#tevitner design

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.