#valammar

[archonfurina]

Valammar.

[selfpossesedghost]

Valammar

Dragon Age Inquisition

[banal-nadas]

— Valammar, springtime in the lost thaig

[danielnelsen]

hrmmmmmm something im having trouble deciding for my solo playthrough is whether or not im gonna let myself do optional quests where a companion is locked into the party......

obviously i have to do main story quests with locked in party members

and ive decided i wont do any quests where you optionally go somewhere with a companion (idk how to explain clearly, but as an example im not doing 'measuring the veil' because i would have to make the active decision to take solas to the hinterlands)

but basically ive just unlocked promises of destruction and if i go to caer oswin then cassandra will be locked in. like she'll have no abilities/attributes/equipment/tactics/etc (like when main story quests have locked in companions) but.........................idk

[roguetrevelyan]

Valammar, The Hinterlands.

tap on gifs if they’re showing up blurry

[dreadfutures]

203 Dragon Age: Inquisition Quests

A prompt list of selected quests, for randomized writing prompts. Please send the number AND say that this is a DAI Quest Prompt when you prompt someone.

The Wrath of Heaven

The Threat Remains

In Hushed Whispers

Champions of the Just

In Your Heart Shall Burn

From the Ashes

Here Lies the Abyss

Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts

What Pride Had Wrought

The Final Piece

Doom Upon All the World

Haven's Best and Brightest

Know Thy Enemy

Mixing Potions

Passing Notes

Piece by Piece

The Right Armor

A Common Treatment

A Healing Hand

A Rare Treatment

A Spirit in the Lake

Agrarian Apostate

An Advanced Treatment

Apostates in Witchwood

The Ballad of Lord Woolsley

Bergrit's Claws

Blood Brothers

Business Arrangements

Conscientious Objector

Deep Trouble

East Road Bandits

Failure to Deliver

Farmland Security

Flowers for Senna

Hinterland Who's Who

Holding the Hinterlands

Horses for the Inquisition

Hunger Pangs

In the Elements

In the Saddle

Letter from a Lover

Love Waits

Master of Horses

My Lover's Phylactery

Open a Vein

Playing with Fire

Praise the Herald of Andraste

Return Policy

Safeguards Against Looters

Shallow Breaths

Stone Dreams

Strange Bedfellows

Templars to the West

The Mercenary Fortress

The Vault of Valammar

Trouble with Wolves

Where the Druffalo Roam

Lost Souls

Beacons in the Dark

Beneath the Mire

Cabin Fever

Holding the Mire

These Demons Are Clever

After Skyhold

Cleaning House

A Glowing Key

Holding the Storm Coast

Keeping the Darkspawn Down

Red Water

Sutherland and Company Missing

Vigilance on the Coast

Wardens of the Coast

Still Waters

Capturing Caer Bronach

Burdens of Command

High Stakes

Holding Crestwood

Homecoming

The Naturalist

Weeding Out Bandits

Wyrm Hole

A Bear to Cross

A Corrupt General

A Deluded Chevalier

A Fallen Sister

A Lover's Promise

A Puppet Master

A Vicious Thug

Chateau d'Onterre

Devotion

Fairbanks' Trust

Fairbanks Patrol Under Attack

Holding the Emerald Graves

Last Wishes

Motherly Encouragement

Noble Deeds, Noble Heart

Not Everyone's Free

Observing the Menace

Safe Keeping

The Freemen of the Dales

The Knights' Tomb

The Tiniest Cave

Victims of War

Watcher's Reach Refugees

Capturing Suledin Keep

A Timely Intervention

Breeding Grounds

Caged Confession

Call Me Imshael

Mama's Ring

Quarry Quandary

Red Captors

Rocky Rescue

Securing Safe Passage

Sifting Through Rubble

Stalker Stalker

Take Back the Lion

The Corruption of Sahrnia

They Shall Not Pass

Turning the Tables

Valeska's Watch

Words not Hollow

A Dalish Perspective

A Familiar Ring

A Father's Guidance

A Well-Stocked Camp

Another Side, Another Story

By the Grace of the Dalish

Calming Victory Rise

For the Empire

From the Beyond

Ghilan'nain's Grove

Holding the Exalted Plains

Lay Rest the Ramparts

Left to Grieve

No Word Back

Pressed for Cache

Scattered Glyphs

Silence on the Plains

Someone to Lose

Something to Prove

The Golden Halla

The Spoils of Desecration

Undead Ramparts to the West

God of Secrets

Runes in the Lost Temple

Ruined Blade

Assault on Griffon Wing

A Manuscript of Some Authority

A Stranger Rift in the Ruins

A Tevinter Relic Hunt

Fortress Squatters

Frederic's Livelihood

Holding the Western Approach

Hunting Patterns

Into the Approach

On the Chantry Trail

Sharper White Claws

The Heart of the Still Ruins

The Trouble with Darkspawn

The Venatori

This Water Tastes Funny

A Prideful Place

The Door in Par'as Cavern

The Temple of Pride

What It's Worth

Shard Collector

Sand and Ruin

The Tomb of Fairel

Field of Bones

Let's Slay the Beast

Ameridan's End

Avvar Allies

The Basin Beckons

Beasts at Bay

A Father's Name

Guests of the Hold

Hakkon Wintersbreath

Hakkon's Trials

In Exile

It Remains to be Seen

Jawbreaker

Lead the Charge

The Loss of a Friend

The Mystery of Winter

The Nox Morta

On Ameridan's Trail

Storvacker Caged

They Came From Somewhere Else

Up and Away

What Yet Lingers

Where Once We Walked

Builder's Towers

Chronicles of Forgotten Wars

The Descent

Exploring the Deep Roads

Holding the Deep Roads

Killing Me Softly

On Broken Knees

Rune-Warded Gate of Segrummar

Sacrificial Gates of Segrummar

A Second Rune-Warded Gate

A Warm Welcome

[drunkenspacefish]

Seriously, nothing manages to make me laugh quite like the solution to the darkspawn appearing in valammar. I cannot fathom the thought process of sealing an entrance made by extremely strong beings who dug an entire tunnel through the wall of pure stone with a few planks glued together. Amazing work.

[greypetrel]

let’s mix it up here, how about ❄️ and 🌈 for the ask meme :D

Hiiiii!

Mh, mix it up, you say?

Ok! Let's go with a WIP for the Fenris AU I... I started to write but never finished. And I honestly don't know whether I'll put an end to it, but it's here. And it's something angsty, ready to be soothed by the second. For the second I'll add a drawing wip, I hope you don't mind! But I'm kinda falling off wips to share, writing wise. x°D (and the ones I have are all angsty?)

🌈 Share something soft/fluffy from your WIP.

Translation:

C: "Ok, if you have so much to say about how light Fereldan beer is, I CHALLENGE YOU. A: "Aaaw! No, come on, I don't think it's necessary… How would you cope with tomorrow's Council?" C: "I insist."

A: "Aaaaaaaah. hiccups This reminds me of that time that bla bla bla I think I'm a little out of shape, ih ih ih! Shall we ask another round, Cullen? You know you have such nice hair? They do look very, very soft, like a halla! 💜

(it's before they got together and if he would have been awake to listen he probably would have collapsed) (in my headcanon, Dalish brew liquors from everything, each Arlathven is basically an excuse to share recipes and introduce youths to drinking. Refusing offered alcoholics is rude, each young Dalish gets absolutely trounced at his first event in drinking age. She' survived attended two.)

❄️Share a snippet from a WIP of your choosing.

A month of less than nothing.

A common ground, by the stable, Aisling taught and Fenris listened and grumbled as he wasn’t able to do something she asked, or she made something look too effortless. It was normal, as normal it could be between them. She knew Radha was looking at them, whenever they were together, and she didn’t mind. A reminder that all they could really have was that. Polite and purposeful, together through circumstances.

Bringing him to Valammar seemed the most logical thing to do. It was for Varric, and they were friends too. She handled the trip in close proximity, carefully keeping her distance. She became good, in the 8 years they were apart, in keeping distances, she could manage it. Even if with him, somehow, it was more difficult than with all the rest. Fenris knew, she didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t sad and struggling and scared. He knew, as well as Radha did.

But, she couldn’t like Bianca, she couldn’t be polite with her. It was like looking in a mirror, without lingering affection. The worse was that the woman wasn’t even sorry, or not sorry how she should have been. Did she knew how many people died? Did she knew that-

“You’re not the one to talk to me about disfunctional relationships and not managing to let people go, ok?” Varric snapped, when she approached him after getting back to Skyhold for some confrontation about it, and she let slip a less than praiseful comment on the smith.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you think it’s a big secret about you and Broody? Because it’s not. Quit it and let him go if you want it, or do not and stay there dancing around the other like you are, dance around Curly as well at the same time. I really don’t care, but whatever you do, don’t you play the moral judge with me and Bianca.”

It hit her. It hit her close to home, and it hurt because she saw the truth in his words. But, she saw the truth in her words too, and if years ago she would have been angry, right now she just felt cold calm creeping in. The same that she called for passing judgements. And as Varric knew where to hit her, she did as well, now.

“At least when I fucked up, nobody died.”

They didn’t speak to each other for the whole week afterwards, and something cracked between them. It was ok, with Aisling. It wasn’t like she allowed herself to make friends anymore, she was ready for things to blew up, and they did. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t taken into account.

All in all, tho, she stopped going to the stables in the morning, and when she practiced with her horse, she just took him out for a walk, on her own.

It was better like that, Varric was right.

She was just the Inquisitor, she could bury her heart something deeper still, and ignore the question in Fenris’ eyes the first time she walked out of the paddock without a word.

It was better like that.

[tozettastone]

I say "I am determined to write stuff over the break!" and then I write stuff but none of it is anything I want to have written.

I have made 6000 words of a modern character in thedas story, but it's just about running away to milk goats outside redcliffe for a decade..?

it's the precarious and very occasionally charmed lifestyle of a ferelden goatherd... wondering when the last frost will be, the tension of dwindling supplies in early spring, killing darkspawn stragglers (and a few from valammar, i guess), the breeding and lactation cycles of goats which cannot be rushed, the low diversity of edible plants for the garden, making cheese, dreams of spirits and demons in the Fade, spinning goat hair into fine fine yarn (finer and finer as the skill improves), burying occasional murdered neighbours beneath the crystal grace and embrium and alyssum, selling three- or four-month kids at the local market because you're a soft bitch and you don't want to eat them after you've made friends...

cottagecore but with darkspawn. at least until the plot catches up.

soothing to write about, but probably pretty boring to read

[dalishious]

Good morning, long-time reader and first-time poster here. Love your analyses and playthroughs. I’m just curious, for your main characters (Da’Renan and Amaris), do you headcanon what happens to the other origins, the ones not chosen to be the Hero or Inquisitor? To give a personal example, my planned Inquisitor is Adaar, so I headcanon Trevelyan as part of the mages in Redcliffe, Cadash as part of the Carta cell operating out of Valammar and Lavellan as still with their clan in the Free Marches

That's not something I've ever really given thought to, no. But similarly to what you're saying, I have given thought to what would happen to my canon characters in my non-canon worldstates. For example, if Amaris never left and ended up as the Inquisitor, she would have definitely eventually run away with her childhood sweetheart of another clan.

[eastern-lights]

I still find it hilarious how both Thedas and Azeroth contain a region called the Hinterlands that is 1. very green 2. home to a medieval England-themed culture (Fereldans/Lordaeronians) 3. full of scattered ruins 4. the location of a dwarven settlement (Valammar/Aerie Peak) 5. FULL OF F*CKN BEARS

[dragon-age-codex-entries]

Codex entry: A Letter from the Carta

“We hired your mercenary organization to facilitate this business venture, not add complications. In order for the Carta to extract the product without attracting undo [sic] attention, the area must be free from observation. If the fighting between the apostate mages and the renegade templars is insufficient, your efforts were to dissuade refugees from exploring the area and interfering with our operation.

We are meeting at our primary base of operations in Valammar to determine the next course of action. At your earliest convenience, send representatives to the location marked, to explain the situation and obtain new instructions.”

—An unsigned letter found in a remote mountain villa

[ammocharis]

Splash of Color - DA headcanon celebration

Splash of Color Saturday Prompt: Tell us about important figures in the history of specific regions, and cultures, in Thedas! Past kings, queens, leaders of empires, and leaders of tribes. Perhaps there are infamous rebels, gentle healers, renowned teachers? Or someone else who has extraordinary importance to your narrative from the past? Let us remember them, here!

Thanks for an awesome prompt @thedasincolor!

Tyrdda Bright-Axe, founder of the Avvar, and Hendir, prince of the dwarves, had a child together. This child became the next leader of the tribe when Tyrdda passed away. What was their name? What did they achieve? How did their parents' heritage affect them? Saga of the Avvar-Mother says little on the matter, so let me spin the yarn further.

The Rise of Heidrun the Wise

The Avvar tribe found itself in a precarious situation after breaking away from the Alamarri and leaving the Fertile Valley. They travelled to the south and west of the Lake of Tears (which became known as Lake Calenhad in the Exalted Age) where Mount Belenas once stood. The mountainous land was a harsh environment compared to the plains they had left behind. Nonetheless, the Avvar set out to make it their new homeland.

On their long journey, the Avvar took shelter from snow in a vast cave. However, they found no safety as their entrance enraged a mighty dragon. Tyrdda managed to defeat it with the help of her leaf-eared lover. Venturing deeper into the cave system, they eventually encountered a group of dwarven warriors led by prince Hendir. He was the heir to the king of the Valammar Thaig.

At her lover's behest, Tyrdda approached Hendir with a proposition of peace. The prince agreed, and the tribe began to flourish. A number of Avvar merchants and warriors were chosen to maintain regular contact with the Valammar Thaig. They started learning the Trade Tongue, which was an artificial language invented by some brilliant minds in the Merchant Caste to improve communication between distant thaigs, as the dwarves spoke a dozen of different languages and dialects at the time.

Tyrdda formed a deep friendship with Hendir. Following her lover's advice to extend her bloodline so that the Avvar tribe could remain strong, she asked Hendir to sire a child with her. When their daughter was born, she was bestowed the name Heidrun, from heiðr meaning "bright" and rún meaning "secret" or "rune". Heidrun spent most of her childhood on the surface, but she accompanied Tyrdda whenever the Avvar-Mother visited the Valammar Thaig. She often joined other emissaries as well, as she was always welcome in the dwarven realm. Heidrun learned the Trade Tongue directly from her father. Her command of the language was excellent thanks to the early start she'd gotten. Soon, she conversed in Trade fluently, even better than Tyrdda herself. She also soaked up a lot of the ancient dwarven language spoken in Valammar.

The link between the Avvar and the Valammar dwarves grew stronger each year. The Avvar brought in goods from the surface: furs, wood, mountain crystals, fresh fruit and vegetables, and so on. In return, the dwarves crafted weapons and armor for the mountainfolk to bear. It allowed the Avvar to strengthen their position and succesfully deter the most zealous followers of Thelm Gold-Handed who still carried a grudge against Tyrdda.

Due to the increased contact with the surface, the Trade Tongue began expanding its vocabulary in order to describe items and concepts that did not exist underground. Roots of these new words often originated from the proto-Alamarri language, which was spoken by the Alamarri as well as the recently established Avvar tribes. Proto-Alamarri later evolved into Alamarri, Avvar, and Chasind languages. The Avvar speech changed the least throughout the ages.

True to her name, Heidrun became fascinated by the runes that were used to record Trade Tongue. She often acted as a scribe to her mother, marking down the goods that were being sent to and from underground. When she stayed in Valammar, she perused her father's ledgers, learning about the deals that went on between different dwarven kingdoms. She had a knack numbers and could always spot an error in the calculations. When Hendir was crowned king of Valammar, he allowed Heidrun to study texts in the Shaperate library.

Heidrun did not inherit her mother's magical gift; in fact, she displayed partial resistance to spells and lyrium, a sign of her dwarven heritage. Her sleeping mind seldom wandered in the Land of Dreams. As a result, she was able to participate in the process of enchantment crafting, albeit for a shorter period of time than dwarven smiths, in order to limit the exposure to concentrated lyrium. Despite this setback, she developed a great skill in enchantment making. One of her accomplishments was designing a pattern that could protect items against the damaging effects of frost.

Tyrdda passed away when Heidrun was a young adult. As it had been planned, the Avvar-Mother's daughter became the next tribe leader. As the only remaining blood kin of Tyrdda, Heidrun had the right to decide what should happen to her earthly possessions. She gave away many of them but decided to keep the most powerful artifacts such as the famed axe. She couldn't use the fire-staff herself, of course. Instead, she intended to store them in a well-protected place so that greedy, corrupt people couldn't put their hands on them, while those who prove worthy may borrow the gifts in times of dire need. She requested help from her father to build a vault where her mother's greatest trophies could be hidden. Hendir readily provided workers and materials to construct the vault.

As a teenager, Heidrun got the idea to adapt the runes for the Avvar language. She created several new symbols to account for the sounds that didn't exist in Trade, and she was tweaking the design over the years. Following her mother's departure to the Lady's domain, Heidrun finalized the idea. The first thing she used the runes for was to write down the Saga of Tyrdda Bright-Axe that the skalds were singing. Then, she mapped out the area south of the Lake of Tears and chose eight places, one for each stanza of the Saga. In those locations, she planned to erect stone stelae that'd be inscribed with the verses. Among the letter symbols, a direction marker would be hidden. Once a determined hero would discover all secret markers, they'd be able to locate the vault. It wasn't the only safeguard that Heidrun arranged, suffice to say, Tyrdda's legacy was exceptionally well protected.

During Heidrun's rule, the Avvar forged peace with the Alamarri. Though it was fragile, no major breach of trust occurred for almost five decades. Remnants of Thelm's followers attempted to revive his cursed dream, but they were decidedly crushed by the joined forces from the highlands and the plains. The two tribes engaged in trade of goods and exchange of ideas. The Alamarri established a connection with the dwarves, following example of their Avvar cousins.

Nearing the end of her life, Heidrun suggested building a fortress on an island on the Lake of Tears. Over the years, the Avvar regained their power, now claiming most of the western shoreline. Heidrun thought it'd be sensible to establishing a vantage point on the lake. Moreover, waters of the lake were believed to possess mysterious power. Heidrun wished to study it more closely. She drew the first draft of the fortress. Soon, construction began, with help from the dwarves naturally. Heidrun lay the cornerstone, unfortunately, she didn't live to see the completion of her project. The fortress was finished several years after her death. It was named Kinloch Hold due to being located near the estuary of the lake, however, the Avvar often called it Bright Hold in honour of Heidrun. The fortress survived almost a millenium, until the Imperium invaded and tore down the hold to construct their skyscraping tower on top of its foundation.

[lairofdragonagelore]

Hinterlands: Minor places

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”] 

Apostate stronghold

This place has not much to offer. It simply shows another kind of mabari torch, this time a female mabari

We can distinguish it’s a female mabari due to the flaccid mamals, she seems to have been feeding pups. On her back there is a spiky pattern that could be related to the spiky style of the wolves we find in the Table of Wolves. What it’s disturbing is her head. A beheaded female mabari, which head is barely kept in place because it’s attached with strips written with runes. Inside the space between her head and body, there is fire.

This stronghold has been taken by rebel mages but the original decoration seems to be mostly Avvar. Therefore I’m partial to consider this mabari as avvar or at least Alamarri. 

Here we find typical Keepers of Fear

And a combination of both statues by clipping one another.

Inserted in this avvar and natural scenario, a Tevinter room appears: here is where the Astrarium final room of this region opens up. For more details see the post about Astrariums. 

Blood Cliffs: Dragon Lair

This region has not much to say either

It’s a place where an excavation was performed, but the presence of the dragon and the dragonlings disrupted the activities.

If we explore the left side of this area, the terrain lowers a bit and we can see something of Avvar making: there are several pillars that we know by comparison with other structures, belong to the avvar/alamarri ruins we see scattered all over Hinterlands accompanied with arcs. 

In the background, hidden by the shadows, we see a cave not too deep, with all the elements we have been seeing in the Hinterlands: two Keepers of Fear, an arc, and a mabari torch which usually is considered ferelden.

Valammar

Valamar is the only Dwarven ruin we find in Hinterland. The entrance is behind a waterfall and it’s considered a lost Thaig, disconnected from Orzammar during the Blights. It used to work as a trade outpost, that’s why it’s so open and close to the surface despite being dwarven.

This looks like pretty similar to Morin’s Mouth in Storm Coast: dwarven posts open to the surface with clear signs of dwarven iconography like these paragon statues, which allow the surfacers to identify the post, approach it, and trade with them in rooms or places hidden from the open sky.

The patterns and symbols used in this Thaig are all familiar and easy to connect with the dwarves.

Typical dwarven rug. I don’t know if this is a mark of influence between cultures, but the Eroded dragon skull has a symbol on its back pretty similar to this squarish swirl. Similar sign appears in the elven artefacts. 

Typical dwarven sarcophagus with nothing special.

In most Thaigs or dwarven rooms we explore in DAI we always find these “stone-paintings”. They also appear in DAO, showing mountains or workers mining the stone. In DA2 they began to depict the shape of the Gallows or Kirkwall. That Varric had this painting in his room in DA2 was of little concern to me. That most dwarven ruins in DAI have it…. Surprises me. And this is not DA2, reusing assets. Their whole book of Art of Inquisition doesn’t stop repeating that they put thoughts and micro-stories in every design detail we find in DAI, so I think they would not use lightly an iconic city as Kirkwall or its Gallows as mere decor. So, this detail is quite a mystery to me. It makes me assume that maybe Kirkwall, or Emerius as it was called back then, was also a place that made dwarves proud enough to turn it into a popular stone-painting. We know the whole city has been built following a glyphs/rune patterns, a process that combined Tevinter and Dwarven ingenuity. 

The design of the doors is intricate and has dwarven runes along it.

In the last room, half collapsed, we find a lot of smuggled objects

Free marches eagles, Orlais vessels, elven wolves and owl statues, Orlais angels, and a bunch of golden frames for paintings.

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

[roguetrevelyan]

Valammar, The Hinterlands.

tap on gifs if they’re showing up blurry

[tangledfate]

Anonymous asked:  ❝  i need you.  don’t you get that?  ❞ - Varric to Eibhi

"That's just it! You don't!" Voice cracking as she snapped at him, Eibhilin frowned to hide the hurt roiling in sea green eyes when they met his. Because fuck him if he was going to see the foolish bloom of hope that the return to Valammar had uprooted. She'd never thought of herself as the jealous type, but it had occurred to her as soon as she'd met Bianca that perhaps she'd simply never had something worth being jealous over.

Stupid.

Catching herself halfway to staring at him, she shook her head; glaring down at the rucksack half packed with every belonging that she had for a moment before tying it shut with an aggressive pull of leather cording.

"You're not going to change my mind about leaving, so just piss off." And she expected that to be the end of it; then he fell into step beside her. No rations, no crossbow, not even a coat to keep him warm as the sun settled low on the horizon.

"You're not coming with me." He smirked at her.

"Yes I am." She paused.

"No. You're not." Rounding the opening of the main entrance, she waited for the guards to open the gate, hiking her pack just a little higher on her shoulder.

"Well, you're leaving, and I'm not done talking." He offered nonchalantly. "So, yes, I am." She rolled her eyes so hard she was sure she broke something, setting off out the gate once it’d landed with a thud; Varric following after step for step.

"Oh, piss off!"