532 réponses à ce sujet

[phaonica]

David Gaider wrote...

I have two things to say:

1) Excellent, well thought-out post. Nice conjecture. I like conjecture.

2) The Primeval Thaig, and what it signfies, will have importance in the future. Just FYI.

3) There's something you need to...

Oh, wait. Two things. Right! I'll stop there.

Sweet! I'm excited. 

[Ghost1041]

Part of a codex from Legacy. Not entirely sure if she is referring to the prison for Cory or the Deep Roads in general.

All we hear is that this is one of the great Grey Warden secrets. "It must be protected at all costs." As usual, we're most concerned with deceiving our own people. But why hide that the Deep Roads were shaped not only by the dwarves but also by us?

[jlb524]

aries1001 wrote...

As for the Arlathan elves having access to blood magic, Merril says something in DA2 at the Dalish camp at Sundermount, something like 'well, if you would respect our people's old ways' or something like that. As for Arlathan being sunk through the Deep Roads, I think the whole idea is that the Deep Roads didn't exist? when the Tevinter Magisters sunk Arlathan into the ground...

I think that some of the elves believe blood magic came from their ancestors...another thing the humans stole from them XD

I believe Huon says something similar.

I think the Deep Roads still could have existed, and eventually tunnels were formed linking the Dwarven DR to Arlathan.

[Special_Agent_Goodwrench]

David Gaider wrote...

I have two things to say:

1) Excellent, well thought-out post. Nice conjecture. I like conjecture.

2) The Primeval Thaig, and what it signfies, will have importance in the future. Just FYI.

3) There's something you need to...

Oh, wait. Two things. Right! I'll stop there.

O_O

And Gaider strikes again.

[sami jo]

Something no one has considered yet, Witch Hunt send you back to Cadash Thaig to search for the Lights of Arlathan that the survivors of the fall of Arlathan brought there when they sought shelter with the dwarves in Cad'halash.  A comment is made in WH that the thaig couldn't possibly be that old, but obviously it was. 

Then there are the notes about the destruction of the thaig:

"Commander Regnar of House Cadash,
You were wise to send the relic you uncovered. The Shapareate has compared the carvings on it to various records, and believe them to
be of elven origin, possibly thousands of years old. I would advise
that you cease repair work on the warrior training grounds immediately
and continue investigation. A team will be dispatched from Kal Sharok as soon as possible.
--Shaper Warrek
The excavations are going well. I think Shaper Warrek secretly hopes that the artifacts will lead him to the lost city of Arlathan despite Tevinter
records that insist on its complete obliteration. Even if he found the
site of the city, there would be little remaining of any worth. As for
the artifacts, they must have come to this area by trade. Cadash Thaig is old, built upon an ancient settlement called Cad'halash. Lots of junk can accumulate over that much time, even elven junk.
--From Shaper Assistant Shalla's journal
Dyer,
Got the carvings. These two depict elves forming an alliance with the Cad'halash dwarves,
after the destruction of Arlathan. Scholars say it's proof that they
took refuge here to escape the Imperium. Should get a great price for
this from collectors and historians.
And I almost got caught running these things to your man. They'll
hang me if they find out. I want a bigger cut.. fifty or we're done.
--A letter from an excavation worker
We thought the Imperium found the elves hidden in Cad'halash, and
destroyed them, but it doesn't add up. The thaig was destroyed with
conventional dwarven weaponry, not magical forces. No supernatural means
melted the stone and no immense forces pulverized the pillars.
We uncovered shields (among other things) bearing the heraldy of old Kal Sharok houses. We
destroyed Cad'halash--our own people. The only remaining conclusion is
that Kal Sharok learned that they were sheltering elves and, knowing it
would jeopardize their alliance with the Tevinter Imperium, took stepts
to cover it up.
Thus far, there has been no evindence to contradict this theory,
but it has split the Shaperate. Some wish to enter it into the Memories,
while others demand that it lies forgotten in the dark halls of the
Roads.
--From the notes of Shaper Warrek"

Based on the combined evidence, it seems that Kal Sharok aligned itself with the Imperium and others, possibly those left in Orzammar, sided with the elves.  There is obviously more to dwarven history than the dwarves know.

[Northern Sun]

I've got brain all over my computer screen from my mind exploding.

[TheJediSaint]

David Gaider wrote...

I have two things to say:

1) Excellent, well thought-out post. Nice conjecture. I like conjecture.

2) The Primeval Thaig, and what it signfies, will have importance in the future. Just FYI.

3) There's something you need to...

Oh, wait. Two things. Right! I'll stop there.

Bah! You are worse than Flemeth sometimes when it comes to be excessvily enigmatic.

[Bryy_Miller]

David Gaider wrote...

2) The Primeval Thaig, and what it signfies, will have importance in the future.

You don't say.

[andraip]

nice thread, very interresting indeed

[Sylvius the Mad]

Rifneno wrote...

Exactly. There's never been a direct answer from the devs or in-game how long dwarves live, but there's a few things like that which imply they live significantly longer than humans.

Except the devs have been explicit about that.  During DAO's development we were told that Elves, Dwarves, and Humans all have roughly the same average lifespan.

[Recycled Human]

I hate to come to the party so late but I wanted to say this is an amazing post, and to toss a suggestion into the ring. I'm not able to research it much yet but isn't it possible that the idol represents andraste freeing the slaves? Someone mentioned the male figure looked like the slaves statues in Kirkwall and someone else mentioned the female figure looked to be wearing garments similar to Meredith's clothing. It's not uncommon for religious types to wear garments in reverence to that of their important religious figures. I've looked through a few depictions of andraste and she too has an interesting headpiece...

Not to derail this, the figure clinging to the female figure's bosom strikes me as relieved revelrie and not anything close to the fear people felt in regards to Meredith. It could possibly explain why it was interesting to Meredith in the first place. As I said, away from the computer so I couldn't research more. Great post!

[PantheraOnca]

David Gaider wrote...

3) There's something you need to...

Oh, wait. Two things. Right! I'll stop there.

Harsh.

I like the OP's theory.

I always interpretted the "we called out" thing to mean that the dwarves and elves shared a pantheon back in the day (and that the dwarves of the thaig @#@$ed everything up somehow), but your explanation seems simpler.

[phaonica]

Don't the dwarves say that the darkspawn came up from underneath their civilization? Maybe there was a whole civilization of something below the dwarves that was either wiped out or itself became the darkspawn when the Black City was breached.

[whykikyouwhy]

Filament wrote...

I kind of hope the Primeval Thaig isn't Arlathan, if only because I would hope Arlathan would be more... grand. Those are some compelling points, though. Though I wonder, why do dwarves live underground anyway? Could it be that some unrecorded catastrophic event is what sank their cities and cut them off from the Fade?

I haven't checked the wiki, or codexes, or anything, so this is my gut feeling regarding dwarves in general (crossing franchises here) - they live underground for the mines. But more importantly, they live underground to be closer to their deities - to that which sings to them - The Stone. They believe themselves born of the earth and stone, strong like stone, and therefore must work it, worship it, and protect it.

When I can properly check things, I'll double back. But that's my initial feeling based on in-game conversations and such. Just like some civilizations are built up around water or trees, the earth is simply the realm of the dwarves.

[TEWR]

The surfacers claim that the first darkspawn fell from heaven. They spin tales of magic and sin. But the Children of the Stone know better. The darkspawn rose up out of the earth. For it was in the Deep Roads they first appeared. Creatures in our own likeness, armed and armored, but with no more intelligence than tezpadam, bestial and savage.

At first they were few, easily hunted and slain by our warriors. But in the recesses of the Deep Roads, they grew in numbers and in courage. Our distant thaigs came under attack, and now it was the army, not a few warriors, being sent to deal with the creatures. Victories still came easily, though, and we thought the threat would soon be over.

We were wrong.

--As told by Shaper Czibor.



logic would dictate that the reason they kept losing was because of broodmothers constantly churning out Genlock Darkspawn, since those are the Darkspawn they were facing.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 05 août 2011 - 11:36 .

[Ulicus]

Really cool opening post.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Rifneno wrote...

Exactly. There's never been a direct answer from the devs or in-game how long dwarves live, but there's a few things like that which imply they live significantly longer than humans.

Except the devs have been explicit about that.  During DAO's development we were told that Elves, Dwarves, and Humans all have roughly the same average lifespan.

As I recall, DA:O says straight up that the dalish (though not the city elves) can live considerably longer than humans. The weaponsmith in the dalish origin talks about his father (or grandfather, I forget) fighting against the Clayne tribes pre-Calenhad.

Modifié par Ulicus, 06 août 2011 - 12:19 .

[Darius Vir]

sami jo wrote...

Something no one has considered yet, Witch Hunt send you back to Cadash Thaig to search for the Lights of Arlathan that the survivors of the fall of Arlathan brought there when they sought shelter with the dwarves in Cad'halash.  A comment is made in WH that the thaig couldn't possibly be that old, but obviously it was. 

Then there are the notes about the destruction of the thaig:


Based on the combined evidence, it seems that Kal Sharok aligned itself with the Imperium and others, possibly those left in Orzammar, sided with the elves.  There is obviously more to dwarven history than the dwarves know.

Didn't quote the whole post, but....GREAT find. 

Wow, this is interesting stuff. 

[Macropodmum]

David Gaider wrote...

I have two things to say:

1) Excellent, well thought-out post. Nice conjecture. I like conjecture.

2) The Primeval Thaig, and what it signfies, will have importance in the future. Just FYI.

3) There's something you need to...

Oh, wait. Two things. Right! I'll stop there.

Cruel, very cruel

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Rifneno wrote...

Exactly. There's never been a direct answer from the devs or in-game how long dwarves live, but there's a few things like that which imply they live significantly longer than humans.

Except the devs have been explicit about that.  During DAO's development we were told that Elves, Dwarves, and Humans all have roughly the same average lifespan.

Averages can lie, that is they are a whole bunch of numbers added up and then divided by the total N, which basically means that dwarves could live longer than humans, and add in all the early deaths due to darkspawn....

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

The surfacers claim that the first darkspawn fell from heaven. They spin tales of magic and sin. But the Children of the Stone know better. The darkspawn rose up out of the earth. For it was in the Deep Roads they first appeared. Creatures in our own likeness, armed and armored, but with no more intelligence than tezpadam, bestial and savage.

At first they were few, easily hunted and slain by our warriors. But in the recesses of the Deep Roads, they grew in numbers and in courage. Our distant thaigs came under attack, and now it was the army, not a few warriors, being sent to deal with the creatures. Victories still came easily, though, and we thought the threat would soon be over.

We were wrong.

--As told by Shaper Czibor.

logic would dictate that the reason they kept losing was because of broodmothers constantly churning out Genlock Darkspawn, since those are the Darkspawn they were facing.

Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate wildly ~ What if the fade was never a heavenly abode, what if it was underground?  What if the old thaig was the golden city but upon entering it, the space that it occupied in the fade turned black and its physical manifestation was cast deep underground?

Filament wrote...

I think it seems logical that as a species, they first arose on the surface and then later ventured underground, once they figured out how to carve out complex, stable tunnel and thaig complexes. (which would be a feat, even for us...) It seems likely that they didn't always worship the paragons, their ancestors, or the stone, that this developed later as their civlization developed. When you first enter the Primeval Thaig they note that it's strange because there are no statues to the paragons... it might be that these dwarves (if they were dwarves and not Arlathan) didn't practice the same ancestor, paragon, stone-worshipping religion that present-day dwarves do. Maybe they began worshiping the stone because their ancestors bound them to the stone (lyrium), to cut themselves off from the Fade, to prevent the destruction of their race when they were imprisoned underground along with the Old Gods. (who are trapped in a dream-like state... in the Fade)

May well be, but I would expect if this were the case that their most ancient thaigs would be closer to the surface, not deeper than anyone had gone before....

Modifié par Macropodmum, 06 août 2011 - 01:56 .

[TEWR]

while we're on the topic of Dwarves, can someone tell me what current relations are like between Orzammar and Kal-Sharok? It's been some time since I've played DAO, and this is crucial to my DAO fanfiction.


oh and.... uh... Primeval Thaig Dwarves. They were Dwarf mages. There. On topic.

[Satyricon331]

Ugh, I really hope that this theory's wrong.  I do not want Arlathan to have been that ugly and dwarven-looking.  Still, good argument, Rifneno.  

Although I'd like to point out that the possiblity they abandoned Arlathan and made their last stand at Sundermount isn't inconsistent with your theory.  The elves might have abandoned it, and the area later became the elves' last rallying point, either before the Tevinters sunk the city (in which they sunk it to keep it out of elven hands or out of spite), or after (in which case they sunk it for some reason likely not (directly?) related to conquering the elves, perhaps related to the idol).  

[highcastle]

There's another piece of lore to support this (beware Legacy spoilers follow): Malvernis.

According to the codex entries in Legacy, Malvernis is called the Pestilent One. You know where else the term "pestilence" crops up? The elven gods of evil. Geldauran, Daern'thal, and Anaris are the Forgotten Ones of terror and malice, spite, and pestilence. It's the last one, Anaris, who seems most relevant. Could Anaris and Malvernis be one and the same?

Plus, pestilence as a whole seems a running theme in the game. What is the blight or the taint if not a pestilence? Could the blight have stemmed from the Pestilent One and not the magisters at all?

[TEWR]

where did people get the names of the elven gods of evil?