In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar

In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar, written by Brother Ferdinand Genitivi, was the widest-read publication in Thedas, outside of Tevinter, until it was overtaken by Varric Tethras' serial Hard in Hightown in 9:36 Dragon.Dragon Age: The World of Thedas, vol. 2, p. 159
Genitivi is one of the Chantry's most well-known scholars, primarily on the basis of the stories he has published (which many of his contemporaries dismiss as fanciful) of his travels across the length and breadth of Thedas.
== Thedas ==
Geography of Thedas
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Sexuality in Thedas
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Death Watch Beetles
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=== Ferelden ===
Geography of Ferelden
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Dogs in Ferelden
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==== Denerim ====
Going to the City
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==== Fallow Mire ====
Granite Point
:From Landmarks in the Mire
Some statues in the Fallow Mire are of Avvar origin. It amused Bann Hargrave to bring them back from her conquests in the hills and plant them outside her home, the way a gardener might transplant flowers. The bann entertained visiting nobles by giving tours of the statues, regaling her guests with dark tales of Avvar superstitions, which she mostly made up on the spot.
==== Lothering ====
Lothering Village
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==== Redcliffe ====
The fate of all Ferelden
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==== The Storm Coast ====
The Coast
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==== West Hill ====
Blighted Werewolf
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=== The Anderfels ===
A Land Filled With Wonders
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Absolution
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=== Antiva ===
Merchant Princes
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Queen Asha
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=== The Free Marches ===
"Marchers"
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The Celebrant
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==== Kirkwall ====
The City of Kirkwall
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The Gallows
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The Elven Alienage
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Darktown
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Lowtown
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Hightown
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==== Starkhaven====
The City of Starkhaven
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==== Sundermount ====
On Sundermount
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==== Wounded Coast ====
The Wounded Coast
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=== Nevarra ===
On Nevarra 
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The Perendale War
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=== Orlais ===
Emprise du Lion
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The Ruined Highway
:From Landmarks in the Emprise
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The villagers of Sahrnia know little about the ruined highway standing above their home. Children play below its arches, oblivious to the danger the crumbling structure poses. Judging from its age, and the statues adorning its pillars, I would conjecture that it dates from the golden age of the Tevinter Imperium. It is an imposing sight, one I am glad to have seen.
The Lion's Pavilion
:From Landmarks in the Graves
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The Lion's Pavilion is a welcome rest for weary travelers through the Dales. Its most prominent feature is a statue of a muscled Valmont emperor slaying a dragon—the symbol of the Drakon dynasty. The Valmonts' famed subtlety and grace clearly emerged with later generations.
The Black Fox
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Brother Joffrey of Ghislain
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The Orlesian Great Bear
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The Phoenix
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=== Rivain ===
An Outsider in Rivain
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== Dwarven lore ==
The City of Orzammar
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Life in Orzammar
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Orzammar Politics
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The Castes
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Dwarven Faith
:From Codex entry: Dwarven FaithCodex entry: Dwarven Faith is sourced by Brother Genitivi if the Warden is not of dwarven origin.
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The Chant of Light is almost never heard in the halls of Orzammar. This is hardly surprising, for, unlike the elves, who were literally abandoned by their gods, or the Tevinters, who worshipped dragons, the dwarves have no gods at all.
Even the concept of worship is foreign in Orzammar. Instead, the dwarves seem to venerate "the Stone," a name they give to the earth itself. This seems practical for a people living underground, if perhaps a bit unimaginative.
For guidance in spiritual matters, they turn to their ancestors. These ancestors, who are said to have returned to the Stone, communicate their wishes to the living via brutal trials-by-combat called Provings. The ancestors' collective wisdom is maintained by the Shaperate, which can apparently store records in lyrium itself.
Set above the ancestors, above even kings, are the Paragons—dwarves who have achieved such greatness that they are elevated almost to godhood. These are the great figures holding up the hallway that leads from the surface, the first glimpse of Orzammar that outsiders see.
The Coterie
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Dwarven Runecraft
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== Elven lore ==
The Dalish Elves
:From Codex entry: The Dalish ElvesCodex entry: The Dalish Elves is sourced by Brother Genitivi if neither the Warden or the Inquisitor are of Dalish origin.
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I took the road north from Val Royeaux toward Nevarra with a merchant caravan. A scant two days past the Orlesian border, we were beset by bandits. They struck without warning from the cover of the trees, hammering our wagons with arrows, killing most of the caravan guards instantly. The few who survived the arrow storm drew their blades and charged into the trees after our attackers. We heard screams muffled by the forest, and then nothing more of those men.
After a long silence, the bandits appeared. Elves covered in tattoos and dressed in hides, they looted all the supplies and valuables they could carry from the merchants and disappeared back into the trees.
These, I was informed later, were the Dalish, the wild elves who lurk in the wilderness on the fringes of settled lands, preying upon travelers and isolated farmers. These wild elves have reverted to the worship of their false gods and are rumored to practice their own form of magic, rejecting all human society.
Offering to the Dread Wolf
:From Landmarks on the Plains
:thumb|275px|A fresco of the Dread Wolf
The Dalish believe that Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf, locked the gods of good and evil away; only he walks free. Although they see him as a betrayer, elves still erect shrines to Fen'Harel. One imagines they do not revere him so much as seek to appease him, lest they draw his gaze.
The Knight's Guardian
:From Codex entry: Knight's Guardian
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Traveling through the Emerald Graves in the Dales, one will see dozens of carven stone wolves. The Dalish call these the Knights’ Guardians. In the days of elven Halamshiral, wolf companions walked alongside Emerald Knights, never leaving the side of their chosen knight. Wolf and elf would fight together, eat together, and when the knights slept, wolves would guard them. The statues were erected in memory of their unbreakable bond.
—An excerpt from In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar by Brother Genitivi
Vallasdahlen
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Vallaslin
:From Codex entry: Vallaslin: Blood WritingCodex entry: Vallaslin: Blood Writing is sourced by Brother Genitivi if the Warden is not of Dalish origin.
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After my encounter with the Dalish elves on the road to Nevarra, I studied every book on the elves I could find. I sought out legends and myths and history and tried to make sense of it all. But there is only so much one can learn from books. I knew that in order to truly understand the Dalish, I would have to seek them out—a dreadful idea, in hindsight. In my defense, I was young—and also inebriated when the idea popped into my head. Unfortunately, even after I had regained some measure of sobriety, the idea still held appeal. It proved remarkably resistant to my attempts to ignore it.
I gave in after months of that nagging thought at the back of my head and set out to learn about the Dalish first-hand. I tramped through the forests bordering Orlais for weeks before I finally found—or was found by—a Dalish hunter. I stumbled into one of his traps and suddenly was hanging from a tree with a rope about my ankles.
So there I was, defenseless, upside down with my robe over my head, my underclothes on display. Descriptions of my predicament might elicit laughter these days, but trust me when I say it was a situation I would not wish on anyone. Thankfully, my ridiculous appearance may have caused my captor to stay his hand—what threat is a silly human with his pants showing?
And so he sat, made a small fire, and began to skin the deer he had caught. I soon mustered the courage to speak. I tried to assure him that I was not there to harm him—but he laughed at this and replied that if I were there to harm him, I had failed terribly. Eventually we got to talking, and when I say talking, I mean that I asked him questions, and occasionally he would deign to answer.
He told me that while some Dalish actively seek out human travelers to rob or frighten, most of his people would rather be left alone. He seemed to believe that punishing the humans for past actions only led to more violence. I asked him about the intricate tattoos on his face; he told me they were called vallaslin—"blood writing." His were symbols of Andruil the Huntress, one of the most highly revered elven goddesses. He said the Dalish mark themselves to stand out from humans and from those of their kin who have chosen to live under human rule. He said the vallaslin remind his people that they must never again surrender their beliefs.
When he finished skinning the deer, he cut me down. By the time I had righted myself and conquered the dizziness of all the blood rushing out of my head, he was gone.
I do not recommend that my readers seek out the Dalish for themselves. I was very lucky to have met the man that I did, and to have walked away from our meeting unscathed. Perhaps the Maker watches over those who seek knowledge with an open heart; I certainly would like to think so.
Aravels
:From Codex entry: AravelsCodex entry: Aravels is sourced by Brother Genitivi if the Warden is not of Dalish origin.
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The Dalish, who band together in small groups of blood relatives, travel in ornately carved wagons known as aravel, drawn by large white stags called halla. The aravel are a unique sight, beautiful in their swooping curvature, and adorned with broad hoods and bright silken cloths that flap in the wind, often displaying the noble banners that once flew over that family's house. Most humans refer to the aravel as "landships," for in a strong wind it can often appear as if the elves travel in long boats with sails high overhead to announce their arrival (or warn others away). The halla are unique to the elves, and any but elven handlers consider them ornery and almost impossible to train. To the Dalish, they are noble beasts, superior in breeding to the horse. Certainly most humans would agree that the halla are as beautiful as the elves themselves; the fact that many imperial nobles maintain a bounty on halla horns that find their way into Tevinter is an affront the Dalish consider unforgivable.
Few among us can claim to have seen the Dalish landships up close. Any human who sees them on the horizon does well to head the other way. Few Dalish clans take kindly to humans intruding on their camps, and more than one tale tells of trouble-making humans who found themselves mercilessly filled with Dalish arrows.
== Qunari lore ==
The Qunari
:From Codex entry: The Qunari (Origins)
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Anyone who travels far enough to the north will eventually encounter the Qunari: White-haired, bronze-skinned giants, a head again taller than a man, with frighteningly calm demeanors and a sort of sparkling fire behind their eyes. 
For quite a long time, people believed that all Qunari were male, or that their men and women were simply indistinguishable. It was not until the Blessed Age that diplomats from Rivain were allowed, however briefly, to visit Par Vollen, and there they discovered that Qunari females do exist in abundance, and are quite easily recognized. The Rivaini say that Qunari have a certain kindness to them, or at least a conspicuous lack of cruelty, although I did not observe the creatures closely enough to evaluate their character. 
Tal-Vashoth
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== Imperium lore ==
The Tevinter Imperium
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Tevinter Society
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The Lost City of Barindur
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== Circle lore ==
The Harrowing
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Lyrium 
:From Codex entry: Lyrium (Origins)
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More than half the wealth of Orzammar comes from a single, extremely rare substance: Lyrium. The Chantry believes it to be the "Waters of the Fade" mentioned in the Canticle of Threnodies, the very stuff of creation itself, from whence the Maker fashioned the world. Only a handful of Mining Caste families hazard extracting the ore, finding veins in the Stone quite literally by ear. For in its raw form, lyrium sings, and the discerning can hear the sound even through solid rock.
Even though dwarves have a natural resistance, raw lyrium is dangerous for all but the most experienced of the Mining Caste to handle. Even for dwarves, exposure to the unprocessed mineral can cause deafness or memory loss. For humans and elves, direct contact with lyrium ore produces nausea, blistering of the skin, and dementia. Mages cannot even approach unprocessed lyrium. Doing so is invariably fatal.
Despite its dangers, lyrium is the single most valuable mineral currently known. In the Tevinter Imperium, it has been known to command a higher price than diamond. The dwarves sell very little of the processed mineral to the surface, giving the greater portion of what they mine to their own smiths, who use it in the forging of all truly superior dwarven weapons and armor. What processed lyrium is sold on the surface goes only to the Chantry, who strictly control the supply. From the Chantry, it is dispensed both to the templars, who make use of it in tracking and fighting maleficarum, and to the Circle.
In the hands of the Circle, lyrium reaches its fullest potential. Their Formari craftsmen transform it into an array of useful items from the practical, such as magically hardened stone for construction, to the legendary silver armor of King Calenhad.
When mixed into liquid and ingested, lyrium allows mages to enter the Fade when fully aware, unlike all others who reach it only when dreaming. Such potions can also be used to aid in the casting of especially taxing spells, for a short time granting a mage far greater power than he normally wields.
Lyrium has its costs, however. Prolonged use becomes addictive, the cravings unbearable. Over time, templars grow disoriented, incapable of distinguishing memory from present, or dream from waking. They frequently become paranoid, as their worst memories and nightmares haunt their waking hours. Mages have additionally been known to suffer physical mutation: The magister lords of the Tevinter Imperium were widely reputed to have been so affected by their years of lyrium use that they could not be recognized by their own kin, nor even as creatures that had once been human.
The Tranquil
:From Codex entry: The TranquilCodex entry: The Tranquil is sourced by Brother Genitivi if neither the Warden, Hawke or the Inquisitor are a mage.
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The Tranquil are the least understood but most visible members of the Circle. Every city of respectable size boasts a Circle of Magi shop, and every one of these shops is run by a Tranquil proprietor.
The name is a misnomer, for they are not tranquil at all; rather, they are like inanimate objects that speak. If a table wished to sell you an enchanted penknife, it could pass as one of these people. Their eyes are expressionless, their voices monotone. Incomparable craftsmen they might be, but they are hardly the sort of mages to put ordinary folk at ease.
== Chantry lore ==
The First Inquisition
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The Order of Fiery Promise
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== References ==
Category:Books in Dragon Age
Category:Lore
Category:Anderfels
Category:Antiva
Category:Dwarven lore
Category:Elven lore
Category:Ferelden
Category:Free Marches
Category:Nevarra
Category:Orlais
Category:Qunari lore
Category:Rivain
Category:Tevinter Imperium
Category:Chantry lore
Category:Circle of Magi lore