Amara Tanith

Either way, I find the timing very curious. likely a thousand years between the Veil's creation and Andraste. And a thousand years between Andraste and the current time. (not exact numbers, but close enough to raise an eyebrow)

The timing of a thousand years is reminiscent to the timing of global earthquake sprees.

- Orseck Garal Earthquakes: around -1170 Ancient, or year 25 TE (Tevinter Calendar)
-Andraste Earthquakes: between -180 Ancient and -170 Ancient, or between 1015 TE and 1025 TE
- Valta (The Descent) Earthquakes: between 941 Dragon and 943 Dragon, or between 2035 TE and 2037 TE

They all seem to be distant from each other by about a thousand years. And we know both the Garal earthquakes and the Valta earthquakes were caused by a Titan...

source: here @ r/dragonage

I think Andraste was a human born with the soul of Dumat via a Dark Ritual.

Evidence: It took the wardens two hundred years to end the first blight, because every time they'd kill the Archdemon, it would soul jump. They had to figure out the secret ingredient in the warden ritual--a drop of Archdemon blood--that would permanently kill the Archdemon. When they finally ended the first blight, Andraste was born that very same year. (From the timeline in World of Thedas.)

I think Mythal perhaps nudged the wardens in the right direction re: how to kill Archdemons, while at the same time performing/getting someone else to perform a Dark Ritual to capture Dumat's untainted soul in a child.

I think Solas didn't physically awaken from uthenara until just prior to DAI, as he says. BUT. The Masked Empire shows that he could communicate/interact with people (Felassan) via the Fade. He could definitely have been influencing Shartan.

source: here @ r/dragonage

In the light of the veilfire, the runes seem to shift, coiling and uncoiling like snakes. A thunderous voice shatters the stillness, shouting:

"Hail Mythal, adjudicator and savior! She has struck down the pillars of the earth and rendered their demesne unto the People! Praise her name forever!"

For a moment, the scent of blood fills the air, and there is a vivid image of green vines growing and enveloping a sphere of fire.

The vision grows dark. An aeon seems to pass. Then the runes crackle, as if filled with an angry energy.

A new vision appears: elves collapsing caverns, sealing the Deep Roads with stone and magic.

Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast.

A voice whispers:

"What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all."

source: Codex entry: Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads via Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser

My theory here is that Mythal slew a titan to claim the thaigs and Deep Roads from the titans and their dwarf hivemind, and that this is where the Blight (a presumably red lyrium) actually comes from. How the Titan got Blighted, though... that's a whole other question.

One day Andruil grew tired of hunting mortal men and beasts. She began stalking The Forgotten Ones, wicked things that thrive in the abyss. Yet even a god should not linger there, and each time she entered the Void, Andruil suffered longer and longer periods of madness after returning.

Andruil put on armor made of the Void, and all forgot her true face. She made weapons of darkness, and plague ate her lands. She howled things meant to be forgotten, and the other gods became fearful Andruil would hunt them in turn. So Mythal spread rumors of a monstrous creature and took the form of a great serpent, waiting for Andruil at the base of a mountain.

When Andruil came, Mythal sprang on the hunter. They fought for three day and nights, Andruil slashing deep gouges in the serpent's hide. But Mythal's magic sapped Andruil's strength, and stole her knowledge of how to find the Void. After this, the great hunter could never make her way back to the abyss, and peace returned.

—Translated from ancient elven found in the Arbor Wilds, source unverified

source: Codex entry: Elven God Andruil via Dragon Age: Inquisition

Honestly, my best guess at interpreting this is in the lines "wicked things that thrive in the abyss", "Andruil put on armor made of the Void", followed by "plague ate her lands". I think the plague is the taint, and the "armor made of the Void" is Red Lyrium armor like Samson's, and the Void/abyss itself is a Blighted Titan. Note, of course, that "the Void" is believed by the Empty Ones cult (which worshipped the Blight) to be the place from which the Blight originated; that the taint is referred to as "the darkness" by both the Architect and Corypheus, among others; and that the blight is often referred to as a plague. It adds up.

To that point... could the Forgotten Ones be darkspawn similar to Corypheus and the Architect?

As a counter to all this, a place called "the raw Fade" is visited in both Origins (when Sloth traps everyone in their dreams) and Inquisition (when facing Nightmare). Solas specifically refers to it as "closer to the Black City than he has ever seen". Following along the logic that the Andrastians seem to believe the Void is either part of or the same as the Fade, could it be that the raw Fade is the Void and/or the Abyss? (A DA book called Until We Sleep refers to the raw Fade as "void places, gaps between dreams". So could that be the Void/Abyss? Parts of the Fade that exist without the touch of sentient minds? In any case, the terms Void and Abyss are definitely heavily associated with the Fade, but so is lyrium, which makes the titan theory not entirely impossible; the titan's body in the Descent, after all, is described as "the Uncharted Abyss".)

Following along that logic, there is a Staff of the Void in Inquisition that has a carving of Andraste at the tip and is described to bear the inscription, "There is strength in absence. Absence of weakness, and of limitation. Absence of caution, and of mercy. The Void has always been within." I'd say this could be interpreted in two ways: A) the Void is the Fade, which is actually a collective unconscious within the minds of living creatures, and so can still be "inside" a titan, or B) the Void has something to do with Tranquility. (See: the theory that Mythal's removal of Andruil's knowledge of how to enter the Void was the first Rite of Tranquility, and the possibility that Andruil's boughts of madness after hunting in the Void might not be a slow descent into blight madness but instead similar to the periods of emotional instability that Cassandra describes as occurring after Tranquility is cured.)

The Empty Ones were a small and short-lived cult based in Nevarra and known for worshipping the blight and, by extension, the darkspawn. Some confuse the Empty Ones with followers of Tevinter's Old Gods—a reasonable mistake since Archdemons are said to be tainted Old Gods. However, it is clear from the histories that the Empty Ones did not worship Dumat and his ilk, but the blight itself.

Following Andraste's death, many of her followers fell into a deep despair. They believed that the Prophet's betrayal and execution marked the beginning of the end of the world and that the Maker's wrath would soon come upon them. The most fatalistic of them all gathered together to prepare for their doom. They called themselves the Empty Ones, for they saw themselves as worthless husks, ready to be swept away by the Maker's hand.

It is unknown what passed then, but over time, the Empty Ones grew to believe that the blight was to be the tool by with the Maker would end all of creation. They preached that it came from the Void, a place of nothing, and that returning to the Void was something to be celebrated because it meant an end to all pain and all suffering.

Some mistakenly take this to mean that the Empty Ones worshipped evil, but that is an oversimplification. The Empty Ones believed the world to be beyond redemption, and that it was the Maker's will that it be destroyed completely. There are tales of Empty Ones scouring the Deep Roads, searching for darkspawn, whom they saw as the blight's prophets in order to assist them in bringing about the next Blight.

Predictably, the beginning of the Second Blight saw the end of the Empty Ones. The entire cult made its way to the Anderfels, where they stood in the path of the encroaching darkspawn and, singing in praise of the oblivion that was to overtake them, were consumed.

--From Before Andrastianism: The Forgotten Faiths, by Sister Rondwyn of Tantervale

source: Codex entry: The Empty Ones via Dragon Age: Inquisition

So, like, the Empty Ones wanted to do the same damn thing that the Architect actually did (and the Wardens later tried): seek out the Old Gods and either accidentally or purposefully start a new Blight.

We are here
We have waited
We have slept
We are sundered
We are crippled
We are polluted
We endure
We wait
We have found the dreams again
We will awaken

source Note: Whispers Written in Red Lyrium via Dragon Age Inquisition

I think it's 100% sure that this refers to the Titans ("we have slept", "we have found the dreams again", "we will awaken", almost certainly "we are polluted", and quite possibly "we are sundered" if the Fade is part of the Titans in some way), though I suppose it's possible it refers to something else. Other candidates are the Old Gods ("we are polluted") and the Fade/Evanuris ("we are sundered").



As a note unrelated to any of that, Valta denies that what she does at the end of the Descent is magic; meanwhile, the Templars claim that their lyrium abilities also aren't magic; and, most importantly, Cole refers to templars as "blocking magic" and "reaching for that other thing" (i.e., the thing they're "trying to connect to", i.e., titans), and "magic has no room to come in [to a titan]". (This last bit Cole describes as "like when I listen to Varric", which I assume refers to Cole adhering to Varric's attempts to make him less spirit and more person. Is there something there? Titans and dwarves and templars are magicless and living, while elves and mages and spirits are magic and the Fade? Does that make any sense???).

Note that Cole also says, "They made bodies from the earth, and the earth was afraid. It fought back, but they made it forget." The Dragon Age wiki thinks that this is in reference to the titans, but I think it might actually be the opposite;it could have something to do with the origins of the Creators and/or the Forgotten Ones and/or the Forbidden Ones, especially if any of them are, as theorized, demons/spirits that have taken their own humanoid flesh (as Cole did).