Rakshasa in a Top Hat

Tryptic 4, part 1

The Anatomist's Request

I know the specialization mechanic in Dragon Age Inquisition was just a gameplay thing, to keep people from getting just so many specializations the way you could rack up 4 in Origjns and its DLC, how Hawke gets 2 in DA2. Simplification of gameplay over time has been how DA rolls.

IF YOU THINK I'm not going to take advantage of this by folding it into how magic works? Then you haven't met me.

The Knight Enchanter has the spirit blade hilt. The Battlemage has a bonded weapon. The Rift Mage has a Tome. The Necromancer has a skull friend. The Spirit Healer has their Contracts, Agreements with spirits of the Fade. The Anatomist also has a Tome, containing the Final lesson: the drawings and notes and sketches and essence of the Anatomist's dissection of their own former master.

The only reason why the Anatomist is so Extra is I haven't made the rest just as Extra. Not yet. Because they are and should be Just As Extra.

By the time I'm done every mage will have that little Extra.

This is Warden Commander Oghren writing a 'polite' letter to get Anders' Anatomist's Tome back from the Inquisition. Before he has to take drastic steps.

A drabble introducing the new tryptic.

Tryptic one, Chapters 1 though 4, were Leliana's work. Leliana collected and catalogued the Anatomist's notes until her duties as Divine took her from the project.

Tryptic two, Chapters 5 through 8, were Charter's work. Charter continued the collecting and cataloguing. Though with less of an open mind as the Anatomist's Notes grew more and more unnerving.

Tryptic three, Chapters 9 through 12, were Cullen's work. Charter discovered a collection kept by Cullen and 'encouraged' him to write them up to add that information to the catalog. He was most unwilling, even under duress.

Now, tryptic four. Chapters 13 through 16, will be the Warden's work.

Anders knows where his Anatomist's Tome is and he wants her back.

Chapter 1 of 2

Divine Victoria has freed the mages.

Justice swore an Oath for this. Justice destroyed the Kirkwall Chantry for this. Justice Fell for this, allowed Hawke to leave for this, broke every Circle for this, bound demons in this Realm for this.

Vengeance has done terrible things, all for this.

Now, to succeed? To have that Oath taken away? To have nothing left? That is a cruel cruel fate for any demon.

Vengeance begins to Fall.

Unfortunately, it's not so simple this time. Vengeance has delved too deeply into the Anatomist's studies. Anders might not survive the demon's Fall this time.

Back to Dragon Age for a hot second

Connor joined the Seekers of Truth. But why? What exactly do the Seekers want with someone with his... proclivities? He spent time as an Abomination of Desire, he willingly converses with demons and spirits in the Fade, wouldn't that make him dangerous?

Well yes.

But that's less important than the other half of this:

The Seekers have a plan and need someone like him to carry it out. They need someone unafraid to talk to spirits, someone willing to walk in a demon's footsteps.

A Study of Enthrallment

Now that 'Confessions' is written and fully posted I can toss this up here. This codex entry of the Anatomist's Notes has evolved through a couple of drafts. First they were Cullen's own notes then a whole book then Healer Terry entered the scene and now...

Now I have this. A folio The Defilement of a Chantry Brother: A Study of Willing and Willful Enthrallment written by Healer Terry, one of the Kirkwall Circle Anatomists, with Knight Captain Cullen being given co-author credit since he was the torturer during the entire ordeal.

There's only one copy and it's out of date. It maintains the mid-9:30s Dragon fantasy that the Templars held about the Darktown Healer, that he was a demon of Motherhood.

An Anatomist's Noes on Abomination

Lyrium

Today in “I didn’t plan this I swear why is everything falling into place WHO planned this”

During the sidequest to track down Samson, Cullen had a stack of notes on his desk. Notes on lyrium use's effects on the human body.

These are those notes. A part of them, anyway. Cullen raided the clinic after the Chantry explosion, what was left of the clinic anyway. When a spirit Breaks an Enclave it ends up destroying most of what's actually in that Enclave. But these pages survived.

An Anatomist's Notes on Abomination

The Anatomist's Tome

Today in "I didn't plan this I swear why is everything falling into place WHO planned this"

I posted the drabble where Cullen took over the Anatomist's Notes and honestly thought about deleting it. It didn't fit, I wasn't sure, I was thinking of closing out the Anatomist's Notes. Then this story with Sebastian began and I knew... I knew then why I posted the Cullen drabble.

Cullen has three entries for the codex. This is the Anatomist's Tome. This is the Tome that Anders crafted over a year and a day of Healer Elena's dissection. It's tradition for an Anatomist's apprentice to dissect their master like this, to bind them or a spirit much like them into a Tome that becomes the Anatomist's ritual object. It is the Specialization Requisition from Inquisition, but instead of the Necromancer's whispering skull it is not possessed by random spirits. It is instead possessed by the Anatomist's own Master.

Not even touching how Xenon the Antiquarian acquired it. Man's got ways.

An Anatomist's Notes on Abomination

Height

This is the AO3 edit of the Height post

A palate cleanser after the last two went that hard. Anders is ridiculously tall and nobody can change my 5 foot lol mind. Justice is Avvar, have you SEEN how tall those dudes are. If Justice were allowed to alter Anders' body fully, before he Fell to Vengeance, Anders would have found himself eye to eye with the Arishok.

Justice does not go that far. Just a little bit. Just enough to tweak the ratios of Anders' body toward 'uncanny valley' territory.

Bonds of Family

A story primarily told through correspondence sent and unsent. The year is 9:43, one year before the Inquisition is disbanded.

It's been months of correspondence and the Divine's Decree declaring the Circle of Magi dissolved is still fresh in the minds of the people of Thedas. Many mages never dreamed such a freedom might be possible. Just as many mages know they can never go home. They are creatures of magic, there is no home left for them.

That doesn't have to be true. Home isn't a place, instead it's something made. A home can be made again.

Bonds of Family

A story primarily told through correspondence sent and unsent. The year is 9:43, one year before the Inquisition is disbanded.

The announcement from Divine Victoria that the Circle of Magi is to be disbanded has JUST been made. Nobody knows what that means yet. The College of Enchanters hasn't yet formed nor have they figured out how to deal with young mages just coming into their magic.

Connor has finally heard the announcement. He reacts how a feathered mage should. With desperate sobbing relief and a burning realization that this needs to be KEPT

An Anatomist's Notes on Abomination

Ribs

This is the AO3 edit of the Ribs post.

I was unsure if I needed to go harder or not but I had one reblog of the Ribs post that had tags of such horrified awe... I didn't need to change a thing >:3

Another chapter of the book Vengeance gives to Desire in exchange for a Thrall's services.

Bonds of Family

A story primarily told through correspondence sent and unsent. The year is 9:43, one year before the Inquisition is disbanded.

The drunken row has died down, the letters sent in anger and a brandywine haze. And both parties realize the letters still come. They're still talking to one another.

There is a road to forgiveness.

An Anatomist's Notes on Abomination

Chapters 5 and 6

Chapter 5 is another drabble, 100 words of Charter taking over the codex entries as Divine Victoria gets busy and can't spend time collecting books for the Inquisitor anymore.

Chapter 6 is the AO3 edit of the Claws post.

I have a whole timeline for this worldstate. Some of those dates are pretty exact, like these. Others are more vague, such as the ones where I just know what year that shit happened. This is a few short days after Come Into My Parlour, the first moment Justice Fell in a thousand years.

The Seeker's Secrets

Chapter 2 of 2

I needed Fade shenanigans so I gave myself Fade shenanigans. Specifically I gave myself dream-like unnerving almost-real Fade shenanigans.

The Seekers of Truth will be rebuilt. Cassandra never said they needed to be rebuilt as part of the Chantry. But as a separate Order outside the Chantry's laws? With each of their members possessed by a spirit of Faith? Their leader beholden to an abomination of Prideful Wisdom?

I am building a worldstate where the physical Realm is not the only source of rebellion against Solas' stupid plan to burn the world down.

Bonds of Family

A story primarily told through correspondence sent and unsent. The year is 9:43, one year before the Inquisition is disbanded.

Connor received the drunken questions from his uncle, bold and unfiltered demanding to know why, how. How can Connor call himself a feathered mage when he of all people knows the absolute horror that a mage can unleash if possessed. Why is freedom so important when it condemns the world to horrors like that.

Connor has an answer.

It's a good one.

Cullen's original epilogue in DA:O, should you side with the mages, has him snapping and attacking three apprentices. He kills one. This has been word-of-god retconned. Fuck that noise I bring it back. Cullen was transferred to Kirkwall for a reason and it wasn't to "cool his head" or whatever.

An Anatomist's Notes on Abomination

Analog Studies

This is the AO3 edit of the chicken dissection post.

Anders studying two chicken carcasses in an attempt to make sense of his wings. Posted in honor of the turkey carcass I just disassembled :3

Part of an exchange, from one demon to another.

The Seekers' Secrets

Chapter 1 of... unsure. 2 or 3? I feel like this needs a Fade chapter for poor little Emery.

She's the first to read the Tome since Cassandra's near-Fall. This is a test. Will the Seekers all Fall when they learn the secrets of their Order? Or can Faith survive such trials intact?

This time there is no Prideful Inquisitor there with lyrium potions and a lack of any sense. There is only the Seeker and their own revelations.

And their Faith.