal Sharok is another Thaig deeply related to mystery. It has been hinted that due to its apparent isolation and the presence of darkspawn, their dwarf population changed, becoming whiter and “tainted”. It was this Thaig which destroyed Cadash Thaig which helped escapee elves from Tevinter, and Kal Sharok did not want this fact to reach to Tevinter ears and risk their trade with the imperium.

Gundaar is a thaig which shared the fame of being as important as Orzammar but little more is said in games or books.