This is going to be insanely long and borderline incoherent, but what the hell. Time to break out the old dwarven theories and take bets on which ones will go down in flames tomorrow! ヾ(@w@)ｼ
Theory #1: Sandal is the modern-day reincarnation of June, aka Andoral.
We’re not likely to get much on this one even if Sandal does appear in Descent. Still, what little we have seems to support the possibility, and it would help explain both his solitary survival in the Deep Roads and his untaught, savant-level skill working with lyrium- much like Sera/Andruil and her preternatural gift for marksmanship.
Theory #2: June was the progenitor of the Dwarven race, responsible for crafting the Pantheon’s idols, avatars, and weapons of war.
Solid lore on June is bizarrely hard to come by, but this one seems largely accepted as “common sense” by many. And again, the few threads we have seem to point to the same conclusion. The dwarves’ underground domain fits well with June’s primary Greco-Roman reflection in the Pantheon (Hephaestus/Vulcan) and his mosaic in the Temple of Mythal seems to drop additional hints about his identity and purpose within the Pantheon.
Spoiler
1) June is depicted with a distinctive and (almost) unique spiraling pattern of tiles on his forehead- a distinction that may well be an early version of a tranquility brand. Severance from the fade would be expected in the progenitor of the dwarven race, and may have been self-inflicted, given that June is described as having “created himself”. The only other member of the Pantheon that shares this tile pattern is Andruil- and as discussed elsewhere, its interpretation as a tranquility brand seems to fit in both cases, though it’s likely the purpose of hers was punishment, not protection.
2) Of all the Pantheon members, only June’s face is covered in silver tiles, possibly intended to represent a beard. (Mythal’s children are silver-faced as well, but that's more likely a representation of vallaslin.)
3) The item on the anvil appears to have vaguely deer-like features, possibly suggesting “OGS vessel” collaboration with Ghilan’nain. Alternatively, this could imply the creation of totemic statuary designed to be animated by the OGS of Pantheon members, who would have preferred increasingly indirect interaction with subordinates and followers as civil governance evolved into religious worship.
4) Finally, the round shape at the bottom left brings to mind Solas’ orb, as well as the sphere that hovers over Fen’Harel’s head in his mosaic. As craftsman of the Pantheon, it seems to naturally follow that June would have been responsible for crafting the Pantheon’s respective idols. Other artifacts of great power, including Andruil’s weapons and armor of the Void, may also have been his work.
Which brings up another item…
Theory #3: June crafted the red lyrium idol, and Kal-Sharok dwarves shattered it.
The Red Lyrium idol - theorized to have been Elgar’nan’s- shows obvious signs of fracture at its base. At some point between the fall of Arlathan and its rediscovery, it seems clear that some faction (most likely dwarves, given where the shattered idol was recovered) attempted to destroy it. The answer to the question “why?” could be as simple as mistrust of red lyrium’s effects, or it may be more.
One theory holds that the high priests of Elgar’nan managed to flee the fall of Arlathan, bringing his idol with them for safekeeping as they took refuge with the dwarves of Cad’halash. We know Cad’halash was subsequently destroyed by Kal Sharok for harboring those refugees, but their reasons may have had very little to do with Tevinter. Tellingly, we find post-fall elvhen art in the cells of the “Grey Warden” prison where Hawke encounters Corypheus- a prison obviously built, used, and abandoned by dwarves long before the Wardens repurposed it. We also find a potential additional reason for the attempted destruction of the idol in the The Hunt of the Fell Wolf codex, which suggests powerful spirits might only be truly defeated when two conditions are met: its physical body slain and associated “demon-stone” shattered.
The destruction of the red lyrium idol may have had unintended consequences, exposing the dwarves present to the maddening effects of red lyrium. Potential spread may have been the factor that prompted the sealing of the Primeval Thaig, trapping all those within, infected or not. This, then, may be the source of the Profane. Cut off from external sustenance, these dwarves would have had only one option for survival: to “feast upon the Gods”. In consuming red lyrium (the blighted Blood of the Sun) they might have connected themselves to the dark fade- a mirror of Cole’s sustaining connection to the normal fade we know, the Fade of the Earth.
Theory #4: The basis for the Tevinter "twins" statues were June-crafted war golems dating from Falon’Din’s failed rebellion, powered by the souls of dwarves.
Theory #5: Titans were repurposed after the fall of Arlathan, used by a corrupt faction of dwarves to enslave humans.
This one is… odd. If we start with the assumption that June-crafted Titans are the inspiration for the double-sided Tevinter statues we find around Thedas, the statuary we find in Kirkwall is pretty explicit: they’re prominently displayed in the Gallows, watching over slaves with distinctly human ears. Though appropriated and built upon by Tevinter and later human populations, the dwarvishness of the underlying construction in Kirkwall is in no way limited to the modern Dwarven quarter.
Corypheus’ early confusion also seems to corroborate the idea. After noting that party members are human, he can only imagine two possibilities: "citizens of the [Tevinter] Empire?" or “Slaves, then, to the dwarves?”
Still, this theory leaves a lot of loose threads. If human slavery under the dwarves was widespread practice during Corypheus’ time, how was it so completely erased from historic record in the ages since? What happened to this dwarvish faction? Could they have moved west, their descendants forming the Voshai? If so, what forced them to abandon Kirkwall?
Theory #6: Dwarves are the immune system of the Stone, which is the unborn child of the primordial being Earth.
Soooo... (; =w=) This is a big one, and requires a good chunk of background theory to be comprehensible. I'll try to condense the main points:
Spoiler
To understand the role of Dwarves, and how their role has changed, we first need to understand how blood and mind are entwined in the DA universe. Time and again, we find little distinction between the two systems: both circulatory and neurological functions seem to share the same vehicle: blood. This is most obvious in the details of blood magic, in which blood provides a direct link to the minds of others. (The description of Isseya’s griffon-joining in Last Flight is a pretty graphic example, if you need one.)
Consequently, Dwarves actually have two original roles: they were both individual ‘neurons’ in the hive mind of the larger entity to which they belonged, and the blood of the being itself- a particularly important aspect, given the significance of blood in immune response and the need to defend the Stone against blight, red lyrium, gangue, and other “diseases”. As the theory goes, the lyrium they carry is the essence of their original, true form- their current bodies designed and crafted by June long ago to fight larger threats, golem style.
Dwarves as neurons:
This trace of lyrium has an essential purpose, though one that has waned over time as dwarven society moved ever closer to the surface and further from the Stone. This is the source of the dwarves’ vaunted stone sense: an electromagnetic charge created by their movement through the tunnels of the Deep Roads, which were once surrounded by charged (flowing = current) veins of lyrium. This magnetism not only provided an infallible sense of direction (a literal internal compass) but was also the neural charge that linked them to the larger hive mind, as Dagna seems to discover while tinkering:
Dagna: “There's something there. I was face-deep in a rune, and for a moment... I was tall. Really tall. And I thought -- I thought all the thoughts.” (nervous laugh)
Inquisitor: “You felt taller? How much taller?”
Dagna: “Like, mountain-tall. Or I was the mountain. But I was moving. I felt dizzy. You know what I remembered ? Watching a shaperate carve the wall of memory. Except... big. Isn't that weird ? Maybe there were fumes.”
Inquisitor: What do you mean when you say "thought all the thoughts"?
Dagna: “I don't know. As if, for a moment, I was around all my people. And my thought was all of theirs? No, no, my thought was all of our thoughts. Like parts. Ugh, words are mush. Maybe that's what the Stone feels like. Or we think it feels like. If we think it feels ? Creepy.”
Tearing this apart a bit: first, she feels huge and dizzy. This makes sense as the subjective experience of the Stone, since if this theory holds, it’s currently spinning beneath the ground as the planet spins.
Second, she’s simultaneously “around all my people” and “thinking all the thoughts” of her people- again, a fair description of connecting with the Stone’s neural network. She also mentions that the experience evoked the feeling of a shaperate carving the wall of memory, only on a huge scale. This is an important insight, as –in theory- the Wall of Memory serves to fill a function that was lost when dwarves were severed from their connection with the Earth and its Fade: a connection to the larger mind and memory of the entity of which they were a part. Cole seems to reference this disconnection in his dialogue with a dwarven Inquisitor: “No dreams with the cord cut. You sell it.” The cord is a reference to their direct connection to the Fade of the Earth or Stone. The more lyrium they mine and sell, the less surrounds the passageways they move through, and consequently the weaker this connective charge becomes.
Dwarves as blood cells / lymphocytes:
Just as they fill the role of neurons within a larger neural net, Dwarves also function as a fundamental part of the Stone’s immune system: the most common being red blood cells, though some factions may serve a more specific function. (In Last Flight, we discover that blight can be cleared from living beings by another by taking it into their own body- and critically, this only seems to work on embryonic tissue. Consider the potential parallel with how real-world phagocytes work in the body, and the odd sense of simultaneous corruption and stalwart defense Ser Evrain Abernache experienced on meeting the dwarves of Kal-Sharok. It's possible they're drawing blight from the fetal Stone by taking it into themselves.) The same Inquisitor quote from Cole describes this facet directly: “The Stone, still there, silent and reaching up for the blood that walks.” Describing dwarves as ‘blood that walks’ seems apt: their essence is a core of lyrium, the “Blood of the Earth”, encapsulated within a mobile body.
Bits of Solas’ dialogue with Verric offer further clues. “Dwarves are the severed arm of a once mighty hero, lying in a pool of blood, undirected, whatever skill at arms it had gone forever.” That hero, I believe, is Earth: her sacrifice necessary to bring an end –or at least a pause- in the primordial war between Order and Chaos. In this light, this “severed arm” that the dwarves represent are maternal antibodies, passed from the (now deceased) mother to the fetal child.
He goes on, “Although it might twitch to give the appearance of life, it will never dream.” Here, Solas and this theory diverge. It seems likely that dwarves were individually mindless, their actions dictated by their connection to the larger being of which they were a part. One of the scrawled inscriptions in the Temple of Mythal is a possible reference to that time: "In this place we prepare to hunt the pillars of the Earth. Their workers scurry, witless, soulless. This death will be a mercy. We will make the earth blossom with their passing."
Naturally, one possibility for the referenced “workers” are the dwarves. In their role as immune system and the Stone’s first line of defense, they would have to be destroyed for blight to flourish unchecked. Moving back to Solas’ comment, however, it seems clear that although the Stone’s fade hasn’t developed enough to allow dreams or magic, modern dwarves are far from the ‘mindess’ drones they may once have been. Though largely disconnected from the hive mind, they are still connected to that emergent fade- still “return to the Stone” when they die, and seem to experience ever-increasing access to emotion and other aspects as the Stone matures. Verric, an example of a dwarf with no stone sense whatsoever, is in some respects practically a dwarven “mage”- crafting entire worlds out of possibility in his novels. It's arguable that not all dreaming happens while asleep, and that the imaginative daydreaming required to write fiction borders on the same concept.
Returning to the idea of dwarves as immune system, it’s interesting to note that the same trace lyrium that serves as a connection to the larger being seems able to guide ‘sensitive’ dwarves to areas of infection, a slightly warped, funhouse reflection of the biochemical inflammation process that occurs in our own bodies. Gangue has an obvious disease corollary, as does the description of the dwarves’ battle with Malvernis. Red lyrium itself, in terms of its theoretical source, might be conceived of as a kind of blood (lyrium) lymphoma, perhaps pointing to why it was necessary to disconnect early dwarves from the "flow" of lyrium.
We find a final, slightly shaky parallel in the structure of dwarven civilization itself. To the right is a map of Orzammar. To the left, a diagram of a lymph node, production site of white cell leukocytes, including critical B and T cells.
We also know that originally, the Deep Roads were teeming with dwarves- that passageways between thaigs weren't simply crowded, but had almost shoulder-to-shoulder traffic. A fitting image, given the theoretical equivalent:
Spoiler
Is it tenuous? Absolutely. Taken in the larger context of this theory however, it seems like a possible hint. And though I know I'm forgetting things, this is getting ridiculously long, so I'm cutting it short.
Anyone have other tinfoil-hat dwarf theories? @w@ We've got 24 hours to burn. Hit me with your craziest stuff.
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