Western Approach: the open
The Western Approach is a large, arid expanse in southwestern Orlais. It was once a land of plenty. The rain came north over the Gamordan Peaks, turning the plains green and verdant for several months of the year. However, eight hundred years ago, that all changed. The Approach became the site of a major battle during the Second Blight. The darkspawn swarmed out of the Abyssal Rift, a great chasm to the south, and corrupted it with their foul blood never allowing for the land beyond to recover... even after the darkspawn were all driven back underground. The Grey Wardens had Adamant Fortress erected by the dwarves to stand watch over the chasm.
[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]
We start the zone finding abandoned cages with corpses.
Nearby, there is a cave that visually explains of what’s going: some people are being kidnapped to be part of experiments. In fact, as we are going to learn later, in many places of Western Approach the Venatori are developing projects, experiments, and excavations, all at the same time, coordinated by Crassius Servis. They are taking people to the templars who infuse them with red lyrium. The place has a device that makes us suspect the use of some Tevinter elements that we will see in The Still Ruin later.
Staring at this configuration, I assumed what’s the intention of some of those elements.
A thrummer, called that way by official art [here]. I guess by its name that it works like an arcane motor, powering the “injector”.
As a colourful note, beside this device, there is a blood symbol I didn’t find in any other place in game. I have no idea what it is.
The thrummer has an hexagonal thing that I called “battery” because it reminds me to an imitation of Solas’ orb. We know that the elven orbs can be crafted in big amounts since in the Shattered Library we find many of them scattered around, and like I always repeat, Tevinter co-opted [or was taught] a lot of elven elements. They called those orbs as Foci [Dorian’s words]. If this is the case, we know two things about the elven orbs:
First, they store energy. This was said by Solas in Tresspasser when he explains that while he was in his slumber, his orb gathered energy for that millennia, reason why the Conclave exploded: all that energy was suddenly released since he could not unlock it in a safe way due to his weakness.
Second, they augment a person’s powers and spells [Solas’ words after Haven].
We have little information about Tevinter foci, but a codex in Frostback Mountains, during the time of the Ancient Tevinter, hinted that they were crafted in massive scale to be used into the walls of Razikale Reach in order to enhance the potential communication with her. So, if Tevinter correctly immitated the orbs to store energy, we can be more or less confident to consider that they also managed the massive production of foci. So, they could potentially be part of many Tevinter devices. In fact, we see these hexagonal structures with swirls and lines [which are not exactly a fingerprint like the elven orb] in many Tevinter devices.
Sadly, this is a speculation and so far, the way I justify a bit the elements of this room
The thrummer is connected to the large metallic thing I call “injector” via a “power cord”. The Injector has a lot of red lyrium at its base. We see this object in many places, most of the time filled with red Lyrium, but in the Still Ruin, we see it filled with a green substance that I assume it’s related to the Fade [following the codices of the place, it could be Essence of Fade]. By the position of the injector and the effect we see on the corpse laying on the table, we can assume its function: injects an element into the subject.
The process seems to be enhanced with magic as well since we see a glyph below the victim table. It’s the typical snake-glyph we find in many places, most of the time it’s correlated to Blood magic, which in this context, seems reasonable too. Check General glyphs and magical symbols for more details.
This room alone makes us suspect that the Red Templars, having a small population of Templars, are experimenting with commoners, trying to find a process to transform them into red-lyrium creatures. It’s known that most people die when ingesting lyrium, so they never pass through the transformation that most Templars do. Templars may have a natural resistance due to the usage of common lyrium.
Close to the end of the Chantry Trail Signs we find a researcher of Dragons: Frederic of Serault, who will inform us, once we killed all the dragons, and we explore the topic in a war table mission, that Dragons are resistant to the blight, generating cysts that contain it [they are not immune, just resistant]. He also explains to us the mysterious big, black chasm in the region
The big chasm that borders this region and shows patches of poisoned land was caused by the Second Blight when a swarm of darkspwans tainted the land forever.
There is a strong presence of Grey Warden monuments remembering fallen heroic wardens because this region was strongly affected by the Second Blight. Although this place was initially mostly Tevinter [the great prison Coravacus and The Still Ruin, plus extra small fortresses along the way] many of these buildings were taken by the Grey Warden and repurposed when the blight hit.
All over the game we find these skeletons, and in this place they are quite common, specially on the poisoned zones. I would like to know if these are normal animals, like wyverns, or they are darkspawn instead. We even found them in Emerald Green [where the dragon is] so I guess it’s not darkspawn. So, what kind of animal it is? It has a strange spike and neck protector that calls my attention: does DA have an animal who naturally has metal parts in their bones? I ask because there are so many characters and elements with a spike on their head/helm that... you know. This could be part of the list as well to understand its influence on the tales.
Dustytop Fort
Close to the keep we capture, there is a small ruin of a fort called Dustytop.
We can see here the usual ancient Tevinter patterns. The pointy battlements decorated with hexagonal figures and lattices of rhomboids. The Tevinter door frames or arcs seem to have a dwarven inspiration. More details in Tevinter Design and Style [Main post].
Sand Flats
Sand Flats has a small fort that will be involved in the main quest, showing wardens binding themselves to demons. The bridge shows Grey Warden banners, but it displays two metallic Tevinter “golems” that we saw in the Gallows in DA2 [Check Architecture of Kirkwall : Gallows and Lowtown/Darktown]. They had come to life thanks to the presence of red lyrium.
The fort has at its sides gigantic blades or claws, that makes it look like the fortress is resting on a symmetrical clawed hand [I imagine, since it’s Tevinter design, it’s meant to look like resting on a dragon’s paw]. These “claws” will appear in many objects hinting Tevinter intervention [For example, the Sha-Brytol bridges].
These statues are strange in what they depict. Its head is Andraste-like, while in the rest of her body, especially in boots, knees, and chest, it looks like the armour in Mythal’s statues. From the shoulders several blades protrude, imitating wings. They have two faces, one at the front and the other at the back, holding different weapons. They have four arms in total. I can not avoid noticing the similarities of the statues of Mythal and Andraste with this one. What surprises me is that these ruins were built in a pre-blight time, so there was no way for these Ancient Tevinters to know anything about Andraste, so most of the inspiration may have come from Mythal.
This fort has two codices at the entrance
Ritual Tower which explains that most of these ruins were built before the First Blight, which is when the Tevinter Imperium expanded all over the south. This means that most Tevinter ruins found in the south are pre-blights. There was an intention in this expansion: it allowed them to build places dedicated to experiments; we have as confirmed examples by now Kirkwall in DA2, and The Still Ruins in DAI.
These "golems", even though are present in this small fortress, can be found n the middle of the desert:
The codex the Gate Guardians talks about a tale created by the artist of these statues: One day, a golem like these appeared to him. It told him that it needed the blood of the earth to survive [lyrium]. The artist simply pointed out in the direction where a mage lived and the statue followed the instructions. We learn here that these golems have a lyrium bar inside just for the sake of this tale. They have no real function in them. But on the other hand, we still remember DA2, and I find it a bit ironic and poetic that this Tevinter artist never saw one of his piece become like the tale he spread around.
Other places
Close to the Keep taken by Inquisition, surrounding the entrance of the Tevinter Prison Coracavus, there are toxic sulphur pits that fill the air with poisonous gases. They look different to normal sand. To prevent this constant emission of poisonous gas, we can order the Inquisition to construct a device that allows us to cross it safely. And here is where things are a bit annoying to me.
The inquisition builds this
A kind of tank with strong Tevinter design and Tevinter symbols on it. This is a reuse of an asset, sadly.
Almost in the centre of the map we find a beautifully elaborated construction with a magical barrier. This is The Still Ruins that I will cover in another post.
In the south there is a cave partially covered by stone blocks that only when fighting the dragon can be moved. Around it, we see some dwarven’s pillars falling apart, so this construction must have been dwarven.
Inside we find a dwarven sarcophagus for all the dwarven wardens that died during the Second Blight.
[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]