therookery | Bulletin Board Notice on Red Templars

FORM: Written message
SENDER: Christine Delacroix
RECIPIENT: any who read the bulletin board
WHAT: Christine is looking for information on red lyrium and Red Templars.
WHEN: 30th of Haring
WHERE: Skyhold bulletin board
NOTES: In answer to her first question, the mods say there are no records of red lyrium before Kirkwall. Beyond that, go wild, and please refer to this bit of mod info if you think you might be interested in what Christine's researching and want to see where it's headed.

[ When Christine returns to Skyhold from the scouting mission in Emprise du Lion, she's exhausted but determined. The things she's seen require further study, and for that she needs to educate herself. A preliminary look in the library gets her nothing, however, so she writes a notice for the board which she hangs up before returning to the library to dive back in. The note reads as follows: ]

NOTICE: I am seeking information on the existence of red lyrium prior to the events that occurred in Kirkwall with the Knight-Commander. Does anyone have any information they would be willing to share? And if not, would anyone be willing to help me search the library for this information?

What I am doing is trying to understand this red lyrium as much as I can. I saw it firsthand in the Fallow Mire and again just recently in Emprise du Lion. As I'm sure most of you have heard by now, Templars have began ingesting this red lyrium and it is transforming their bodies, making them the Inquisition's problem should they possess new abilities. We will need to study red lyrium and these Templars in order to find weaknesses that will benefit our soldiers. If you know anything about this -- even just rumors -- I would be grateful if you would share them.

This is just the start of my plans, because book research will only take us so far. If you think you would like to be involved with the research part at least, please contact me via sending crystal. Things to come in the future with the study of actual red lyrium will be potentially very dangerous and cannot be handled lightly, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, we just need to bury our noses in books.

~ contact Christine Delacroix with information or inquiries, and thank you for your time

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well yes...and no," Varric admitted awkwardly and lifted a hand off the table. He didn't want to drag it through his hair, so he settled for resting it against the back of his neck.

"Yes, we found it underground, in what I can only assume was an ancient dwarven thaig, but it wasn't exactly sitting around in a vein, waiting to be mined out," Varric said and rolled his shoulders in something resembling a shrug. "There was this idol there, made out of the stuff. Bartrand brought it back to the surface and, well, to say everything went 'downhill' is a bit of an understatement."

He let his hand drop once he'd finished and shook his head slightly.

"I've written to every mining caste house in Orzammmar; not one of them had seen or heard of this stuff before Bartrand and I found it. Nobody knows what it is or, really, where it comes from."

"An idol?" Christine shifts a few books aside and finds her parchment. She pulls her inkwell closer, picks up her quill, and starts taking notes. "So someone found the red lyrium and crafted this thing with it. Perhaps they saw it as a gift, and the idol was a way of saying thanks." She brushes the feather against her lips.

"It would have been a dwarf, obviously. Do you think the idol was meant to be one of the Paragons?" She's read a lot of dwarven texts today, Varric. She knows more about dwarven culture than she ever cared to before.

"A paragon?"

Honestly, Varric had never considered that it might be; the thought was so strange it rendered him silent for a moment. It wasn't hard to recall the actual idol, Maker knew he'd spent enough time thinking about it, but comparing it to contemporary dwarven statues? That was a bit beyond him. Unlike Christine, he did not have a very extensive working knowledge of Dwarven thaigs.

"Unless they really disliked them, or they were going for something abstract, I'm going to say: no," Varric answered slowly and his brow dipped as he mulled the memory over. "The thaig we found it in was old, really old, and I'm not sure if that whole Paragon tradition runs back that far."

Almost unconsciously, he settled his hands in front of him and, in a vague series of slight movements, tried to approximate the shape and size of the actual idol. Judging by the frown on his face, actually contemplating it wasn't particularly fun.

"Before it was a creepy sword, when it was just a creepy statue, it sort of looked like..." Varric paused and stared at the space between his hands. "Two starved ghouls climbing out of...I don't know, something with spines or teeth? It wasn't a very cheerful piece of sculpture, but we did find it on an altar, so I guess there's no accounting for taste?"

"It runs back to the Ancient Age, at least," she says, and it's clear from the expression on her face that she's been reading far, far too much on dwarves. What if it pushes her spirit healing studies out of her head? "Caridin was a Paragon from the Ancient Age. But never mind that."

She quickly jots down his description, making humming sounds to show she's listening even as her head is bent down over her work.

"Have you researched that image? It's possible it's unique, or something that would have only come from that ancient thaig, but it's worth a bit of research." Finding what the idol means could unlock more information about red lyrium from the past. Because right now, all they have to go on is that it's around now, and there is no information about stopping the spread of it.

There was something markedly surreal about having ancient dwarven customs explained to him by a human, but Varric didn't have it in him to complain. He made no secret about his lack of--what? Stone sense? Traditional family values? General Dwarfyness? He really wasn't the best person to ask about this sort of thing, but that's why they had other people, right? He eyed Christine as she took notes and, honestly, as much as he loathed dealing with anything regarding Red Lyrium, he was a little relieved to find someone so...engaged dealing with it in his stead.

"I can't say I have. I wouldn't know where to start researching ancient lyrium statuary," Varric admitted as some of the tension in him started to bleed away. "If you have any ideas, I'm all ears, but it might get a little complicated trying to look that stuff up.

"For obvious reasons, I'm not exactly keen on revealing the location of the Thaig we found it in, and the name of the settlement wasn't emblazoned on anything that I saw."

"It's worth a look, but I can't devote too much time to something that sounds so rare. It's just such a distinct iconography, that I wonder how it relates." But Christine shakes her head, willing to set it aside for now.

"Since we have no information about red lyrium in the past, we have to look to stopping the spread of it now. Big spikes of it are cropping up where Red Templars are camped, so obviously we need to take out these Templars. Unlike Meredith, these soldiers are ingesting it, so who knows what abilities it's granted them. They wouldn't be taking it if all it did was turn them into monsters." Christine blows out a breath, looking away for a moment. But then she looks back at Varric, the moment passed.

"You've studied the idol, yes?"

Bulletin Board Notice on Red Templars

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