Kal Repartha, the surface Thaig (A Lore Video!)

Uncovering the history of that Thaig was a very atmospheric process, I agree - the mournful desert and haunting music were very memorable. How do the construction of the Thaig and the Elder One's timeline align, I wonder? Corypheus was obviously looking for the secret of this wonder weapon of Fairel - was he aware of its rumoured existence before he entered the fade?

Anyway, thanks for another interesting episode. Often watching them I find my own yearning for more Dragon Age games increase - at least I have my own pen-and-paper RPG campaign to keep me going through the drought!

Well if Fariel only left for the surface around 100 years before the 1st Blight then it would be in recent enough history that Corypheus might have heard of it when he was a priest of Dumat. After all he was familiar with the Deep Roads before the Blight as he mentions that in his ramblings after Hawke frees him in Legacy. I wonder if there was any connection between Fariel's weapons and the later darkspawn? After all they apparently had the knowledge to create weapons and we fight one of their weapon masters in DAO but where did they learn how to do this? Did one of the fallen Magisters teach them? Fariel's family was clearly one that dated back to ancient times because of their verse about fearing the urtok (dragons) which is connected with their coat of arms. So was his gift of rune crafting handed down from ancient times as well?

It is also interesting that the dwarf whose journal we find in the Hissing Wastes suggests that the Shaperate records may have been tampered with to conceal the truth about Fariel as they recorded he died in the war caused by his weapons, not went into exile. Now Valta suggests that the Memories may have been altered to conceal history in the Descent. It does seem odd that since the memories are preserved in stone then they ought to survive down the years and yet they have no record of the titans or the period when Mythal was controlling the Deep Roads. So were they not keeping records then or were those records erased? If so, by whom?

The most important records are recorded in “The Wall of Memories”, in lyrium. This process apparently involves creating lyrium runes that record the actual thoughts of the Shapers who make them.

dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Dwarven_Runecraft

Conceivably, these could be modified or falsified by later Shapers I would guess. It’s possible that some of the most ancient records were kept in Kal-Sharok, the ancient capital, and lost to the dwarves of Orzammar during the First Blight. However, there definitely seems to have been a cover up at some point. It seems like the dwarves chose to hide knowledge of the Titans.

My tenuous scenario: at some point after the Evanuris left the Deep Roads (I’m not sure if they did before the Veil dropped), the dwarves as a group endeavored to prevent the Titans from ever being corrupted or harmed again. The most fanatical of these became the Sha-Brytol, with their obsession with purity. Presumably whatever Mythal did weakened their connection to the Titans somehow, so they tried to strengthen that connection by consuming lyrium and prevented themselves from becoming rock wraiths by sealing themselves in special armor. Maybe it makes them immortal and prevents aging, I speculate.

Meanwhile, the other dwarves purged their records of direct references to the Titans. It should be said that the dwarven belief system bears some resemblance to the Sha-Brytol, there’s a great concern about maintaining the purity and strength of the Stone, as well as maintaining one’s connection to it (ie fear of losing stone sense by spending time on the surface). There’s also the idea of the “gangue”, purifying the stone by literally purging it of spiritual influence. My theory is that dwarven culture is built upon an echo of the same concerns of purity and protection that drive the Sha-Brytol.

I don’t have a way to tie this back to Kal Repartha 🤷‍♂️