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[Obadiah]

It think the plot called for the lyrium to be different, but the dialog and levels were developed separately and concurrently. That's why no one ever says the obvious, "Red lyrium."

Modifié par Obadiah, 14 avril 2011 - 01:03 .

[nightscrawl]

Well here is some grasping at straws for you fine folks...

Since most of this thread seems to be concerned with color, I decided to just go look at the color of the various known lyrium sources.

Lyrium Dust - red or dark pink
Lyrium Sand - purple
Lyrium Vein - blue/turquoise
Lyrium potions - blue

Given the color changes from the raw vein(, liquid(, sand(p), and dust® you can suggest that over time natural forces of pressure act on the lyrium, changing the color as well as consistency. Although how you get from red dust to blue potions is beyond me...

It also may very well be as Ksandor suggests that red is the color of danger/evil, but I disagree that it's the lazy or non-artistic way to do things. Artists use tools like color to bring in meaning and evoke emotion without having to state their purpose. Symbolism can be a powerful thing, if used well.

That particular lyrium is very recognizable, so when you see Meredith's shiny new sword, you know what it is. If it was a more standard color, you might think that her sword was made of any sort of standard treated metal.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 14 avril 2011 - 01:33 .

[Urazz]

Koyasha wrote...
In DA2, lyrium is again treated significantly differently in gameplay than in lore.  The lore states that only dwarves (and perhaps tranquil?) can mine and handle raw lyrium safely, and that even surface dwarves lose their ability to do this.  But we find deposits of lyrium throughout the Kirkwall area that are presumably being used by our suppliers to craft the things we order.

Then we have the idol itself: if red lyrium is some sort of highly unusual or perhaps even unique thing, that only exists within the Primeval Thaig, how is it that Hawke and Varric instantly recognize that the idol is made of lyrium, if it is made of some new and unique type of lyrium?  Wouldn't there be a 'but...it's red...' line there somewhere?  For that matter, why would Hawke reach out and grab it?  Does she not know raw lyrium is deadly poison to humans even to the touch?  Is she just being foolhardy in expecting to pass it off to Bartrand immediately without ill effects, rather than simply allowing Varric and Bartrand to be the ones to handle the thing?  Or is this another case of what we see not quite matching up to how the lore says it's supposed to be?

At this point, I don't know if the conclusion that 'red lyrium' is distinct from normal lyrium is the right one to come to.  I don't know if we should be speculating about the effects of 'red lyrium' at all, given that it seems entirely possible such a thing is not even meant to exist, story-wise.

If at all possible, it'd be nice to get some absolute confirmation on whether 'red lyrium' is actually intended to be distinct or not so we can direct our speculation correctly?

Edit: Removed a line which was incorrect, after having replayed that scene: Varric does make a comment stating "doesn't look like any kind of lyrium I've ever seen" in reference to the idol.  Still no reference to the color, however.  The idol may itself be a unique type of lyrium, or perhaps the result of a unique refinement process - or it may not even be lyrium at all, and that's just pure speculation by the characters.

My guess is that the Idol wasn't raw lyrium and so it's effect was lessened and handling it for like a second like Hawke did, causes no harm.

[Beerfish]

Red Lyrium = the blood of the old gods, that's why it is so tasty to the rock critters (who's name escapes me at the moment.)

[graavigala85]

David Gaider wrote...

Koyasha wrote...
If at all possible, it'd be nice to get some absolute confirmation on whether 'red lyrium' is actually intended to be distinct or not so we can direct our speculation correctly?

The lyrium in the Primeval Thaig is absolutely different from lyrium you would normally expect to see, yes.

Thats like saying to a kid who asks why the sky is blue that the sky is blue because the color blue IS blue...

[Girl on a Rock]

graavigala85 wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Koyasha wrote...
If at all possible, it'd be nice to get some absolute confirmation on whether 'red lyrium' is actually intended to be distinct or not so we can direct our speculation correctly?

The lyrium in the Primeval Thaig is absolutely different from lyrium you would normally expect to see, yes.

Thats like saying to a kid who asks why the sky is blue that the sky is blue because the color blue IS blue...

LOL - well, it also clears up that the red PT lyrium is actually distinct from lyrium we've seen in the past by design, and it's not just a continuity error.

[Edge2177]

What I find interesting is a series of things.

First the dwarves turned that Thaig into a religion. They worshipped the lyrium as a god, and heard it's voice, just like Varric's brother.

Second, we see two different things. First, we see the dwarves eating the red lyrium, which likely is how they changed to what they are now.

Third, Bartrand feeds the idol to people, and feeds PEOPLE to the idol. He even said, that Meredith won't feed it like he did.

Fourth, the Idol's appearance is not very unlike Meredith's final 'shape' when she burns out at the end.

[Obadiah]

Edge2177 wrote...
...
Fourth, the Idol's appearance is not very unlike Meredith's final 'shape' when she burns out at the end.

Assume that what happens to Meredith at the end of final battle is what usually happes to people that come into continuous contact or ingest enough of the lyrium. This means that this may have happened to the Primeval Thaig dwarf leaders while their followers watched.

Thus the idol may simply have been sculpted by the followers to reflect the final state of their leaders.

Modifié par Obadiah, 14 avril 2011 - 05:46 .

[Ieolus]

If red lyrium is anything like red kryptonite (on Smallville atleast), it doesn't kill the target but changes their personality so they lose all sense of right and wrong. Sound a bit like Meredith?

[DamnThoseDisplayNames]

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreenRocks
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tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotHole
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dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Lyrium_Idol

[Blacklash93]

Am i the only one who sees blood veins when I look at the red lyrium?

It's red, obviously, but the way the lyrium branches off is just like blood veins as well.

Modifié par Blacklash93, 14 avril 2011 - 07:58 .

[Maria Caliban]

I see blood veins as well. I also noticed that red veins will sometimes now flash on the orge as you fight them.

[whykikyouwhy]

Ieolus wrote...

If red lyrium is anything like red kryptonite (on Smallville atleast), it doesn't kill the target but changes their personality so they lose all sense of right and wrong. Sound a bit like Meredith?

Red kryptonite in the comics (well, the comics from the 70's and 80's...I lost touch with Mr. Blue and Red in the 90's, now that I have shown my age) would do all sorts of weird things to Superman - cause him to lose one of his senses, grow a third eye, etc. It was sort of the grab-bag for oddities that did not include absolute loss of power or death. And blue kryptonite would harm Bizarro Superman.

If we start seeing white, green, jeweled and gold lyrium, there might be something to the kryptonite parallel. And then we'll have one more pop culture crossover.

I think the truly interesting thing about the lyrium relic though is the sentience of it, or the perceived sentience. Bartrand, in his dementia, thought it worthy of worship and heard it (or something caused by its presence) talking to him. Meredith seemed to think that the relic crafted/infused sword put her closer to the Maker (in my first playthrough, the final battle was a bit lengthy, and I had 3 segments of Meredith stunning the party and then having some chat with the Maker, or the sword, or both).

[Mnemnosyne]

It didn't seem like Meredith was directly conversing with the sword or thought there was someone there to talk to, she was simply asking the Maker for help, essentially.  I don't recall any indication that she felt she was receiving an auditory response.

As to the stuff itself, now that we know that it is definitely different than lyrium elsewhere, a couple of big questions pop up for me.  Although I doubt there's any information to answer them.  One is, of course, why is the lyrium in the primeval thaig different?  Is it naturally different, or is that due to something the ancient dwarves did there that caused it to change?  The other would be whether there's any other places where there's lyrium of this sort.

I'd also be curious to learn just how far away the primeval thaig is from Kirkwall.  We never got exact numbers for how long it actually took the expedition to get there, but we did get the number 'two weeks below the surface' commented a couple times - but we don't know how much of that travel was in a straight line, or turning in a relatively confined area.  We also don't know how much of it was downwards travel.  If it is physically nearby, the presence of this unusual lyrium may tie into the experiments the Tevinter Imperium was running in Kirkwall.  They may not even have known of the possible presence of the thaig somewhere beneath the Free Marches, but something about the place may cause an effect on the surface that they noticed, without understanding its source.

Another thing to keep in mind is that normal lyrium also 'sings'.  From the Codex entry on Lyrium: "For in its raw form, lyrium sings, and the discerning can hear the sound even through solid rock."  So 'singing' is not a unique feature of the lyrium from the primeval thaig, although the effects of this singing seem to be different.

[Obadiah]

Koyasha wrote...
...
Another thing to keep in mind is that normal lyrium also 'sings'.  From the Codex entry on Lyrium: "For in its raw form, lyrium sings, and the discerning can hear the sound even through solid rock."  So 'singing' is not a unique feature of the lyrium from the primeval thaig, although the effects of this singing seem to be different.

Hmmm... the Crosscut Drifters did say the stone would "sing" when they tapped it in the deep roads while they were looking for a lyrium vein.

[Elessie]

Koyasha wrote...

It didn't seem like Meredith was directly conversing with the sword or thought there was someone there to talk to, she was simply asking the Maker for help, essentially.  I don't recall any indication that she felt she was receiving an auditory response.

There is a rumor about her speaking to it.  The barkeep says: "There was a templar in here yesterday.  Says Meredith's been spending more and more time alone in her office.  And if you walk by, it sounds like she's talking to herself.  Strange, huh?"

While her talking to it doesn't necessarily mean she is also hearing voices like the dwarves did, I thought it was likely.

[Steve236]

While blue "normal" Lyrium only seems to help people with magic and poisons anyone else. The red one instead seems to be much more potent i mean it gave Meredith powers to cause statue to come alive! cant imagine what a mage could do with it.

[whykikyouwhy]

Steve236 wrote...

While blue "normal" Lyrium only seems to help people with magic and poisons anyone else. The red one instead seems to be much more potent i mean it gave Meredith powers to cause statue to come alive! cant imagine what a mage could do with it.

While not exactly a mage, Sandal can turn a chunk of the reddish lyrium idol into a kick*ss rune. Maybe, just maybe, the true effects/benefits/power of anything made with the red stuff is due in part to who is doing the crafting. So, a benevelolent crafter yields an item that aids, whereas a crafter will ill intent yields an item that eats away at the soul. It's all about intention. (And maybe the One Ring was really made of reddish gold.)

[berelinde]

Has to be red lyrium. Red is the new brown.

I kid, I kid.

[Rifneno]

whykikyouwhy wrote...

Red kryptonite in the comics (well, the comics from the 70's and 80's...I lost touch with Mr. Blue and Red in the 90's, now that I have shown my age) would do all sorts of weird things to Superman - cause him to lose one of his senses, grow a third eye, etc. It was sort of the grab-bag for oddities that did not include absolute loss of power or death. And blue kryptonite would harm Bizarro Superman.

If we start seeing white, green, jeweled and gold lyrium, there might be something to the kryptonite parallel. And then we'll have one more pop culture crossover.

Agreed, I don't think we've got a kryptonite reference on our hands with only two colors.  I loved the movies and non-animated TV series, but I was never into comics or animations so I didn't know how many types there were I didn't know about...  according to wikipedia, these are all different types of kryptonite: green, red, blue, gold, black, white, silver, orange, jewel, anti-, x-, slow, magno, bizarro red, kryptonite-x, pink, gemstone, hybrid-k.  Holy crap.  That's 18 distinct types.  Poor Supes, it's a wonder he can get to the corner market without exploding.

Elessie wrote...

While her talking to it doesn't necessarily mean she is also hearing voices like the dwarves did, I thought it was likely.

Interesting!  I hadn't heard about that line before.  That seems to further indicate that the idol was somehow sentient.  Although I can't help but feel this is a little too close to aspects of ME.  Usually I hate when people complain about similarities in stories because most people that never do creative writing don't understand it's pretty much impossible to come up with anything that isn't at least similar to someone else's work.  But this is very similar to another story being developed at the same time by the same company.  Could be worse I suppose, I'd rather see one great idea used twice than two medicore ones used once.

Steve236 wrote...

While blue "normal" Lyrium only seems to help people with magic and poisons anyone else. The red one instead seems to be much more potent i mean it gave Meredith powers to cause statue to come alive! cant imagine what a mage could do with it.

On the contrary, normal lyrium certainly does poison mages.  The potions we use are distilled for consumption.  As is the lyrium that templars use for their skills.  Only two types of people are shown to have some resistance to lyrium.  Dwarves, who as we see from that one whacked out vendor in Orzammar can still take some serious brain damage from getting a little bit of dust in the bloodstream.  And tranquil, whom specifically are the ones to handle lyrium crafts in the Circle because they're either resistant or immune to its effects (I forget the exact wording).  Of course the implication is that it's directly drawing its power from the Fade.

Perhaps blue lyrium is "spirit" lyrium and red lyrium is "demon" lyrium then?  Eh, I doubt it's that simple but it's a thought.

[Ieolus]

I think there is a darkspawn connection to the red lyrium, but I don't have any real evidence for that idea other than it's corrupting influence.

[TOBY FLENDERSON]

Agmarak had different kinds of lyrium and I always suspected they were trying to recreate the idols powers, mix that with the Nexus golems hints at a huge thaig under Orlais and you have DA3: return to the deep.

[Rifneno]

TOBY FLENDERSON wrote...

Agmarak had different kinds of lyrium and I always suspected they were trying to recreate the idols powers, mix that with the Nexus golems hints at a huge thaig under Orlais and you have DA3: return to the deep.

God, I hope not.  To quote pre-jihad Anders, "I hate the blighted Deep Roads."

[Halo Quea]

Well at least there was some attempt to explain it, because to me it just seemed too much like the "One Ring"

It seems to have an immediate effect on Dwarves, Bartrand and Varric are directly under it's influence within minutes of being in close proximity to it. Might also explain what happened to the Dwarves in the primordial thiag.

With humans the effect appears to be gradual and more subtle, although Meredith's Templar addiction to lyrium may have dragged the process out longer. The fact that she was able to use the sword to animate the statues in the Gallows courtyard isn't surprising, the rock wraiths of the primordial thiag are a direct result of feeding on the energy of the lyrium stones.

It was great story element that went without exploration, but once you see Meredith in Matrix mode then you sort of get it.

[Elessie]

Halo Quea wrote...

It seems to have an immediate effect on Dwarves, Bartrand and Varric are directly under it's influence within minutes of being in close proximity to it. Might also explain what happened to the Dwarves in the primordial thiag.
 

So here's something I found super confusing.  Varric hears voices during Haunted, he gets quite uppity questioning the servant abou the relic, and doesn't seem at all like his usual laid-back self when trying to convince you that he should keep the relic shard.

But if you give it to him, he uses it to make Bianca more powerful and apparently suffers no ill effect?  Is Bianca just that leet or did I miss something?