#dwarf life

[fanfoolishness]

Fucking hell

Solas is the one who severed the Titans - the dwarves - from their dreams

Solas DARED look Varric and Harding and Cadash in the eye all that time

Watch that memory with a dwarven Rook who says that Solas took their dreams away from them and their people. I’m crying my damn eyes out right now. I’ve always loved playing dwarves and this is GUTTING me.

[doodlingfoolishness]

Varric Tethras in the Bastion of the Pure. My favorite Dragon Age location: so lonely, eldritch, and wistful. Varric hates and fears it both.

(A mix of watercolor brush pens, Tombow markers, Faber-Castell brush pens, Posca acrylic pens and gel sticks on sketchbook paper that is absolutely not for wet media but I beat it into submission anyway.)

[smithydwarfer]

It’s called beer because it is suppose to wet your beerd smh filthy uncultured elf-swine

[voicesbyzane]

Flying the colors

[fanfoolishness]

Isatunoll Long-Remembered

Lyrium has always held memory and music. What does a lyrium dagger recall throughout the ages?

(Yes, this is lyrium dagger POV, a fairy-tale perspective on Titans, dwarves, the doings of the Evanuris, and the events of Veilguard. Spoilers for all of Dragon Age, ~1000 words. Thanks to @terioncalling for the encouragement!)

---

There was a time before there was time, when all was whole and sung within a thousand thousand throats. Blood carried the Song of the Stone through beat and breath, and there was harmony resounded, echoing through the firmament and the very bones of the world. Isatunoll.

Then came wounds, bitter and jagged, leeching the blood into soil and spirit. A Faded world of shimmering spirits sent invaders in their ignorance. There were battles that heaved the mountains down, that ruptured the very earth, that caused fire and flood and pain. The pain reverberated through the Song, sour and foul, a discord shivering through the blood.

The stolen blood had other uses than weaving an entire people’s dreams. Once spilled it could create new bodies — or end those that it had raised and nourished. A spirit once Wisdom, now Pride, folded blood upon itself in layers shimmering and bright, until a blade was forged that sang with dreadful purpose.

The blade could sever.

The blade could sunder.

And Pride’s cruelty echoed through the firmament and the very bones of the world.

-

The blade was not alive. But nor was it dead. It was something unto itself, a mirror of what had come before, a prism to refract the future. Or to create it.

Pride was not its only master. Tyranny bore it for a time, casting Retribution -- before Benevolence -- into splintered shadow. The blade sang anew, echoing with the scattered refrain of the spirit’s shards, until Pride reclaimed his own and drew forth the fragments in his sorrow.

The blade hung at Pride’s side as an anchor, the great sundering of the Titans, the ending of Retribution, remembered in a faint and voiceless song. It did not let him forget. The weight of it would have destroyed a lesser spirit.

But Pride was one of the old dreamers of the world beyond, and his will was mighty, enough to fill his ears and heart with a music of his own that drowned out the silent screaming of the Titans. Vengeance came upon him, and he devised a plan to bring it forth.

The dagger sang again, binding a new world where all was shadowed and the voices of the world beyond made faint. It sent Pride to his knees, the dagger clattering beside him. 

The screams of Pride’s own people carried not the ancient melody of the Song, but it was a chorus still remembered.

-

Darkness twisted what once was pure and singing, and the blade roiled with the poisoned music of the Blight. It gleamed red in the shadowed halls, a perversion of what had come before.

It sang to a Child of the Titans in the wending deep, its music choked with retribution, with sundered dreams, with the follies of the proud. The Child listened with his heart unguarded, and the voices wove within his mind a song that could not be denied.

-

A city cast in ruins, smoke heavy on the air, stone broken like a Titan’s mind. The blade whined and hummed in its corruption, rippling in a prison of pulsing red. 

It slumbered in this frozen form until mortal hands freed it once again, until it traveled under guard and spell. Great magic wove within it and without. At last the red corruption was destroyed and anew it breathed in purest blue.

It recognized the hand that held the now-cleansed blade. Pride was not so easily evaded.

-

Ah.

There, familiar, the Song! Carried still in Child’s blood, if faint and near-forgotten: the ancient music, oneness, isatunoll! 

The dagger drank deeply of its own lifeblood, but the Child of the Stone was only mortal, and he could not bear the blade.

No matter; an echo still would linger, as of Retribution, as of sleeping Titans. The blade hummed, waiting to discharge its gifts, to remind the Children who they long ago had been.

-

A filthy hand upon the blade, marred and soulless. Mercifully the carrying was brief. 

The next hand, small and strong and reaching —

ISATUNOLL!

The dwarven blood unleashed, the song resounding, unlocking, reweaving — remembering —

Another hand upon the blade, but the music slowly faded, a silent song once more.

-

Resonance. Like met like, the amplitude increasing, the effect doubling, trebling. Pride’s touch on his enemy was light and masterful, deft weaving of remembrance. It sang in harmony with the fragment in the blade, a Child wise in his own way, an admixture that seemed real as real to one that would behold it.

-

The assassin’s hand hid a tremor, a rupture nearly imperceptible. A note soured in the distilled music of the blade. The demon the assassin carried twisted, straining, in its bonds of flesh.

The blow did not strike true.

-

God-blood now twice-stolen, draining from the wielder of the flesh, flowing into ancient soil like the sweetest rain. What was stolen, now reclaimed, fragments of the Titan-stone anointed in her blood  —

The blade flashed beneath a shrouded sun. Pride and his games again!

-

The enemy of an enemy was not a friend, but perhaps an ally. The blade danced between them, gifted freely.

Until bright and blighted Tyranny fell from his lofty throne, and the Veil shivered, shredded, ached to open.

Strange words, a tuneless verse that yet held meaning, many voices in the fray, fragments of Retribution and Benevolence. Pride’s tears fell upon the blade, no magic in them but what made them fall. His blood on the blade’s edge tasted of regret upon regret, a chorus all its own.

Pride’s hands trembled, the weight too much at last. In his blood a hint of Wisdom stirred and struggled. 

His enemy’s hands were merely mortal, but they were strong and certain, cradling the blade.

Blood and blade and bound again, the Veil renewed, the sundered dreams a soft motif instead of crushing melody. Like this, the blade could find a peace.  Like this, the blade could slumber.

Until someday the Titan-song was sung again, until the blade was at last unmade, until it could rejoin the Song in blood and blue.

Isatunoll.

[fanfoolishness]

Whoa! I just did Harding’s quest The Eternal Hymn for my second Rook, and it’s quite different than my first run- there’s no Kal-Sharok dwarves waiting to greet us, there’s no feeling of the Titan’s viewpoint that shakes the other dwarves, that I got on my first playthrough as a dwarf romancing Harding. Was the difference being a dwarf? Or was it that last time I chose compassion, and this time I chose anger? I thought I was going to see Stalgard one last time! Instead Harding communicated on her own with the Oracle and the quest ended. It was a month ago that I last played this quest so maybe I’m remembering wrong. Any help?

Edit: thank you! This seems to be due to choosing anger instead of compassion!

[fanfoolishness]

The storyteller, and the last chapter.

[fanfoolishness]

So like… how did Solas’ blood magic on Rook work in regards to Varric? Was Rook constantly spouting things like “oh hey I’m gonna go check in with Varric!” or “wonder what Varric thinks of our new companions” or “I have to tell Varric what happened to the Titans!” Did their companions just look worriedly at each other and decide to let Rook grieve their way? Did Neve never wonder about blood magic? Did Harding never mention Varric again, as a dear friend and mentor she’s had for years?

Or was Solas’ blood magic so subtle that Rook would black out if they heard Harding say “I miss Varric so much” or Neve say “I can’t believe Solas killed Varric”? Like Rook would go on autopilot under Solas’ control and go “yes I miss him too” then wink back to being in their own mind again still thinking Varric was alive? How did it all WORK? I lean towards this option as it would allow Harding and Neve to grieve about Varric in their own ways and try to talk to Rook about it, as opposed to just never bringing it up.

Definitely there were things that should have made me more suspicious, but how cool would it have been to see Rook acting oddly around Neve or Harding or anyone and have you the player wondering what just happened?

Edit: saw some other posts suggesting Solas was putting words in Varric’s mouth whenever Rook talked with him. Hell, I hadn’t even considered that angle. I was assuming that Rook was seeing Varric as an illusion and their confused mind was suggesting what they thought Varric would say.