The idea for this piece has been simmering in the back of my head and in some sketchbooks for YEARS, so I finally bit the bullet and actually painted it. It's also influenced by Paramore's song Misguided Ghosts, which has always been one of the main songs I associate with Mahariel. It fits the Dalish Warden Origin so well. 💙
let it also be said that I love the Mahariel + Lavellan worldstate. It's so haunted. You are Dalish, you are not a part of human culture, but by happenstance you're dragged into it and to the forefront of hell to save a world that hates and fears your people. You have no choice. You can never return to your home, to the familiar, to anything you've ever known. You will be an echo; Mahariel echoing Garahel, Lavellan echoing Mahariel. You're so proud of your Dalish heritage, but your identity doesn't matter at all. Doomed to be a martyr for a people that do not respect you and cannot understand you, while your clan mourns, lamenting that they cannot bury you, no life-tree to stand as your memory. You're a hero. You're already dead. You died the moment you left your clan.
Between work, two art projects, working out and being Strahd von Zarovich, I am also replaying the Dragon Age series in my head. I think it’s my brain begging for a day off but nevermind that,
Help me name my Dalish protagonist for my Origins playthrough ! That will surely happen soon !! Excited to draw her and show her off but off all the things to get stuck on, it’s the name.
so i decided to replay Dragon Age: Origins and was really curious to explore some mods. While I expected the Dalish Mage mod to be fascinating, what i DID NOT EXPECT was the Tamlen romance add-ons to be such a gutpunch. Marawen (the former SarahCousland) hit an absolute home run. Link to mod.
Because the music is hauntingly familiar to anyone who's played Trespasser. It's the Lost Elf Theme. Yes, mods, but I never in a billion years expected to get hit with THAT at the end of a Dragon Age Origins intro story.
And between the presumed death of Mahariel's love (the truth is far worse) and the discovery of the first eluvian IN an ancient elven AND ancient Tevinter SHARED SHRINE (hint hint hint hint hint hint hint), to say it's a phenomenal bookend for Trespasser and it's segue into Veilguard's putting it mildly.
Can't believe that I once again forgot to post that
Here's an art of my HoF, Lirrill Mahariel scolding Duncan. Art is by @fantalpacca, so is the fic she's brewing for my Mahariel (I gave up custody after realizing happy endings were not my strenght at the time).
''One night she.. simply walked into the moonlight and never returned''
I've been thinking about my Mahariel's mother a lot lately.
And my personal headcannons about those events in general. Particularly the concept of ''Mahariel is only alive because Marethari as the new keeper used blood magic to heal(?) their mother after she and their father were attacked''.
[I dont put that level of hypocrisy above her. After all, she herself is not above having shady dealings with dangerous powers, despite ousting and ostracizing her own for lesser offenses in that area. And given actions such as 'using the old magic to heal you'.. of the blight? Which you're then sufficiently recovered from until you make it to Ostagar on foot, the phrasing of 'your mother held on to life long enough to give birth to you'.. It presents a rather haunting image even when looking at it through a charitable lens. It's not like Marethari HAS NOT shown a pattern of counting certain lives as more valuable than others. And not wincing at the blood price of 'helping' them.]
In any case, in terms of Mahariel's mother.. the clan failed her. From the very start when no-one stepped in to stop the keeper getting involved with a young woman whose clan disapproved, to the very end when no-one stopped her walking off into the moonlight.
I just have this picture in my mind of her as the lone survivor, questionably alive even, rose tinted glasses shattered and reckoning with the horrors of her situation she hadn't fully recognized until that point.
The differences in age, in power. The reasons why her elders did not approve the match. Yet there's nothing to be done now.
He's dead, she's with child.
She can't go home, but the idea of staying is a nightmare.
