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“We were everyone. There were no humans, no dwarves, no race but the elves.”


Felassan is a Dalish dreamer mage and a friend of Briala.

Background[]

Felassan has an unusually sarcastic and playful demeanor. He seems to know a great deal about elven history, and particularly about the enigmatic trickster god Fen'Harel. His attitude is also much more carefree than the grave manner expected of a wise elder, or apostate mage.[1] Though he presents himself as Dalish, no Dalish clan willing to speak with outsiders admits to having had Felassan among its ranks, and they noted that such a gifted mage would more likely be serving as Keeper for a clan than wandering the world alone. Both Empress Celene and Grand Duke Gaspard, who travelled with him for a time, said that he was unlike any City or Dalish elf they had ever met.[2]

Felassan speaks of the distant past of Elvhenan almost as if he had lived it himself. He is a powerful mage who specializes in primal and nature, or elemental magic.[3][4]

He has vallaslin and violet-colored eyes,[1] and wears a simple cloak, breeches and tunic with bare feet.[5] Felassan's staff glows green, and can be shrunk into the convenient size of a stick.[6]

"Felassan" means "slow arrow" in the elven language.[7] The name is a reference to a legend about Fen'Harel, in which he is asked by a village to kill a great beast. Fen'Harel agrees and defeats the monster with an arrow shot into the sky at dawn that falls from the sky to kill the beast while it attacks in the night. Felassan likes to think of himself as the slow arrow that slew the beast without it ever noticing.[8]

Involvement[]


This section contains spoilers for:
Dragon Age: The Masked Empire.


BioWare canon
The plot follows BioWare's own canon, meaning it may not follow some of the player's choices in the games.

Felassan befriended Briala while the elven girl was seeking the Dalish elves following the murder of her parents. He came to her rescue when she was attacked by human bandits on the road, killing them all. Afterwards, Felassan took her under his wing as a protégée of sorts, becoming her hahren, or revered elder and teacher. In particular, the mage taught her much about the cunning ways of Fen'Harel, and how to apply his stories to her own life and struggles. He then convinced Briala to return to future-Empress Celene I to continue her goal of championing the elven cause in Orlais.[9]

DA inks masked 02

Felassan and Briala defend Michel

Years later, the two are still in contact. Felassan meets with Briala once a month in the alienage of Val Royeaux to share information useful to Briala's position as Celene's spymaster, and sometimes to offer help and advice. He assists Briala in locating Ser Michel de Chevin after his capture by the bard Melcendre, and later passes on to her word of the rebellion in Halamshiral following the brutal murder of the elven trader Lemet on the orders of Lord Mainserai.[10]

In a last-ditch effort to prevent political catastrophe for the Empress, Felassan travels with Briala to Halamshiral to assassinate Lord Mainserai. With the help of Thren, a friend of Lemet's, the trio successfully infiltrates the nobleman's mansion and slits his throat as he sleeps, unaware that the political situation in Val Royeaux has already forced Celene to march on the city to crush the rebellion. As they leave the mansion, they are apprehended by Celene's forces, led by Ser Michel. While Thren is killed and Briala arrested, Felassan disappears into the forest surrounding the city to wait for his protégée to return.[11]

After Briala escapes and rejoins with Felassan, they make their way to Dalish clan Virnehn, where they intend to lay low for lack of a better option. On the way, they meet Celene and Michel, fleeing from Halamshiral as well following Gaspard’s betrayal. Though Briala is angry at Celene for killing her people and burning down Halamshiral, the two groups agree to join forces and reach a decision to get to the Dalish to try to get them on their side. Clan Virnehn rescues them when they are attacked by sylvans. However, the clan is uninterested in helping Celene keep her throne and puts the two human under guard. To free them, Briala enlists Felassan’s help in creating a distraction. He agrees, on the condition that he will never reveal to Briala whether he is truly Dalish.[12]

Felassan and Briala assist Michel in killing the Dalish elves opposing their escape. They make their way to the clearing where the self-proclaimed choice spirit Imshael has been trapped by Keeper Thelhen (found earlier by Ser Michel) and confront the spirit. Felassan greets him familiarly and the spirit responds in kind, calling him "Slow Arrow": the meaning of his name in Elvish. The party takes a keystone gem the spirit creates to activate the eluvians and Michel unwittingly frees Imshael. Though Felassan knew Michel was freeing the demon rather than destroying it as he believed, he stayed silent to preserve the group. The demon is unleashed on the Dalish instead, and murders almost every remaining elf in the clan.[13]

Felassan then leads the party through an underground chamber where the nearest eluvian lies, and then into the magical pathway between the portals. As the party is joined by Grand Duke Gaspard de Chalons and his own companions, Felassan displays unusual knowledge of the elven burial chambers, magic and corpses – both revenants and "demon-mages", as well as the corpses of elves who had been dreamer mages in Uthenera – that the party sees and combats on the way to a main chamber where Imshael's gem can activate the sleeping eluvians. He speaks with bitterness on the cruelty and decadence of Elvhenan, noting that for all its magical glory it was no better to its servant class than modern-day Orlais is to its city elves.[14]

Upon reaching the main chamber, Felassan assists Briala and company in defeating a varterral guarding the activation pedestal and elven rune labyrinth. He also appears to silently support Gaspard's elven comrade, the clan Virnehn survivor and First Mihris, when she opposes Celene's attempt to stop Briala taking control of the eluvians with the gem following a duel to decide the future of Orlesian rulership. When Mihris reveals she is possessed by Imshael, Felassan persuades the spirit to leave her, with the enigmatic promise that "something bigger" is coming.[15]

After Briala transports her companions away to various locations throughout Orlais to continue their own struggles, both personal and political, she offers to give Felassan the passphrase she created to utilize the eluvians. He prevents her from telling him, however, telling her he must go and that he has more work to do. When Mihris asks him if he will take her to his clan, Felassan refuses and informs her that she would not want to meet his clan. He then kisses Briala on the forehead in farewell and disappears.[16]

Alone, Felassan enters the somniari trance to speak with a mysterious entity in the Fade. With a sense of prescient doom, he informs the entity that he did not get the passphrase from Briala, and suggests that she be given a chance to try using the eluvians. He remarks that "they" are stronger than the being thinks and attempts to tell the entity that Briala reminds him of something, or someone, else, but is 'killed' before he can do so. His last thoughts are of Briala, alone and in search of her people.[17] Whether this is a case of killed in the Fade and made Tranquil, or a case of physical death, has been kept ambiguous. [18]



This section contains spoilers for:
Trespasser.


Conversation with Cole and Solas reveals that Felassan really was an agent and friend of Fen'Harel, and that the Dread Wolf was the one who killed him for his failure to obtain the passphrase to the eluvians.[19]


Trivia[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, p. 72
  2. Dragon Age logo - new Dragon Age: The World of Thedas, vol. 2, p. 277
  3. Twitter icon Patrick Weekes[1] Twitter.
  4. Twitter icon Patrick Weekes[2] Twitter.
  5. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, p. 120
  6. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, p. 86
  7. As explained by Felassan in The Masked Empire, Chapter 3
  8. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 73–74
  9. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 71–72, 239
  10. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 74, 100
  11. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 120, 131
  12. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 178, 250
  13. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 257–260
  14. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 278–285, 291, 303, 316–317
  15. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 331, 355
  16. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 369–371
  17. Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 378–380
  18. Interview with Patrick and Karen WeekesTemplate:Http://www.dumpeddrunkanddalish.com/2020/05/castles-fennecs-and-player-engagement.html?m=1
  19. Cole, if prompted at the Winter Palace, mentions "a slow arrow" broken in a sad wolf's jaws, for his failure and for seeing modern elves as "people." Solas also mentions Felassan indirectly, as an agent who failed to take the eluvians from Briala.
  20. Twitter icon Patrick Weekes[3] Twitter.
  21. Twitter icon Patrick Weekes[4] Twitter.
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