Greetings,
I played a bit of DA:I quite some time ago and whipped up a male Qunari Inquisitor.
Hapilly striding through Thedas for a while until I found out that there were hardly any Qunari armours available, a slew of bugs preventing me from clearing quests (OCD kicked in heavily here) and the fact that I outlvled quest zones faster then a nug on red lyrium, quickly shattered my dreams of DA:I being the worthy successor of our beloved DA:O/A, at that point it did feel a lot better then number 2 but I didn't see that as a victory.
Finished two zones and got immensely tired of backtracking to get shards and fetch some geezer's lost pyjamas as far from a fast traveling point as possible. I cried a little inside and quit playing somewhere around lvl 12...
Two weeks ago i decided to give it another go, with the DLCs, and see where it would lead me. At this point I had little hope that the new content was going to impact my experience much.
Couldn't have been more wrong. Especially The Descent and Trespasser have left me speechless and the lvl scaling because of the Trials made this game so much more interesting, even though end-game the larger mobs of promoted units often gave me more troublesome fights then bosses. Especially the dragons were a cakewalk by lvl 27, graphically stunning nonetheless. That first Hinterlands dragon I slew at lvl 17 gave me a joyous and gratifying feeling I haven't experienced in gaming for quite some
I've literally rushed through the last parts today, clocking in at just over 100 hours, and I'm left completetly hyped, speechless, excited for the future and with many many questions, massive theories and incoming walls of text, I apoligze in advance
Titans, Elves, Gods, Avatars, Children, Dwarves, Lyrium, the Fade and the Veil
Titans must be incredibly ancient predating the Dwarves and probably even the elves, from a time where Fade and the physical world were still entwined. Their veins are made of Lyrium, required for most magical practices and conciously entering the Fade and there have been several instances throughout the series where non-mages and even dwarves were able to enter the Fade or perform "magical" things with lyrium or lyrium infused objects.
Magic is the alteration of reality, are Titans actually what the Dwarves believe to be, the Stone? A magical omni-present entity capable of altering reality and the physical realm around it? Providing you conveniently with ore, minerals and lyrium to get rich and happy? The Stone must be a really good girl. The Stone does not exist, it is a theory of a concept they have no understanding of. The Song is real, Lyrium is real and alive and Titans are at the heart of all of this.
I believe that the Titans are indeed the creators of the Dwarves and they are conscious physical beings of gargantuan size. It is a very powerful creature of some sorts and the catalyst for a "Overmind" with an agenda. For what purpose would the Titan create its "Children" to have them work for it, create cities inside of it and control them with his Song?
Only his Children can hear it, like only those with the taint can hear the Call of the Old God. It can directly influence those affected by his Song and it seems to attract them and befuddle their senses to some degree and maybe even take complete control of them if touched directly by the Titan's Heart. Even Renn, a veteran Legionaire with very poor Stone sense, gets affected by the Song as he gets closer to it.
What strikes me as not a coincedence is that the quanity of Lyrium rapidly increases as you get closer and so does the intensity of the Song, but funnily enough, inside of the Titan there could not be found a single trace of Lyrium except for the Heart and the arteries connecting it, those inside are already under it's sphere of influence, no pun intended.
My theory is that Lyrium acts like the conductor of the Song, the rythm of the Titan's heartbeat/conciousness and transferring its will upon its Children.
The Sha-Brytol are said to "drink" the Titan's blood. Would that be directly tapped from the vein or only the Heart? Or would it have to be processed first like Templars and Mages do? I always thought of lyrium as a mineral, albeit a semi-organic mineral, but that it was still in a solid crystaline form, growing into pwetty trees n ****. Judging from what Valta tells us about Sha-Brytol it sounds as if they were taking a fluid version straight from the Titan's Heart? Valta also seems to be hit directly by a blob of Raw Lyrium and forms a connection with the Titan. While Dwarves are resistant to handling it, consuming raw Lyrium should kill them as Valta states herself. Does this mean that the Lyrium in the Titan's Heart/Blood is of a different quality? Would Titan's Blood lose some of its attributes/potency as it reaches further away from the heart or be less capable to transfer the Song?
Yet, the Titan must need something or wishes to achieve something that it required his Children for? My anwser is: Freedom. Dwarves are best known for one thing and one thing only, mining . The other thing they do is make Thaigs, which are basically large quanities of absent stone. They were created to dig-out the Titans.
After getting hit Valta explains the Titan even refers to her as one of his "Children". She seems very different from before, with a very very clear sense of purpose from which she cannot be swayed, while not 5 minutes earlier she was a devout member of the Shaperate, something of this magnititude should have her running back to her people. I think she has been restored to the Titan's control, like the ancient (uncorrupted) dwarves of Old before the destruction of the Dwarven Empire, caused by the Mythal (read: Enuvaris), and that she will be the Titan's Herald to restore an enslaved dwarven civilization for the Titan, while she believes to reunite her people with a sense of purpose without castes, political believes and disarray. One thing is sure, you might have killed the Guardian but this Titan is not dead, a mistake made by the Enuvaris before.
Now on why I think Dwarves get Mind Controlled by Lyrium, even only slightly. When Dwarves spend a long time or their entire life on the surface they lose their connection to the Stone and their resistance to lyrium. Surface Dwarves (often) express more emotion and individuality then their conservative underground brethren and lack sense of direction below ground, their behaviour is more like human counterparts. Now the opposite can also be true, they lose their individuality and emotions but gain better Stone sense and lyrium resistance/immunity.
The best example I could find for this was the Dwarven "Savant" Sandal. He comes from an extremely deep, unkown part of the Deep Roads, appears like a moronic Tranquil, hasn't been tainted by the Blight, has pitch perfect Stone sense even after living on the surface for some time, has no real means of expressing himself but he is exceptionally good at following orders and crafting things with Lyrium but lacks any other basic skills whatsoever AND he has been found in suspisicious circumstances that reek heavily of magic or some sort of Lyrium based defensive mechanism even saying "BOOM" and "Not enchantment" after killing Darkspawn, deviating from his general repetoire of "Enchantment..?!".
I think Sandal has been guided his entire childhood by the Song through Lyrium and I'd even go as far as saying that under the direct influence of a Titan (not like Sandal, more like Valta) a dwarf has not much need for sleep, food or drink. Becoming a sort of living golem for all intents and purposes. The Sha-Brytol and the Profane rely completely on lyrium as nourishment to sustain their immortal bodies, would dwarves have a similar potential and can simply sustain themselves through Lyrium?
When you ask Valta "How will you survive?" she replies "I have my Stone Sense and now so much more" and in her journal:
"Renn's murderers (the Sha-Brytol) hide in the shadows, watching me from a safe distance. The Sha-Brytol saw the Titan favor me with the gift of shaping stone (lyrium manipulation/The Song?). I am more powerful than they will ever be. They fear me. They love me. They understand I am a part of the Titan they defend, but they don't realize it doesn't need their protection. It never has. Whoever these dwarves once were, whatever motives drove them to remain here, now they are only lost."
I think when Dwarves go back to the stone, their lyrium essence or something that enables them to live opposed to a spirit connected to the Fade, returns and become a part of the Titan again. Blind Kolg, whose journal you find in the Deep Roads, is attracted to the Singing Stone (Lyrium) where he appears to hear his (dead) mother. Also with Valta's new found wisdom I strongly suspect she is capable of tapping memories and knowledge of all the dwarves that have ever been connected to the Titan, or have been buried near its Lyrium veins and properly returned to the Stone.
I believe Valta has become a "true" Paragon, or Titan's Herald/Chosen. The Old Dwarven Pantheon wer revered dwarven deities, could they have been the Paragons of Old? Immortal Dwarves that held the greatest lyrium manipulation skills and able to tap into all the memories.
Another quote by Solas adds to this theory:
"Dwarves are the severed arm of a once mighty hero, lying in a pool of blood. Undirected. Whatever skill of arms it had, gone forever. Although it might twitch to give the appearance of life, it will never dream."
According to a being that is older then the Veil, dwarves had been an integral part as a whole (arm) of the the Titan (once mighty hero) that got defeated, they are created in the physical world and have no connection to the fade (it will never dream) and in their current state, undirected by the Titan, might appear to achieve great wonders building thaigs and venerating Paragons, while it is but a shadow of their former glory before the fall of the Titan.
And:
"They prepared to hunt down the pillars of the earth and watched their workers scurry, witless, soulless"
They worked for the Titan, not for their own benefit. They were mindless drones, guided by the Song sustained on Lyrium.
I think the Dwarves of Kal-Sharok are still bound to their Titan, the one in Kal-Sharok was unreachable to the Elves as it was past the Anderfels, which was then still a part of the Tevinter Empire. The Kal-Sharok dwarves appear pale, unanimated and somehow "tainted", are efficient and reclusive, and "Kal-Sharok has had to do some very questionable things to survive". They have been cut of from other Dwarven kingdoms and had practically no outside contact sine the First Blight, hundreds of years ago. How the hell did they manage to hang on while Orzammar has only been losing territory. Titan's Blood, baby, you saw what kind of bad-ass tech the Sha-Brytol could fashion and how Darkspawn never ventured close to the Wellspring. I think Kal-Shirok also bears a Well-Spring, and was the first Capital of the Dwarves for that very reason.
Now the interesting part of this is that Fen'Harel, while he pities Dwarves, he considers the Titans heroes, as (demi-)god of rebellion this probably means the Titans once challenged the established order of things or had broken a sacred rule. I'd wager that it was forbidden to create life, that the Maker had created his Firstborn and Secondborn and that was it. In an attempt to mimic life the Titans created the Rockwraiths, beings that orignally had no will of their own but mere lyrium pupptes dancing to the Song, an abomination in the eyes of the Maker and as punishment he magically imprisoned them beneath the earth, for all time in a deep slumber. This punishment is similar to how the Old Gods were entombed beneath the earth by the Maker for commiting the Original Sin. I believe it was after they were entombed that they created the Dwarves. We know that Elves were there before the Dwarves, but
So far it has awakened only twice, recently by the opening of the Breach, which reduced the strength of the Veil, which in turn might have weakened the bindings that hold them. It is trying to wriggle free causing earthquakes and sending out a more conscious and powerful Song to attract his Children.
Valta mentions this Titan last "bled in despair", causing massive earthquakes, shortly before the fall of Arlathan. I believe this cannot be a coincedence. The Fall of Elvhenan and Arlathan have been proven not to be caused by Tevinter Bloodmagic but by the construction of the Veil. This clearly The Veil clearly has a very strong effect on Titans.
At this point the Dwarves of Old were still under control of the Titans.
"Something caused them to fall, and the dwarves with them" alludes, in my opinion, to the severing of the Titans' minds from the Dwarves.
Shortly after we learn in Trespasser that Mythal, the False God of Love for crying out loud, is leading a personal crusade against the Titans (pillars of the earth) and defeated several of them, but not quite succeeding in some cases where the Titan apparently survived. I believe Mythal and the Enuvaris to have caused the fall of the Titans, It would not makes sense for the Titans to first be defeated altogether by an unkown force only to be "slain" again by Myth. So one of these events is not true or they refer to the same incident, which would make sense.
So here is a chronology of what I think happened. First of we know the fall of the Titans happened AFTER -1160 Ancient BEFORE the Fall of Arlathan. Now this is very important. It was during the rule of the first Dwarven Emperor and Paragon Orseck Garal, that the Titan awoke previously for the first time, due to the construction of the Veil. The Empire was whole at this point, the darkspawn did not exist and they were perfectly happy (unknowningly?) in bound servitude to the Titans or atleast they knew very clearly what Titans were and reported that the Song was changing, Something causing earthquakes, mentioned in a book with royal seal of Garal, I believe. None of this is ever mentioned in known Dwarven history, but we find evidence of this near the Titan, once more not a coincedence.
If Arlathan still existed that meant that the Elvhenan still existed and that the Enuvaris still reigned as immortal false Gods. The Sentinel, the Archivist and Solas tell us that with the construction of the Veil and the seperation of the magical and physical worlds, it caused dimensions made out of both like the Crossroads and the Library to break apart, locking spirits and magic in one realm and binding the rest of the world in the physical realm, breaking most of the Elven world that existed partially from magic.
We also know that, when the Titans fell, is that Mythal was still alive, as she killed. So the Veil did not exist at this point. Mythal foresaw that the Titans would break free if the Dwarves kept digging so she attacked the Titans to prevent this from happening.
"Earthquakes once shook elven cities, and they sought to tame the land. They prepared to hunt down the pillars of the earth and watched their workers scurry, witless, soulless. Mythal struck down at least some of the titans and gave the land to the elves, who would make it blossom with the titans' passing. They mined titan's bodies for lyrium, but eventually collapsed the mines and sealed them with stone and magic out of fear - what the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would destroy all in its anger."
Now as most of the above, this is speculation, but I read this as if the Elves invaded the Dwarven undergrounds, slew the Titans and watched how the helpless Dwarves would be cut of from the Song that was guiding their every move, like bees without a queen.
"Gave the land to the elves" Dwarves had no land, except their Thaigs, meaning the Elves conquered Thaigs and lived there, explains a lot of the architecture we found. "Who would make it blossom with the titans' passing", they used Lyrium they mined to build their new homes in the same manner as before, drawing magic from the lyrium to infuse their buildings and art. All much grander than this dull and practical Dwarven masonry.
Now the Enuvaris thought the Titans defeated, they lived cosy underground for quite some time, painted muriels and made mosaics. sat around veilfire camps for some years and had a limitless supply of magical sustenance.
They probably continued happily with their slavery I'd assume, conventional Elven Lyrium mining takes a certain toll on the body and I'd imagine not done voluntarily.
Until suddenly they realized something and began shitting bricks.
Elven False-Gods scared? From personal experience Elves are probably the most arrogant, self-absorbed and egocentric beings in every fantasy universe
(Solas proves this again and again, Merill, Sera, Fernis all preoccupied with themselves and their worldviews, not agreeing with them will always caused them to whine and ******) and will often gladly sacrifice thousands if not million of inferior beings like humans and dwarves (Humans on whole are always greedy, warlike and xenophobic, while dwarves are stoic, seclusive, mercantile and stubborn) for a handful of their own or their precious immortality. The Craftworlds would be proud of Solas.
The fact that Elves have been subjected to thousands of years of slavery and abuse is a dreadful thing which no race deserves, but the Enuvaris are the embodiment of all that is Elven and the definition of stuck up pricks. I see why, in retrospect, Solas wants to revert his decission, but the fact that he can and will do this just pisses me of. After I gave him so many shinies, listened to his ravings on whether it is a demon, spirit or ectoplasm and gave him a wall and some crayons to boot...
I'd go as far as say that the Enuvaris were not only responsible for the destruction and corruption of their own society, but also the Severing of the Titan connection with the Dwarves, out of desperation and greed after they lost their way of life.
But these guys got scared? No, they were chuck-rocks-down-the-hole, place-extra-barriers-and-throw-away-the-key-kinda-scared. Solas created the Vel, and the Titans, who were presumed dead, reacted heavily to that. They figured the Titan couldn't be killed that easily and that they only severed the connection with his Children and they knew that the Titan was gonna be very very angry once it gets out, so they wanted to get away as quick as possible. Story: Mythal killed them, the dwarves lost their connection, nobody can get there, we don't tell a thing end of story.
I'm not sure wether I like Mythal for what she did or not. While Apocalypse by Titan seems a bad way to go just ending an entire civilization like that is another example of why Elves are utter scumbags, they'd rather do unto others then done unto themselves.
Why am I so sure Mythal did try to stop the Titans?
The ancient Thaig Cad'Hadash, east of Orzammar, holds some pretty interesting information. First of all, we know that it was destroyed by the Kal-Sharok dwarves. The reason given was, paraphrasing here "Harbouring Elven refugees that fled from the destruction of Arlathan" to keep the Tevinter Empire jappy. Now we Have established that Mythal had slain the Titans and had taken the Thaigs, these were not refugees but conquerors. Kal-Sharok would not march across the Deep Roads of entire Orlais to deal with some refugees. This was retaliation for what the Elves had done to the Titans, the battle most likely destroyed the Thaig.
Now what happened to the Dwarves that lived there and had lost the connection with the Titan? Where can we find a place with similar ruins as Cad'Hadash?
Hmmmmm.... Kal-Repartha in the Hissing Wastes, founded by Paragon Fairel.
Fairel took his people to the surface, hundreds of years BEFORE the First Blight, nice time frame, left two very interesting descriptions behind, first:
The writing talks about "the sad parting from the Stone." Hundreds of years ago, several houses left their thaigs to settle here under one leader. They were running from a war, or running so there wouldn't be a war?
Parting of the Stone, coincedence, I think not. Secondly:
"From the Stone, have no fear of anything,
but the stone-less sky betrays with wings of flame.
If the surface must be breached, if there is no other
way,
bring weapons against the urtok, and heed their
screams."
"Urtok" means "dragon." Why was it part of an ancient crest? Why were these dwarves so worried about a monster they'd never see that they worked it into their weapons?
Good question Mr. Random Tomb Explorer. Why would they be worried about dragons? The dragon came to them, but in another guise. That of an Elven woman, Mythal. She "betrayed" the Dwarves hospitality, perhaphs she pretended to be a refugee and slew the Titan.
Finally I believe that today there are three Titans still alive, the Kal-Sharok Titan which has been untouched. The Orlais Titan, which was incapacitated but survived (Nexus Golem and Tug's Axe: "The Stone lives beneath Orlais. Mathas gar na fornen pa salroka atrast") and the one you just visited, which is the Ferelden Titan, which has been incapacitated for some time but awoke due to the Breach in the Veil and now has a new Titan's Paragon, Herald.
Maybe there was a Par Vollen Titan at some point, but I doubt it survived or might be in deep unconcious slumber.
Now this is just another one of my brainfarts but there might be something to it.
The fight with the Titan's Guardian instantly brought me back to DA2 and the Rock Wraiths. Their similarity was striking to me and I feel like there must be some sort of connection here. Lyrium skeleton and moving rocks.
What if they were the actual first children of the Titans constructed in their likeness, the act for which the Titans were punished and bound beneath the earth? They seem to feed directly on Lyrium Veins, the blood of the Titan, much like the Sha-Brytol/Dwarves of Old. Also they have been found in a "Thaig" that predates any Dwarven History, even that of the first Emperor and the founding of the first Dwarven Thaig. I believe that the Rockwraiths made that Thaig, for the exact same reason the Dwarves make them. To remove stone from around the Titan.
My Theory is that after the Titans' punishment of The Maker he gave the Rockwraiths free will, and they chose to call themselves the Profane. A weird name, contempt for what is sacred/holy. Could it be contempt towards the so called "sacredness" of the Maker and forever cut off from the Titan's Song and have therefor developped a passionate hatred based on jealousy towards anything that lives, for they can neither truly dream nor can they hear the Song.
Again all of this is theorized based on lose fragments of information. But I feel that Titans are real conscious and living forces of nature, unleashing them would be apocalyptic. They are not necessarily evil, but being locked up for millenia might have changed their perspective slightly.
A large part of the Enuvaris are outright evil, perhaphs Mythal was an exception but even her behaviour in her vessel Flemeth shows that she is only interested in her perpetual existence and vengeance, not very noble and selfless ambitions, she even takes on the form of a Dragon and I believe her to be fully responsible for the Titans' demise. So I highly doubt that Mythal was as loving as the myths and her blinded lover Fen'Harel made her out to be.
The Dread Wolf will once more toil with the very fabrics of reality and the laws of nature to do some stupid ****, but this time he probably cocks up so badly that even he thinks he should've just died alone like the fisherman. The Titans are coming.
TL:DR > Titans are the Stone > the Song is conducted through Lyrium > Dwarves directly under the control of the Titan are nourished entirely through Lyrium and are living golems > They were created to dig out the Titans > Valta is the new Titan Paragon capable of lyrium manipulation and tapping ancestral memories through Lyrium > Mythal realised Titans were being dug out and prepares to hunt down the Titan > She becomes a dragon and severs the Titan control of the Dwarves > Elves conquer the Thaigs > Dwarves escape to Hissing Wastes > Enuvaris murder Mythal, Fen'Harel pissed creates the Veil > Veil affects the Titans, which are not dead > Elves scared shitless, seal the mines and run as fast as they can. > Fen'Harel inadventently and unknowingly destroys the shackles that bind the Titans by messing with the fabric of reality and will ultimatetly unleash the Titans by pure accident, because that's the kind of guy he is. ****** gods.
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