In the waning years of the Blessed Age, reptilian
wings blanketed the sun. Dragons, thought to have been hunted to extinction
centuries earlier, reappeared in the skies above the world of men and devastated the
countryside of Orlais and Nevarra. Reading this as an epochal omen, Faustine
II, Divine of the Chantry, declared a new age: the Dragon Age, which in her holy wisdom,
she predicted would be a time of violence, upheaval, and dramatic change. Thus begins the period in which the titularly
named Dragon Age games take place, yet this is not where the history of its world begins. Welcome to special longform video on the vibrant
and tumultuous continent of Thedas, where we will explore the entire background lore
of the fascinating Dragon Age franchise right up until the beginning of the first game. If you’re lore-heads like us you probably
want to listen to these stories at all times, and for that, you need a portable option for
your audio. Today you need look no further because this
video brings you a special offer form our sponsor Raycon. Raycon provides premium quality wireless earbuds
at the half the usual price, with no compromise on quality or skimping on the design. You’ll get top end audio quality at a price
where it not only won’t make a big impact in the modern age of economic uncertainty. Once charged you get about eight hours from
the earbuds, and if that really isn't enough then take the base station with you and charge
them from its internal battery during the day - this makes enjoying the freedom of wireless
earbuds easy; just ask our producer, who has been using Raycon earbuds for 2 years and
absolutely loves them. Raycons come with a selection of gel tips
so you can pick the one that gives you the best fit, they’re water and sweat resistant
and even though they’re small they have noise isolation so you can enjoy your audio
properly - or, awareness mode for cases where you need to switch out and hear the real world
around you. Be it lore, audiobooks, music, or news, there
is always something to listen to to make your day more fun and productive, and with wireless
earbuds from raycon, the best way to get all this is now more affordable than ever. And even better: click the link in the description
or go to buyraycon.com/waw to get 15% off your Raycon purchase! For over 10,000 years, the continent of Thedas
has been home to advanced civilizations capable of wondrous marvels. However, the race of humans, although nowadays
the dominant species of Thedas, are relatively newer arrivals to its shores. As far back as 7,600 years before the founding
of the Chantry, the elves were immortal and inherently magical people. They called themselves “Elvhen,” which
in their tongue meant “the people,” and ruled a massive Empire they called Elvhenan. Elvhenan was a place of arcane miracles, encompassing
not only the whole of Thedas, but extending beyond the physical realm itself: the Fade. The Fade is the dimension from which all magic
stems, where the consciousness of mortals travels when they dream and where beings of
pure magic, like spirits and demons, reside. In the modern Dragon Age, Elves and Humans
enter the Fade mentally when they dream. Still, they can rarely travel there physically
due to a magical barrier known as the veil, which separates the mortal world from the
metaphysical. However, in the Ancient Age, no such barrier
existed, and the Elvhen not only walked freely in the land of dreams and built entire cities
that transcended dimensions. However, few in the modern age remember the
splendors of the metropolises of Elvhenan, those who do describe them as a place of surreal
beauty. One particular dreamer asks us to “imagine
spires of crystal twining through the branches, palaces floating among the clouds,” and
to “imagine beings who lived forever, for whom magic was as natural as breathing.” Much like all roads led to Rome in our world,
in Ancient Thedas, all Eluvians led to Arlathan, a name meaning “this place of love,” and
the beating heart of the Elven civilization of Thedas. While the children of Arlathan built spires
that reached the heavens, the hardy, industrious Dwarva mastered the land beneath the surface. The Dwarves literally carved an Empire for
themselves out of stone, building massive cavernous cities known as Thaigs, connected
by a network of enormous underground highways called the Deep Roads. Dwarves are a race incapable of magic. Having no mental connection to the fade, they
also do not dream. However, what the Dwarva lacked in arcane
aptitude, they made up for in ingenious engineering and industry. In contrast, their non-magical status made
them the race best suited for mining and refining crafting with the magically volatile but extremely
precious element of lyrium. While the children of the stone thrived, the
ethereal empire above them was changing. Over time, certain powerful mages in Elvhenan
had grown more and more influential, beginning as revered war generals, to elders treated
with ritualistic veneration before eventually becoming seen by their people as living gods. In total, nine Elves became powerful enough
to be seen as divinities. They were Elgar’nan, the god of vengeance
and fatherhood, Mythal, the goddess of love and motherhood, Falon’din, the god of death,
Dirthamen, the keeper of secrets, Andruil, the goddess of the Hunt, Sylaise, the hearthkeeper,
June, the god of the craft, Ghilan’nain, the goddess of navigation, and Fen’harel,
the maverick of the bunch, who history remembers as “the Dread wolf.” The Evanuris were not benevolent gods, but
fickle, spiteful, and tyrannical. Under their despotic rule, Elvhen society
became more stratified, as a caste of nobles and high priests who showed complete devotion
to the Evanuris were rewarded with the power to enslave vast swathes of the Elven population. These slaves were branded with facial tattoos
known as Vallaslin, whose varying designs showed which of the Evanuris their noble owners
favoured. Over the centuries the Evanuris warred among
themselves, siccing their sycophants and their slaves against one another in an unending,
narcissistic hunger to gain more worshippers. Elves did not age, but they could be wounded
and killed, and thousands perished in the Evanuris’ senseless wars. However, not all the Evanuris were tyrants:
Mythal regularly sought to temper the more depraved inclinations of her peers, while
Fen’harel took things one step further, becoming a champion of the enslaved, lifting
the Vallaslin off their faces, and leading them in a crusade against the False Gods. As the flames of revolutions ravaged Elvhenan,
the Evanuris began to panic. As Fen’harel continued to elude them, they
instead set their wrathful eyes upon his dear friend, Mythal. In an act of treachery, the Goddess of Love
was slain at their hands. Consumed by grief, Fen’harel created the
veil, the barrier which would forever separate the mortal world from the fade. As a result, the Evanuris were permanently
locked away into the realm of dreams. However, the cost of achieving this had been
catastrophic. Many of Elvenhan’s cities had been intrinsically
tied to the fade, and with that connection severed, they began to collapse in on themselves,
while the paths between them crumbled, destroying eons of knowledge, killing many elvhen and
even fracturing spirits. Moreover, after their connection to the world
of dreams was snapped, the Elves lost their immortality, and for the first time in their
history, began to age. The Glory days of the Elves were now over. Around 3100 years before the founding of the
Chantry, the first human migrants arrived from the North. Over time, a diversity of primitive human
tribes inhabited the land. Of the men who migrated south, the Alamarri,
Clayne, Chasind, and Avvar peoples became masters of what is now Ferelden, while the
lands which now make up modern Orlais and Nevarra were the domain of the Ciriane, Inghirsh,
and Planasene. Of the men who remained north, four tribes,
the Qarinus, Barindur, Neromenians, and Tevinters created Kingdoms for themselves. In their earliest days on the continent, mankind
inevitably came into contact with the Elvhen. It seems that in some regions, these relations
were precipitated by cooperation and cohabitation, while in others, such as in the lands of the
Neromenians, contact between the two races brought about violence. Either way, not long after first contact,
the Elves began withdrawing into the forests of Arlathan, where their last great city of
the same name was located. Later legends would claim that it was contact
with humans which caused Elfkind to begin aging for the first time, but as we know,
they had already lost their immortality when Fen’harel created the veil, making it all
the more mysterious as to why they decided to abandon the majority of Thedas and let
mankind become the master of the continent. Originally, these early humans lived relatively
primitive lives as nomads, pastoralists, or simple agriculturalists, holding to an eclectic
variety of animist faiths. This status quo persisted for centuries, until
the Neromenians, the oldest of the human tribes, made a discovery that would change the face
of Thedas forever. Around 1595 years before the founding of the
Chantry, legend has it that a Neromenian oracle named Thalsian mastered the ability of lucid
dreaming, allowing him to pass his consciousness into the fade at will. While roaming the dreamworld of demons and
spirits, he encountered a being known as ‘Dumat’, one of the Old Gods. It is unknown exactly what the Old Gods were,
only that they were beings of unfathomable power who took the form of massive dragons
and inhabited a spectral metropolis at the heart of the Fade, known as the Golden City. Whatever they were, it is said that they imparted
the secrets of Blood Magic to Thalsian. Humans had likely already discovered various
forms of hedge magic by this point, but blood magic stood apart. Most mages cast spells by drawing on their
mana, metaphysical energy within themselves which allows them to pull energy across the
veil from the Fade into the Physical world. Blood mages, however, titularly use the blood
of living beings to cast their spells. Using blood as fuel gives blood mages a level
of sheer power that normal sorcerers simply cannot achieve, yet it comes at a high cost,
for the more power a Blood Mage desires, the more blood must be shed, resulting in Blood
Magic’s grisly association with grotesque, ritualistic human or elven sacrifice. Because of his discovery, Thalsian was able
to become King of the Neromenians. During his reign, the worship of the Old Gods
became the predominant faith of his people: a pantheon of seven great wyrms known as Dumat,
the Dragon of Silence, Zazikel, the Dragon of Chaos, Toth, the Dragon of Fire, Andoral,
the Dragon of Slaves, Urthemiel, the Dragon of Beauty, Razikale, the Dragon of Mystery,
and Lusacan, the Dragon of Night. 1195 years before the founding of the Chantry,
Darinius, High King of the Neromenians and descendant of Thalsian, had united the Nerominians,
Qarinians, and Tevinters under his rule. In so doing, Darinius became the first Archon
of an Empire known as the Tevinter Imperium, the most historically impactful nation in
human history. The Tevinter Imperium was a magocracy, with
those who held magic powers being held in higher regard than those who did not, and
blood mages occupying the highest positions in Imperial society. Around the same time as its founding, the
Empire came into contact with the great Thaig of Kal-Sharok, whose King, Endrin Stonehammer,
forged an alliance with Archon Darinius. This partnership was predicated on trade,
for the Dwarva were the continent’s principal supplier of Lyrium, which was an essential
resource the Tevinters needed to fuel their magic-based society. This bond of friendship between the Empire
and the Dwarves exists to this day, making it the longest lasting diplomatic treaty in
the history of Thedas. However, for the next non-human species the
Tevinter Imperium encountered, things would not go quite as smoothly. Around 1000 years before the founding of the
Chantry, as the Imperium grew eastwards, its pioneers began building settlements on the
borders of the Arlathan Forest, a dense, primeval woodland they thought to be [un?]inhabitable. There in the trees, they encountered scouts
of strange, lithe, and sharp-eared people who they had never seen before. At this point in time, it had been millenia
since the Elves had withdrawn from the wider world, and as such, it is very possible that
this generation of Imperial humans had, up until this point, been unaware of their existence,
with memories the first contact their distant ancestors made with the Elvhen over 2,000
years ago having been lost to time. During the reign of Archon Thalasian, the
Imperium sent several emissaries into the forests, but none returned alive. This did little to endear the Magisters to
their pointy-eared neighbours, and in the ensuing decades, border skirmishes between
the two nations became more and more frequent, while Tevinter settlers were sent into the
Arlathan forest to colonize the woodland. These settlements disappeared overnight, no
doubt having been consumed by the forest at the coaxing of Elvish magic. 981 years before the counting of the Chantry,
tensions between Tevinter and the Elves erupted into open war, and the Imperium unleashed
the full wrath of its armies and mages upon Thedas’ oldest people, cleaving a bloody
path through the forest, and laying siege to the Elven capital of Arlathan, which previously
had remained hidden at the heart of the woods. While still valiant warriors and powerful
mages to a degree, the Elves were ultimately a shadow of their former selves, their magics
a pale shadow of what their immortal ancestors had been capable of before the Dread Wolf
created the veil. Thus, they were ultimately unable to overcome
the powerful blood rites of Tevinter, whose magisters allegedly were powerful enough to
enthrall dragons and demons to aid in their war effort. After a six year siege, Arlathan fell, and
the magisters used blood magic to sink Thedas’ most ancient and beautiful city into the earth,
wiping it off the face of the world forever. Some Elves managed to escape this devastation
and flee to the very fringes of the continent, but most others were enslaved. For centuries thereafter, the descendants
of once mighty Elvhenan would be reduced to nothing more than a slave caste, losing much
of their language, culture, and identity in the process. The lucky ones got to toil away under Tevinter
overlordship their whole lives, and the unlucky ones became grisly sacrifices in the rituals
which empowered the Magister’s blood magics. After the conquest of Arlathan, the Tevinter
Imperium went into expansionist overdrive, as their new caste of enslaved elven provided
free labour, which drove their industry, and blood to empower their mages. Within the next two centuries, the Empire
expanded across nearly all of Thedas. Wherever the Tevinters went, they enslaved
people, and soon, many humans suffered the same fate as the Elves, becoming thralls to
despotic occultist masters. Minrathous, the capital of the Empire, became
the beating heart of civilization on Thedas, and far-flung provinces were connected to
it by an Imperial Highway of stone and magic that sprawled across the continent. With all that said, Tevinter control over
their newly conquered lands was often not absolute, as tribes like the Ciriane and Alamarri,
despite having much of their lands occupied by the Magisters, never stopped fighting back
against Imperial occupation. Moreover, Tevinter itself was rarely a stable
polity, with powerful and insidious factions of ambitious mages in its magisterium scheming
against one another for power, resulting in eras where civil war could rage across the
country for decades at a time. 395 years before the founding of the Chantry,
when the Tevinter Imperium was still the mightiest Empire in the land, Corypheus the Conductor,
High Priest of Dumat, the Dragon of Silence, began receiving visions. According to the Canticle of Silence, an apocryphal
verse in the Chantry’s liturgy, Dumat spoke thus to Corypheus: “Open the gates. To my Golden City, you must sojourn. At the foot of my throne, I shall anoint you,
most favoured of my disciples, and I shall raise you up to godhood, that all mortals
shall know your glory.” Corypheus became obsessed with achieving these
visions, yet bypassing the veil that divided the waking and spiritual realms, let alone
reaching the seat of the Gods, would take an unfathomable amount of raw magical force. So it was that Corypheus went to his esteemed
peer, a mage known simply as the Architect, High Priest of Urthemiel, the Dragon of Beauty. Upon being asked to aid Corypheus in ascending
to the Heavens, the Architect conferred with Urthemiel in his dreams. Urthemiel responded in kind with a vision,
commanding the Architect to aid Corypheus in helping man ascend to the heavens, not
to the end of helping Corypheus become a god, but so Urthemiel could make his chosen servant
a god in Corypheus’ stead. Thus, the Architect agreed to help the Conductor
in this vainest of projects. However, even between the two of them, they
had not the power or resources to force open a physical passage into the fade. To that end, they recruited the five other
High Priests of the five other Dragons: The Watchman of Lusacan, the Forgewright of Toth,
the Appraiser of Andoral, the Augur of Razikale, and the Madman of Zazikel. Each one of these mighty magisters had received
a vision from their Gods, telling them to help Corypheus enter heaven, and that when
the time came, it would be they, and not any of their peers, who achieved apotheosis. Thus, with the magisters all agreeing to work
together, while secretly planning to betray each other, mankind embarked on his quest
to usurp Heaven. In the following months, the seven High Priests,
now known as the Magisters Sidereal, began labouring in preparation to enter the Golden
City. The cost would be enormous: two thirds of
the all of lyrium in the entire Empire, alongside the lives of thousands of slaves, mostly Elves,
whose life-blood was spilt to fuel the Magisters’ spells. These macabre efforts bore fruit, for the
lyrium and the blood sacrifices caused the veil to rip open, creating a passage for the
Magisters to enter the spirit world in the flesh. And in so doing, they doomed the world. So it is written in the Canticle of Threnodies:
“And so is the Golden City blackened with each step you take in my hall. Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting. You have brought sin to heaven, and doom upon
all the world.” In the modern Dragon Age, no two legends or
faiths can agree what happened when the haughty High Priests stepped foot into the Golden
City. The Chantry teaches that the Maker instead
greeted the Magisters, the Chantry’s one true God, who cast the magisters out of heaven,
and cast the Old Gods out of the Fade, sealing the primordial Draconic beings in prisons
deep beneath the earth in the physical realm. Other sources, however, claim that when the
Magisters entered into the City of the Gods, it was black as shadow, its throne laying
empty. Either way, the Magisters were forced to return
to the physical world, not as gods, but as corrupted ghouls, for their time in the realm
of Gods had tainted their hearts and their bodies, making them into a new type of twisted
being: the first darkspawn. Upon their return, any mortals who beheld
the newly blighted forms of the Magisters would themselves become darkspawn, and thus,
a new wicked race was introduced to the land. Although the Darkspawn are inherently vicious
beings, they are usually too disorganized to be an existential threat. That is until they awaken an Archdemon. Deep in their subterranean prison, the Old
Gods sing a slumbering song, beckoning the darkspawn unto them. Whenever the darkspawn uncover one of the
Old Gods, their presence both awakens and taints the ancient Dragon, turning it into
an Archdemon. This blighted divinity then assumes control
of all Darkspawn, turning them into a single horde capable of threatening all civilization
on Thedas. The first Old God to be transformed into an
archdemon was Dumat, and upon his awakening, the first blight began. Although the coming cataclysm was devastating
to all races and tribes, it was the Dwarves who were by far hit the hardest. Having built their vast Empire deep beneath
the earth, it was in their realm in which the Darkspawn first emerged. Moreover, the First Blight could not have
come at a worst time for Dwarf kind. Although they were, in theory, a unified Empire
united under a High King in Kal-Sharok, in practice, each of the great Dwarven Thaigs
ran their own affairs, and often bickered with one another in feuds that could last
generations. Moreover, Dwarven society was deeply stratified,
divided into castes, with those being born into the upper and middle castes, like warriors,
smiths and miners, having inherently more rights and privileges than born into the lower
servant castes, or worse yet, the casteless, who were not even considered people. As such, when the Blight came upon Thedas’
grand underground Empire, Dwarven society was caught gridlocked amidst neverending internecine
bickering and a bitter social class struggle. Before long, the darkspawn horde emerged onto
the deep roads. Soon, the vast underground highways which
had connected great Thaigs across thousands of miles became infested, as Darkspawn swarmed
out unto them like venom through a body’s arteries. The Dwarves, divided and distracted, were
caught completely by surprise, and at the onset, completely failed to organize a unified
defensive line. Nearly overnight, countless cities were raised
by the caustic horde, and the majority of the Dwarva’s history and cultural achievements
were lost forever. Eventually, the leaders of the stout race
united under a single King, Aeducan, under whose leadership the Dwarves finally managed
to stem the Darkspawn advance. However, this came at a massive cost, for
huge swaths of the deep roads had to be blocked off and countless more Thaigs abandoned to
their fate in order to ensure the survival of the four largest Dwarven cities: Gundaar,
Hormak, Kal Sharok and Orzammar. A beacon of hope for the Dwarves came when
one of their most brilliant smiths, Caradin, discovered the secret to forging Golems: huge
automatons of steel or stone which were both near indestructible in battle and immune to
being infected by Darkspawn taint. These Golems became the backbone of the Dwarven
army, and even allowed them to retake lost Thaigs and stretches of the Deep Roads which
had previously been given up for lost. However, these victories came, once again,
at a bitter cost, for the creation of a golem required the soul of a living dwarf to be
sacrificed and woven into its steel-clad body. At first, many Dwarves volunteered for this,
sacrificing themselves so they might become an instrument of war to save their race, yet
before long, the volunteer pool dried up, but the Darkspawn threat remained dire. To compensate for this, Dwarven Kings began
forcefully putting criminals, the casteless, and political dissidents in Golem bodies. When Caridin objected to this, he was himself
forcibly turned into a Golem. However, unlike other Golems, he retained
his autonomy of free will. To put a stop to the involuntary harvesting
of dwarven souls, Caridin reclaimed the Anvil of the Void, the lyrium-infused device which
was used to create Golems, and vanished with it deep into the blighted Deep Roads. Now deprived of the ability to make more steel
juggernauts, the advances the Dwarves had made on the Darkspawn were turned back around. With near complete control of the Deep Roads,
the Darkspawn horde controlled a crucial infrastructural network that they could use to surface almost
anywhere at any time. Thus, when the Blight came upon the world
of men, it did so nearly everywhere at once, leaving the armies of the Tevinter Imperium
scrambling in their attempts to create a solid defensive front. Wherever the Darkspawn struck, the land around
was sucked of moisture, blackening the earth and turning plants to dust. The skies filled with rolling black clouds
that blocked the sun. Disease and rot followed. Huge swathes of the territory became unlivable,
and no matter how many Darkspawn were struck down, there were always more to take their
place. During their raiding and pillaging, the Darkspawn
would often take human, dwarf and elf women captive, bringing them to their underground
nests, and forcing them to undergo a horrific process that transformed them into twisted,
bloated beings known as Broodmothers, which were capable of birthing new Darkspawn in
the thousands. Different Broodmothers produced different
kinds of darkspawn, which resembled the race it had once been. Dwarven broodmothers spawned genlocks, human
broodmothers spawned hurlocks, elven broodmothers spawned shrieks. Most terrifying of all, broodmothers who had
once belonged to a mysterious race of horned giants known as the Kossith spawned massive,
brutish shock troopers known as ogres. If all this was not bad enough, the Archdemon
Dumat would show himself on the field on more than one occasion. A deadly, draconic force to be reckoned with,
Dumat was capable of slaying thousands, and even when he was slain by brave warriors,
which happened on more than one occasion, he would immediately revive: his spirit simply
possessing the nearest living darkspawn, which promptly transformed back into a massive,
blighted wyrm when infused with the Archdemon’s soul. Indeed, it seemed as if the horde was unending
and its leader unkillable. For over a century, the Blight continued,
and entire generations lived and died, knowing only violence and pestilence in their lives. Barbarian tribes on the fringes of Thedas,
like the Alamarri, Rivaini, and the Ciriane were overrun, while in the Tevinter Imperium,
the fabric of society unraveled. The imperial masses, who for generations had
worshiped the seven Old Gods, were thrown into a crisis of faith when faced with the
fact that the blight was being led by their own sacred Dragon Dumat, while the other six,
when offered gifts and prayers for salvation, responded only with silence. In a cathartic fury, the citizens of the Empire
lashed out against the religious leaders who had failed them, forming mobs that burned
down temples to the Old Gods and strung up their priests. Truly, it was the darkest of times. And yet, it was when the hour was bleakest
that the world was given a glimmer of hope. 305 years before the founding of the Chantry,
a special order of warriors was founded in the mountains of the Anderfels in the fortress
of Weisshaupt. They were the Gray Wardens and would bring
salvation to the land. Unlike the rest of Thedas’ institutions,
the Gray wardens cared not for their members' race or faith, taking on Dwarves, Elves, and
Humans alike. Each member underwent a special ritual known
as the joining, in which they ingested the toxic blood of the Darkspawn. This was an extremely dangerous process that
killed most of its participants. Those who survived emerged enhanced, possessed
of a deep connection with the Darkspawn, able to sense when they were near, and able to
hear the call of the Archdemon, thus giving them an immense advantage in the battle against
the horde. Riding atop massive Griffons, the Gray Wardens
took to the field, and found great success over the horde. Crushing victories over the darkspawn in places
like Nordbotten created a much-needed boost in morale across Thedas, rallying Tevinter
Magisters and Barbarian Chieftains alike behind the Wardens' cause. Yet, the blight continued, for the Wardens
had yet to make the ultimate sacrifice. As previously mentioned, if an average person
strikes the killing blow on an Archdemon, its spirit is released and travels to the
nearest soulless darkspawn. The only one capable of permanently killing
an Archdemon is a Grey Warden. When a Warden strikes the deathblow, the Archdemon's
spirit still passes to the nearest tainted creature, but that creature is the Warden. Since the Warden has a soul, the attempt by
the Archdemon to possess the Warden fails, destroying both souls in the process. 203 years before the founding of the Chantry,
a grand coalition of human forces, consisting of the remaining armies of the Tevinter Imperium
and the barbarian tribes of the Ciriane and Rivaini, joined with a stalwart legion of
Dwarves, and faced down the Archdemon Dumat and his endless hordes at the Battle of the
Silent Plains. It was one of the bloodiest days in Thedosian
history, with over a third of the allied forces cut down. Yet, it was all worth it, for in the carnage,
a fateful Gray Warden, whose name has been lost to time, got in close enough to Dumat
to strike a fatal blow upon him- joining his soul to the archdemon, and destroying it forever. Deprived of their leader, the Darkspawn horde
was figuratively decapitated, and they fled back underground in droves. The first blight was over. As the darkspawn retreated back into the bowels
of the earth from whence they came, much of Thedas rejoiced. Yet, for many, victory over the blight which
had terrorized them for generations was a bitter draught. One blight had been defeated, but there were
six remaining Draconic Old Gods imprisoned deep beneath the earth, meaning future generations
would have six more blights to contend with. For the Dwarves, the first blight never truly
ended. Although without an archdemon to guide them,
the darkspawn did not terrorize the humans of the surface world, they still infested
the subterranean Deep Roads and Thaigs which they had taken from the Dwarva, using them
as staging grounds to bore deeper into the earth in search of Archdemons to awaken. While the world above enjoyed peace, the war
below ranged on. Before long, the Thaigs of Gundaar and Hormak
had fallen, leaving the cities of Kal Sharok and Orzammar as the only bastions of Dwarven
civilization left on Thedas. As for the Gray Wardens, whose order had saved
Thedas, their reward was a slow and excruciating death. Tainted with darkspawn blood, each warden
only had some twenty or thirty years to live. After that, their tainted blood would begin
to corrupt their bodies, transforming them into a subservient ghoul like any other in
the horde. Knowing this to be their fate, the Wardens
developed a ritual known as the Calling, in which, when their time came, they would venture
into the darkspawn-infested deep roads and slay as many monsters as they could before
being overwhelmed and killed: a preferable alternative to transforming into the very
creatures their order was born to slay. After suffering the inter-generational ravages
of the First Blight, the Tevinter Imperium was not the juggernaut it had once been. While the Darkspawn had been driven back underground,
the environmental devastation they had left on the land was still causing droughts, landslides,
wildfires and famine. As supply lines buckled, the Imperium was
forced to abandon many of its furthest outposts, reducing its ability to project power onto
the Barbarian tribes on their borders. In the heartland, people lashed out over the
betrayal of their Old God, Dumat, causing massive social unrest between the general
population and the Empire’s ruling Magisters. As the Empire fractured from within, the aforementioned
Barbarians on society’s fringes were on the up and up. While the Blight had hit them too, it had
not been as hard, and in its wake, they had begun to consolidate their small, squabbling
tribes into political units capable of challenging Imperial might. One example of this occurred when Elderath,
a powerful Alamarri chief who ruled lands in what is now northern Ferelden, married
a Ciriane clan leader named Brona, allying with the tribes of what is now central Orlais. In the year 203 before the founding of the
chantry, the joining of Elderath and Brona produced a daughter, Andraste: the girl destined
to become the martyred prophet of, by far, the most dominant religion on Thedas. In the modern day, the most comprehensive
account of Andraste’s life is found in the Chant of Light, the religious liturgy of the
Chantry. Like all holy scripture, the Chant has been
remolded several times over the centuries, with the true story of its Prophetess touched
up and snipped at to present a narrative that inspires conformity and obedience in its believers. As such, we should be careful not to take
the Chant of Light at face value as a religious document, but neither will we ignore its usefulness
in piecing together Andraste’s saga. Tragedy befell the young Andraste early in
life. The girl had grown up with her half-sister,
Halliserre, who Elderath had sired with a concubine. According to later historical testimony, when
both girls were children, Andraste noticed Halliserre wandering into the forest, entranced
by a flashing of mysterious lights. Andraste followed her sister into the trees;
what happened next has been lost to time. All that is known is that, when the pair were
found, Halliserre lay dead amidst a clearing scorched by fire, with Andraste nearly still
alive but shaken and unsure of what she had seen. After this incident, Andraste would be plagued,
or blessed, depending on your point of view, by fits and seizures, in which she would go
into a stupor and receive strange, unearthly visions. Upon maturing into young adulthood, Andraste
was betrothed to Maferath, another powerful chieftain of the Alemarri who controlled much
of what is now eastern Ferelden. Their marriage precipitated the largest alliance
of Barbarian tribes ever seen, forging a confederacy which stretched across most of southern Thedas
south of the Waking Sea. The pair would not enjoy marital bliss for
long. Sometime after -187 Ancient, a Tevinter raiding
party thundered into Andraste’s home village with spell and steel borne, killing her father,
Elderath, and taking her as a slave. Following this, Maferath became the most powerful
Barbarian leader in southern Thedas, assuming control of the confederacy forged by his late
father-in-law. However, Elderath had been an extremely popular
leader, and as such, the loyalties of many of the subchiefs under Maferath's command
were contingent on his ability to return the old Chieftain’s legacy, his daughter back
to her rightful place among her people. It is unclear how long Andraste languished
under the chain of the Tevinters, but eventually, her husband was able to negotiate her release,
presumably for a Queen’s ransom in tribute. Back among her people, Andraste reflected
upon her time in slavery, languishing in sorrow for those she had left behind: the countless
enslaved peoples, be they of the Alemarri, the other tribes of men, and Elves, who still
suffered under the bitter sting of the Magister’s whip. Seeking guidance in how she might bring salvation
to these tortured souls, Andraste turned to the traditional animist Gods of her people,
the spirits of the trees and the waters, but found only silence as her reply. During these mournful days, Andraste’s visions
intensified, and in them, a divine voice began to sing to her: “Heart that is broken, beats
still unceasing, An ocean of sorrow does nobody drown. You have forgotten, spear-maid of Alamarr. Within My creation, none are alone.” Indeed, if the Chant of Light is to be believed,
then it is here that Andraste received her first conclave with the Maker of the World,
the speaker of the first word, the one true God of Thedas. The Maker revealed that all men, elves and
dwarves were his children, but they had since turned their backs on him, prostrating themselves
before dragons and demons. He elucidated that the world had once been
a paradise, and the Golden City had been made for mankind to take their place by his side
one day. However, when the endless greed of the Magisters
Sidereal had sought to usurp heaven from him, spurred on by the whispers of their heathenous
dragon overlords, he had been forced to turn his back on beloved children, abandoning man
to their false idols, and letting them waste away in a world polluted by corruption, misery
and blight. So it was that Andraste realized the truth
and spoke with a heavy heart: “I saw the Black City, towers all stain'd, Gates once
bright golden forever shut. Heav'n filled with silence, then did I know
all And cross'd my heart with unbearable shame.” Burning with compassion for her people, Andraste
begged the Maker to give mankind a second chance. Reluctantly, God agreed, charging Andraste
to be her prophet. Only once all peoples across all four corners
of the earth had welcomed He back into their hearts as their one true deity would the Maker
return unto the earth and turn it into the paradise that was promised: “For you, song-weaver,
once more I will try. To My children venture, carrying wisdom. If they but listen, I shall return.” Thus charged with a new divine purpose, Andraste
began preaching to her people. Through her as its conduit, the cult of the
Maker began to spread like wildfire among the Alemarri, who latched on enthusiastically
to one of the holy tenets Andraste preached: that magic should serve man rather than rule
over him, a particularly appealing dictate for the men and women who had languished for
centuries after the tyranny of Tevinter sorcery. Soon, Andraste’s ambitions expanded beyond
her own people. After all, the Maker had declared that only
when his Chant of Light had spread across all the world would paradise be restored,
and much of the world was still under a rule of an Empire where magic still ruled over
man, where thousands spent their lives in chains, and where worship of the blighted
Old Gods persisted. So it was that Andraste beseeched her husband
to be the spear point of a holy crusade to bring the light unto those wicked lands. Thus, the exalted march aga/inst the Tevinter
Imperium began. In -180 Ancient, Maferath and Andraste crossed
the waking sea at the head of a massive horde of Alemarri warriors. With the bitter rage of centuries of Imperial
oppression in their hearts and the spiritual fervor of the Chant of Light invigorating
their souls, these tribal marauders cleaved northwards through what is now the Free Marches
with ease. During these initial stages of the invasion,
the Empire offered little meaningful resistance. Still dealing with caustic political turmoil
in their northern heartland while continuing to suffer immensely from post-blight natural
disasters, they could not bear the full might of their armies to the southern front. As such, Maferath’s dynamic military leadership
dismantled whatever piecemeal Tevinter forces they encountered, while Andraste’s preachings
kept their soldiers inspired by holy purpose, determined to drive deeper into Imperial lands. One internal turmoil that prevented Tevinter
from contesting Andraste’s advance was a rising epidemic of slave rebellions in its
major cities. Long had the children of Arlathan, the once-immortal
dreamer peoples of Thedas, endured the indignity of Magister chains and watched as their wives
and children were put to the knife for idolatrous blood sacrifices. The Elves had lost much of their language,
culture and identity during their centuries of bondage, but they had never lost their
pride- and with that in their hearts, they rose up en masse against their masters. According to the Chant of Light, the Elven
revolt in Tevinter was led by a man named Shartan, who spearheaded a successful uprising
in the city of Vol Dorma, and then ambushed and annihilated the Imperial Legion, which
had been sent to quash it. Shartan then rallied any elf in the Empire
who would come to his banner and marched south to join forces with Andraste. This united coalition continued their northward
grind for the next ten years, but the further they fought into the Empire’s heartland,
the more stiff resistance became. What started as a blinding blitzkrieg soon
turned into a nearly ten-year slog. Up until this point, individual Tevinter magisters
had been too concerned with putting out the fires in their own provinces within the Empire
to pool their manpower against the holy horde at their gates. However, as Andraste, Maferath, and Shartan
began closing in upon Minrathous in -171 Ancient, the Sorcerer-Lords finally put up a united
front, forming a massive host of legionnaires and battlemages, then meeting the invaders
in the hinterlands outside the Imperial Capital, a place called the Valarian Fields. Like with everything else in this era of history,
the story of the epoch-making Battle of Valarian fields is shrouded in religious myth-making. What is known is that the contest took many
days, transitioned from a field battle into a siege and then back into open melee, and
drenched the sunny fields of Northern Thedas in an ocean of blood. Then, after a long struggle which claimed
the lives of tens of thousands, the Tevinter lines broke, and the Maker’s faithful were
triumphant. The Chant of Light speaks thus: “At Shartan’s
word, the sky grew black with arrows. At our Lady’s, ten thousand swords rang
from their sheaths. A great hymn rose over Valarian fields gladly,
proclaiming: Those who had been slaves were now free.” This was Andraste’s greatest triumph, but
as it would have it, it would precipitate her betrayal and downfall. After the victory at Valarian Fields, Maferath
travelled secretly to Minrathous to speak with Hessarian, the Archon and supreme leader
of the Tevinter Imperium. There, he brokered a peace treaty that favored
him greatly, with the Empire agreeing to acknowledge the full independence of southern Thedas as
a state under Maferath’s rule. However, the price the Tribal Chieftain paid
for this was heavy. Archon Hessarian could accept the cessation
of Southern Barbarian lands which had always been the squalid backward of the Empire anyways. What he could not tolerate was the rapid spread
of the Cult of the Maker among his people. Indeed, as Andraste’s armies cleaved northwards,
the religion she preached had been quickly adopted by large swaths of the Tevinter commoners,
who saw it as a new beginning after their own Draconic pantheon had abandoned them and
become Archdemons. The rapid spread of a religion that preached
the subservience of magic undermined the very foundations of Tevinter society, where the
Archon and his Magisters utilized their boundless arcane talents to exert control over their
people. Shortly after this meeting, Tevinter battlemages
disguised in plain clothes were allowed to enter Andraste’s provisional stronghold
in Nevarra City. Taking the prophetess completely by surprise,
the infiltrators accosted and captured her, carting her back to Tevinter. To secure peace and independence, Maferath
sold out his own wife. In Chantry teachings, Maferath is traditionally
reviled as a petty wretch who, believing the victories won should be accredited to him
and not the Maker and his ordained prophetess, conspired to eliminate his wife so that he
may claim sole credit and glory. Historians have since disputed this narrative,
claiming that Maferath’s actions, while no doubt brutal, were ultimately pragmatic. After Valerian fields, while the Tevinter
military had suffered heavily, the Alemarri war effort had also begun to flag hard. Many of their most experienced war captains
had perished in Valerian fields, and before that, in the interest of a lightning advance,
they had left most of the fortresses they had captured ungarrisoned as they marched
north. This had allowed Tevinter forces to reclaim
those positions, from which they posed a serious threat to the Alemarri rear. Finally, with the Alemarri coalition having
wreaked so much havoc in the Empire’s heartland, Maferath must have known it was possible that
the Archon would use the external threat posed by the Barbarian Horde to unite his people,
end the civil unrest which had been so critical to the invaders’ success thus far, and bring
the full might of the Empire to bear on an exhausted Alemarri expedition. Carted to Minrathous, then paraded before
the crowds of the Imperial capital, Andraste’s execution was to be a cruel one. Bound to a stake, and set atop a wooden pyre,
the spiritual bride of the Maker was to be burned alive as a brutal example of what happened
to those who defied the Imperium and the supremacy of its Mages. However, as the flames beneath the prophet’s
feet were lit, a foreign sensation overcame Archon Hessarian: guilt, and moreso, pity. As the flames slowly consumed the Lady Redeemer,
the Archon who had ordered her slow and agonizing death now stepped forth with a blade drawn,
piercing her heart and bringing a quick end to her suffering. Andraste’s holy war was brought to a close
with this act of mercy. After the hostilities, Maferath retreated
south to administer his new independent tribal domains, which he split amongst his sons. His eldest child, Isorath, was given the lands
which now constitute Orlais, the middle child, Evrion was given what is now the Free Marches,
and the youngest, Gerald, was given the city of Nevarra. Maferath himself returned to his eastern homeland,
ruling over the Alemarri tribes of what is now Ferelden. For their part in the war effort, Maferath
granted the followers of Shartan a new homeland. For the first time in nearly a millennium,
the Elvhen had their freedom and a homeland to call their own. Tens and thousands of them would make the
long and perilous walk to their new country, which they called the Dales. There, they labored to restore the eons of
knowledge which had been lost to them since the fall of Arlathan. All the while, from the arid deserts of the
Anderfels to the swamps of Ferelden, the cult of the Maker continued to spread, for the
death of Andraste had served only to turn her into a martyr who the faithful claimed
had now taken her place by the Maker’s side in Paradise. Ten years after Andraste’s death, Archon
Hessarian declared the Maker to be the one true god. Worship of the Maker and his divine Bride
had found its first stronghold among the barbarians of the Southlands, but ironically, Lady Redeemer’s
magocratic archenemy that would first turn Andraste’s teachings into a properly organized
religion. To demonstrate his newfound submission to
Andraste’s holy message, Archon Hessarian revealed the truth behind her death to the
whole world: that Maferath, the Lady of Restitution’s own husband, had been the one who betrayed
Andraste to the Imperium in exchange for the independence of his Barbarian Empire. This revelation shattered the status quo in
Southern Thedas. After the exalted march on Tevinter, almost
all the lands not part of the Imperium were under the rule of Maferath and his sons. When the peoples of those lands discovered
that their Overlord or their Overlord’s father had directly caused their holy prophetess’
death, there was hell to pay. The Chant of Light is peculiarly reticent
in telling us how Maferath died, but it seems that he was killed, likely by his own sons,
shortly after his betrayal was revealed. Soon, the sons, too, would lose control over
their lands. Evrion, the middle child and ruler of the
Free Marches, had always been the most devoted to spreading his stepmother’s teachings. He willingly abdicated his throne out of shame
for his father’s duplicity, dispersing his holdings among the many tribes in the region. The other two brothers would not enjoy such
amiable transitions of power. In truth, tensions had been bubbling in their
land for years, for the local tribes, be they Nevarran, Planasene, Ciriane or others, had
all begun to resent being ruled over by foreign Alamarri chieftains. The revelation of Maferath’s betrayal simply
ignited the powder keg. In Nevarra City, the youngest son, Verald,
was the victim of a coup in which most of his court was murdered. He fled to the court of his brother, Maferath’s
eldest son: Isorath. There, both brothers were outplayed by Isorath’s
cunning wife, the Ciriane gyðja, or chieftainess, Jeshavis. In a ruthless ploy to free the Ciriane people
from Alemarri rule, Jeshavis manipulated Verald into kinslaying Isorath for his throne, only
to lead a popular rebellion that deposed and killed the subsequently weakened Verald. The establishment of Jeshavis as the first
native ruler of the southern barbarian heartlands is generally considered to be when the tribal
Ciriane culture began evolving into the genteel, romantic high culture of the modern Orlesians. Indeed, it would be the successors of Jeshavis
who would lead Orlais into not only supplanting Tevinter as the cultural and political heart
of Thedas, but also creating the religious and social institutions which define the daily
lives of nearly every modern Thedosian. 36 years before the founding of the chantry,
an unlikely alliance was forged when Septimius Drakon, the son of an Imperial Tevinter nobleman,
was married to Castana, the daughter of a prominent Ciriane chieftain. In the generations after Jeshavis, Orlais
had been ruled by a succession of female monarchs known as Gothi. Castana had ambitions to become the next Gothi
of Orlais. As it so happened, her husband was a brilliant
political schemer, having learned from the best by growing up among Tevinter’s cutthroat
nobility. With Septimius’ support, Castana was able
to claim the Orlesian throne. Soon after, she gave birth to their son: Kordillius
Drakon, the man who created modern Thedas. When Kordillius was but a boy, he claimed
to have a holy vision in which Andraste herself had appeared before him and charged him with
redeeming the world in the eyes of the Maker. By the young prince’s time, most of the
humans of Thedas had converted to the monotheistic worship of the Maker. However, outside of Tevinter, there was no
standardization of this worship, with various tribes and clans each having their own variety
of the cult of Andraste, with their own rituals, traditions and versions of the Lady Redeemer’s
words. At the tender age of sixteen, Prince Drakon
inherited his Castana’s throne but found he lacked the loyalty of many of the clans
who had supported his mother. In a bid to secure much-needed allies, he
married Lady Area Montlaures, who was the daughter of a powerful lord in Val Chevin,
a master markswoman, and a shrewd tactician. At the time of their marriage, Orlais was
barely half the size it is today, but that was soon to change. Kordillius and Area soon embarked upon a holy
campaign, uniting Orlais by right of the spear and the sword, transforming the nation from
a confederation of loosely united clans and city-states into an efficient, centralized
Empire, all while expanding its borders well into modern-day Ferelden and Nevarra. Through these conquests, Drakon also forced
all his subject peoples to adopt a universal, orthodox version of Andraste’s chant of
light, thereby standardizing the Andrastian faith. To further glorify his god, the righteously
guided Prince demolished the ancient Ciriane fortress, which had once been the seat of
Queen Jeshavis. In its place, he had erected a grand temple
to the Maker: “a chantry where the one true song of Andraste shall forever after be heard.” After a successful spree of conquests, Kordillius
Drakon marched into the city of Val Royeaux and, in the waning years of the ancient era,
was crowned Emperor of Orlais. As his first act in the Imperial office, Drakon
laboured to cement the standardization of the Andrastian faith. He declared that an official Church, the Chantry,
would be the only official body with the divine authority to interpret the Chant of Light. To lead the Chantry, Emperor Drakon appointed
Olessa of Montsimmard: the only female general in Drakon’s armies during his wars of unification
and a woman known both for her skill in the arts of war and for her devotion to her faith. In Olessa, Drakon saw an echo of Andraste,
a spiritual leader and a maiden of war. So it was that Olessa became the first divine
pontiff of the Chantry, taking on the holy name of “Justinia.” This day marks the end of the ancient era,
the beginning of the chantry calendar, and year one of the Divine Age. One of the first acts of the Chantry was to
enforce a complete ban on the practice of magic. After all, when Tevinter had ruled the world,
magic had been their tool of oppression. Moreover, the practical risks of magic use,
such as mages summoning demons from the fade, were a threat to anyone who lived in proximity
to practitioners of sorcery. However, in the early years of the Divine
age, the Chantry found it difficult to actually suppress the use of magic, which continued
to be commonly practiced throughout the land by rogue hedge mages, cultists and heretics. In response to the rampant and unchecked sorcery
ravaging the land, an independent group of vigilantes called the Inquisition was created:
an organization dedicated to protecting peoples from the tyrannies and dangers of the arcane
wheresoever it appeared. Before tensions between mages, the Chantry
and the inquisition could bubble over, all parties found themselves facing bigger problems. In the fifth year of the Divine Age, the Darkspawn,
burrowing deep beneath the derelict Dwarven deep roads, found and awakened the Old God
Zazikel, turning it into an Archdemon and beginning the second Blight. Like the first blight, the second was a calamity
that spanned multiple generations. However, unlike during the time of accursed
Dumat, this time, humanity had a dynamic Emperor and a holy purpose to unite behind. Indeed, in the first decades of Zazikel’s
onslaught, Kordillius Drakon and the Andrastian armies of mighty Orlais led the charge against
the horde. The Emperor was nothing if not a pragmatist
and knew that to defeat an apocalyptic force of nature like the Darkspawn, he needed powerful
allies and could not be scrupulous about who they were. To that end, he enlisted the help of Orlais’
outlaw mages, had the Chantry lift the ban on their practice, and permitted them to use
their full arcane powers against the Darkspawn. This culminated in the Nevarran accord, which
saw the creation of the Circle of Magi, an organization governed and monitored by the
Chantry. As members of the Circle, mages would be allowed
to practice their craft freely. However, they would also be isolated from
mainstream society, locked in towers which they were locked in, unless granted leave
for a specific purpose, such as to fight Darkspawn. To enforce these rules, the Inquisition of
old was transformed into the Templars, a holy order under Chantry authority which was charged
with hunting down any apostate mages who either refused to join the Circle or escaped from
the Circle while also acting as a police force for the mages within Circle towers to ensure
they were not partaking in any forbidden arcane arts. Knowing the Gray Wardens were the only force
on Thedas capable of slaying their archdemon, the Darkspawn had brought their full might
to bear on their Fortress of Weisshaupt. Here, Emperor Drakon achieved one of his finest
victories when his relief army broke the blighted siege, delivering the Wardens from certain
doom. So impressed were the Wardens by Drakon’s
charisma and command that the order converted to the teachings of the Chantry. Indeed, wherever Drakon’s armies fought,
from the Anderfels to Nevarra to the Bannorn, they spread the Chant of Light. Through the crisis of the blight, the authority
of the Chantry spread throughout Thedas as her Andrastian armies proved themselves to
be the foremost bulwark standing between the world and oblivion. In the 45th year of the Exalted Age, Kordillius
Drakon died of old age, but his successors took up the mantle and never let up against
the Darkspawn. In year 95 of the Exalted Age, the Gray Warden
hero, Corin, slew infernal Zazikel in battle. Now future generations only had five more
blights to look forward to. By the end of the second blight, numerous
new Kingdoms had arisen across Thedas, with the political geography of the continent beginning
to look more or less like it does now in the modern Dragon Age. In the south, the Empire of Orlais was the
pre-eminent power. In the Free Marches, the descendants of former
Planasene Barbarians and Tevinter colonists had coalesced into a disunited league of city-states,
with Kirkwall, Starkhaven and Tantervale being the most politically relevant. Originally, the city of Nevarra was one such
marcher city-state, but due to the charismatic leadership of the Pentaghast dynasty, it rapidly
expanded and was soon large enough to be a formidable Kingdom in its own right. No such political centralization would occur
in the sacred southeastern plains and woodlands of Andraste’s homeland. Although the region today is home to the Kingdom
of Ferelden, that unification would not occur until the fifth age. The Alemarri would remain a stubbornly disunited
and tribalistic people for centuries to come. In the north, the political reach of ailing
Tevinter continued to decline as new polities were birthed out of the Empire’s former
territory. The free-spirited peoples of Rivain had rebelled
against the Imperium and forged a Kingdom for themselves in the waning years of the
Ancient Era, which was around the same time that Antiva, a hive of smuggling and piracy
and crystalized into a mercantile Princedom of good repute. Antiva, for its part, would never forget its
clandestine roots and, to this day, remains a nation famous for the House of Crows, the
most infamous and deadly order of assassins on Thedas. Meanwhile, in the northwest, Tevinter had
never reclaimed the Anderfels after abandoning it after the second blight, and eventually,
it became an independent Kingdom. There is an immense amount of cultural diversity
throughout all the nations which have thus far been mentioned. And yet, throughout Thedas, peoples as different
from one another as an Antivan winemaker, a Nevarran crypt sweeper or a Ferelden dog
lord all had one thing in common: they were adherents of the same Church. Indeed, from Rialto Bay to the Western Approach
and from Denerim to Weisshaupt, the Orlesian Chantry was the chief religious body that
educated the people and governed their daily lives. There was, however, one exception to this
rule. There could be no doubt that the Tevinter
Imperium was an Andrastian nation. In fact, they had been organizing the Andrastian
faith long centuries before Emperor Drakon had appointed Divine Justinia as the first
holy pontiff of the Chant of Light. As such, while the authority of the Orlesian
Chantry spread throughout the rest of Thedas, the ancient Empire guardedly kept to their
own customs of worship. Soon, tensions between the Chantry and the
Tevinter Clergy begin to simmer over seemingly irresolvable doctrinal disputes. The Grand Clerics of Tevinter Andrastianism
were male, which chagrined the Orlesian Chantry, whose hierarchy was comprised exclusively
of women. This was because Andraste herself had been
a woman, and it was believed that men were too prone to anger, jealousy and passion to
properly serve as holy leaders, just like Maferath had been when he betrayed his divine
wife. However, by far, the greatest source of conflict
ultimately arose from the second verse of Canticle of Transfigurations in the Chant
of Light, "magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him." The Orlesian Chantry fulfilled this verse
by making mages fully subservient and isolating them in circle towers away from society. However, Tevinter had been ruled by mages
for millennia, and magic had long been a valued trait, prized and nurtured through selective
breeding in the upper classes. These old habits died hard even after the
Empire converted to Andrastianism. Thus, when the Imperial Clerics argued that
when Andraste said that ‘magic exists to serve man and never to rule over him,’ it
meant that mages must serve the greater good, which was best accomplished by allowing mages
to take part in government, thereby allowing those with arcane prowess to retain their
role as Tevinter’s privileged elite. Eventually, it became evident that this liturgical
quibble was irreconcilable, and the Divine of the Orlesian Chantry declared the worshippers
of Tevinter to be heretics. In response, the Archon of the Imperium officially
declared a schism from the Orlesian chantry, appointing its own Divine, a man, at the head
of its own official Chantry. To this day, the religious rivalry between
the Orlesian and Imperial Chantries remains an omnipresent source of tension in Thedosian
politics. Whatever the case, by the end of the Divine
Age, the overwhelming majority of humanity, Thedas’ dominant race, was now subscribed
to one of the two major forms of Andrastianism. However, the Chantry did not intend to stop
its prosthyletizing where humanity ended. After all, it had been one of Andraste’s
core teachings that only when the Chant of Light had spread to all four corners of the
earth and been embraced by all races and peoples would the Maker return to make the world a
paradise. After successfully liberating the whole of
southern Thedas, then betraying his wife to the Empire to secure his land gains, Maferath,
the grand chieftain of the Alemarri, kept his massive new holdings in the family, dividing
them between himself and his three sons, with one exception. As a reward for fighting alongside Andraste’s
faithful against the Imperium, Maferath decreed that the Elves would have a homeland of their
own, granting them the lush, thickly forested land of the Dales, located in what is now
southeastern Orlais. Across northern Thedas, hundreds of thousands
of Elvhen, the overwhelming majority of whom were born into slavery and grew up in chains,
began walking to their new promised land. Many died on this trek, which involved cutting
across thousands of miles of treacherous, untamed wilderness. Set upon by human bandits and wild animals
while perishing from exposure and starvation, many began to despair and consider returning
to their Imperial masters. “At least in Tevinter,” they said, “we
had food, water, and shelter. What do we have here? Nothing but the open sky and the prospect
of the never-ending road ahead.” And although some individuals would peel away
from the flock and return to their masters, the vast majority’s resolve never broke
and made it to their destination. There, they founded the city of Halamshiral,
which in the ancient Elvish tongue means “the end of the journey.” Finally independent once more, the Elves were
finally free to return to the old ways of ancient Elvhenan, speak their original tongue,
and worship their original gods. However, this was easier said than done. Countless generations of slavery under the
Tevinters had stripped the Elven people of most of their language, culture, and history. What survived was a patchwork of folk stories,
legends, and a smattering of words and phrases of the old Elvish tongue passed down in secret
from slave mothers to slave children. The Hahren, or Elders of the Dales, did their
best to gather up all these scraps of remaining knowledge and stitch them back up into a coherent
tapestry. Despite this, many of the truths of ancient
Elvhenan were now lost. For instance, the Elves of the Dales worshipped
the Evunaris, the nine supreme beings of the Elven pantheon. They believed the Evunaris to be benevolent
Gods who bestowed their ancient forebears with the gifts of the earth: with Sylaise
the Hearthkeeper having given the elves the gift of fire, Dirthamen the Keeper of Secrets
having given the elves the gift of knowledge, June, God of the Craft having given the elves
the gift of artisanship, and so on. The Dalish Elves also believed that Fen’harel
was an evil trickster who, out of jealousy and malicious treachery, deceived the Evanuris
into sealing themselves away in the fade, known to them as “the Beyond,” which is
ultimately why the ancient Elvhen lost their immortality, why Arlathan fell, and why the
ancestors of the Dalish were condemned to a millennium of slavery. The fact that the Evanuris were not true gods
but simply extremely powerful mages, they had not been benevolent beings but instead
tyrannical despots, and that Fen’harel was more akin to a freedom fighter than a scheming
trickster were all truths that had been lost to time. In spite of the fact that this new nation’s
perception of its people's history was more fairytale than reality, it still became a
Kingdom that achieved a level of beauty and sophistication that only the Elves were capable
of. Within only a few generations, the Dales had
become a land of marble palaces and gardens woven seamlessly into the natural woodland
landscape. It was a far cry from Ancient Elvhenan, which
had been a literal dreamscape that transcended metaphysical dimensions, but it was a land
of beauty nonetheless. The Elves were, of course, armed. Never again would they be slaves, and to protect
their freedoms, they founded the Emerald Knights, an order of warriors devoted to protecting
the borders of the Dales. Each knight rode into battle atop a type of
sacred deer called a halla with a wolf companion who fought at their side. Initially, the relationship between the Dalish
nation and their tribal human neighbours was good. After all, both the elves and southern menfolk
had been tempered in the same baptism of fire, fighting side by side to win their freedom
from the Tevinter Imperium. Yet, the Elves would soon discover that human
memory can be short, especially when clouded by the righteousness of religious zealotry. As we have covered previously, in the centuries
after Andrastes’ martyrdom, the world of humans underwent a rapid metamorphosis as
the invincible warlord Drakon forged the mighty Orlesian Empire through fire and blood, spreading
his version of the Andrastian faith by the point of a spear and founding the Chantry,
the religious institution which would come to govern the vast majority of humanity on
Thedas. Emperor Drakon considered himself a righteous
uniter, but the Elves looked upon his aggressively expansionist policies with alarm, seeing echoes
of tyrannical, despotic Tevinter in the newly ascendant Orlais. As such, the Dalish Kingdom severed diplomatic
ties with their human neighbours and adopted a policy of near-total isolationism. The growing enmity was mutual. It was a core Andrastian belief that only
when the Chant of Light had spread to all the peoples of Thedas would the Maker return
to the world and make it a paradise. By now, almost all humans were adherents of
either the Orlesian or Tevinter Chantries, but the nonhuman peoples of the continent
were not. The Dwarves of Orzammar were not a realistic
target of proselytization for the Maker’s faithful. The stout mountain dwellers were the continent’s
chief supplier of priceless lyrium, a crucial trade which could be disrupted if the Church
ired the Dwarves by insisting on sending missionaries into their lands. No such commercial interests protected the
Dalish Kingdom, who, despite having been founded by slaves who had once fought alongside Andraste
herself, had turned their backs on the word of the Maker and re-embraced the heathen idols
of their misguided ancestors. Tensions between Orlais and the Dales worsened
after the outbreak of the Second Blight, during which the elvhen refused to help the Orlesians,
maintaining their strict policy of isolationism even as the lands of their neighbours were
reduced to a bulbous wasteland. It is even said that, in year 25 of the Divine
Age, when the Darkspawn besieged the Orlesian city of Montsimmard, an elven army watched
on a nearby hill and did nothing. After Orlais emerged from the blight, bloodied
but victorious, the Chantry began sending missionaries into the Dales. When these priestesses were turned away, the
Chantry sent armed holy templars into elven lands in their place. By the end of the divine age and the beginning
of the glory age, human-elven tensions were pressurized to explode as the Chantry began
spreading lies about Elves using human infants as sacrifices in blood rituals. Soon, small-scale skirmishes became common
along the border between the Dales and Orlais. As is so often the case, the road to total
war was paved in a story of misunderstanding and personal tragedy. In the ninth year of the glory age, an elven
woman was killed, murdered by human hunters for having unknowingly strayed over the Orlesian
border. Siona, the woman’s sister and an emerald
knight, swore vengeance in a fit of rage and grief. In this, she sought the aid of her brother,
Elandrin, who was also an Emerald Knight. Elandrin refused. As much as he grieved for losing his youngest
sister, he refused to raise a finger against humankind. Later, it was revealed why: he had fallen
in love with Adalene, a human girl from the town of Red Crossing. Siona was blinded by rage. She had lost one sibling to human swords,
she would not suffer to lose another to the human God. With a commando of Emerald Knights, she rode
to Red Crossing to find her brother and force him to come home. When they arrived at the hamlet, they were
greeted by Adalene, rushing towards the elves with a letter in her hand. She would never get to read it out. Without hesitation, Siona ordered her men
to order fire, and Adalene was instantly riddled with arrows and killed. Her screams roused some of the village folk,
who grabbed their pitchforks and charged the elves, but they were no match and were cut
down as well. As more humans poured out of their homes,
Siona and her crew became outnumbered and were forced to retreat. Only then did Elandrin emerge to be met with
the corpse of the woman he loved. Even in death, he refused to leave his lover’s
side. To the vengeful humans, it made no difference:
a pointed ear was a pointed ear, and Elandrin was butchered in revenge for his sister’s
atrocities. The letter in Adalane’s clutches, written
by his hand, forever going unread. Adalene,
What care have I for gods I have never seen, for a Maker I do not know? Let others distract themselves with such lofty
concerns. I know only this life, I have seen only this
world, and I care only for you. Perhaps your priestess distrusts the sincerity
of "uncivilized" elves. If she must hear me say I will follow the
Maker, so be it. Your god intercedes as much as ours. My life will not change. I will return in two weeks' time. My heart longs for you 'til then, and will
remain with you forever after. Elandrin After the massacre at Red Crossing, the Empire
or Orlais declared war on the Kingdom of the Dales, and the contest for the fate of the
Elvhen began. The Elves struck fast and struck hard, storming
out of their forests astride their war-halla and blitzing into Orlesian land. In 2:10 Glory, the Emerald Knight Vaharel
fell upon the city of Montsimmard and captured it in a lightning strike. As the Elves continued to storm through eastern
Orlais and maraud ever closer to the capital of Val Royeaux, panic spread throughout the
Empire. In response, Divine Renata I of the Chantry
declared an Exalted March, a holy war, inviting all the Andrastian nations to take up arms
against the heathen elves. However, none of the other human nations provided
their troops, leaving Orlais to handle their own affairs. By the end of 2:14 Glory, Elven armies had
reached Val Royeaux, subjecting the city to a brutal sack and plundering the sacred tomb
of Emperor Kordillius Drakon I, taking his arms and armour back to Halamshiral to be
displayed as trophies. This was a crippling blow to the great Andrastian
Empire, but it was not its end. Orlais was a huge country with vast reserves
of manpower and resources to call upon, manpower which their opponents simply could not match. Indeed, although the Dalish had almost every
battle thus far, every Elven life lost in those engagements was felt sorely, while for
every Orlesian soldier cut down, there were three more peasants in the countryside ready
to be conscripted. By using attrition to their advantage, the
Orlesian armies were eventually able to regroup and turn the tide. Eventually, they liberated Val Royeaux and
began pushing eastwards, pushing the Elvhen out of Orlais before advancing into the Dales. The Emerald Knights made the Andrastians pay
a quart in blood for every inch they advanced into the Elvish forests, but they could not
stop the human advance. By 2:20, Glory Orlesian and Chantry banners
were flying before the walls of Halamshiral, and soon after, the Elven Capital fell. Even after this, the Dalish refused to surrender. The last holdouts of the Elvish army led by
the Emerald Knight-Captain Lindiranae retreated to a place called Dirthavaren to make a final
stand. Here, they faced down an Orlesian army led
by the Warrior-Priestess Amity, champion of the Chantry. The Elves were cut down to the last man and
woman, Lindiranae was slain, and with her death, so too did the dream of Elven Freedom
die once more. At the conclusion of the Exalted March, the
Dalish kingdom was dismantled, and its lands were annexed by the Empire of Orlais, which
established human settlements across the former Elven domain. The shrines to the elven gods were struck
down throughout the Dales, and the Chant of Light was sung. The faithful rejoiced, for the word of the
Maker, had finally reached this corner of the earth, and thus He was one step closer
to returning. As for the Elves themselves, whose fate now
lay in the hands of the Chantry, sister Amity had this to say: “Even Maferath the Betrayer
had a part to play. Who are we to say the elves do not? The Elves were guilty of the greatest sin,
of turning from the Maker. But we will show them mercy, for that is what
Andraste teaches.” For the heirs of Arlathan, this “mercy”
was a bitter pill to swallow. They were subject to mass deportation, forced
to disperse throughout the land and live in squalid, walled-off sections of human cities
called ‘Alienages,’ where they were treated like second-class citizens. Moreover, they were forced to fully assimilate
into human society by abandoning their old Gods and converting to Andrastianism, undoing
all the work the Dalish Kingdom had done to revive the ancient knowledge of Elvhenan and
condemning the Elvish language, culture and religion to a slow and pitiful extinction. The Elves would not be enslaved people, as
they had when their first homeland fell to the Tevinter Imperium, but they became a ghettoized
people all the same. Some, however, refused this fate. Rather than submitting to Andrastian “mercy,”
they banded together into nomadic clans and committed to roaming the continent as a homeless,
stateless people. These itinerant wandering tribes, known as
the Dalish Clans for their second lost homeland, would continue to reject the human God. It would be in them that the last vestiges
of Elven religion and language lived on. Life among the nomadic Dalish was tough, and
they were reviled as a pariah people in most lands, but they survived nonetheless and continue
to roam throughout Thedas to this day. With Elven independence vanquished for the
last time and the Dwarven Kingdoms content to remain deep under the earth, fighting a
perpetual battle with the Darkspawn, the Chantry believed there would be no more obstacles
in their objective of spreading the Chant of Light to all four corners of the earth. They would be wrong. Before we move on to the next chapter in the
story of Thedas, let us briefly dial back the clock to the time before the rise of the
darkspawn and the birth of Andraste. In the ancient age, 410 years before the founding
of the Chantry, a mysterious race of ashen-skinned giant folk from a faraway northern continent
made landfall in the southern Korcari Wilds, where they established a colony. Virtually nothing is known about this horned
race, except for their name, secretly preserved in the records of the Tamassrans: Kossith. During the first blight, the Darkspawn overran
the Kossith colony. Thereafter, memory of the giant folk would
fade amongst men, elves and dwarves, but their twisted, blighted descendants, the Ogres within
the darkspawn horde, would terrify the peoples of Thedas for centuries. Let us now leap back to where we left off
on the timeline: the era of glory, the second age in the Chantry calendar, and the Kingdom
of the Dales has just fallen, leaving humanity and the Andrastian faith as the monopolistic
overlord over the entirety of Thedas, at least above the surface. The next three ages, the towers, black, and
exalted age, respectively, would be dominated by two major themes: holy war between the
rival branches of the Chantry in Orlais and Tevinter and the continuation of the blights. Over the centuries, the armies of Thedas had
become increasingly efficient at containing the Darkspawn threat. Whereas the First Blight lasted nearly two
centuries and the second one nearly one century, the third and fourth blights, which occurred
in the Towers and Exalted ages, lasted barely more than a decade. During the fourth blight, the armies of the
Archdemon Andoral were defeated by a pan-Thedosian army united and led by the most unlikely of
leaders: Gray Warden Garahel, an elf born in an alienage slum. However, these triumphs came at a cost, for
after the fourth blight’s conclusion, the famous Griffons, which the Gray Wardens had
traditionally rode into battle, went extinct. In the sixth Chantry epoch, the Steel Age,
a new people introduced themselves to Thedas. In 6:30 Steel, a race of ashen-skinned giants,
sailing from their mysterious homeland far in the northern hemisphere, landed on the
tropical island of Par Vollen, where they conquered the isles’ indigenous human population. These invaders were most likely the descendants
of the horned Kossith who founded the doomed colony in the Korcari wilds in the ancient
age, but in the millennia since their last appearance on Thedosian soil, the horned behemoths
had rebranded. Their old culture, old gods, and even their
old name had been abolished. They now called themselves Qunari, followers
of the Qun. Founded by the philosopher Ashkaari Koslun
in their far-off homeland at an uncertain date, the Qun was not a religion, for it worshipped
no gods. Instead, it was a form of social architecture
that governed Qunari society, implementing an extreme form of complete and total conformity
upon all its followers. To a Qunari, individualism is the greatest
of sins. The Qun teaches that their entire civilization
is a single organism and that each individual is a single cell responsible for fulfilling
whatever role it has been given to make the body function. This belief is reflected in the tripartite
nature of Qunari civilization, which divides society into three segments: the military,
which represents the organism’s body, the workers, which represents the organism’s
mind, and the priesthood, which represents the organism’s soul. Consequently, Qunari leadership is a governing
body of three individuals, with an Arishok representing the body, an Arigena representing
the mind, and an Ariqun representing the soul. Under the Qun, no social mobility or freedom
of choice exists. Nor does the concept of love or nuclear family
exist. Procreation is strictly controlled through
a selective breeding program, and all children are raised communally by the Tamassrans: an
all-female branch of the Ariqun priesthood. When children come of age, the Tamassrans
assign them a social role, which they must then serve for the rest of their lives. So complete is this conformity that the Qunari
do not even have personal names but are instead referred to by their title. For example, in the Dragon Age, a Qunari warrior
was found in the Ferelden town of Lothering who called himself ‘Sten,’ which in the
Qunlat language simply meant ‘Infantry Platoon Commander.’ In the Qun, a person’s identity was their
role in society and nothing more. Perhaps the most unenvious role to be assigned
in Qun society was ‘Saarebas,’ which means ‘dangerous thing.’ The Qunari, like men and elves, are a race
capable of magic, and much like the chantry, the Qun uses draconian methods to regulate
magic use. However, a sorcerer in a sequestered yet comfortable
Chantry circle tower lives like royalty compared to how their Qunari counterparts are treated. ‘Saarebas’ are kept masked, collared,
and weighed down by chains their entire lives. Their every moment is spent under the watch
of a keeper called an Arvaarad. Saarebas are essentially treated like organic
heavy artillery, with the immense firepower they wield kept under lock and key so it can
be churned out against the enemies of the Qun. Despite the almost comically draconian nature
of Qunari society, there was a paradoxical sort of egalitarianism to it as well. The Qun teaches that all beings are equal
and that there is no fundamental difference between the highest Arishok and the lowest
labourer, for they are both simply fulfilling their designated role for the organism's wellbeing. Whatever one's opinion on mandatory conformity,
it cannot be argued that Qunari society is highly efficient. What it lacks in freedom, it makes up for
in order and security, with its adherents finding comfort in having every difficult
life decision already made for them. Indeed, wherever Qunari armies conquered,
the local population was efficiently converted to the Qun through willing conversion or by
herding the natives into less-than-voluntary ‘learning camps.’ For example, within a single generation, the
native human population of Par Vollen had been almost entirely assimilated. Nowadays, their ancient culture, whatever
it was, has been entirely forgotten, preserved only by the ruins of ancient Pyramids, long
swallowed by the jungle. In 6:32 Steel, a host of massive Qunari dreadnoughts
crested over the horizon in the coastal waters of Antiva and the isle of Seheron. Soon, their ground forces made landfall. Thus began the war to conquer the lands of
people who they saw not as their enemy, per se, but as purposeless souls who needed to
be sternly guided to the Qun. Through conventional warfare, the Qunari horde
was already an extremely formidable host, through the sheer size of their giant shock
troopers or the arcane destruction their muzzled Saarebas were capable of. However, the invaders also possessed an advanced
military technology thus far unseen by the people of Thedas: gaatlok, an explosive black
powder which powered their ship-mounted cannon, or adaar. Initially, the nations of northern Thedas
were completely blindsided by this sudden invasion, and their defences melted like a
snowbank in spring before the horned host. Within a decade of landing, the Qunari had
overrun all of Rivain and Antiva and trampled through most of the Tevinter Imperium, with
only the ancient and magically warded capital of Minrathous holding out against the foreign
tide. After stabilizing their hold on a conquered
territory, the Qunari worked to convert its populace. Learning camps were set up, and the locals
were rounded up and re-educated. Many poor Tevinters converted willingly, seeing
the conformist but equal society of the Qun as a preferable alternative to Magister cruelty. Indeed, wherever the Qunari conquered, they
found willing converts among the lowest castes of Thedas’ hierarchical, feudalistic societies. Elves, either living as second-class citizens
in Alienage ghettos or as slaves to Tevinter Mages, were particularly susceptible to the
call of the Qun. Despite this, overall resentment against the
horned conquerors was still strong, and by 6:55 Steel, massive, widespread rebellions
against Qunari rule had erupted all over the Tevinter Imperium. Taking advantage of this, Tevinter forces
rallied and, with the help of a coalition of allies from all across the Andrastian nations,
liberated the Imperium. The invaders retreated back to Antiva, Rivain
and Seheron. There, the Qunari entrenched themselves, and
a decades-long stalemate would ensue. Fourty years later, the Steel Age came to
an end. Divine Renata, predicting the seventh of the
Chantry epochs would be defined by turmoil and bloodshed, declared that it would be named
the Storm Age. She was right. In 7:25 Storm, the impossible happened: the
Orlesian and Tevinter Chantries, who had been slaughtering one another in endless holy wars
for four ages now, agreed to band together against their common enemy. Yet, even with their forces combined, the
united armies of humanity were hard-pressed to dislodge the horned colossi from their
northern holdings. Three exalted marches were launched against
the Qunari. The first was successful, with Andrastian
forces pushing deep into occupied Antiva. The gains made in this campaign were largely
due to the efforts of the mages of the circle of Magi, whose spellcraft proved an effective
counter to both gaatlok cannon and Saarebas magic. During this time, the Tome of Koslun, the
written testimony of the founder Ashkaari and the most sacred book in Qun society, was
taken by Orlesian forces as a spoil of war. 27 years later, a second exalted march was
launched and was met with almost immediate disaster, with the Qunari crushing the expedition
force and retaking most of Antiva in the process. Following this, the antaam pushed southwards,
threatening the Free Marcher cities of Ostwick, Starkhaven and Kirkwall. In 7:55 Storm, a third Exalted March was launched. This time, Chantry forces made an unlikely
alliance with the free port of Llomeryn: a notorious hub of pirates. These buccaneers had little love for the Kingdoms
of Thedas, whose ships they had long preyed upon for booty, but they certainly had no
desire to be conquered by the gray skins and forced to surrender their rugged, freedom-loving
lifestyle they so cherished in favour of rigid conformity. Thus, the freebooters united into a massive
vagabond fleet, the Felicisima Armada, and raised the black flag against the Qunari host. The pirates made a critical impact on the
war effort, blunting the power of the mighty Qunari navy and disrupting the enemy’s naval
supply lines, thereby allowing Chantry forces to push back into Antiva and Rivain steadily. In 7:78 Storm, the raiders even managed to
defeat the Qunari in a massive naval battle and take the strategically crucial island
of Estwatch from them. Despite this, the struggle was still long,
gruelling, and devastating. Years of fighting stretched out into decades,
and bodies piled up on both sides. The worst sufferers in this prolonged slug
match were the natives of Antiva and Rivain, whose homelands had been turned into desolate,
burnt-out husks as Qunari and Chantry armies fought over every hill and village, condemning
thousands to die of exposure, starvation, or as collateral damage. Before long, the resources of every nation
in Thedas were nearly completely completed, with their treasuries empty and populations
at threat of demographic collapse due to wartime casualties. Meanwhile, despite the countless horned giants
cut down by Andrastian blades, it seemed as if the Qunari were under no such socioeconomic
strain. Indeed, it stands to reason that a borderline
hivemind society would be capable of endlessly churning out soldiers in much the same way
a beehive produces worker drones. Contemporary Thedosian historians often comment
that, in the end, it was not the military setbacks which forced the Arishok’s forces
to pull back from continental Thedas but their concern for the mass destruction and death
they had brought to the realm. After all, their sacred objective was conversion,
not extermination. Their goal was to bring the purposeless Bas
into the teachings of the Qun, much like a strict father would teach selflessness and
responsibility to a wastrel son. This could not be achieved by waging a war
of annihilation, which the Chantry seemed determined to make them do if they were ever
to conquer the whole of Thedas. In 7:84, envoys of the Andrastian nations
of the Orlesian Chantry and the Qunari Triumvirate gathered in the pirate isle of Llomeryn and
began forging the path to peace. In the titular Llomeryn accords, the Andrastian
nations recognized the Qunari’s rightful dominion over the northern Archipelago of
Par Vollen, while the Qunari agreed to depart from Antiva and Rivain. One nation not present at these peace talks
was the Tevinter Imperium, which had suffered the most during the initial wave of Qunari
invasions. Driven by bitter vengeance, the Imperial Magisters
refused to sign the Llomeryn accords. To this day, the war still rages between them
and the Qunari, particularly over control of the isle of Seheron. In Northern Thedas, much of which was under
Qunari occupation for over a century, the invaders' impact on the land is still observable
today. When the Chantry regained control of those
territories, they found the thousands of men and elves who had converted to the Qun hard
to bring back to the Andrastian faith. Eventually, the Church decided that what it
could not accomplish through proselytization, it would achieve through fire and sword. Thousands of Qun converts, especially in Rivain,
were slaughtered en masse and dumped into mass graves. However, even this did not permanently root
out the ideology. Even today, the Qun has a firm stronghold
among the humans of Northern Rivain, especially in the port city of Kont-aar. Thus, the philosophy of the Qunari retained
its foothold on Thedosian soil. At the beginning of the modern Dragon Age,
the Qunari have not yet attempted to invade again, but it seems only a matter of time
before iron dreadnoughts appear before the coasts of Tevinter and Antiva once more, bringing
gaatlok, saarebas, and a new world order to Thedas once more. Since the story of the Qunari does not yet
have an ending, let’s travel to the alpine southeast, back to the sacred homeland of
the Lady Redeemer herself. A century before northern Thedas was gripped
in the turmoil of the Qunari invasions, the ancient tribes of the Lady Redeemer’s sacred
homeland were fighting amongst themselves. In the waning centuries of the Ancient Age,
the Alemarri tribes of Ferelden had been the driving force of Thedas’ destiny. After all, the Bride of the Maker had been
born among them, and their barbarian host had been the backbone of the army that toppled
the hegemonic might of the Tevinter Imperium. After Andraste’s martyrdom, her widower
Maferath ruled over the Alemarri people as their King, but after the earth-shattering
revelation of his betrayal was revealed, he was quickly deposed. Consequently, while other Andrastian lands
like Orlais and Antiva spent the first five ages of the Chantry calendar crystalizing
into centralized Kingdoms and Empires, the alpine woodlands and rolling plains of Andraste’s
birth remained a territory divided among powerful warlords known as Teyrns, who ruled over large
swaths of territory called a Teyrnir. Each Teyrnir was subdivided into Bannorns,
which were ruled by Banns and consisted of rural farmlands, and Arlings, which were ruled
by Arls and usually centered around a major city and its hinterland. It should also be noted that while the Alemarri
dominated Ferelden’s central valley, other tribes also dotted the landscape, such as
the mountain-dwelling Avvar of the Frostbacks, and the shamanistic Chasind of the swampy
Korcari wilds. Overall, the clans of Ferelden were a bellicose
bunch, with Teyrns warring with one another for the allegiance of Banns and Arls, and
Banns and Arls warring against one another for the allegiance of various localized land-owning
freeholders. Infact, these warring states were so proverbially
trigger happy, that according to one sarcastic Ferelden historian notes, a war was once fought
over the name an Arl chose to give his prized war dog. It would be the fifth Chantry epoch in which
a man of humble origins yet indomitable will would transform Andraste’s homeland into
a permanently unified Kingdom, and be the first to wear its crown. Calenhad Theirin was born in the tenth year
of the Exalted Age as the third son of a poor merchant from Highever. What his immediate family lacked in funds,
they made up for in distant connections, for Calenhad was the distant cousin of Ser Forannan,
a Knight in the Service of Arl Tenedor. Consequently, as a young man, Calenhad was
sent forth to Arl Tenedor’s castle in West Hill to serve as a squire. Almost immediately, Calenhad was wrapped up
in one of his new master’s petty wars when a rival noble, Arl Myrddin, laid siege to
West Hill. After encircling and blockading the castle,
Arl Myrddin called upon Arl Tenedor to come forth from his walls and discuss terms with
him. Despite the inviolable nature of the right
of parley, Tenedor suspected foul play and refused to entreat with his foe. Instead, the Arl dressed Calenhad up in his
armour and sent the young man out to impersonate him in his stead. However, being a bold and principled boy,
Calenhad immediately revealed his true identity to Myrddin when he came face to face with
him. More amused than anything, Arl Myrddin revealed
he had, infact, planned to violate the right of parley and kill Tenedor, but that he greatly
admired Calenhad’s bravery for coming out in his masters’ stead. In recognition for his gallantry, Myrddin
offered to make Calenhad his own squire. Calenhad dogmatically refused, unwilling to
serve an honourless man who had intended to use treachery to eliminate his foe. Shortly after this encounter, Arl Myrddin
launched his final assault on West Hill. Although Myrddin’s forces were successful
in capturing the redoubt and killing Arl Tenedor, Myrddin himself was accosted by Calenhad and
bested by him in single combat. Holding the Arl’s life in his hands, Calenhad
chose mercy. In gratitude for his clemency, Myrddin recognized
Calenhad as the rightful lord of West Hill, and swore both himself and his armies into
Calenhad’s service. Hence, overnight, Calenhad was transformed
from a humble squire into a Teyrn. Suddenly possessed of one of the most capable
armies in Ferelden, Calenhad made the fateful decision to make a play for Kingship, and
set out on a quest to be the first warrior since Maferath the Betrayer to unify the Alemarri
clans under one banner. As it turns out, Calenhad was a natural soldier
and a gifted leader. One by one, he defeated the petty Nobles of
Ferelden in battle, and one by one, Banns, Arls and Teyrns alike swore fealty to him. As Teyrn Theirin’s successes mounted, so
did the diversity of the units under his command. One of these was the Ash Warriors, an elite
corp of mercenaries famed both for their vicious mabari war dogs, and for their guiding principle
of taking no pay, instead working for whatever cause they deem just. In addition, Calenhad was also able to recruit
both the Templars and Mages from the local circle tower, the latter of which was said
to have crafted him an enchanted suit of silver armour which had been forged in the magical
waters of the lake upon which their spire was built. All in all, it can be said that what Emperor
Drakon was to Orlais, Calenhad Theirin was to Ferelden. His wars of unification came to an end when
the ostensibly impregnable fortress of Redcliffe fell to him. In the 42nd year of the Exalted Age, all the
Arls, Bans and Teyrns of Ferelden held a landsmeet in the city of Denerim, and unanimously recognized
Calenhad as their head crowned. From that day forth, the Alemarri were finally
unified and the Kingdom of Ferelden was born, with the House of Theirin serving as its royal
line for centuries to come. To the rest of Thedas’ Andrastian Kingdoms,
but especially the sophisticated, blue-blooded Orlesians, Ferelden is considered a backwater
peopled by malodorous yokels all too fond of their dogs. However, her people are still admired for
their tenacity and rugged, if simple minded, sense of warrior’s gallantry. This love-hate sentiment is embodied by a
remark made in the Dragon Age by Empress Celene I of Orlais: “As a people, the Fereldens
are one bad day away from reverting to barbarism. They repelled invasions from Tevinter during
the height of the Imperium with nothing but dogs and their own obstinate disposition. They are coarse, willful, dirty, disorganized
people, who somehow gave rise to our prophet, ushered in an era of enlightenment, and toppled
the greatest empire in history.” While the perception of the Fereldens as an
unrefined, rough-hewn people is no doubt unfair. One can understand how the other nations of
Thedas see them that way. Religiously, the Kingdom of the Theirins is
Andrastian, which comes as no surprise given that Andraste herself was born in its lands. However, even though the Orlesian Chantry
has taken a firm hold of Ferelden’s social order, signs of the Alemarri peoples’ ancient,
shamanistic roots still persist. Animist symbols are still a common motif in
artwork, clothing and rural architecture, while stories of the old Gods are still told,
largely in the form of cautionary tales aimed at children. The Chantry branch in Ferelden is surprisingly
tolerant of these holdouts of paganism, and its clergy makes no effort to stamp them out. Indeed, the old Gods of the forest, swamps
and mountains are not hated, the Maker and his holy bride simply stand above them. Even after its unification, the political
landscape of Ferelden did not change all that drastically. Under the Theirin dynasty, the Banns, Arls
and Teyrns of old controlled much of the land, only now owing their allegiance to a common
overlord, rather than warring amongst themselves for power. Much of ancient Alemarri tradition survived
into the Royal era, including the most important custom of all: the Landsmeet. In ancient times, the Landsmeet was an assembly
in which tribal leaders resolved their disputes with one another. After the unification of the nation, it became
a legislative body of the King’s most powerful vassals, who had considerable power over the
monarchy. Indeed, any heir apparent to the Theirin bloodline
had to be approved by the Landsmeet before being crowned, and the Landsmeet had the power
to overrule the King's authority on many matters through a majority vote. To outside observers, whose monarchies were
possessed of absolute power, the Landsmeet was seen as a chaotic, backwards custom. After all, why would a King put himself at
the mercy of his lessers? Yet to the Fereldens, it was a wonderful expression
of the rugged individualism and personal freedom so valued by their people. Religion and politics aside, no discussion
of Ferelden society is complete without talking about man’s best friend. Outsiders often derisively refer to Ferelden
nobles as “Dog Lords,” and for good reason. Ferelden’s canophilic tendencies likely
trace its roots to the folk-hero Hafter, who was the first Teyrn of the Alemarri, and according
to legend, the son of a Werewolf. Dogs are everywhere in Ferelden, guarding
barns, herding livestock, and serving in the armed forces. Perhaps the most recognizable and treasured
breed of dog in Ferelden is the Mabari war hound, hyper-intelligent animals allegedly
capable of fully comprehending human speech. A terrifying beast to face down on the battlefield,
Mabaris and their handles are an iconic staple of any respectable Ferelden nobles’ levies. Like all the Kingdoms of Thedas, Ferelden
was a diverse country populated by many peoples. While the descendants of the mainstream Alemarri
tribes, also known as the Clayne, dominated the nation’s demography, many other peoples,
both human and non-human contributed to the social fabric. Having rejected the authority of the Theirin
monarchs, cultural off-shoot tribes of the Alemarri, such as the aforementioned Avvar
and Chasind, were driven to the fringes of society. Forced from the central Ferelden valley, deep
into their respective mountainous and swampy homelands, these two tribes have remained
far closer to their shamanic roots than their civilized cousins. Indeed, while the Clayne-Alemarri clans of
Ferelden proper have fully embraced the Chant of Light, the Avvar and Chasind continue to
worship the animistic gods of old, revering the spirits of the earth, the waters and the
skies. In Fereldens cities, crowded, dirty alienages
bustle as the impoverished Elvhen go about their daily lives. Much like in every other Andrastian Kingdom,
the Elves of Ferelden are second class citizens, doing society’s dirtiest jobs for half what
a human would be paid. Yet, for all their suffering, the Elves of
Ferelden are possessed of rights that their counterparts in countries do not have. Serfdom as a concept does not exist in Ferelden,
no one is bonded to the land or its lords, and all are entitled to move freely and work
for who they wish. This right is extended to the Elves, but since
prejudice against their kind remains both common and virulent, most choose to stay within
the alienage walls anyway. Meanwhile, their distant kinsmen, the Dalish
clans, ply their caravans in Fereldens thick woodlands, and it is not uncommon to see caravals
of halla-pulled Aravel roaming the Brecilian forest, driven by the children of the Evanuris
who continue to reject the Chantry and its God to this day, keeping to their old Gods
and their old ways. Unlike the Elves, Dwarves generally have an
easy go of things in Ferelden’s human-dominated society. Ferelden benefits from being in close proximity
to Orzammar, the last ancient Dwarven Kingdom which still maintains diplomatic relations
with humankind, and as such, is a major conduit of the incredibly lucrative conduit of the
pan-Thedosian lyrium trade. Beyond the subterranean citizens of Orzammar,
a small number of Dwarva live on the surface in cities like Highever and Denerim. These are usually well-to-do leaders in commerce,
and discreetly, the main middle-men in facilitating trade between Orzammar and human-kind. Even if in theory, any Dwarf who leaves the
underground to go live on the surface is by the rigid laws of the Orzammar Shaperate,
an ostracized exile. From the Steel Age onwards, Ferelden’s relatively
isolated geography shielded it from the cataclysmic, never-ending bloodbath of the Qunari invasions. Nevertheless, its history was not without
its trials and tribulations. By the 5th year of the seventh Chantry epoch,
the Storm Age, the reigning king, Arland Theirin, was growing deeply unpopular with the nobles
of the landsmeet. Secretly, some of the Kingdoms most powerful
Banns conspired to replace him with Sophia Dryden, a noble woman with a blood claim to
the throne. The only issue was that Sophia was the Commander
of the Ferelden Gray Wardens, a brotherhood which stood above national politics, and devoted
itself solely to defeating darkspawn. Nevertheless, Warden-Commander Dryden decided
to violate her order’s sacrosanct neutrality, and launched a rebellion against the throne. This insurrection was eventually crushed,
and as a consequence, the Gray Wardens were banished from Ferelden, where they would have
almost no presence for centuries to come. Although the Gray Wardens were a formidable
foe, they paled in comparison to the next threat looming over the horizon. In the 24th year of the eight Chantry epoch,
the Blessed Age, Emperor Reville Valmont of Orlais, known also as Reville the Mad, launched
a full scale invasion of Ferelden. King Vanedrin Theirin was killed in battle,
and his successor, King Brandel Theirin, failed to win the confidence of the Landsmeet. As such, many Banns and Arls sided with the
invaders in exchange for the right to retain their lands and privileges under the new Orlesian
regime. The Theirin dynasty was now fighting a losing
battle, and yet, in a characteristic display of stubborn, dogmatic valiance, it still took
twenty years for the Chevaliers to fully overrun the country. Modern historians in Ferelden consider the
Orlesian occupation, which lasted around 70 years, to be a dark blot on their country’s
history. One such commentator gloomily remarked that:
“Our people, who from time immemorial valued their freedom over all else, were forced to
bow to Orlesian rule. The Empire declared our elves property and
sold them like cattle. Chevaliers routinely plundered freeholds of
coin, food, and even women and children, and excused it as "taxation." And for 70 years no Landsmeets were held,
for the Imperial throne had declared our ancient laws a form of treason.” And yet, there was hope on the horizon. In the waning years of the Blessed Age, a
Prince-in-Exile, Maric Theirin, raised an army with the help of a rebel-champion, the
Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir, and launched a rebellion to retake his country. The revolutionary war that followed was successful,
and at the very beginning of the Dragon Age, Ferelden became a free country once more. In the 30th year of the Dragon Age, the Archdemon
Urthemiel awoke, and the Fifth Blight began. The nation of Ferelden was the first to be
hit, with Darkspawn pouring out from beneath the earth in the southern Korcari wilds. Facing this threat head on, King Cailan Theirin
marched to the Fortress of Ostagar to meet the tainted horde. However, in the battle that ensued, he was
betrayed and left to die by his most trusted vassal, Loghain Mac Tir. What happens next is no longer determined
in the history books, and is not our story to tell. Indeed, from here on out, the fate of Ferelden,
and of Thedas as a whole, is in your hands. We hope you've enjoyed this series and that
it helps you in your journey across the world of Dragon Age. We plan to cover the battles of many other
fantasy, sci-fi, and space opera universes, so make sure you have subscribed and pressed
the bell button! Please, consider liking and sharing, as it
helps immensely, and don’t forget to comment - we will try to read and respond to every
comment as we want to know what you think about this video and which videos you hope
to see in the future! This is the Wizards and Warriors channel,
and we’ll catch you on the next one!
