We start the zone finding abandoned cages with corpses. 

Nearby, there is a cave that visually explains of what’s going: some people are being kidnapped to be part of experiments. In fact, as we are going to learn later, in many places of Western Approach the Venatori are developing projects, experiments, and excavations, all at the same time, coordinated by Crassius Servis. They are taking people to the templars who infuse them with red lyrium. The place has a device that makes us suspect the use of some Tevinter elements that we will see in The Still Ruin later.

Staring at this configuration, I assumed what’s the intention of some of those elements.  

A thrummer, called that way by official art [here]. I guess by its name that it works like an arcane motor, powering the “injector”.

As a colourful note, beside this device, there is a blood symbol I didn’t find in any other place in game. I have no idea what it is.

The thrummer has an hexagonal thing that I called “battery” because it reminds me to an imitation of Solas’ orb. We know that the elven orbs can be crafted in big amounts since in the Shattered Library we find many of them scattered around, and like I always repeat, Tevinter co-opted [or was taught] a lot of elven elements. They called those orbs as Foci [Dorian’s words]. If this is the case, we know two things about the elven orbs:

First, they store energy. This was said by Solas in Tresspasser when he explains that while he was in his slumber, his orb gathered energy for that millennia, reason why the Conclave exploded: all that energy was suddenly released since he could not unlock it in a safe way due to his weakness.

Second, they augment a person’s powers and spells [Solas’ words after Haven].

We have little information about Tevinter foci, but a codex in Frostback Mountains, during the time of the Ancient Tevinter, hinted that they were crafted in massive scale to be used into the walls of Razikale Reach in order to enhance the potential communication with her. So, if Tevinter correctly immitated the orbs to store energy, we can be more or less confident to consider that they also managed the massive production of foci. So, they could potentially be part of many Tevinter devices. In fact, we see these hexagonal structures with swirls and lines [which are not exactly a fingerprint like the elven orb] in many Tevinter devices. 

Sadly, this is a speculation and so far, the way I justify a bit the elements of this room

The thrummer is connected to the large metallic thing I call “injector” via a “power cord”. The Injector has a lot of red lyrium at its base. We see this object in many places, most of the time filled with red Lyrium, but in the Still Ruin, we see it filled with a green substance that I assume it’s related to the Fade [following the codices of the place, it could be Essence of Fade].  By the position of the injector and the effect we see on the corpse laying on the table, we can assume its function: injects an element into the subject.

The process seems to be enhanced with magic as well since we see a glyph below the victim table. It’s the typical snake-glyph we find in many places, most of the time it’s correlated to Blood magic, which in this context, seems reasonable too. Check General glyphs and magical symbols for more details.

This room alone makes us suspect that the Red Templars, having a small population of Templars, are experimenting with commoners, trying to find a process to transform them into red-lyrium creatures. It’s known that most people die when ingesting lyrium, so they never pass through the transformation that most Templars do. Templars may have a natural resistance due to the usage of common lyrium.

Close to the end of the Chantry Trail Signs we find a researcher of Dragons: Frederic of Serault,  who will inform us, once we killed all the dragons, and we explore the topic in a war table mission, that Dragons are resistant to the  blight, generating cysts that contain it [they are not immune, just resistant]. He also explains to us the mysterious big, black chasm in the region

The big chasm that borders this region and shows patches of poisoned land was caused by the Second Blight when a swarm of darkspwans tainted the land forever.

There is a strong presence of Grey Warden monuments remembering fallen heroic wardens because this region was strongly affected by the Second Blight.  Although this place was initially mostly Tevinter [the great prison Coravacus and The Still Ruin, plus extra small fortresses along the way] many of these buildings were taken by the Grey Warden and repurposed when the blight hit.  

All over the game we find these skeletons, and in this place they are quite common, specially on the poisoned zones. I would like to know if these are normal animals, like wyverns, or they are darkspawn instead. We even found them in Emerald Green [where the dragon is] so I guess it’s not darkspawn. So, what kind of animal it is? It has a strange spike and neck protector that calls my attention: does DA have an animal who naturally has metal parts in their bones? I ask because there are so many characters and elements with a spike on their head/helm that... you know. This could be part of the list as well to understand its influence on the tales. 

Dustytop Fort

Close to the keep we capture, there is a small ruin of a fort called Dustytop.

We can see here the usual ancient Tevinter patterns. The pointy battlements decorated with hexagonal figures and lattices of rhomboids. The Tevinter door frames or arcs seem to have a dwarven inspiration. More details in Tevinter Design and Style [Main post].

Sand Flats

Sand Flats has a small fort that will be involved in the main quest, showing wardens binding themselves to demons. The bridge shows Grey Warden banners, but it displays two metallic Tevinter “golems” that we saw in the Gallows in DA2 [Check Architecture of Kirkwall : Gallows and Lowtown/Darktown]. They had come to life thanks to the presence of red lyrium.

The fort has at its sides gigantic blades or claws, that makes it look like the fortress is resting on a symmetrical clawed hand [I imagine, since it’s Tevinter design, it’s meant to look like resting on a dragon’s paw].  These “claws” will appear in many objects hinting Tevinter intervention [For example, the Sha-Brytol bridges].

These statues are strange in what they depict. Its head is Andraste-like, while in the rest of her body, especially in boots, knees, and chest, it looks like the armour in Mythal’s statues.  From the shoulders several blades protrude, imitating wings. They have two faces, one at the front and the other at the back, holding different weapons. They have four arms in total. I can not avoid noticing the similarities of the statues of Mythal and Andraste with this one. What surprises me is that these ruins were built in a pre-blight time, so there was no way for these Ancient Tevinters to know anything about Andraste, so most of the inspiration may have come from Mythal.

This fort has two codices at the entrance

Ritual Tower which explains that most of these ruins were built before the First Blight, which is when the Tevinter Imperium expanded all over the south. This means that most Tevinter ruins found in the south are pre-blights. There was an intention in this expansion: it allowed them to build places dedicated to experiments; we have as confirmed examples by now Kirkwall in DA2, and The Still Ruins in DAI.

 These "golems", even though are present in this small fortress, can be found n the middle of the desert:

The codex the Gate Guardians talks about a tale created by the artist of these statues: One day, a golem like these appeared to him. It told him that it needed the blood of the earth to survive [lyrium]. The artist simply pointed out in the direction where a mage lived and the statue followed the instructions. We learn here that these golems have a lyrium bar inside just for the sake of this tale. They have no real function in them. But on the other hand, we still remember DA2, and I find it a bit ironic and poetic that this Tevinter artist never saw one of his piece become like the tale he spread around.  

Other places

Close to the Keep taken by Inquisition, surrounding the entrance of the Tevinter Prison Coracavus, there are toxic sulphur pits that fill the air with poisonous gases. They look different to normal sand. To prevent this constant emission of poisonous gas, we can order the Inquisition to construct a device that allows us to cross it safely. And here is where things are a bit annoying to me.

The inquisition builds this

A kind of tank with strong Tevinter design and Tevinter symbols on it. This is a reuse of an asset, sadly.

Almost in the centre of the map we find a beautifully elaborated construction with a magical barrier. This is The Still Ruins that I will cover in another post.

In the south there is a cave partially covered by stone blocks that only when fighting the dragon can be moved.  Around it, we see some dwarven’s pillars falling apart, so this construction must have been dwarven.

Inside we find a dwarven sarcophagus for all the dwarven wardens that died during the Second Blight.

The Ritual Tower

The introduction to this quest is done by heading to the ritual tower, a small construction decorated with Tevinter claws and Tevinter golems.

We find that mage Grey Wardens are sacrificing non-magical Grey Wardens [warriors and rogues]  to bind demons to their own soul. The process is noted visually with a red glow in their eyes or a soft crackling mist of red colour.  

Discussing with the Magister Venatori  we are informed of several things: 

The “false” Calling that the Warden are hearing is Corypehus’s doing and the Venatori were instructed to use it in their benefit.

The process of binding demons to the Grey Warden mages binds the mages’ will to Corypheus, making them his slaves.

They are rising an army of demons with the intention or the excuse to kill all the remaining Archdemons. This desperate measure has been taken due to the false calling, since they feel it’s the end of the Order.

Here is where we see Solas claim that killing all the remaining Old Gods will make things worse.

An interesting piece of information that we are not sure how accurate it is, since this minion Magister may understand the world wrongly: but apparently, Corypheus controls the Blight, it’s part of his tools. But this can be merely the magister misunderstanding Corypheus’ powers.

Reinforcement of the idea that the mark allows you to walk into the Fade. For a strange reason, Corypheus needs to access to the Fade directly in order to claim divinity. It’s not clear what is the element that he is missing for being a true god.

Then, we proceed to reach the famous Adamant Fortress, that we read in Asunder, and that Cole explored in that book as well. 

Adamant Fortress

As we face battle in Adamant Fortress, we see these stones with the mark of the Inquisition? [a mere eye] as objects used against the fortification. This is a mere asset since we can see exact objects in the elven ruins of the Emerald Graves: Din'an Hanin. I’m not going to waste more time on this object. 

The interior of the fortress presents typical Tevinter doors and Tevinter patterns.

As we walk across the fortification to reach the battlements, we find a section with two Andrastian statues: Maferath’s and The Maker’s [which I used to tag as Faceless figure holding a crown until I realised what it represented]. At the bottom of these statues, there is a plaque with the insignia of the Grey Warden.

The fortress has typical Tevinter design: its bridges are decorated with pointy pyramidal structures, octagonal structures with Tevinter patterns, and even griffons, that because  The Still Ruins, Main Chamber and Hall of Silence, I was at first in doubt to consider these griffons as additions of the Grey Warden, but it was a bit confirmed in the codex Adamant Fortress that they were indeed Grey Warden decoration [“..we sealed the fortress's mighty gates. We left the great griffon statues to tarnish in the blowing sand”].

When we reach the centre of the fortress, we see Clarel and part of the procedure they are performing to create this demon army.

There is another direct encounter with Corypheus’ dragon again. Same as Corypheuys, the dragon's texture seems to have piece of metal encrusted in its flesh, and it’s described as Blighted.

His attacks are like balls of the same kind of magic that Corypheus uses or the one that controls the Grey Wardens. This could represent red lyrium or Blight magic for all what we know about Corypheuys and this retconned blighted dragon.

We reach the bridge where we can see these pointy pyramid designs. I tend to associate these structures, for the lack of a better object to compare, with the engraving of the curious metal desk or object we see in rare occasions that depicts a tower I tagged as “pointy tower”. Due to its pointy design, I usually relate it to Tevinter, although, if we remove the pointy ends, it would look more like an elvhen tower. This drawing is still a mystery to me.