Former Territories of the Evanuris

Yeah. Even if they are as virtuous as the Dalish see, that in fact might be a reason why Solas imprisoned them too. Sylaise is a master of healing and June crafting, so if the others were sealed but not them they could create a way to release the others and restore them to full power. Again, Solas has absolutely no qualms about sacrificing innocents for his goal (just look at giving the orb to Corypheus or his current plan of mass murdering everyone even if he sees them as people).

Why does him being a LI matter? He’s hardly the first one in a BioWare game to lie to you. Remember Anders’s “I need these totally not bomb ingredients for a potion”?
Hiding things when telling what happened is lying by omission, which is still lying.

I think when PW said that Solas doesn't ever straight up lie to you, this is what he meant. He also wouldn't necessarily correct you if you assumed something from what he said that was incorrect.

To give an example. Solas says there is nothing in lore to connect the elven gods to the Old Gods. So, on the face of it that would seem to confirm there is no connection. Except the use of "in lore". Which lore is he speaking about? The lore of the Chantry? The lore of the Dalish? The writing of university scholars? It is perfectly true that you would find no connection between the two in any of these. That doesn't necessarily mean there is nothing that connects them, and should we find out subsequently that there is a connection, he would still maintain he didn't lie because of that qualifier "in lore".

So, with everything that Solas tells us you have to consider whether he has only told half the truth or whether his words were ambiguous, rather than take everything at face value. I think it is worth remembering the warning of the Evanuris: "He will offer advice that seems fair but turns slowly to poison." That I think is also true.

Another thing to consider is that Felassan was his ally and yet none of his stories about Fen'Harel paint him in a particularly favourable light.   He is portrayed as cunning, devious and ruthless, pretty much as the Dalish remember Fen'Harel, the trickster god and, to be honest, in keeping with what we know of him.

I still reckon it looks like Dirthamen and Ghilan'nain.

The headdress of the feminine one resembles one of the sea creatures in the art of DA:D, which goes with Ghilan'nain. The one on the right just looks edgy and mysterious as you'd expect Dirthamen to.

Important to note is that Meredith is under the one on the left and Corypheus the one on the right, which supports a Dumat-Dirthamen connection in the case of Corypheus. However, Meredith's story more closely resembles Andruil's than Ghilan'nain's.

There are arguments in favour of both, particularly since we have no idea of what they actually looked like in person and, in any case, Solas' mural may be symbolic rather than like for like.

Since the pools in HoH smell of the sea and that monster in the concept art has that weird bow like head, the image on the left could well be Ghilan'nain, particularly the clues in Horror of Hormack that connect her to it. However, it could also be Andruil, seeing as it is shown above the image of Meredith, and both went mad at some point, quite possibly because of red lyrium for Andruil as well as for Meredith. The wavy lines could be indicative of water and thus pointing to Mythal, or possibly the Fade, so could be Razikale, the goddess of mystery, since that would surely be linked to the Fade.

The image on the right could be Dirthamen, because of the hint at his vallaslin, but could equally be Elgar'nan if that headdress could be regarded as a crown or symbolic of the sun. It could also Falon'Din if you think that form looks like "wings of death surrounding him", whilst the headdress shows his dragon horns. If the one on the left is Razikale, then the one on the right could be Lusacan, with the headdress symbolic of the moon. I wonder if there is any significance to the image being above that of Corypheus. Could it be the god that first devised the magic that created the foci? In which case, could it be June? If that positioning is the meaning of the placing of the right-hand image, then was the figure on the left-hand side responsible for the creation/discovery of red lyrium?

Also, why are they shown upside down? Is it that they are going to be in opposition to him when he destroys the Veil? Or will they be his allies? Incidentally, the disc behind each of them is flawed and whilst golden (possibly indicating a link with the Golden City) it resembles the silver/grey disc in the original teaser trailer, which in turn links to the image in the purple logo.

There are some things there I'm skeptical of, namely the Black City being where corrupted Titans are locked away. How would that even work given what see? Obviously Titan(s) aren't fitting there, and I think it's more likely Arlathan or a new capital that the Evanuris made. Unless they're talking about only the heart(s), but even then removing the heart(s) would do much to stop the spread in the first place.

I've also never been convinced that red lyrium itself is the source of the Taint.

I'm inclined to think similarly to you. Another reason I find it more believable that the Taint was originally separate before it corrupted lyrium is the fact that red lyrium doesn't make ghouls or darkspawn -- the lyrium is the tainted object, and with its spread it propagates the object-itself with the Taint. This can be viewed as the Taint "needing" the lyrium as an anchor, but we already know this isn't true. It's more likely that the lyrium itself serves as a boundary that both limits and modifies the way the Taint spreads.

An alternative could be that the pure Taint was originally extracted from red lyrium through some sort of blood magic.

This is an interesting theory. The Fog Dancers (lore keepers) certainly say that their ancestors learned at the feet of the elves, so they could have learned how to make the magical fog from them. However, since they claim the griffons originated on Seheron and it has been speculated that these were created by Ghilan'nain and were the creatures of the air she gifted to Andruil, could the magical fog be another of her creations? Then again, the Fog Dancers claim that the fog came about because of the Curse of Nahar and will end when the curse is lifted. So, who was Nahar?

The hints about the ancient history of the Fog People are why I was hoping we might go to Seheron next game, or at the very least perhaps have a Fog Dancer or Fog Warrior as a companion. What was the March of the Four Winds and when they speak of a "lost people" fleeing to the northern islands, are they talking about themselves or another group (the Par Ladi perhaps) who went even further north? There seems a connection between them in that the Parladians seem to be able to keep their island hidden and protected with some sort of cloaking magic, a fog perhaps? Also, those who have met them are reminded of Rivaini seers. So, did all three cultures originate from one ancient ethnic group?

There is a great deal of human history that is lacking in what we have been told so far. The Neromenians came from over the sea and, according to the elves, first made landfall in Par Vollen. Were they the same people as the Fog Warriors and Rivaini or a different group? Where did they come from and why? Was their land of origin the same as that of the Kossith/Qunari, the Executors or somewhere else entirely? Did the barbarians in the south have the same origins as the Neromenians or did they come from people making landfall on the west side of Thedas, originating perhaps with the Voshai. These traders from a land across the sea to the west seem to have a strong association with maritime dwarves who navigate their ships for them but no apparent connection with the elves. In fact, there is so much history that has only been hinted at, one game could not do it justice. This is why I am hoping a future game will be one of maritime exploration.

And what is the creature in the teaser trailer for you? For me the creature look like a darkspawn from red lyrium.


3:15

Looks like a darkspawn wielding a weapon and wearing armour made from red lyrium. His weapon, helmet, gloves, boots, and pointy should pads all have red on them but his body doesn't. Of course we all know what happened to Meredith when she wielded a red lyrium weapon, so turning into lyrium may still be in that particular darkspawns future.

I also imagine that if a darkspawn consumed red lyrium then they would probably turn into a creature like the behemoth that humans turn into when they eat it. Unless already being tainted would render them immune? But I don't see why they would be immune to the lyrium part of red lyrium...

Anyway, the early stages of red lyrium corruption look different to the early stages of becoming a ghoul, though i presume that Corypheus controlled at least the late stage red lyrium Templars like horrors and behemoths through the taint in the lyrium, which isn't too dissimilar to how ghouls eventually lose control to the song in the blight. But ghouls don't turn into darkspawn, with the exception of broodmothers they just seem to die eventually (although for all we know the broodmothers all die from the taint eventually too, possibly it just takes longer). And red lyrium corruption eventually kills ya by turning you into crystals, so i don't think you could turn a red lyrium corrupted person into a broodmother. Though I suppose you could try to expose an existing broodmother to red lyrium, to who knows what effect.

We know darkspawn are born from broodmother ghouls though we don't know how the original broodmother was made. Whether they were just exposed to the blight or deliberately made (such as in ghilan'nain's lab). We can't even be sure there is an original broodmother mother or whether the darkspawn or something like them just popped through a portal from the void/other dimension and then the song told them to use ghouls to make more of themselves on Thedas.

But assuming darkspawn were, well, spawned from an original broodmother on Thedas and the void is just a word for the deep depths below - there is the question of how the first mother was exposed. Can you catch the blight from red lyrium without also being infected with the lyrium part of red lyrium? Using it or consuming it certainly seems to inevitably lead to turning into pretty crystals. But can you get the taint just from being close to red lyrium? Like those peasants one of the the intelligent dark spawn goes around saving in awakenings epilogue slides, leaving taint in its wake? If being near red lyrium has the same risk of taint as being around darkspawn without getting lyrium in your body aswell, then that original ghoul/broodmother could well have been exposed from red lyrium - making corrupted lyrium potentially the place where the blight started. If on the other hand you can't get the blight separately from full red lyrium corruption, then it seems more likely that the taint came from somewhere else and lyrium is just one of many things that can get tainted, which would make it seem unlikely to have tainted the first broodmother because women turn into big ole crystal clusters when corrupted by red lyrium, just like the men.