Dragon Age: Inquisition Media Explosion

"I have heard the complaints. Some of you do not understand why we train in a castle in the wilderness when you're to seek out corruption among the masses. You question the Seekers' foresight. Doubt assails you. Why have you come to Therinfal? What can you learn here you could not on your own?

Patience is what you will learn. With no city to distract or tempt you, you will practice. You will fail. You will suffer. And when we are done, you will be a rock upon which demons break.

Now let us begin."

This transcription of a speech by Lord Seeker Alderai to a batch of students beginning advanced lessons is dated 7:70 Storm. The Seekers used Therinfal Redoubt as a training ground until around 8:99 Blessed, when their finances were insufficient to keep the fortress in desirable condition.

- From Notable Fortresses, Castles, Towers, and Other Edifices of Interest in Ferelden by Henry Lannon

The study of the Fade is as old as humankind. For so long as men have dreamed, we have walked its twisting paths, sometimes catching a glimpse of the city at its heart. Always as close as our own thoughts, but impossibly separated from our world.

The Tevinter Imperium once spent vast fortunes of gold, lyrium, and human slaves in an effort to map the terrain of the Fade, an ultimately futile endeavor. Although portions of it belong to powerful spirits, all of the Fade is in constant flux. The Imperium succeeded in finding the disparate and ever-shifting realms of a dozen demon lords, as well as cataloging a few hundred types of spirits, before they were forced to abandon the project.

The relationship of dreamers to the Fade is complex. Even when entering the Fade through the use of lyrium, mortals are not able to control or affect it. The spirits who dwell there, however, can, and as the Chantry teaches us, the great flaw of the spirits is that they have neither imagination nor ambition. They create what they see through their sleeping visitors, building elaborate copies of our cities, people, and events, which, like the reflections in a mirror, ultimately lack context or life of their own. Even the most powerful demons merely plagiarize the worst thoughts and fears of mortals, and build their realms with no other ambition than to taste life.

- From Tranquility and the Role of the Fade in Human Culture by First Enchanter Josephus

What does it mean to pierce the Veil, that which separates our world from the realm of dreams and demons? For the average man and woman, it is a frightening thought to consider just how fragile this separation actually is. The Veil is not a physical curtain, not a structure limited to a particular place—it is everywhere. It is in their home, in the streets where they walk, in farmers' fields as well as remote mountain vales. At any moment it could be torn to shreds, allowing demons and other horrors to flood into our world like water through a burst dam. Known lore tells us that small rifts can be sealed... but what about a large one? What if some catastrophic magical event created a rift so large and horrific, it weakened the integrity of the Veil as a whole? Such a "breach" would threaten our entire world, turning concerns about occasional demonic intrusion into a charming anecdote compared to the monsters we would then face. If there is anything to be done, any reason we should look at magic with fear, it is for that possibility more than any other.

- From The True Threat of Magic by Lady Seeker Alandra Vael

My lord Arl Teagan,

I retired to the Hinterlands for peace and quiet away from the politics, and because the wide open spaces were perfect to let my horses run. Instead, the war between the mages and the templars has turned your beautiful hills into a series of burning battlefields.

The farmers who live in the Hinterlands are good folk. Many of them left Redcliffe village because they couldn't bear to be there anymore, not after the Blight and the walking dead left so many bad memories. Now we've got apostates running around setting fire to anyone who looks at them sideways, and templars looting houses and cutting down those who protest as mage sympathizers.

My wife Elaina sent off our field hands to stay with her family in the east, but there are a lot of poor people here with nowhere to go. We get more refugees every day: this village attacked by mad mages or that farmstead burned to the ground by templars who can't tell a hoe from a staff. I suppose you're stretched thin, but anything you can do to lessen the burden of these poor folk would be much appreciated. I'll do as I can, and if your men need better mounts, say the word.

Best of luck to you, my lord. Remember not to let Duchess puff out her gut when you saddle her.

Yours in service,
Dennet

-A letter from Redcliffe's former horsemaster to Arl Teagan Redcliffe (undelivered)

King Calenhad Theirin once famously declared, "The fate of Redcliffe is the fate of all Ferelden." Certainly, the castle is the first and last defense for the sole land route into Ferelden, and the country has never fallen to any force that did not first capture Redcliffe.

The castle, which despite being three times captured is popularly described as "unassailable," also guards one of the largest and most prosperous towns in Ferelden. Redcliffe village is well situated near the mountain pass to Orzammar and the Orlesian border, and so serves as a center of foreign trade. For these reasons, Redcliffe is accounted an arling despite the smallness of the domain.

The inhabitants of Redcliffe village are primarily fishermen or merchants who ship dwarven goods through the pass from Orlais to Denerim. When the entire village smells of smoked fish on certain late-autumn mornings, the merchants in their finery do their utmost to pretend otherwise.

- From In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar, by Brother Genitivi.