Vol Dorma

bohemiantea-scorpiocoffee:

There’s bits and pieces of lore about some people or places scattered about the codex entries and weapon or armor descriptions, and one of those places that has stuck in my mind – especially since I recently replayed the ending of Trespasser for recording purposes – is Vol Dorma in the Tevinter Imperium.

Scraps about it that you can find on the Fandom Wikia:

• The Imperial Highway starts from Minrathous to Vol Dorma and then southeast until one branch ends in Perivantium and another expands into Nevarra. (Tevinter Imperium entry)
• Vol Dorma apparently is a center for hidden/hard-to-find or ancient or forbidden lore, along with Perivantium.
• There is a nobleman there who maintains a private army.
• From Vol Dorma’s section of the Imperial highway, there is a neglected road leading west that a scholar attempted to take to visit the colossal Our Lady of the Anderfels. 
• An Orlesian nobleman named Yoan purchased an eluvian and an entire lot of other artifacts and “trinkets” that came to light after an earthquake near Vol Dorma exposed a buried elven ruin.
• One of the former elven slaves who survived The Long Walk to Halamshiral recounts having walked all the way from Vol Dorma.

• Scholars question whether the true location of the elven rebellion lay in Vol Dorma or elsewhere, such as the cities of Marnas Pell, Hasmal, Marothius or Solas. All these locations suffered from slave revolts and the Tevinter famine. (From the entry on Shartan.)

• The Chant of Light refers to Vol Dorma as where Shartan and the other elven slaves who would join Andraste came from.

To put all of the above into better context: the Anderfels, more or less, lie west of the Imperial Highway and the Imperium to the east. (This changes with The High Reaches, an apparent mountain range or hilly region parallel to the Imperial Highway as it continues north to Minrathous on the coast.)

Twice, elven slaves have left Vol Dorma en masse: once during the initial elven rebellion in Andraste’s time, and secondly during the Long Walk to Halamshiral in the Dales, the home given to the elves as Andraste promised, after Andraste’s death.The time elapsed would’ve been easily within one person’s lifetime.

It’s the entry regarding the discovered eluvian and elven ruins near Vol Dorma that is most interesting and shocking, however. Given all other information presented, it’s been easy to assume or infer that Tevinter’s troubles with Arlathan/the ancient elven empire would have fairly clear demarcations. 

But the fact that Vol Dorma is well within the Imperium’s borders, both modern and ancient, makes some of the presentation of the clashes between elves and humans highly suspect:

Our ancestors came to look upon the humans as parasites, which I understand is similar to the way the humans see our people in the cities. The ancient elves immediately moved to close Elvhenan off from the humans, for fear that this quickening effect would crumble the civilization.

Also:

As the empire grew elven scouts began to be spotted in the Arlathan forest, a strange people with pointed ears and magic. Although humans had coexisted with elves for a time, hostilities soon arose when the elves retreated from human contact. Furthermore, human settlements in the Arlathan forest, as well as emissaries sent to make contact with the elves, disappeared.^[6] 

(Tevinter Imperium: History)

The entry on Enasalin points out, however, that Elvhenan had “many cities.”

The point I am making is that one of them – or at least some temple or ruin – being within the Tevinter Imperium itself is unusual until you consider that these places must have existed *and fell to ruin* before the arrival of humans, specifically the Neromenians who formed the Tevinter Imperium. If this ruin hadn’t already been deliberately formed underground, then it could have been buried at the creation of the Veil. (Much like creating the Veil sundered  Vir Dirthara and other “countless marvels.”) 

A Dalish Inquisitor could easily find this set of artifacts from Vol Dorma immeasurably important, potentially divulging so much more of actual elven history than the temples in the Dales and Orlais in general combined. Similarly, someone digging through Vol Dorma’s market of ancient books and scrolls for the Inquisitor could find quite a few treasures there as well.