#garahel

[dragonagegallery]

Archdemon Andoral

By Matt Rhodes

[the-rebel-archivist]

It took a minute to piece together why Davrin's armour was so familiar despite being such a unique warden design but then it finally clicked. And it's brilliant.

Davrin has griffon rider armour.

Modernized, of course - it's been almost 500 years after all. If Garahel's armour took some inspiration from WWI pilot uniforms, Davrin's pulls from WWII, drawing on the vibe of the classic leather jacket with the wide, high collar taking the place of lambswool.

It's debonair and cavalier, a griffon rider for these modern times of 9:52, but it keeps the same colour scheme and basic elements of brown leather on blue cloth with sparse metal elements. And there's even a nod to the leather scales on Garahel's shoulder on Davrin's.

[tasoula14]

Dragon age art challenge: Grey Wardens

Day 1. Duty

Grey warden Garahel

[caephalopodas]

familial relations and co.

Im not sure if shes worth the title of successor for the first enchanter but hes grown too fond of her to kick her out the tower now...

i still think of morrigan seeing you as a sister if you get close to her, it twists my heart up in all directions and tickles my nerves (painfully)

also, jowan ehehaha ohh my first run i didnt care all that much about him until getting to the sacred ashes and seeing that it still haunts the mc what will become of him, so i thought he and amell should be closer... which does make sense, no? i mean you spend your whole life in this tower, of course youre growing close to other mages, or distant... depending on what kind of attention you attract (looks over at anders)

[ashlightly]

#cityelfweek25 day 4: Youth

[Wordcount: 1264 words]

[Spoiler warning: No spoilers for Veilguard or Last Flight, apart from the fact that Garahel (Hero of the fourth blight) had a mage sister!]

Frankly, Isseya anticipated Garahel to forget about her as soon as she was taken to the circle. 

It would’ve been expected. Her brother had always been the one to drag her forwards, finding new ways for them to fight for another day. With no parents, each day was a struggle for survival -- to find food, find shelter, find a place to be safe for just a moment, until they could do it all again the next morning. 

She doesn’t know why he does it. Maybe he felt responsible for her, somehow. They didn’t know which one of them was older, but they were certain they came from the same family. Even if Garahel had hair that was a glossier gold, even if Isseya’s nose was a little flatter. They knew they were siblings, and that they were all the family they had left in this world. 

But Isseya knew she was a burden. She knew Garahel would be so much more capable on his own, if he didn’t need to keep looking behind him to check if she was keeping up. So when her magic was discovered and the templars came, Isseya sat with the feeling that settled in her heart, and said goodbye to her brother as if it was the last time they would ever talk. 

Then he sends her a letter.

Sisitr. I lov yoo. I miz yoo. frm Gar. 

Isseya can only read this because since she had been taken to the circle, for the first time in her life, she had adult teachers that taught her to read and write. The Garahel she had left behind wouldn’t have been able to read or write either. 

He had somehow learned it, since she’d left, all to send her a letter. 

For the first time since coming here, Isseya forgets her fear of the templars and nags them with questions to hell and back, asking about the boy who left this letter, asking how she could send one back. They wave her off initially, but Isseya doesn’t let up. If the guards start to ignore her, she waits until they’re replaced by the guards of the next shift, and she repeats herself with them. 

Eventually, a templar takes pity on her and tells her of a blond boy, shorter than Isseya, who would appear outside the tower every now and again and nag the people entering until someone was willing to deliver a letter to his sister. 

Not everyone was willing, but this templar promised her that she’d figure something out -- so long as Isseya behaved, please. And could she tell her brother to behave as well. 

Contact with the outside world was generally dissuaded with mages within the circle. Not outright forbidden, and mages were more than welcome to communicate with mages from other circles. Mail flowed freely from the pens of people who had nothing better to do than read. But contact with family was made intentionally difficult, with the expectation that families outside would eventually give up. There was no future to look forward to, no eventual reunion to wait for. Once a mage entered the circle, they were there for the rest of their life. 

But Garahel continues to write. His penmanship improves into something more confident, quick and impatient. His scrawl becomes so comfortable that it loops back around to being difficult to read. Isseya hangs on to every piece of paper, every scrap her brother tears from parchment not being used, in order to bridge the gap between them with ink and determination. 

I found work in the city. They think im small but i can scrub boots and that is enough. 

The templar is true to her word. A couple times a month, Isseya seeks her out and exchanges letters with the templar -- giving something she’s written, and receiving a piece in return. 

Some adults in the alienage give me food when I act hungry enough. Sometimes I lie, but don’t tell them.

Isseya hangs onto every word, the curve of every line, the splatter of ink on each corner and the stains that mark each page. She thinks the things she tells Garahel in return are far less interesting, but also thinks that if she stopped writing -- maybe he will stop too, so she doesn’t. 

hey, you do nothing but read books there, right? do you read stuff about seeing in the dark. I think im getting better at it somehow

Each letter she gets, she thinks it’s the last. She’d never voice it, because to voice it would somehow… bring it into existence. Outwardly, Isseya continues this exchange and carries on with her life, just like her brother is carrying on with his. The Garahel she knows, the one she still knows, would continue to knock on opportunity’s door, never stopping. She never wants him to. 

Might be gone for a bit, but I will send a letter as soon as I can. 

Inwardly, she’s fully prepared to never hear from him ever again. 

Isseya’s not sure where this belief comes from, but it's so firmly rooted that she doesn’t even interrogate it. Because obviously, one day Garahel will stop writing to her. He will grow up, find people he would care more about than the sister he has not seen in a decade. He will move on. It’s what was best for him, and when that happens, Isseya would be happy and proud. 

They’d been writing since they were kids, and it was something they would eventually grow out of. Something to leave behind, once youth falls away. 

Sister, I’m back! Finally. Don’t let it be said that your dearest brother wouldn’t fight pirates to get back to you. Guess what I did on my last job? 

They’re both of age now; at least, to their best guesses -- the two of them were never quite sure of their ages and birthdays, and just picked ones that fit best. Garahel had grown into a man, quick and sharp-witted, with blades to match. Isseya’s training in the circle was complete, and she had passed her harrowing without incident. 

It strikes Isseya suddenly one day, when she exchanges letters with the templar who has become her friend. The templar’s hair had lightened to an ashy grey, and she talked to Isseya about her upcoming retirement. Talked about how, with her gone, Isseya might have to find another way to send letters to her brother. 

Isseya is distinctly surprised when her first thought upon learning this is: Maybe I can give them to him myself. 

The thought is sudden and swift and terrifying. How on earth was she going to do that? How was that even possible? Why did she even consider such a thing possible, why did she even dare to want it? 

…Did she actually dare? 

To desire is to be vulnerable. It meant having hopes that could be disappointed, expectations what could be unmet. Garahel was the dreamer, not her. Garahel was the one who chased, who dared to push forwards, to risk and love and live. 

Isseya is the one stuck in the tower with no future to look forward to. 

Except, maybe, maybe -- 

Sister, I met some grey wardens in town. They are thinking of recruiting me, but I said no. I said that this is my place here, and I didn’t plan on leaving. I think I made the right choice. 

Isseya stares at the page. Stares at her brother’s handwriting. Wonders what he looks like now, after so many years. 

Then she picks up the pen, and writes. 

[sky--phantom]

This made me both sad and glad that I'm reading Last Flight

[ghostwise]

I've been working on something exciting for @dragonageannual ✒️💚

[nightingaletrash]

I love the Last Flight so much tho, the way it truly encapsulates the horror of the Blight. How a single day of dawdling was enough for Antiva's royals to doom their people. The soul-rending endlessness of it, and how even the biggest victories are only temporary unless they can get you to the Archdemon.

It also shows how, by this point, the Grey Wardens have come to be so respected that its detrimental. When they say that a Blight is here, they're listened to and people react accordingly, but Antiva's royals really believed that the Wardens could save their city - its why they sent for them, they believed they could turn the tide of the entire horde and were shocked when the Wardens said 'we can't save your city, the best we can do is help to evacuate you and your people before it's too late.' And then that belief keeps them from listening to the Wardens when they say that they can't perform a miracle. And it costs them everything.

Then there's Isseya's blood magic, and how the novel shows us that while she never used it for malignant purposes, there was a huge cost for her... but it wasn't entirely her fault. The first time her blood magic had a horrible cost - when her altered Joining practically destroyed a griffon's mind and filled him with hatred - she swore off of using the spell ever again. It's not until the First Warden orders her to do it over and over again does the magic take its toll by accelerating the Taint in her blood. And when her spell proves to have created a blight disease unique to griffons, the fault lies largely with the First Warden as he failed to enact quarantines and he kept using the griffons as messengers. If Isseya had had her way, Shrike would have been the only griffon to have been changed, but the pressure from Garahel and the First Warden and Lisme and everyone else that insisted that the joined griffons were a solution made it so that she couldn't say no.

There's just a lot going on in the Last Flight that really communicates things better than the games do without diving into codexes. Origins doesn't really show just how soul-grinding and all-consuming a Blight is supposed to be because this is the weird one that only lasted a year. DA2 only shows the consequences of blood magic via the reactions to it as opposed to the real consequences of the magic itself. And Inquisition's attempt to portray the Wardens as flawed and sometimes misguided comes off as dismissive of the order itself.

The Last Flight describes how the Blight changes the landscape as it spreads and shows our characters changing and ageing as it goes on, with the protagonists going from a couple of fresh-faced recruits to aged veterans over the span of a decade. We see a real, tangible consequence of blood magic beside the societal reactions to it. And we see the Wardens at their best and at their most flawed; from evacuating and saving as many people as they can from the Darkspawn, to recklessly forcing blood magic on their griffons and failing to enact proper quarantines when the first signs of the problem began to appear. Its such a damn good book and I love it so much 💜