#thedas no magic

[v-arbellanaris]

sorry i WILL shut up about this (and start posting abt my new hawkes) but seeing "can you guys take a breath" and "decisions from 10+ years ago in southern thedas will not affect the current timeline set in north thedas" from specific blogs is genuinely wild. as if we don't literally live in a world where we are STILL just starting to face consequences to actions taken 10+ years ago, and as if US politics 10+ years ago did not have anyyyyy global ramifications for anyone outside of the US even 10+ years later. like. rivain, antiva, nevarra are all IN southern thedas wdym??? im half tempted to start actually listing out all of the things our decisions could have feasibly impacted 10 years later but seeing this take from blogs that genuinely still discuss the impact of the exalted marches on thedas hundreds of years later is WILDDDDDD

[loquaciousquark]

when will eppie hawke and fenris meet tavish and astarion? (:

"And anyway, it won't be that bad. One last little Fade rift. We'll barricade it up as best we can, send a message to Skyhold, go home, and—"

One of the craggy footholds crumbles away beneath Hawke's foot, and it's only Fenris's quick hand that saves her from a plummet back down the side of the barren mountain. "Hawke, please."

"Please yourself. I said you didn't have to come."

Fenris throws her a longsuffering look, the flickering green lightning of the rift casting weird shadows over his eyes, but he doesn't let go of her arm until she's got both feet on solid ground again. "Just seal it and let this be done."

"My heart's only desire, lover," Hawke says, smiling, just as another pair of voices rises from the other side of the rift.

"Careful—careful! It shocks like the entire Hells are in there. Where's Gale?"

"Wherever Karlach dropped him, I suppose, with that little sprained ankle of his. No, I see them, they're almost here. Come away, darling. No need to get so dramatically close."

"This, from you?" says the woman, just as she and her fellow voice round the far edge of the rift. "Oh!"

"Well!" Hawke says almost at the same moment. Two of them after all: a short, slim woman with auburn hair pulled back in a low tail, and a tall, lithe man with hair as white as Fenris's and eyes that gleam like rubies. The man has a dagger drawn already, a thin smile playing over his face; the woman's fingers rest on her sheathed rapier, but her gaze is open, friendly. Hawke plants her staff on the rocky ground in as welcoming a gesture as she can manage. "Fancy running into someone like you up here of all places."

"I could say the same," the woman says. The green rift, still hanging between them and stretching a good twenty feet into the sky, gives an ominous rumble. "Our wizard's been fretting about magical disturbances along the city's borders for weeks. He finally traces the source to this location, and here you are at the heart of it. I'd like to believe it's coincidence."

"Alas," Hawke says, "one of my greatest faults is a terrible habit of being around when things begin. Fenris can attest to that better than most." She lays a hand on Fenris's shoulder, but he's stiff as iron, eyes glued to the man's dagger, and he's reached back for the hilt of his greatsword. "I'm Hawke, by the way."

"Call me Tav."

"And I'm Astarion," the man says grandly, accompanied by a wholly unnecessary flourish of his dagger. "We're here to steal the world."

"Save it," Tav says sharply.

"Of course, my dear. Save the world. What did I say?"

Fenris makes a short, disgusted noise, but Hawke's pleased to see he's let go of his own sword. She doesn't think this Astarion is going to kill them—not easily, anyway—and she likes the look of Tav despite herself. Both of them quick on their feet, she thinks, both moving gracefully with an innate, self-assured balance. As Tav steps around the rift Astarion moves with her like water, without even needing to see where she's gone. It reminds her a great deal of Fenris and herself, actually, though Hawke would give an arm to trust her own feet that much.

Fenris, it seems, has come to similar conclusions, and he rolls his shoulders as he releases their tension. Even his voice has lost its nascent fury, which for Fenris is practically friendly in situations like this. "The rift is dangerous. We will guard it until the Inquisitor can seal it permanently. Be on your way."

"Inquisitor?" drawls Astarion with that same, thin-lipped smile. "Sounds like someone from dear Shadowheart's former enclave, don't you think?"

"I don't think they're Sharran," Tav says. "Are you?"

"What a speculative look you've put on," Hawke says, delighted. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. Unless you'd like me to be Sharran, in which case, I most certainly am and in fact have always been."

Both Fenris and Astarion roll their eyes—hilarious in its own right, but heightened by the clear antipathy still remaining between them. Fenris sighs. "Hawke—"

The rift explodes.

Green lightning shatters over the rocky cliff. The rumble bursts into a deafening roar; the faint breeze that had been dancing around them sweeps up into a hurricane. The air cracks and snaps with a sudden smell of ozone.

Hawke throws her hand over her eyes. She can't see—the wind tears her hair from its bindings and she can't see past the brilliant flashes of blazing green and she can't hear— "Fenris!"

Someone's fingers wrap around hers. She wrenches up her staff, calls for fire—for ice—for anything—but the rift has become a maelstrom and every scrap of magic sucks into the raging whirl before she can shape it. Her boots skid on the stone as she tries to brace against the inexorable pull, pebbles and rocks rattling along every step. She can't—the hand wrapped around hers has seized tight as a vise, but she's slipping anyway, and Maker, she can't—

A man's echoing voice, stripped bare of all artifice, wild with fear: "Tav!"

The wind dies. Not slowly, not gradually; it falls off like someone's upturned a glass over the rocky cliff, and Hawke's ears roar in the sudden silence. The wind is gone, and the rift is gone with it as if it had never been, the thunderous clouds that had been swirling above it already dissipating to glimpses of blue morning sky.

"Andraste preserve me," Hawke says, loud in the quiet, and she looks over to see Tav still crouched against the face of the mountain. One of Tav's hands clutches a dagger she'd wedged deep into a stony crevice; the other is still wrapped tight around Hawke's wrist where she'd pulled her away from the tempest.

No sign of Fenris. No sign of the other one—Astarion. A long white scrape in the stone marks where Fenris's sword had sought and failed to find purchase, disappearing at the precise place where the rift had torn itself open.

Gone. Gone, gone. Her heart hammers in her throat, and she indulges in thirty seconds of agonizing grief before she sets it aside, turns, and pulls Tav to her feet.

"Well," Hawke says at last. "Looks like it's just you and me, then. Ready for an adventure?"

"Yes," Tav says, her grip on Hawke's hand like steel, and her eyes blaze. "You and me. Let's get them back."

—

Everything hurts. Everything godsdamned hurts, and Astarion lets out a pained groan as he rolls to his back and drops his arm over his face. His ears ring like bells, and something twinges painfully in his left hip, and the inconvenient sun has decided to blaze right in his face and gods damn it, he'd known they ought to wait for Gale. Wretched wizard and his weak ankles. Wretched Tav and her complete inability—

"Tav," Astarion says, and sits bolt upright.

No Tav. Not even the dark-haired sorcerer with the wide smile. Just that taciturn warrior in leather and half-plate seated on a rock a few feet away, watching Astarion get his bearings, his greatsword slung across his knees and a deeply sour look on his tattooed face. The skies above them are clear and blue as a song.

No Tav. No Hawke. No rift. No plan, and no company besides an irascible stranger with the same sudden look of dawning horror.

"Venhedis."

"Shit."

[lethalhoopla]

imagine you're getting a rare research-and-liquor-based sleepover with your bestie after you've had to split ways across the continent to further bear the responsibility of entire nations/peoples when your other best friend and the love of his life/literal Champion of a city-state bust in and inform you that yet another Big Bad is in fact Bad At Staying Fucking Dead

or, I finally came up with an excuse to riff on this post:

[defiledtomb]

DREAD WOLF!!!! my life is yours !!!!

[tenojan-in-tevinter]

Love it when mages/spellcasters in stories have slightly otherworldly traits. Unnatural eye colors/pupil shapes, unusual skin tones/hues, sharp/animal like teeth, nails, or ears, fur/horns/scales/feathers where they'd normally have none, etc.

[dragonagehumor]

Back in February I learned that not everyone can taste/smell the liquids when they get an IV. The nurse said it's less common to be able to.

If you've ever had an IV can you smell/taste it?

Dai- In Dragon Age do you think people can smell/taste magic, especially healing magic? Who do you think would be able to and how do you think everyone would feel about it?

*Asks are sent for fun, no pressure to answer within a certain amount of time or at all.*

I had no idea that was a thing! I’ve (unfortunately) had IVs several times by this point, and never smelled or “tasted” anything unusual with them.

As for Dragon Age and smelling/tasting magic... interesting concept. I would think that it’d be more likely for the people of Thedas to sense magic if they’re highly attuned to it, rather than smell/taste it. The question makes me think one of Brandon Sanderson’s books called “Warbreaker”, where characters used their breath (I think it is called Biochromatic Breath) to create their magic. Or even his Mistborn series, where the characters ingest metals to harness their magic.

[themimicontrol]

I am doing atm a RP with my bestie and we are in the Dragon Age Universe. Dekar my OC is a Templar and my besties OC is a mage that just got to the tower of magi.

[amaryllis-sagitta]

(cut for DA Vows of Vengeance #4 and Veilguard spoilers)

So, they basically confirm that there's 2 ways to be "fade-touched" or Fade sensitive as an incarnated person in Thedas:

be a mage,

have heightened psychic senses as a non-mage.

Drayden's backstory asserts that one can have heightened Fade senses without being a mage. This goes in line with hints from DAI where Sera was occasionally shown through banter to sense something in the Breach, but because of her general distrust towards magic she didn't explore it when prompted by Solas.

Nadia Carcosa seems to experience occasional headache and overstimulation, though it's implied to be caused by Elio forcibly thinning the Veil to contact her from the other side.

Another case that seems related to this phenomenon is Lucanis's sensitivity to the Veil and his "itch". Now that the reveal materials confirm that he harbors a demon of Spite, it seems that his Fade sensitivity is related to the possession.

Then, perhaps Drayden also has spirits around them that amplify their Fade sense and sometimes lend them aid - though the vocal description in the audio drama indicates an innate psychic gift.

Then, we come to Flemeth. With her talk about fate in DA 2 and DAI, and since she presumably escaped death between DAO and DA 2 because she was prepared, one suspects she has some kind of a prophetic insight. The recent revelation could imply that:

she is both a mage (who had honed her skills within the Alamarri tradition) and touched with the prophetic gift,

she had the prophetic gift all along but wasn't capable of magic before her merging with Mythal. Perhaps she heard Mythal and listened to her demands because she had the ears to hear.

So, it seems Andraste also might have been affected by the spirit realm in the same, "other" way.

[pinayelf]

Immy’s mission essentials 📖

[ruushes]

where would they like to be buried for ailill?

this is a rly interesting question for him! he would *like* to receive dalish rites but believes himself too blighted to safely bury. at the same time he very much does not want to follow the warden tradition of going to the deep roads to die fighting darkspawn bc 1) he hates the deep roads so so much and 2) he's very afraid that he wouldn't be killed before deteriorating to the point of essentially becoming darkspawn himself

i think if he died without/before any cure for the calling he'd want his body to be burned, since there aren't rly any readily available better options; it's also what he had to do with tamlen's body which would feel right to him in a sort of deranged way

[v-arbellanaris]

here's the thing, right. like. okay, let's take everything up to the title showing up as the 'origin' style opening for dai, where you establish character. but like. literally what about that opening establishes character. you get brought to the chantry in haven where they briefly discuss executing you before declaring the inquisition. you can either begrudgingly support the people who have actively threatened you repeatedly or you can go uwu i'd love to help you guys out im so excited to be working with you. like. hello.

[eye-of-yelough]

i do feel a little bit like im losing my mind sometimes when i see people talk about how they always play mages in dragon age

[beastenraged]

The Chantry from Dragon Age isn't even Fantasy Catholicism. It's all the parts I hate about American Protestantism in a fancy hat.

[attractthecrows]

being a scientist in Thedas must suck like hell man, you're doing a climograph on this region but now there's a bunch of demons & shit messing with the ambient temperature and fucking up all of your data trends. It's supposed to be dry in this region but some Protagonist has cast a weather spell and now it's been raining for a week. You're doing an ecological survey but you can't touch this one magic plant because it makes you explode. The wolf pack you were taking behavioral observation notes on has been possessed by a demon. Physics is more of a suggestion than a universal law. And there's darkspawns.

[alongtidesoflight]

i do think it's kinda funny that bioware is like so hellbent on insisting that for every blood mage there'll come a point where they're pushed to use MORE blood and they'll inevitably end up sacrificing half of thedas to get to their goals as if every blood mage's problem solving skills immediately escalate from well that didn't work out i guess let's try another magical solution that might be literally at my fingertips to BRING IN THE CAPTIVES SO I MAY SLAUGHTER THEM FOR MY RITUAL

[whoisnotmyname]

Kestrel Hawke is a gibson girl