Rakshasa in a Top Hat

Veilguard has its secrets, this essay contains spoilers for Harding's canon loyalty quest line and the a side quest into the Dread Wolf's motivations. I incorporate those secrets into this writeup but I do not take them exactly as written. Solas is an unreliable narrator and I walked away from sections of Harding's loyalty mission in disgust. Thus if you played Veilguard you might recognize some of what you find here but it won't be exact.

Because I am an Eldritch Horror writer and I would like to thank Issac Arthur's Cosmic Megafauna: Could Giant Alien Lifeforms Exist? video for the delightful inspiration as a mountain walks or stumbles.

Entire essay under the cut for spoiler purposes

( Read more... )

Every Circle mage has their own verse.

Every mage who's spent time in a Circle has crafted a Verse. Even Ostwick, though the practice began to fall out during the height of the Ostwick Solution, the practice of drugging mages into obedience with daily doses of magebane.

Which means I need to have written Verses for every mage, correct? Of course. What kind of obsessive rakshasa do you take me for?

Dragon Age Veilguard earned a verse despite taking place ten years after the Circle of Magi was dissolved. This worldstate's canon Rook is a feathered mage, a mage of the Southern Circles who directly credits Anders and Vengeance with their freedom. After the Inquisition, there were those feathered mages who took on plural pronouns as a sign of respect for the abomination who freed them all.

These are Rook's verses

( Read more... )

Underwear is an Orlesian Invention.

Of course the real reason why underwear in the Dragon Age games is because the inventory screen and sex scenes. We can't have utter naked in a game no matter how rated M for Mature those games happen to be. The closest to actual naked was the mythical Iron Bull cock lovingly rendered as a haze the animators went through for shits and giggles. The images were posted and then lost a decade ago but that was the closest we ever got to full frontal anything in Dragon Age.

Respect to Inquisition for its butts, though.

So why do I say underwear is an Orlesian Invention...

Ferelden had just gotten over being conquered by the time DAO is played. They're still shaking off the lingering issues of Orlesian occupation, including this introduction of smallclothes. It's more prevalent in Circles and the Chantry, both of those being heavily Orlesian-influenced institutions.

We never see anyone nude or close to it in Dragon Age 2, though the implication of Isabela is a complete lack of panties. While this could be an argument in favor of her being a whore, I instead look to an alternate solution. The only two individuals I've written in their underwear in my DA2 fics were a Fereldan and a Chantry Brother. Both wore smallclothes, though Sebastian also kept his shift on for modesty. The shift, which I've written around everywhere by now, is an undershirt meant to protect the clothes from the skin beneath and vice versa. Part of the shift's job is to be folded beneath the trousers to act as underwear, to protect the bits and butt from chafing against the inside of the trousers.

The only people I've written wearing their trousers against the skin have been those who would have been used to the concept of smallclothes.

Thus I can safely say... Outside of Orlais' influence, nobody wears underwear. Just a shift.

How often doth'ou dine upon death?

It was an accusation of gluttony spat in the face of Goran Vael as he fell upon the steps of the Royal Palace of Starkhaven. They were the last words whispered to him by Sebastian Vael as Sebastian held the knife to slit Goran's throat. Blood spilled upon the steps of the Royal Palace, blood eagerly drank by the Birds of Starkhaven while the people cheered and accepted the Birds' endorsement.

It was an accusation of tyranny spat in the face of King Ironfist as he fought for the throne of Starkhaven. They were the last words whispered to him by the eponymous Lord Vael as Vael held the knife to slit the king's throat. Blood spilled upon the steps of the Royal Palace, blood eagerly drank by the Birds of Starkhaven while the people watched in utter horror before acquiescing to the power of Vael and his three favored Royal Cockatrices.

How oft doth'ou dine upon Death?

( Read more... )

Because multiple series of mine, past and present, include or involve immortality.

In the Shadow Over Atlantis, immortality was hinted at but never actually approached. Rodney McKay as the Mother Hydra of the Heretic Nest of Deep Ones would be immortal. Visions of the future were invoked, surrounded by the Deep One children and grandchildren of his friends. Their deaths were both harder and easier, harder because those around him would remind him forever, easier because those descendants would be there to remind him forever.

In Lady of the Void, Lady Iaso was a nigh-immortal goa'uld who imprinted her memories upon Caldwell's brain before she was forcibly extracted. That series explored and would have continued to explore how a personality is little more than applied memories and how Caldwell slowly lost himself to the weight of five thousand years of memories. He would be alive but how much of that brain and its memories were truly him anymore? This became a blessing for him as he's not a... stable man. He didn't have much left to live for. Immortality wasn't worse than death, it was so much better than living.

In the Dragon Age Worldstate, spirits don't die. Nor do abominations, if they're allowed to live. There's little bits and bobs of immortality all over that worldstate. Justice is only the start.

And in the Eldritch Stardew series? Immortality is... It can be perfect, honestly. The series is those involved coming to realize that.

Chicken Soup

Previously I've mentioned Starkhaven's favorite heresy, On the Birds of Starkhaven. Such a heresy leads to certain cultural demands surrounding their sacred animals. Especially as it comes to a food animal.

It is fair to say that most people in Thedas have never eaten a modern chicken. Eating a chicken is a waste of resources, a waste of all the eggs that such a bird would lay over her lifetime. Capons, neutered roosters, make up the bulk of your meat birds. Capons are by their nature larger, meatier, stronger tasting than a modern broiler hen. They're also expensive. A chicken soup or stock or a roasted or boiled bird wouldn't be seen outside of a wealthy household. Whether that's a rich merchant's family or a noble household, does not matter. The only exception would be a hen too old to lay, but also too tough and gamey to be eaten whole. Such a bird would be boiled in strong wine, which is the origination of the very real dish Coq au Vin, and a lavish dish for any farmer's wife to serve on a feastday.

So what about Starkhaven? How does declaring one's chickens to be sacred animals change how they're eaten? Does it change anything?

Actually yes.

Old hens are still culled, as are injured or sick birds. Such a chicken killer would be appointed by the Crown, a professional murderer marked with uniform and cloak and hood and badge. Respected and shunned by society, this is a man who's job is to take lives on the order of the Crown. A professional assassin. Possibly an actual assassin kept in the Crown's employ since a man's life is worth no more than a chicken's.

But what happens to the bodies?

The birds are owned by the Crown but it is a mandate that all products derived from these chickens are free for use by the people of Starkhaven. This means if you pick up an egg it's yours. Chicken dung is gathered by a whole guild of gong farmers who then sell the dung to actual farmers on the banks of the river to fertilize Starkhaven's bountiful fields. Shed feathers are collected by milliners and hatters for incorporation into the beautiful hats that Starkhaven is most known for in the fashion sphere. And the bodies of the slain are rendered into the richest, thickest chicken broth.

Most natives of Starkhaven, elves and the poor and middling sorts, will only ever taste this broth while ill. It's prescribed as a restorative, as a cure for small ailments, to rebuild after injury. As one climbs the social ladder, though, one can acquire this broth more frequently. It becomes a broth for special occasions, a dirty secret of the noble dowager who drinks it to stave off age, a ration for the upper echelons of the army.

Until you reach the pinnacle of society. The Birds of Starkhaven are owned by the Crown. Thus only the Crown has the right to keep a flock of capons. A roasted or boiled capon on the table is a sign of immense favor, a flaunting of wealth as strong as a pineapple or a portrait or a display of gems. A flaunting of wealth that is both ephemeral and conspicuous, quickly eaten. The centerpiece of a banquet display, proof of wealth and power.

An everyday meal for the cruelest Princes of Starkhaven. "How often doth'ou dine upon death" is an accusation of gluttony, of over-indulgence, proof of an unfit ruler. It is a challenge to a duel. Those were the last words Goran Vael heard upon the steps of his own royal palace before Sebastian slit his throat.

Fairy eggs. Rooster eggs. Demon eggs. Witch eggs.

War eggs. Famine eggs.

The eggs laid by a rooster of Starkhaven are usually yolk-less things. Any egg without a yolk is considered a sign of famine or war, a portent of hard times to come. The fact that it has been almost two hundred years since War Eggs were last seen with any real frequency, not since the Qunari last tried to invade, has not stopped the habit of cracking every egg into a separate bowl before adding it to the recipe or the pan or drinking it raw. An egg without a yolk is reason for the entire kitchen to stop and stare and send a messenger before changing meal plans. One egg without a yolk is reason to make note, and meringue, but nothing more.

Several eggs without a yolk? Something is wrong.

When the city goes to war, these yolk-less eggs become so very common. There are records of diets switched entirely to account for the preponderance of egg whites available with no yolks to bake with. Pie crusts replaced with sugar-less meringues. Entire diets made from whipped egg whites stabilized with a weak acid, dolloped onto the slab of hot iron and dried to a puff of powder.

It gets worse when those same rooster eggs start coming to the kitchen with blood red yolks.

They taste like rich fatty eggs, one blood red egg giving a man enough energy to keep him on his feet for a full day's fighting, drunk raw from the bowl or whisked into a glass of wine for extra fortification. The armies of Starkhaven never march without their flock of roosters, fat shimmering birds with knives strapped to their spurs. Blood drawn is their due, blood they drink from the soldiers they consider unworthy to collect their blood filled eggs.

These are the eggs that hatch into the Royal Cockatrices that most of Thedas dismisses as myth.

The rooster that lays a dozen or more blood red eggs will brood them all, sitting on the nest until they hatch. Longer. He will refuse to leave his nest and will refuse to let his children out from under him even as they begin to get hungry and they begin to eat each other. At least, this is what legend says. Most of Thedas will repeat this legend in fear, in the same breath that they spit at 'Starkhaven's favorite heresy'. Yet any Starkhavener will repeat the same legend with solemn acceptance, the knowledge that all things are the work of the Maker, even creatures of horror such as this. For as one chick grows more than the others, fat on its sibling's flesh, it will grow longer and longer, adding the legs of its fellows to its lengthening body until the cockatrice is finally too big to fit beneath it's father's bulk and crawls out from under him in a many-legged scuttle.

While this explains the long-bodied many legged form of the Royal Cockatrice, it does not explain the many eyes of the creature. Nor does it account for other animals that eat their siblings - they do not add the legs of their kin as they grow longer and longer.

Maybe the Southern Chantry is right, maybe it is demons. There are certainly demons in the Fade and in this Realm that are twisted like this, with too many limbs and too many eyes.

But if Starkhaven's heresies are at all correct, if these are the Maker's Own Birds...

What does it say about the Vael Dynasty that members of their bloodline are the only people in Thedas capable of looking into the many eyes of a Royal Cockatrice without falling to madness?

What does it say of the 'benevolent' Maker that He keep these birds as His Own?

Or, the sexual practices of Thedas.

One thing to accept out of all of this: people are going to do people things. If it feels good people will do it. That doesn't prevent cultural morays from putting limits on what they will allow themselves to decide feels good.

Like blowjobs.

I recently listened to a podcast on the history of Molly Houses in 18th century London and an interesting tangent came up. Blowjobs just weren't done. They were not done! Not because they were gross but because they were French (ew). Tangent then went onward, that it was a with blowjob that Anne Boleyn seduced King Henry the VIII for she'd spent time in the French court and would have learned about this 'oral sex'. Now, I'm not saying she was good at it. She wouldn't have to be, the novelty of such a filthy French thing would have been enough. It would have been as filthy as tying him up and fisting him, but with more perceived degradation.

So I'm thinking back on what oral sex I've put into the Dragon Age Worldstate and it's... I can think of one scene, only one. Inquisitor Trevelyan and Lady Cassandra were in the middle of a lazy competition to undress each other. Trevelyan is trying to seduce a favor from her, her permission to wear a peacock feathered cloak and resplendent robes to the Orlesian ball instead of the red velvet in-game costume with (shudder) pants. She demands her own concessions, formal armor, and then wins their competition and takes her winnings by sitting on his face.

This fits into the realization I had, that oral sex is generally not done. Because it's Orlesian (ew).

Especially if one happens to be Fereldan.

Which means any story with Hawke sucking off Anders or Justice or both is going to be... interesting. The tone shifts entirely, turning deeply kinky. There's a real note of disgust to contend with, perhaps turning the act into one of penance or one of being utterly used. The power dynamics shift, especially with the addition of bondage. It takes a sex act considered so utterly common in the modern era and turns it into something so filthy, kinky, revolting...

I've already begun to explore the cultural relationship between Orlais and the rest of the world. The nobility of the Free Marches still learn Orlesian as a language, they write and speak a language called Low Orlesian for various reasons. It was considered Strange that Hawke hasn't put in the effort to learn Orlesian, he explained it by saying he's Fereldan and Orlais can go fuck themselves. Marcher nobility has at least heard of oral sex, even if it's weird. Mages probably practice it, it's easy to get away with and Orlesian mages and Templars get shuffled around Circles all the time. An Orlesian Inquisitor would absolutely know about it, and convince Cassandra to sit on his face to get it.

Hawke would absolutely need to be tied down and forced to try it.

So I've had this scene in my head for a year and a half... I'd thought it was kinky before but NOW...

The kinkiest bastards in Thedas are spirits. Nobody will ever convince me otherwise.

A Royal Cockatrice by Spiral of Vertigo on bsky, tumblr, and cohost

Previously I've posted about Starkhaven's favorite heresy, On the Birds of Starkhaven, how Andraste and her party sheltered in the mountains through the heavy snows of winter and the Maker sent a bird, a fat rooster brooding a nest of eggs. It was the Maker's Will, it's said, that the eggs should be eaten as the rooster laid more and more all through that cold iron-hard winter.

Even though everyone knows rooster eggs are poisonous things that hatch into cockatrices.

But this was a Bird of the Maker, its eggs were not poisonous. As for hatching into cockatrices...

Legend says that rooster and the eight hens that flew into Maferath's camp to deliver news of Andraste's safety became the first Birds of Starkhaven. That was why the Birds of Starkhaven wore their Maker-given white feathers for a thousand years, feathers that shimmered with all the colors of moonlight upon snow. That would explain why the roosters of Starkhaven will lay eggs during times of siege and war and strife and famine.

It's said it was curiosity that allowed the first fat rooster to brood his eggs to hatching. More likely it was subterfuge on the bird's part, for chickens will hide their eggs if they do not wish them found and harvested. But they hatched and three of the cockatrices survived.

A normal cockatrice, the wild dragon-birds of the Hunterhorn Mountains, are two legged creatures. They are phoenixes that wear the faces of chickens, little more. Their stare is unnerving but not dangerous, their bite venomous, their appetites voracious. The cockatrices that hatched in Starkhaven that day were not this. They were monstrous creatures with too many legs, a long sinuous body, far too many eyes, and iron spurs.

Only one man could tame them. Only one man could look them in the eye without suffering the seeping creeping horror and then death of the cockatrice's stare. That man tamed them and brought them to battle against King Ironfist of Starkhaven, intending to take the crown for his own. Lord Vael succeeded that day, though the Chantry will tell a very different story involving peaceful protest and acts of piety that any servant or slave would find laughably naive.

Those three were named 'Royal Cockatrices' and made the emblem of Lord Vael's House. Whether they were the three Royal Cockatrices that flew alongside Wardens Corin and Neriah is a matter of debate, though any true Starkhavener will insist they must be.

Ever since, the Vaels have ruled Starkhaven. Though little remains of the Royal Cockatrices now but sculpture, paintings, stories. Starkhaven has not gone to war, a real war, in Ages, and the people are beginning to forget.

Now the featherblight has blackened the feathers of the Birds of Starkhaven and Prince Vael talks to a black rooster with red eyes, a rooster that follows him. There are whispers that the rooster talks back, rumors that the bird has become Familiar to him.

How long will it be before the roosters of Starkhaven begin to lay eggs again?

Townsends. A history of cooking methods over time through the invention of stove types

I plan to run the gamut of various stove types for Dragon Age. The big mud oven seems like it would be standard for tiny settlements in the middle of nowhere, the big brick oven owned by the baker for larger villages like Redcliffe. All the way up to the raised stoves in city estates. Take Kirkwall, for instance.

It makes total sense that Lowtown and the Alienage had nothing resembling any sort of kitchen. There wouldn't be. Most in the lower classes would have relied on communal cookfires and, I mean, you're in a city. You can buy bread from the baker or bake your bread by renting space in the baker's oven. "[Many] can barely buy bread" was something Lirene said to show how the Fereldans were too poor to live.

So how do you use such an oven? Generally it's a brick or mud structure, basically a box with a wood door. You put your burning fuel inside, be it sticks or dung or charcoal, then when it's good and hot you scrape it all out and put your bread and pies inside to bake in the ambient heat. The baker would have one giant oven for all his wares and extra space inside for rent: for a small fee you can bring your pies and loaves to be baked in his oven.

Taken all the way up to reflector ovens to big walk-in types to the complete kitchens of the nobility. So the utter complexity of a noble's feast is itself as much a flex as anything else. Not even just the roast peacock then refeathered as a centerpiece, the bechamel sauce itself is a flex of wealth and a statement of power. As much a flex of power as a Prince of Starkhaven revealing a roast capon as the centerpiece of a feast.