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Post by Starfang on Aug 4, 2018 0:07:43 GMT
Do you think it's possible we may face an uncorrupted or "pure" Old God, like if some force besides the Darkspawn were to reach it first and awaken him? Could be one in/near Tevinter, or in a DLC-addon for DA4? Solas did mention that what the Grey Wardens were doing with Old Gods was "reprehensible" or something along those lines, so maybe he has plans for the remaining two?
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Post by melbella on Aug 4, 2018 1:06:05 GMT
My theory is that the "old gods" are guardians holding the full force of the blight back, so they are already corrupted before the darkspawn find them. The song they hear is the concentrated corruption calling to them. Like calls to like, and all that.
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Post by gervaise21 on Aug 4, 2018 9:18:56 GMT
My theory is that the "old gods" are guardians holding the full force of the blight back, so they are already corrupted before the darkspawn find them. The song they hear is the concentrated corruption calling to them. Like calls to like, and all that.
I've always felt that they were corrupted before the darkspawn get to them. The fact that remnants of the Old God prison are corrupted as well suggests this is the case. The experience of the Architect doesn't contradict this as breaking through awoke Urthemiel from his slumber and in any case, if he was uncorrupted when they got there, why did the Architect need to try and "cleanse" him? Also if the Old Gods' song is a different, uncorrupted one how come the Grey Wardens can hear it? We are specifically told it is the corruption of the Joining that allows them to hear the arch-demon and other darkspawn because all have the same taint. However, the Wardens also know the location of the two remaining Old Gods, so if they are uncorrupted that begs the question, how?
However, if they were uncorrupted then it would make more sense to simply release them before the darkspawn get to them rather than kill them as it is possible the uncorrupted Old God might hold the key to defeating the Blight. The Grey Warden plan never made sense to me because they would need to fight their way through numerous darkspawn but trying to reach the Old God would actually help break through quicker than the darkspawn were doing on their own. Also, if the Old God was not corrupted, then the Warden US wouldn't work on them because it is reliant on the fact that all carry the same taint. So its soul, instead of jumping through the Warden and being destroyed, or jumping to the nearest darkspawn, would actually free it to go elsewhere. Of course, we don't know for certain that isn't what happens with the US. Just because the Warden is killed by the ritual doesn't necessarily mean that the Old God is. They could very well be breaking the cycle and allowing the Old God soul to be free once more. After all, who originally gave the Wardens the idea?
The only thing that mitigates against that idea is the fact that Flemeth says that Old God Kieran's soul was "snatched from the jaws of darkness", suggesting that even if not destroyed, the soul would end up in the darkness, likely Banalhan, the Place of Nothing, as the Void is known to the elves and be unable to escape.
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azarhal
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Post by azarhal on Aug 4, 2018 12:01:21 GMT
To add to the "the old gods are already corrupted", we are told via a war table mission in DAI that fully tainting a dragons takes time because they have a mechanism to slow the progression. If they wake up the moment the darkspawns barge in, it is unlike they can get hugged long enough for "instant-tainting".
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Post by theascendent on Aug 6, 2018 15:18:26 GMT
I always viewed the difference between an Old God and an Archdemon in the process similar to spirits and demons. Fundamentally they are the same entity but have been twisted by outside forces into becoming something different. The Old Gods are an interesting being and a chance to fully commune with and talk with one is a rare opportunity. With only two(three depending on world states) left and the introduction of Titans, the Evanuris, the real nature of the Blight, we will need all the help we can get. What the Old God wants will largely depend on whom we are dealing with and even then that will be tricky. Razikale the mysterious or Lusacan the chaotic. Not an ideal scenario but better than nothing.
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Post by azarhal on Aug 6, 2018 18:29:10 GMT
Razikale is the next one I think (or was planned as the next one), the old gods codex entry written in 8:50 list them in the order they caused a blight with Razikale being followed by Lusacan for the last two. I always found it strange way back in DAO, alphabetic listing would have made more sense for a scholar... Also, Awakening suggest the belief that the Old Gods call the darkspawns to free them continually is somewhat wrong or, more precisely, that the normal darkspawns can't achieve it on their own. The Architect had to organize Urthemiel "freeing". Just like Corypheus in Legacy, he attracted a lot of darkspawns, but it wasn't until some blighted Carta Dwarves that any steps were taken toward that. And once Cory woke up, he was confused, instead of aware of what happened too...which might point to someone else using taint-talky to free him. Actually, he old gods are forced to sleep in a deep road prison like Cory, what if a blight is just an Old Gods way of trying to be a god again after realizing in what kinda of world they are? Free Cory seems to have the same personality has pre-Black City Cory, what if the same is true of the Old Gods? Another thing that might be interesting, there is an overlap between between the 4th and 5th blights and the (temporary) dragon extinction. The dragons were hunted to "extinction" in less than 100 years following the 4th blight and the 5th blight started only a few decades after their return. All the other blights were less or more 200 years appart (-203 years, age 1*, age 3, age 5 and age 9). It's like if someone's plan was delayed one turn. *there is no age 0
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Post by gervaise21 on Aug 6, 2018 19:04:33 GMT
Another thing that might be interesting, there is an overlap between between the 4th and 5th blights and the (temporary) dragon extinction. The dragons were hunted to "extinction" in less than 100 years following the 4th blight and the 5th blight started only a few decades after their return. All the other blights were less or more 200 years appart (-203 years, age 1*, age 3, age 5 and age 9). It's like if someone's plan was delayed one turn. Yes it was odd how there was that big break but may be it was because Urthemiel was located at a considerable distance from the other Old Gods who had already been awakened. Every other Blight seemed to have started in or around Tevinter (Anderfels, northern Orlais, Freemarches, Antiva), with places like Ferelden being somewhat on the perimeter and not so badly affected as everywhere else. Then the 5th Blight starts deep in southern Ferelden. It would seem nothing about that Blight followed the previous pattern. Either that or the Old God/darkspawn were helpful enough not to emerge in the middle of a Qunari invasion. That was, after all, the big event that affected practically all Thedas (except Ferelden) during the intervening period between the 4th and 5th Blights. Co-incidentally is also occurred only shortly after all the dragons had been said to have been hunted to extinction. Given the hints about the origins of the Kossith/Qunari it was sort of ironic that their invasion should have occurred when it did.
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Post by azarhal on Aug 6, 2018 20:00:51 GMT
Another thing that might be interesting, there is an overlap between between the 4th and 5th blights and the (temporary) dragon extinction. The dragons were hunted to "extinction" in less than 100 years following the 4th blight and the 5th blight started only a few decades after their return. All the other blights were less or more 200 years appart (-203 years, age 1*, age 3, age 5 and age 9). It's like if someone's plan was delayed one turn. Yes it was odd how there was that big break but may be it was because Urthemiel was located at a considerable distance from the other Old Gods who had already been awakened. Every other Blight seemed to have started in or around Tevinter (Anderfels, northern Orlais, Freemarches, Antiva), with places like Ferelden being somewhat on the perimeter and not so badly affected as everywhere else. Then the 5th Blight starts deep in southern Ferelden. It would seem nothing about that Blight followed the previous pattern. Either that or the Old God/darkspawn were helpful enough not to emerge in the middle of a Qunari invasion. That was, after all, the big event that affected practically all Thedas (except Ferelden) during the intervening period between the 4th and 5th Blights. Co-incidentally is also occurred only shortly after all the dragons had been said to have been hunted to extinction. Given the hints about the origins of the Kossith/Qunari it was sort of ironic that their invasion should have occurred when it did. Urthemiel's prison was not in Southern Ferelden ( someone investigated their locations based on in-game info). Where the darkspawns leave the Deep Roads doesn't have much to do with where the Old Gods was sleeping. The Archdemon exit is somewhat limited to the Abyssal Rift too, there aren't big enough holes elsewhere for them to go through as far as we know.
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Post by melbella on Aug 7, 2018 1:53:14 GMT
Yes it was odd how there was that big break but may be it was because Urthemiel was located at a considerable distance from the other Old Gods who had already been awakened. Every other Blight seemed to have started in or around Tevinter (Anderfels, northern Orlais, Freemarches, Antiva), with places like Ferelden being somewhat on the perimeter and not so badly affected as everywhere else. Then the 5th Blight starts deep in southern Ferelden. It would seem nothing about that Blight followed the previous pattern. Either that or the Old God/darkspawn were helpful enough not to emerge in the middle of a Qunari invasion. That was, after all, the big event that affected practically all Thedas (except Ferelden) during the intervening period between the 4th and 5th Blights. Co-incidentally is also occurred only shortly after all the dragons had been said to have been hunted to extinction. Given the hints about the origins of the Kossith/Qunari it was sort of ironic that their invasion should have occurred when it did. Urthemiel's prison was not in Southern Ferelden ( someone investigated their locations based on in-game info). Where the darkspawns leave the Deep Roads doesn't have much to do with where the Old Gods was sleeping. The Archdemon exit is somewhat limited to the Abyssal Rift too, there aren't big enough holes elsewhere for them to go through as far as we know.
That location for Urthemiel makes no sense. The Blight started in the Kocari Wilds and we actually see the dragon while in Bownammar, which is south of Orzammar. Given the amount of damage to the Deep Roads, it seems unlikely the dragon could travel underground from Amaranthine to Bownammar, and yet it also somehow magically travels from Bownammar to Denerim without anyone seeing it.
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Post by gervaise21 on Aug 7, 2018 8:02:30 GMT
I wouldn't hold much store by maps that show locations of things in game as these may not be entirely accurate, particularly when it comes to the Deep Roads. Not everything about the Arch-demons appearance is logical but it does seem unlikely that, say, Andoral would have emerged from the Abyssal rift in south-western Orlais and then flown the entire length of Thedas to make its first main attack on Antiva City. It seems far more likely that it was holed up somewhere under Antiva and emerged from a Deep Roads entrance over there.
If Urthemiel wasn't located towards the middle to south of Ferelden, why did all the darkspawn congregate there? We are told they are drawn to the location of the Arch-demon, so if it was in the north of Ferelden why didn't they burst out en mass there? Not only that but the odd thing is there were no reports of large scale breakouts anywhere else in the vicinity. Usually during a Blight the darkspawn do start to surface in other locations where there are Deep Roads entrances but they seem to have been so centred on Ferelden that the Orlesian Grey Wardens had nothing better to do than wait on the border to be allowed in and there was so little activity elsewhere that HQ don't even seem to have been alerted there was a problem until the Blight was over.
So why were such a large mass of darkspawn in the Korcari Wilds unless that is near where Urthemiel had originally been imprisoned? However, it is possible that the Deep Roads there were not sufficiently large to allow his passage to the surface and that is why he headed north to emerge much later nearer to Bownammer and Orzammar. It would also account for why the darkspawn broke out in the south, because their sheer numbers could not be contained any longer in the Deep Roads, and they then moved northwards in the way they did as they were following the progress of the Arch-demon in the Deep Roads beneath them.
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Post by azarhal on Aug 7, 2018 11:49:29 GMT
The horde is not what free the Archdemon, it's a smaller group of darkspawns (even more so in the case of Urthemiel, it was the Architect). The horde is formed after the Archdemon wakes up, calling in darkspawns from all over the deep roads. The darkspawns travels all over the Deep Roads during a Blight. In the First Blight, they attacked and destroyed most of the Dwarven Empire before surfacing.
The Archdemon isn't a stupid morons that just unleash a large group of monsters on the surface either. If that was the case, the horde would have attacked Redcliff long before the Warden gathered any allies.
In DAO, the horde that attacked Ostagar stopped at Lothering and most went back underground to gather with a much bigger horde at the Deep Trenches under the Archdemon (we see the gathering in-game, it is also mentioned by the Legion of the Dead we encounter). They seems to have emerged past the Brecilian Forest to attack Denerim, because there is no mention of them marching from Lothering to anywhere.
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Post by gervaise21 on Aug 7, 2018 12:41:49 GMT
Darkspawn are attracted to the location of the Old God by its song. This happens right up to the point where it is released after which they start to move in whichever direction the Arch-demon does. It could be the delay between the 4th and 5th Blights was simply that it took that amount of time for enough darkspawn to accumulate in the vicinity and dig their way through. It presumably cannot be easy to break into the prison or all of the Old Gods would have been released by now.
So it is not the efforts of a small number of darkspawn that release the Old God but many all working together. The Architect didn't just walk into the prison. He needed the other darkspawn to break through first. To suggest that the horde only forms after the Arch-demon wakes up doesn't make any sense as they would then have to travel to the location first and there does seem to have been a correlation between the Arch-demon awakening and the darkspawn breaking out above ground.
The First Blight was different simply because there was still an entire dwarf civilisation underground that the darkspawn attacked before making their way to the surface. It was only after they had decimated the dwarven thaigs and run out of victims there that they transferred their attention to the surface.
There is, of course, much that we don't know about the origin of the Blights or the nature of the Arch-demons. I am sceptical about most of what the Chantry teaches on the matter and am inclined to believe the dwarves about how they experienced the 1st Blight and where its origins might lie.
As I, and others, have pointed out, one thing that seems odd is this business of the Old God song attracting the darkspawn unless it is already tainted in its prison. It seems far more likely that they were imprisoned in the first place because they were already tainted. So it went into hibernation, a bit like the elven uthenera (or may be exactly like it). Then the presence of darkspawn in the vicinity cause it to awaken and it is not so much a case of them breaking in but it breaking out. The Old God prison near Heidrun Thaig showed signs that the walls had been weakened and the rock turned brittle by the taint, which would suggest this must have started many years before not simply at the time of its release. So that would make it easier to break out once awake. However, the dwarf also noted that there were signs of the darkspawn having tunnelled through the rock with their bare hands to create the tunnels that led to the Old God. If they were tunnelling through normal rock with their bare hands then they would need a horde to accomplish the task.
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Post by azarhal on Aug 7, 2018 15:16:56 GMT
What we are told in Awakening that the Architect was responsible for Urthemiel waking up (and getting corrupted). He wasn't doing it because of the calling.
The old god under Heidrun Thaig was dug out long before it woke up. That place has corpses of darkspawns in prayer positions around where the old god was sleeping and darkspawns showed up before the 1st blight around the area.
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Post by gervaise21 on Aug 7, 2018 17:39:39 GMT
The old god under Heidrun Thaig was dug out long before it woke up. That place has corpses of darkspawns in prayer positions around where the old god was sleeping and darkspawns showed up before the 1st blight around the area. Hold on, are you saying the Old God beneath Heidrun Thaig was Dumat? What makes you think that? I thought Heidrun Thaig was where we went in the Descent and that was beneath Ferelden, so I assumed it had been the prison of Urthemiel. As for what we are told in Awakening, the Architect says he caused Urthemiel to wake up but not that he was the only one there. We only think he corrupted him when he woke him because of what we had previously been told but all I recall the Architect says was that he tried using his "cure" on him and it didn't work. Hardly surprising considering the Arch-demon is not a regular darkspawn and is the one attracting other darkspawn to him with his song, so there was no reason to think giving him Grey Warden blood would stop him "singing". However, it is possible that what was required to wake the Old God was its respective priest. For all we know, it was Corypheus who awakened Dumat, etc. Admittedly Corypheus does not remember this but it would seem he was out of action during the entirety of the 1st Blight, so may be the trauma rendered him unconscious and wiped his memory.
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Post by azarhal on Aug 7, 2018 21:28:46 GMT
The old god under Heidrun Thaig was dug out long before it woke up. That place has corpses of darkspawns in prayer positions around where the old god was sleeping and darkspawns showed up before the 1st blight around the area. Hold on, are you saying the Old God beneath Heidrun Thaig was Dumat? What makes you think that? I thought Heidrun Thaig was where we went in the Descent and that was beneath Ferelden, so I assumed it had been the prison of Urthemiel. I'm not saying it is Dumat, although the WoT2 entry might be suggesting it is not Urthemiel's prison. There is no timestamp so it could be a pre-5th blight discovery and Kardol says "long gone and turned to dust" archdemon. But I doubt darkspawns corpses praying head on stone can stay intact for 1000+ years. Also, Kardol notes that darkspawns do not enter the cavern and the stone was destroyed from the inside out by the filth of the archdemon, suggesting they are already blighted. What really keep the archdemon in the cavern sound like magical bounding (which Kardol mention as well). Something or someone has to break the bounds and most darkspawns are no better than animals in term of sapience (exception: Magister Sideral). The codex entry about there being darkspawns (it says creatures wearing face of the dead, I think that fit genlocks and hurlocks appearance) before the 1st blight is in The Descent. It also suggest the Thaig was abandoned back then.
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Post by TabithaTH on Aug 8, 2018 6:00:22 GMT
If they are already tainted, doesn't that mean that Clarel's plan to find and kill the Archdemons before they wake isn't that mad after all?
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Post by gervaise21 on Aug 8, 2018 8:45:02 GMT
If they are already tainted, doesn't that mean that Clarel's plan to find and kill the Archdemons before they wake isn't that mad after all? No, it is pretty crazy. For the demon army to reach the Arch-demon the person in control of them needs to stay alive. Demons can be killed and they only seem to have one demon for every Warden mage controlling it and Warden killed to summon it. Warden numbers aren't that large so the demon army would still be incredibly smaller than the number of darkspawn down in the Deep Road and the greatest concentrations are likely to be around the prison of the Old Gods. So chances of surviving long enough to reach the Arch-demon are still slim. Not sure how good demons are at scratching through rock either. So if the darkspawn aren't near breaking through then the Wardens would have to do it for themselves. Alternatively, if it is the presence of large numbers of darkspawn outside the prison that cause the Arch-demon to awake and bust out, the Wardens need to be sure they can kill it before it escapes further. If their demon army kills it, then it will just soul jump away from them. Essentially the whole plan was flawed. After all if the solution to ending the Blights was so simple, why hadn't the Wardens tried it before, not with demons but just a major military campaign with their allies of the treaties co-opted to help? The reason is that it would be doomed to failure.
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Post by azarhal on Aug 8, 2018 11:25:49 GMT
Essentially the whole plan was flawed. After all if the solution to ending the Blights was so simple, why hadn't the Wardens tried it before, not with demons but just a major military campaign with their allies of the treaties co-opted to help? The reason is that it would be doomed to failure. You know, maybe they have tried it before, in secret...and it backfired causing one of the blights that aren't 1 or 5.
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TabithaTH
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Post by TabithaTH on Aug 8, 2018 13:10:01 GMT
If they are already tainted, doesn't that mean that Clarel's plan to find and kill the Archdemons before they wake isn't that mad after all? No, it is pretty crazy. For the demon army to reach the Arch-demon the person in control of them needs to stay alive. Demons can be killed and they only seem to have one demon for every Warden mage controlling it and Warden killed to summon it. Warden numbers aren't that large so the demon army would still be incredibly smaller than the number of darkspawn down in the Deep Road and the greatest concentrations are likely to be around the prison of the Old Gods. So chances of surviving long enough to reach the Arch-demon are still slim. Not sure how good demons are at scratching through rock either. So if the darkspawn aren't near breaking through then the Wardens would have to do it for themselves. Alternatively, if it is the presence of large numbers of darkspawn outside the prison that cause the Arch-demon to awake and bust out, the Wardens need to be sure they can kill it before it escapes further. If their demon army kills it, then it will just soul jump away from them. Essentially the whole plan was flawed. After all if the solution to ending the Blights was so simple, why hadn't the Wardens tried it before, not with demons but just a major military campaign with their allies of the treaties co-opted to help? The reason is that it would be doomed to failure. I was thinking more like non demon wardens who are already hearing the Calling and going to the Deep Roads anyway. They could work with the Legion since dwarvs should know a thing or two about getting through rocks. But yeah, maybe they already have tried and failed.
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Post by xerrai on Aug 10, 2018 1:14:54 GMT
Razikale is the next one I think (or was planned as the next one), the old gods codex entry written in 8:50 list them in the order they caused a blight with Razikale being followed by Lusacan for the last two. I always found it strange way back in DAO, alphabetic listing would have made more sense for a scholar... Also, Awakening suggest the belief that the Old Gods call the darkspawns to free them continually is somewhat wrong or, more precisely, that the normal darkspawns can't achieve it on their own. The Architect had to organize Urthemiel "freeing". Just like Corypheus in Legacy, he attracted a lot of darkspawns, but it wasn't until some blighted Carta Dwarves that any steps were taken toward that. And once Cory woke up, he was confused, instead of aware of what happened too... which might point to someone else using taint-talky to free him.Actually, he old gods are forced to sleep in a deep road prison like Cory, what if a blight is just an Old Gods way of trying to be a god again after realizing in what kinda of world they are? Free Cory seems to have the same personality has pre-Black City Cory, what if the same is true of the Old Gods? [...] Is now a bad time to mention the Well of Sorrows? If you look at the scene where Inky drinks from the welll, then play it backwards, you get an interesting bit of dialogue that mentions the calling. Interpreted translations vary, but at least one video claims that the voice says: Mythal speaks the Calling. ( Video here).
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Post by gervaise21 on Aug 10, 2018 8:12:31 GMT
Is now a bad time to mention the Well of Sorrows? If you look at the scene where Inky drinks from the welll, then play it backwards, you get an interesting bit of dialogue that mentions the calling. Interpreted translations vary, but at least one video claims that the voice says: Mythal speaks the Calling. ( Video here). Yes but was that just a red herring designed to lead us astray, as they knew some people would likely try playing it backwards? However, I've long felt that Mythal and the ancient elves were responsible for the Blight but particularly after Trespasser. However, I also think Mythal's connection may be to do with her murder, which is why she actively works against the darkspawn and the Blight in DAO and tries to save the soul of the Old God from the "darkness". Mythal is associated with creating cities but I think the Eternal City/Arlathan was actually the inside of a Titan. The memories we see in the Vir Dirthara of the city remind me a great deal of the inside of the Titan we see in the Descent. It could be they used magic to cause this to be part of the Crossroad between the material world and the Fade and inaccessible to anyone who was not permitted by them. Then something happened to corrupt it and turn it black. In DAO the eluvian we discover was centred on a black city. Darkness is associated with the Blight and also with the Void. If the Old Gods were not imprisoned because they were tainted then I'm pretty sure it is the act of breaking into the Golden/Black City that causes their corruption, not darkspawn breaking through. Ancient elves in uthenera would draw their sustenance from the Fade. However, maybe the ordinary Fade would not be enough to sustain an Old God dragon in uthenera and so they draw their nourishment from the Golden City itself, so if the city is corrupted so are they. The alternative is that the Golden City was always an illusion after the Veil was raised. In fact it was already black and that is why it had to be locked away out of reach. When the Magisters broke through they shattered the illusion/memory of the beauty it had once been and revealed the reality. Hence Cory saying that when they got there is was already black and they "discovered" the darkness rather than being responsible for its creation. The Golden/Black City is said to have 7 gates, one for each of the Old Gods, so they do have a definite connection with it. The ancient Teviner also believed that the Golden City was home to their gods. However, there were originally 7 Creator gods of the elves, if you ignore Ghilan'nain and Fen'Harel who were later additions. The Dalish also believe that the Eternal City (their name for it) was the home of their gods. It seems too much of a coincidence to me that both groups believe the city at the heart of the Fade was home to their gods and each had 7 gods who occupied it. Also if the Eternal City was not really part of the Fade but a creation of the Evanuris alongside it, like the Crossroads, then that could also account for why it normally cannot be reached simply from the Fade and is always visible but inaccessible. The mosaic we discover concerning the invasion of the Golden City causes Gatsi to comment that it is strange because it shows no stairs so how did they access it? Simple, the ancient gods didn't need stairs, they used eluvians. As for the Magisters, the monstrous blood ritual simply allowed them direct access because they were using a form of magic that was related to the darkness contained inside. To put it another way, they opened a gateway not to the Fade but the Void.
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Starfang
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Post by Starfang on Aug 10, 2018 17:44:00 GMT
What about an Old God possessed by a Pride Demon or something worse, since possession is different than being tainted.
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Post by gervaise21 on Aug 10, 2018 18:09:01 GMT
I strongly suspect that the Old Gods originally started off as spirits that became more material, like Cole, so they cannot really be possessed. Also the reason they are called Arch-demons is that their nature has been changed by the corruption, unless of course it had already been changed by deviating from their original purpose. If the Old Gods do have any sort of connection with the Evanuris, well the Dalish call the latter the Creators. May be that is what they originally were, creative spirits. June is even said to have "created himself". Then, as Solas recounts, there was a war in which they were forced into becoming destroyers and it twisted them into proud, ruthless tyrants. Of course this could be true about the Evanuris even if they aren't the same as the Old Gods.
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MediocreOgre
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Post by MediocreOgre on Aug 11, 2018 14:49:07 GMT
I think the Old Gods have something to do with sealing away what ever the Evanuris found when they dug to deep or possibly they are how they severed the Dwarves from the hive mind of the Titans and are thus used by the forces behind the Blight to mind control the Darkspawn.
but I think they are corrupted before the Darkspawn arrive.
that said I think we will meet an Old God in an effort to stop the next blight but it will probably be revealed to be more complicated and that the whole goal of the Blights was merely to break the Old God seals one at a time to free something else.
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Post by xerrai on Aug 13, 2018 22:27:30 GMT
I strongly suspect that the Old Gods originally started off as spirits that became more material, like Cole, so they cannot really be possessed. Also the reason they are called Arch-demons is that their nature has been changed by the corruption, unless of course it had already been changed by deviating from their original purpose. If the Old Gods do have any sort of connection with the Evanuris, well the Dalish call the latter the Creators. May be that is what they originally were, creative spirits. June is even said to have "created himself". Then, as Solas recounts, there was a war in which they were forced into becoming destroyers and it twisted them into proud, ruthless tyrants. Of course this could be true about the Evanuris even if they aren't the same as the Old Gods. I myself subscribe to the idea that spirits could form into elves (I think Solas actually referred to the Evanuris as the "first of my people" at one point) or dragons. But assuming the Old Gods are beings who turned into dragons, how are we so sure they were spirits before hand? Why not elves? Ir could be that these were elves who decided to take "the shape of the divine" (as said by the Temple of Mythal text). Though be they ex-elf or ex-spirit, I am starting to wonder if they are tied to elven legends. If we are to believe that the Dalish actually got a decent amount right in thier legends (which they kinda did in thier "Fen'Harel sealed the Gods" story) then we have yet to account of the other elven group often associated with those legends: the Forgotten Ones. It could be that these special dragons aligned themselves with the Forgotten Ones, and in so doing, opposed themselves to the Evanuris. Or alternatively, it was the Evanuris that opposed to Old Gods. Seeing as how the Evanuris were set on setting themselves up as the only legitimate elvhen country/religion, the Old Gods and the Forgotten Ones could simply be to the Evanuris what non-Andrastian religions were to Drakon and his Chantry. But either way, if the legends were right, and Fen'Harel sealed the Evanuris away in the heavens (fade) then is it too much of a stretch to say that they were right when they claimed he sealed the Forgotten Ones in the abyss (deep roads)?
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