Chapter Text
Foreword by Merrill Alerion, PhD, RPA,
Senior Archaeologist, Residual Magic & Magical Rot, Elvhenan Historical Conservancy
A Personal Word
Like many other Dalish elves I grew up on scraps of stories passed down from Keeper to Clan. Most of our tales focused on the Evanuris, but there were many tales about the Forgotten Ones and the war between them. These stories were given to each new elf as they learned about the world, half-remembered myths around campfires or, more recently, in the form of television shows and movies. These stories were precious to us because they were ours, but they were incomplete and did not give us a full picture of who the Forgotten Ones were, and why they did what they did.
We pieced together this Forgotten Codex from stories, tablets, ruins and relics found deep in northern Arlathan was like meeting up with an old friend that you did not remember you had. Like you were waiting for them your entire life. The Codex wasn’t hidden in some library in Kirkwall or Val Royeaux; it was lost to the world and squirreled away in a nest of crumbling temples outside of the halls of the Era’vun. It took many years, and quite a bit of luck, to find it and piece it together, only for it to change how we see these Forgotten Ones and our Evanuris.
I truly hope when you read this Codex, when you see the rituals and rites that the ancient elvhen used to worship the gods, read the parables and hymns written in their names, that you’ll feel everything that I felt: the knowledge that something so beautiful exists in the world; we can still learn new things about old things, and the promise that we can only learn more about our past.
Purpose of the Codex
The court of gods we now know were called the Era’vun - the Sleeping Sun - has always been hard to pin down. I mean, they were called the ‘Forgotten Ones’ for thousands of years by historians and scholars! Before this Codex, and before we could safely walk through their ruins, they were these shadowy villains hidden behind malice and hatred for the elvhen people. The belief that they wanted the downfall of Elvhenan, they were jealous of the Evanuris’ power - only for us to find out they were once the same pantheon.
The truth is a bit more complicated than we originally thought. This Codex compiles all this new information we could find on the Forgotten Ones: translated rituals, histories and stories of their origins, who and how they were worshiped, along with fragments of history that tell us what happened during the War of the Era’vun and their existence before the Fall, all without the layers of propaganda and fear put in place by what we were incorrectly taught. The Forgotten Ones weren’t nameless monsters waiting to drag us into darkness; they were gods with their own domains and followers that did care about their people.
We saw many twists in the story as we pieced the Codex together. We located patterns. Domains of gods previously thought to be evil and malicious - like Fen’harel, the God of Treachery, or Nerien, the God of Decay - were mistranslated, maybe even purposefully. Cunning became Treachery. Rebirth became Decay. This doesn’t make the Era’vun or the Evanuris perfect or good, but it does make them more real. It brings us a few steps closer to the truth, which is all we can really ask for, right? The Codex was compiled to preserve and share the myths and stories of the Era’vun and to offer the modern elves a bridge between the stories we’ve heard our entire lives and the stories that we really should know.
Methodology & Translations
written by Lilya Aldwir, B.A., Epigraphist, Elvish Translation Office
Translating something like this Codex is… complicated at best. The Elvish language, particularly the version used by our ancestors, is meant to be spoken and is difficult to translate. Elvish is a language of intent. Words have many meanings, while context and tone are so incredibly important that translating a work like this into Common was a monumental task. One that took years, and many, many research assistants and translators to accomplish.
If only we could talk to the people of Arlathan today! We could get a much better picture of what they truly meant when they said these prayers and told these stories. But even then, every little translation we completed felt like another heartbeat of our past.
Most of the writings we have found from Arlathan were written in Temple Elvish, by priesthoods, and emerged from a High Elvish tongue from the early days of Elvhenan. This used very formal grammar and is spoken in a cadence that is almost lyrical, like a song. Temple Elvish had drastic, but not uncommon, differences with Common Elvish. This was the everyday language spoken by the elvhen of Arlathan: the normal people who spent their days baking bread, reading stories, using magic, and falling in love. The Dalish have preserved much of this language.
On top of the differences between Temple and Common Elvish, northern Arlathan and Arlathan City both had their own distinct dialects. The northern Arlathanian dialect, called Av’adahla, was heavily influenced by pre-settlement speech patterns, particularly of the elvhen nomadic tribes, and was used primarily by the Era’vun up until the Fall. Their vocabulary was tied heavily to the natural world, and they often used sharper consonants and truncated vowel endings, giving it a harsher cadence to its cousin.
Alternatively, we have the Arlathan City dialect - known to the elvhen as Dirth’vhen - which was used by most of Elvhenan and is what was carried down to the Dalish today. They used a highly poetic sentence structure with vocabulary influenced by the high elvhen courts: they liked their honorifics and held a strict adherence to hierarchy. This dialect utilized elongated vowels, creating smoother phonetics. These differences influenced those within the city using the Dirth’vhen dialect to worship using song, where northern Arlathan utilized chants, and simple verses as their preferred form of verbal worship.
In general, most words you encounter between the two dialects will remain the same; however, due to various translation differences between certain words, much of what we thought was to be true has been flipped on it’s head. For example, the translation of the word harel in Arlathan City pre-Fall would be the verb ‘to trick’. This translation caused Fen’harel’s domain to be translated to ‘Treachery’ early on, and one of his many epithets to be ‘Lord of Tricksters’. Through the translation of this Codex, we find that Fen’harel did, in fact, join the Forgotten Ones at the beginning of the war, and through this we see that his domain has been incorrectly documented. In the Av’adahla dialect, harel is meant to mean ‘to be cunning’, causing a striking difference in how we view the Dread Wolf. No longer a God of Treachery, but a God of Cunning.
Every entry in this Codex stems from northern Arlathan, and was translated from the Av’adahla dialect. We had to take poetic liberties in some areas, particularly the verses, to keep the flow that the Elvish provided, but at its core, the meaning remains the same.
A Final Note
History is funny, isn’t it? We can gobble up everything we can find and still be wrong in the end. The Forgotten Codex is a work of research, but it’s so much more than that! These are stories of the gods, our gods.
So while you read it, think of both the historian and the dreamer. Follow these ‘threads’ through our history, but also look at it with child-like wonder and curiosity. It’s meant to be a little connection to the past and the deities who shaped the world as it is today, even if they’re not here anymore. I hope that somewhere in these stories and verses that you find something that speaks to your own heart and mind.
This Codex could not have been completed without the effort of many hands and minds. Special thanks to the Elvish Translation Office, the Elvhenan Historical Conservancy, and the Center of Elvhenan Cultural Research for their ongoing dedication to the history of the elvhen peoples and their commitment to preserving the layers of our past.
It isn’t easy translating stuffy elvhen texts, but some rather clever people did exactly that. Their passion, insight, and late nights spent ordering take-out while pouring over fading ink and broken tablets have brought a new life to otherwise forgotten history.
I am deeply grateful to the following for their hard work, and support:
- Lilya Aldwir, Epigraphist, Elvish Translation Office
- Rose Cordova, Research Assistant, Archaeology & Field Records Office
- Theodore ‘Dor’ Cousland, Field Arcanist, WISP
- Misyl Eshalinev, Field Scholar, Archaeology & Field Records Office
- Talenna Ethera, Research Assistant, Elvish Translation Office
- Taelaros Lavellan, Professor of Elvhen Studies, Denerim University
- Riley ‘Beefcake’ Mercar, Field Specialist, WISP
- Elias Mordenvale, Field Scholar, Cultural Heritage & Preservation Office
- Claudia Ovidia, Archivist, Colonial Impact Archive
- Enna Thorne, Linguist, Elvish Translation Office
- Meldiriel H. Virnehn, Archivist, Cultural Heritage & Preservation Office
- Ellana Valemon, Heritage Art Conservator, Cultural Heritage & Preservation Office