#Light Dragon Lore

[brisephone]

*shakes violently*

god i love this game

[kamabokobun]

Rauru dragon concept

[shewolfofvilnius]

i know I keep hyperfixating on the Solas/Ghilan'nain flashback but there is SO MUCH to unpack there and I want to talk about the VERY FIRST THING we see when we start the FIRST GAME. (DAV spoilers ahead)

The VERY FIRST

This is the very first thing we learn about the entire setting of the game. It's the foundational piece for the Chantry's concept of sin. And as we learned in one of the random Veilguard videos, The Chantry's interpretation is completely fucking wrong.

The Blight not only predates the first Archdemon, it predates the creation of the Veil and the sundering of magic into The Fade. It dates back to late period Elvhenan.

So where did the Canticle of Threnodies originate? Hint: NOT THE CHANTRY.

Slave uprisings? Oral tradition? Hmm, which people relied near-exclusively on oral tradition for centuries? Who did Tevinter primarily enslave? Who has a history of slave uprisings that predates Tevinter itself? Elves. What happened to the Elves of Arlathan after it fell? Enslaved in the founding of modern day Tevinter.

Ancient Tevinter Slaves (hint: Elves) have an ancient oral dirge about a "golden city" being "blackened", and about a singular pissed off narrator telling someone that their every step blackens the city and brings doom upon the world.

A dirge primarily sung during slave uprisings. Whose big thing was a massive slave uprising or uprisiings in Elvhenan and Arlathan?

I posit that Canticle of Threnodies 8:13 is the Chantry's translation/appropriation of Solas telling off the Evanuris once and for all, and was part of his final rebuke to them before trapping them in the Golden/Black City (Arlathan) and sealing the city off and creating the Fade.

The warning survived into Elven oral tradition as they were then enslaved by the humans in the founding of Tevinter. When the Magisters then breached the Black City and found the blight waiting for them (as Corypheus confirms, although I wonder where the Evanuris were hiding), it was retconned to apply to the Magisters when the original sin...was the Evanuris.

(PS: There are literally dozens of these examples of history retcon all throughout Thedas in past games.)

[canonkiller]

tears of the dragon

[l1ght-n1ghts]

HAPPY WADDLE DEE WEDNESDAY. HAVE AN AU DESIGN. BANDANA DEE I LOVE YOU FOREVER AND EVER

+Design notes/headcanons under cut

Lots of inspiration from animals I'd call "orbs with legs". For example: Jerboas, European Robins, etc etc. Keeps the round silhouette while also giving me reference to use!

Also inspiration from owls. Barn Owls in particular. Wanted to keep the face relatively bare with a very small mouth since in canon Dees don't have visible mouths at ALL. So I used the owl beak structure.

Ears are a remnant of when I originally wanted to make the Dees canine-esque to make a reference to their Forgotten Land counterparts (Awoofies). Now they're there to give the head the silhouette of a Waddle Dee with their arms up :)

Also kept King Dedede's design while making this (I wanted a young Dedede to look like a Waddle Dee), so overall Dees look like little theropod dinosaurs!

Dees are communal creatures that also raise their young in a group. So while it is possible for a Dee to have actual parents, the connection typically isn't one of a nuclear family structure. Dees place a lot of emphasis on chosen family, strong platonic bonds, and friendships! Bandee's friends are a mixture of all three to him :)

While Kirby has star-like markings, I wanted to give Bandee hearts! Because he is soooooo full of love

The bandana was a gift from the King. This is what sparked Bandee's fierce loyalty to the King. He makes sure to treat it very gently so it lasts as long as possible

Bandee uses his tail to give him the lift needed to fly and keep up with his friends! He trained very hard to be able to use it properly and not fall out of the sky. He is very proud of this feat and is willing to teach it to other Waddle Dees who ask!

[raayllum]

Aaravos is Laurelion theory: 1/?

[checkadii]

mfs do anything but finish their wips . like startign another, for example

[aldermoth]

(they/them)

Posted using PostyBirb

[somasoa]

The Two Temples of Time

Warning: This post will contain spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Please refrain from any further reading if you wish to avoid being spoiled on important story topics from this game. 

Hello everyone, today we’ll be discussing the Temple of Time, a sacred location in The Legend of Zelda series. Or, should I say, the Temples of Time, as there are actually several of them throughout the series, with different origin stories. However, there is a common misconception within the Zelda community that the “primary” temple - that is, the temple as seen in entries such as Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and the Sealed Temple in Skyward Sword, all exist in the same location, and are simply rebuilt versions of the same temple. This interpretation effectively means that the primary Temple of Time would just be a singular temple that is continuously updated over time as the passing of centuries takes its toll. I will be demonstrating the flaws with this misconception, and the facts showing that there are not one, but actually two separate "primary" temples that exist concurrently.

For brevity, I will be referring to the temple as seen in Ocarina of Time as the ToT(OoT), and the temple as seen in Twilight Princess as the ToT(TP), and I will expand in nomenclature from there.  We receive a very simple origin for the ToT(OoT) in Ocarina of Time, but we are provided further information in Twilight Princess and A Link Between Worlds that paint a clearer picture of the events leading up to its creation. As put bluntly in A Link Between Worlds, bloody battles were waged over the Triforce, which was kept within the kingdom itself.

We see this mentioned in Twilight Princess as well, as described by Lanayru. In Lanayru’s story, we see the Triforce in the distance, before “Link,” a stand-in for a Hylian of that era of Hyrulean history, kills “Ilia.” He then runs towards the Triforce in the distance, as Lanayru describes a cycle of conflicts ensuing over the land of Hyrule. He then describes the ancestors of the Twili, the people who established a mastery over powerful magic and wanted to conquer Hyrule, as they appear on screen, standing in front of the Triforce and represented by Shadow Links. Indeed, this reveals that the conflict in which the ancestors of the Twili were sealed was one of the many conflicts over the Triforce that occurred in this chaotic era.

ハイラル王国にて語リ継がれる伝説 はるかなる昔・・・・・・ハイラルという王国にはトライフォースと呼ばれる聖なる三角形があリました 神から賜ったと言い伝えられてるトライフォースは、触れた者の願いを叶えると信じられておリ・・・・・・ 人々はその力を得ようとして争いが絶えませんでした

The legend passed down in the Kingdom of Hyrule. Long, long ago... In the Kingdom of Hyrule, there was a sacred triangle called the Triforce. It was said to have been a gift bestowed by the gods, believed to grant the wish of whosoever touches it... All the land sought to obtain its almighty power, and so quarreled and fought endlessly...

Prologue (A Link Between Worlds) - Translated by hwrdjacob

しかし、やがて聖地ハイラルを巡り争いが起こった人々の中に、魔術に長けた者達が現れ強力な魔力によって聖地を治めようとした

Before long, a cycle of conflicts arose over the Sacred Realm of Hyrule, and among the many peoples of the land, accomplished people with a deep mastery of magic materialized. With their powerful magic, they tried to rule the Sacred Realm.

Lanayru (Twilight Princess) - Translated by hwrdjacob

While Twilight Princess doesn’t take this moment to elaborate on the creation of the ToT(OoT), A Link Between Worlds, and, by extension, Ocarina of Time do. The war culminated in the Royal Family calling upon the Sages of Hyrule, who sealed the Triforce in the Sacred Realm. As we learned in Ocarina of Time, this also involved the creation of the ToT(OoT), where we learn that the Ancient Sages also created the Temple of Time, and it was the Door of Time itself which was used to seal the Sacred Realm’s entrance along with the Triforce which resided inside of it.

王家はすさんだハイラル王国を憂い七人の賢者を集めトライフォースを聖地に隠しました

The Royal Family feared that the Kingdom of Hyrule would be laid to waste, so they gathered the Seven Sages, who hid the Triforce in the Sacred Realm.

Prologue (A Link Between Worlds) - Translated by hwrdjacob

そこで、いにしえの賢者達は心　悪しき者から　トライフォースを守るため　時の神殿を造られました。そう…　時の神殿とは、この地上から　聖地へ入るための入口なのです。でも、その　入口は「時の扉（とびら）」と　呼ばれる石のカベで　閉ざされています。

And so, the Ancient Sages constructed the Temple of Time to defend the Triforce from those with evil hearts. Indeed... the Temple of Time is the gateway to enter the Sacred Realm from this world. However, that gateway is closed off by a stone wall known as "the Door of Time".

Zelda (Ocarina of Time) - Translated by hwrdjacob

In summary, when putting together the information presented in these three entries, we have a clear story for the ToT(OoT): The Triforce was kept in the young Kingdom of Hyrule, in which people lived in peace and harmony. However, desire for possession of the Triforce grew within the hearts of men, and battles were fought over it, the war against the interlopers being one of the most prominent of these conflicts. To end the bloodshed, the Royal Family called upon the Seven Sages, who sealed the Triforce away in the Sacred Realm via the creation of the Temple of Time, utilizing the Door of Time, the Master Sword, and the Spiritual Stones to prevent entry to the Sacred Realm. 

This story for the ToT(OoT) on the surface may not seem to have any conflict with the ToT(TP), but, in reality, it conflicts in several ways, even down to the people who created the temples. 

In Twilight Princess, we learn about the Oocca, or the Sky Folk. While their modern appearances are that of strange bird-like creatures, we learn in-game that, many centuries before the events of the game, they were actually the ancestors of the Hylian people, as told to us by Rusl and Ooccoo, a member of the Oocca.

聖なる力で護られた森の奥深くに　悠久の時を眠る神殿があると言われている . ハイリア人の祖先によって造られたその神殿には、今もなお古代の優れた文明が遺されているらしい

It is said that deep, deep in the woods, there is a temple, protecting a sacred power that slumbers eternally. Constructed by the ancestors of the Hylians, even now that temple holds remnants of their ancient, outstanding civilization.

Rusl (Twilight Princess) - Translated by hwrdjacob

ハイラルは最も神に近い種族のハイリア人が創ったってのが通説だけど実は大昔には、ハイリア人よりもっと神に近い種族がいて、彼らが創ったという説もあるんだ

そして彼らは、ハイリア人の誕生とともに新しい都を創り、都ごと天に浮かべて

そこで暮らし始めたらしいしかも学者の間では、今でも彼らは大空の何処かに浮かぶ都で生きているって言われてる 

It is the prevailing view that Hyrule was created by the Hylians, the closest race to the gods. However, there's a theory that as a matter of fact, there was a race even closer to the gods than the Hylians, and THEY created Hyrule. It seems that they created a new capital when the Hylians were born, and launched the city into the sky in order to live there. Furthermore, the academic world says that even now, they still live in a capitol floating somewhere in the heavens.

Shad (Twilight Princess) Translated by hwrdjacob

We learn from Shad that, upon the birth of the Hylians as a cultural group, the Sky Folk departed from the surface. They created a city which they used to ascend to the sky, and remained there, leaving the kingdom of Hyrule they created to the newly birthed Hylians, with the Royalty of Hylia taking the reign of the kingdom. 

Since the Sky Folk left the surface upon the birth of the Hylians, this necessitates the ToT(TP) as having been built before the Hylians came to be. This is a very important detail, as this would mean that the Royal Family of Hyrule, who are Hylians, would not be in power, and thus they would not have been able to command the sealing of the Triforce, which resulted in the creation of the ToT(OoT) by the seven sages. Furthermore, they also appear in completely different locations in what is otherwise a mostly consistent map of Hyrule between Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, with the ToT(OoT) appearing west of Death Mountain and ToT(TP) appearing deep within the Faron Woods. Even the interiors of the temples themselves are wildly different, featuring different architecture and aesthetics.

Finally, when Link enters the past ToT(TP) in Twilight Princess, we see that the pedestal of the Master Sword is empty, when by all reasonable metrics the Master Sword should be resting in the pedestal if this is the same temple as the ToT(OoT). This was commonly refuted by pointing out that since Link was already wielding the sword, it would temporarily disappear whenever Link entered the temple, due to how time travel would then affect the blade. However, Tears of the Kingdom disproves this notion.

In Tears of the Kingdom,  we observe the Light Dragon possess the Master Sword for tens of thousands of years, restoring it into its revitalized form we acquire in the game. During this time, the pre-time travel Master Sword is not affected by its duplication through time travel, meaning that, based on the mechanics we can see in Tears of the Kingdom, the presence of a second Master Sword through time travel should not affect the Master Sword that should be in the past ToT(TP).  What this means is that the Master Sword is in a different location in the time of the past ToT(TP), and, considering the sword went unused following the sealing of the Sacred Realm until the events of Ocarina of Time, its location was likely tied to its sister temple - the ToT(OoT), and this is further reinforced by the dungeon in the ToT(TP).

We enter the dungeon of the ToT(TP) through a secret entrance, revealed from behind the Master Sword’s pedestal through the stained glass. Despite also simply being called the Temple of Time, this dungeon is covered in Light Medallions, the symbol of the Sage of Light, and seems as if it’s in an almost dream-like, separate land. Even the in-game map depicts the Light Medallion on the Temple of Time. Interestingly, this dungeon is shown to not exist at all in the present era, showing that the dungeon is indeed in some kind of other location separate from just the Light World. Given all of the above, we can very easily determine it is the Temple of Light, especially due to the Temple of Time’s association with the Temple of Light - in fact, it’s even likely that this association with the ToT(TP) is why they chose to build the ToT(OoT) as a way to protect the Sacred Realm (and thus the Temple of Light.)

However, notably, the Triforce isn’t present in the ToT(TP)’s dungeon, which means that the era of the past in Twilight Princess is before the Triforce was sealed in the Sacred Realm, but it’s after the Master Sword was already moved from the temple. Why would the Master Sword have been moved? As we know, the ancient sages of Ocarina of Time created the ToT(OoT) to protect the Triforce, and sealed the Sacred Realm’s entrance using the Door of Time and the Master Sword. In Twilight Princess, we can actually observe a statue of Rauru in Chudley’s Fine Goods and Trinkets Emporium, or, in other words, the shop Malo takes over when he establishes Malo Mart in Castle Town. And coincidentally, we see this statue of Rauru holding the Master Sword using its design from Ocarina of Time!

Because of this, we can presume that Rauru had taken the Master Sword from the ToT(TP) at some point, and held onto it, likely because the ancient sages had agreed on the idea of using it to help sustain the seal on the Triforce while they were constructing the temple. In summary, this would put the past era of Twilight Princess in the era where the ToT(OoT) is in the act of being constructed, and, ironically, this would also put the pst around the same era in which the interlopers, the ancestors of the modern day Twili, were sealed in the Twilight Realm. 

To put the timeline of the two temples together, it would look like this:

In the infancy of Hyrule, the Sky Folk, using their advanced technology, created the ToT(TP). Eventually, the Sky Folk created the City in the Sky, and departed for the heavens, in which the Hylians emerged as a cultural group, and were given control of the kingdom by the Sky Folk. At some point in the distant future, terrible conflicts occurred in an attempt to gain control over the Triforce. To end this bloodshed, the Royal Family of Hyrule commanded the seven sages to seal the Triforce away. The sages determined they would build a new temple, the ToT(OoT), which they would use to seal the Triforce away. Rauru claimed the Master Sword before the temple was built, to ensure all the pieces were in place when the temple was complete. It was at this time that Link would return to the past in Twilight Princess and acquire the Mirror Shard from the ToT(TP). Shortly after this, the sages would finish completing the ToT(OoT), and seal the Sacred Realm away using the Master Sword and the Door of Time. Considering the Sacred Grove, the present version of the ToT(TP), has no entrance to the Temple of Light, it’s also likely that upon completion of the ToT(OoT) the sages removed or closed the entrance to the Temple of Light that Link used when he entered the past, so as to ensure complete protection of the Triforce. As for why the Master Sword would be moved back to the ToT(TP) between Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, this was likely on the part of the Hero of Time, as we know that the Skull Kid - the good friend of the Hero of Time from Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask - is now the protector of the Sacred Grove and the Master Sword.

This creates a strong chronology of the two different temples and shows how they relate to each other. However, how do these temples relate to other temples - or, the ruins of temples - in the series? I will be exploring that in Part 2 of this post, which focuses on how the ToT(OoT) and the ToT(TP) connect to other locations in the series. 

[ahahnopenope]

Ky'Hal (Tav), Bard College of Swords

Romanced Astarion

He is around 28 years old during the events of Baldur's Gate 3.

He has an older (half-elf) brother named Jar'Hod (iykyk) (my older brother's character).

Sorry for posting things i've posted before, just updating with better pictures and lore.

[amaryllis-sagitta]

Awkward PSA

Metaphysics of Thedas still exists. The work is now orphaned because working on Part 4 defeated me mentally and I went through a hardcore creative crisis and I was generally in a bad place at the time

If you're interested a piece of highly speculative meta about the makeup of the Dragon Age universe with references to metaphysical ideas from real life

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

[wall-e-gorl]

Hi. Do you enjoy being sad? Do you want to become emotionally attached to two characters that you will only have for less than an hour? Do you get attached to robot and human friendships, and diving into how robots have humanity even if they insist they dont?

Come be sad with me about this life and blood pilot, this metal and oil mech, and their potentially-last conversation.

[shewolfofvilnius]

I truly don't think folks appreciate how big of a lore bomb dropped in Dragon Age the past couple of days in that video where everyone's fixated on Solas' (magnificent) hair. MAJOR Veilguard spoilers after the break:

Back in the day, Ghilan'nain's likely the one who weaponised the Blight in the first place on behalf of the Evanuris, and may or may not even be responsible for the creation of prototype Darkspawn (and we see she has her own 'unique' darkspawn in the game.)

Solas confronts her (then non-blighted) over it, and she rebuffs him, claiming it's part of her ascencion to godhood.

Ghilly weaponizing the Blight also all but confirms that yes, the 'darkness' that Andruil brought with her in past codex entries was definitely the blight.

And Solas seems to move a step closer in his plan to move against the Evanuris after a conversation with Ghilan'nain and the action he has to take immediately thereafter to stop it's most immediate danger.

**And since we know that Solas/Rook *free a blighted Ghilan'nain and Elgarnan* [**ghillie is WAY more grostesque of the two], we know that wherever he trapped them, likely the golden/black city, was already blighted when the Tevinter magisters got there. He would have HAD to have trapped the Blight with them, and it would have had to have gotten out at some point (Hi Coryphenus)

Which ALSO ALSO ALSO means that the 'sin' the Chantry teaches of, the blight, was already present in Elvhenan centuries before the magisters sidereal were glimmers in their parents' eyes (and before Tevinter would have worshipped the Old Gods [who are they?], which means we absolutely, for certain, know that at least a portion of the Chantry's version of events and origin of the Blight is wrong. And whoever The Maker is or isn't, they didn't have jack shit with the blackening of the Golden City, lining up with what Coryfish says about it already being blighted when he got there.

And that's JUST from the Solas' hair video.

[the-northern-continent]

A fun headcanon is to read Solas as an on-the-clock pride spirit first, everything else second.

Provoking people into defending their heritage and choices, because even when they disagree (especially when they disagree), someone leaves the conversation more prideful than before. Cavorting around for 10 years leaving eluvians unlocked, villain monologuing, and being Generally Menacing™️ because even if he gets stopped, he’ll be stopped by people who take pride in modern Thedas. Equating contentment to death, until Varric reframes it as fighting against the world’s attempts to take it away.*

If we think of pride spirits as personally prideful, it’s a bit like viewing sloth spirits as personally slothful. It may be situationally true, but it can mask their attempts to make YOU more prideful.

*Solas is not the only one coming out of that conversation with a change in perspective; go ask the viscount of Kirkwall.

[articskele]

I'm so tempted to friend f/o Micolash he's so funny to me