Sinners all? Geldauron to Hakkon
Hey Nony,
Don’t be done or sorry! I know what you mean about not being able to sleep and it’s being 5am, and you have DA ideas that just have to be written down just in case they turn into something. And you do raise a very interesting possibility. Is there a connection between the Sinner, Geldauran, and Hakkon? Looking into your question brought several things to light I would not have noticed if you hadn’t asked. So thanks!
There’s a lot of weird shit going on in the Frostback Basin, not least of which is (what appears to be) a firsthand quote from one of the Forgotten Ones. Is it possible there is a connection between this powerful “dark god” from the elven pantheon and the later rise of Hakkon? It sure looks that way!
Here’s the quick summary:
*Geldauran is sealed away in the elven ‘temple’ in the Frostback Basin, a Creator-forsaken land (to the ancient elvhen at least) with almost no edifices or monuments to the elven gods. That tomb is sealed with spirit stones that are almost impossible to see, let alone find, once the Veil is place. Those stones are scattered across the valley to prevent them from being reassembled easily, and the prison/temple itself was buried beneath the earth.
“Their pride will consume them, and I, forgotten, will claim power of my own, apart from them until I strike in mastery.” (Geldauran’s Claim)
*Some time later (possibly as early as 3200 years before present) the Avvar enter the region. The Avvar live with the spirits of the region, shaping them into their pantheon of gods. They communicate with one “spirit” or entity in a very curious way:
“The savages speak to their gods in the cave passage. They call it the Mouth of Echoes. They light fires and feed them with green spruce and shout their questions into the deep. They say answers come to them on the last whispered echo.” (Mouth of Echoes)
*Tevinter mages, searching for a way to communicate with Razikale, arrive in the Frostback Basin in the time gap between the Corypheus and the Magisters Sidereal entering the Black City and the foundation of the Orlesian Chantry. They believe that the Avvar may have special knowledge about communicating with spirits. These followers of Razikale reshape the land and expose the buried elven temple, but whatever was inside (Geldauran) was beyond their ability to control or dangerous in some way. They construct an elaborate system of magical beams, crossing the Basin from Razikale’s Reach to the Old Temple, to seal that spirit in an even more powerful ice ward prison.
They then abandon the region.
“Some of the Avvar, he said, believed the temple to be the haunt of old, vengeful spirits. The Tevinter had come here long ago and built their great temples and then one day, without warning, they had abandoned them all. Ragnarr was convinced they had done something terrible here, though he could not tell me what it was.” (Razikale’s Reach)
*Tevinter’s efforts to seal away what they found in the elven temple were not successful. Within a few hundred years at most, the original Jaws of Hakkon learned to enter the the Old Tevinter Temple. In the early Divine Age, they emerge with “Hakkon” bound to a dragon.
“In the old times, the first Jaws of Hakkon spoke with the great spirit himself. He opened their eyes that they might see the elfstones hidden across the world, and they entered the old cave and learned the mysteries of winter. Their working of cold let them slip through the ice-wall that wards the lowlander fortress, and we must now do the same if we are to take it as our own.
Hakkon has been silent all our lives. He cannot speak to us in dreams or open our eyes, and we remain blind to the elfstones. The lowlanders, though, have found a new way to see them. The skull of a dream-slain, set with the right magicks, can bring the elfstones to our sight.
We will regain the mystery of winter.” (Leather-Bound Hakkonite Journal)
*Ameridan travels to the Frostback Basin to stop Hakkon, but miscalculations on Ameridan’s part and the power of Hakkon himself is more than the Inquisitor and his companions can overcome. The last Inquisitor traps Hakkon with time magic until the modern Inquisitor sets both free.
“The dragon's power is like none I have ever seen. Possessed by this Avvar god-spirit, it rivals the legendary Archdemon Dumat in its fury. I pray the legends of another Archdemon leading the Blight in the Anderfels are just foolish stories, but if they are true, then I understand why Emperor Drakon asked me to come here. Drakon's new "Orlais" cannot face two god-dragons at once.” (Pages near an Old Campfire)
*Time magic wards (which I would really like to know how Ameridan knew how to do) and 800 years later, the modern Inquisitor finishes the job Ameridan started, finally killing Hakkon.
The chain of events certainly seems to lead back to the Geldauran inscription in the elven temple.
Proving a connection to the Sinner, however, is nigh impossible at this point. We just don’t have enough information about who the Sinner was, what exactly he did, and what happened to him. If the Sinner took the form of a dragon, like most of us meta writers assume, he could have shown the elven people that the Evanuris were not the only ones who could take the form of the “divine”. He would have been punished for such an act, perhaps being sealed in a temple/tomb bound in body and spirits, but there is no way to say for certain.
All the same, I think all of these individuals and groups are connected through the Evanuris. Is the Sinner an important player in all of these events? Very likely. The ominous tenor of the codex entry certainly makes it seem like a turning point, but we won’t know for what until at least DA4.
Thanks for the ask, Nony! I found a lot of things I wasn’t expecting, which makes this result all the more satisfying.
-MM
PS: There is a lot more to this meta than the summary. For a more in depth analysis of the evidence that led to this summary, and a lot of other cool discoveries, check out the long version of this post under the cut.