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Knight Commander Meredith Weapon Redesign

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Hi all! I'm doing a redesign of Knight-Commander Meredith's sword Certainty! In its original design it's stated to be a Red Lyrium blade that drove her to madness, but there isn't really a lot of that message conveyed by the original piece, SO, I'm taking my stab at it.

The first thing I did was examine Meredith as a character, the final boss in Dragon Age 2 and a level-headed woman (pre corruption at least), hardened by a rough childhood as an orphan of Kirkwall.

Character points:
  • She is a devout follower of Andraste (the in game god) and projects a lot of her life on to the stories about her (to an unhealthy level) and is quoted with saying “Magic is a cancer in the heart of our land, just as it was in the time of Andraste. And like her, we are left with no choice but to purify it with fire and blood.” She also wears a headpiece that echoes the one Andraste is often pictured with.
  • She is in charge of leading both the templars and the circle of magi  
  • Over the course of the game she is driven progressively crazier by the corrupting power of red lyrium 
  • She is never off duty, this woman is an absolute hornet 

So for her sword, I included:

  • stains from old blood from blisters and hard work on the handle of her blade instead of bright red blood from thorns that shouldn't be there anyway because it's a handle
  • a greater presence of her faith, working the red lyrium that corrupts her into the blade serving as the flames that burnt Andraste on the pyre. Andraste is depicted like those old wooden catholic sculptures of saints 
  • Because the core of the blade is hardwood there will be visible nicks in it from past battles she's had, symbolic of the tests of faith she's met in her duty
  • The symbols for the circle of magi and the templar order are both present towards the hilt of the sword, and on the side is the symbol of kirkwall
  • I considered how every part of a cathedral is meant to tell stories through depictions in its architecture and glass and tried my best to depict the story of Andraste's death as well as Meredith's values in the weapon
Some of the mechanics for how it functions in game could be that the red lyrium of the blade shatters a little bit and infects the people in range of the impact, tainting them, before growing back to original thickness along the blade.

I've had a lot of fun making it so far and will be painting it and bringing it to finish in the near future!

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