#the executors

[janusfranc15]

CANON TO ME.

meredith and the executors

[corseque]

So I realized today that my computer still works, and so I immediately downloaded Frosty Editor to make a long text file of all of the Veilguard conversation lines, organized by scene and with the speaker of the line labeled. While I did this, I found an interesting VERY LONG SERIES of conversations where Rook was apparently supposed to fight and kill an Executor multiple times. I haven't been paying attention to the Executor stuff, so I have no idea if people know about this, but I tried google searching for several of these lines and could not find them. Now, everything is correct here but THE LINES ARE STILL OUT OF ORDER because I just couldn't be bothered, so keep that in mind. but here's the conversations: ((The Executor character has a description that says: Gender: Nonbinary CharacterDescription: A masked and hooded figure that speaks like someone unfamiliar with language in general. Stilted, awkward, but with a low menace. SpeechPattern: Stilted. Is trying to form words from thoughts that are far more complex than a regular person's.))

The most interesting lines, to me, are the ones where it's apparently talking about the elven gods: Executor : Took his strength. Fought him with yours. Executor : Then the tyrant. The sun. Dimmed by blood. His own. Executor : The ripples joined. Expanded. Extended. Executor : We readied. Consulted. Planned. Executor : You quelled the storm. Stilled the waters. Executor : We felt it. The ripples. They went far. Executor : But we did not move yet. We waited. Watched. Executor : Fought him on his terms. Defeated him on yours.

Executor : And then the wolf. He knew of us. In part. Not in whole. Executor : You changed him. Saved him. With the other. She lingers. Executor : The pattern… continues. Executor : Nearly… enough.

"THE WOLF. YOU CHANGED HIM.... SAVED HIM....."

THAT'S RIGHT, I DID :) I'll upload this file later on after I've had time to look for fun things in it. I thought some people might be interested in this though.

[dragonagegallery]

The Executors - Secret Ending

[julyskyest]

Sorry there are no bipolar meds left for Dankovsky, the Executor brought me all of them

[meganooooooooooooooo]

What is the Devouring Storm?

With this past week's devastating news of post-Veilguard layoffs has pretty much put the nail in the coffin on any future Dragon Ages in the near or far future, if at all, I wanted to discuss what the writers were planning next for the series. Because Veilguard pretty clearly tells you, if you bother to find it. So, going forth will obviously be spoilers, and I hope people who want to make canon-accurate fanworks use this information the way I think the writers intended for us to.

So, the situational post-credits scene reveals that The Executors/Those Across the Sea are finally making a play for Thedas. But why? We've known something has been fishy in Theodas (which is what I like to call The Other Dragon Age Setting) since Origins. But we've never had so much information about what, exactly, might be going on there before.

What do we know about Dragon Age's other continent?

Anyone who has ever tried to travel there has either been turned back or were lost at sea, including Alistair's father, King Maric.

The Qunari travelled to Thedas from there, and were fleeing something. We now know that something is The Devouring Storm, and that they altered their own bodies with dragon blood to try to stop it and failed. Modern Qunari have forgotten this, though they still teach their navigators to watch for it.

In a letter to Bellara from Emmrich, he says the lands across the sea are described as either a verdant natural paradise or full of dead cities.

Aside from The Executors, who are considered little more than a conspiracy theory by most people in Thedas, one other group has made contact: the Voshai. The Voshai are mostly dwarves (but no elves) who used to come to the city of Laysh in the Anderfels to trade. The only thing they came to trade for was magical artifacts, particularly lyrium. There are rumours from the time of the Inquisition that the Voshai have returned to Laysh after a cataclysm in their homeland, but these rumours have not been confirmed.

We know the name of one other place there, Amaranth, but I can't find any more than that.

The Evanuris appear to have used the threat of Those Across the Sea as justification for their tyrannical rule, and at least some of their fear seems to be genuine. In the codex entry "Urthemiel's Shield" it's revealed that the Archon's palace was created at the bidding of the Old Gods (aka the Evanuris) not to shoot at their own people, but to defend against Those Across the Sea.

The Mysterious Circle codex entries describe encounters with Those Across the Sea, both their magic and likely one of the Executors. The Executor's body is described as "changing and shifting" though not in a shapeshifter way, more like their bodies don't know how to hold their own corporeal form.

Notes on a Mystery Substance

Now we come to what I think are probably the most important series of codex entries in the game, Notes on a Mystery substance. There are three of them, found throughout Arlathan Forest.

The gist of these entries is this: Written by the Forgotton One Anaris, it details the discovery of a strange golden substance by one of his subordinates? rivals? (it's not clear but he doesn't like the guy), Atrahel. Anaris runs tests on the substance and finds that provides great magical power but nullifies all other known sources of magic. In fact, he describes it as a "magic that devours all others." Anaris, being an asshole, decides to test it on Atrahel without him knowing. It makes him stronger even than the Evanuris, but alters his personality significantly. Atrahel eventually where Anaris has kept the rest of the substance and consumes it completely. His physical form changes and he essentially becomes the magical equivalent of an atomic bomb, blowing up and destroying himself and any other elves who happened to be nearby. Only Anaris survives, and he runs away before the Evanuris come to investigate.

The Devouring Storm

So, if we take all this information together, I can say with confidence that the Devouring Storm is this magic that devours all other magic. Not only that, but that the Executors have probably consumed all the other magic in that part of the world. And what does Thedas still have a lot of? Magic. Raw magic from the Fade, spirits, lyrium, probably even the Blight. And The Executors not only want it, they probably need it.

This explains a lot of things about what little we know about this part of the world.

The fact that the Voshai are dwarves that have never seen lyrium before would suggest that a. Titans once existed there and b. they have been consumed.

Why the Qunari fled their homeland, their extreme fear of magic, and why they had to make the adaari to fight them. (You can't fight magic that devours all other magic with magic, after all, it only makes them stronger.)

Why The Executors have had a vested interest in the Veil staying intact since the Inquisitor: the Fade would be partially or completely destroyed if it came down, and a not intact Fade is worthless to them. Even if you believe Solas's plan would not have destroyed the Fade (it would though), the Veil would still need to stay up to make it more difficult for The Executors to devour both the Fade and probably the Blight (and who knows what that would do to them).

Why the cities across the sea are described as dead.

If we believe that the many prophecies we've been given are either spirits or sleeping Titans (or both) giving people warnings about this, it explains why: they don't want to get eaten!

Personally, I think this is pretty interesting, definitely much more interesting than the ending credits scene suggests. Does it mean that the Qunari didn't have magic before they came to Thedas? (That would explain a lot). What is a world where nobody at all has access to the realm of dreams like? How the heck are you supposed to fight magic that devours everything?

[thevulturesquadron]

Anyone who claims that the secret ending in Veilguard is disrespectful or nullifies agency in the previous three games is either unable to traverse layered storytelling or is being ignorant on purpose.

I am not sure how someone assumes that it was about mind control or magic when games upon games the fantasy setting in Dragon Age has been a medium for telling stories about the nature of people, about different perspectives, about the dangers of applying singular ideals to a complex existence, about how people and the ways in which they interact shape destinies.

How can you not be excited to learn that there’s a world outside Thedas, that the web is more complicated and that when one wrestles to break the threads it vibrates all the way to the spider letting it know it’s dinner time?

[teamdilf]

On my current Veilguard playthrough I’ve been collecting any crumbs about the Executors, the Devouring Storm and the Forgotten Ones greedily, like a hungry little mouse. I’m struggling with whether the Executors and the Devouring Storm are related (IE the Devouring Storm is a weapon of the Executors). A few notes:

Those Across the Sea are an ancient enemy. There are codex entries concerning efforts to defend or fight next to them during the time of the Evanuris.

I believe there is a reference to the Forgotten Ones fleeing the continent. John Epler in his AMA confirms that Anaris returned to the Void upon his defeat.

The Fade is often described as a sea. What if the Void is “across the sea”?

Anaris found a substance that devoured magic, building in power and eventually causing an explosion that obliterated people into dust - in her translation Bellara was very clear that he used that word. Anaris needs a body to “find succor in the eye of the storm”. He’s terrified of the Devouring Storm - what if it’s because he found it and knows what it’s capable of?

The Horror of Hormak concerns a substance in a lab belonging to Ghilan’nain that bears some similarities to the substance found by Anaris.

The qunari seem to have been created to fight the Devouring Storm and arrived in Thedas when they were fleeing it. What if they were created by the Forgotten Ones, who abandoned their task, finding safety on the shores of Par Vollen?

Since the Devouring Storm consumes magic, what if that’s why Anaris needs a body? Are the Executors the Forgotten Ones and their followers, who seek to return to Thedas now that their ancient enemies are gone? Side note: I’m convinced Vorgoth is an Executor.

Or, are the Executors what remains of the titans (perhaps the humanoid voices of them that remained after they were sundered?)? If this is the case, that would connect them to the Devouring Storm - they wish to use it to consume the magic of the Fade in recompense for their sundering.

Mythal’s “reckoning that shakes the very heavens” never wound up happening, which is a point of frustration, but what if she never meant that to mean bringing down the veil? What if she has some sort of alliance with the Executors who will act out her vengeance?

I’m running on the theory that the Forgotten Ones are manifested spirits who had their emotion burned away by Elgar’nan.

I’m working on a time travel AU which will position the Executors as the antagonists so I’m trying to get a working theory put together. Solas knows more about the Executors than anyone else, according to the Reddit AMA and he warned Charter that they are dangerous in The Dread Wolf Take You.

[beaulesbian]

DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD - post-credit ending scene

???: The storm, quelled. The sun, dimmed. The wolf, defanged. At last. We have balanced. Guided. Whispered. And soon, the poisoned fruit ripens. We come.

[the-northern-continent]

I am smoking up Skyhold’s entire elfroot supply with this one, but:

Are the Executors… save-scumming?

To be clear, I’m not convinced true time travel is possible in Thedas. I tend to think In Hushed Whispers was the illusion of time travel rather than real time travel. The Fade has access to everyone’s dreams, it could create a pretty detailed prediction of the future (or rendering of the past) from all that information.

But for now, let’s polish up our shiniest tinfoil hats and assume IHW was real time travel. That would sort of imply that you could just… do that, prior to the Veil’s creation. If so, why wasn’t it happening constantly? For example, why fight the titans rather than reversing the action that pissed them off?

Presumably, the ritual to perform a large time reversal would be long, difficult and easy to interrupt. Maybe things are kept mostly stable because multiple powerful mages can cancel each other out. The evanuris seem to have benefited from the war with the titans, so they’d be actively canceling out any attempts to reverse it.

Until they got imprisoned. At which point, someone who regretted the war might eventually attempt a rewind. Except that the magic went wild and the Veil extended to cover the whole world, conveniently blocking that from happening. If the Executors also had access to time magic pre-Veil (+ post-Veil if it gets torn down in the future), they could adjust their actions such that they’re never directly interfering with people’s choices, but by a string of “coincidences” they get exactly the result they want. Reloading the timeline until the butterfly flaps its wings at exactly the right moment. A complex ritual, already prone to going wrong, would be a good place to disguise that kind of influence.

Anyway I keep thinking about that lore drop that Solas knows more about the executors than any other living being, and he’s crossed paths with them prior to Tevinter Nights. Why has he, specifically, seen more of them than the other evanuris have?

And since he knows they’re watching, is he doing anything to try to trick them in Veilguard? Are we sure we know the motivation behind all his choices, or is some of it a performance aimed at fooling the Executors?

Also, why is it so interesting to him that Sera experiences déjà vu?

[queenrizzardnthelizardscissored]

VEILGUARD SPOILERS DO NOT READ IF YOU DONT WANT TO BE SPOILED

holy shit this ending is COMICALLY BAD. WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO. this is worse than 'it was all a dream'.

turns out there is a race from across the sea called the 'executors' who are behind LITERALLY EVERYTHING from loghains betrayal to meredith going crazy to bartrand digging up the red lyrium to anders blowing up the chantry to the events of inquisition because they are able to influence people without being there or seeing it. everything about the previous 3 games has been planned by them. NONE of the characters had any agency at all.

every. single. plot decision.

was just mind control the WHOLE FUCKING TIME.

oh also mythal is andraste and turns out the whole religion was bullshit from the get-go. not like. yknow. the mystery of that and the role that religion played in society was more important than the gods stuff. like holy shit. the good part of dragon age worldbuilding was cultural beliefs and the way they influence society, and ultimately magic is just an element of the society that is hotly debated, gods are things that some people believe in, others do not, with statues and churches and multiple religions. and now its just like "every religion was horseshit, and the gods did exist but they were evil, and the actual cultural context of this religion didn't matter." like the valasslin as slave-markings stuff was really interesting to me because of the cultural connotations, how they changed from slave-markings to symbols of a people over time through reclamation and simple loss of rembrance, how they evolved, and then how Solas can only see their initial meaning without understnading that their cultural meanings and connotations have shifted. but no. no. we can't have subtlety in our storytelling. that's too hard.

how the fuck did they screw this up.

some ppl are saying this was the plan all along? can you imagine them writing loghain in DAO, anders and merrill in DA2 while just knowing 'oh yeah btw they actually didnt want to do any of this they were all mind controlled the whole time'? despite giving them actual motivations?

holy shit they fucked this up big time.

[watcher1ngellvar]

Big big spoilers below the cut

Okay so, I was watching Ghil Dirthalen's latest video, which happens to be about the secret ending (link here:

and when she goes over the datamined model of the executor we could have fought, this is what we see:

Does it look familiar to you? Well maybe this is why:

It's Vorgoth.

Okay yes, the executor model has grey cloth, and it has legs, and it's bangles are copper/bronze/some other metal that doesn't fucking matter, but look at them.

Look at them.

LOOK AT THEM.

Core principles: colour scheme aside(and legs), that is the same fucking model. No one knows what Vorgoth is. No one knows where Vorgoth came from. We do know, however, that the resonant timbre of Vorgoth's voice is quite similar to the resonant timbre of the voices at the circles. We do know that vorgoth has a unique speech pattern. Kind of similar to the voices of the executors.

The executors voice lines were directed as, to quote Ghil Dirthalen quoting the datamining, 'someone unfamiliar with language in general'. Could vorgoth's unique speech pattern be from something that has observed the world and language and learned to understand it, but ultimately still began their (potentially millenia-long) existence without the use of this form of communication.

I don't know. I don't do lore discussions. This is my word vomit shitposting blog. I'm way out of my depth here. But I have eyes, and I can see that vorgoth looks exactly like that datamined model.

Anyway, share your thoughts, this is still a vorgoth love blog, and have a great time of day wherever you are.

[thedinanshiral]

Blights

I tasked myself with analizying the Blights to check for patterns. I had already started this ages ago and had a draft or two including a very basic and improvised map to help me visualize the main events in each Blight.

I think i may have found it, the pattern. Everything is all over the place for hundreds of years but it's there.

After making a summary of each Blight and sleeping on it for like a week i started asking questions i frankly don't remember seeing before, in game or by fans. "What are the Archdemons doing, where are they going?". Everything is presented as drakspawn evil, wake up evil Archdemon, rawr destruction, Grey Wardens yay. Rinse and repeat.

But why? Why are the darkspawn searching for, waking and tainting OG dragons into Archdemons? Why are the Archdemons controlling hordes and entire armies of darkspawn advancing over the surface of Thedas? What are they doing, where are they going, what is their goal??

As i considered all these questions and some others, i found myself accidentally realizing several theories and ideas can be weaved into a single, convoluted one that explains everything. I'll try to keep it as short (lol) and easy to read as possible, so keep reading and watch me fail terribly at it (´:

Old Gods of Tevinter.

Who are they? According to established chantry dogma, they were spirits created by the Maker who in their envy, jealousy and whatnot decided to turn their back on them and cross the Veil, into the physical world, where they took the form of dragons and had humans worshiping them as gods. For this grave offense the Maker imprisoned them underground where they allegedly remained for ages until the Blights began.

Origins of the Darkspawn.

Unknown, really, but the Chantry teaches that when the Magisters Sidereal, following instructions from their Old Gods broke into the Golden City to claim godhood and corrupted it, the Maker punished them with the taint, turning them into the monstruous creatures known as darkspawn, who then spread their corruption as the Blight over the world, rotting and destroying everything on their wake.

Many questions come from this. The Old Gods, while imprisoned, continued to be worshipped by the humans of northern Thedas -Neromenians, then Tevinter- as these self-proclaimed gods would reach them in dreams and whisper ancient knowledge to the dreamers, teaching them blood magic as well. With their guidance Tevinter grew into the largest and most powerful empire in Thedas, until one day their gods spoke to them no more. All fell silent, and the Imperium fell into despair; why would their gods not speak to them anymore? Their fears and anxiety left them vulnerable, needy, so when the gods spoke again they not only were relieved, they were wiling to hang on every letter of their words.

And so when their gods made the most outlandish proposal they accepted it. To cross the Veil into the Golden City and claim godhood for themselves per their gods invitation. No effort, and no life, were spared to perform the ritual. Countless elven slaves lives were sacrificed -for their blood had special magical qualities- and almost all the lyrium available in the Imperium was reserved for possibly the biggest blood magic ritual Thedas had seen in many ages.

But as Corypheus, High Priest of Dumat, would much later share, the Golden City was black, corrupted, and the throne of the gods was empty. Yet they still were punished, deformed, blighted and thrown out back into the world to wander and be lost in ever growing madness. This event triggered the Blights, the first one being after the ritual with Dumat risen as an Archdemon with hordes of darkspawn at his command, and the first Blight would go on to last 200 years, with the Archdemon slained multiple times without truly dying until the order born to protect Thedas from him, the Grey Wardens, devised a plan to end him permanently.

So the questions, some of many, could be: Why did the Old Gods stopped comunicating with their priests? Why did they resume communication only to give instructions for a massive ritual to break into the Fade? Why promise godhood and power only to deliver a curse?

Evanuris rebranding.

One of the main theories around the Evanuris and the Old Gods is that they're the same. Both groups have 7 members, and in several cases by their names or attributes and even constellations associated with these deities, it's almost imposible not to see an equivalence between them. Both groups are imprisoned. Both groups are related to dragons. I already wrote on this here but in short:

Imagine the Evanuris had dragon mounts or vessels that they're connected to and control via a piece of their soul implanted in the creatures. As physical beings the dragons remain on the ground. Yes, they were shapeshifters too, but the codex about a servant taking on the dragon form reserved for the gods strikes me as very odd; if even servants could shapeshift to that degree, why did the Evanuris allow them to even have the remote possibility of shapeshifting at all? That story sounds more to me like that servant "borrowed" a dragon and took it out for a ride, the expression is "took wings" and the servant was convinced -if not forced- to do it by Ghilan'nain.

These dragons would have caretakers assigned to them, and when the Veil was created severing the connection between the Fade and the physical world, they must have been cut off from everything. Underground, for millenia, left to decay, left in proximity to or even inside Titan remains that without the control of the Evanuris may have corrupted them. Or maybe these dragon forms were already corrupted by the taint, as Andruil had already caught it in the Abyss and spread it everywhere.

Maybe some of the Evanuris were already blighted and either didn't felt affected by it then or the taint, much like how red lyrium works, made them feel stronger as it consumed them. Maybe Andruil's madness had spread to the others and that's why they had become so warlike and had become a menace to their own people. So Solas imprisoned them in the Fade, most likely under several different barriers, and created the Veil at great cost to everyone, to the whole world. For ages the Evanuris slumbered in their prison, until maybe they recovered just barely enough to try to reach out, and when they did all they could reach out to were the humans that had been building an empire on the remains of their own. But a dreamer is a dreamer, and a human easy to manipulate. Now imagine the Evanuris, under a new identity as Old Gods, essentially groomed Tevinter for hundreds of years for the sole purpose of them reaching a point in power and resources that would allow them to perform a ritual to let the Evanuris out.

Remember the ancient elvhen could develop spells through hundreds of years, in their inmortality time was barely perceived and so their way of planning could afford all the time in the world. So the Evanuris did that, they played the Imperium, ghosted them to make them desperate, and instructed them to release them without them knowing it.

Prison Break.

As it was designed to keep them in and was sealed from the outside they couldn't open the barriers from the inside, they needed others to do it for them, and those others were the Magisters Sidereal.

It's likely that to imprison such powerful beings Solas put up more than one barrier, so maybe the Magisters only crossed one, the Veil, and thought they had found the city empty. But this opening in the Veil must have been enough for one of the Evanuris to take effective control of one of the dragons underground, "Dumat".

Maybe -most likely IMO- there was no Maker punishing the Magisters Sidereal for their sin but it was the Evanuris spreading their own disease on to them, marking them forever as their new servants, casting them back into the world and condemning them to an existence devoted to releasing their dragon vessels so they might at least in part escape their prison in the Fade taking on their wings.

The OG dragons being the Evanuris mounts or vessels preserving a fragment of their souls would add to explain why Solas was so against the Grey Wardens' plan of preemptively killing the remaining OG dragons, or what Flemythal was doing at the end of Inquisition with Urthemiel's soul, sending it through an eluvian. Was she sending it somehwere else to keep it safe, or was she sending it into the prison, to return to its owner?

....But all this was supposed to be about the Blights! Getting there..

I first summarized each Blight, then with that info i took the map of Thedas and tried to visualize three key points: where darkspawn and Archdemon appeared, where they moved to, and finally where the Archdemons where slained. Because some Blights have been way more chaotic than others and they vary greatly in duration (compared the first lasting 200 years while the fifth lasted barely a year), the pattern wasn't immediately obvious.

Apologies in advance for these disasters..

The First Blight (-395 Ancient) had darkspawn overrun the Deep Roads first, and this is a constant in every following Blight: darkspawn in the Deep Roads. Always. The Dwarven kingdoms are the most affected. A few years later in -380 Ancient they reach the surface and the hordes advance over western Thedas

There's a battle of Nordbotten in the Anders where the newly founded Grey Wardens finally get a victory, but it would take them a long time to find a way to kill Dumat permanently -as the Archdemon was jumping from its slained body into the closest blighted creature over and over again until the Wardens caught up and came up with the Sacrifice that has since then become THE way to eliminate Archdemons -. The final battle and definitive death of Dumat took place in the Silent Plains. Afterwards it was a matter of pushing the remaining darkspawn back into the Deep Roads.

The Second Blight began in 1:05 Divine and lasted around a century. Darkspawn began appearing in the surface from the Hunterhorn Mountains in the Anderfells, eventually reaching the city of Hossberg and later laying a brief siege on Minrathous where the darkspawn were defeated. Other hords moved south into Orlesian territory, the battle of Cumberland ending in victory against them. Weisshaupt was also layed under siege but recovered by Orlesian forces. Meanwhile more darkspawn surfaced in Ferelden only to be defeated and pushed back by Alamarri tribes unified under a leader who would later become the first teyrn of Ferelden. More darkspawn also poured out of the Abyssal Reach in the Western Approach, which explains the Warden presence in the area and all the fortreses they built or made use of like Adamant Fortress.

Eventually around 1:95 Zazikel was slained in Starkhaven.

The Third Blight (3:10 Towers) was under the Archdemon Toth and with most of its activity around the central area of Thedas.

Darkspawn presence on the surface spread from north to south of central Thedas, hitting specifically Marnas Pell and Vyrantium in Tevinter, the city-states of the Free Marches along the Minanter river, and Churneau, Arslesans and Montsimmard in Orlais. As the Darkspawn advanced East over the Free Marches, Toth was slained in Hunter Fell in Nevarra in 3:25 Towers

The Fourth Blight (5:12 Exalted) is the most curious so far, in terms of darkspawn presence and movement on the surface.

On top of the darkspawn hitting the Deep Roads all over Thedas as usual, this time in particular attacking Orzammar, different hordes surfaced in opposite sides of the continent. Darkspawn appeared in the surface on the Anders in the northwest as well as on the northeastern coast, taking over Antiva city, reaching over Rivain, and also Wycome. Darkspawn over the Free Marches moved west, which i find a bit odd as the archdemon Andoral was moving from the Anders in the opposite direction (maybe they meant to meet halfway?). Hossberg was sieged once again, and darkspawn advanced over Marnas Pell, again. There were some minor incursions on Orlesian territories but Orlais quickly pushed them underground. Andoral was finally slained in Ayesleigh.

Lastly we have the Fifth Blight (9:30 Dragon) that we all know and adore..not. The shortest in history, so short it seems pointless..

It affected Ferelden, particularly Ostagar, Orzammar, Redcliffe, Lothering, Denerim..Lasted but a year, and Urthemiel was defeated just outside of Denerim.

Now, where's the pattern? The easiest one is Blights are becoming shorter each time. They've lasted, i order, 200, 90, 15, 12, and 1 year; if this tendency is sustained the next Blight might last just a couple of months..

Then I noticed, checking the final battles..

The Archdemons have been going East the whole time. And the Darkspawn activity moving south into Orlais repeatedly was very likely in an attempt to awaken more Archdemons, one known to be in the Western Approach (the circle south of Ferelden is where i think Razikale could be but there's no real evidence of this, just her cult moving south from Tevinter searching for her, as seen in the ruins of the Frostback Basin).

So the darkspawn never stop. They're always in the Deep Roads, surface when an Archdemon wakes up and follow their command while a portion of them keeps trying to go south of Orlais. And meanwhile, the Archdemons continue to try to go East.

Why? Maybe they know what lies across the sea. And this pairs up nicely -too nicely- with this idea i got about the Executors being Evanuris loyalists, perhaps a remnant of Elvhenan on the other side of the Amaranthine Ocean who have been working on the outside; nobody knows what and everything about them is a near complete mystery.

From their notes to the Inquisition we can tell they do have a certain power, i suspect it could be some form of mind control because how else can complete strangers convince everyone in an outpost to just ..join them. Leave the place abandoned, no signs of struggle, of violence, people just ..gone. The Executors claim they "prepare for the day and hold vigil", heavily imply they know what's coming and say not to look for or mourn the lost people for "they have given themselves of their own will to a higher cause". What could be a higher cause than the Inquisition's at that time?

In Tevinter Nights Solas prevents us all from learning what the Executors have learned about him, as he petrified the one present in that meeting, and later warns Charter of the danger they represent. Knowing the Inquisition is so close behind him and having the almost certainty that they won't be able to stop his plans, just what was so dangerous about what the Executor had to share about him? Solas is now a very powerful man on an apocalyptic mission for which he's willing to sacrifice even his own life, but the Executors are too dangerous? Suspicious.

An executor is someone charged with executing someone's orders. Whose orders? Not to mention Solas doesn't kill lightly or without good reason. I try to imagine just what sort of power could make him do that, when right now he is the most dangerous man in Thedas those across the sea couldn't be worse than him on his Dinan'shiral...could they? Maybe if the ones they follow are the ones he imprisoned.

In the Thedas Calls trailer just as we're shown the Rivaini coast the voice says "Glory to the risen gods, they've come to deliver this world". Who would say that about Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain escaping from the Fade, if not their loyal subjects?

Aaand that's all for now, thank you for your patience in reading this far!

[thatgaymerguyb]

Work In Progress Wednesday

A preview of the next part of my series with Rook and Davrin.

                 Rook could feel the crackle of magic in the air, barely having enough time to pull up a barrier around them as the man before them threw a huge ball of lightning at them.  He could tell the blast was targeted at the Inquisitor.  This was Hawke and his magic had become unchecked after being in the fade for so long, the attack took down Rook’s barrier with little effort. 

                 “Hawke stop! We’re here to take you back!” yelled Cadash as they jumped up from the table.

                 “There’s nothing left to go back to!”  The building around them seemed to flicker to whatever their true surroundings were as Hawke walked toward them a fireball forming in his hand. 

                 “Look out!” Rook warned just before the attack was let loose.  Rook and Davrin jumped out of the way of the attack but the Inquisitor pulled his greatsword quickly using the blade to block the flame.  Rook could see the fire singe the bits of cloth that hung from the Inquisitor's armour.

                 “Hawke don’t make us do this, we can get you out of here!” Cadash patted at the fire with his prosthetic.  “You have to trust us we need your help!” 

                 “Convenient,” growled Hawke.  Again the house around them changed briefly back to the fade, Rook catching a brief whiff of the sulphur that had plagued them when they arrived.  Hawke slammed his staff to the ground and a burst of fire travelled along the ground at Cadash.  Davrin dove and knocked him out of the way before dodging the attack. 

“It’s no use, he won’t listen,” said Rook taking his staff in hand. 

“Then we’ll just have to beat it into him,” said Davrin holding up his shield.

“That may not be as easy as you think,” said Cadash getting to his feet. 

Hawke narrowed his eyes and flipped his staff around like a baton, it began to glow red as he spoke as did his eyes.  “It most certainly will not.”  Rook pulled at the cold of the fade and sent a blast of ice hurling at Hawke along the ground when he held out a hand and made a fist stopping it several feet before it hit him.  Davrin ran in and Rook began pelting the man with bolts of fire from his staff as a distraction.  Cadash followed Davrin into melee just as Davrin engaged Hawke hand-to-hand, starting with trying to bash his staff from his hand.  Cadash tried a leg sweep with his greatsword trying to knock down his opponent but he was too aware easily jumping the blade while still engaging with Davrin. 

“If you could just get it through your head,” grunted Davrin.  “We’re trying to help you!”  Davrin pressed with everything he could his shield clanged to Hawke’s staff as they stared each other down.

Link to the most recent part is here!

If you wanna start from the beginning start here!

If you prefer Wattpad that's here!

What's everyone else got goin on?

@master-of-the-elements @gingervitus @mythals-whore @serstolas @gaysebastianvael @biowaredisasterbisexual @blackwall-my-tiny-husband @becausedragonage @hyperions-light @davrinsleftpectoral @thedissonantverses @imrowanartist @megaeratheefury @rooks-dagger soft tags of course :)

[meganooooooooooooooo]

WHOA if you change the decoration in the Lighthouse to the Dwarven one you get a codex entry I have never seen before and it might be the most compelling one about the Executors that I've found so far!!

Update: Now with screenshot for the curious!

[amaryllis-sagitta]

So, where is the "secret ending" at?

This shit almost looks like some planetary alignment. We've already had Elgar'nan hasten a moon somehow to trigger the eclipse (???), but originally the gods were waiting for a celestial alignment. They needed the magical properties of an eclipse.

This kinda messes with the series' approach to the role of the hero. So far, we've had individuals rise to the occasion, however they could under their circumstances. That the Executors are actively scheming kinda shifts attention to the Kairos (the critical timing) itself and brings in a more fatalistic feel, through this supposed convergence of events into what comes next.

Yet, if we review the plot while looking at all the slides showing their influence, they mostly seem to have had an interest in the Blight.

FIve (?) priests by an altar with human sacrifice under the image of the Golden City, and the Tevinter sigil on the left - that's supposed to represent the Magisters Sidereal. They broke into the Black City, now revealed as a "quarantine zone" for the Blight. The goal might have been to free it all, but only a fraction of the Blight returned with the magisters to the world as a result. According The Dread Wolf Take You, Fen'Harel has recently thwarted another attemptto break into the Black City.

The Blighted Evanuris, imprisoned in the place of Regret, tried to control darkspawn in the world, gathering them around their Archdemons. Humanity devised a way to kill the Archdemons, and the order of Grey Wardens guarded the secret recipe and carried out the duty. Four Blights were ended with their respective Archdemons' deaths, rendering the bound Evanuris "mortal". As a result, most Evanuris might have withered away in their prison since.

It turned out that Grey Wardens kept Corypheus, one of the Magisters Sidereal, imprisoned under the Vimmark Mountains. They hired an apostate named Malcolm Hawke to renew the wards on the prison.

The Fifth Blight begun, and during the first battle of Grey Wardens aided by Ferelden and the local Circle of Magi, Teyrn Loghain ordered the retreat of his forces from Ostagar. As a result, Fereldan Grey Wardens were almost wept out. The family of THAT Malcolm Hawke was driven out of Ferelden.

Flemeth had to send her daughter and future vessel of Mythal, Morrigan, on a mission to accompany the remaining two Grey Wardens of Ostagar (and, as we learn later, to find an opportunity to carry out the Dark Ritual and purify the Old God's soul through an "Old God Baby". Thought that state was discarded in DATV). With Morrigan's defiance and drive to learn her mother's secrets, Flemeth was killed in her dragon form... or something else happened to her that prompted her "respawn" at the Sundermount in DA 2. In retrospective, there's a feeling that Flemeth being weakened somehow mattered here, and that Morrigan might have been sent away from the Korcarri Wilds as... a means of protection.

Flemeth's weird conversation with Hawke about fate and a leap into the abyss hints that she foresaw Hawke's role in The Plot. Hawke was taken to Kirkwall, where they looked for odd jobs as an immigrant and ended up going on a treasure hunting expedition in the Vimmark Mountains...

The red lyrium idol had lied dormant under the Vimmarks, inside a Titan's corpse, the presumably first discovered vein of blighted red lyrium. With DATV reveals, it doesn't seem like a coincidence that Flemythal checked up on the Dalish who lived in the area and probably also other things.

The Tethras Brothers' expedition with Hawke onboard found the idol and Bartrand stole it, having his mind twisted in the aftermath. Bartrand eventually sold the idol off to a woman who turned out to be Knight Templar Meredith Stannard herself, whose reign of mage terror and paranoia was likely fueled even further by red lyrium. These events snowballed into the doom of Kirkwall and were a major contributor to the outbreak of the Mage-Templar war.

Hawke pursued the trail of their father, and they discovered imprisoned Corypheus. Despite Hawke and Varric thinking they defeated Corypheus for good, he sneaked out, having hopped into one of the Grey Wardens present at the site.

Around the year 9:40, Fen'Harel decided he must re-join the world of living, regain his powers, and tear down the Veil ASAP. He set now-freed Corypheus onto the trail of his Orb of power. Corypheus chose the Conclave, called by Divine Justinia Vth in Haven to end the mage-tempalr war, as his opportunity to tear the Breach in the sky and return to the Black City. With the ritual interrupted by the future Herald of Andraste, Inquisition's events ensued. Fen'Harel joined the Inquisition undercover to grant them resources of his former rebellion and nudge it towards success, as he needed someone else to kill Corypheus and let him close enough to his Orb.

In the secret ending, Flemeth is shown in a slide next to Corypheus and the Breach. And we realize that, once again, Flemythal was weakened. After defeating Corypheus, it turned out that Fen'harel's orb got destroyed, and that he could not recover his powers from it anymore. In the DAI post-credit scene, he admitted his mistake of giving his Orb to Corypheus to Flemythal, and she offered him her powers (the final statuette mural in Lighthouse seems to lend this scene a tone of underlying conflict or reluctant consent on Mythal's part, rather than apology and sorrow). Flemythal with experience of entire centuries was no longer an actor in history, even if Morrigan salvaged her legacy and whatever memories of Mythal she could.

The red lyrium idol, now imbued into the red lyrium husk of Meredith, got stolen. Through trickery described in The Assassin's Tale in The Dread Wolf Take You and the intrigue of the comic books from Knight Errant to Dark Fortress, the idol found its way back to Fen'Harel's agents. It was purified into Solas's dagger, as recognized by Rook's vision of Varric in DATV.

According to Luck in The Gardens from Tevinter Nights, an eldritch being named Cekorax haunted Minrathous at some point. It was neither from "this world" nor from The Fade. It had very Void-y things to say about embracing peace in blindness.

Fen'Harel abandoned the Inquisition after Corypheus's defeat. Ten years of distractions, double crossing factions, planting his agents and work undercover followed to ensure the success of his plan. During a crucial meeting of spies at the Teahouse, he made an appearance in disguise, among agents who want to share intel... about his plans specifically. And an Executor was among them. Fen'Harel killed several birds with one stone: petrified the Executor before they revealed to others what they knew, killed the Carta assassin and the Mortalitasi. The agent of the Inquisitor begged for her life, and Fen'Harel granted it - but not before sending Charter away with a warning about the Executors. He also hinted that a greater threat to "all existence" urges him to carry out his plan no matter what.

Varric Tethras established a new network of connections that eventually discovered Fen'harel's hideaway in Minrathous in the nick of time, just as he was moving the remaining two Evanuris to a new, more stable prison before taking down the Veil for good. Rook, informed solely by Varric so far, makes a quick call to interrupt the ritual while Varric tries to talk Solas down. Events of Veilguard ensue. Having swapped with the Evanuris in the Fade prison, Fen'Harel grants the Veilguard the resources of his former rebellion and nudges Rook towards success, as long as it benefits him. He needs someone else to dispose of the Evanuris for him and get his ritual dagger back.

The Veilguard learns about the origins of the Blight and Mythal's and Fen'harel's involvement in it. In retrospective, Mythal commissioned a weapon that would stop the Titans from retaliating for the elvhen firstborn stealing lyrium to make bodies for themselves. By tearing the Titans' spirit essence ("dreams") from them, Mythal corrupted them, which spawned the Blight. Mythal buried the secret of the Blight and tried to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

But some people might have found the Void of their own accord and splintered from the Evanuris. These were erased from history and deemed the Forgotten Ones. When Elgar'nan usurped all the power, Mythal turned her back on Fen'Harel to be closer to Elgar'nan instead, where she assessed she was more needed as the gods' Peacekeeper. Ghilan'nain joined the Evanuris in her pursuit of an ultimate transgression. Fen'Harel stepped at Elgar'nan's ego so effectively that the Evanuris wanted to embrace the blight to defeat him???? Mythal gatekept the knowledge again, so Elgar'nan got rid of her. [I'm not sure of this part to be fair, I'm probably missing something. DATV Act 2 was terribly hazy for me]

This prompted Fen'Harel to carry out the Great Betrayal, lock out the Evanuris, and quarantine the Blight in the Black City. The Veil, kept up by the Evanuris's own life force, was established together with the Black City, but it also pulled all the celestial spirit essence to stick to one area, which became the modern Fade. Thus, the Great Betrayal weakened the world's magic and doomed the elvhen race to the Quickening. It seems that Fen'Harel did not expect the full extent of the Betrayal's consequences, and the Veil was doomed to slowly deteriorate on its own anyway. As we learn, the Archdemons being killed in their respective Blights likely led directly to other Evanuris' demise. Fen'Harel feared the Wardens preventively killing the remaining Archdemons in DAI because, before taking all the "precautions" and preparations between DAI and DATV, he must have expected this to abruptly end BOTH "veils" and make the Black City burst open.

The Veilguard slays the two remaining Archdemons and two remaining Evanuris, and no matter the outcome for Solas, he is bound with his life's blood to keep the Veil up - by choice, by trickery, or by force. Wardens near Hossberg hint that the Blight might have started to respond to some other "song", that Antoine sensed underneath the Archdemon/ Evanuris song.

In his "good" ending, Fen'Harel vows to do whatever he can to soothe the sundered Titans' blighted dreams, though he cannot heal it completely. Still, his Dinan'Shiral is far from complete.

CONCLUSION: The Executors seem to show keen interest in the quotient of the Blight in the world, its power, its gatekeepers and its enemies. They might try to snatch control over the Blight once it has started to sing "something else" than the Evanuris. And thanks to a cascade of events that led up to DATV, the Taint is virtually everywhere. Its greatest gatekeeper Flemythal is no longer active and Morrimythal isn't nearly as experienced and competent to fend off cosmic threats. Fen'Harel has been bound to fuel the Veil.

PERSONAL TINFOIL THEORY: The Blight channels whatever is the strongest currently manifest will of the Void. First, it was the corrupted spirit/dreams of the Titans themselves, then, the Evanuris used the Blight as a weapon and made the Archdemons their proxies in the Blight's "song", now it can be the Executors, or the returning Forgotten Ones. Perhaps the Black City has formed a will of its own, even - the Blight eruptions we dispatched across Hossberg Wetlands seemed to be eerily more intelligent than the "regular" Blight.

[thevulturesquadron]

I can’t wait for the moment when it’s revealed that humans come from the ‘secret forth option’ - wherever the Executors are from and whatever foul thing humans were running away from (or carry with them). Let's see:

there are both elven and dwarven sources that confirm that there was a time with no humans in Thedas;

no mention of them prior to the creation of the Veil;

they came from 'the archipelago' in the north but no proof that's where they originated from. Knowing what we know now from Veilguard I'd say that their history, the qunari's and this Devouring Storm are VERY much connected. I need a new Dragon Age game SO badly. SO SO much lore and so many possible stories.