"Aha."

"The gods here are less talkative?"

"To the point where the ones whose existence is least in doubt are the ones that died or went to sleep or something and left their bodies underground for the darkspawn to come along and turn into Archdemons."

"Well, I suppose sometimes gods are irresponsible."

"From what I hear, these ones weren't particularly benign even before the darkspawn got to them. Anyway, and then there's the elven gods that nobody's heard from in thousands of years, and the Maker who's supposedly off in the Fade somewhere having a sulk because mortals broke into his house and murdered his girlfriend. Or something. I'm not an expert in surface theology."

"You're from underground, right?"

"Yeah."

"The Dwarves on Endorë live underground and are about your height but not otherwise a lot like you."

"Huh. Odd coincidence."

"Several of them, if I look like an elf."

"You don't look all that much like an elf," says Tev. "You're too tall, and your ears aren't even the same shape, they're just also pointed - qunari have pointed ears too, I bet the only reason they didn't mistake you for a qunari is that you're not grey and you don't have horns -"

"Orcs are sort of grey, and have ears like mine, but no horns."

"So we've got a bunch of species that sound vaguely like each other but aren't really all that similar," Stalas concludes.

"Seems like it."

"A little bit of a coincidence but not a lot of one, I guess."

"Assuming the two arms two legs one head part is a given, anyway."

"Well, we don't have anyone who departs from that plan; do you?"

"Maiar and Valar can look however they want. A friend of mine has a Maia who prefers to be a dog as a pet. But that's not quite the same thing."

"Yeah. Spirits can do something similar, I think."

"Ainur - Maiar and Valar collectively - have to do all the being alive on purpose. Some of the Maiar just don't."

"Spirits don't exactly do being alive at all, I don't think. You'd have to talk to a mage to get the details. Clare might know."

"I think we don't have magic - well, Ainur do but we don't."

"Yeah, if you don't have lyrium or the Fade you certainly don't have the kind of magic we get around here."

"It sounds interesting!"

"It is that! Oh, I know who you should talk to if you want it properly explained - my friend Dagna, she's another Orzammar dwarf and she's gone to study magical theory at the Circle - when all this is settled we can go visit her and she can tell you all about it."