Dragon Age Spoilers - Tumblr Posts
Emmrich being comfortable with the idea that he won't find a long term partner in this lifetime and despite finding himself attracted to Rook tries to keep them at arms length, even to the point where he mentally tries to pair them up with another of their companions to sway his thoughts away from Rook.
Yet.
He can't deny that there are moments with Rook that feel as if they are solely reserved for him.
The deep relaxed sighs and comfortable silence over tea.
The lingering glances and poorly hidden grin when he says something witty.
The way their features soften and warm when he enters a room.
He can cherish those moments even if he feels as though he cannot cherish Rook alone.
in love with emmrich's tarot card bc it makes him look like a creepy grandpa doing illegal corpse experiments in his basement. meanwhile all other info on him implies that he's a really sweet guy and his romance will be sensual and intimate
Okay but is it just me. Please say it isn't just me.
In preparation for The Veilguard i'll be exploring some of the companions we already have information on from other Dragon Age media. I'l start with Lucanis Dellamorte, who already had an impressive introduction in the story The Wigmaker's job from Tevinter Nights, and an implicit silent role in the short story The Wake.
Lucanis Dellamorte, Master Assassin of the Antivan Crows. Grandson of Caterina Dellamorte, First Talon of the Antivan Crows, and chosen by her to succeed her.
His cousin Illario Dellamorte whom he often works with might resent him a little for being the favourite but Illario is Lucanis' favourite to succeed as First Talon, as he's got the "silver tongue" required for the politics of it Lucanis does not.
Both of them are described as lean with dark hair and umber eyes; Lucanis is described as "the kind of man you couldn't look away from- until he looked at you".
Despite the abuse from his grandmother during training that caused him to hate her, now in his adult years he understands her motivation was preparing him for this life, and while on the job still recites to himself the same nursery rhyme she did when they were children. It goes:
One for silence Two for surprise Three for good measure Four's excercise Five for a slaughter Six for the thrill Seven means more sovereigns Eight marks the final kill
Seems it's a rhyme reminding how many extra kills are necessary/acceptable in a mission that didn't call for them? But while Illario also remembers it they don't make any other comments on it.
Focused, centered on duty, Lucanis never misses the mark. He carries multiple knives, daggers and blades he takes care of personally and carefully. Mostly seems to take contracts on Venatori and Tevinter mages to the point he's grown acostumed to their magic and can sense them pulling at/tunning into the Fade. Yes, he can sense where the Veil is thin. The way in which he senses a mage using magic is as an itch behind his eyes, or as an annoying headache. The worse the headache the more magic is being used. He can track Venatori mages by headache alone.
He's not just a killing machine, he also knows his enemy's ways, in this case knowing such a corrupt mage would have to have an artifact in use to keep demons at bay. When he found and destroyed said artifact demons crossed the Veil and destroyed the wigmaker's party. This event is what earns him the nickname "the Demon".
As good as he normally is in this contract he let his personal feelings and morals interfere and rather than fulfilling the contract he prioritized the slaves escaping and the victims getting justice in the form of vengeance, considering what the wigmaker Ambrose had done didn't make him deserving of an easy death. A Magister named Zara Renata ends the story deciding, since the Crow is now a Demon, that since demons can't be killed but controled, and Lucanis showed his weakness -having a heart - , she'll find a way to manipulate him to her benefit.
In the short story The Wake Crows Viago and Teia drag a drunken Illario back to his room after someone's funeral and by Illario's comments seems the deceased was Lucanis. Illario says they were brothers more than cousins, and now in his absence he has no one to follow. He mentions as a child one time Lucanis read a book about wyverns and became obssessed with wyverns, took him hunting and both returned to their grandmother made an absolute muddy mess. It's curious how as affected as Illario is the other two Crows seem very much not, so an alternative intepretation could be the one who passed is Caterina, their grandmother, and now Lucanis is First Talon so Illario is lamenting their relationship won't be the same, at the same time he's lamenting he wasn't the chosen one, when he bitterly says "It should have been me".
Some colorful notes sprinkled here and there: when asked by Illario what he'd do if someone sees his face and talks, Lucanis says he'd just grow a beard. Seems he did:
In The Wigmaker's job when Illario complains about not having being told the specifics of the contract it's revealed Lucanis did inform him via a dossier he wrote himself. This coupled with his childhood wyvern obssession and the rest of his personality presented in Tevinter Nights tells me he's very possibly ND on some level.
During The Veilguard reveals we learn from devs that Lucanis likes coffee and is a good cook. His writer Mary Kirby confirmed on Twitter his VA is good and Lucanis will have an accent like previous Antivan characters did (Zevran, Josephine), said he is "the sole dumpster fire of the crew" and that she wrote him "specifically to be a bisexual disaster of a human" (source). In Tevinter Nights Lucanis recalls he once found himself walking into an orgy during a contract at a party and i quote, italics included "Getting out of that had been interesting", implying he may have joined in some capacity in order to get out of it.
In his companion tarot card we see his colors are black and purple, the backdrop is a stylized design of crows and behind and around Lucanis there's a purple design that looks like a wing made of eyes.
The pauldrons on his outfit also have a design of many eyes.
The back of his outfit has a bird -crow?- design as well, with a bigger single red eye
And it's not known yet how but during combat that part of his outfit projects a pair of purple wings.
This is likely how that ability looks in combat menu
Because of the purple and the eyes motif plus learning he's known as "the Demon" has made some very excited at the possibility he turns out to be possessed by a Pride demon. But as it turns out, knowing how this Demon nickname came to be, and that he's a Crow, spies and assassins who have "eyes everywhere", plus this wings combat ability i think it's safe enough to say no, he's not possessed, he's not another Anders, if there's a Pride demon walking around looking like a man that's more likely to be Solas than this Antivan handsome man.
Another detail is the other crow motif on his clothes, i think these are rather cute
Because of The Wake some propose Lucanis died and a demon rose him back from the dead or that he's possessed by a Pride demon because purple and eyes and all that, but as i proposed back in 2020 chances are Lucanis faked his death to escape his fate as successor to a position he had zero interest in, a role that was being pushed and forced on him with absolutely no consideration to his feelings or thoughts on the matter, or he is now First Talon, reluctanctly. Considering he thinks simply growing a beard is disguise enough and now in The Veilguard we see him with a beard tells me he is in fact hiding his identity to some, either because people think he's dead or because he doesn't want to be identified as the current First Talon.
i needed to post this bc i am trying so hard to be normal rn
my biggest gripe with DA right now is Lucanis' introduction. By calling him "mage killer" everyone believes he's an anti-mage bigot or a templar supporter.
He's not.
Guys, read the 2nd paragraph.
devastated at the idea of lucanis getting lumped in with our usual kind of mage haters because he’s “the mage killer”. he’s just good at his job and they let him kill slavers about it!!! he has these special senses for the fade it’s that he has the specific skillset for it not that he’s Being Weird about it
um hello mr mage killer 👀
So, you expect me not to be obsessed with the antivan crow…?
Lucanis p.s i can't wait for bioware to show us companion's design so i can draw smth serious with them CAUSE I ALREADY HAVE SOME IDEAS and i really want to depict them
Had to sketch the official Lucanis because I fell for this man back in 2020
I had a very short corkboard moment here where I talked about how I think that Lucanis is the companion in Veilguard who has merged with a spirit
And after seeing this tweet that Mary liked I think a lot of folks are inclined to believe that it's a spirit of pride
I don't think that's 100% right. If you read the wigmaker job and (if you haven't please direct yourself to my pinned to post where there's a Google drive folder with just a picture of my cat in it and no pdfs relating to BioWare) Lucanis Isn't prideful, far from it. Besides, pride seems to manifests with something to do with eyes and yes that can be seen in his tarot card and his armor, but when the spirit manifests on him it's in the form of wings. And I don't think that's the Pride he feels towards the crows manifesting, since it's been stated he sees it as a 9 to 5 and an obligation
In the wigmaker job he talks about justice for the slaves that've been mutilated and once they get their vengeance he states as much. So my first thought was that it was another variation of Justice/Vengeance uncorrupted like they were in Awakening. But when Justice manifests through Anders they're blue though maybe that changes depending on the host. I don't think BioWare would bring them back though considering how tied Justice is to Anders.
Wynn had Faith and Cole was Compassion, Solas is Pride and I'm thinking about how BioWare said that regret is going to be one of the central themes in Veilguard and that led me to think about how the opposite of Regret is Hope and how often in our imagery of it is associated with flight and therefore wings. It's also one of the few spirits listed below that we haven't seen in game yet
The last thing I want to mention was this little bit at the end of wigmaker where a magister is talking about Lucanis
This could very much well be just her saying that she's going to use him to kill other Venatori so she can use their corpses as a shield or maybe she did something to him. I think Lucanis is far too cleaver to get caught though and besides, he grew out a beard, they shouldn't recognize him
The Veilguard in color! 🌈
Rereading the Wigmaker Job, and there's a bit where Lucanis rolls his eyes when Illario drops a cheesy pickup line (and noting that Illario has the charisma to pull it off).
So what I'm saying is, Mr. "No Social Skills" attempting that early in the romance arc. And it's really, hilariously bad.
maybe im delusional but if i were a developer for a certain video game that featured the choice to romance a certain antagonist from a previous entry and i was looking for ways to give acknowledgment, context and depth for a significant relationship decision made by a large chunk of players without alienating the larger chunk of players who didn’t pursue that relationship by excluding them from expensive and time consuming cut scenes with animation and voice acting, i would probably come to the conclusion that the perfect way to achieve that is by putting those players in a certain characters home for the past 10 years and littering it with sad and pathetic environmental evidence of a certain characters pining such as sketches, murals, spirits of regret and loneliness and love, and unsent, scribbled out and crumpled up notes…. but that’s just me
Lucanis' eye color? "it depends." 👁️ [source]
Rook DA4 save me. Save me Rook DA4
Lucanis Dellamorte
Rogue, antivan crow, walking dumpster fire.
Aw flop, here we go again.
Personally, I am not a big fan of Bellara's design, but well :,)