Oh, okay. A DLC. And mage item pack 2, perhaps? But this does not make mention of the DLC. Hmm. I don't remember getting this staff after defeating the ancient rock wraith.whykikyouwhy wrote...
And so it all comes back to rotten Twinkies.
Potentially, we have a thaig of (potentially) several thaigs that may have been the source and supplier of large amounts of lyrium for the invasion of a mythical city/possible prison/lofty piece of real estate. We have a staff that is made of this lyrium and now in Hawke's possession (with the purchase and download of a DLC), and we have what looks to be a piece of another staff (the idol...which does have a broken off bit at the end that seems to be from a staff) - which in turn has some sort of song or sentient properties.
So to add to the chips thrown out on the table, what about this - what if there are at least 5 primeval thaigs, and each has a staff or some similar weapon/tool made of the red lyrium, and these tools were used in the grand blood-letting ritual that opened the portal to Rotten Twinkie City? (Although, I could see the possibility of the Primeval Thaig's idol bit as not being used for the invasion, as something got trapped within in, so it was locked up and abandoned because bad, vile things dwelled within.)
I'm trying to keep an open mind about all of these theories we're bouncing back and forth, but I keep seeing in my twisted brain an image of 5 or more magisters standing at various points in Thedas, concentrating their energies into the center of their pentagram-esque circle (pentagram for the 5, not necessarily for any RL demonic correlation). And from the center of these focused energies, from the blood of 1000's of slaves and mass amounts of lyrium, a door opens. And maybe a different group of (5) magisters went in. That's what comes up in my imagination, but we all know I have way too much fromage on the brain, so I can't be trusted.
I don't think it is wild at all. What you say does make sense. I mean why was only one staff left behind? So perhaps just one magister was involved in this case. And we know that there may have more than one to make the attempt to enter the Golden City. Although, I'm not sure if the number was exactly 5. But still, this particular thaig seems to fit into the explanation.
Still not sure where exactly all those dwarves of Valdasine went. If they simply vanished from there, did they materialize somewhere else? Did they become the first darkspawn or even ghouls maybe? And what if the reason the other dwarves sealed off that staff in the Valdasine thaig was because they noticed something odd about it as well, as in maybe the case with the idol of Primeval Thaig?
And I think your observation that the Primeval Thaig idol being a broken off part of a "lyrium" staff may be a good point. The idol does look a bit weird at the bottom, with those "veins" dangling about, as if it was broken off from something. We cannot be entirely sure, of course, but it is a good theory in my opinion.
And let's go back for a bit to Kirkwall - to see your other point and link it again to something else. Doesn't the Enigma of Kirkwall codex hint at centuries of blood letting, a thousand slaves killed every year?:
"Access has not been easy, and I fear my disguise will not bear great scrutiny. But I saw the records the templars say do not exist. The blood of countless slaves was spilled beneath the city in sacrifice. Whole buildings were built upon lakes of blood. The sewers have grooves where blood would flow, all leading down. The scale is hard to fathom.
A blood mage can channel great power from a simple cut. At least a thousand unfortunates died here every year for centuries. For what ungodly purpose would one need so much power?"
Kirkwall was established sometime after Arlathan was sacked and before the magisters attempted to invade the Golden City, according to this timeline. With the sacking of Arlathan and enslaving the elves, the imperium had a ready supply of elven slaves. Now let's look at what I quoted above from the codex: "the sewers have grooves where blood would flow, all leading down." Down? To whither I wonder?
Time to get a bit creative. What if all that blood was channeled down, deep down? To some of those dwarven thaigs, where raw and pure lyrium (the blue variety) is actually found? And that is the reason why all the lyrium there seems to have turned "red." It was perhaps an amalgamation of blood and lyrium that finally gave these magisters what they needed. Enough power to breach the barriers that protected the Golden City itself. It may not have been power, per se, but something else that perhaps needed to be overcome, and this combination of blood and lyrium gave them the capability, finally.
NOTE: I noticed a discrepancy in one date, though. The Enigma of Kirkwall mentions that 203 slaves went missing in the 312th year of the Imperium. This makes the year actually 883 Ancient since the Imperium was founded in 1195 Ancient. Kirkwall was founded in 620 Ancient, so this appears to be a mistake, if it was meant to be linked with Kirkwall at all.
EDIT: Formatting...
Modifié par MichaelFinnegan, 31 août 2011 - 07:56 .
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There is a similarity between dwarves and the darkspawn, in relation to their connection to the Fade. The connection of both is weak. Was it Rifneno who said it sometime back? That it is perhaps that the dwarves have their souls within their bodies, rather than in the Fade? It makes sense to think of it that way. And the darkspawn are engineered to be the way they are. Their creation process - which I'm now beginning to suspect involves lyrium - ensures this. So even though they do not have spirits, they're strongly connected to the song - through the taint itself apparently.
