“There is no place for emotion in killing. It's sloppy. File it down. Make it useful.”
Caterina Dellamorte is the First Talon of the Antivan Crows.
Background[]
Caterina had five children, and eight grandchildren. House Velardo started a war of succession in a failed bid to claim the seat of First Talon, in which all five of Caterina's children, and six of her grandchildren, were killed. Caterina took an active part in the training of her remaining two grandsons, Lucanis and Illario, as Antivan Crows. Their training was hard; Lucanis remembers being hit with her cane for making mistakes or spending days without food or water. Lucanis hated her for years but has since come to realize that cruelty was her way of ensuring his survival as a Crow. Lucanis is said to be Caterina's favorite, and the one she intends to name as her heir.[1]
Andarateia Cantori is fond of Caterina, seeing her as the mother she never had, and calls her "Nonna."[2]
Involvement[]
Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights[]
Eight Little Talons
Dragon Age: The Veilguard[]
Ever since Lucanis' disappearance during his mission, Caterina has been chasing leads in Antiva and Tevinter about Lucanis' whereabouts. Varric Tethras and his team's engagements with the Venatori sent a ripple in the cultists' ranks and Caterina exploited that disruption to acquire knowledge about the Ossuary.[3]
Caterina first meets Rook at the Cantori Diamond in Qunari-occupied Treviso alongside Teia, Viago and her grandson Illario. Upon hearing that Rook was looking to recruit "the Demon of Vyrantium", whom she identified as her other grandson Lucanis, Viago insisted that Lucanis was dead a year ago. However, Caterina admitted to everyone that the body the other Crows assumed to be Lucanis was an imposter altered by blood magic to disguise his face, much to Illario's outrage. Viago guessed that since they suspected a traitor within the Crows who helped attack Lucanis' ship, Caterina kept her suspicions to herself. Thankfully, her spies had been tracking Venatori, who, thanks to Rook disrupting the Dread Wolf's ritual, caused the Tevinters to slip up and reveal that Lucanis was in fact being held in an underwater prison called the Ossuary. Thus, she assigned Rook to infiltrate the prison to liberate Lucanis.
Unfortunately, while Rook was gone, the Venatori attacked the Cantori Diamond in retaliation for the prison break on orders of Zara Renata and Caterina was presumably killed in the confusion.
After Illario kills Zara while Lucanis was interrogating her, the latter brings Zara's corpse back to the Lighthouse for Emmrich Volkarin to reanimate, revealing that Illario betrayed Lucanis to the Venatori but killing Caterina was never part of the plan. Later on, it is revealed that Caterina is in fact alive and imprisoned by Illario in their estate under guard by the Venatori while he worked to seize the title of First Talon. If Rook chose to save Treviso, Caterina will send a message that she's alive by discarding one of her rings in the refuse, which is recovered by one of Viago's agents. By the time Lucanis and Rook come to rescue her, Caterina had barred the doors to her room from the inside and almost struck Lucanis but fortunately her grandson caught her attack and they both embrace. Caterina later shows up in the opera house after Illario is defeated, and, depending on whether Treviso is corrupted by the blight, influences Lucanis' decision to either imprison or forgive his cousin. Since Illario insisted that his fate was up to the First Talon, Caterina formally declares Lucanis her successor—the new First Talon.
Note texts[]
Notes[]
- In Short Story: The Wake, her name is spelled Catarina.
Trivia[]
- By 9:44-9:45 Dragon, Caterina is described as well in her seventies with silver-white hair.
References[]
- ↑ Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights, The Wigmaker Job
- ↑ Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights, Eight Little Talons
- ↑ Codex entry: Caterina's Search