#tevinter objects

The Claws of Dumat

Where does this artefact appear? We have seen it four times already: In the Valdasine Thaig in DA2, in different places within the Fade of DAI, in Fairel's tomb in the Hissing Wastes of DAI, and in the DLC The Descent, inside a chamber of the Heidrun Thaig.

In DA2 game

The claws of Dumat appear for the first time in DA2, in the Primeval Thaig's entrance, at the sides of the main corridor that will lead us to the Thaig filled with Red Lyrium. This implies that this Thaig, which has no typical Dwarven decoration of Paragons and the writing on its walls was not traditional Dwarvish, was deeply related to Tevinter. The Thaig was located below the Deep Roads and was built before the First Blight [exact same characteristics than the Heidrun Thaig] .

We learn later that the Dwarves than inhabit this Thaig had strong trade relationships with Tevinter [they gave them lyrium, according to the codex Valdasine], and it is not clear if they were involved in the construction of Emerius [former name of Kirkwall]. The configuration of the Thaig makes us suspect that Tevinter made experiments here. There is a constant pattern along these rooms: blue lyrium, Claws of Dumat, and red lyrium, that makes us speculate that these three elements are related one another: immense source of lyrium that must have been used to feed the Claws of Dumat until the magisters used slave blood, which in the end, corrupted the lyrium and turned it into red one.

As we continue exploring the Thaig we find an interesting and mysterious codex: The profane. We interpreted it in details in the post Primeval Thaig and Red Lyrium : we assumed that these profane may have been dwarven or humans who were abandoned in this Thaig when it was closed, and hungry, started to eat lyrium, the "blood of the gods", becoming through the aeons into the "profane" creatures, that only endure hunger. Hence, they brought the attention of Hunger demons in a place where the Veil was already thin due to the experiments performed with Claws of Dumat. These profane creatures don't look similar to the abominations of the Red Templars, so we could assume that they only consumed blue lyrium and the corruption of it into red lyrium happened later.

As we continue exploring the Thaig, Varric recognises the last chamber as a Dwarven “Vault”, filled with many Claws of Dumat from which the red lyrium grows.  Here, we find a staff called Valdasine, which codex says that before the First Blight,  the Dwarven House called Valdasine provided lyrium to all the Empire. However, one day, they closed the doors of their Thaig and blocked communication with everyone. When the doors opened after a time, it was empty, no bodies were found, and there were no clues of what happened. From a design point of view, clearly the profane and this event must be connected: This thaig is the Valdasine’s Thaig, and the profane are all those families that were trapped here and forced to eat Lyrium. The age seems to coincide roughly: both events happened before the darkspawn existed. It's also worth noting that the presence of a staff implies that this Thaig had mages, since dwarven were unable to use magic. This reinforces the idea that Tevinter had a deep relationship with this Thaig in particular, and Tevinter mages were present here with some purpose [most likely, an experiment that required big amounts of Lyrium]. We have to remember that dwarves and Tevinter mages had shown another similar situation where Tevinter Mages experimented within dwarven Thaigs in Golems of Amgarrak. In it, a Tevinter mage was trying to recreate a fleshy alternative to Caridin's golems, crafting the mysterious Harvester.

In DAI game: The Fade

The second time we see the Claws are in the Fade of DAI. They appear at different times and contexts: In The Raw Fade - Part 1 among statues of the Free Marches eagle, implying a strong relationship of this artefact with Kirkwall. This may reinforce the idea we explored in DA2 in Kirkwall history and design and in particular with the Enigma of Kirkwall : It is likely that Kirkwall was where the breach to the Fade was done centuries ago, through blood sacrifice. This is also reinforced by the codex Claw of Dumat, where we learn that Corypheus trusted that this artefact would allow him to bring back Tevinter to its former glory.

In the section of the Fade that I called "The Tevinter Path" in The Raw Fade - Part 2 we find more Claws, implying that they were used in the process of reaching the gods that had gone silent. This event can be interpreted as the Magisters breaking into the Black City in the Fade physically.

In Flemeth’s Fade – Part 1 , we find another Claw in an intersection, where a statue of the Free Marches is shown in front of some Avvar Keepers of Fear. Again, this seems to represent the tumultuous history of the region of Kirkwall: Tevinter invaded natives of this place to build Emerius with a hidden purpose beyond the mere extraction of stones for the construction of the Imperial Highway [more details in Kirkwall history and design]

In DAI game: Fairel’s tomb

In the Hissing Wastes: Fairel tomb we find a Claw in one of the tombs, implying that the whole story of Fairel may have been related to Tevinter and its magisters as well. This makes sense if we remember that the Fairel were a clan specialised on Runecraft, and this art was used in the construction of Kirkwall. There is also a mention of runes/sigils that can only be seen from the Fade in the Heidrun Thaig in The Descent – The Sacrificial Gates of Segrummar.

The tomb where the claw appears displays a specific fragment of the story of Fairel:

Fairel, Paragon, fled from the strife his brilliance created, the strife that destroyed thaigs, sundered houses, from weapons that clan used against clan. His own clan and his two sons followed Fairel to the pitiless surface, the surface where they would hide from the war that took their home.

As we see, it is related to the exodus of Fairel and its causes: a weapon he developed, which provoked strife and destroyed clans. During this quest in DAI, we learn that this secret weapon is a kind of rune, but the game doesn't give it more importance later [it feels more because the rush of ending the game, than something lore-related]. This is the main reason why I think Fairel’s house, as runecrafters, may have helped magisters to develop Emerius [which is built following glyphs and runes patterns, for more details check Kirkwall history and design]. As a clan alone on the surface, during a time when most dwarves were underground, they may have relied on Tevinter or accepted any deal in order to survive.

There is clearly a link between the Fairel ruins and Corypheus: Corypheus knew about these forgotten ruins when nobody knew they were there, thus he commanded the Venatori to dig them and look for Fairel's particular weapon: a rune.

Also, the presence of Tevinter elements in this tomb must have been brought in the past, during the times of Corypheus when he was a human magister, since these ruins where not known by anyone until now: it was Corypheus who informed the Venatori about them. The Shaperate, the only other institution that may have had this knowledge, never knew about them since they “recorded Fairel as dead” as soon as he left the underground. So I think it’s reasonable to keep supporting the idea that this clan and these ruins were involved with the ancient Tevinters quite deeply.

In DAI game: DLC, the Descent

In The Descent – The Deep Roads we start the exploration of this region with a big Claw in the main room. It is flanked by two elven rounded trees in the dwarven style. This is already telling us that this Thaig, which predates the Blights, had Tevinter presence not only for trade: their blood ritual instruments had been incorporated to the decoration of the chambers of the Thaig Heidrun, built on a lyrium mine and then destroyed by and earthquake caused by unknown reasons [the stir of a woken-up Titan by an unknown event].  .

In front of the claw, there is a table with a game and a Dwarven stone-paintings that belongs to these strange paintings we found in Hissing Wastes: Fairel tomb, where we speculated that maybe represented Kirkwall, or another city Kirkwall-like.

Later, we find more Claws in another room where they are exposed in a way that implies worship. Since it's in here where the Tevinter bird appears, i will talk about this room later, in the Tevinter Bird section down below.

What do we know about the Claws of Dumat?

In the DAI Fade [ The Raw Fade - Part 1] we find an extremely juicy codex explaining about this artefact. The codex is written by Corpyheus’ slave who was sacrificed later. What we learn here is:

It implies that Corypheus has been developing different altars to “bring Tevinter to Glory” [Would that mean that the Tevinter bird is a prototype?].

We are informed that the Old Gods have been silent for a while and that has caused the loss of followers. This has been a source of fear in Corypheus. [This info is confirmed by Corypheus as well during Orlais: Shrine of Dumat]

This slave knows that Corypheus has been meeting with other “priests” to try to find a solution to the decline of the cult to the Old Gods. 

Corypheus took his name around the time the Tevinter Magisters entered the Golden City. So we can assume this is a narration very close to the time in which the Sidereal Magisters stepped into the Fade physically.

Corypheus knew that the old elves were tied to the Fade, and the mortal elves have something of that power in their blood, hence he wanted to use their blood for the ritual of entering the Fade.

The Claw of Dumat supports the victim on its top, with shackles, and seems to drip blood along the statue to a pool with runes. [Could these runes be a creation of Fairel?]

It is implied that Corypheus used little blood magic before the silence of the Old Gods. The loss of god's voice made him fall in despair.

These words were written and reflected/preserved in the Fade at the base of one of these Claws of Dumat we find just after we pass by some Free Marches eagles. Again, the presence of the Free Marches eagles around the Claws of Dumat may be a representation of Kirkwall, but it could also represent another thing, maybe related to the Tevinter bird.

The Tevinter Bird/Dragon

It is a metal statue of something that looks like a bird or a dragon. It could be the “Tevinter” style of the usual Kirkwall eagle, or something else that escapes me completely. If one is careless, these draconic-bird-like statues can be mistakes for Claws of Dumat, but they are not. They share the same style than the Claws: they are Tevinter, made of dark metal, in an angular and pointy shape.

When we compare it with the statue of Mythal dragon shape, we can see some similitude, as if it were the same one but in the pointy “Tevinter” style. Of course, if this were the case, this metallic representation of Mythal lacks of its iconic spike. 

In DA2 game

The first time we see this statue is in DA2, in the Primeval Thaig [read Primeval Thaig and Red Lyrium ], in a Chamber that Varric refers to as a Dwarven Vault but its key claims it to be a crypt. There are veins of red lyrium around these statues and around the Claws of Dumat.

In DAI game: Crestwood Caves

The next appearance is in Crestwood: Flooded Caves, at the entrance of a chamber of a Dwarven ruin.

This place seemed to be important, since it is decorated in this fashion. This entrance even has an illustration in the Book of Inquisition [image above], showing that these statues are placed at the side of the entrance completely on purpose. The position seems to be similar to Mythal statues we find in the elvhenan ruins or Temples.

In that illustration, however, we also see a big mask-face over them, reminding us those faces we saw in dwarven Thaigs in DAO, or in the Avril of Void. These faces always gave me the impression of being unconcious representations of the Titans within the dwarven culture.

Later on, I found a plaque close to this place, in a locked room, that seemed to imply this whole dwarven ruin was a route that connected Aeducan Thaig with Gundaar Thaig [another famous Thaig, and one of the first in falling under the darkspawn threat]. It’s interesting that the name Gundaar appears here, since it’s one of the three Thaigs that the lore considered lost and have been hiding curious developments [the other two are Kal-Sharok and Hormak, for more details read Orzammar, Witch Hunt, and The Horror of Hormak ].

In DAI game: Heidrun Thaig

The last appearance of the Tevinter bird was in DLC: The Descent – The Deep Roads where, despite the lack of information in a codex, we find a curious chamber in the Heidrun Thaig that may provide some insight.

The chamber in question seems to honour four statues: two Claws of Dumat and two Tevinter birds. This could have been a chamber of summoning or enhancing magic, since we know the Claws of Dumat were used with blood sacrifices to empower magic. So even though we don’t know what the Tevinter bird’s function could have been, the presence of the claws makes us infer that it may have been related to blood sacrifices and the process of breaching the Fade.

Another detail that supports this hypothesis is that, in this Thaig, blood magic has been performed long time ago: we meet an Arcane Horror in The Uncharted Abbys, Bastion of the Pure, who still performs blood magic with animal bodies [we find some dead animals that are still warm]. The curious detail is that this chamber has a lot of elvhenan objects: several inukshuk, an eluvian with the same frame that Merril's, and a statue of Humanoid Mythal. In the same chamber we also find one of the Tevinter sacrificial altars, which makes us suspect that Tevinter and Elvhenan knowledge have been fused in this place. That these elements appear in this part of the underground may be related to the fact that the Bastion of the Pure it's where we find the densest amount of lyrium [important component to cast powerful magic].

However, I'm not sure if we can assume this Arcane Horror is an ancient magister of that time. I’m more inclined to think that it is the father of the builder of The Sacrificial Gates of Segrummar, who needed to be in the Fade in order to see the sigil that is present in all this Thaig, apparently. 

Speculations about the Tevinter bird/dragon

The information we have collected in here is rather scarce. We can have a good understanding of the Claws of Dumat, but it's hard to extrapolate all that to the Tevinter bird. So, I developed several hypothesis:

It's a prototype of a Claw of Dumat

According to the codex of the Claws of Dumat, Corypheus had been working on different prototypes, so we can assume this Tevinter bird may have been one of those: a mere prototype. However, if it was so, why would it be present in Valdasine's Thaig? You don't use failed prototypes. Unless its presence, in combination with the Claws, is what makes the claws work.

It's something related to Emerius

Kirkwall always had an iconic metallic statue of an eagle [1, 2]. We can even say that the geometrical symbol of Kirkwall [7] looks like an eagle extending its wings [7] even though the origin of that symbol has a strong resemblance with the original symbol of Emerius: a raising dragon [7].

In the Viscount's Keep, we see different other representations of the eagle [2, 3, 5, 6]. The origin of [3] seems to be [4] which is a symbol closer to the Emerius style than the current, geometrical one, so this design detail tells me that this symbol may have belonged to the time of Emerius. The fact that the claws of Dumat appear in the Fade close to the [1] eagle statues may represent something. Maybe the original rising dragon represented in the Emerius symbol was hidden later in a bird-like figure?

Since the dark metallic eagle represents Kirkwall [or Emerius if we are talking about old times], this draconic/bird statue may be the representation of another city with similar characteristics than Emerius, maybe less important during the time of the Tevinter Empire glory.

This idea is also suggested when we find a Claw of Dumat in the first chamber of DLC: The Descent – The Deep Roads , where we see one of those Dwarven stone-paintings, which is neither the usual painting we saw along DAO, nor the usual one representing Kirkwall in DA2.

There is also a weird "bird" statue that we only see in DA2, that I talked about it in Xenon and his Black Emporium, depicted as a humanoid bird with chains that holds a mask on it. I can't bring a decent, non-conspiracy relationship between them, but it's the only bird-like statue I can think of through all the games. This weird statue appears in many houses of Kirkwall in DA2 [specially noticeable in Danarius house].

It's a Forgotten One which, as a dragon, was taken by the Tevinter interpretation as Dumat [or any other Old God]

In the way it is presented in the Vault of DA2, and considering it has a draconic shape to it, we can even speculate that this statue is a small representation of Dumat himself.

Hence, this statue is attached to big chunks of metal and close to the Claws of Dumat in that Vault as a mere decoration.

I like to play with the thought that it may be Myhtal [as I did in the beginning of this Tevinter Bird section]: I already talked about the speculation of Mythal being of double nature [Evanuris and Forgotten One, that the unreliable oral tradition of the Dalish lore twisted to give it to Fen'Harel, details in Speculations about the Vinyl Art or Dragon Age Iconic Patterns: The Sun], and the Forgotten Ones being dragons that were worshipped by the Elvhenan until they claimed their divinity [read more in Attempt to rebuild Ancient Elvhenan History]. In that moment on, they may have erased the ancient gods turning them into the forgotten ones, who escaped to the Abyss [which is related to the underground, where we know many dragons hibernate]. Therefore, there is a possibility that these forgotten dragons were taken later by the newly arrived humans [the Neomerians] who developed the cult of the Dragons, aka The Old Gods, being completely oblivious of the relationship that these creatures had with the Elvhenan, a civilisation they hated and despised. So that, they took the image of Mythal and considered it Dumat, and for that reason, they used this statue as a decoration to place around the Claws of Dumat.

The con of this interpretation is that it's not clear what kind of Dragon was the real Dumat-Archdemon which desolated the lands during the First Blight: was it truly Mythal? Another fragment of her? or was another Dragon? We already made a lot of speculations about the true Mythal being trapped in the Black City in the post Speculations about the Vinyl Art that makes this current speculation to falter.

Considering this horrible counter-argument, we could assume that maybe this is another Forgotten One that we have no name at all, but again, why would you put it close to the Claws of "Dumat" then?

Conclusion

When entering this zone, Solas explains that this place has a thin Veil product of the battles that happened long time ago: the Exalted March of Dales. So we know we are going to see a mixture of elven ruins and human settlements. 

Scout Harding will inform us that in the area there is a group of rebels who are tired of the War of the Lions, and wants the Dales for themselves.

The first thing we see when we enter this zone are these statues that, design-wise, they are very, very close to the Humanoid Dirthamen/Falon'Din. Humanoid Dirthamen/Falon'Din is a squatted hooded figure, who doesn’t have any object in his hand. This one holds a plate which works as a brazier. In fact, the elven statues are placed in this entrance, but on the Emerald Graves side:

They are called Guardians of the Path, and by the note they trigger, they are Andrastian. Still the striking similarity between these statues and the one we associate with Dirthamen makes me suspect that, once conquered, the Orlesians repurposed the native statues.

The first ruin we find, which surrounds the camp, is an elven one, with a dragon painting on one of its columns.

Besides the path there is a rectangle statue which on its top has a star-shaped fountain with a dove. On a side there is a reused elven/dwarven relic tablet that will trigger the codex Memorials of the Second Exalted March which will be updated as we read all these stones spread in the region. They explain how the “battle” against the elves was happening, mixing Andrastre’s tale with probably bits of History.  It’s very curious how this piece of information depicts the elves as proud and murderous, far away from the Maker and Andraste, which is clearly a lie when we analyse Di’nan Hanin; these Dalish, unlike modern Dalish, had fused Andraste cult into their elven pantheon, not without reason: It had been some decades since they had recovered these lands thanks to Andraste’s promise.

The zone has several ramparts where the imperial army [either side] is trying to retake control from the undead and the demons. Recovering each of these is quite a repetitive task all over the place.

The only important comment about these ramparts is that they give us some idea to understand the function of these Strange Skull-Dragon totem : They seem to hold barriers around pits that allow the dead to rise, and also as columns surrounding zones with many undead or demons. They seem to be related to summoning rituals.

Along the region we find several Andrastian statues and the typical orlesian style in the remnants of the houses that still stand.

Fort Revasan shows the standard elven patterns of any elven ruin. The Orlesian occupation built extra, less durable additions with chess-like floors and decorated wooden elements.

Close to Fort Revasan there is a sealed entrance that requires a war table operation to be solved in order to open. It shows a Fen’Harel statue, guarding the entrance.  It’s a nice detail to see that the base of his statue shows an eluvian-like pattern worth to keep present.

Very far away in the North, over the mountains that surround this region, we see a big Fen’Harel statue observing the Exalted Plains. It’s hard to guess what this zone represented in the time of the Elvhenan [not the Dalish kingdom]. This place has 3 main elvhen ruins: the one in the North Rampart, the Ghilan’nair’s grove, and the Graveyard Var Bellanaris. There are more than these, but they are too destroyed or small. It’s hard to ponder if all of them date of the same time.

At some kilometres of distance from the Fen’Harel’s statue, we see a tower of radical different style. At a single glance, we can see it’s Tevinter. More details of this in the Post about Exalted Plains: Citadelle du Corbeau.

Riverside Garrison is another elven ruin which patterns make it look like Elvhen: flower pattern, square pattern and swirl pattern.

Inside, we find more elements that allows us to suspect this is Elvehan from the time when the Veil did not exist. There is an elaborated tile that we will see in puzzles in the Temple of Mythal, and one of those rounded trees, growing out of it.

With the exception of the rounded tree, the decoration looks like an elvehnan crypt; its style is the same one we found in the crypts of the Temple of Mythal. There are bodies, skeletons and urns everywhere. Of course, DAI has several bodies and skeletons that they use for everything dead, so I won’t focus on the armour or the details of these objects. They are always the same no matter what kind of dead you are looking at: an avvar body, an elven body or a dwarven body.

Close to Revasan Fort, there is a collapsed bridge decorated with a statue of Andraste and a landmark called Pont Agur. It explains with dubious accuracy that after the Exalted March of the Dales some villagers drown trying to cross the river, so the mayor built this bridge and dedicated it to humans and elves too. This started a rumour about the mayor having elven blood, and had to step down. I think this shows how complex was this land after the March; these things [elves and humans in relationships] have been happening since long time ago, as the Tomb of Elandrin shows us with the incident of Red Crossing. For more details read Emerald Graves: Din’an Hanin, Tomb of Elandrin.

Beside Port Agur we find villa Montevelan, where this story of the mayor happened. This was the first human settlement after the Exalted March of the Dales. It’s all destroyed now.

Inside some ramparts we can see big trees that got my attention: I don’t know if they can be considered the original vhenadahl, the trees that the city elves try to grow as a memory of their Dalish roots. These trees can be found in ramparts as well as in the Citadelle du Corbeau. In many times, they show bodies hanging from its branches, so they inspire some murderous sentiment to such an elven symbol [if these tree are supposed to be vhenadahl, I’m just guessing since these can’t be found in other elven ruins, so they seem to be more Dalish than Elvish to me.]

In this rampart in particular, we find a difference in comparison with the rest of the ramparts in the area: there is a small tower which construction date is hard to guess. It could have been built during the Exalted March or a bit earlier.  The entrance is decorated with these enigmatic tablets, depicting the Razikale Ceremony and the Horned warrior holding a sword. We have established they were Tevinter due to their presence in Coracavus and The Still Ruins. Inside the tower we find a Tevinter inspector, Tevinter containers, and minor, decorative Tevinter elements. Inside this tower there is a codex about Legend of the Three Sisters: Book 3, which makes the player aware of how stories change depending on factors such as historical-political situation, countries or censorship. This is yet another call out that the game does to us, players, to not take every single story we read as 100% true. 

It seems that Tevinter mages were present in the Exalted Plains at some point in History and performed some magic or experiments. Considering the Strange Skull-Dragon totem and the undead all over the place, I would be inclined to think that some faction during the Exalted March invited Tevinter mages to provide efforts in the battle. Which is a very odd concept if we remember that it was a war between Elves [many of them coming from families who had fought Tevinter by Andraste’s side to recover their freedom] and the Chantry of that time [which always had some frictions with Tevinter].

I thought in a possibility to explain this Tevinter presence: since many of the elves that fought in the Exalted March belonged to families that had been former slaves of Tevinter mages, some of them could have developed a vast knowledge of Tevinter arcane magic. I have the impression this is more or less proven in the Citadelle du Corbeau, where elves may have installed a Tevinter defence system in an elven ruin. Because of this last fact, I’m a bit inclined to think this is the reason why we find Tevinter elements in this region. However, that doesn’t add up that we find these tablets, which are more related to Tevinter gods and ceremonies than Elven ones. I can imagine elves resorting to Tevinter devices against the Chantry, but hardly performing rituals to Tevinter gods. 

As a conclusion I don’t think we can make a decent explanation of why we find so many Tevinter objects in the ramparts and elven ruin when there is no Tevinter building in the whole region.

We see this rock with an eye in many places of Exalted Plains, usually, but not exclusively, representing the attack of Orlesians [at least in the context of Exalted Plains and Emerald green]. During the main quest, in the attack to Adamant Fortress, it was the Inquisition who used these stones. Clearly a reused asset with little meaning, so I will skip it.

In Victory Rise we find more Elven ruins: we can see the elven patterns of swirls and flowers around this door.  In this place we find the codex of  Legend of the Three Sisters: Book 1. 

In Enavuris [such a name to confuse it so easily with Evanuris] we find a ruin that, after inspection, allows you to follow a quest to look for ancient elven glyphs. The power that the note  The Elven Glyphs talks about ends up being the “Dirthamen’s wisdom”, a strange shield that can be found at the end of the exploration of the Lost Temple of Dirthamen which has an oddly Tevinter look. [See the post related to the Lost Temple of Dirthamen]. It’s hard to understand what each of these symbols that appear in the glyphs mean. Clearly, all of them are secrets, such it is the nature of Dirthamen.  A brief, potential analysis can be found in the post of the Lost Temple of Dirthamen.

In Halin’sulahn we find a very small Dalish clan. They are placed close to a rock which shows the usual painting of a yellow halla, and the one that looks like a battle with many elves on hallas. There is also a statue of a hart. After talking with the Keeper of this clan we are informed about several elven-issues that the War of the Lions has caused.

The encampment shows the typical Dalish symbols: these fences with ragged hides and tree branches paint in red or green on them.

I always like to highlight that the Aravels keep these undulating lines that make me remember the undulating patterns in many, if not all, murals found in DAI. It is also worth remembering that the aravels were prison-ships filled with slaves that sent elves to dwarven cities [check The Horror of Hormak].

In search for those ancient elven glyphs, we explore a zone called Ancient Baths. By its name it seems to be an elven building which allowed baths in the river. Its entrance is decorated with two archer statues, and two wall paintings: the yellow halla, and the black twisted halla with white elves wearing vallaslin [the Dalish “remember” that golden hallas guided The people to places where they needed to be, specially in desperate times. The truth behind that probable is more twisted]. Every time I see these paintings I suspect that this building was meant to be used by slaves.

As we proceed, we find a point where we need to jump off. This chamber, in its configuration [not grandeur], looks like the Temple of Mythal's main chamber where the priest stays in a high place, inaccessible to reach [no stairs in this chamber], looking from above down to the petitioner. 

This section has ancient elven decorative elements: two inuksuit decorated with red swirls and a central squared stone, both elements used for the elven dead. More than half of the ruin has fallen apart but it seems to give an idea that this building was meant to be used to see baths in the river.

As it can be seen, the decoration is ancient elvhen.

As we explore the map, we find this statue which triggers Andruil's Messenger, a codex that produces more confusion than understanding of who is the god behind the owl symbol. There is a painting of a yellow halla beside the statue. Since it is an information given by Gisharel, it may be extremely wrong. The tale almost hides a command: the people, aka the slaved elves, will follow Andruil, she will tell them when to hunt, when to raise hallas, and when to settle down. And for that, she will use an owl. Since we do not truly have better sources confirming that the owl, crow, or raven are Dirthamen’s sacred animal, it’s hard to suspect how much of this tale has been twisted along the Dalish history.

In the open we see more of these four painting together: The row of slaved elves, The Armoured Figure,  The Vallaslin shifting halla, and the black halla with elves wearing vallaslin. All these paintings together seem to speak about elves being capture, alienated [ they have no face nor heart] under the control of a symbol we have seen a lot: the golden ring, and these slaves are related to vallaslin and deformed hallas that shift. For more detail, see the post Nation Art: Elvhen.

Several times in the open we can find these owl statues or the archers. Sometimes even marking a path, as if they were guiding us to some places. Sometimes they are accompanied with the paintings.

The Path of flame, a name designated by the Chantry to this part, looks like the entrance of a bigger elven ruin, which is protected by two big Fen’Harel statues. The landmark we trigger around this area, extremely unreliable, suggests that this place was an elven arena. I hardly believe it, but certainly there is something about gathering many elves and forcing them to walk certain paths [aka, a path to mark slaves? considering the paintings]. The truth is, that the game has showed us two elvhen arenas already: In Emprise du Lion, called currently by orlesians names since the original ones were lost to the ages: Etienne’s Ring and Leontine’s Ring, which are now used by dragons. So, I have to say that despite not trusting this source in the slightest, the Ruined Arches of Exalted Plains have a similar look to those we see in Emprise du Lion. So maybe elves had rings after all but the purpose of them is completely unknown. 

In this zone, we find a solitary statue of Fen’Harel on the waterfall.

Some meters away from it, there is a Shrine to Sylaise, which entrance is decorated in the same fashion than the Ancient Baths: two archers indicating the entrance, and two paintings depicting a yellow halla and a black halla wtih elves wearing vallaslin.

When we enter the temple, we only find crypt-related elements: inuksuit and urns, and a codex of Sylaise is triggered: Sylaise: the Hearthkeeper, which is the usual one we find in DAO, and extremely unreliable.

Inside the temple there is a small corner covered with a barrier, where a body can be found. This body has a valuable historical talisman of the Dales elves, and an ancient elven robe. It's not clear to me how to understand the situation in which we find it.

This talisman belonged to an historical warrior of the Dales, and since we find a Robe that looks like the same one than the Keeper of the Clan we met, I assume this body was an ancient Keeper who wanted to protect that talisman from the shemlen, and made a barrier with themselves inside, or they activated some trap of the small shrine and got caught in it..

Once we return from the Temple of Mythal, we find Leliana telling the Inquisitor that Morrigan chased Kieran into the Eluvian. This scene is completely skipped and we never have access to this Fade if Kieran does not exist. For Lore reasons, I think having Kieran is the richest option

We enter the eluvian, and what we realise immediately is that we are not in the Crossroads that Morrigan showed us before. Instead, we are in a part of the Fade. This shows that powerful mages can force Eluvians to go to the Fade and the final destination of an Eluvian is not precisely determined with its construction. This is telling us that technically, any eluvian can allow us to reach the Fade if you are powerful enough. 

This Fade is more guided that the one in Adamant Fortress. In the moment we enter, we find these mabari-brazier that are so typical of Ferelden, and a statue of a The Guide.

Same as in the previous Fade, there are a lot of Keepers of Fears merger in the landscape. I find this strange, because this space belongs to Flemeth, it’s not a space of a demon of Nightmare or terror. Someone could argue that, since Flemeth may have some relationship with the Chasind, her relationship is being reflected in these statues since Alamarri and Avvar [and likely Chasind too] may share the tradition of the Keepers of Fear. We see several screaming faces, Keepers of Fear, Eroded dragon skull, and a Dwarf with long limbs. The first thing giving us a welcome is a big hand and a table.

This same table has been found in the previous Fade, in the beginning of that space too, like an invitation. Over the table, there are hanged generic dead bodies and two enormous hands: one keeping the strings of the hanged dead, and another from which a pile of keepers of fear emerges. These hands seem to work like the hands we see in the Crossroads of Trespasser, which give support to eluvians or circular tree.

Aside of this configuration, a bit hidden on the ground, Andraste statue’s head.

As we approach the second opening, we see a pair of Keepers of Fear, with heads being burnt, flanking a Sacrificial altar. The figure of a man is towering over them, and in front of these elements, there is a statue of Beheaded ram-man. The whole configuration seems to relate again the concept of sacrifice and fear.

These are the rarest version of the Keepers of Fear. In this case, we see them working: their heads are burning, maybe as a representation of the fear screams being consumed before an Alamarri goes to fight against their fate. The base of these Keepers of Fear have a drawing on it that looks like another creature, screaming.

The Sacrificial altar can be studied with great detail in this part of the Fade. We can see that it has a small platform with decorated patterns and carvings in the metal.

We have seen this human sculpture among Orlesian collections or in Free Marches-themes statues. 

The Beheaded ram-man is erected on a head of a Keepers of Fear. [Fore more detail about this statue, read The Raw Fade:  Part 1 ]

As we keep walking, we find Morrigan beside an enormous Claw of Dumat on one side, and a statue of the Free Marches in front of her. There are many keepers of fears around and above too.

Here, Morrigan explains that to direct the eluvian to the Fade requires immense power, which is absolutely reasonable since Kieran keeps the soul of an archdemon inside him.

Ahead, we find a very curious corridor that got my attention since I saw it. I believe the game is explicitly telling us to relate the andraste’s head with the Ferelden Wyvern through the spike. We know there is a tale in Ferelden Folklore [landmark Fereldan Wyvern Statues] where they connect both in a story that the Chantry does not acknowledges as official. I don’t know what’s the real deal with this Wyvern, but the connections with dragon-like creatures [reptiles] seems to be a pattern in the game. This Wyvern in particular is standing on two Tevinter urns. How this creature relates to Tevinter is also a mystery, but this statue has been seen in ancient Tevinter buildings as well, predating Andraste and Blights.

We step into another Guide under which a small table and chair can be found.

Behind the guide there is a skull with two metallic columns that seems to be Claws of Dumat prototypes. We saw these artefacts in Western Approach: Coracavus;  Records Room, gathered around desks:

Maybe it is an artefact used to study elements, such as heads, or to record information. Still it is hard to guess its function.

When we reach to the next clearing, we find one of these Tevinter devices of several claws, diapason-like, clipped with an “injector”. This device, or at least this combination of clipping is similar to what we saw in Suledin Keep, when we met Imshael. Like in that place, at the base of the device there is red lyrium. Same as in Suledin, the area seems to be related to Horned warrior holding a sword. This is the first time that this element appears in the Fade. It’s placed at the left of the device, on a piece of rock: One on front of the rock, and a smaller version behind it.

At the bridge in front of the frozen gate, the codex The Frozen Gate is triggered, where we are informed that this ice is magical and strong to the point that nothing melts it. This explains why the hakkonites have armour and weapons made of ice. This particular ice is extremely strong. And due to the hint given in the Elvhen Tomb, the game suggests us to relate the entity trapped in the Elvhen Tomb with Hakkon trapped now inside the citadel.

The frozen Gates  was the entrance to a citadel which, apparently, was meant to replace Minrathous when these Tevinters considered that the Empire had fallen [due to the First Blight] according to Tevinter Inscription.

Nobody knows how the Tevinter disappeared, the only two unreliable leads are the Ice-troll tale, which claims that the troll was responsible of this, and according to Kenric [who doesn’t explain why or how he reached this conclusion], the Tevinter entered the gates and never left.

The gate is encrusted on the rock of the mountain. In front of it there is a diapason-like trail artefact that we have seen in Razikale’s Reach it carries arcane energy, or Fade energy from Razikale’s Reach to this point. When we shoot the ice with it, it breaks it a bit of, making possible to cross the door. This shows that only two magics are able to move and destroy this ice: Tevinter magic using these devices, and Hakkonite mages, which knows the “mystery of Winter” [later will be explained, in combination with callbacks to Elvhen Tomb]

The gates are decorated with classical tevinter dragon-gargoyles, and a banner of Koth, which must have been a recent addition since the fortress is under control of the hakkonites. From this side, the door is blocked by the ice, but on the other side, we can see it;

The curious thing is that here, for first time in the game [so far I can tell], we find this peculiar door that has a strong similarity to the Grey Warden symbol of two griffons in a Tevinter style, which has an interesting resemblance to a dragon extending its wings or rising [like Kirkwall/Emerius’ symbol]. I only saw this door design in the concept art of the doors of tevinter ruins, but the symbol is peculiar, specially if we take into account that strange similar symbols have appeared before in Hinterlands: The Unknown Ruin [Mihris]

Inside the gates we find a crater where part of the Tevinter structure is falling apart, and a colossus is crying water. Solas perceives that inside the crater there is a lot of magic coming. I’m not sure if he is perceiving Ameridan's power, or the Hakkonites [trying to release Hakkon] or Hakkon himself. 

Due to the vegetation growing around the ruins, we can suspect the crater was done by the time these Tevinter were established here. Maybe the hypothesis of them disappearing inside this ruin is not wrong.  Maybe they disappeared in the blast of whatever caused this crater.

Here we find another Colossus in the game, the third one, with two spikes in his head which is the main difference with the other two, placed in Hissing Wastes: scattered objects and ruins and in Western Approach: Coracavus;  Front Corridor and South Entrance. For more details read those posts.

As we can see the Tevinter structure has spiky pyramids along its bridge, which is a style we saw already in The Uncharted Abyss,  Forgotten Caverns, in a smaller scale and with extra claws. Once again, it could mean a mere reuse of asset [very likely when it comes to DLCs] or a way to express that these two cultures had some exchange of some kind in ancient times.

Apparently, inside this fortress, we find a Temple of Razikale. The only hint about this is that the game names this door as an old temple, and considering the Razikale theme in all this DLC, it's just obvious to assume this is Razikale's temple.

Inside the temple, we see that the cold doesn't subside.  We find corridors and chambers covered in snow. This makes us suspect that the entity of Hakkon is responsible of this cold. 

In similar style to Coracavus or the Still Ruin, this place has typical Tevinter decorations, with that curious spiky sun, the rhomboid face of what looks like a dragon or an archon, and columns of serpent-dragons eating one after the other. These design will be seen in detail in the post Tevinter Design and Style.

We find more typical Tevinter gargoyles

and a scroll-library.

As a curious element, we find this owl statue which is found in the elven ruins in Trespasser, as well as the War table chamber of Skyhold or in its basement where we find the library of Skyhold.

There are ferelden rugs,

Ram for sieges,

and this object I didn't see before in the game: It looks like a big cup or cylinder decorated with a chained serpent-dragon, and some arrows crossing its wings. It's not clear because it's a complicated shape to follow on a cylinder and in a dark room. I would love to see the game file texture of it with better quality.

We also find these coffins with that lid I called Razikale Ceremony . We see here that they are meant to be used as coffins since we see a skeleton getting out of it.

Part of the chamber is collapsed, probably because Hakkon. I assume this just because the presence of stalagmites on the broken and falling apart 

As we explore the different chambers, we find pieces of the past of how Ameridan entered here with his companions. Thanks to Pages near an Old Campfire we can conclude some things:

 Colette’s theory about the statue of Haron and Orinna in Nigel’s Point seems to have some confirmation with this codex.

This wall of ice, which seems to be caused by the presence of Hakkon himself, can be manipulated by hakkonites. This suggests that the hakkonites learnt “the mystery of winter”, some kind of particular ice magic related to Hakkon [which is related to the Elvhen Tomb too].

Ameridan does a comparison claiming that Hakkon trapped inside this dragon has  similar destruction power than the Archdemon Dumat.

I always feel conflicted when I see banners [in this case, Inquisition banners] in places where they should not be. It confuses me about how much detail in these environments should be taken into account. They could have placed avvar or chasind banners, as a way to show how the hakkonites took control over this citadel.... why the Inquisition’s?

We find these artefacts once more that we could not guess its function in Coracavus. They seems to be always on desks, and in this place, we can have a better guess at their functionality: it may be a device that allows the creation or reading of Veilfire runes.  Along the temple we find Journal of Gurd Harofsen, which basically says:

Gurd Harofsen left his original hold and had a mercenary life for a while. While in Redcliff, he heard the news of his hold being attacked by darkspawn.  Blighted bodies are not touched by the birds in their aerial burials so he knows his people won’t find peace. 

This makes him swear against the Lady of the Skies and Korth, for not sending a warning to them. He loses faith in his main gods.

Apparently Gurd knows of a tale that says that Hakkon was lost to the Avvar because he was “stolen by lowlanders”, and then he speaks of the ancient Hakkonites. He implies that the hakkonites bounded the god into the flesh of a dragon, and this one was stolen by Ameridan.

They found Hakkon inside the fortress. Apparently, Gurd’s mages could manage to work the ice on the entrance a bit to give enough time for the hakkonites to enter. He says that his mages were blessed by “Silent Hakkon”. 

Strangely, Hakkonite mages can’t understand Ameridan’s time magic. It’s hard to guess what we can infer from this, since Avvar mages are so in contact with spirits that I thought it was almost natural for them to understands elven magic, specially rift-magic.

Since Gurd and his hakkonites can’t break Ameridan’s magic, they plan to bind hakkon into another beast: potentially the bear of Stone-Bear Hold.

By the end, Gurd decides to willingly bind Hakkon to himself. [A narrative gesture of taking godhood for himself]

Thanks to Cole we confirm that the Dragon is possessed by Hakkon. Part of the Hakkon's shape can be seen sometimes, crafted with this green energy that always gives the idea of Fade essence. The figure overlaps the dragon.

During the exploration of these chambers, we can hear a song by Gurd Harofsen, which seems to be part of the ritual to draw Hakkon into himself. 

Sing the song of savage Hakkon, born in battle, bloody bladed.

Wintersbreath to wrack the lowlands, cold to cut and kill the hated.

Meet the might of Mountain-Father, crush the creed of Korth the Callow.

Leave the Lady lost and lonely, scour the skies of spirits sallow!

Gurd Harofsen, called The Cutter, wyvern-slayer, lowland-bane

Begs of Hakkon, bring his body bloody blessings, cold and pain!

We find boxes with the symbol of Hakkon/fulmenos in some places.

Finally, we find  Gurd. It’s not clear for me why he is like a Revenant. Probably a reuse of assets to show he has endured a process to let Hakkon take his body. 

Once Gurd is defeated, we can talk to Ameridan, interesting things to keep listed:

He is wearing Dirthamen's vallaslin.

He is casting a strong magic that stops time, but unlike in the The Still Ruin, there is no “hole” in the space. 

We confirm what we had suspected all over the DLC: he was a good friend of Drakon, he was a hunter of demons, Telana was the love of his life.

Apparently, Ameridan bind himself to Hakkon and make both stop in time. I don’t think we have seen any similar magic of this kind in the series, even though we saw two time magics already: Alexius’ necklace and the magic in the Still Ruin. 

But as we saw in the The Ruin Still, time can be stopped, but it catches up with the living creatures: Ameridan turns into ashes instantly when he stops the spell.

So, Hakkon is free, and we go to fight him at the south of the map

 Sanctuary

The Sanctuary is a big chamber of the similar dimensions than the petitioning chamber in the Temple of Mythal.

When we enter we see four Humanoid Mythal statue in the centre. The walls at the sides of the entrance display different enigmatic details: a winged, insectoid halla; an elvhen warrior, a lizardman, and two mosaics: a dual mosaic of Falon'Din in a usual green colour, and Ghilan'nain's mosaic in RED.

The Sanctuary is made of two levels, as most elven temples are: on the lower level there is a pool with elven owl statues, where several altars are arranged in a semi circle. The first floor is collapsed and falling apart, impossible to access to.

Let's see each of these walls and the information they contain:

The lizard man painting shows the note of the dead mercenary that I already spoke about.

The wall beside the lizard displays a red mosaic. This mosaic was such a pain in the neck for me. I could not see it in my game due to the darkness of this Temple, and the screenshots were also too dark. Until I realised the reason of its darkness was because the colour itself: unlike the other mosaics which appear in light green, this one is dark red. I had to take a screenshot blindly and then break its saturation and brightness to make it visible at least. That's the reason of the bad quality image above. On the second image, I overlapped the Ghilan’nain's mosaic, to be sure there were no alterations hidden with the darkness. And as it can be seen, there are none, the only odd thing is that the mosaic is too cut off to frame properly the halla.

Behind this mosaic we find the Path of Secrets, where we find another painting of a lizardman marked by an elven owl statue. The implications that Ghilan’nain is hiding a secret of arcane nature, keeps bringing a lot of connections with The Horror of Hormak.

Along the temple we collect pieces of the codex The Lost Temple of Dirthamen, which explains how a small group of disciples of Dirthamen were informed by their High Priest that Dirthamen was gone. They fear their secrets can be extracted from them, so they despair. Their High Priest tries to comfort them, telling them they are safe as well as their secrets, but they [as disciples of the arts of secrets] can see his deception: apparently, the High Priest wants to perform a ritual using the blood of the disciples to trap them all in this temple [it's our blood he seeks, a sacrifice dark and unholy, a prison of evil to keep us in and all else out]. The next stanza seems to mean that the ritual was meant to remove the secrets that the disciples knew, but they rebelled, performing a counter-ritual in which they dismembered their High Priest and bounded him with them into the dark silence of this temple.  

What I like to highlight here is that there is a repetition of the bounding process all over the game DAI:

It's quite clear that the High Priest and disciples of Dirthamen have a deep knowledge in bounding rituals. They seem to be made out of blood magic as well. 

In the context of DAI, we are presented with another bounding process: the one that the Grey Warden perform via blood magic to raise an army of demons. This knowledge was shared by Corypheus.

That Corypheus knew about it means that he potentially learnt it from elven magic [as we know a lot of Tevinter magical knowledge ended up being a co-opt from elvhen knowledge when the empire was falling apart] 

Recently, in Tevinter Nights: The Horror of Hormak, we have access to information that allows us to speculate that Ghilan’nain was responsible for the magic that transformed creatures into chimeras and bounded creatures with different souls to one body. Therefore, her mosaic in this Temple could potential imply that she also knew the secret of some powerful magic related to a bounding process.

All this means that, potentially, the elvhenan may have always known means to bound people, spirits, and bodies.

So, with all these bits of information and speculations, I like to interpret that, this temple, showing us a dual mosaic of Falon'Din at the entrance of the main chamber where "Dirthamen's wisdom" is hidden could potentially mean that Falon'Din bounded Dirthamen to his own will. This would explain why Dirthamen's favoured animals are blurred with Falon'Din's and why their tales always blend one another. 

Sadly we don't know when this event in the Lost Temple of Dirthamen happened. We know this tragedy was triggered by the disappearance of Dirthamen, which is not clear if it was caused by Solas with the creation of the Veil or before that time. If that were the case, it could also justify the hypothesis that Dirthamen had been bounded to Falon'Din's will long time ago. Why would Falon'Din do that to Dirthamen? Solas told us that Falon'Din’s vanity was enormous, and it was implied that he would take any measure to increase the amount of worshippers [even to challenge Elgar’nan, according to old codices], so maybe acquiring the secrets of Dirthamen could have helped him in that endeavour. However, all this falls in the field of speculation.

Rooms accessible from Sanctuary

Through the Sanctuary we have access to more chambers where we keep collecting the pieces of the High Priest of Dirthamen. Each time we take a piece, we see a Fade-rift effect.

In these extra rooms and corridors, we have access to more chambers that have little difference to all what we have been seeing so far: all funerary, crypt-like chambers behind locked gates.

There are only 2 rooms that have some interesting content, one beside the other:

One of these rooms, called the chamber of torment, is guarded by two sitting Fen’Harel. At their base they have books, an elvhen box, and these white objects with a wing-shaped symbol on it that are presumed to be Vallaslin ink.

The other room is marked with the elven owl statue, where we find the Path of Secrets.

This path is behind the red mosaic: the path of secrets. It’s marked with an elven owl statue. The wall at our right displays the painting of a lizardman.  In front of it, there are inuksuit, including the Red inuksuk. We also see ragged Dalish hide and urns.

If we climb up the stairs, we find another Red inuksuk on the handrail, the Archer statue, and more inuksuit that keep updating the codex of the Lost Temple of Dirthamen. Usually the Archers keep pointing out a place where to go, but in this case they only mark a veilfire brazier. 

Complete the Ritual

Once all the parts of the body are collected we can go to the Sanctuary and place them on the altars.

When we approach the main desk in this ritual configuration, we notice that the desk is made of a dark metal, and has a picture of a pointy tower. Both elements look more like Tevinter style than Elvhen. 

The same object can be found in the Fade, at the sides of the eagles which gives us access to a place with many claws of Dumat and Tevinter objects [For more detail, see the post related to Fade].  

Finally, here we have the last part of Explorers in the Temple (stained notes). It explains that the mercenaries saw Gretien running away from the Temple at night. They assumed it was because the nightmares caused by the “voices”. The same ones he used to dismiss, according to previous notes. Not wanting to waste months of works, the mercenaries attempt to finish the ritual and get money from the treasures in this place. As the codex continues: these mercenaries deciphered Lord Gretien's notes and performed the ritual without him. They also comment that the scholar reached to the conclusion that this ritual was a way to "reassemble" the High Priest. This mercenary clearly is not a specialist in Elven culture, we can agree on that, yet he finds it unsettling that the elves would dismember their own priest. We are seeing a side of ancient elven culture that, curiously, looks like very Tevinter.

Since these notes have dried blood, it is clearly that they performed the ritual, summoned the demons, and got wounded. By the body found beside the entrance to the Sanctuary, we can be sure that most of them perished or escaped to never come back.

Once the ritual is completed, we see a rift appear, summoning the Highest One, who is now a despair demon. I assume the rest of the demons that come with him are the disciples. They mutually bounded themselves to this Temple.

Anyway, once we kill the demons, we have access to the main chamber of this place [the main door is decorated with two Falon'Din's mosaics].

  This room shows the elements of an Elvhen Temple that I was expecting:  golden elvhen patterns on the door frames and walls, beige mosaics, gigantic imposing golden statues, in this case of a pair of Howling Fen'Harel [I had to modify the brightness of some images to make them a little more visible at the expense of making them look uglier]. There are more inuksuit around [which makes sense if we think in what Solas told us about Falon'Din: He would massacre a lot of people in wars to increase his worshippers out of vanity, so his Temple may look more like crypts. At this point I keep wondering why this temple is called "of Dirthamen". Nothing here makes reference to him, but everything seems related to Falon’Din.

These statues are made of gold. It's strange that the main chamber of the Temple of Dirthamen [or Falon'Din] has central figures of wolves. Would that mean that there are more wolves in the elvhen pantheon than Fen'Harel?

Where the loot lays there is a bigger mosaic on the floor, displaying a sun, surrounded by circles and its centre has a similar asterik-shape to that one found in the Mural of the titans. As if this were the representation of an elven-orb or a titan's heart.

In a corner we find a book with a cover I don't think has much of interest. We find an elvhen box and that strange white item that apparently it's ink, according to the game files.  We also find some Dalish elements [the fence made of hide] that may have belonged to some ancient Dalish explorers.

The loot is a shield called Dirthamen's Wisdom, what the scholar Gretien was looking for. It has a very Tevinter style, and its description says that the power contained in this shield is so great that prevented the item and the temple from falling apart due to decay. This implies that the Temple will fall soon after we remove this item from here.

The loot is a box with a symbol we had seen in the elven funerary lid.

The Lost Temple of Dirthamen: Part 1 - Part 2

In this opportunity we revisit the Winter Palace. It is as excessive as any Orlesian place where we see the typical Orlesian elements: golden structures, andrastian statues, careful work of plants, unique blue-based tiles on the floor, and door frames and windows in the shape of Eluvians.

The Lion symbol repeats in many ways, as a constant reminder of the Valmont Falmily. 

Pieces of art with boring codices, sculptures, and a list of mundane intrigue and long lineages with story.

All over the place we will find chapters of Hard in Hightown, conspiracy theory considerations, and gossips in written form. All of them quite boring to read in my opinion. The most interesting one is the group of nobles thinking about reptilians and such, but everything feels like a continuation of Trader Helsdim [Frostback Basin [DLC]: Stone-Bear Hold Avvars], the avvar trader who has been visiting Val Royeaux for a while and may have spread these conspiracies, or maybe he took them from here. 

As small details, there is a chess-based board game where the pieces are made in Orlesian design in white and gold, and in Tevinter design, black and pointy ones.

Among the Tevinter ones, we find artefacts we have seen before: one of those “diapason” with three claws upside down, torches, and a Tevinter artefact with spikes playing as the equivalent of King/Queen.

We find a reuse of this fountain of four lions that was dedicated to the Valmont family who removed Drakon from the throne. Now, apparently, is dedicated to the Inquisitor, lol.

There are andrastian sculptures combined with these pillars that were part of the Chantry sigil trail.

The stores around the Palace have nice signs that I din’t see before, for example this one which form I can’t make out.

Or this Giant’s head, which was only seen in the abandoned tavern dam in Crestwood.

The tavern of the Winter Palace has little to offer. It has several head-trophies on its wall, which work more like eastern eggs, and some minimal decorations of Orlesian design, such as the floor tiles, carpets, and lamp decoration. We find a codex about drinks. Nothing of relevance lore-wise.

We can see with more details how the decoration is a combination of gold, blue, and marble. The Face that represents Andraste is always present in Orlesian patterns.

The public baths have more andrastian figures.

In the section of the ambassadors, we find a corner decorated with Ferelden banners where we know Teagan is waiting.

There is another section where more Orlesian icons are presented: the golden lion that represents Celene’s family, a bust of Celene, and a yellow rug I didn’t see before. 

The towers of the Winter Palace are decorated with marble, gold and blue.

It’s interesting to see once more how Orlesian art is inspired in Elvhen one: the spikes over this bell resemble the pattern we see on the basement of any elvhen statue.

It’s a nice detail to see how the breach left a scar in the sky.

When the inquisitor speaks with the representatives of the nations, Teagan makes explicit his worry about the existence of the Inquisition.

Orlais, of course, wants the inquisition to be under its command, and tries to play its game to give false reassurances.

The council starts

As the council starts, we read about the political concern of the factions. Nothing too elaborated but reasonable.

During that discussion, the Divine wants to speak with the Inquisitor, revealing that a dead qunari has appeared out of nowhere.

Along the corridors of the Redcliffe Castle, we find andrastian statues such as maferath crying on the sword [1], andraste variations [1], the Man holding bigger head [2], Tevinter diapason-like artefacts [3], and alamarri mabaris clipped with skulls [4,5]

Avvar heads [1], Tevinter banenrs with glyphs [2], strange clipping combinations of different assets to pretend to create a new one [3], sacrificial altars [3,5,6], dragon gargoyles [4], more Tevinter artefacts [7] and classic keepers of fear [8].

More artefacts appear by the end of the castle: upside-down artefact of Temple of Dumat  [1], torture devices [2], more avvar heads or Eroded dragon skull [3], Maferath statues and Keepers of Fear [4], Andraste in Ferelden style [5] and Free Marches statues with alamarri mabaris clipped with skulls [6].

I found it curios that this universe is an abomination in Solas’ opinion, so I guess he has in mind something different for the future of Thedas when he destroys the Veil.

Trying to reach the outside of the castle, we see more of these strange clipped statues and in the darkest corner, we see the unusual statue of Beheaded ram-man.

Some rooms display Andraste iconography of her life and more Ferelden items. In this case, they display Templar rugs. Rugs are something to question, since we keep seeing Inquisition rugs and carpets in places where there is no way they could be there. So in general, my conclusion about rugs is not to pay them too much attention, so maybe I may have done a mistake in Emerald Graves: Din'an Hanin with doing such a extreme analysis over a damned rug, lol.

We find the codex A prayer, where we are again suggested to connect darkness with Blight. There is an implication that the Old Gods were gods at some point, but not anymore, and the Maker was always invented. One can suspect this prayer is based on Corypheus’ knowledge shared to his subjects.

The art of clipping artefacts: diapason-like artefacts in combination with a sacrificial altar and some red lyrium. In this room there are Tevinter urns too.

We see again Man holding bigger head statue and two stylised dogs, both Orlesian statues.

Here we find an angry Leliana, changed and transformed due to the torture. We learn she is also immune [or resistant] to Red Lyrium, like Seekers are. This implies lore-wise that Leliana may have been touched by a spirit at some point in her life. 

Once more, we have another character in DA series who speaks this line so similar to Flemeth/Myhtal: “I’ve suffered, the whole world suffered. It was real”

Red Lyrium

When we meet Fiona, we see she is half  a vein of red lyrium. Later, we see Templar in similar ways along the castle. A creature become a vein of red lyrium  just by exposure. This implies that the spread of the Red Lyrium has doom connotations. So far, we don’t know how to rend it inert, and it infects by mere exposure, living creatures as well as objects. It’s a disease even worse than the Blight which can be contained if living creatures are blocked from an area.

We are given several bits of info about the nature of the red lyrium. Dorian question if it’s a disease as the Blight, that only affects living creatures. This red lyrium seems to affect things and objects as well, growing out of them.

Exterior

Now, having the interpretation of this statue of the Faceless figure holding a crown  as the Maker, makes this cinematic angle even more dramatic, with a gigantic Andraste, shattered, trying to reach down to the Maker.

Solas informs us that there is no Veil in this world, so all the non-physical situations we are seeing, the nonsense of the statues in the corridors seem to be justified. 

Now without Veil, we make sense of the mixed sculptures we saw in the corridors, reflection and reality overlapping each other. As we go up looking for Alexius, we keep seeing strange statues, like Keepers of fear

We reach to a place where we can explore more corridors heading to Alexis. This particular set seems to be carefully done to imply something:  The Maker with red Lyrium, the Andraste warrior, the Blocky bearded humanoid [which seems to be in the shadows] and this Adonis human statue.

We head to Suledin Keep, where the demon Imshael is working on his red lyrium garden. The entrance to the path towards this keep looks like a warning: full of red lyrium with more owl statues: the animal of Dirthamen/Falon’Din or maybe the messenger of Andruil, at this point in the game, we are not completely sure what God they exactly represent. Apparently, the owl statues have been guiding the player along the region to reach this Keep. 

The entrance has a frame door with the same shape that the Gate to the temple of Myhtal.

As we climb the stairs and gain height in this ruin, we find several more statues. Hart statues, owl statues, and Archers, all of them pointing out towards the path to the courtyard of the keep. There is a codex called Suledin Keep Documents that talks about several things, but mostly about Imshael, summarised in the following list:

Imshael has been sent to overseer the red lyrium growth, like a gardener. He supports the red templar's cause [although personally I think he supports the possibilities to give ironic “choices” to those who take red lyrium in general, according to his personality in the book The Masked Empire] However, these templars will see him as a human supporting them. They clearly don't know he is a demon.

Another excerpt explains how much pain the red templars endure during the transformation and how this process may cause them moral conflicts. Apparently, Imshael can revert the process for a high price [exactly as he behaved in the book, he likes to force situations in which he can offer terrible hard options to his victims, and their choices, specially the cruellest or the most ironic ones, give him pleasure.]

A templar questions why they need to be in Emprise du Lion if red lyrium can grow everywhere. He is shut up by his general saying that Corypheus believes that he composition of the earth in this place will make red lyrium grow more rapidly and abundantly. [Personally I find it strange. What could possibly make red lyrium grow faster here? Blood? Bodies? Is this terrain covered in elven bodies due to the fights against humans during the Dales? Or is it about older bodies, from the time of the Evanuris, who asked too many sacrifices, as it was, potentially, hinted with the tower of bones? Or this is related to the line we read in DAO and DA2 about “The Stone lives beneath Orlais”, meaning that under Orlais there is some titan or titan-related element that would allow red lyrium to grow in better conditions?]

A survivor templar of Kirkwall who saw meredith die celebrates the fact that they are alive when they draw power from the red lyrium when Meredith died doing so with her sword. This narrator explains that slow administration of red lyrium allows a progressive transformation without infusing the madness that took Meredith’s mind. Imshael  is the key for this process: he knows how to cultivate and supply red lyrium. In any case, via codices and notes we know that red lyrium is easier to control with cold as well. And we also know this place has never been this frost, so this weather has to be a product of magic of the red templars/Imshael to make red lyrium grow at the exact pace, and therefore have more controlled transformations

During the exploration of the keep we see vast extensions of garden/forest inside, marked with three different types of statues which guide our path most of the time: the owls and archers, while a colossus Fen’Harel's statue always seems to watch over.

Sometimes, statues of harts appear but I’m not sure what they indicate.

The archers indicate to enter to a part of the keep where we see a lot of barrels that I suppose, are the ones referred in Work Orders.

This place seems to be a kind of storage of these barrels. If we explore this part deeper, we see a corridor with these well known lids: Razikale Ceremony and Horned warrior holding a sword. Three potential explanations come to me:

These lids are new, they were not part of the keep, and are related to Imshael and the process that makes red lyrium grow. I think this interpretation is unlikely because these lids seem to be embedded into the old building, encrusted in the wall. They don’t look new. 

They belong to the ancient building, and were part of the elven rituals. Which is also strange, since these images have been appearing in places strongly related to Tevinter. 

Co-opted, this elvhenan ruin was modified and repurposed by ancient Tevinter to fulfil their own agenda in the region. This option is also unlikely, since this keep doesn’t have the presence of many Tevinter objects aside these to assume it was co-opted at some point in history.

Conclusion: It’s a mystery to understand why these objects are here, if we are correct in understanding them as Tevinter. Recently, I had my doubts, and I started to suspect they are originally Elvhenan, even though its style is very different to the rest of the elvhenan objects we saw so far [For more details, read the post about Hissing Wastes: Fairel tomb]. 

As we get closer to the main courtyard, we keep being guided by the usual four statues: Harts, sitting Fen’Harel statues, Archer statues and owl statues. With the exception of the hart, the rest have been used in the Elven Ruins of the DLC Tresspasser.

Close to the main courtyard we find felandaris plants, meaning that the Veil in this place is quite thin.

In this place we find where, I suppose, the transformation of miners and villagers happens or/and the controlled growth of Red Lyrium for templar transformations is cultivated. Or both. We see in the middle of this courtyard that device I called "injector" in Western Approach: the open,  hovering over a base surrounded by many "diapason" instruments that, thanks to Jaws of Hakkon, we know they redirect energy.  This object has red lyrium inside, and at the corners, we find these devices that we saw in the Fade and triggered the codex called "temple of Dumat" [reason why I call them as such]. The whole configuration makes me suspect that the injector channel energy to the central part of this configuration and the “diapason” instruments divide it and spread it to the rest in the corners, feeding the red Lyrium in the middle of them.

We find more "temple of Dumat” devices in places where there is no red lyrium growing.

Here is where Imshael awaits us. It's quite curious that his skin design looks similar to Anders’. I don't know if this was intentional or not, there is nothing in the information and the presentation of the quests that make us suspect anything related to him [Even though we know through the concept art that the appearance of Anders has been planed at some point, but it never made it into the game. Maybe the production of his body was not wasted and used in Imshael instead]. When we talk to him, he proceeds as usual, proposing a deal with a choice.

When we fight him, he changes his shape several times. During his transformation we are hinted once more how complex is "Choice", he is not a desire demon [as he says and as it was explained in the book The Masked Empire as well]. There is a bit of terror, rage, and pride in it, pretty similar to the spirit of Regret in the book Tevinter Nights [these spirits are a lot more complex than the ones we have been seeing in the games].  

When we kill him, we can loot  March of the Everlasting, a shield with clearly elvhenan patterns on it [we find the swirls and the circle designs] but has a pyramid in the middle that breaks its elven style. This detail is not missed by its description which says via a really unreliable tone that this shield may have been forged in Arlathan, but Tevinter modified it and, during the Exalted March, the orlesian circle re-enchanted it to give it to Chevaliers. As we can notice in this detail, elven elements are constantly being reused and reshaped by Tevinter and Orlais.  [This shield design is not unique, however, and has been used in other items, so I don’t think we have to read too much into it, to be honest.]

Before reclaiming the keep, we find a dying templar who may have been the same one who wrote that excerpt in Suledin Keep Documents  about questioning his choice of becoming a red templar and wanting Imshael to revert it, no matter the cost. He repeats again that imshael's role in this place was to be a gardener of red lyrium to control the change, not to make it grow too fast nor too slow. He says that Imshael may have been able to remove the red lyrium, but his price was apparently too high for this templar, and his choice was the red.

When we take the keep, we leave a responsible orlesian Baron in charge of the zone as a representative of the Inquisition.  A codex of Trading with Kal-Sharok triggers here, bringing us a bit of information of a very, very mysterious thaig again: written by a merchant-scholar in a contemporary time, it makes interesting remarks:

Kal- sharok has been isolated, and remains isolated for a reason different than fear. Still yet, they are very aware of the current state of the world and the surface trade.

They have trade contacts with Orlais and Free Marches, and their wares could be extremely new or relics.

These dwarves remain hooded during the deals.

The presence of these dwarves cause uneasiness, and the narrator suspects it's because these dwarves are blighted. Therefore, it’s highly hinted that Kal-Sharok dwarves are blighted but have developed some resistance that allows them to keep their mind in control.

After cleaning the red lyrium, the Keep changes its decoration to a more Orlesian one: we have the usual orlesian Andraste statue, some decorative clocks held in place by two female figures, and a knelt statue that has been called as the “Guardian of the Path” in the Exalted Plains. The ancient elven owl statues remain.

As it can be seen from height, this keep is massive and very forest-like.

Once the templar operation in the region is finished, we can talk to the major and  judge her. 

When we return to Emprise Du Lion after doing Varric’s quest, we find Bianca and a tranquil researcher called Felim studying Tevinter artefacts while exchanging some extra information about the gravity of the red Lyrium spread. This post has compiled the information much more easily.

On two tables, they have several Tevinter artefacts that, with the exception of one [the thrummer] we can’t guess their function yet. They are dismantling a thrummer, so we can see its inside which seems to be filled with red lyrium.

From the conversation that Bianca has with this tranquil we can assume or infer some details:

Bianca: If the red lyrium is alive… Felim: We have no reason to doubt our source. B: All we have to do is make it not alive. F: Say “kill it”. It is more precise. B: Fine. Kill it. F: That may be impossible.

I think this confirms to me that Bianca is not the one who came up with the concept of red lyrium being normal lyrium but infected with blight. Felim says that the information of lyrium being alive comes from a source that they have no reason to doubt. So who is the original researcher who came up with these hypothesis? The rest of the information in this part is all potential, conditional, and speculation. There is no certainty in what they talk about. 

F: I have looked over the reports. The red lyrium veins are well-established. Given the size of the field, We have a 0.0014% chance of eliminating all of it. B: Even if we dig down? F: Digging taken into consideration, shards will likely remain. B: So long as there’s no one for it to infect… F: There is life in the ground. Molds. Earthworms. B: The growth will be much slower. F: But still inevitable.

There is no certainty in this conversation, we can see the dire situation that red lyrium represents.

B: Fire? What if we scorched the earth? Mages maybe? F: We have not yet fully researched the properties of red lyrium ash. If fire does not render it inert, dispersal by air may have disastrous consequences. B: I hate you right now.

Again, there is no certainty, but there is a potential risk of spreading red lyrium through ashes if it doesn’t get inert after being burnt.

F: I would suggest shorter shifts for the workers. B: Why? F: Reports of strange music have been increasing. B: Already? Maker.

This is another effect that Varric told us about: the researchers, as they are exposed to the Red Lyrium, became able to hear its song. What it seems here is that this effect is getting stronger, and the study of red lyrium needs less time of exposure than before to be perceived. With this comment, one has the feeling that red lyrium is getting stronger.