Mourn Watch

Mourn Watch
Type	Magical
Headquarters	Grand Necropolis
Leaders	The Lich Lords
Races	Any
Location	Nevarra
Appearances	Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights Dragon Age: The Veilguard

The Mourn Watch is an order of Nevarrans who serve as the elite guardians and keepers of the Grand Necropolis and its sacred repository of the dead.

Background

The Mourn Watch is an old fraternity composed of select individuals, often mages, who have been invited into it. Many Mortalitasi join the Mourn Watch, but mages of other specializations and even non-mages are allowed to join the order, and joining the Watch is not required to be considered a Mortalitasi. The Mourn Watch also deal with magic that has gone awry within Nevarra and the Grand Necropolis, especially as related to Nevarran funerary rites and corpse possession. According to Emmrich Volkarin, the Mourn Watch's first duty is safekeeping the Grand Necropolis and preparing the funerary dead. Another duty is stopping the misuse of dark magic and necromancy. The Mourn Watchers have absolute authority over funerary dead, and Templars assigned to Nevarra have a tacit agreement that issues within the Grand Necropolis are best left to the Watch's experienced necromancers.

Involvement

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

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This section contains spoilers for:
Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

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Initially, the Venatori sent envoys to the Grand Necropolis, hoping to gather magical powers to be of service to Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain. When they were turned away, the Venatori infiltrated the Grand Necropolis by utilizing a Hand of Glory and sacrificing several slaves to bypass the Necropolis' traps. They also chained the bell known as the Sunken Star and set loose despair demons in the Necropolis to distract the Mourn Watch. Fortunately, Rook and Bellara Lutare came to the Grand Necropolis to recruit Emmrich Volkarin to their team and aided him in securing the Necropolis. After unchaining the Sunken Star, any malicious spirit who hears the tolling of its bell will be banished to the Fade, thus driving away the despair demons. The Veilguard fended off the Venatori and despair demons while Emmrich conducted the ritual to activate the Sunken Star.

During the quest House of the Dead, Emmrich Volkarin uses his Corpse Whispering on the corpse of a Venatori victim to get any information on the whereabouts of the rogue necromancer who supplied the Venatori with the Hand of Glory. The undead corpse directed the Veilguard to the Blackthorne Manor, an abandoned country house outside Nevarra City that has recently had its surrounding Veil deliberately thinned. The Veilguard uses the lingering magic enchanting the Hand of Glory to track the rogue necromancer in the manor. As they investigate the manor, the Veilguard discovers the seals casted around the manor were powered by the the terror of entrapped spirits and also that someone has been stealing the harvested life energy of spirit and human souls who were sacrificed in a magical ritual. The rituals conducted by the rogue necromancer has opened a tear in the Veil, allowing a pathway into the Fade. After freeing the trapped, terrorized spirits, the Veilguard confront the rogue necromancer responsible for these attrocites, who happens to be Johanna Hezenkoss. Hezenkoss reveals she has been using an artifact called the Gloaming Lantern to harvest souls and use its stolen life energy. She warns that any violence by the lantern can permanently sunder the Veil. Hezenkoss escapes through a portal into the Fade while the Veilguard defeats her summoned demons. Johanna reattaches the Hand of Glory to her arm, revealing it to be her hand that she lended to the Venatori in exchange for certain favors. Correspondence later found at the manor revealed she is working on a grand project, and the Venatori are giving her supplies in exchange for the raw magic she siphoned from the Fade. She also reveals her condition as a half-lich. After summoning a pride demon for the Veilguard to fight, Johanna makes her final escape from the manor. The Veilguard defeats the pride demon and discusses the turn of events at the Lighthouse.

During the quest The Sacrifice of Souls, Myrna and Vorgoth travel to the Lighthouse to inform Emmrich and Rook about their findings on the Gloaming Lantern. Gloaming Lanterns were fashioned in ages past by unscrupulous necromancers that used them to steal and concentrate life. Emmrich thinks Johanna can use it to leech life from hundreds at a time—an endless source of power. Johanna is holding soiree in Blackthorne Manor and the Veilguard seeks to infiltrate the gathering and destroy her lantern. Emmrich sends Manfred into the gathering, posing as an undead servant, and has him gather information on where Johanna's workshop is, while Rook's team searches the manor for clues on how to reach the workshop. Emmrich uses his corpse whispering on an ancestral skeleton belonging to a deceased from the House of Verheims who agree to help Emmrich due to his association with Manfred. The ancestral skeleton directs the Veilguard to follow the red tapestries in the manor which leads the team to Hezenkoss' workshop. Once they enter her workshop, they discover that Hezenkoss has crafted an enormous, undead, bone golem, fueling it with the spirits in the Gloaming Lantern which she has inserted in her bone golem. They also find a revenge list which includes the guests of the party and Emmrich. Emmrich and the team fight their way to the lantern, occasionally being aided by Manfred, in order to free the spirits before destroying the lantern. However, there are too many spirits and Emmrich feels attempting to free them all will kill him. Hezenkoss accuses Emmrich of being a coward for not risking his life in a bid for lichdom while she did, and Emmrich agreed with her. Although Emmrich tells her he missed her as a friend and would have helped her if he could, Emmrich warns her against puppeteering her bone golem, which enraged her as she seeks to insert her consciousness in her creation. Hezenkoss orders her bone golem to start harvesting the souls of the party guests, forcing the Veilguard to start fighting Hezenkoss. After a lengthy battle, Hezenkoss began using the bone golem to start draining the life from Rook's team. The Veilguard find cover by some ruined wall, and Emmrich states he cannot destroy the lantern as no living thing can approach it with out being killed by it. Manfred decides to snatch the lantern from the bone golem, but is crushed to re-death by the bone golem in retaliation. Manfred throws the lantern to Emmrich before his demise and Emmrich released the spirits from it, thus disabling Hezenkoss' monstrosity and saving Nevarra.

During the quest The Sacrifice of Souls, it is revealed that Johanna Hezenkoss has stolen a portion of the Grand Necropolis, the Basalt Hypogeum, which was made a part of her workshop in Blackthorne Manor to hide her secret bone golem creation. The Mourn Watch returns the Basalt Hypogeum to the Necropolis after her defeat at the hands of the Veilguard.

In the aftermath of Hezenkoss' defeat, the Mourn Watch found Johanna crushed by the rubble of her bone golem. Only her skull was still intact. Unable to destroy her remains out of fear of letting Johanna's spirit escape, the Mourn Watchers preserved her reanimated skull in order to use her abilities for some sort of penitence. She is to be confined under the eye of a Mourn Watcher—most likely Emmrich—in the meantime until the Mourn Watch can find a suitable method of penance in the Necropolis. She is now an undead skull, imprisoned by Emmrich's wards at his Laboratory in the Lighthouse.

If the quest The Sacrifice of Souls is not completed:

Hezenkoss joins the Venatori after creating her bone golem and uses it to lay waste to much of Nevarra City. The golem proves to be more than a match for the Mourn Watch, whose necromantic magic is ineffective against the golem's enchantments. Dozens of Mourn Watchers died fighting it. Afterwards, she and her golem head north to Minrathous. There, her golem is later destroyed by a combined force including the Grey Wardens, the Mourn Watch, and the Veilguard.

Lichdom

Mourn Watchers who are worthy can become Liches, immortal bulwarks against forces that threaten creation, and is also the most hallowed rank in the Mourn Watch. A council of Lich Lords oversee those inducted into their order.

Known members

• Emmrich Volkarin
• Johanna Hezenkoss (formerly)
• Myrna
• Rook (conditional)
• Vorgoth
• The Lich Lords of the Grand Necropolis

Trivia

• The Mourn Watch breeds various beetles. One kind of beetle eats the flesh of the dead during their funerary rites.
• Mourn Watchers commonly wear masks during Mourn Watcher rituals. A popular mask is the Smiling Visage, whose smiling expression eases passing souls as they cross into the afterlife.