age of the dragon

dragon age side blog of @foamofthe-sea.

[foamofthe-sea]

anyway lifes been terrible recently and ive been fighting off the worst bout of depression ive had in years with frustrating blender projects

idk if i wanna add gloves or not at this point frosty might blow up on me

[lostiel]

davrin according to tumblr tags

[vhen-harel]

Oh Davrin ❤️

[odyssiaca]

you are the hero of ferelden. no matter your origin you watch those you love most be ripped from you. death becomes an endless cycle which seems to follow you wherever you go. the fate of the world rests on your shoulders as you know you can never return home. home is gone now. home is buried with your family, jailed with your closest ally, cradled by the ancestors, forgotten like your beloved, lost to time in the murky glass of the eluvian- dead in your arms, killed at your hand. you are the hero of ferelden and it is your destiny to die. when next the world falls apart, you do not come. this world does not deserve your pity.

you are the champion of kirkwall. you are a refugee, cold and hungry and sold into labour. your mother hates you, though she will never say it. it's your fault the ogre killed your sibling, your fault the taint took the other. but you are happy. you have everything, friends and family and status and riches. you defeat the people plaguing your glorious city, you are the people's hero. you will always know even as she came back, isabela left you to die. you are happy but you are alone. you have everything and then you are rocking back and forth begging please please please do not take my mother as well. you have nothing, but you for a single second, you had everything. you are the champion of kirkwall, and your ally has blown up the chantry. where is your home now that everything is your fault?

you are the herald of andraste. and you are so, so scared. these people do not trust you, do not like you, would feed you to the fade if they could. they do not care if you follow another religion, you are their herald. you can never return home because heroes do not have homes. they say home is the people you choose, but you didn't choose these people, did you? every step you take aches. thousands reach out to touch you, for safety. for comfort. you are a black hole close to destruction, and you cannot do this. you are the herald of andraste and you have not been yourself for so long now.

[sha-brytols]

A spirit sees everything as defined by will and memory, and this is why they are so very lost when they cross the Veil. In our world, imagination has no substance. Objects exist independently of how we remember them or what emotions we associate with them. Mages alone possess the power to change the world with their minds, and perhaps this forms the nature of a demon's attraction to them—who can say?

demons being drawn towards mages not for a perverse thirst for power but because their ability to bend the world is the closest feeling they can get to home in a world thats so terrifying and new to them lets all just break chairs over each others heads

[localsoupdealer]

I feel like something that’s obvious but nobody’s actually pointed out is that the Blight (which we now know to be corrupted Titan spirits/Titan nightmares) perpetually creates darkspawn to replace the dwarves. The dwarves used to be some kind of vast, populous hivemind before they were severed from their dreams/the Titans, and the Titan’s spirits were separated from the Stone, yeah? Dwarves practically WERE an extension of the Titans until that point. Point to Inquisition dialogue where Solas describes them as a “severed arm”. But once those two separations happened, the Blight had to create new bodies to maintain the structural integrity of isunatoll/the song, now that the two were separated. The darkspawn are a lesser hivemind because the Blight/the Titans no longer have access to the dwarves. And the darkspawn are typically mindless + hostile because the severed spirits/dreams that are attempting to pilot them have gone mad with rage from the sheer violence and isolation of the mutilation they’ve experienced. It’s astounding writing and worldbuilding. But in Veilguard all we got was “oh the darkspawn aren’t people” :) :) :)

[lathbora-virann]

Atish’all Vir Abelasan — Enter the path of the Well of Sorrows

[arachanine]

Found this on the ground after the archdemon exploded minrathous gonna use it as kindling or something

[the-enchanted-little-star]

[ter-abelas-deactivated20150509]

All That Remains + things that cannot be unsaid

[tauntaunting-deactivated2017111]

This is exactly how I see Leandra too. There’s an element in there, of course she doesn’t HATE her children, but there’s such an incredible amount of resentment between her and her eldest child that to write it off as simply grieving is a misnomer, I think. 

I think it’s fairly clear that she resents Hawke for a number of reasons: knowing Malcolm better than she does (implied at the end of Legacy), failing to save him/acting as the head of the family despite the fact that she’s clearly not stepping into the role or even trying, the dead twin, etc. Moreover, I think it’s fairly obvious that Leandra and Malcolm were very much what would have happened if Romeo and Juliet hadn’t had a typically tragic ending: they were young, impulsive, and in “love,” but once you’ve given up everything, what does that really leave you with? A partner you barely know, who you’ve put all your trust into despite that, and despite however much Leandra says she puts love above all-else, we see even in her conversations with Gamlen that this very much isn’t necessarily the case, and she carries a lot of her bitterness with her. She wasn’t ready for what running away really meant, she was young enough to have very likely acted impulsively on a romantic ideal that didn’t pan out in any way she’d actually hoped.

It’s a really dysfunctional, bittersweet relationship, and I can’t at all blame Hawke for thinking this. Hawke’s already got a guilt complex a mile wide, no matter how you really play it; there’s a reason they take on all this responsibility that isn’t even necessarily theirs. With Malcolm, it’s all responsibility, and honor, and doing the right thing no matter how hard it is, and with Leandra, it’s all guilt, residual affects of growing jaded with where unchecked romance really leads.

She can be a caring figure, certainly, when she feels like it, but finding her to be a truly supportive one it a little harder for me, when she relies on her eldest child the way her younger children do. There’s such a lack of responsibility on Leandra’s part: something must always be someone’s fault, because surely SURELY there must still be some good left to come out of a foolish decision she made as a teenager. Their status in Kirkwall is Gamlen’s fault (which is true enough, but he DOES have a point in that she’s been away from home for 25 years; anything he does to drag the “family name” into poverty and squalor is his own doing, and while it’s hard to support his methods, he’s at least grown up enough to recognize the reality of his situation. Is Leandra’s anger at her brother entirely unjustified? No, but at the same time, she continually fails to recognize that she gave up her status, her family name, and her inheritances, and this attitude doesn’t come out of nowhere, suddenly rekindled after two decades of “hiatus.” It’s a failure to take responsibility. 

TL;DR, I seriously appreciate just how incredibly fucked up and dysfunctional Hawke family dynamics really are. It’s a family full of love that Hawke would and continually does put their life on the line for, but it’s not a healthy one. It’s not a supportive one. And I find it really telling that despite Malcolm’s questionable allegiances as an apostate, it’s THIS name that Hawke chooses to symbolize and hang onto, despite the fact that Leandra is clearly very ready to step back into the role of a noble that she’d “left behind.” Is it any surprise that Hawke seems so used to the responsibility, so easily stepping into the role as head of household when their parents are so embittered, disillusioned, and in Malcolm’s case, paranoid and uncommunicative?

Hawke’s so used to being the parent, being the one to take up responsibility that of course it’s going to kill them when they fail; they’ve been conditioned to impossible responsibility and the constant looming threat of guilt.

This depth makes my heart hurt.

[redredribbon]

Wow, this is such an excellent take. This is not how I’ve usually seen or headcanoned Leandra, but all this insight is really making me want to take a long second look at their relationship. 

[flutiebear]

I love this. Because it’s not that Leandra doesn’t love her children – of course she does, she adores them – it’s that she’s not a perfect woman: She makes mistakes, jumps to hurtful assumptions, and thrusts too much responsibility on her children, particularly her eldest. Not to mention that she’s still struggling with profound grief, not just over losing her child and her home, but the life she sacrificed everything for. 

She’s not a bad mother (just look at how her children turned out) nor is she a bad person. She’s just a complicated human being, with warts and flaws. Sometimes it’s hard to see them because we self-insert as her child, and it’s always tough to see your parents as people, not ideas,  even when said parents are digital. But I think a read on her character that acknowledges said faults and mistakes is far more illuminating than the alternative.

Personally, I think you can see a lot of Leandra in Carver and vice versa; certainly they manifest their grief in similar (hurtful) ways. I’ve always headcanoned that the two of them were particularly close (and I think there’s some good evidence in-game to support the theory).

[ephemeralinstance]

Ten years in the Lighthouse

The idea of Solas living all alone in the Lighthouse for ten years is really viscerally upsetting for me.

Ten years is a long time. (We know, because that's how long we had to wait for this story to be resolved!). He ate alone at that long table every night for ten years. He went to bed alone in a little corner of his office every night for ten years. He spent ten years worth of unhappy evenings in his music room, playing virtuosic sonatas and drinking alone.

In that time, apart from the events of Trespasser, he never had a conversation with a single (embodied) person who liked him or cared about him.

He repainted his Inquisition murals because he missed his friends. He went personally to that meeting in the Tevinter Nights short story because he just wanted to see someone who knew him; someone who would call him Solas. And when it really became too unbearable, he visited Lavellan's dreams. He knew he shouldn't, he knew it was wrong, but the loneliness was dragging him under and he was afraid to lose himself in that vast darkness.

His greatest fear is dying alone, and yet that's exactly what he was doing. Inch by painful inch, he was killing what remained of Solas, replacing him with the Dread Wolf.

No wonder he sobs when Lavellan kneels to tell him she loves him. It's a decade since anyone has been kind to him; he's not just touch-starved, he's starved of connection of any kind. He clutches at his heart because she is his heart, and after ten years of existing without really living he finally has a chance to be whole again.

[resvarie]

caught starin at the supposed herald of andraste

[veilishvixen]

Everyone’s either moving on from Veilguard or trying to purge it from their memory…meanwhile I’m still trapped in that damn music room.

There’s been a few hot takes on whether or not “Memories of a duet” was about Mythal and I genuinely believe it was as you can find its entry under her image in the veilguard’s codex, and what a precious memory it is…to feel wholly seen and to see in turn.

And yet…that is but one note at the piano. Everything else in this little hidden room of treasures is Inquisition memorabilia. You will find nothing else.

He repainted his frescos from the rotunda solely from memory on these walls even though they filled him with regret. “I live with countless regrets, some of which I have grown to cherish more than my victories.”

He keeps his orb (held, then shattered by the Inquisitor) on display under the window. One of his greatest failures, yet still a treasure.

One of the old astrariums we spent hours cracking together on our expeditions through the south (ft tower of cheese wheels, fereldan no doubt)

The Orlesian statue he leaned against all night at the Winter Palace.

Random inquisition chair, probably stolen from one of the great tables at Skyhold or perhaps one of the camps they’d made in the wilds.

On the bench AT the piano is the actual book of the Inquisition, close enough to brush his thigh as he played.

And a lute, reminiscent of the one the inquisitor kept behind their desk in their chambers. (I always head canoned that Inky knew how to play even though we never actually see it.)

I think we can all agree that this room is Solas’ happy place, filled from the floor to the ceiling with relics of times that brought him peace and joy in his terribly long life…and aside from one memory at the piano, all it is is junk he collected from retracing the Inquisition’s footsteps again and again.

Let’s also not forget the one memory he could not bear to keep locked from sight in that room of forbidden happiness;

Hung just above the wardrobe in his mediation room; another place he likely went in search of solace and found it unobtainable until he had this to look at.

“Why didn’t a romanced Lavellan get a mural??”

My God, because she’s EVERYWHERE. Even when he tried to lock her in a room behind a million hoops, he couldn’t escape her…not even in his dreams.

This room alone eradicated any doubt that Solas’ time with the Inquisition, romanced or not, were the happiest years of his life in the physical world. These were all the memories he could not bring himself to destroy/erase like the murals of him and Mythal and I just…😭😭😭😭😭😭 And the fact that no matter how many wolf statuettes you collect, you CANNOT make the murals reappear until the Inquisitor gives you their’s ???!!! (ik it’s probably just a game mechanic, but still, the IMPLICATIONS)

“Great plans will change, no doubt. But they should welcome it. Change, after all, sets us free.” – Notes from the crossroads islands

[ladyofthefade]

"You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't."

[ladyofthefade]

Now that I have an understanding of inquisitions modding I'd like to make at least 1 battle-ready armor mashup and a dress for winters palace(both dalish inspired ofc) but I've looked through the fbx files of every NPC and outfit available and nothing is clicking

Not a fan of the poofy dress silhouettes so I'm curious if I can possibly port lunafreyas dress as a base

Witcher 3 has aesthetic compliant assets I could maybe pick through hmmmm

[topaz-carbuncle]

He and I once shared another name: Vhenan. ['Your heart, he really meant that much?'] Yes, he did. You've spoken to him in your dreams, you've felt the power of that mind. His love could burn against me like a bonfire. He seemed so kind, and wise, and sad, and looked at me as if I somehow mattered more than anything around us.

[steleart]

"I think you should paint me," she says, leaning her head back to elongate the line of her throat, eyes closing. "I think I should like to be muse tonight."

the fox and the wolf [x]

[hyperions-light]

The UpDAte 3/25/2025

Hellooooo, Dragon Age Darlings~ ✨! Thought I might try something new? I can't promise that this will happen every week, but I thought it might be helpful to have a summary of what's going on in the DA fandom soon, both 'locally' (smaller events run off of personal blogs) and more widely! Let me know if it's useful, and I'll try to keep up with it, when I can!

Locally

Monday Rook Into Hour is up, and there will be one on Friday, March 28th!

WIP Wednesday Thursday will run on Thursday, March 27th!

@thedissonantverses put another Writing Challenge Weekend up last Friday, and another will go up this week on March 28th!

@biowaredisasterbisexual put up her Sharing Sunday post for last week, and submissions are open for the next one until March 29th!

@becausedragonage has started a fun new game for Tuesdays! I believe she is still taking entries? Reflection Ruesday rules here!

@pixiedurango is still running the Antivan Postal Service! Get a letter from your favorite Crows!

Greater Thedas

Ongoing/Repeating Events

@thedasweekend runs weekly! [Instructions]

@dadrunkwriting is also weekly, on Fridays! [Instructions]

Events in Preparatory Stages

@handers-time is currently open for signups until April 5th!

@arlathanxchange is taking tag nominations until March 30th!

@worldofthedas-vol3 is taking contributor applications until April 11th!

@raraaviszine is taking contributor applications until April 5th!

@dragonageannual has an interest check open until April 6th!

Currently Happening/Beginning This Week

@veilguard-appreciation-week begins March 31st! [Prompts]

@transthedasfest will reveal works on March 31st!

@dragonageterminuszine is open for preorders until March 31st!

And, of course if you want to know the full scope of everything happening in Thedas, dragonagefanevents is your one-stop shop, including instructions for hosting your own event!

Disclaimer that I'm not affiliated with most of these events, and I haven't talked to most of the mods-- just thought it could be useful for people around here to have everything on one place! If YOU do something/are planning to and I missed you, please lmk! (mentions are for ease of navigation-- no need to rb, and if you'd rather I not mention your event, please lmk!)