#coracavus

[lairofdragonagelore]

Western Approach: Coracavus;  Guard's Hall and  Holding Cells

Once we can cross the pits of sulphur, we have access to Coracavus, the dark pit, a Tevinter prison placed far away from the cultural heart of the Imperium.  The prison punished local people who denied Tevinter's claims to the region as well as so-called "loyal" citizens who believed that living on the fringes of civilisation would grant them immunity from the Imperium's laws. Political prisoners who did not find execution went here as well. This prison was so ruthless that no name or money would make your punishment lesser. Death was better than being sent to this prison.

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

Guard's Hall

In the moment we enter this place we can see the intricate Tevinter design: pointy ends, hexagonal shapes, rhomboids, combined with what looks like green marble. There is two floors in this part, the lower one which consists in corridors that lead to cells, and the upper one, which I assume would have been used by guards. On this floor we find a pair of artefacts that looks like a “brain with spikes”.

So far I still can’t guess the function of this artefact nor similar ones like the “diapasons”. This one looks like a tear, on its base it has an oval with isolated cells from which a spike pops up.  On its back it has some decoration that I can’t understand either. 

Along the corridors in the lower floor, we find many times this other artefact. In Razikale’s Reach we saw that this artefact worked like a lens, directing the energy from the source to a gigantic frost gate. 

Along this corridor there is an access that leads us to a basement: the torture/sacrificial chamber.  The design changes radically. 

Holding Cells

At the basement we see no decoration, no elaborated patterns encrusted in the wall, nor green marble. These are the cells where prisoners were kept and tortured. The only minimal decoration are paintings on the wall.

There are mainly two paintings:  the six-headed serpent which seems to represent Tevinter or at least, the arcane/research aspect of Tevinter. I have the impression of seeing it where arcane research is performed around or when information is kept . The other painting is the rhomboidal head that could be the representation of a dragon, an Old God, or the Archon. It can be found in many artefacts as part of their design: we find it in the ceiling of Tevinter buildings, in paintings, urns, containers, etc.  It’s curious to see these two symbols on the cells. Maybe it was a way to reinforce the identity of the torturer upon the prisoners, as if making sure that they were reached by Tevinter no matter what. If the six-headed snake is truly related to arcane research, it may imply that this chamber allowed experiments upon the prisoners.

As part of the decoration of this chamber we see the national banner of the Tevinter Imperium [a snake and a dragon] in addition to these hexagonal containers. They are found almost everywhere where a Tevinter ruin exists.

They have a sun-like symbol on them. I have some hypothesis about what their function could be, but none is strong enough or based in some element more or less reasonable, so I will leave it there. 

One of the cells in this chamber shows an arrangement with one of those artefacts of three claws, tied with chains to a pair of claw-like bars. It seems to be used here as a device for torture or experimentation. There is a body in this cell from which you can loot a band, identifying the corpse as a slave.  Several bodies here have a bracelet, indicating they were prisoners. 

Heading deeper into this chamber, we see more paintings of that rhomboidal face and some sarcophagi with the design of the “Horned warrior holding a sword”. 

Sadly, we don’t even have a small note about this coffin as we have with the “Lost Idol” [Check Western Approach, Old Chantry Trail Signs].  If the other coffin is about Razikale Ceremony, this may be related to it as well, but I have no idea how.  However, it’s strange to find this object in a chamber of torture. Unless it filled a purpose: maybe the prisoners could be used for these ceremonies. Maybe, once dead, prisoners were sent in these sarcophagi to places where their bodies could be used during this ceremony. Or maybe they were forced to be inside the coffin while alive. We know the elvhen have something  going on with putting people in Uthenera, inside coffins, and making them “sing” around lyrium [Trespasser elven temple in the Deep Roads]. Since we know Tevinter co-opted so much from the elves, maybe this ceremony of Razikale needs bodies in these coffins to perform similar rituals. There are so many of these coddins everywhere where Tevinter ruins exist that it has to be a very common purpose. 

That the coffins are in front of a small cell arranged for sacrifices makes me suspect even more the fact that these coffins had a function of transportation of prisoners or sacrifices [I don’t see Tevinter burying prisoners with formal ceremonies after they passed away because the torture].

In this cell we find the six-headed snake painting beside a Veilfire brazier, and an instrument I have no idea what’s for, several skulls, and a sacrificial altar with an urn on it. There is also a skeleton with a dagger, dead long ago.

Beside the cell with the sacrificial altar, there is another that looks like an office: it has a library of scrolls and a desk, where we find the codex The Secret Tongue of Slaves. It narrates how slaves, despite their illiteracy, developed an argot to exchange information with others. I suspect this codex is making the player aware that the same symbol used in a group could have slightly different meaning in another. 

Guard's Hall Again

Once we leave the cells, we can continue exploring this corridor of guards. There are some extra cells along the way, specially this one from where the darkspawn came out.  There are more three-clawed devices that in the Holding Cells were used for torture. Here, maybe for intimidation? Clearly this artefact has several purposes. 

The main doors that separate the sections of the prison are exquisitely decorated, although the columns and the walls show a curious mismatch of styles. As if this place had had another purpose, more rustic, and then it was embellished later. That pattern at the bottom of the columns is usually seen in Tevinter buildings, so there is nothing too strange about it. 

The door has  a design displaying two snakes heading to a star/sun. Most of the decoration around this frame resembles scales. Through this door we leave the Guard’s Hall and head to the Records Room.

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

[daicamgirl]

[firjii]

[wyrdsistersofthedas]

Stars and Guarders: Random Thought Blog #6

One of our recent posts had an interesting response from @thereallonelyagain​ .  I was thinking quite a bit about it this week and, naturally, I had to share the results of that thinking.  

I read quite a bit about navigation and astronomy instruments, including astrolabes, while I was in high school and in my early college years.  I was writing fanfiction for a very different fandom at that time that I felt required knowledge of 16th century sailing.  I did notice that the globes in the Brecilian ruins resembled an orrery under glass and the orbs I jokingly called “weird ass whirligigs” do bear a resemblance to a dioptra or an armillary sphere.  So could they be used for astronomy?  

In order to prove a connection to Thedosian astronomy, we should expect to find similar traits to an observatory in our world.  We should find star charts and writings that describe the heavens and the movement of celestial bodies around Thedas (murals, paintings, or starry images would be a start), multiple instruments that can be used to make observations of such things, and an unobstructed view of the sky.  I can’t definitely find any of these things in the Brecilian Forest ruins, but there is a case to be made for all of them being present in the Western Approach, specifically at Coracavus and the Still Ruins.  Items and evidence found there suggests there could also be a connection between the Fade, Time Magic, and Thedas astronomy...maybe.

Here is what I’ve got:

This object looks a lot like an orrery, perhaps showing Thedas and its two moons.  

At least one of these scrolls seems to show a star chart or a map of constellations around Thedas.

Here’s a close up of the chart.  It looks a lot like constellations,especially when you compare it with other Thedosian star charts.  (I haven’t been able to make a match between these and the constellations marked by the astrariums and in World of Thedas, but I’ll keep at it.)

You know...come to think of it, Coracavus and the Still Ruins are hosting some shady shit!  “Prison” my ass!  No “prison” has green marble walls, richly decorated rooms, and a teeny tiny cells for a dozen-ish people at most.  All the evidence points to Coracavus being a well appointed research facility, whose occupants conducted some nasty experiments, fueled by lyrium and their prisoners’ blood, all of which resulted in a Veil breach that required time magic to contain ages before “the Breach” we deal with in Inquisition.  Could astronomy be part of the magic that alters time?  No clue, but it would be interesting to be able to talk with Dorian about his work with Alexius more.

The clearest connection between magic and astronomy is seen in the astrariums scattered across Southern Thedas and the codex entries associated with them.  

It’s pretty clear that armillary spheres inspired the design of the astrariums and suggested their purpose, i.e. mapping the locations of various star clusters. Thedas has the added twist of them being used to magically seal away treasures from an ancient Tevinter cult that seemed a bit obsessed with constellations.

Could these be related to the globes in the Brecilian Forest?  Maybe.  

As you can see in this picture from the basement in Kinloch Hold, there are spheres and planes that resemble the parts of a dioptra and look a lot like a medieval armillary sphere.  Since we have never seen these objects used, however, all we can do is speculate about their purpose.  They do bear a resemblance to an astrarium, but I can’t say for certain that they are related or not.

It is worth noting that the Western Approach does have something in common with the Brecilian Forest; the Veil is very thin in both places.  The book Asunder talks about how thin the Veil is near Adamant as does this codex found at the Ritual Tower where the Inquisitor first confront Erimond.

“Many Tevinter structures litter the wastelands of southwestern Orlais. In the age before the First Blight, the Imperium expanded through the South at an incredible rate, and the lands farthest from Minrathous became home to a great many sites dedicated to magical experimentation, taking advantage of natural weaknesses in the Veil as well as the distance from the Archon's oversight to try ever more dangerous fields of study. As with Aeonar in Ferelden, the laboratories of Orlais were set upon by the followers of Andraste during the uprising, and little remains of them now save crumbled stone.”

-An excerpt from Empire and Imperium by Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar

There are also aspects about the Western Approach, the Brecilian Forest Ruins, and the Old Temple in the Frostback Basin that are similar.  Tevinter may have conducted magical experiments in all three places, two of which definitely went very wrong.

So let’s get back to the original point: Could the weird ass whirligigs and the ancient elven tree ornaments be astronomy instruments like an astrolabe, orrery, or armillary sphere?  Well, we have seen the Brecilian Forest whirligigs in use in Awakening.  Twice.  Once in a modern context, the other in an ancient one.  

Here’s the modern use.  The Architect was using four whirligigs in his experiments in the Silverite Mine.

They are definitely magical tools of some sort, perhaps serving as conduits and/or collectors of energy.  Turning the apparatus off also releases the magical door lock the Architect put in place to keep the unwanted out (and the wanted in?).  I assumed up to this point that the Architect’s experiments focused on the Blight and individuals who are naturally resistant to it, but this particular experiment doesn’t seem to have much to do with the Blight.  Perhaps the whirligigs themselves may have been the experiment, the unlocking effect merely a side effect of the apparatus being turned off once the room safe to enter.  (A good question to ponder is if the Architect brought the orbs to the room or if they were part of the original construction of the Silverite Mines.)

The other time we see a whirligig used in during the battle with the Dark Theurge.

In this case, even more than with the Architect, we are probably seeing the original purpose for the whirligigs, which I guess we could now call the “Strange Apparatus”.  The Strange Apparatus activates when the Dark Theurge is about to be defeated.  Why is a whole other matter.  It is likely that the whirligig’s strange apparatus’ energy is part of what kept the Dark Theurge from escaping his Deep Roads prison.  By turning it off, we seem to have unleashed it. Hopefully its sorry ass was sent back to the Fade after the Warden-Commander defeated the Avvar lord corpses it raised.  My Warden-Commander doesn’t love the idea of having to deal with that nasty bastard every time the wardens need a turnip from the root cellar.

The elvhen orbs seem to serve a similar purpose.  They also seem to channel energy, such as we can see in the elvhen shrine under the Dead Hand and with the energy “trees” in the Vir Dirthara.

Given the energy associated with all of these artifacts, I still suggest the “strange apparatus” whirligigs have more to do with directing power than they do with astronomy. 

Make of all of this what you will.  :)

-MM 

PS - We actually have seen astrolabes in Dragon Age before or rather, their navigational cousin, the sextant.  In our post about non-magical technology in Thedas, we pointed out that the Warden-Commander can give one to Nathaniel Howe in Awakening.

[lairofdragonagelore]

Western Approach: Coracavus;  Records Room

Coracavus, the dark pit, is a Tevinter prison placed far away from the cultural heart of the Imperium. The prison punished local people who denied Tevinter's claims to the region as well as so-called "loyal" citizens who believed that living on the fringes of civilisation would grant them immunity from the Imperium's laws. Political prisoners who did not find execution went here as well. This prison was so ruthless that no name or money would make your punishment lesser. Death was better than being sent here.

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

Records Room

This section is an enormous chamber with some subtle separations and two bridges. On each side of the bridge there are different decorations: in one it’s a strange monolith made out of the lids of the coffins depicting the Razikale Ceremony, on the other side there is one of those strange diapason that, in Razikale Reach, worked like lens redirecting the energy from the source to another ruin across long distances. Maybe here it works the same way, spreading energy along the chambers to sustain magical effects such as barriers for the cells or even magical light in the rooms.

On a side of the Records Room, we find desks, Tevinter banners, metallic structures that resemble claws of Dummat, and other devices.

In an important corner, we find a Grimoire.

In between the desks, there are these structures that look like a prototype of a Claw of Dumat. However, I can’t guess its function.

On one of the desks we find this object, which can be seen in several places along the game, usually related to research offices. The elements floating around the central red crystal have swirly designs. They are all red, but don’t glow. There is no concept art hinting what function this could have.

Beside it, there is a book with a very funny cover.

In this desk, we find two codices: A missing slave, and Faded Interrogation Notes. The first one is about a scribe slave from before the Fifth Blight, narrating how his daughter has been missing for days. He explains about how invisible elves slaves are. It’s a strange piece of information since this place has been accessible up to the Second Blight, and then, recently, by the Venatori. The second document shows how prisoners were treated and tortured in this prison. 

The desk next to this one has a strange configuration of these metallic devices. Beside them there is one of those hexagonal containers. It’s impossible to guess its function. The farther we can push comes from the name of the room: this is a place for scribes to work, writing records and archiving them. All these artefacts should be related to the purpose of illumination, creation of documents, conservation of them, and archive.

On the other side of the bridges, we find this monolith, made out with the lids depicting Razikale Ceremony.

In the darker corners, close to that monument to Razikale Ceremony, we find  two different types of coffins.

A new painting appears on the walls: it may look like a star, but I suspect it’s the Tevinter representation of a breach in the Fade. More details in Nation Art: Tevinter.

The closed door reveals what I think it’s an archive. The first thing we see is the three-claw metallic object that was used in the Holding Cells for torture, beside the central desk of this room.

The walls are decorated with the six-headed snake, and the typical rhomboid head. On one of the desks we see the Water dispensers.  The furniture beside it is a scroll-library, where the records must have been archived properly.

The scroll-library triggers a note with an Ancient List of Prisoners from before the Second Blight. As we can see, their crimes give a good idea of Tevinter’s law back then.  People were tortured for inciting dissidence. We also find Gallus, whose band found in the Holding Cells indicated he was a slave of the family Lartys. His crime: conspiration.

On another desk we find all these elements together: the strange object with spiked cells, the hexagonal container with the sun-like symbol on its front, and these hexagonal flower-like markers that we find in each region of the map which has Astrariums; these objects are always around the main door of the chamber where all Astrarium point out when they are solved.

Here, I repeat this image to see the details of this artefact which function escapes me. Even the Venatori have these objects in their main encampment in the Hissing Wastes.

This object similar to a Claw of Dumat is in a similar position as analogous objects were in the previous room, beside the desks. Maybe they worked as magical torches? I wish I could read the name of the game files. They usually give some idea.

On the main “desk” [in fact, it’s just the base of the three-clawed object] we find a book with a funny haired skull, and a device that looks like a lyrium container. 

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

[lairofdragonagelore]

Western Approach: Coracavus;  Front Corridor and South Entrance

Coracavus, the dark pit, is a Tevinter prison placed far away from the cultural heart of the Imperium. The prison punished local people who denied Tevinter's claims to the region as well as so-called "loyal" citizens who believed that living on the fringes of civilisation would grant them immunity from the Imperium's laws. Political prisoners who did not find execution went here as well. This prison was so ruthless that no name or money would make your punishment lesser. Death was better than being sent here.

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

Front Corridor

Leaving the Records Room, we walk along a corridor where we find more and more metallic, claw-like objects:

The typical dragon gargoyles of Tevinter,

And this object of three claws. In this corner of the corridor it is surrounded by urns.

As we leave this section properly and enter to the Front Corridor, we find once more these  lid/statues.  The central one is the Horned warrior holding a sword. At its sides there are two coffins, each of them with a different design. One of them repeats the image of the Horned warrior holding a sword, while the other is the “lost idol” or  Razikale Ceremony. The position of these elements here makes me suspect  that the coffins are used to celebrate and worship whatever entity the central one is. This whole corridor looks like a “gallery” of elements and objects to appreciate.

A few meters away from that previous arrangement, we find  on our left a statue that breaks completely the style of the whole place. It’s a statue extremely eroded and ancient. At our right, in front of the statue, two of these tree-claw objects. And a bit far beyond these elements, more coffins of the Razikale Ceremony.

This statue is the most strange thing I found in this prison, especially because its style, state, and age breaks any harmony with all what we have been exploring in this place. It doesn’t look Tevinter at all, but it can be considered Ferelden either, or Avvar, or Dwarven. It’s a different style.

Now, similar statues like this one have been found in two places:  In the Hissing Waste, where it triggers the codex The Colossus of Orlais, in which it’s said that Emperor Florian [previous emperor to Celene] asked to have his own figure sculptured from a particular stone that can only be found in the Hissing Wastes. It’s important to highlight that the codex says that the emperor did not like his own visage and sounds like he was a bit reclusive for that reason. The emperor died and The Colossus was never finished. When Celene took the power, abandoned the project.

I have the impression that the colossus we see in Hissing Wastes is not the Emperor per se and it was not a sculpture started from scratches, but the artists took an ancient colossus, and tried to modify it quickly to look like the emperor and finish the job. But it never happened.  To me feels like a super huge mistake if this colosus is a mere Orlesian sculpture, and then we find two of these statues in ancient ruins which have been closed for almost a millenium.

Another similar statue we find is another colossus in the Frostback Mountains, inside the frost temple. Who or what is this sculpture, it’s impossible for me to guess.  In principle, we think it’s a mere reuse of an asset, but if we compare the three of them, their bodies are the same, but their heads show differences in their spikes.

The one from Coracavus has one spike up his head.

The Colossus in Hissing Wastes has one spike too, but going backwards.

The one in Frostback Mountains has two spikes going backwards.

In all cases, they present eroded faces that make difficult to see any details. It seems they wear beards. Their ears are impossible to see, with the exception of the Colossus in Hissing Wastes, which, by no chance, was the one being “sculpted” like the Emperor. That is the only one showing well defined human ears. To me, it feels like the sculptors took this ancient sculpture already there, in the desert, and just modified details to make it look "human”.  They never finished though, since that sculpture still has weird chin, nose, and head.

The other thing that all of them share is a strange profile. The shape of their noses look like the one of the “elves from DA2″.  The one in Coracavus has a spike that can be easily added to the list of “objects that have Mythal-like spikes”. Not that it means anything... but.

This statue is a mystery. However, a quick glance at the Art of Inquisition shows us:

These statues seem to be “guiders” in the desert.  The concept art on the bottom right displays many of these statues pointing out to the same direction. In the bottom left, they are statues that mark the entrance to a given territory. Now... who are these statues? Who made them? Their style is unique.

If we try to explain things with what we have, the only thing that comes to my mind is Fariel. He brought his clan and others to the surface, so these statues could have worked as signs in the expansion of the desert [an environment so difficult for dwarves to walk]. They are made of stone, which is reasonable for dwarves, but what doesn’t add up is that these figures are not drwarves. I’m not even sure if they are humans. These creatures are something else.  Their different spikes, the lack of ears, the strange lack of a nose bridge, their weird profiles... I don’t know what’s going on here.

The corridor reaches its end after seeing that strange stone statue, showing at the sides two of these artefacts with spikes, again.  Why is this object so over the place?

South Entrance

Finally we go out of the building. This place is like a common outdoor section of the prison. There are two levels: one on the ground, where I suppose the prisoners were exposed to long lectures and preaching while tortured, and a higher level, that probably was used by the jailers and the administrative workers, who could sit closer to the idol during the preaching or the torture “shows”. Maybe here is where some of those mysterious “Razikale Ceremonies” were performed.

The main patio has four metallic golems, that thanks to Kirkwall, we know they were used to impose power and break the moral of the prisoners. Maybe in times pre-blights they worked like dwarven golems and were alive.

In front of us, there is an altar of the same figure we saw in the corridors: the Horned warrior holding a sword. There is also a big, eroded Lion of Orlais [excuse me, but wtf?].

Here is where I suppose the workers of this prison could sit and assist the preaching or the ceremonies or the public tortures without mixing with the prisoners on the lower level.

Now, why is there a big, rough Orlais lion looming all over this place? This is beyond me. I don’t think such an imposing statue in this configuration, the first one you see in the moment you enter, was put here just for “lack of assets”. The whole place could be perfectly fine without it. But then I remember that the Still Ruins has Ferelden Wyvern statues... and I can’t understand why, but could it be considered a pattern? I don’t know.

To a side of this patio, we see more of these statues with the Horned warrior holding a sword.  Beside this statue, there are some small cells that seem to have been used to leave prisoners under the elements as part of their tortures.

In front of that statue of the Horned warrior holding a sword, we find a door that leads us to the exit. It has a lid of the Razikale Ceremony, and over the door, the symbols of the six-headed snake.  There are two paintings of the green star flanking this section too.

Finally, the exit of Coracavus, showing paintings of the National symbol of Tevinter. 

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

[firjii]

[firjii]