#patterns and styles

[lairofdragonagelore]

Patterns and Styles: Avvar/Alamarri

Avvar/Alamarri design is quite rustic, stone-based, and sometimes it's hard to differentiate one from another considering their cultural history: the Avvar are a branch of the Alamarri that moved towards the Mountains. Alamarri as well as Avvar and Chasind have a long story of inter-racial mix with the dwarves of Orzammar, which is clear in their art: heavily based on stone and with some imagery of dwarves.

However, it is important to remember that Avvar in particular may have had also relationships with the Elvhenan, as Tyrdda's lover was an elven woman. Their tradition with mages and their treatment of the spirits also resembles their influence from the elvhenan culture. This strange mix is then reflected in the art.

This series of posts are not exhaustive since I’ve developed a very detailed list of tags tracking certain features of a given design. These posts merely try to gather in one place the symbols and elements I used most of the time when identifying buildings in my analysis of DAI.

[This post is part of the series “Patterns and Styles ”] [Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Patterns

When it comes to patterns, the only one that I can assume is alamarri it's an intricated rhomboid pattern [celtic-like] that we can find in some columns of arches that are spread all over Ferelden. It's not clear for me that this pattern was later imported by the Avvar. However, it's interesting to highlight the resemblance to the elvhenan walls in temples such as in Mythal's Temple [see Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan] which also seems to be related to the pattern found in the pants that Dalish wear, and ironically, Qunari too.

Statues and decorations

1 - Keepers of Fear and their variations

Part of the reason I consider these statues as Keepers of Fear is that they represent similar imagery; they share the style and some characteristics, and are related to the codex The Keepers of Fear. They display the despair and fear that the Alamarri felt when the Blight came from the north. They tend to be elongated humanoids, usually with pointy teeth, without a nose, and screaming/cowering body language.

They also appear close to one another, in groups, in Kenric’s study room in the DLC Jaws of Hakkon [ Frostback Basin [DLC]: Miscellaneous ] implying similar origin for study. They also decorate the paths that head to the Avvar Hold in the DLC, and inside the hold itself.

In the Fade, we find the codex The Keepers of Fear on one of these statues, where we learn that the Alamarri/Avvar used them to scream inside them during the time of the Blight, thinking the darkspawn were spirits. As we know thanks to the DLC Jaws of Hakkon, the Avvar [and by extension most likely the Alamarri and the Chasind] would feed the spirits to keep them close [spirits] or away [demons] from their communities.

1A - Screaming Keeper [Alamarri/Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In Crestwood, in a place a bit isolated closed to a destroyed Andraste statue,

In Fallow Mire: Granite Point [not original from this place],

In Frostback Basin [DLC]: Stone-Bear Hold Avvars : Everywhere, specially along the paths.

In Hinterlands: Minor places, in several places and caves.

In Hinterlands: Redcliffe – Future, along the corridors of the fortress as the Fade and the Waking World get merged.

In the Fade Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, in many places, since this part of the Fade we visit is close to the lair of a Nightmare Demon who feeds upon the Fear and Despair. At some point one of these statues triggers the codex The Keepers of Fear.

The Fade of Flemeth: Part 1, Part 2, as decoration of an avvar/alamarri corridor.

Brief description: This statue is elongated. It has long arms, and its hands are grabbing the face, distorted in fear as it screams. It has no nose. There are some strange appendages falling down and making an extension of its chin [thick beard?]. We can see the ribs very easily, suggesting illness or hunger. It also has elongated legs, one of them crossing over the hip that conveys an impression of more terror and fear.

These Keepers appear quite regularly in all places over Ferelden and the Frostback Mountains. They are inserted in the landscape or along paths, and we can see they are a good reflection of what the codex The Keepers of Fear says: They are part of the Avvar/Alamarri "superstition”: They thought the Darkspawns were bad spirits that fed on fear, so they crafted these statues to feed them far away from their communities, to keep them satisfied and away from them. However, when this did not work [since the darkspawn are not spirits], the Alamarri/Avvar used these statues to scream inside them and pour all their fear into them, “burn” it in order to get rid of it, and go to battle against the darkspawn no matter their gender or age.

In the Frostback Basin [DLC], we can find these statues flanking the path to the Avvar Hold or inside it. In the Fade it makes sense for them to appear where the Lair of the demon Nightmare lives: he has been feeding upon these fears for centuries.

1B - Screaming heads [Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In Frostback Basin [DLC]: Miscellaneous: everywhere

In Hinterlands: Statues, paintings, and structures found in the open , Wolf Hollow, Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path [as a part of the stanza], and Minor places

In Hinterlands: Redcliffe - Future, as the Waking World and the Fade merge one another.

In Therinfal Redoubt [in the part of the Fade]

In the Fade Part 1, Part 3, in many places. This part of the Fade we visit is close to the lair of a Nightmare Demon who feeds on Fear and Despair, so it makes sense we see so many of these Keepers.

The Fade of Flemeth: Part 1, as decoration of an avvar/alamarri corridor.

Brief description: This statue is an isolated head with two faces [front and back display different shapes], I can see humanoid faces in them: one as a screaming melted human without nose [which can also be considered the face of a Terror demon or a ghoul], and the other one as a screaming boar of pointy teeth, which inside its mouth there is another screaming face. Everything is too deformed to be precise.

The game efficiently combines these heads in ways that seem to create new different horror statues by clipping them.

We find these faces all over Ferelden and the Frostback Mountains, specially in Avvar/Alamarri territory.

1C - Sitting screaming humanoid [Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In Frostback Basin [DLC]: Stone-Bear Hold Avvars : specially in small cliffs into the sea, where the Avvar can be seen fishing. It can also be found aside a path inside the Avvar Hold.

In the Hinterlands: The Unknown Ruin [Mihris] clipped with a skull.

In the The Fade of Flemeth: Part 2, clipped with a skull.

In Hissing Wastes: scattered objects and ruins, inside a crevice where a Fereldan vendor has been placed, but we only find their mabari and several objects of Ferelden iconography.

Brief description: This statue is elongated and shares many characteristics present in 1A and 1B. It shows long arms, hands covering the eyes, screaming out of fear as it cowers. It's sitting inside a basket. It has no nose and its teeth are pointy. We can see the ribs very easily, suggesting hunger or illness.

During the DLC Frostback Basin [DLC]: Stone-Bear Hold Avvars, Dorian will point out this is an Avvar statue, which makes sense considering we are in an avvar hold.

1D - Sitting screaming humanoid with hands inside the mouth [Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In Razikale’s Reach, as part of the stratification of the Temple when it was taken by the Avvar-Hakkonite and rejected the Tevinters that had been installed around the time of the first Blight.

Inside Skyhold if you pick the Avvar decoration.

Brief description: This statue is elongated and shares many characteristics present in 1A, 1C, 1E and 2. It displays long arms, but no hands. It’s not clear if the hands are inside the mouth or means they were eaten [I favour this second option since these statues tend to be scrawny, conveying the idea of famine, another very common fear among the Avvar, specially during the Blight times]. It has no nose and its teeth are pointy. Its legs are protruding from over the shoulders, giving the sense that this figure is sitting and cowering. We can see a bit of its ribs in between the arms. The position is similar to 1C and 2.

1E - Sitting screaming deepstalker humanoid [Likely Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In Hinterlands: The Unknown Ruin [Mihris] , at the sides of another Avvar/Alamarri statue [1C] clipped with a skull.

In the Fade Part 2 and Part 3, It is a zone where we find a Tevinter sacrificial altar.

In the Fade of Flemeth: Part 1, this statue is beside a sacrificial altar again.

In The Fade of Flemeth: Part 2, it appears at the end, where we find Flemeth. They are positioned as to form a frame for the statue that was stabbed in the back and bleeds.

Brief description: These statues share some similarities with 1A, 1C and 1D: they show long arms, with hands grabbing the sides of the face as it screams. It has no nose nor eyes. We can see the ribs very easily, giving a sense of skeleton [extreme famine?]. What makes this statue particular is the strange mouth, closer in shape to a deepstalker’s mouth. It’s not clear if the figure is sitting, since it has no legs. Its base has the outline of a figure that reinforces the idea of screaming in terror and rising its arms. This figure has a shape that also resembles a terror demon.

In some places in the Fade, the head of this statue is burning, making clear suggestion to the codex of the Keepers of Fear, in particular to the part where they burn their screams of fear to find courage to fight [and die] against the darkspwan.

Rarely appears alone [it’s usually presented in pairs], and when it does, bones and bodies are shown below it, relating it to sacrifices and death. Most likely the concept of sacrifice comes from the part of the codex where once the fears are burnt, the alamarri went to fight a hopeless battle.

What’s interesting of this statue is that it’s a central piece of decoration in the Lair of the Nightmare Demon, in the Fade [check Part 4]. There, we see four of these statues, vomiting blood. Around this spilled blood, some bits of red lyrium can be found. This construction may be entirely done for shock value, since it’s a reuse of several assets assembled in a way that inspire terror and fear just in the moment where the Inquisitor faces the Nightmare demon.

2 - Eroded dragon skull and variations [Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In Swamp Kulsdotten, in the Frostback basin

In Hinterlands: Statues, paintings, and structures found in the open , Wolf Hollow , and Redcliffe – Future.

In the Therinfal Redoubt [As part of the decoration of the fortress’ main room]

In the The Fade of Flemeth: Part 1 as well as the common Raw Fade.

In Hinterlands: The Unknown Ruin [Mihris], as the base of the main, central figure, which is 1C with a clipped skull.

Brief description: I personally call it "Eroded dragon skull", because I have no other way to call it to tag it in the blog. I see a kind of dragon skull with horns that go backwards and then forward, but it also looks like a statue of a humanoid, with elongated legs that protrude from the sides of the skull. Like in the previous statues, it has no nose and seems to have pointy teeth at the end of the “snout”. All the details are blurred for what it looks like erosion.

On its back, this statue has a G symbol which doesn’t present the same level of erosion than the front. I only found a remotely similar symbol in the elven artefact. It’s a strange symbol, dwarven-like even for an “elven” artefact [looks like a squarish swirl]. In fact, that symbol can be found in dwarven objects [specially tapestry and rugs]. Once more, it’s only what I’ve observed, I don’t think we have any evidence to even speculate on this. It looks quite on purpose, though.  A whole eroded statue with a clear G on its back is a choice in terms of design.

If we compare this statue with similar ones found in  Avvar/Alamarri-related places the common characteristics show up:

It has long limbs, open mouth, and pointy teeth, without a nose. Through these similarities it seems reasonable to relate it with the Avvar culture.

3 - Tyrdda statue [Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In Hinterlands: Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path

and in Hinterlands: inside the Grand Forest Villa.

Tyrdda Bright-Axe was a legendary Alamarri chieftain who is considered the founder of the Avvar.

Brief description: The statue is simple, with a woman holding a sword [which is strange considering the Avvar always knew she was a mage and was holding a staff]. It has limbs a bit elongated and her ribs can be seen.

4 - Lady of the Sky [Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In the Skyhold [Stone-Bear Hold Avvars ] when you pick Avvar Decoration

Brief description: This satue is an owl, representation of the Lady of the Skies. I find interesting in her design the ring around her head: small little spikes that may be related or may have inspired artistically other symbols in the game: the thorns that we have seen many times in vines, which have elven influence [after all, the Avvar have a strong elven influence in their culture if we consider the tale of  Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path as more or less reliable with respect to her lover of leaf-like ears],  or could be an inspiration of a sun. The symbolism of the Lady of the sky with the sun is also shown in her painted representation, as I talked about in the post Dragon Age Iconic Patterns: The Sun.

5 - Korth [Avvar]

Where it can be found:

Stone-Bear Hold Avvars , close to the entrance of the hold,

or in Skyhold when you pick Avvar decoration.

Brief description: This statue shares the similar position of 1C, 1D, and 2, but instead of being a squat position due to fear, in Korth’s case it’s because the weight of the stone. Korth is the Mountain-Father, so this representation shows he is supporting it. His face, so filled with beard, and his body, short and thick, seems to recall dwarven nature, which could exists since the dwarf influence in the Avvar is present in their tales [Trydda had a child with a dwarven prince]. Curiously, it has horns [that can be part of a potential helm he is wearing?]. He is snarling as he endures the weight of the mountain/Stone.

6 - Dwarf with long limbs [Likely Alamarri/Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In Crestwood: surface , Crestwood: Flooded Caves , at the entrance of the drowned village,

In the Stone-Bear Hold Avvars, in the main throne room

In Hinterlands: Statues, paintings, and structures found in the open , Wolf Hollow, and Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path showing the path to some of the statues that trigger Tyrdda’s story.

In an unknown place called the Forgotten Tower, where the presence of this statue seems to reinforce the idea that this place was inhabited by an avvar, as it shows the codex triggered in this place: Old Codex: Mouldy Journal.

Brief description: This statue shares the characteristic of having elongated arms crossed over the chest in similar fashion as some Fereldan drawings seem to have [see Nation Art: Ferelden]. It displays a short man with hair, long beard, and a long, curvy moustache. The back and the front are the same image.

This statue is one of the most reused all over Ferelden, specially in regions where the Avvar-Alamarri presence was strong in the past. I think they represent the dwarves, which makes sense if we read the tale of Tyrdda: Avvar’s chieftains descend from humans and dwarves.

A weak pattern may suggest them as “pointers” or “guides”.  Sometimes they are placed in pairs creating a path towards a place of importance [see Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path]. Sometimes, as pointers of graves or special places.

7- Monolith with swirls [Likely Alamarri]

Where it can be found:

In Hinterlands: Statues, paintings, and structures found in the open , Wolf Hollow, Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path

In the Forgotten Tower , where the presence of this statue seems to reinforce the idea that this place was inhabited by an avvar, as it shows the codex triggered in this place: Old Codex: Mouldy Journal.

Brief description: I’m not sure if it’s a mabari or a horse. The Avvar are not fond of the mabari, since they are a tamed animal; however, they seem to use an “avvar horse” that looks like a zebra, and it is a bit wild. On the other hand, I also suspect that this statue may be Chasind, simply because in DAO we saw similar monoliths with line patterns on them in the Kocari Wilds [Check Ostagar post or The Blackmarsh and the High Dragon for details]. Unfortunately, these monoliths have no codex associated with them and there is little to speculate about.

8 - Monolith with ropes [Likely Alamarri]

Where it can be found:

In Hinterlands: and Crestwood, but in general all over Ferelden.

In the Frostback Basin and inside the Stone-Bear Hold.

There is no much to say about this element. It appears everywhere, more as a decoration or a support for other statues.

9 - Table of Wolves [Confusing. Likely Ferelden]

Where it can be found:

In Crestwood: surface and Hinterlands: Statues, paintings, and structures found in the open

Brief description: a metallic dark table decorated with spiky wolves. The wolves have a strong resemblance to the ones that were painted by Solas in his mural “Inquisition Formation” [Read “The actions of the Inquisitor”]. It seems related to the mabaris/wolves presented in 10A, which tend to appear in Ferelden-based enviroments. It seems to be Ferelden but it could also be inherited through the Alamarri culture. What always caught my attention was the material: unlike the rest of the Alamarri/Avvar statues, it’s not made of stone but dark metal, a Tevinter-origin characteristic.

10 - Mabaris

Mabaris are depicted all over Ferelden without much surprise; Ferelden has a culture deeply entangled with them. However, sometimes the hound silhouette seems to be confused with that one of the wolf and it’s hard to distinguish one from another. We know due to the legends [unreliable sources but decent enough for this level of understanding] that the Alamarri had their dogs. The potential Alamarri origin of the The Ash Warriors [who fight with their mabaris beside them] seem to support those [unreliable] legends. However, the Avvar are not fond of tamed animals, and prefer wild ones that can be befriended, hence why a wolf is more suitable for them. Considering this detail, it’s natural to understand the following statues as somewhat in between the lines of the Culture of the Alamarri, the Avvar, and the Ferelden [maybe even Chasind too?]. The blurred difference between mabari and wolf translates into the difficulty of deciding to which culture these statues belong to.

10A - Pointy Mabaris [Likely Ferelden]

Where it can be found:

In some places in Crestwood: surface

In Therinfal Redoubt as part of the decoration of the Fortress’ main room.

In Frostback Mountains: Haven, as part of the decoration.

Brief description: The look too similar to the wolves drawn by Solas in his mural “Inquisition Formation” [Read “The actions of the Inquisitor”].

10B - Mabaris with lines [Likely Alamarri/Avvar]

Where it can be found:

In Fallow Mire: Granite Point , it is not original from this place, but since it’s kept beside other Avvar statues it may imply same origin too.

In Hinterlands: Wolf Hollow, again found with other Avvar statues.

In Therinfal Redoubt as decoration

Brief description: It is almost a monolith, similar to the ones we find in the Kocari Wilds in DAO [ read Ostagar post or The Blackmarsh and the High Dragon for details] and to 7 but with less curvy lines and more angular ones.

In the Fade Part 3, one of the heads of 1B has this statue sprouting from its mouth, which offers the codex A Plea from the Warrior to the Spirits. It seems to be written by an avvar/alamarri or a descendant of them, for example a Ferelden person who remembers the “old ways”. It speaks about how the wolves had been allies to the humans once, but the softening of the human, the replacement of the hunt as a survival means for an agricultural lifestyle, changed this relationship, replacing the wolf and the hunt, by a hound and a sedentary life. There is a reinforcement of the concept of the wolf as a symbol of freedom and rebellion, as a creature who doesn’t simply obey, like a hound does. Then, the Darkspawn came, putting at risk this comfortable sedentary life, showing how little power hounds have.  “Kill the hound in my heart […] in its place, give me the wolf”. The wolf is representation of power, bravery, and freedom, as the mabari represents obedience and loyalty.

10C - Beheaded female Mabari [Likely Ferelden]

Where it can be found:

In Hinterlands: Minor places, specially in a cave where we see several Avvar statues and some Tevinter ones.

In the Forgotten Tower, where the presence of Avvar statues combined with the codex of this place: Old Codex: Mouldy Journal seem to reinforce the idea that this tower was inhabited by an Avvar who was rescued by an Elvhenan.

Brief description: It depicts a female mabari which has been feeding puppies [flaccid mammals]. On her back there is a spiky pattern that could be related to the spiky style of the wolves in 9 or 10A. What it’s disturbing is her head, which is barely kept in place because it’s attached with strips that have written runes on them. Inside the space between her head and body, there is usually fire [Waking World] or meat [Fade].

10D - Spiked Mabari [Likely Ferelden]

Where it can be found:

Mostly in Hinterlands: Statues, paintings, and structures found in the open

And in the Seeker fortress during Cassandra’s personal quest.

Brief description: These are mabari-totem figures in styles that can be Ferelden most likely, but seem to be inspired in Alamarri/Avvar ones since they have some similarities in style to 10B and 10C. There are no codex associated with them.

11 - Additional elements:

There is an Avvar table used in Stone-Bear Hold Avvars , that was also used to erect the hero of Ferelden’s monument in Hinterlands: Redcliffe - Present , so we can suspect avvar-alamarri-ferelden origin of it.

In Skyhold, when we activate the Avvar decoration, we find a unique statue that is not seen anywhere else: it looks like a tree branch-hand holding a bowl.  It gives me the impression of a sylvanian hand. 

[lairofdragonagelore]

Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan

The amount of elvhenan ruins in DAI and their details allow us to identify patterns that belonged to the elvhenan architecture. Many of these are clearly the inspiration from where Orlesian design took theirs.

This series of posts are not exhaustive since I’ve developed a very detailed list of tags tracking certain features of a given design. These posts merely try to gather in one place the symbols and elements I used most of the time when identifying buildings in my analysis of DAI.

[This post is part of the series “Patterns and Styles ”] [Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Patterns

Patterns are usually seen in the borders of the door frames or around the windows of an elvhenan building. Sometimes, these patterns decorate the walls of big keeps such as Suledin Keep. When we see these patterns in a building, we are immediately told that the origin of it was elvhenan, no matter what a contemporaneous, unreliable narrator may tell us via codices. Thanks to these details, we can know that codices such as  Valeska’s Watch, which tries to explain the origin of the Valeska’s architecture as merely built by Grey Warden is not entirely true: the original structure IS elvhen, and we know this thanks to keeping an eye on patterns like these.

The main patterns I gathered are the following:

1 - It’s a patterns that looks like a small sun-like, but it could also look like an egg in flames [I wish I could know how to extract these elements from the game in an easy way, so I don’t have to deal with pixeled images]. The only important elvhenan object that comes to my mind related to this is the red dragon egg.

2 - I call this elvhenan pattern “flowers made out of circles”, and they are present even in very ancient elvhenan architectures such as the Solasan Temple. It’s a very typical patterns which may have inspired the thorny-flower-pattern of Orlais [right side]. If the Golden Ring is truly important in the Elvhenan culture, I may even say that this “flower” hides a “ring” in the centre of it. 

3 - This one is a very subtle pattern that makes us remember a lot the way the Veil or magical barriers are paint in Murals in DAI: Basics. It’s also one of the basic patterns we see around Orlesian door frames, so I assume they took inspiration [or directly stole it, since it’s the same one] from this one.

4 – It’s a simple pattern of equidistant squares, which has some distant “flavour”  to Dwarven style.

5 – Semi-circles are very commonly used too, usually presented in this exact way: two opposed rows of semi-circles.

6 – It’s the repetition of the pattern 1.

7 - It’s usually a vertical pattern that we see in columns or walls that extends from the ground up to the ceiling.  Curiously, it’s a pattern that I can see it may have inspired the typical pattern we see in Tevinter walls/columns, where serpent-dragons eat each other as they twists upward. The elvenan one is a symmetrical version, usually presented in the main chambers of the elvhen temples. Sometimes, in the main chambers, this pattern is painted in golden.

8 -  It’s an undulating line, usually seen in stair steps. We know how meaningful undulating lines are inside elvhenan art [details in Murals in DAI: Basics]. We can see this pattern decorating the main murals found in DAI too.

9 – Intertwined eluvian-like shapes. This pattern usually decorates handrails, and is present in main chambers.

10 - Another pattern usually seen at the basement of the elvhenan statues is this one, which emulates eluvians frames inside domes of similar shape. This pattern may have inspired another we can see in the Orlesian art, specially in the Winter Palace bell.

Architecture

The most distinctive detail about elvhenan architecture are its entrances frame and windows frames made in the shape of eluvians. The windows have a pattern of branches or “vines” upside-down inside them. This same pattern is seen in one of the mosaics of Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins, in the one where the chained figure is put upside-down.

Windows usually have three repetitions of the top of an eluvian’s shape, giving an impression of a gill. Windows and entrances are always decorated with the aforementioned elvhen patterns around their borders.

Important chambers in elvhenan buildings are painted in golden and green, and their ceiling have a resemblance to Gothic ribbed vault styles

Mosaics are important in the elvhenan architecture. They usually decorate their walls or floors. The yellow-brownish mosaics that we usually find on the ground seems to be used to focus something important on its centre: the Asterisk Symbol, that could be understood as a proto-symbol of a sun but also we know that the elvhenan related it to a Titan’s heart, is usually used to place a statue/element of great importance on it. In the case of the petitioning chamber of the Temple of Mythal [ Temple of Mythal in detail], it’s the petitioner themselves who is placed in the centre of it. In places like Shattered Library, we find the red dragon egg on it, or the spirit of The Archivist. In temples like Temple of Mythal, we find the statue of Mythal in the middle of it, or a brazier in the chamber of Sylaise [which element is Fire]. In places like Cradle of Sulevin, each of the statues that keep a fragment of the legendary sword are placed on the asterisk symbol. In fact, if we see the whole configuration of the floor mosaic, it seems to suggest a Quincunx symbol.

Another kind of floor mosaic, sometimes seen on walls [as in The Lost Temple of Dirthamen] is the one that looks like a “flower” but I think it’s and oversimplification of the Quincunx symbol. We can even understand this one as an oversimplification of the previous detailed floor mosaic.

Decorations

This is one of the most repetitive Elvhen symbols I saw, it’s usually found on boxes, but also on Elvhen funerary lid. There is a hint of a unique symbol in Hinterlands: The Unknown Ruin that seems to relate to this one, but so far, it’s a symbol that I barely could relate to a very styled, geometrical halla. 

Due to its undeniable link to the helmet of a regular Tevinter mage soldier, I consider that there must be some connection with dragons too [otherwise, Tevinters would have no interest in it, so far we know]. This symbol also appears in several mysterious concept arts that give no hints to understand it. I hope DA:D will provide answers eventually.

In some places, such as Cradle of Sulevin, we find this decoration which has an important relevance in Elvhen history: thorny vines and sun-symbols appear in it giving the impression of being related to the codex Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads but also to all those unreliable Dalish tales about Elgar’nan. Curiously, better versions of this symbol can be found in Fairel tomb’s dwarven seats. I’m not so sure if this asset can be considered irrelevant, since it’s used in Elvhenan temples, as well as backrests of dwarven chairs, but seems to have quite important elements of DAI lore to be totally overlooked.

This object is compounded of three elements that, depending on where you find it, some are on the background or the foreground. The main element are the thorny vines. In Cradle of Sulevin we find different versions of it while we trigger the Vir Tanahhal, the path that Andruil has “given” to the Dalish [some of these versions don’t have the upper figure that looks like a gem] while in others it is on it; the dwarven version keep it in the background. 

This pattern, usually only seen in walls of elvhenan temples, will be maintained by the Dalish in their clothes. Curiously, it’s also a common pattern in the clothes/armour of the Qunari.

An important element that seems to be overlooked due to the distance is the Elvhenan flag: an asymmetrical brown flag/banner [maybe it’s just age that turned into this colour?] which displays dots and flowers.

Of course, there are a lot more of statues, fences, objects and decoration elements that should be considered, but I think I made a decent exhaustive tracking of them along the tags. There is also a good exploration of the paintings we find in most of the temples in Nation Art: Elvhen. 

When it comes to statues or symbols, these targets can be checked:

Dragon Mythal statue

Humanoid Mythal statue

Howling Fen'Harel statue

Sitting Fen'Harel statue

Elven Owl statue

Elven hart statue

Elven Archers

Elven Tree Statue

Humanoid Dirthamen/Falon'Din

inuksuit

Red inuksuk

Golden Ring

Elvhen funerary lid

Evanuris Mosaics

Elven Orb

Vhenadahl

and potentially pointy tower

There are additional tags to explore such as Elven and Elvhenan design, although they are a bit more generic. 

[lairofdragonagelore]

Patterns and Styles: Orlais

Orlais design is one of the most over-detailed ones, having a lot of common roots with elvhenan design due to the historical implication: The Promised Land, the Dales, where the ancient Dalish established a Kingdom, coexisted with more or less frictions with Orlais while it developed as an empire in its own. This will have a clear effect in the design of Orlais.

This series of posts are not exhaustive since I’ve developed a very detailed list of tags tracking certain features of a given design. These posts merely try to gather in one place the symbols and elements I used most of the time when identifying buildings in my analysis of DAI.

[This post is part of the series “Patterns and Styles ”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Patterns

1- This pattern decorates the walls of the Chateaus or forms a lattice on the doors to give them a particular fancy texture.

2 and 3 - are the same elvhenan pattern number 3 from “Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan”. This pattern decorates most of the buildings and door/window frames in Orlesian architecture. 

4 - This pattern is a series of thorny vines usually painted in golden, that decorates the walls or the upper parts of the buildings as it’s shown in 5.  

It’s usually accompany with a “mask” which has a resemblance to the old Dalish symbol of Mythal [DAO].

6 - This pattern emulates flower petals and it’s found mostly in rugs. 

7 - It’s a pattern of thorny flowers, that look very similar to the elvhenan pattern I called “flowers made out of circles” [pattern 2 from “Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan”]. This pattern is usually seen on the floor. 

8- It’s an orlesian classic floor pattern of squares.

9 - This is a symbol-pattern found in some decorations, it’s a mixture of a shield giving a sense of a dragon-like design or maybe a mask, depending on how you see it. It has been present in the urn of sacred ashes in DAO.

10 - This pattern looks like the point of a spear, usually seen at the bottom of statues. 

11 and 12 - These patterns are seen in the Winter Palace, and not in Chateaus. 12 is as if it were a simplification of pattern number 1.

12 is also found in more humble decorations of Orlesian villages, like Montevelan in the Exalted Plains, or in the Orlesian additions to the Fort Revasan. This pattern seems to be done on wood in these cases.

13 - It’s a pattern seen in Winter Palace, and has a strong inspiration in the pattern 10 from “Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan”, which is an eluvian-shape repeated at the basement of the statues. The Orlesian version looks more like a rounded point of a spear or an arrow, but the inspiration from the elvhenan one seems to be there.

Architecture

Orlesian architecture is over-saturated, filled with golden “filetes” and intricate designs, showing an excess of details. The chateaus we find in DAI [ Chateau D’Onterre and Villa Maurel] are a good example of being a “simplification” of more exuberant places like the Winter Palace. In the Exalted Plains we also find a destroyed orlesian village which shows similar architecture that we find in the chateaus.

The main detail we notice in Orlesian architecture, aside its overdecorated structures, is that doors and windows tend to be eluvian-shaped, showing the clear influence of elvhenan style in their own. However, the decoration around them is different to the elvhenan one, usually more simplified in terms of pattern-borders.

Decoration

Orlesian decoration is always intricate and too elaborated, with a lot of swirls and leaves that resemble the art-style of the Fileteado. It’s also accompanied with the constant presence of the “triangular face” that I suppose represents Andraste. Orlesian art is deeply entangled with the Chantry, since it used the religion as a way to unify the different tribes and create Orlais. I’m not showing all the statues and art where Andraste is represented, nor the orlesian design of all the main characters of the tale of Andraste, but they can be found in the tags  Andrastian design.

Because this section in these posts is more about showing some decorations that caught my attention, I want to talk about this one. This statue is only seen in the Winter Palace, in the ballroom; and in Valammar in Hinterlands or Daerwin’s Mouth in Storm Coast, both places are now hideouts of smuggling groups.

What I think it’s easy to see is that this statue represents an elf. Strangely, her ears have not been hidden nor altered. It has feathered wings and vine-based decorations in her arms. 

I always found this statue quite curious because Orlais actively erased all elven presence in their art after the Exalted March of the Dales. Or this statue is a new addition in the Winter Palace ordered by Celene, or... I really can’t explain how this statue survived the policy of erasing elven figures in orlesian art.  We know that after that time, elven authors were banned or made anonymous, Shartan passage in the Chant of Light was removed and considered heretic or dissonant [as it’s called now], and in general, every piece of art [painting or sculpture] was altered to remove the pointy ears and turn these figures into “humans”.

The rest of the objects in DAI or are representation of Andrastian figures, or are objects of beauty, always showing golden details to make them look fancier. Some of these objects may have resemblance to Dalish or elvhenan symbols, but for a better track of the Orlesian design the tags Orlesian design and Andrastian design can be explored.

[lairofdragonagelore]

Patterns and Styles: Dwarvish

Dwarven design is well known by its geometrical style and, despite keeping squared, it differs significantly from the pointy--also geometrical--Tevinter design, even though sometimes one wonders if both cultures have some small design overlaps, specially in the architecture when it comes to frame doors.

This series of posts are not exhaustive since I’ve developed a very detailed list of tags tracking certain features of a given design. These posts merely try to gather in one place the symbols and elements I used most of the time when identifying buildings in my analysis of DAI.

[This post is part of the series “Patterns and Styles ”] [Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Patterns

Dwarves have only three patterns, maybe four, so far I’ve detected. 

1- The first pattern is usually found in borders of columns of dwarven ruins. The tendency to a more square-ish design is clear. 

2- The second patterns [green one] is a kind of a laying C with some detail inside it.  If I trace it, we can see that the carved figure ends up looking similar to the “cup” of the pattern number 3.

These patterns are usually accompany with this one I call “square wave”.

3- The third pattern [brown one] is a sort of a “cup” with a semi-circle inside.

4- The fourth pattern that I’m not sure to whom associate it with is this one, usually seen in the superior border of ruin columns. I found it in Tevinter ruins as well as Dwarven buildings, and until a better identification, I would say that this pattern is Tevinter/Dwarvish.

Architecture

It’s hard to say anything special about the dwarven architecture: we already saw it so many times: enormous caves and gigantic columns decorated with geometrical patterns [some of the above]. Their buildings are carved into the stone, not made out of bricks, which is natural since they are a race that developed an underground culture. There are no windows in these buildings because, with the exception of Fairel, they were always meant to be underground.

Door frames are very square-ish, with geometrical patterns on it, and I can see them as part of the inspiration that Tevinter took to develop their own door frames. 

These doors also have some writing in them that follows the square-based flavour.

Decoration

The decoration of the walls is always very geometrical, making contrasts with different types of stones or shades of the same stone, patterns and textures applied to the stone.  

There are some long holes in the walls that many times are filled with molten rocks that help to have a natural light all along the Deep Roads. We have seen these in different shape in DAO, DA2 and DAI. 

Every corridor is decorated with [one or many of] the patterns commented above.

Among the most curious elements found in places of exclusive dwarven presence is the “dwarven seat”, which has very swirly-rounding elements that makes it very atypical for a dwarven object. This element was commented in detail in “Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan”.

Another curious decorative element that has been present since DAO is the Dwarven analogous Elven Tree Statue which is made in Dwarven style. 

We find this element for the first time in DAO, in Orzammar. I think it’s pretty obvious its link to the spherical elvhen trees, and therefore, to Titans, showing from early time [DAO time!] that the relationship between dwarven and elvhenan via Titans have been part of the original design of this lore instead of being a “later unrelated addition” to it. 

If these trees represents for the Elvhenan the power that lyrium gives them, which is related to the heart [circulatory system] of a titan, it also makes sense why dwarves will have this object in their decorations: as a reminder of their own origin, of the source they were cut off long time ago. In previous posts I also linked this spherical tree with a potential interpretation of the heart of a Titan, which reinforces all these concepts even more. 

Finally, the last decorative item of quite interesting value are the set of Dwarven stone-paintings. The first one was seen in DA2, featuring the Gallows. The second one belongs to DAO, as part of the decoration we can see in Orzammar; it’s a drawing that features the dwarves and their relationship with The Stone.  Curiously, the drawing has a low-key design that may suggest a sun in the background. 

The third one is original from DAI, never seen in previous games. It features a unique tower that, considering the stalactites on the top [which can be interpreted as stalagmites or merely mountains], could be understood as an upside-down image, where the ground is on the top.

In that case, we obtain something that looks similar to a tower that was constructed hanging from above. 

This structure makes me remember The Wellspring.

More details about dwarven decoration can be found in tags such as Dwarven sarcophagus, Dwarven stone-paintings, and Dwarven design.

Sha-Brytol decoration

As an extra detail, I like to highlight the curious design of what little we saw about the Sha-Brytol. I think that lore-wise, we can consider the Sha-Brytol as “ancient dwarves” if not disconnected dwarves that may have something in common with modern dwarven. They may have elements that modern dwarven kept without truly knowing what that means [as usually these things work with the passage of time]. In their corresponding posts, we talked a lot about the differences we saw with respect to modern dwarven. 

Design-wise, modern dwarven display more square-based shapes, 

while the Sha-Brytol create impressions of square shapes by using two triangles or triangular shapes. Even the squarish spirals of modern dwarven design are done in a triangular way by the Sha-Brytol. The presence of black metal with the form of spikes and claws is quite noticeable too, and it’s a detail that keeps linking these creatures with some resemblance to Tevinter design. 

Another of these details is present in the decoration of the Sha-brytol bridges which, by using dwarven patterns and Tevinter claws, manage to create a pyramid-triangle figure. 

More details about Sha-Brytol design can be found in 

The Uncharted Abyss,  Forgotten Caverns

The Uncharted Abbys, Bastion of the Pure

 Ancient Dwarven Memory Wall

 The Wellspring

[lairofdragonagelore]

Patterns and Styles: Tevinter

The Tevinter architecture and patterns we saw in DAI belongs to pre-blight constructions, meaning that this design may be out of date when we see what DA:D has to offer. Still I think it’s good to keep track of it, in order to see the evolution of the design over time or maybe to identify easily the origin of certain designs.

This series of posts are not exhaustive since I’ve developed a very detailed list of tags tracking certain features of a given design. These posts merely try to gather in one place the symbols and elements I used most of the time when identifying buildings in my analysis of DAI.

[This post is part of the series “Patterns and Styles ”] [Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Patterns

1- The Hexagonal figure: The main ancient Tevinter pattern that we easily identify is the hexagonal structure repeated on the walls of their fortress in Western Approach and Frostback Basin. There is also a pointy pattern in their battlements that has a resemblance to this pattern. 

The hexagonal figure is quite important in Tevinter design since it seems to be related to the symbol of the two serpent-dragons eating one another.

2- Triangles and Rhomboids: There is also rhomboid patterns as decoration of walls. They spread on the lower section of the walls in different sizes, while some triangles are made out with elaborated lines on top of them. The whole pattern is quite geometrical and intricate. 

3- A curious pattern design that can be seen inside the door frames of ancient buildings, but it is mostly used on octagonal structures that are combined with “claws” of metal that decorate bridges or stairs. The pattern is, like most things in Tevinter, quite intricate.

4- Analogous pattern to the above can be found inside the buildings in some corners of chambers. This is not as frequent as the previous one.

5- The long “serpent-dragons eating each other” pattern decorates the columns  of the buildings from top to floor. 

I think we can relate this pattern as an elaborated, dragon-focused version of the geometrical Evhenan pattern [pattern 7 from “Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan“]. 

6- Asymmetrical pattern that emulates scales or inspires a dragon-like effect can be found in small stripes that decorate objects, doors, frames, or even walls. This is a very curious pattern that they can use in pieces for decorative purposes too. 

7- Lizard-skin pattern: This pattern decorates doors and entrances and small sections of some decorative objects by filling in the blank of said spaces. 

8- Fence-patterns: When it comes to fences, the patterns tend to be a classical metallic version of the hexagonal figure, overlapped rhomboids [that reminds us a bit the “square rotated 45°” symbol, pattern number 1 from "Patterns and Styles: Ancient Elvhenan”], or rhomboids that seem to form quincunx lattices.

9- This last pattern is not clear for me if it belongs to Tevinter or Drarven design. It’s mostly found at the top of ancient ruin columns that can be found in desert zones of Thedas.

Architecture

Ancient Tevinter architecture is predominantly pointy and based on hexagons. Even though it has a strong geometrical element, it’s different in its own way to dwarven design.

We have seen that its structure likes to show strength and opulence in a more discreet way than the Orlesian design.There is a sense of aggressive dominance in big spaces making use of pointy terminations, usually in black. There is a use of claws or spikes that come out from columns and walls, and it tends to be a very aggressive design with the constant presence of dragons or dragon-like serpents.

The entrances and door frames have a shape closer to dwarvish design [check “Patterns and Styles: Dwarvish”].

Modern Tevinter buildings seems to be less pointy in general, only showing a central point in the middle of the structure. They conserve the beige-black predominance in its colours.

Decoration

A lot of black rectangular arcs, pointy terminations, and figures of dragon-like creatures is present in Tevinter decorations. Several paintings decorating the inner walls of the buildings we see in DAI can be explored in Nation Art: Tevinter for further details. 

The patterns shown before, like the snake-skin or the asymmetrical ones are present in all these decorations. 

An element of decoration of curious repetition is the spiky-sun, that we can see in several Tevinter elements that may be related to the Elvhenan asterisk symbol. This symbol also has some resemblance to the same “sun” we see in the elvhen doors from “Patterns and Styles: Ancient Elvhenan”

Other elements of decoration can be tracked in the tags

Thrummer

Razikale Ceremony

Horned warrior holding a sword

Stone in Razikale-Ceremony-style

Potential foci

Water dispenser

Tevinter objects

Tevinter urn

Tevinter artefact with spikes

Tevinter golem

Artefact of Temple of Dumat

Sacrificial altar

Claw of Dumat

Outfits

As an additional section, I’ve worked in the small details that many Tevinter outfits have. They may be related to the Old Gods, and we can do some small links that may or may not mean much. Most of the Tevinter drawings seen here belong to World of Thedas books and the Inquisition art book.

Some Tevinters have staffs which design is extremely similar to Flemeth’s staff. This may mean that Tevinter worshipped a dragon which symbol was later taken by Flemeth. We also know that Flemeth and Mythal are both one and a Dragon, so maybe the Tevinter may have worshipped the Dragon form of Mythal in one of their Old Gods. This speculation makes us immediately consider that Mythal may have been an Old God [maybe the mysterious 8th one, which information was casually dropped in the codex Constellation: Draconis, since Mythal has been shown at least once, as a serpentine-dragon in the codex Elven God Andruil].

Similar detail can be seen in the helm of the Tevinter warriors: their helm displays a single spike that may be related to Andraste, but it also has a link with Mythal’s single frontal spike that her dragon shape has. Of course this link is as vague and mysterious as it is the single spike that represents Andraste and how Andraste and Mythal may be related [another mystery hard to speculate about].

In similar ambiguous way, we can find that some spike-based/sun-like design in some female hats may have be related to the strange symbol of the Old God represented by a “half-sun” [I’ve called this “Sun-head creature“], but it also may represent the Andrastian Faith that Tevinter embraces. This symbols is, at least, quite vague and can be related to Andrastian religion as well as Old Gods [and in a later instance, it may also guide us to speculate about how much of the Andrastian Faith is based on Dragons too, but that’s for another time]

The following design of two horns in different fashions is more related to Old Gods than Andraste, so we can be more inclined to think that these designs are more in tune with the Old Gods faith.

Finally, the “Moon-head creature“ may have also a presence in the Tevinter fashion, if we consider this strange symbol as the same one with the pointy extremes cut off. It is used in both ways: upside down and downside up.

It could also be related to the Beetle-head creature [also with the extremes cut off], since I don’t know how much of this symbol we can understand in this way or upside down since it’s the only one you don’t need to rotate in the trailer, which seems strange for me.

[lairofdragonagelore]

Patterns and Styles: Ancient Elvhenan

For this design there are only two temple/tombs in DAI to explore, and I’m not sure if I count them as an entirely different style than the Elvhenan one, but due to the worn-out of the structures and patterns, it feels different to any Elvhenan building, for example, the Temple of Myhtal [which flowers patterns are perfectly preserved in comparison with the same pattern in these tombs]. There are also some details that suggest this design has been slightly influenced by dwarvish style.

This series of posts are not exhaustive since I’ve developed a very detailed list of tags, tracking certain features of a given design. These posts merely try to gather in one place the symbols and elements I used most of the time when identifying buildings in my analysis of DAI.

[This post is part of the series “Patterns and Styles ”] [Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Patterns

The patterns of ancient Elvhen are similar to the Elvhenan ones but some seem to be unique. 

1 – This is a curious patterns of five squares rotated 45º, that are repeated sometimes with long spaces in-between. Due to the fact that dwarven style is heavily squared, I think this is an element that shows their influence. We can’t find similar pattern in "Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan”. However, “squares rotated 45º” is a geometrical design used by Tevinter in many wall patterns or fence patterns, so we can assume a common influence: the dwarves, or simply that Tevinter took it from ancient elvhenan design.

2 - This one combines two patterns, one which is shown in 3, and the other is the equidistant square, that emulates a similar pattern than the one that represents strong barriers that we discussed in Murals in DAI: Basics. This is also similar to pattern number 4 in  "Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan”.

3 – This one is a peculiar swirly pattern that it is hard to see completely since it’s worn-out. I didn’t find similar pattern among the Elvhenan ones.

4- This is the only pattern from the Elvhenan one that we can detect easily despite its worn-out state: the flowers made out of circles, pattern number 2 from "Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan”.

Architecture

There is little we can say about the architecture of these buildings since we only visited two:  Solasan Temple and the Elvhen Tomb in the Frostback Basin. Both looked more like tombs than anything else.

The main characteristic of them is their doors: they kept the same shape in concept art as in game. We know that Tevinters have co-opted or managed to create exact doors in Ferelden, Hinterlands: Redcliffe - Future when Alexius is hidden behind one of these doors which is only activated with red lyrium shards, or in Western Approach: The Still Ruins,Inner Sanctum, where the staff that keeps the time stopped is hidden in a chamber which has this kind of door. It’s not clear if these shards are of the same kind than the ones we find around Thedas.

In these door we see some of the few patterns we detected before, some that emulate the “veil” pattern seen in murals, 

and a more rectagular-based design that can be seen in the top and bottom of columns as well. In the lock mechanism we see a figure that looks like a germinating seed or a growing plant, where the shards are introduced. The top of the door displays a star/sun symbol that can be related to the Asterisk Symbol in the elvhenan, or lately, to the sun-like figure that Tevinter kept using to decorate some of its elements.

The shards are another element unique of these doors: they are their key, and design-wise, they are made of stones [strange material for elvhenan] with a skull from which roots emerge, or where roots enter. Around the skull there is a circle that may be related to a proto concept of a Golden Ring.

The shards have been spread all over Thedas since long time ago, invisible to mortal eyes unless a spirit touched said mortal. The Tevinters developed the oculara system to detect them, in which a tranquil has to be killed in the same moment they are possessed [Oculara]. Through the possession, their perception of reality changes because, apparently, their whole person, blood included, changes. I think this has some “in-game scientific foundation” justified by the unique book of Grim Anatomy [eventually I will do a post about this one].

The Avvar, however, could see these shards when Hakkon touched them and guided them to pick them [Leather-Bound Hakkonite Journal], so it seems that this Grim Anatomy book may have some right concepts since Avvar, including the Hakkonite, have a more accurate perception of how the spiritual world  works.

With the weakening of the Veil in DAI, these shards seem to have been spotted by other people [ A Worn Diary], apparently without the need of means such as an oculara, but they seem to have been possessed by spirits.

At the top of the temple we see that the shape of the general symbol has been kept the same from the concept art, but not the inside design: the circular figure has been replaced by some layers that emulate scales, as well as the five squares rotated 45º. These elements give the impression of scales, while the overall shape, so squarish, reminds me the shape of the head of Caridin in DAO. What I mean is that this symbol has more dwarvish flavour than what we usually see in elvhen architecture.

The columns of the temple in the concept art did not make it into the game. There are no figures with snakes crawling up, skulls as heads, and a ring behind them as a halo. Instead, this figure was replaced by flowers made out of circles [pattern 2 from “Patterns and Styles: Elvhenan“]. What has been conserved, however, is the column design: they have in the bottom and in the top a series of piled up concrete planks that give a more dwarvish flavour to the design. This kind of column doesn’t exist in Elvhenan design nor in Dwarvish design, curiously. 

These columns caught a lot my attention; they appear inside and outside these buildings and even though they give a dwarvish impression, I could not find similar design in dwarvish architecture. In some cases, the columns cross the ceiling to give support to the structure.

Another detail I find very curious is that these temples are carved into the stone instead of being made out of bricks as elvhenan buildings seem to be constructed. This enhance the dwarvish flavour they have. 

Decoration

The walls of these buildings have little decoration, likely more as a consequence of the passage of time, I guess. The original patterns, if there were any, may have faded out with the natural erosion, leaving only the patterns of flowers made out of circles. In the walls we also see a shape of what looks like a window frame that, unlike the elvhen architectures, is not the shape of an eluvian, even though the intention seems to be there. In fact, it could be understood as the shape of an eluvian in a dwarvish, geometrical style.

These shapes carved into the stone resemble oversimplified versions of dwarven doors [left side] instead of elvhen ones.

There is really few decorative elements in these places since they are tombs.

The most important ones are the sarcophagi, some elvhen or generic urns like these with a skull at the top, the columns I spoke about above, and the carved windows on the wall. The only extra detail in these places is the Stone in Razikale-Ceremony-style, which I talked about in the post “Razikale Ceremony and Dumat’s Warrior tablets“.

It’s also important to remember that in Solasan Temple, we find a Grey Warden banner in the chamber of fire, when the order did not exist yet [not even the blights did] which I think hides some lore concept hard to guess.