I know we all love Trespasser, but The Descent DLC is soooo good as well. They always manage to put the most interesting lore in DLCs, its crazy. I also really hope we get to see more about what's going to happen with the Titans, and the good news is we don't have to wait much more, baby!
So I've been replaying The Descent and man, it's so good! Admitedly a bit too short and occasionally buggy (wouldn't be the Dragon Age experience otherwise ig), but the scenery and ambience are as breathtaking as I remembered them, and Valta and Renn's dynamic is lovely (shame we get to spend very little time with them). Also I love the score, it's probably my favourite thing Trevor Morris composed for this game after Lost Elf and Dark Solas theme.
I've taken some lore notes throughout, because there was a lot of stuff that I didn't remember and all of it scratched my brain; so here they are with some extra thoughts (a lot of text under the cut; this contains spoilers, of course):
Vivienne saying "aren't you a polite thing" with a smirk when Valta apologizes for pushing the Inquisitor (in order to save them from getting crushed by a rock, mind you) unlocked levels of yuri in my brain I never thought possible.
There's three points about lyrium's economic and political importance that are reinforced throughout the DLC: that Orzammar is completely dependent on lyrium trade economically (I remembered it being very important, but Valta is very insistent on the point of "total dependence"); that without it, they have no sway over surface politics and would become irrelevant in the grander political landscape; and that there would also be chaos in the surface if the supply of lyrium dissapeared (I think one could argue that the impact would be lesser in the South in a wordlstate in which the Circles and the templars were disbanded, since I don't think the use of lyrium is that great if you take away templar maintenance and Harrowings; though maybe there's a greater trade in runes that I'm aware of. The main sufferer in that scenario I think would be Tevinter). All of this to say, that now I'm extra sad that we won't get to play out the consequences of the Titans reveal in Orzammar's politics (maybe some fic should be written about that).
Both Valta and Renn can hear a "rythm" when the earthquakes happen; the sound is compared to the one made by raw lyrium. Darkspwan also implied to be able to hear the sound. I'm assuming this is the "tranquilized" version of Isatunoll, or a remnant of it.
Renn and Valta deduce that Valta can hear the sound better because she has an exceptionally strong Stone sense. Overall, it gets vey reinforced that Valta has an excepcional Stone sense. Which makes you wonder if the reason the Titan "chose her" and could link with her (instead of Cadash or Varric, if present, or any of the Sha-Brytol) is that this strong Stone-sense is what makes Titan-dwarf "reunification" possible (I mean it could be all a matter of narrative convenience, but I'd like to find a logic to it). Harding is never implied to have the Stone sense prior to Veilguard events, but maybe the characteristics of Solas' dagger as a catalyst allow to surpass that limitation.
Okay so I checked a video of these dialogues with a Dwarf Inquisitor, and they don't hear the "rythm", and Valta outright says that they don't have a connection to the Stone because they were born of the surface. It's sad that there's actually a factual basis for some of the prejudices that Orzammar has about surfacers, I don't think I like the implication. Though at the end of the day, all Dwarves all children of the Titans, so maybe the Stone sense can be "trained" back if a surfacer lives underground for long enough? Though, again, the fact that Valta has a stronger Stone sense than Renn, and seems to have had a excepcional sense since she was a child, implies some level of innatism (like it happens with mages in the other heritages).
Valta compares the sound of the Titan's "rythm" to air going through lungs or "someone breathing". Does that mean that it isn't Isatunoll at all, because Isatunoll is a song, not a breathing? Or it is a weakened version of Isatunoll, and the comparison with breathing is there to reinforce that Isatunoll is as natural as beathing for the Titans (not something that has to be produced consciously, but an inevitable byproduct of existing)?
The text that originally points Valta to the Titans is said to be from before the 1rst Blight. In this text, the Titans are already heavily mythologized, implying that the Dwarves had already forgotten they came from them by the time before the 1rst Blight. However, it is evidence that the Titans persisted in Dwarven collective knowledge until the Blights happened.
Conversation between Valta and the Inquisitor when reaching the 2nd camp in the map implies that the Shaperate might have erased the memories of the Titans "because someone with power ordered it" (this is Valta's guess). This is subtextually compared with Valta's backstory of being demoted because she refused to alter the Memories because someone powerful wanted her to. So here's a theory: Orzammar leaders did know about the Titans, but upon seeing that, as a result of the Blights, their kingdom was so dimished, they decided to erase all trace of the Titans because they couldn't afford the risk of anything impeding lyrium mining, since it had become their last source of wealth and political relevance.
Hidrun Thaig is implied to have had problems with a Titan some time before the 1rst Blight, but they made it stop somehow. At the end of the DLC, Valta says she doesn’t know what "disturbed" the Titan back then, but that "the song" may tell her in time. Given that during game events, the Titan is disturbed by the opening of the Breach, we can imagine that something equally catastrophic/strong in magic happened. This is another loose end that will never get resolved :(
A Sha-Brytol carving says that they would protect the Titan "until it stirs", which makes me wonder if part of the Sha-Brytols' deal is that they are waiting for the "awakening" of the Titans from tranquility.
Another carving says that the Titan "sculps the world within and without", Which isn't news, but it gives me a chuckle to think of the Titans' as Thedas' techtonic plaques. It makes you wonder what kind of effect the awakening of the Titans would have in Thedas' geography and enviromental conditions.
Overall, the sheer size, otherworldliness, and lack of humanoid characteristics (other than the heart) transmit better than the Black Codex concept art and Solas' Veilguard fresco the idea that the spirits would've had a really hard time realising they were taking the blood of a living being. Titans really are unlike any other lifeform in Thedas. They are the earth and the earth is them.
Speaking of the Black Codex concept art and Solas' fresco, I'm choosing to imagine that the Titans don't literally pour lava out of their faces, but that this is a symbolic way to transmit the idea that the Titans, with their earth-shaping powers, could create volcanos at will. Imagine going to war against dudes that can create fucking volcanos.
When Valta pushes against the idea that the Titan might be creating the earthquakes in order to "shape" the earth because the eathquakes are "destructive", and that isn't the same as shaping, the Inquisitor might reply: "Depending on your perspective, change can be destructive". It feels a certain kind of way, to me, to hear the Inquisitor enunciate one of the most important and most messily handled thematic concerns of the saga so directly.
Overall, this DLC reminded how much I love the Inquisitor in-game. They can be so, so charming and perceptive, and (in my case) Alix Wilton Reagan's delivery always hits. I also quite like the rapport they develop with Valta (when, after the final fight, she says "I would never hurt you, Inquisitor", after almost attacking them with the Titan magic she just gained... chills).
Valta implies that the Sha Brytol might obtain lyriums without mining, and later it's implied that they "drink" the lyrium. This, along with the fact that the final area of the DLC is called "The Wellspring", seems to point to it being possible to obtain liquid lyrium without processing it.
There is a series of codexes found in the later areas of the DLC called "Chronicles of a Forgotten War" that mentions dwarves fighting a people they called The Scaled Ones ("men like those of the Imperium but covered in scales"). Could this be Kossith that somehow found their way underground? The Dragon Age wiki, in its infinite wisdom, considers the possibility that these people could've been Reavers, humans that were altered after drinking too much dragon blood.
In the Bastion of the Pure (an area full of raw lyrium), there's a secret area with an Arcane Horror doing a blood ritual. In this area, there’s a toppled Myhtal statue, an eluvian frame like Merril's, and an elven altar. Could this be the remains of an elven outpost from the time of the war, or the early empire, that was destroyed, leaving the bodies of the elves to be possesed by spirits?
Upon reaching the ancient city within The Wellspring, the Inquisitor wonders if the constructions are older than the Sha-brytol, who seem to be the current occupants. The Black Codex concept art that was released pointed to Dwarves living originally on the surface and going to live inside the earth only after the mass tranquilisation of the Titans, so the city probably dates from that early era. I wonder why the city was abandoned, since it seems a peaceful and well-protected place, and agriculture is probably possible (we see vegetation in the ancient city, and there's an unknown source of light that seems equivalent to the surface's sun). Also the city seems unnafected by earthquakes, according to Valta, so the movements of the Titan wouldn't have been the problem. Maybe it is simply that population grew too much, and the qualities of the terrain made it impossible to cultivate enough to feed everybody.
The houses inside the Titan are hanging over a cloudy "sky". It makes me wonder if this is the origin of the dwarves' fear of falling into the sky, since that's literally what could happen if you lived at the core of a Titan. It also makes me wonder what might be beneath those clouds (apart, again, from some source of light equivalent to the sun). If The Wellspring is the "chest" of the Titan (since it has the heart), what can be found on their "legs"? Are their feet at the very core of the planet?
According to the Inquisitor, Valta is hit with raw lyrium when the Titan "connects" with her. Solas' dagger is presumably also made with raw lyrium, so here's one point in common in both re-connections. However, the Sha-brytol use raw lyrium in their bodies and according to Valta, they made themselves into "monsters" that way; the difference between herself and them is that the Titan "willed" their connection, she says. Which makes you wonder, was a Titan's will involved in what later happens to Harding in DATV? Could a Titan still be connected to the fragment of them that made the dagger? Or is it just that Solas' macguffins are ridiculously powerful and can overide all the rules.
The theme that cosuming raw lyrium alone isn't enough to re-connect a dwarf to the Titans is reinforced by a secondary quest ("Killing me softly") of the DLC in which you locate the diary entries of a dwarf that was drinking lyrium to connect with "Mother", and ends up very crazy and very dead.
Valta says at the end that everything that's happened (including Renn's death) was to lead her to the Titan. That's why I talked about the Titan choosing her, because there is a sense of predestination. During all the DLC, the main quest's descriptions are asking you to "follow Valta", because her Stone sense allows her to hear the Titan and that's the thread you follow thoughtout all the events of the main quest. Again, it feels like Valta was predestined for the Titan because of her strong Stone sense.
There is something to be said about how the two women who are reconnected to the Titans (Valta and Harding) don't get to consent to having their bodies and cognition irrevocably altered, yet the narrative doesn't seem to find much issue with this lack of consent (other than some sense of strangeness at the situation, perhaps). There is a sense that because connection to the Titans is the "natural" state of the dwarves, it must be good, irregardless of the conditions in which it is achieved.
To end with a happy note, in the final scene of the main questline of the DLC, when the Inquisitor returns to the main camp after saying goodbye to Valta, Harding says to a Legion of the Dead soldier: "See, she always comes back. Pay up, salroka." I thought that was very sweet, I love Harding's love for the Inquistor. Also look at her learning Orzammar slang!
All of this is probably old news for Dwarf scholars, forgive an elf girlie (gn) for their ignorance.
Also, the fact that Ali Hillis plays both Harding and Valta is incredibly funny because Lace introduces the DLC but stays on the surface when you take the elevator to the Deep Roads. And then Valta is the first person you meet down below.
It gives the whole thing a kind of Community Theatre vibe which I fuck with.
Harding: anyway good luck on your adventure Inquisitior!
*Harding exits Stage Left*
Inquisitior: alright, let's take the elevator to the Deep Roads...
*Harding re-enters Stage Right, wearing a black wig*
Harding: Hi Inquisitior, it's me - Shaper Valta, a new character you've never met before!
“Valta is one of the most intriguing dwarven characters because she brings mystery back to dwarf lore. Every scene with her feels like you’re brushing up against something ancient.”
“valta is a fantastic character because she makes the descent feel like more than “cool dungeon dlc.” she’s a scholar with actual passion for history, surrounded by people who are used to treating the deep roads like a grave, and she’s still choosing to look closer. and then everything starts getting… weird. and she doesn’t crumble. she leans in. i love characters who are brave in an intellectual way, who keep asking questions even when the answers are scary.”
