#oculara

After confirming the presence of Qunari in Val Royeaux and their threat against the South of Thedas, the agents of the Qunari and Fen’Harel are immobilised, while the Inquisitor explores the Crossroads for the last time, reaching the Darvaarad.

Fortress Approach and Courtyard

With the passwords and the key obtained in the Shattered Library; Inverted Ward, we can unlock the  Darvaarad, an isle which is under the control of the Qunari but seems to have been belonged to Elvhen. I'm not sure how to understand it: there are some statues in the distance that imply the isle had some elvhen presence in he past, as we see the Elven hart statue at the peak of a cliff.

Or this big hand that we only saw in the crossroads and in the Exalted Plains: the Dead Hand. These statues do not seem to be placed by these Qunari in the general surroundings for further study, instead they look like original decoration.  In a sense, this whole fortress reminds me of Skyhold, a building that belonged to elvhen long time ago but passed over so many hands that its original shape changed.

This island displays some statues of female and male qunaris, and a lot of broken eluvians. Clearly the Qunari have been studying and collecting an insane amount of magical artefacts.

Close to us we can see a Saarebas working with an Eluvian.

This fortress looks like a generic “Ferelden” architecture. Nothing in it calls to any particular group, though it displays a banner we saw with the Highwaymen of Crestwood. So maybe it is implied that this fortress belonged to this group of bandits a bit before the Qunari took over when this operation started. Now it displays banners of the Qun.

On the top of the fortress we see some stained glasses that we can approach.

This surprised me a lot because they depict a big tree, that may be related to the Vhenadahl, and below it, red triangles that, for me, represent red lyrium. In Skyhold, we can have this glass by picking Dalish decoration. This image is such a curious thing if we think that DA:D has shown already a Vhenadahl infected with red lyrium in the trailer of Dread Wolf.

In the distance we see an Elven hart statue, below which there is an active eluvian that we will reach at the end of the exploration of this place. That Eluvian leads us to the abandoned elvhen ruins where we will meet Solas.

This eluvian is guarded by two Sitting Fen'Harel statues and behind them, a Golden Ring. The disposition of this makes it look like it was in the isle before the Qunari started this operation.

Research Tower

In this area, the Qunari have a tower completely dedicated to store magical artefacts, statues, art, and everything else they find remotely related to elven magic [which, of course, includes Tevinter]. Observing each of these elements we find fascinating things.

The artefacts are kept inside cells, ironically:

Here we find Tevinter artefacts: A molten rock pyramid, an Oculara, a Tevinter books, and a dismantled Astrarium.

Among the Elvhen artefacts or art: we find an Elven Owl statue, a broken Elven Orb, and a Shard 

There are also skulls for study and an Iron maiden we easily recognise as a typical decoration from DA2.

In the next cell we find a Sitting Fen'Harel statue, behind it there are two cells filled with books and this hexagonal Tevinter decoration where two dragons eat each other.

In the next cell, we find a Teviner Thrummer, a Tevinter artefact with spikes, and three things we never saw before in any game:

A Dark Hand connected to gears. The hand has long fingers, and a chain in its thumb. Is this a prototype to some metal golem? A Tevinter metallic golem? I don't know, it's not the same style than the Tevinter golem.

Then, hanging from a corner, a pinkish cocoon, that looks like the Flesh Pods we used to find during Dragon Age Awakening. So far, we didn't find any of this kind in DA2 or DAI. I would love to read the name of this object in the archive files.

And the most disgusting thing I found so far: a metallic circular structure that keeps a glowing ball of something in the middle and pieces of worms or tentacles around.

There are some more minor Tevinter objects we talked about in previous posts.

We also find red lyrium on a table without any safety measure around it, as if it were nothing.

Cole says here that the red lyrium has a different song to the normal lyrium, but they “fit together”.

We also find a statue of Dragon Mythal

and a whole wall that the qunari removed with a Mural paint by Solas. By the type of stone on this wall, it suggests it belonged to a generic Fereldan-like fortress. We have no idea when Solas painted it, or where. 

And another Elven hart statue.

They even found one of these ancient Stone in Razikale-Ceremony-style. Once again this stone gives a hint to solve the puzzle to open up the elvhen box in the paws of Fen'Harel. This keeps confirming that this stone is elvhen.

Inside the box we find Bloody Bargain. Again, the description of the weapon talks about a man called Harlan from the Coterie of Kirkwall, rumoured to be an abomination, or an apostate, or a demon of rage, or even a mere title passed onto the most bloodthirsty member of the Coterie. Nothing of this story seems to be related to the elvhen.

In this place we find the note Eluvian Studies that shows that the Qunari had some people working in understanding them; Logs of a Darvaarad Gatekeeper which shows how careless the Qunari are about the catalogue and the study of these artefacts, and Saarath,  which is a letter to Tallis written by a Saarebas. 

It is implied that this person was a scholar who developed magic as an adult, and then was treated as a Saarebas. He drinks lyrium and says that it has a song he uses to study the Veil which holds magic at its source. But clearly it's costing him his sanity or focus. The many crossing out along the letter show how intruding this song is in his mind.

I find this letter almost a narrative letter to Solas himself, with the allegory of walls and Veils and darkness as creations of the self because one cannot see the truth that no one is alone, the illusion of being so feels too real, though.

When entering the room where the artifact is found, Mihris says “If we activate that crystal, it should react to the strength of the Veil”. Upon activating it, however, Solas says “the wards are helping to strengthen the Veil”. There is a very clear difference between measuring something, and strengthening it. Mihris basically means the artifacts measure the veil by reacting to its strength. This quest is titled “Measure the Veil”, and it’s followed by another quest similarly titled  “Measure Veil Strength”, once we’ve activated 10 artifacts. It’s a war table mission were Solas writes the artifacts are used to detect the magical energies of the Veil, and we are led to believe that activating enough of them would allow to pinpoint where the Veil is weakest and therefore where there’s a higher chance of a Rift opening. Doing this mission unlocks another quest in the Hinterlands called “What lies dormant”, leading us to a rift that hasn’t opened yet.

Despite the quests clearly indicating these artifacts simply measure the Veil, throughout the game Solas insists activating these artifacts somehow strengthen the Veil, implying the more we activate the less Rifts will appear as the Veil would become stronger. Logically, as we activate more artifacts, we can get a network or grid of sorts that determines the places where the Veil is thinner and where it’s stronger, but that’s actually all it does.

We never deal with a Rift found via artifact ever again in the rest of the game. Yet we continue to activate the artifacts. We could imagine the Inquisition sends small parties to other locations found through this network but truth is they could only deal with the demons and little else, as only the Inquisitor is capable of closing the Rifts.

There were theories pointing to the artifacts doing the exact opposite of strengthening the Veil, stating Solas was lying to us and manipulating us into helping him take down the Veil later on, and I think that’s partially true. We haven’t been weakening the Veil exactly, but we have activated an artifact network that points to where the Veil is weakest, where it’s thin enough for Rifts to form, and Solas can use this to determine from where to begin taking the Veil down.

There is still a slim chance that Solas was telling the truth and that these artifacts, in addition to measuring Veil strength, add to it. But we only have his word for it, for what it’s worth.

Shards and Oculara:

We first learn of the shards when finding the oculara in the Hinterlands. These are literally skulls on pedestals with a crystal shoved through an eye socket all the way to the back of the skull. They have a certain cyan-greenish glow, emits a sound of eerie whispers, and when looking through it one can locate magically cloaked “shards” that on close inspection look nothing like shards and every bit like book-sized stone tablets with some glowing crystal and a skull merged into it.

Solas keeps one in his desk at Skyhold so you can really take a long look at it whenever you want. 

But what is all that? There are just a couple of codices, and party banter you can easily miss depending on who you take with you to Redcliffe. On this codex found in the Hissing Wastes we learn that according to spirits, these shards have been around for ages. It would seem they were magically hidden until the Breach made it possible to find them, and it’s the Venatori who set out to it, specifically blood mages.

At Redcliffe, by the port there’s a locked room, and inside we find many of the pedestals and skulls, oculara left disassembled and abandoned by the Venatori (either when you defeat Alexius or when they leave Redcliffe to attack Haven). The comments made by Vivienne here and this codex  explain more or less how the oculara are made: it involves forcing a demon to possess a Tranquil by way of blood magic and immediately killing the Tranquil; it’s their skulls we casually look through when searching for shards. Tranquils are mages who had their link to the Fade severed so they can’t get possessed by demons, as demons are attracted to emotion and dreams of which Tranquils have none. This however doesn’t mean Tranquils are impossible to possess, simply that spirits or demons don’t find them appealing and look past them, ignore them. But the Venatori have been using blood magic to force demons to possess the Tranquils. As we’ve learned in Inquisition the Rite of Tranquility can be reversed, and as we saw with Anders’ friend in DA2, being exposed in some way to spirits can temporarily reconnect the mage to the Fade. Unfortunately, there is no details on how exactly this Venatori trick works, if making the Tranquil be possessed by a demon for a few seconds establishes a partial link to the Fade that remains in the Tranquil’s body after death, or if the demon gets somehow trapped in the Tranquil’s body unable to act as only the skull is preserved..It’s confusing and we also get no information on what crystal is used in the skull, the lense through which we see the shards. But as it was the Breach, the opening of the Veil, what made it possible to find the shards, it kind of makes sense -in a macabre very Tevinter way – that using a skull of a mage forced to lose their link to the Fade then have it forcefully reestablished via blood magic and forced possession would help make the shards visible. Kind of.

The shards have only one use, and that is as keys to open the various gates of the Solasan Temple in the Forbidden Oasis. It isn’t until -and unless – we choose the Redcliffe mission and are sent to a dark future that we learn Alexius hides behind one such door. We can suspect then his mages were setting up oculara in an effort to gather the necessary shards to unlock the temple. It’s easy to imagine nothing but the shards can open this type of ancient door, making them the safest to use if you’re trying to hide something valuable or keep enemies away.  The more shards a door requires the more difficult it is to get it open.

But then, in Jaws of Hakkon, we get this journal written from the perspective of a Hakkonite. It says in the old days Hakkon, a spirit, “opened their eyes that they might see the elfstones hidden across the world, and they entered the old cave and learned the mysteries of winter.”.This codex is relevant for two reasons: it helps explain the Venatori oculara production method, as it seems one needs a connection of some kind to the spirit nature in order to be able to see these shards ( as Hakkon personally once did with his followers, and later the Venatori did forcefully on the Tranquils via possession – i.e. forcing a spirit on them- ), and it referes to the shards, for the first time, as elfstones. This would indicate the shards are elven in origin, yet another elven magical artifact lost to the ages and only revealed by the Breach.

Considering Solas is responsible for the Veil and is an ancient elvhen himself, I find it extremely difficult that he wouldn’t know what the shards are. He keeps one on his desk supposedly to study it, but chances are he already knows exactly what it is and how it works. The shards most likely are from a pre-Veil era, hence why a connection to the Fade and spirits is necessary to see them. The shards have a physical nature, they are tangible objects, but also a spiritual one. On close inspection the glowing crystal part looks more like lyrium veins, and lyrium is the only thing that grows both in the physical world and in the Fade. It links both realms, existing in both simultaneously. And then there’s the skull merged into each shard, or elfstone. Are those skulls also made of stone or are they real skulls, and if so who did they belong to originally? They are called by the hakkonite elfstones because the shards belonged to the ancient elves, because it’s part of their magic/tech or because they’re made from elves? Maybe it’s all of that.

Also to note are the temples these shards open. The temple of Solasan is the first, and in Jaws of Hakkon we get another one (The Mystery of Winter). Both are evidently elven temples, not just by their name (Solasan is elvhen for A Prideful Place and has elvhen inscriptions at the entrance and inside it’s central chamber) but also by what we find inside (The Mystery of Winter holds a codex by a forgotten one, Geldauran ).

So like most things in this universe, the shards are ancient and elven in origin. But what of the oculara? They’re made from Tranquil skulls, surely the elves from pre-Veil times didn’t have people made Tranquil. And what about the Venatori looking for the shards and Alexius stealing one of Solasan’s doors? Well, I do believe Solas not knowing what the oculara are, I really think the elves wouldn’t come up with that, the world they lived in didn’t distinguish much between matter and spirit and therefore they’d have no need to device a way to see their stones (I do think however they were perfectly capable of taking the magic out of someone, based on what we know of the Evanuris temper). As for the Venatori and Alexius , they’re Tevinter. There’s enough evidence that indicates Tevinter appropriated a lot from elven culture and magic, so it makes sense the Venatori -possibly with knowledge made available by Corypheus  -  would create the oculara to yet again get their hands on ancient elven magical artifacts.

Eluvian:

Ancient elven magical mirrors used for communication and transportation. The name means “seeing glass”, and all eluvian are connected in an vast network extending through a realm different than the Fade, possibly created by the elvhen. For this reason only elves have a nice experience travelling through this realm, while others like humans get blurry vision, headaches, and overall an unpleasant experience. The Crossroads is how Morrigan calls the nexus of this realm where all eluvian connect. Most are locked, and in the physical world many are broken. The key to unlock eluvians can be either an object or a piece of knowledge, like a password.

Eluvians can get tainted by the Blight so it’s possible -although to my knowledge never mentioned – that the eluvian’s mirror may be made from lyrium, considering lyrium is the one previously thought non-organic substance capable of becoming tainted (in this codex  a dwarf referes to it as “king of metals”, mirrors were created by polishing metal, and considering how mirrors are made now even if eluvians aren’t entirely made of lyrium some of it may have still been used). Something that could back this up is a small detail seen in Darvaarad in Trespasser; the Qunari had been experimenting with eluvians for some time, take a look at their tools here:

On both tables we can see a few canisters with slits that glow from its contents, much like lyrium chests do.

Foci:

Orbs of ancient elven origin used as receptacles of power and memories. Similar orbs were called Somnaborum in ancient Tevinter. It’s implied each member of the Evanuris had their own foci (or is it focus in singular), and the only one we get to see is the one belonging to Fen’harel.

Similar looking artifacts appear in some ancient elven murals seen throughout Trespasser, one in particular depicts a similar form shown as the core of a slained Titan that is more or less replicated in the hands of an elf much like an orb. Considering we’ve already seen the “heart” of a Titan in The Descent, I wouldn’t say titan hearts and orbs are the exact same thing but it’s possible the Evanuris created their foci from the titans. 

Not much is there about foci, all we get about them is in Inquisition and from Solas, and it all points  to these artifacts being like backups of each Evanuris power; if Solas is any reliable example then Uthenera weakens the elvhen considerably the longer they remain asleep, so these foci may have been used once they awoke to get them back to full power quickly.