#lichdom

(Emmlich/Lich Emmrich Volkarin & Priscilla "Rook" Thorne, 9:52 Dragon)

The story of a man who couldn't accept his own mortality, and fell in love with a woman whose time was running out... 🥹💚💜

Emmrich gives up lichdom, what he thinks is his chance at immortality, but through his stewardship, his love and guidance, Manfred will grow, shape his own life and help shape the lives of others. Even after Emmrich passes on, Manfred will remember, Rook will remember, the team will remember. The way you love, treat people echos.

Emmrich’s fear of death to me feels very much rooted in the idea of being useful, being of service. “But if I die, who will take care of the people and things I care about?” Hundreds of years down the line, regardless of whether or not they know your name, the kindness you shared will reverberate. Something you taught or said will be passed down. It doesn’t even have to be familial, it could be through friends.

A Rook that not only whole-heartedly supports Emmrich embracing Lichdom, but they practically beg him to let them be the one to kill him: the one to slit his throat, bleed him dry, and personally undertake ushering him into his well-deserved immortality. Who better to trust with that auspicious burden than your beloved… your soulmate?

How deeply intimate. How romantic and damning. How utterly fucked up and depraved and dark.

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.

Because the need for so many rituals and final sifting of the soul/judgement makes sense if someone were trying to change their person into such a being.

Thematically it fits too, contrasting sharply with the Evanuris going from spirit to person...

I actually don’t mind the immortality angle, but instead of his pursuit of lichdom, this would’ve been an awesome opportunity to introduce vampirism into the lore.

Like, his ultimate goal would be to undo being a vampire. Find a cure. 

Like, this could’ve been a new thing.

Say, when we first pick him up as a companion, he has an obvious secret. 

He is super cagey when it comes to interacting with the rest of your crew, he doesn’t smile properly, as if he’s trying to hide something - fangs - you never see him eat, because he literally lives off rats and other small vermin, because he’s terrified to indulge in human blood. Also, added tension if you pursue him as a romance.

And your second forray in the gardens is when he reveals to you that he is, in fact, a vampire and is trying to find a cure.

And the ending of his personal arc would be in accepting his new lifestyle. And possibly to find others who might’ve been afflicted and help them adjust, like he had to. 

Sure, the option to cure it would be an option to the player, but if you want him to get real development as a character, the “right” choice would be to encourage him to continue as a vampire.

I cannot tell you how much I would’ve preferred that, and I know I literally just made him Regis, but it’s preferable to whatever the fuck the Lich storyline is.