#kordillus drakon

[exhausted-archivist]

World of Thedas Character Art Colour Pallets: Part 2 Historical Figures and Other NPCs

Like in part 1 which you can find here, though this post is shorter than the first. The thought behind this is the same, that it would be handy to have basic colour pallets from the World of Thedas Volume 2. These are split into 2 posts because picture limit. I also specifically chose the images with grey backgrounds and not the tarot cards, just for easier grouping.

Some notes for each section:

Historical Figures in order of appearance

Calenhad, Darinius, Emperor Kordillu Drakon, Maric

Maric is included in historical figures because he was presumed dead in Origins, and is dead by the time Inquisition happens. We also never technically see him in any game installment so I thought he fit best here.

Other NPCs in order of appearance:

Duke Prosper de Montfort, Grand Duke Gaspard de Chalons, Tallis.

Yes, Duke Propser and Gaspard are wearing very similar garb. I constantly confuse the art for the two, and it took this long for me to realize. They likely came from similar concepting iterations. When I put Dagna in part 1, I also forgot Gaspard existed in this set.

If you want to download this for your own use, got a handy google drive folder with all the images for your needs.

Historical Figures

Other NPCS

Wanna support this blog? You can check out my ko-fi.

[chantry-scholar]

A set of portraits of the type commonly find in Orlais. [via DAI Game Extracts]

[dalishious]

Or, perhaps, given that Drakon's best friend was an elven mage with a very particular faith, your opinion of him is less accurate than you think. Which is not to say that he was likely to place a statue of Elgar'nan alongside Andraste's but I also doubt he gleefully rubbed his hands, just waiting for the elves to stumble so he could kill them and take their land. He was probably somewhere in the middle. Most people are.

From WoTv1:

From WoTv2:

And from the Daughters of Song Codex Entry, an example of Drakon’s brutal destruction of all faiths not Andrastian:

The Daughters of Song were wiped out by the righteous forces of Emperor Drakon during his campaigns to unite all of Orlais. When the emperor’s forces sacked the village, the Daughters would not arm themselves and were either killed or captured. The village was destroyed, and the cult never recovered.

Really not sure why you’re so invested in defending a Andrastian zealot colonizer who thought he was a gift from the Maker sent to forcefully spread the Chant of Light through all of Thedas, anon. Because I don’t know what lore you’ve read that doesn’t present the image of an evil white dude gleefully rubbing his hands at the prospect of expanding his holy empire.

[dalishious]

"imagine instead of presenting Ameridan as best friends with a bloodthirsty zealot conqueror, he told Kordillus Drakon to shove his axe up his ass?" Lol, yeah, God forbid that there be any reason to believe that Drakon had a personality beyond "bloodthirsty zealot conqueror", no one wants that.

If you’re a bloodthirsty zealot conqueror I don’t see why it matters if you like long walks on the beach or tea over coffee, and I don’t see why anyone would want to be friends with you unless they for some reason don’t see being a bloodthirsty zealot conqueror as the deal breaker it should be.

[dalishious]

Ameridan’s voice: I prepare now for my final battle against this dragon of the Avvar. All is in place. I offer thanks to Ghilan’nain, Hall-Mother, and to Andraste, Maker-Brode. As you were raised up from mortal men to stand with our Creators, our Maker, so raise me up now to defend this world. Cassandra: Inquisitor Ameridan, who helped bring the Inquisition into the Chantry, built a shrine for the Maker and the elven gods. Cole: “They’re not so different, Drakon. Just another pair of boots to walk the same road.” He doesn’t see, wants it simple, but I can help him get there. There’s room for both.

Imagine if instead of a Plot Twist™ revealing Ameridan believed in both the Creators and Andrastianism/a callback to Cassandra’s bullshit question asking Lavellan why they can’t just worship both the Elven Pantheon and the Maker, we were told an inspiring story of how Ameridan resisted assimilation, even in the face of Emperor Drakon, the man who spread Andrastianism with vicious military force and made the Chantry the powerful organization it is now? Imagine if instead of presenting assimilation as a groundbreaking solution to bigotry, that instead of Ameridan wanting to prove to Drakon elves deserve to live because they too can be Andrastian, we were told Ameridan stood his ground and wanted Drakon to see he should respect peoples differences in beliefs, rather than killing those who don’t worship the Maker? In fact, imagine instead of presenting Ameridan as best friends with a bloodthirsty zealot conqueror, he told Kordillus Drakon to shove his axe up his ass?

[merriala-archive]

Codex entry: The Daughters of Song

Wine. Music. Poetry. And the wanton and frenzied indulgence of carnal fancies. These things characterized the hedonistic cult known as the Daughters of Song. Calling them an order of the faithful lends them a legitimacy they do not deserve. The daughters (and sons, though they saw themselves also as "daughters") celebrated Andraste's holy union with the Maker in almost every way imaginable. And it was only the "holy union" they venerated. Andraste's life, her war, her teachings, and her sacrifice were blithely ignored.

At its height, the Daughters of Song numbered in the thousands. They maintained a stronghold in a village called Virelay, in the Fields of Ghislain. Virelay saw a yearly event during which the Daughters of Song paraded carven images of the "Maker's Glory" through the square.

The Daughters of Song were wiped out by the righteous forces of Emperor Drakon during his campaigns to unite all of Orlais. When the emperor's forces sacked the village, the Daughters would not arm themselves and were either killed or captured. The village was destroyed, and the cult never recovered.

—From Before Andrastianism: the Forgotten Faiths by Sister Rondwyn of Tantervale

[dalishious]

@fuckyeahdiomedes replied to your photo “Ameridan’s voice: I prepare now for my final battle against this...”

I thought it was Drakon's son that was the bloodthirsty zealot?

Like father, like son. Kordillus Drakon I believed that the Maker gave him the duty of spreading the Chant of Light, and he did so with brutal military assault and colonization.  With every new bit of territory he gained for Orlais, he stomped out any worship besides the Maker. Those who refused to submit to the Maker were slaughtered, such as the Daughters of Song. And because he tied his Empire to his Chantry, this led to the notion that Orlesian nobles get their right to rule from the Maker.

Emperor Kordillus Drakon is the biggest reason Andrastianism is the most common religion in Thedas present-time. He was ‘anointed’ because of this.

[enricodandolo]

For all that is cringeworthy about the story of Kordillus Drakon and the founding of the southern empire, there’s one thing I like about it -- and that’s his parentage. Kordillus is born to a Tevene magisterial family, and is certainly not the unwashed barbarian he’s depicted as in the World of Thedas. At the very least, he is a Tevenised foederate of the declining empire. More to the point, he is in every respect what would be termed a member of the Tevene provincial elite as a military and civic leader, and shares a fundamentally Late Tevene world view. That, and the administrative traditions that come with it, is what enables him to establish an powerful territorial empire, and what enables him to create the Chantry and the Circles as the two intellectual nexi of southern Thedas. Both are based on Tevene models: the latter on the temples of the Old Gods with their libraries and mage-priest-scholars. The former is a continuation and redirection of the imperial bureaucracy (one of the most important conclusions to be drawn from the study of Early Medieval / Late Roman historiography is that the Roman Church is the later Roman Empire, and is built to this day as a continuation of its administrative practises). 

Not that Bioware will ever admit that Tevinter is anything but an evil empire full of cackling sorcerors in lightning-clad towers.