immutable as the substance of the earth

sons and daughters of ferelden

[slavicafire]

yrsa cousland. bear of highever, warden-commander of ferelden.

[remington-zero]

– farewell, warden!

            we’re counting on you.

[stonesense]

i know it’s so they can get shot dramatically but being an unmarried noble heir and having your illicit one night stand go see if anyone’s at your bedroom door is crazy. cousland you cannot want to stay in bed that bad.

[monocytogenes]

On Southern Andrastian religious habits

Recently have been writing a Chantry brother character and got to contemplating how I think the clothing of folks in religious life in the Southern Chantry actually works, so here's some interpretation and headcanons!

(I'll be using clergy in the Catholic sense here, referring to folks who hold authority in the church hierarchy--e.g. at the rank of mother, revered mother, grand cleric, divine--and those in consecrated life to refer to anyone who has taken vows outside of the Seekers or Templars, e.g. folks in those upper ranks plus the brothers and sisters. Lay brethren do not take vows. See this codex about the hierarchy.)

General principles:

Styles derive from simple, historical garments worn by women. There are many regional variations and adaptations for different climates, often with a nod to local fashions (hence why we see different designs in rural Ferelden versus metropolitan Orlais.)

Despite the presence of ornamentation, especially on high-ranking clergy, the basic materials are coarser blends of wool, linen and silk.

Because women and men in consecrated life prioritize their duty to the Maker over family life and pleasure-seeking—most take vows of celibacy—religious clothing is modest in cut and covers the body from the neck down, with the sole exception of the hands (as touch is important in ministry.) In Orlesian styles, touches like leather boots and loose-fitting cowls allow for movement as they go about their duties.

Cleanliness and good grooming are valued, as those in religious life are to be examples to the world. Noticeable cosmetics and elaborate hairstyles are discouraged, and those in consecrated life generally cut their hair short for convenience.

Colors are symbolic: gold represents the light of the Maker, white represents Andraste, black represents death and ashes, and red represents fire and sacrifice. (The latter color is still referred to as rouge when speaking about Orlesian styles, but it’s actually more of a pink, a tone originating in the deliberate use of inferior dyes as a renunciation of worldly affectations.)

Underlayers:

(Some visible, some assumed, based on my knowledge of historical clothing.)

A short-sleeved linen shirt or chemise (depending on the length of the overgarments), to absorb sweat and dirt.

Short stays, worn over the shirt or chemise, if needed for comfort.

Black stockings of opaque, bias-cut wool, worn beneath boots. Length varies—for lay brothers and sisters, as well as high-ranking clergy, these are knee-length and secured with ribbon garters (lay brethren have them under their trousers); for vowed affirmed/initiates/clerics, these take the form of leggings fastened with ties about the natural waist, which the shirt is tucked into. The masculine version of these has a fall-front for comfort.

High-ranking clergy wear a feet-length black underskirt over the chemise, as well as petticoats if needed for warmth.

Overlayers

The clothing of brothers and sisters has a white cowl (long-sleeved robe with an integrated hood) over the shirt—relatively short for lay brethren and knee-length for those in consecrated life. Clerics may have decorative cuffs and trim. Above this garment, lay brethren wear a sleeveless pink knee-length tunic, while those in consecrated life wear a pink scapular.

Higher ranks wear a guimpe (stiffened, decorated piece of cloth) over the shoulders, to which is pinned a sort of four-panel overgown with a center piece resembling a stole. The Divine may wear a garment like this, or a variant with a sleeved overgown and a scapular.

Headgear

Typically consists of two to three layers: an underscarf (for cleanliness, modesty and to keep the hair in place), a hood, and a cap or headdress (to hold the hood in place and convey rank.)

The underscarf is typically black and secured about the neck with pins. In warm climates, it may be omitted.

The hood is a sewn-in part of the cowl, loose and flowing for lay brethren and more fitted for consecrated brethren. It may be in a contrasting color for the higher ranks.

Lay brethren wear a simple cloth cap. Consecrated brothers and sisters wear a brimless cap a bit reminiscent of the eastern skufia. High-ranking clergy wear a veiled headdress somewhere between a bishop's miter and a koukoulion, except on informal occasions.

Accessories

Lay brethren wear a pendant resembling a devotional scapular to signify their commitment, given the plainness of their dress, and high ranking clergy wear chains of office as a sign of authority.

Belts and purses are permitted with the more informal garments for practicality. (I imagine cowls and overgowns generally have small, unnoticeable side pockets.)

[kirkwallguy]

like imagine it. you've been taken from your family and thrown in an abusive prison system that uses physical and emotional torture to keep its prisoners in line. you fall in love with another man there and spend a few years the happiest you've been until your gaolers catch on to your relationship and he's sent away just to hurt you. you spend the better part of a decade escaping your prison over and over again trying to cross the ocean to reach him. when you're finally free for good the first thing you do is head straight for the city he's in. you exchange letters with him and plan to meet, wanting to save him from what is probably an even MORE abusive prison than the one you were in. you finally reach him and find he has been illegally lobotomised just to spite you / lure you in. seeing you gives him a moment of clarity and he uses it to beg you to kill him. so you kill him. in that situation i would have gone straight back home and started plotting revenge, taking seven years to blow up the chantry is a sign of restraint imo.

[thewardenapostate]

Warden: “You should let it go.”

Loghain: “Should I? How do you give up what’s grown into you?”

[ruushes]

in the art book it's mentioned that they considered having morrigan and isabela as dai-style advisors, and you know what that means. ultimate-sacrificed or succumbed-to-the-calling hof-romanced morrigan and left-in-the-fade hawke-romanced isabela middle-aged widow yuri. is what that means.

[pomegranateruin]

zevran with his hair down again cus i think he’s beautiful

[snail-woman]

Everyone talks about "for the chance to be by your side, I would storm the black city itself", but I honestly think so much more often about what romanced Zevran says right after that if you refuse to have him in your party for the Archdemon fight. "Cruel to the end", with the saddest expression I've ever seen.

You stole his heart (he did not ask to fall in love) and then won't even allow him to be at your side for the end. Because you both know that even if you did the dark ritual, this might well be the last time you see each other. If you told him to stay back because that might be marginally safer, even worse, because what does he have to live for at that point if he survives and the warden doesn't? He'd much rather fight and die at their side. He'd storm the black city itself for the chance to be at their side! And they won't have him.

[thewardenisonthecase]

Questions for the Warden/HoF

These range from things related to the game's events and who the Warden is as a person.

What is the Warden's name? Does it have a meaning behind it? How do they feel about their name?

How would you describe the Warden's personality before and after the prologue? Did it change much or did they remain the same?

Prior to the prologue, who was the Warden's closest friend?

Did the Warden have any romantic relationships before the game?

What are their thoughts on Duncan? How did they feel about his actions during the Joining?

Were they impacted by Cailan's death? Or did they not care about him?

How did they feel about being put in a leading position? Do they resent Alistair for putting that on them or are they ok with it?

How did the Warden deal with Connor? Is he or Isolde dead? What was the Warden's rationale to resolving the issue as they did?

If the Warden was trapped in a nightmare, what would it be like?

Did they help the mages or did they go with Cullen's plan? Why?

How did the Warden react to the truth of the werewolf curse?

Did the Warden end Zathrien's curse?

How does the Warden feel about the Deep Roads?

What did the Warden think when they saw the Archdemon in the Dead Trenches?

Who did the Warden choose as the new King of Orzammar and why?

How did the Warden feel about the Anvil of the Void?

What was the Warden's reaction to seeing Bryce/Shianni/Tamlen/Leske/Jowan/Trian in the Temple of Sacred Ashes?

How did the Warden feel about the Ashes? Are they religious or do they not care? And did they defile it or not?

Who are the people in camp that the Warden is closest with and why?

Is there anyone in camp who they do not like? Why?

Did the Warden romance anyone from their group? If so, what attracted them to their partner?

Which gifts would raise the Warden's approval, if they were a companion?

If Dog is in the party, what did the Warden name him and why?

Did the Warden complete the companions quests?

Did the Warden focus more on their objective or did they do side quests?

If the Warden was Captured, did they wait for their companions or did they leave on their own? If they waited, who rescued them and why?

How does the Warden feel about what is happening in the Alienage? How do they feel about how elves are treated?

During the Landsmeet, who did the Warden choose to rule Ferelden and why? How did they come to that decision?

How did the Warden feel learning about how Archdemons are killed?

Did they agree to Morrigan's ritual? If so why, or why not?

How does the Warden feel about being a Grey Warden and the sacrifices that entails?

If they could leave the Wardens, would they?

Who killed the Archdemon and are they still alive?

How does the Warden feel about becoming the Hero of Ferelden?

How is the Warden's personality like after the events of DAO? Did they change or are they still the same?

Did their appearance change during the game? If so, how? Did they change their hair? Did they gain any new scars?

Is the Warden still in contact with anyone after the game's events? Are they still with their love interest, if they have one?

Is there any decision that the Warden regrets? If so, which is it and why? How would they change it?

Do the events of the Fifth Blight haunt the Warden or have they moved past it completely?

How does the Warden feel about the Calliing?

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Why Fenris could Never Cameo in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

In the run up to Dragon age: The Veilguard, I was almost certain that Fenris would be our main legacy character from previous games. Not only has he been central in the comics released between DAI and DATV, he is an escaped Tevinter slave who's plot revolved around magisters, magic and the structural prejudices surrounding elves in Thedas. Not only that, but he's canonically in Tevinter killing slavers currently so he's geographically in the right place for us to meet him.

About halfway through the game though, it was clear to me: Fenris could never cameo in The Veilguard. Because he'd break it.

How the Veilguard treats Thedas is...odd to me, to say the least. I will be writing another post about how much I adored the expanded big lore in this game (the titans, ancient elves were spirits, where the blight came from etc.) and yet while these large lore expansions worked for me, the actual culture of modern Thedas is entirely softened, its sharp edges filed down until it's a sanitised fantasy world devoid of what made the franchise so vibrant and compelling in the first place.

So let's start with Fenris and slavery. In all three games, the reality of slavery is pushing at the corners of the world. In DAO Loghain allows Tevinter Magisters to enslave elves in order to raise money for his war effort. In DA2 Fenris is fighting to be free from slavers who will not leave him be, let alone the reminders that the city was built by slaves which are everywhere. In DAI one of the two possible mini-bosses is Calpurnia who was a slave, and characters such as Gatt and Dorian both show us how much slavery is tied into Tevinters culture and success.

But DATV the first game actually set in Tevinter where we get to see the famed Minrathous...it's like the game purposefully wants to avoid the issue. I can feel it tilting the camera away to not allow me to see. Slavery is mentioned, but never talked about in depth or as a specifically ELVEN problem in Tevinter. This might have been done to be less problematic, it feels ignored.

We are in DOCK TOWN. We are at the DOCKS. You would think that slaves from all over Thedas who are being smuggled and bought by various groups would be everywhere. You would think that the injustice in dock town would be partly built on the back of ships we've seen in the comics crammed with elves in chains. This is the world Dragon age set up for us. And yet...nothing. zilch. A tiny easily skippable side quest where we free a couple of venatori slaves, but only one of whom is an elf.

None of our Tevinter characters seem to have been influenced by their culture even a little bit when it comes to how they view elves; there is no moment when Neve fucks up and says something prejudiced, no moment when Bellara or Davrin are distrustful of her for being a Tevinter mage.

The same goes for Zevran; a character who epitomised the issues with the crows. The crows have consistently been characterised as very morally dubious assassins who kill for the highest bidder and who buy children on the slave market and torture them as they grow in order to assure that they reach maturity able to withstand torture without giving away a client's name. Zevran is very explicit about the fact that if you fail a contract your life is forefit.

Nobody responds particularly to you if you're an elf. Nobody trusts rook less for it in Tevinter. Nobody treats Rook any differently. Even DAI had better mechanics for this; with nobles in Orlais less likely to trust you as an elf.

Considering one of the main plot points of this game and what makes Solas sympathetic is the fact that he was fighting against the slavery of ancient elves...you'd think the game might want to mirror that in modern Thedas. It might want to show us how characters fighting to end slavery in Tevinter are similar to Solas and how the society Solas fought against was similar to the one that characters we love such as Fenris have fought against in modern Thedas. Maybe we'd want to explore how in a world of slavery like this, how could the answer NOT be to tear it all down? Maybe we should have that option at the end of the game so it really can chose whether we agree with Solas and his plans or not.

Adding Fenris to this game would entirely break the game because Fenris refuses to allow you to look away from this horror. He is a sympathetic character who had to learn to trust mages again because of course he didn't trust them. Of course he didn't. Fenris wouldn't allow the camera to shift focus because he's literally covered in the lyrium scars that show how slaves are used as experiments in Tevinter. Fenris WOULD question Neve on how she feels about elves and slaves. Fenris WOULD have things to say about Lucanis and the crows (let alone the fact Lucanis is an abomonation). So he could never be in this game; he'd drop a bomb on it's carefully constructed blinders to the very society its supposed to be set in.

And yet, in DATV, the crows are presented as...a found family of misfits and orphans? The politician who opposes the crows having absolute power in Antiva is framed as a comically evil idiot who doesn't understand that the crows are ontologically good. Yet...they're NOT. Crows in this game act more like a secret rebel group than an assassin organisation. We see no crow taking contracts with the VERY RICH venatori magisters despite being hired killers. We see crows just refuse to kill people despite having a contract because 'its crueler to leave them alive'. The crows don't feel like the crows here, they feel like a softened version of a cool assassin group who are cool because they wear black and purple.

Our pirate group are also sanitised; the Lords of Fortune are good pirates who only steal treasure that's not culturally significant. Theyve clearly read the modern critiques of the British Museum and have decided to explicitly stop anyone levelling similar critiques at them. There is no faction of the Lords of Fortune who aren't like this, no internal arguments about it. Everyone just. Agrees. And is able to accurately tell what a cultural artifact is vs. what treasure that you can have yourself is. Rather than showing us why a pirate stealing cultural artifacts might be bad (like in da2 where such a situation literally causes a coup and a war) it just tells us it's bad. But also pirates are cool so we still want them in our world.

This issue seaps into Thedas and drains it of any of the interesting complexity and ability to SAY anything that this franchise had before this game. It becomes a game about telling and not showing rather than the other way around. The games have ALWAYS asked questions about oppressive structural systems and their interplay with society, religion and culture and how these things can affect even the most well meaning character. Dragon age at its best IS a game about society and how society functions both for and against it's characters and what happens to societies built on cruelty and indifference. The best bad guys dragon age has given us are those who are bad because they embody these systems or have been shaped by them. Our main characters have had to wrestle with questions surrounding how to exist in these systems, fight against them, learn and grow.

Yet every group you come across in DATV is sanitised and cleaned up to the point of being as non problematic as humanly possible. None of our cast of characters have to wrestle with where they came from or the world that shaped them. None of them have to confront their own biases. They start the game perfectly non-problematic and end it that way too.

And this just...isn't what Dragon Age has been in the past. It isn't why I love the franchise. The whole game just felt, in a way, hollow. And this was a CHOICE and it is why the legacy characters are few and far between. Too many dragon age characters are just too...angry and complex for this game. You can feel them pulling their punches on this one. I have to imagine they did this because they didn't want to be criticised or have too much controversy? But I think it honestly goes far too much in the other direction and just makes it bland.

I can't imagine what I say here will be unique, but it is the basis for a LOT of my other thoughts on this game so I wanted to get it out of the way first. The softened Thedas and characters make this game by far the weakest in the franchise.

[zazrichor]

rich tits always try for more than they deserve.

[zazrichor]

the righteous stand before the darkness - and the Maker shall guide their hand.

[gyrovagi]

the architect dragon age you will always be famous

[slavicafire]

Veilguard Fragrances: Emmrich Volkarin's Mortifer.

[kirkwallguy]

what if there were two beautiful women travelling with you and one obviously had a crush on you but you honestly had no idea that two women could love each other like that so you kept brushing her off until she gave up and instead started fucking the other beautiful woman so you were left alone listening to them at night and seeing them kiss in the morning and entirely alone forever knowing you're incapable of loving a man despite the fate that had been instilled in you since you were a child. just the typical morrigan experience in my worldstate.

[sapphim]

I'm looking at action tags from Origins for... reasons

Some of the more common dialogue actions

(Attack.)

(Do nothing.)

(Give X.)

(Jump the guard.)

(Just watch.)

(Kill him/her/them.)

(Kiss him/her.)

(Leave.)

(Let X bluff.)

(Let X talk.)

(Lie.)

(Nod.)

(Pet [DogName].)

(Release him/her.)

(Say nothing.)

(Stay silent.)

(Take X.)

And some highlights

(Back away slowly.)

(Be nice.)

(Bump into her.) Let me get over… oh, pardon.

(Fire a flaming arrow at their home.)

(Forget this, just jump them.)

(Give her a deadly poison.) Soon you won't be coughing at all.

(Growl at the squirrel too.)

(Have your mabari despoil the altar.)

(Kick the door open.)

(Kill him anyway.)

(Leave and skillfully evade their clueless trap.)

(Let [DogName]… bluff?)

(Lie) I did ask. She's fine with it.

(Lie) I haven't done anything.

(Lie) Me? A Grey Warden? You must be mistaken.

(Pay 10 sovereign.) I am innocent, as you can see.

I hear you're making a killing. Me too! (Kill him.)

I was… er, he was… Oh, sod it. (Attack.)

I'll just take it off your dead body. (Attack)

Idiots. (Attack)

More blood will be spilt. (Attack)

Nah. (Toss the artifact aside.)

Then let us end it here. (Attack the tree)

the warden really was just Like That and for what