Here is part 2 of 3 treatises on lyrium so far! It’s nearly 2000 words. Why am I doing this? Because science, and I think this is a plausible explanation of how some of Thedas works. And because my nerdy brain won’t let me rest until I get these headcanons down.
Part 3, Pathophysiology of the Blight Disease and the Origin and Rise of Red Lyrium, has been split off because this is getting really, really long; I’ll post it tomorrow.
ALSO if you actually read this all the way through THERE MAY BE ANATOMIC ILLUSTRATIONS I DOODLED as a bonus!
In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Bianca Davri tells Varric that lyrium is alive, and the cause of red lyrium is the Blight, which only affects living things.
But what is naturally occurring lyrium, anyway?
Lyrium’s most likely analogue in our world is a fungus. Lyrium does not appear to grow in sunlight, making photosynthesis impossible, and is found deep within the earth, as are many molds, deep mushrooms, and lichens. Lyrium also shares characteristics with fungi like mycelia, AKA a fungus’ branching, thread-like vegetative form. There are reports of fungi that may cover over a mile (there is a fungus in Oregon that is believed to be 2.4 miles in diameter and is still only one organism) by way of these projections… which could also be referred to as veins. Lyrium veins are present in both Dragon Age: Origins and DA2, and it is constantly mentioned that lyrium must be mined, despite the fact that you can walk into pieces of it in the Deep Roads – clearly there must be more, much more, beneath the surface.
If lyrium is a living fungus, that allows it to be infected by the Blight.
Why hasn’t lyrium been known to be alive before? There may be several answers for that. Its fruiting bodies or rhizomorphs (the bits of lyrium that Hawke or a Warden stumbles upon in the deep roads) may be so hardened that it seems like to a soft type of mineral, like talc. Given that a rhizomorph is made up of millions of tiny threads of hyphae, you could take a rhizomorph and crumble it, and if the fungus is rather hard, it would not seem unlike a mineral. Keep in mind that no one has developed the microscope in Thedas.
When Dorian suggests they go down to Orlais for Satinalia, Mahanon is immediately suspicious.
Ever since he got reestablished in Tevinter with his biggest incentive to be elsewhere firmly by his side, the Imperium’s newest Magister has shown little desire to leave – certainly not for the holidays. Indeed, he’s hyped the occasion up endlessly, the way the sky comes alive with light and music and excess.
(“Imagine if fireflies and dragons interbred!”)
It takes Mahanon growing outright alarmed by the secrecy for him to admit the truth; that those old, fleeting remarks about “Minrathous after Satinalia” had been understating it.
Come the holiday season, the place is a bloodbath.
Delicious Fish 