532 réponses à ce sujet

[Gespenst]

Rifneno wrote...

No, and that's probably the most puzzling thing to me. Caridin was adamant that he wanted the Anvil of the Void destroyed, and he was gleeful when it was. If he only got the knowledge from elsewhere and not invented it himself, why would he be satisfied with his anvil's destruction? It doesn't make any sense.

I considered the possibility that Caridin was actually rediscovering some ancient technique from back when dwarves were magic (which I was so sure was said in Origins at one point, I really don't know why) involving binding spirits from the fade into golems. I really liked the idea too but it doesn't fit for the reasons you've stated.

Rifneno wrote...

I suppose the simplest explanation is that some other expedition, a failed one, had a golem with them and it just sat there after the profane killed the fleshy folk. But I'm not sure they'd put it there if it wasn't part of the big picture.

I suppose that makes sense, except why would the Golems stop fighting?

Rifneno wrote...

They do? So Lex Luthor's plan in Superman Returns wasn't monumentally retarded? Woah.

Well... sort of. Chemical crystals do... you can take a chemical solution (say copper sulphate) you can cause a crystal to form around a crystal "seed"

http://chemistry.abo.../a/aa012604.htm

I don't think mineral crystals (like... quartz) act the same way though.

Edit: Apparently they do!

Well-formed crystals typically form in a 'bed' that has unconstrained growth into a void...

I'm no scientician so I can't really explain it but there it is for what it's worth.

Rifneno wrote...

Anyways, not the crystals. I'm not sure those crystals are even actually lyrium. Here's what I was refering to:
As you can see, it's coming in through a hole in the wall. Either it put the wall there itself because it was... weaponized I guess you'd say, or the hole in the wall was just because it's a crumbling ruin and the lyrium grew through like a plant. It does look like a root.

That's exactly what it looks like... a root growing through a stone wall and cracking it. It's super effective!

Either that or it was behind the walls all along which seems unlikely. Maybe it's redstone wiring?

Rifneno wrote...

The Chantry says it's water from the Fade, but without an explanation for why Fade water is underground in Thedas, that doesn't really explain anything.

It dripped down, I guess.

Rifneno wrote...

That picture is a shot of the ceiling in the Primeval Thaig, one of the earlier rooms. More of it can be seen in the vault, in the distance with a bunch of the fallen statues that we haven't been able to identify.

Weren't there similar crystals where you met Sandel in the deep roads? The blue ones, not the red ones.

Rifneno wrote...

My stupid nickname for the Golden City/Black City. Black gold... oil.

You're too clever for my own good.

Rifneno wrote...

Nah, I think if he was going to debunk the whole theory, he'd have done it in his first post.

That's a point... There's still no reason to stop speculating.

This whole thing keeps getting curioser and curioser. It's a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma

Rifneno wrote...

I try to throw in some humor. I wanted to take a screenshot of the weird black statues with a bit zoomed in on the bottom of the back to reveal "Made in Taiwan" scrawled on it, but I suck at Photoshop. It almost physically hurt not to make that be. 

Someone needs to get on that. :happy:

Modifié par Gespenst, 10 août 2011 - 04:26 .

[Satyricon331]

Rifneno wrote...
There's no known records giving us even a ballpark answer to that, unfortunately.

If it helps, and I don't know how canon it is, but Bioware released this timeline to the zines, which pins it at the end of a 6-year siege around 981 Ancient.  There's another published DAO timeline that has more detail than the Codex *ahem* wiki, but for whatever reason Google isn't returning me to it.  Perhaps whatever magazine it was deleted its post.

it obviously isn't all dwarven or Bartrand wouldn't be so confused

I'm not quite sure whether you mean "the architecture there" isn't all dwarven, or you mean it isn't representative of all styles of dwarven architecture.  It seems to me that DG excluded the former idea, but with the latter it's easy to understand why Bartrand would be confused.

Modifié par Satyricon331, 10 août 2011 - 09:42 .

[LadyBlight]

I've been keeping up with this thread for awhile now ( love all the theories going on here, very well thought out !) and just the other day i was making another play through in the dalish elf origin in the first dragon age. Now forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but I came across something that reminded me of this thread and i'm not entirely sure if its at all connected , but it seemed strange and worth mentioning Behind the eluvian there is strange small statue that appears to commemorate a trading connection between dwarves and elves, for whatever reason the relationship was short lived. It also mentions how dwarves dug "to hight and to frugal and struck elves." It's very likely unconnected, but I thought I'd mention it. Here is the text------

Strange Statue;
              A Strange Statue commemorating the emergance of
              --and short-lived trading relationship with-- dwarves
                   who dug to high and to frugal and struck elves.
             

[whykikyouwhy]

LadyBlight wrote...

I've been keeping up with this thread for awhile now ( love all the theories going on here, very well thought out !) and just the other day i was making another play through in the dalish elf origin in the first dragon age. Now forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but I came across something that reminded me of this thread and i'm not entirely sure if its at all connected , but it seemed strange and worth mentioning Behind the eluvian there is strange small statue that appears to commemorate a trading connection between dwarves and elves, for whatever reason the relationship was short lived. It also mentions how dwarves dug "to hight and to frugal and struck elves." It's very likely unconnected, but I thought I'd mention it. Here is the text------

Strange Statue;
              A Strange Statue commemorating the emergance of
              --and short-lived trading relationship with-- dwarves
                   who dug to high and to frugal and struck elves.
             

I can't recall if its that statue has come up or not. I don't recall it. It's indeed a great find.

It may be something similar to the carvings mentioned in one of the letters found in the Cadash Thaig, in the Witch Hunt DLC:

"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 "

That letter may have been mentioned before - if so, apologies.

Modifié par whykikyouwhy, 11 août 2011 - 01:34 .

[LadyBlight]

whykikyouwhy wrote...

LadyBlight wrote...

I've been keeping up with this thread for awhile now ( love all the theories going on here, very well thought out !) and just the other day i was making another play through in the dalish elf origin in the first dragon age. Now forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but I came across something that reminded me of this thread and i'm not entirely sure if its at all connected , but it seemed strange and worth mentioning Behind the eluvian there is strange small statue that appears to commemorate a trading connection between dwarves and elves, for whatever reason the relationship was short lived. It also mentions how dwarves dug "to hight and to frugal and struck elves." It's very likely unconnected, but I thought I'd mention it. Here is the text------

Strange Statue;
              A Strange Statue commemorating the emergance of
              --and short-lived trading relationship with-- dwarves
                   who dug to high and to frugal and struck elves.
             

I can't recall if its that statue has come up or not. I don't recall it. It's indeed a great find.

It may be something similar to the carvings mentioned in one of the letters found in the Cadash Thaig, in the Witch Hunt DLC:

"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 "

That letter may have been mentioned before - if so, apologies.

Interesting....though if there was an alliance or even just  trading going on between the two, what caused the abrupt end that was implied in the text on the statue? More questions it seems ! Though i wonder if there was alliance between dwarves and elves does that explain the dwarven type architecture in the primeval thaig?

Modifié par LadyBlight, 11 août 2011 - 01:41 .

[Darius Vir]

LadyBlight wrote...

I've been keeping up with this thread for awhile now ( love all the theories going on here, very well thought out !) and just the other day i was making another play through in the dalish elf origin in the first dragon age. Now forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but I came across something that reminded me of this thread and i'm not entirely sure if its at all connected , but it seemed strange and worth mentioning Behind the eluvian there is strange small statue that appears to commemorate a trading connection between dwarves and elves, for whatever reason the relationship was short lived. It also mentions how dwarves dug "to hight and to frugal and struck elves." It's very likely unconnected, but I thought I'd mention it. Here is the text------

Strange Statue;
              A Strange Statue commemorating the emergance of
              --and short-lived trading relationship with-- dwarves
                   who dug to high and to frugal and struck elves.
             

Actually...I think that's supposed to a LOTR reference which said, "The dwarves dug too greedily and too deep". 

[Herr Uhl]

Darius Vir wrote...

LadyBlight wrote...

I've been keeping up with this thread for awhile now ( love all the theories going on here, very well thought out !) and just the other day i was making another play through in the dalish elf origin in the first dragon age. Now forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but I came across something that reminded me of this thread and i'm not entirely sure if its at all connected , but it seemed strange and worth mentioning Behind the eluvian there is strange small statue that appears to commemorate a trading connection between dwarves and elves, for whatever reason the relationship was short lived. It also mentions how dwarves dug "to hight and to frugal and struck elves." It's very likely unconnected, but I thought I'd mention it. Here is the text------

Strange Statue;
              A Strange Statue commemorating the emergance of
              --and short-lived trading relationship with-- dwarves
                   who dug to high and to frugal and struck elves.
             

Actually...I think that's supposed to a LOTR reference which said, "The dwarves dug too greedily and too deep". 

And elves were the greater evil.

By far.

[LadyBlight]

Darius Vir wrote...

LadyBlight wrote...

I've been keeping up with this thread for awhile now ( love all the theories going on here, very well thought out !) and just the other day i was making another play through in the dalish elf origin in the first dragon age. Now forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but I came across something that reminded me of this thread and i'm not entirely sure if its at all connected , but it seemed strange and worth mentioning Behind the eluvian there is strange small statue that appears to commemorate a trading connection between dwarves and elves, for whatever reason the relationship was short lived. It also mentions how dwarves dug "to hight and to frugal and struck elves." It's very likely unconnected, but I thought I'd mention it. Here is the text------

Strange Statue;
              A Strange Statue commemorating the emergance of
              --and short-lived trading relationship with-- dwarves
                   who dug to high and to frugal and struck elves.
             

Actually...I think that's supposed to a LOTR reference which said, "The dwarves dug too greedily and too deep". 

lol that's actually what I thought at first when I saw it. First thing that popped into my head. Anyways the part that actually interested me about it was the trading implication between the two.

[Gespenst]

Darius Vir wrote...

Actually...I think that's supposed to a LOTR reference which said, "The dwarves dug too greedily and too deep". 

Darn, I spent so long looking for the exact wording and atribution (the book version) that someone beet me to it.



...that's a ninja, right?

[Darius Vir]

Gespenst wrote...

Darius Vir wrote...

Actually...I think that's supposed to a LOTR reference which said, "The dwarves dug too greedily and too deep". 

Darn, I spent so long looking for the exact wording and atribution (the book version) that someone beet me to it.



...that's a ninja, right?

Yep!  I just wiki'd it to make sure I wasn't imagining things.  I remembered reading about that joke/reference at some point in the past. 

The relationship between the elves and dwarves does seem to be a big deal, though.   The Cadash Thaig stuff has been verified, and there must have been a LOT going in the millennia of contact between the two. 

Modifié par Darius Vir, 11 août 2011 - 02:26 .

[Gespenst]

Darius Vir wrote...

Yep!  I just wiki'd it to make sure I wasn't imagining things.  I remembered reading about that joke/reference at some point in the past. 

The relationship between the elves and dwarves does seem to be a big deal, though.   The Cadash Thaig stuff has been verified, and there must have been a LOT going in the millennia of contact between the two. 

In the movie version the quote was

The Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum. Shadow and Flame.

But, like I said, I can't find the book version (which I'm sure was different) and short of reading them all again...

Speaking of LOTR: The DA setting is just about the only one where dwarves and elves aren't at each other's throats by default.

[TEWR]

Oghren and Zevran make references to that rivalry IIRC.


And I want some Dwarves that sound like Gimli. Scottish accents and whatnot.

[whykikyouwhy]

Gespenst wrote...

Darius Vir wrote...

Yep!  I just wiki'd it to make sure I wasn't imagining things.  I remembered reading about that joke/reference at some point in the past. 

The relationship between the elves and dwarves does seem to be a big deal, though.   The Cadash Thaig stuff has been verified, and there must have been a LOT going in the millennia of contact between the two. 

In the movie version the quote was

The Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum. Shadow and Flame.

But, like I said, I can't find the book version (which I'm sure was different) and short of reading them all again...

Speaking of LOTR: The DA setting is just about the only one where dwarves and elves aren't at each other's throats by default.

Is the quote by chance:

"Moria! Moria! Wonder of the Northern world! Too deep we delved there, and woke the nameless fear."

From The Fellowship of the Ring?

[LadyBlight]

Ah... I'm starting to get a nostalgiac feeling with all this talk of LOTR. Also i agree with etheral...what i'd pay for a scottish accented dwarf in dragon age.

Back on topic since we're discussing elf and dwarf relations and the primeval thaig, is it possible is was a trading post? Though that begs the question, what would something as powerful as the idol be doing in a trading post, unless it was being taken somewhere....a bit to far fetched though.

[TEWR]

All this talk of LotR makes me wanna boot up The Two Towers for my PS2.


I should get more LotR games. And the movies. I haven't seen them in a long time.

[Gespenst]

^ I loved that game!

I've been thinking about getting the Extended Edition Blurays but they're about £45 (and spread over 12 discs for some reason... so I'm holding off for a bit)

whykikyouwhy wrote...

Is the quote by chance:

"Moria! Moria! Wonder of the Northern world! Too deep we delved there, and woke the nameless fear."

From The Fellowship of the Ring?

I don't think so ... but I can't be sure anymore.

So uh... Primeval Thaig... definitely old.

Modifié par Gespenst, 11 août 2011 - 03:06 .

[TEWR]

I'm calling that the Primeval Thaig, Red lyrium, the Taint, and the Darkspawn are linked together.

[LadyBlight]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

I'm calling that the Primeval Thaig, Red lyrium, the Taint, and the Darkspawn are linked together.

Curses you beat me to it

[TEWR]

Gespenst wrote...

^ I loved that game!

I've been thinking about getting the Extended Edition Blurays but they're about £45 (and spread over 12 discs for some reason... so I'm holding off for a bit)

whykikyouwhy wrote...

Is the quote by chance:

"Moria! Moria! Wonder of the Northern world! Too deep we delved there, and woke the nameless fear."

From The Fellowship of the Ring?

I don't think so ... but I can't be sure anymore.

So uh... Primeval Thaig... definitely old.

yea the extended edition blu-rays are really expensive. But I want them so much.

Although, I was able to watch Fellowship of the Ring online many weeks back. That was nice.

LadyBlight wrote...

Curses you beat me to it

I'm a ninja

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 11 août 2011 - 03:18 .

[TEWR]

I just thought of something:

Isn't blue lyrium called the voice of the Maker by Andrastians? What if red lyrium is the voice of the Old Gods?

[Macropodmum]

Rifneno wrote...

As you can see, it's coming in through a hole in the wall. Either it put the wall there itself because it was... weaponized I guess you'd say, or the hole in the wall was just because it's a crumbling ruin and the lyrium grew through like a plant. It does look like a root. Either way, I believe this is interesting new information. We don't really know anything about lyrium. The Chantry says it's water from the Fade, but without an explanation for why Fade water is underground in Thedas, that doesn't really explain anything. We don't know what it is, we don't know why it is. The information that it grows is new and is a piece of the puzzle to understand it. The information that it can be weaponized and grab stuff like giant demonic tentacles it... okay, that one's just terrifying.  

Going to go out on a limb here...what if you are right and this is Arlathan's underground location, and what if I'm right about Elven architecture being very organic .ie. plant matter woven through the city.  Could it be that red lyrium is the result of plant matter (elven tree?) being corrupted by the blue lyrium, it would explain it's tree like growth patterns

[Rifneno]

[quote]Satyricon331 wrote...

If it helps, and I don't know how canon it is, but Bioware released this timeline to the zines, which pins it at the end of a 6-year siege around 981 Ancient.  There's another published DAO timeline that has more detail than the Codex *ahem* wiki, but for whatever reason Google isn't returning me to it.  Perhaps whatever magazine it was deleted its post.[/quote]

Wow. I've never seen one of nearly that detail. If it is accurate, it shoots my theory to hell. ... Hmm. Looking closer, I think it's canon in the same regards as codex entries by characters like Brother Genitivi. Believed to be true by Thedas, but like all records, fallible on occasion. I say this because it seems to be written from the point of view of a Chantry follower rather than a writer like David Gaider. "In secret, a group of the most powerful Magisters of the Imperium opened a gate into the heavenly Golden City, seat of the Maker and birthplace of all creation."

Still, that definitely puts more doubt in my mind than anything else.

[quote]it obviously isn't all dwarven or Bartrand wouldn't be so confused[/quote]I'm not quite sure whether you mean "the architecture there" isn't all dwarven, or you mean it isn't representative of all styles of dwarven architecture.  It seems to me that DG excluded the former idea, but with the latter it's easy to understand why Bartrand would be confused.
[/quote]

He said it in response to my musing over whether the dwarven architecture was a result of reused models. I think he meant the dwarven architecture that we see is what it's meant to be, not that the totally alien stuff is necessarily dwarven. i.e. the statues, the black pillars in the vault, ect.

[quote]Herr Uhl wrote...

And elves were the greater evil.

By far.
[/quote]

Why do you say that? I'm not disagreeing, I'm certainly unconvinced the elves were the innocent victims, just wondering if I missed something since you do seem certain.

[quote]Macropodmum wrote...

Going to go out on a limb here...what if you are right and this is Arlathan's underground location, and what if I'm right about Elven architecture being very organic .ie. plant matter woven through the city.  Could it be that red lyrium is the result of plant matter (elven tree?) being corrupted by the blue lyrium, it would explain it's tree like growth patterns
[/quote]

Hmm. Certainly a good theory. If you look very closely at Meredith's red lyrium crazyblade, the crossguard looks like a leaf. This picture, if you double its size or so and look at the lower crossguard, I can't see anything but a leaf. There's even the veins of a life coming from the center. One of those things I noticed but couldn't really connect to anything.

[Gespenst]

So does that timeline mean that Kirkwall wasn't built to destroy Arlathan? Whatever the ritual they inteded was they had it in mind when they built the city - since the layout of the buildings and the streets was part of it, right? I need to read the band of three notes all at once, I think. Not spread out over the course of the entire game...

Edit: Oh, I see. They're numbering backwards (like BC/BCE). So Kirkwall was founded after the fall of Arlathan... but before the magisters invaded the golden city. I wonder... that actually seems like too much power just for traveling to the golden city if it takes the life of one person to put one mage into the fade.

Modifié par Gespenst, 11 août 2011 - 12:25 .

[Macropodmum]

Actually looking at that, it looks like the figures are emerging from leaves kind of like a stamen protrudes from the petals of a flower.

[MichaelFinnegan]

Rifneno wrote...

No, and that's probably the most puzzling thing to me. Caridin was adamant that he wanted the Anvil of the Void destroyed, and he was gleeful when it was. If he only got the knowledge from elsewhere and not invented it himself, why would he be satisfied with his anvil's destruction? It doesn't make any sense.

Short answer: Empathy (in this case, literally putting himself in the sufferer's shoes) and the ensuing guilt. Caridin not only feels as you describe, but also commits suicide.

As you can see, it's coming in through a hole in the wall. Either it put the wall there itself because it was... weaponized I guess you'd say, or the hole in the wall was just because it's a crumbling ruin and the lyrium grew through like a plant. It does look like a root. Either way, I believe this is interesting new information. We don't really know anything about lyrium. The Chantry says it's water from the Fade, but without an explanation for why Fade water is underground in Thedas, that doesn't really explain anything. We don't know what it is, we don't know why it is. The information that it grows is new and is a piece of the puzzle to understand it. The information that it can be weaponized and grab stuff like giant demonic tentacles it... okay, that one's just terrifying.

If they are "roots" or "tentacles" then it could mean there is a 'tree" or an "animal" somewhere - the rest of it, something that could be very, very large.

DA2 was already mostly done when Witch Hunt was released. The story part, at least. I've wondered quite a bit whether the story about the elven refugees in Cadash was so we'd write off a few hints of elves in the Primeval Thaig when we got there. A red herring to an extent. If so, it worked incredibly well.

The question is what were those "Lights of Arlathan" and what were they doing at Cadash Thaig? Were the ancient elves trying to hide some secret of the Eluvian?

Gespenst wrote...

I thought that the dwarven insensitivity to magic was something that was acquired over thousands of years of exposure to lyrium? I thought the story was always that dwarves were once magic but aren't anymore.

Rifneno wrote...

No, no one knows why dwarves don't have magic and there's no stories or legends in-game about ancient dwarves having magic. Surface dwarves eventually lose their natural magic resistance, presumably from not being near all that lyrium, but they don't gain the ability to do magic over new generation. Dev even said no to it flat out.

Dwarven insensitivity to magic comes from the same reason their supposed immunity to the bad effects of lyrium comes from - their lack of connection to the Fade. Read this. It means either they were cut off from the Fade at some point, or that that is how they always were. I favor the former - some event in the distant past (before the shaperate recordings of their memories) caused them to lose their connection to the Fade.

Satyricon331 wrote...

If it helps, and I don't know how canon it is, but Bioware released this timeline
to the zines, which pins it at the end of a 6-year siege around 981
Ancient.  There's another published DAO timeline that has more detail
than the Codex *ahem* wiki, but for whatever reason Google isn't returning me to it.  Perhaps whatever magazine it was deleted its post.

That is interesting! Thanks for sharing.

LadyBlight wrote...

I've been keeping up with this thread
for awhile now ( love all the theories going on here, very well thought
out !) and just the other day i was making another play through in the
dalish elf origin in the first dragon age. Now forgive me if this has
already been mentioned, but I came across something that reminded me of
this thread and i'm not entirely sure if its at all connected , but it
seemed strange and worth mentioning Behind the eluvian there is strange
small statue that appears to commemorate a trading connection between
dwarves and elves, for whatever reason the relationship was short lived.
It also mentions how dwarves dug "to hight and to frugal and struck
elves." It's very likely unconnected, but I thought I'd mention it. Here
is the text------

Strange Statue;
              A Strange Statue commemorating the emergance of
              --and short-lived trading relationship with-- dwarves
                   who dug to high and to frugal and struck elves.
             

So the dwarves dug too high and struck elves. And I wonder what "frugal" is a reference to. Perhaps the frugal nature of elves made the trade relationship short-lived?

EDIT: Adding a quote.
EDIT: Fixing the link to Gaider's comments about dwarven lack of sensitivity to magic.

Modifié par MichaelFinnegan, 11 août 2011 - 01:35 .