Savhalla. I am so grateful for the work that you are doing; it's amazing. I know you've answered a similar question to the one I'm going to ask and I tried to work it out on my own but my brain just wouldn't cooperate. So, my question: how would one announce their orgasm? i.e. what's the elvhen for "I'm coming" / "I'm orgasming"? Also, if you don't mind: elvhen for "touch me" in a sexual context? 'Ma serannas. (I hope you don't mind I'm anon, I'm honestly a little embarrassed to be asking this.)
Savhalla!
I’m cumming/I’m coming/I’m going to orgasm would be either:
Ar rosemah’da’din - I’m about to orgasm.
Ar garemah. I’m about to come.
Ar reemah. I’m about to release.
Touch me in the way you intend would be Dera em (touch me), or Dera em aron tuelan (touch me like a creator). The second would carry the connotation of “Make love to me.”
I don't know if you've already been asked this, and my apologies if you have, but are there are terms of affection other than the given of 'vhenan' and 'emma lath?' Things less intense and more along the lines of 'dear' or 'darling' or 'cutie' or 'my sweet.' Boyfriend or girlfriend or other. Something between 'lethallan/in' and 'vhenan'. Thanks a bunch, you're amazing!
I don’t recall being asked something similar, but my memory can be shoddy, especially as the number of asks I get continues to climb.
In terms of endearments, you have to remember that endearments are usually born from the language. For example, while you could translate darling or sweetie into Elvhen, it would be like translating ‘baby,’ into Portuguese. Calling your lover bebê or docinho in Portuguese would be just be weird. Instead, you’re going to be using things like chuchu, gato/gata, or meu querido/minha querida — just to name a few. Likewise, while querido translates back into English as ‘dear,’ or ‘darling,’ calling somebody chayote or cat in English would be just as weird as calling somebody docinho in Portuguese.
Also mind that some of the endearments on the Elvhen wiki page are unfortunately just plain wrong from a grammatical/linguistic standpoint.
With that in mind, onwards to Elvhen endearments:
For Anyone:
Da’assan: little arrow. An endearment used, usually for hunters, but can be used for anyone. Typically used to describe someone who is forthright, straight shooting, etc. Usually used by someone more experience/older towards someone less experienced/younger.Da’mi / Da’mis: little blade. An endearment used, usually for hunters or warriors, but can be used for anyone. Typically used to describe someone who is stubbon, but effective. Someone who goes to get what they want, and someone who does something regardless of consequence. As with da’assan, it is usually used by someone more experience/older towards someone less experienced/younger.Da’lath’in: little heart. An endearment used to describe someone who is emotional, carries their heart on their sleeve, is very empathetic, or very sympathetic to the plights of others. Typically used to describe a young person, but can be used for people of all ages who meet the description.Da Fen: Little wolf. An playful endearment for close friends, family and lovers. Used with those who are the same age or older.Da Fenlin: Little wolfling. An endearment similar to Da Fen, but used for those who are younger and/or less experienced.Ara halla / ‘Ma’halla: My halla. An endearment for a very close friend that you trust implicitly.
For Children
Ara iovru / ‘Ma’iovru: My bear cub, my baby bear.Ara vherlin / ‘Ma’vherlin: Kitten, baby catAra Dharlin / ‘Ma’dharlin: Pup, puppy, baby houndAra hallain / ‘Ma’hallain: My little halla calf, My baby hallaAra da’adahl / ‘Ma da’adahl: My little treeAra da’ean / ‘Ma’da’ean: My little birdAra da’isenatha / ‘Ma’da’isenatha: My little dragonAra vherain / ‘Ma’vherain: My lion cub, my baby lionIn the above examples, the possessives are often omitted.
For Parents / Grandparents
Mae: Mommy, Mom, MaBae: Dad, Daddy, PopMaela: Nana, Nona, GrammyBaela: Popop, Nono, Grandpa, PoppyIovro’shan: old bearFen’shan: Old wolfIsenatha’shan: Old dragonVheraan’shan: Old lionIovro’bae: Papa bearIovro’mae: Mama bearFen’bae: Papa wolfFen’mae: Mama wolfIsenatha’bae: papa dragonIsenatha’mae: mama dragonVheraan’bae: papa lionVheraan’mae: mama lion
For Lovers
Ara’isha / ‘Ma’isha: Husband/boyfriend. Lit. my manAra’asha / ‘Ma’ahsa: Wife/girlfriend. Lit. my womanAra’esha / ‘Ma’esha: Partner/lover. Lit. my personAra’len / ‘Ma’len: Husband/boyfriend. A much more poetic variant. Lit. Myself, my male personAra’lan / ‘Ma’lan: Wife/girlfriend. A much more poetic variant. Lit. Myself, my female person.Ara’lin / ‘Ma’lin: Partner/lover. A much more poetic variant. Lit. Myself, my personAra sa’lath / ‘Ma’sa’lath: My one loveAra lath / ‘Ma’lath: My loveVhen’an’ara: Heart’s desire. Lit. journey of the heartArasha: My happinessAra blarteralas / ‘Ma’blarteralas: My mountain flowerAra av’in / ‘Ma’av’in: My mouth. A very personal and slightly sexual endearment. The meaning is essentially, “I love you so much, and desire you so much, that my mouth tastes like yours.” But also means, “We understand each other on such a personal level, that you could talk for me.”Ara haurasha / ‘Ma’haurasha: My honey. A very sexual endearment that essentially means “You make me wet,” or “You make me hard.” Fyi: Haurasha (honey) is slang for precum, and the wetness of the vagina. Ara sal’shiral / ‘Ma’sal’shiral: My life. Essentially, “Love of my life,” or “You are my soul’s journey.”Gaildahlas: The elvhen word for embrium. Similar to the english endearment ‘sweetie,’ or ‘baby.’Fenor: Precious. Similar to the english endearment: Dear, or beloved. Fenorain: Little precious. Similar to the english endearment ‘darling.’
There was no exact translation into any human tongue, so far as Valya knew, although the phrase could clumsily be reduced to “the path to a place of lost love.” It was a quote from one of the few great poems to be remembered through the oral traditions of the Dalish and the alienages, and it described a wistful wish for beauty that one had never actually experienced in life. It was a sweetly painful sensation, akin to nostalgia but laced with greater bitterness, for a nostalgic man remembers the pleasure he has lost, whereas one experiencing *lathbora viran* longs for a thing that he can never really know.
"Under the blackberry vines, I felt it," Valya muttered under her breath. That was how the poem opened: with the musky fragrance of ripening blackberries, bitter and sweet, and a wish to remember the long-lost scents of Arlathan.
The poem itself was *lathbora viran*, because no elf she’d ever met remembered it in the original Elvish. The elves had a few fragmented words and the skeleton of the story, but the poem itself had been haltingly re-created in human tongues. No alienage elves knew enough of their own history or mother language to recall their civilization’s lost works of art. They didn’t even know the original title. “Under the Blackberry Vines,” it was called, because no one knew the true name anymore.
- Dragon Age: Last Flight, Liane Merciel, pg 24-25
***
I just loved this passage, but especially because of Merrill and Carver’s dialogue in DA2:
Merrill: Do you miss it? Ferelden, I mean.
Carver: Sometimes.
Merrill: Blackberries. They don’t seem to grow here. And there were little song birds with black caps on their heads.
Carver: I sort of miss the dogs barking.
Merrill: Yes… It’s been mostly humans barking at me here. Not nearly as cute.
Maybe it’s just coincidence that Merrill brings up blackberries. Or maybe not. I do love that she thinks of them as she’s trying to relate to Carver about him missing his homeland — especially given that for elves, blackberries are apparently associated with missing something you never truly knew, a place that only exists in the ache in your heart.
Aravels in Origins seem to have tent-like extensions:
So the answer is sort of both. The canvas presumably packs away into the aravel when the clan’s on the move, then opens out again when they stop. There’s a schematic here.
The redesigned aravels in DA2/DAI are harder to work out, mostly because they’re not really big enough for anything. My guess is that this is a game resource issue, the same way as Amaranthine is more the size of a tiny town than a bustling port city (even by medieval standards), and aravels are intended to be a bit bigger - roughly the size of a Rromani caravan on the inside. If you wanted extra space, you could presumably run canvas down from the masts in a cone, generating a tent like we saw in Origins.
Thank you~
The DA II redesign was what made me start questioning it, because they’re pretty but waaay too small.
I’d question whether they have enough aravels for the entire clan, but I guess most of them live in forests so yeah, they’re not going to run out of resources.
Yeah. You couldn’t even fit the contents of the camp into the DA2 aravels, much less the people.
I found some concept art which might help:
Assuming this is one clan we’re seeing and not an arlathvhen, it looks like what we’re supposed to be imagining is one massive aravel surrounded by a bunch of smaller ones? Which would imply that the elves live in the smaller ones and the large one is used to carry their communal stuff; considering they have to cart around things like an entire blacksmith’s forge and any bulky ancient relics they might have (such as Merrill’s eluvian), that would make a lot more sense than those tiny little handcarts we see in-game.
There are quite a lot of aravels in that concept as well as that damn huge one. Considering in Inquisition not only is the clan we meet pretty small, and that they’re also slightly scattered it’s possible they tend to conceal quite a bit of their camp from outsiders even when they allow them in. Hmm.
There is no way in hell that Dalish clans are as small as we usually see: the one in Origins is maybe 30 or 40 people, and the one in DA2 is even less than that. I’d guess the actual average clan size, if Bioware had infinite memory and resources to dedicate to making it realistic, would be around 100-200? Enough for breeding, at least.
At the same time, though, the one in Inquisition is about five people, and the clan members we’re missing usually seem to be the elderly, infirm, children and other noncombatants. (Excepting, of course, the eight or so kids running around in Origins - again, there’s no way a clan of 30 people could have that many kids at once.) So yeah, it’s entirely possible (even likely) that the rest of the clan is concealed somewhere nearby.
Considering the Chantry’s (and Bioware’s) propensity for wiping out entire clans, it honestly would not surprise me if the standard Dalish ‘camp’ is actually a chain of several camps, with the living quarters and most vulnerable members usually sequestered deep behind line upon line of warriors and hunters and the outermost camp consisting of only the people who need to deal with outsiders - the craftsmaster, the Keeper, and whoever’s there to protect them today.
Which raises questions about the kids in Origins, but then again, that clan had been suffering losses from the werewolves, and there was a Blight on. Maybe Zathrian had pulled everyone back into the centre for safety.
That makes sense, and it helps the clan survive if a section of the clan is attacked and wiped out… and explains why most of Clan Sabrae, including the children, were missing in DA:II. (In Masked Empire, Clan Virnehn is noted to have 50 members at most, but it’s possible that they just didn’t see most of the clan.
Hunters and scouts would probably spend time away from camp too, which would leave them to act as couriers I suppose.)
All of this would mean that neither Zathrian’s clan nor Clan Sabrae (and possibly even Clan Lavellan) have been driven to extinction in any of the games, so it’s canon now.
(I just can’t buy 50 people per clan. Even if they traded members every arlathvhen, the Dalish would be so inbred, and we’ve had no indication that they practice arranged marriages like the city elves; Cammen and Gheyna in particular are good examples of this. Even if some clans arrange marriages, all of them clearly don’t.)
If Corypheus is the one of the Seven Magister's who went into the Golden City, would it make sense that The Architect is one of the original Magister's too? He has control over the taint just like Corypheus, he looks similar to Corypheus (a fucked up priest). Maybe he just has amnesia? Plus Corypheus's code name is "The Conductor," maybe "The Architect" is just the code name he remembers, due to amnesia he forgot his actual name.
I say that the Architect is in fact one of seven magisters, specifically the high priest of the temple dedicated to Urthemiel. (I assume that the old god of beauty presumably had a hand in the construction of Tevinter, the styling of the capital’s architecture was most likely overseen by priests from Urthemiel’s temple.) Because this was the god dedicated to beauty, the Architect was ejected from the Fade (specifically the Black City) without his eyes. Corypheus, meanwhile, was priest of the god of silence, with the temple particularly known for its choirs; he was ejected from the Fade without his ears. Presumably the other five are also missing body parts appropriate to their patron god, (the priest of the god of slaves has no hands to strike with, the priest of the god of fire probably doesn’t have skin, and so on) but since we’ve never seen then there’s no way to be sure.
Headcanon says that the Architect was asleep, like Corypheus, for a very long time; he hadn’t been found by the Wardens and locked away the same way as Corypheus, so he wasn’t exposed to the Taint and able to sneak into the minds of nearby Wardens the same way. This is how Corypheus kept himself grounded while he was in stasis, and the Architect didn’t have that. Thus, when he woke up, all he remembered was that he is “the Architect,” and over time realized a few things:
He is what’s called a “Darkspawn.”
He isn’t driven by the same force as other Darkspawn.
He has a staggering amount of magical ability.
Realizing that the other Darkspawn were being driven by the Call, the Architect set out to find a way to make them like him, free and cognizant, and along the way made some huge mistakes.
But I mean, if he is one of the seven magisters, making mistakes is kind of what he’s best at.
(Also, I’d like to point out that “the Architect” and “the Conductor” not only follow the same naming convention with one another, but also the naming convention used for “the Maker.”)
There’s an interesting codex entry on talking darkspawn and magisters. I cannot for the life of me remember where I found it (I think it was in a thaig, so maybe Valammar?) but here it is:
Personal bet: the Architect was the one who chatted with Amuk about surfacers.
Neither of the other two could be Corypheus, since he was locked up at the time, so if the Warden killed the Architect, then by the end of Inquisition at least three of the original seven magisters are dead.
Dalish elves living in caves, using their superior night vision to get around. Scaring the living daylights out of any bandits that try to move in. The caves are filled with glowing eyes, they’re haunted.
Dalish elves living in the deserts of Tevinter, Nevarra, Antiva, The Anderfels, moving only at night on their Aravels. The tracks get washed away in the night, and they leave almost no trace. Merchant caravans tell stories of strange clouds floating and silhouetted against the top of dunes under the full moon.
Dalish elves living among frozen peaks, clad in camouflaged furs and hunting with griffons and bows, not knowing their mounts are supposed to be extinct.
Dalish elves living in tropical forests, spending their whole lives among the trees, feet never touching the ground.
Dalish elves living in the wild corners of Thedas, The Tirashan Forest, The Gamordan Peaks, The Donarks, The Wandering Hills; only hearing about humans in their histories and stories.
Dalish elves living in the halls of their ancestors, reclaiming what once was theirs one broken stone at a time.
Vallaslin/Dalish Tattoos from Dragon Age: Inquisition - PSD download
Transparent PNGs of every available tattoo. PSD contains all in hi-res transparent layers. Associated gods in the captions, referenced from here. Extracted from game resources using DAI Tools.
DA:I - DA:O vallaslin match-up process and decision making :
Elgar'nan, June and Andruil were simple pattern-matches. The DAI and DAO versions are very nearly identical.
And as mentioned, the Falon'din DAI tattoo is extremely similar to the DAO "Mythal" tattoo
Since "Mythal" was clearly Falon'Din, that left the question: so which one IS mythal? Things got complicated from there.
Mythal has a branching pattern similar to a tree, more easily seen head-on vs the side-view in the chart posted by Rhodes.
I first thought it might be the DAO Dirthamen. They're both very twirly and scroll-y, and the DAO pattern looks a bit like a tree:
But then if DAO Dirthamen was DAI Mythal ... which one was Dirthamen? And then, of course, I discovered that DAI Dirthamen doesn't look much like ANY of the old DAO designs, including the fanon-marked one.
"Hm." I thought. So, I sat down and went through all the tattoos, looking for visual similarities.
"But wait," I said, "that's Ghilan'nain!" So I pulled up DAO ghilly to compare.
But they both look similar! They can't BOTH be ghilly. And then I noticed something else:
DAO ghilan'nain, particularly the 'advanced' version, is very similar to DAI's Sylaise. Notice the similar 'branching vines/horns' motif. Additionally, both patterns are unique in that they use thick lines with varying transparency that suggests 3-dimensionality, whereas all the others are simply solid lines.
But .. Sylaise was suppossedly this:
which, conveniently, has no clear analogue in the DAI tattoos. (This is about the time I threw my hands up and took a break.) There is some visual similarity between DAI Sylaise and DAO Sylaise: similar curling bits on the forehead, the 'pathways' of perpendicular lines on the DAO version may be similar to the 'thick vines' visual in the DAI.
I went back to Mythal and stared at it for a while. I wondered if, perhaps it was a simple swap between falon'din and mythal. The DAO falon'din didn't appear to LOOK much like the DAI mythal ...
... but it didn't look much like anything else either. And Mythal certainly didn't look much like Ghilly or Sylaise.
I started thinking abstractly, and about some of the creepy statues in various DA ruins. Originally, this tattoo pattern was chosen for Falondin because it resembled those statues. But I wondered, what if they aren't Falon'din statues? They could be Dirthamen, or Mythal statues (the ones in a particular temple are particularly creepy, and appear female ... )
On the other hand, the Dirthamen DAI and Falon'Din DAO tattoos are the only ones that have straight, geometric lines, which suggests a relation.
I went back to the wiki and read the pantheon entries, compared the mosaic murals from the Inquisition ruin to both the DAI tattoos and the DAO tattoos. Decided that, alright, perhaps Ghilly and Sylaise ARE labeled correctly.
Which still left me Mythal and Dirthamen.
Interestingly, what sorted it out was getting caught in a wiki-vortex and thinking about lore and story progression, and looking very closely at the changing vallaslin of Merrill and Merethari.
Merrill in DAO had the "falon'din" (aka not-falondin) vallaslin, and a 'unique' style in DA2. If you put them side-by-side, you can see where one design has morphed into the other; the forehead symbols sweep up instead of down, the cheek-vines have simplified and the chin markings are mostly the same. Place them all in a line with DAI's Dirthamen at the end, and it certainly resembles an evolutionary progress:
When you take into account Merrill's story arc, her wearing the markings of the God of Secrets makes absolute sense.
Which of course leaves only Mythal.
By process of elimination, I end up right back where I started. Mythal = "curvy scroll-work Dirthamen". What makes this particularly interesting is that Keeper Merethari also changes vallaslin between origins and da2. In origins, she wore Sylaise.
in DA2?
Which, considering certain story develoments, is very interesting.
this of course means that Tamlen and Zathrien also wore Mythal. And I should probably stop there before more epileptic trees start growing.
So earlier this month, Matt Rhodes released this presumably Official chart of the Dalish vallaslin tattoos and which member of the elven pantheon they represent. I happened to look at fandom resource from 2011 created by Glitterdust, and I noticed that the pattern marked as Falon'Din on the official chart very closely resembled the pattern marked as Mythal on the fanon chart. And that pattern did not look much like the official Mythal pattern.
Discontinuities bother me. So, I played a game of Match-Up.
Origins tattoos have been matched to Inquisition tattoos based on similar visual elements and/or themes. I make no claims to accuracy or canon authority.
Edh = given that dh is pronounced in elvhen like a voiced th, this is likely a variant of Eth, which means safety. Edh probably means something like privacy or private.
Is = shortened of ish, meaning he, or isha, meaning male.
Wolf private male
Wolf male privacy
FENEDHIS MEANS WOLF PENIS.
So when an Elf exclaims, “Fenedhis!” he is essentially saying, “Wolf dick!”
So this means when Solas gets exasperated at Sera, and says, “Fenedhis lasa,” (lasa means to grant or to allow), he is basically saying, “Go fuck a wolf’s dick.” or “Go suck a wolf’s dick.”
You’re welcome.
addendum: This also means that edhis would mean penis, and edhas would mean vagina.
this is one of those pedantic things that makes me second guess myself whenever i write fic but how long do you guys figure it actually takes to get from Skyhold to… well, anywhere?
is it a relatively quick two day ride to the Hinterlands? is getting to the Hissing Wastes a two week commitment? how much time is actually passing when you travel somewhere?
These are all approximations based on a few assumptions about the equivalency of Thedas to Europe, France to Orlais, Ferelden to England.
Denerim to Minrathous: 30 Days
Skyhold to Val Royeux: 8 Days
Skyhold to the Emerald Graves: 4 - 5 Days
Skyhold to the Winter Palace: 3 - 4 Days
Skyhold to the Exalted Planes: 4 - 5 Days
Skyhold to the Western Approach: 15 - 18 Days
Skyhold to the Hissing Wastes: 16 - 20 Days
Skyhold to the Storm Coast: 6 - 8 Days
Skyhold to the Fallow Mire: 8 - 10 Days
Skyhold to the Hinterlands: 3 - 4 Days
Skyhold to Crestwood: 5 - 6 Days
So going to the Hissing Wastes is a huge investment of time on the Inquisitor’s part. We can probably cut the travel times in half if we assume that the company is traveling all day and all night, as opposed to only during the day. So if they really wanted to rush it, they could make the trip to Val Royeux in about four days, but that would be unrealistic.
I don’t know if that helps at all. I can show you the math I did to get to this point, but that’s probably not necessary.
hey thanks man!!! that’s honestly really helpful! i think i can adequately handle travel times now in this ridiculous thing i’m working on. i wonder what kinds of stuff they even talk about on their two week journeys, can you imagine how many hands of wicked grace get played around campfires? lots of gossip and ridiculous stories shared too, i’m sure…
I want more comics about elf eyes freaking the shit out of their friends.
Lavellan hanging out talking with Sera or whatever, late into the night, campfire is just coals. Blackwall opens up the flap of his tent so he can go take a piss in the woods and just sees two sets of reflective eyes pierce his soul and he emits such a high pitched squeal that the rest of the camp wakes up thinking they’re being overrun by nugs.
from what I’ve read and what I’ve seen, I have made two educated guesses about Elvish.
Firstly, Elvish is both agglutinative and fushional, similar to German. In short, what this means is that words, suffixes and prefixes can be stacked, almost infinitely, to make incredibly long words with variable meanings.
For example, the German word for bat is fledermaus, i.e. flutter-mouse.
It also has words that have no true definition outside of german, which are words describe ideas, ideals, or concepts. Brazilian Portuguese also has this too. For example, schadenfreude: pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.
Secondly, Elvish shares a lot in common with both German and Brazilian portuguese in that it has words that are combinations of other words that make up a completely new meaning through poetic inference. For example, the Elvish word for rest: Ha’ma’in, which literally translates to “Put the old knife away.” But as one word, it means rest or relaxation.
It also has words dealing with conceptual ideas, such as En’an’sal’in, which is comfort, or healing after a period of event of great pain or loss.
This shares similar ideas with Brazilian Portuguese, such as the word Saudade, which is the intense feeling of missing something or someone.
With that in mind, I made elvish translations of my two favorite words in Br. Portuguese: Saudade and Cafune.
Lath’sal’in
the act of fondling someone’s hair, especially someone you care about. Lit. “Love the house of the soul.”
Mi’nas’sal’in
the intense feeling of missing something or someone that is deeply important or personal. Lit. “The knife again in my soul.”
A few weeks ago I sat down and worked out which tattoos correspond to which gods in the Elven Pantheon. There’s actually enough lore out there to do this with a reasonable amount of certainty.
Andruil: Bow to represent Goddess of the Hunt
Dirthamen: Book to represent where the Dalish keep their secrets/lore.
Elgar’nan: Cracked earth and dark/light. Duality theme from legend.
Falon’din: Same general shape of Falon’din’s statues. Less organic than the other tattoos; Falon’din is the God of the Dead.
Ghilain’nain: Mother of the Halla. These are obviously halla horns.
June: God of the Craft. Brought woodworking to the Dalish. In return the Dalish emblazoned the most basic tools of the trade across their FACE. Awesome.
Mythal: Tree. Mythal returned life to the world after Elgarn’nan fought with the sun. Mythal’s flame is kept near the Tree of the People in the center of Alienages. Lingering scrap of Elven culture? Single trees are planted over dead bodies. Life from death.
Sylaise: Hearthkeeper. Gave fire to the Dalish. Can clearly see a torch in the tattoo. Also vines/rope, other marks of Sylaise, and thread/cloth detail on the complex version.
Fen’Harel and the Forgotten Ones have no vallaslin. Shocking.
