Dragon Age: The Lore, from Origins to Inquisition

Released in 2009, the Dragon Age series is Bioware’s bet (before being purchased by EA Games) on the world of medieval fantasy RPGs with strong inspirations from Dungeons & Dragons. The company had experience already with such games, having released hits such as Jade Empire, Mass Effect and the first two Baldur’s Gate games. So, with baggage like this, it's unlikely to think that Dragon Age wouldn't do well.

And well it did! And it's still doing so today. Despite EA's interference in some essential points of the games, always focusing on profit, the games still had something great that pleased the franchise's most loyal fans. Well-written lore, unforgettable companions, romance and most importantly, decisions which will change the entire history of your world forever!

However, if you want to play the newest Dragon Age The Veilguard, do you need to play all the previous games? I would say yes, but I know how dated the graphics and gameplay of a game like Dragon Age: Origins can be, so, to make things easier, we'll tell you the most important points of each game, so you be caught up on what's going on before embarking on this adventure where every decision matters.

The first game in the franchise is, by far, considered the best game in it and has the best story. A complete companion control system, able to detail each order and each moment for your friends, choosing the actions, powers and items that they will use at each moment of the campaign.

Not only that, but the system is a complex and well-designed RPG where, for example, wearing heavy armor will influence your actions such as attack speed and how much weight you can carry (things which have been left aside as the years went by). Personally, I think the combat is very stilted and slow, but that doesn't take away from the game's glory.

In Dragon Age: Origins you can play as a human, elf or dwarf. Your species and class define your origins, which can be a noble, a mage scholar from the Circle (a place where mages are kept/imprisoned to study their magic safely, but not everyone likes it), a city or forest elf, a Dalish, and either a noble dwarf or a not noble one. The basic classes are wizard, rogue and warrior and some have variations depending on race and origin, in addition to several subclasses which can be chosen along the campaign.

Regardless of your choice, a personal tragedy will force your character to meet Duncan, the commander of the Gray Wardens of Ferelden and you will be recruited to be part of this order. The Gray Wardens are a group of soldiers, mercenaries of all races and classes focused on destroying the Darkspawns and preventing a new Blight.

These dark creatures are constantly looking for an Archdemon (a type of ancient god in the form of a dragon) going further into the Deep Roads, the kingdom of the dwarves, and when they find one they corrupt it and a Blight begins, which threatens to destroy the entire world. (They're like the Night Watch (the guys from the Wall) in Game of Thrones or the Witchers in The Witcher. Nobody likes them, but they're desperately needed).

Duncan has been finding Darkspawns further and further away from the Deep Roads and this is not right, he is suspicious of something and goes searching for new potential members to join the Gray Wardens ranks. And, by chance, he finds you right after a personal tragedy that made you lose your ground.

But where do Darkspawns, Archdemons and Blights come from? The answer is: Nobody knows! According to the Chantry (which would be the equivalent of our Vatican) a group of ambitious magicians one day crossed the Veil (the barrier that separates the world of the living and the dead) to enter the Golden City and take the Maker's throne, but he was not happy with this and expelled them, corrupting them and transforming them into the Darkspawns. Since they are cursed creatures and cannot stand the light, they fled to the Deep Roads and began to fight the dwarves, looking for the ancient fallen gods to corrupt them.

For years, the first Archdemon ruled the world, as no one knew how to defeat a Darkspawn without becoming corrupted by its filthy blood. Until one day, someone understood that the key to victory laid in this corruption. Through a deadly, dangerous ritual, a group of heroes took the blood of the Darkspawns and managed to become immune to Blight and also harm the immortal Archdemon. Thus was born the order of Gray Wardens.

Arriving at the castle of Ferelden, in Ostengar, alongside Duncan, your character meets 2 more aspiring Wardens and a newbie named Alistair. Your first mission is to go to the Dark Woods and get Darkspawn blood for the ritual and also go with Alistair to an old Gray Warden fortress to retrieve a document signed by wizards, dwarves and elves stating that, on the verge of a Blight, the three groups would join the Wardens to defend the world. Duncan feels it's time to collect this debt.

You fight with Darkspawns on the way to the Tower and there you find the place in rubbles and no documents, until the Forest Witch, Morrigan, appears and says that she has them and hands the documents over, telling you that moment would define the entire future of Thedas. Was she looking at legends or dead people? Only you have the answer.

With the documents in hand, you return to Ostengar, where you’ll begin the ritual to become Gray Wardens. And in a deadly ritual where you and two generic NPCs take part, you can imagine who lives and who dies, right? Now an official Warden, you, Duncan and Alistair go to meet King Calian, a good young king who is very excited about the possibility of fighting in a Blight with the legendary Gray Wardens. To him, since no one has seen any Archdemons so far, it would just be an easy fight against a bunch of disorganized monsters.

To make everything even more spectacular, the king even summoned his vassal and his wife's father, Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir, so that he could take his armies and devastate the Darkspawns with a numerical advantage. The plan was simple, Calian and Duncan would be on the front line, you and Alistair would climb the Castle tower, light a torch and signal Loghain to come with his troops and guarantee victory. However, at the last moment, Loghain decides to leave, as this was not a fight but a manifestation of the king's vanity, and he would not put his soldiers at risk for that.

Without Loghain's troops, Calian's army was overwhelmed by Darkspawns and you and Alistair are attacked by an Ogre, spot the Archdemon and are killed by Darkspawns. At least, that's what you think happened because, a few days later, you wake up in an old cabin in the middle of the forest. At the last minute, you were saved by Morrigan and her mother, the legendary sorceress Flemeth. They explain that Ferelden castle has fallen, and the Blight is advancing throughout the continent. The only way to stop it is to use the old agreements and get an army of wizards, elves and dwarves together with the Wardens and fight the Archdemon.

The sorceress decides that she will help you stop the Blight and, to do so, sends her daughter with you. Morrigan, very upset, obeys and guides you and Alistair to the village of Lothering, the first stop so we can reorganize ourselves. And there is where we will meet Chantry’s bard cleric, Leliana, as well as the stern Sten, a large humanoid of the Qunari, a species characterized by horns and by their clan social organization, the Qun, which turns individuals into perfect pieces for fulfilling their functions in society through indoctrination and military training.

(To give you an idea, Sten is not his name but his function, his work. Being a Sten in the Qun is like being an “emissary” or “messenger”. Another Qunari character who appears in the second game, Tallis, means “assassin” or something like that)

In order not to tell you absolutely everything, let's summarize that on this journey we will still meet: the drunken dwarf Oghain, the wise healer Wynne and the seductive elf assassin Zevran, who will join your group during this journey. You'll also be able to recruit a faithful Mabari dog warrior and, if you have the DLC, a bird-hating stone golem named Shale.

After leaving Lothering, you and your party must decide who you will visit first: the elves, the dwarves, or the wizards. Regardless of who you choose, know that all three have their own problems and will not help you, only after solving these cases.

The elves are in a fight against a tribe of Werewolves who are attacking due to a curse from a forest spirit. The wizards are dealing with demons from the Fade (the world of the dead, so to speak) due to the use of Blood Magic (a huge taboo and forbidden among wizards) and the dwarves are involved in a dispute over the line of succession to the throne. However, each of these situations has two possibilities for resolution.

In the matter of elves, you can choose to help the Werewolves and have an army of lycanthropes to fight against the Archdemon. With the dwarves, you can choose between having the dwarves with you or a bunch of stone Golems to fight by your side. And in the case of the mages, you can decide that they cannot be saved and gain the help of Paladins, warriors with strong resistance to magic and great for facing renegade mages.

Lastly, you will need to go to the city of Denerin, to demand satisfaction from Loghain for abandoning the king's army. There, you decide what to do with him, in addition to deciding who will be next on the throne. Loghain himself, father and guardian of the current widowed queen, or the king's bastard brother who no one knew existed, but who has been in your group the whole time? Or maybe… yourself!

With everything resolved, it's time to go after the Archdemon and destroy it once and for all, but just know one thing: Only a Gray Warden can kill an Archdemon; however, the last blow will take the life of the one who killed it. Will you give your life for the world? Will you let another Warden die doing this? Or you can listen to Morrigan's plan to save your life if you trust her.

Ultimately, the choices will be yours, and they will all shape the future of Thedas forever (or at least, until the third game).

Loved by some, hated by others, Dragon Age 2 was released in 2011, with just one year of development. Criticized for the excessive repetition of scenarios and the lack of playable species options, in addition to the change from an RPG full of tactics and management to something more focused on action. Personally, I consider it to be the game with the best plot in the series, and I like the fast-paced combat much more than the previous one.

While in Dragon Age Origins you have to save the world, here, all you want to do is save your family. DA2 is entirely told through the eyes of Varric, a bard dwarf who accompanies our group. He starts by telling a somewhat absurd story, as if Hawke were a superhero, but is interrupted by Cassandra Pentaghast who wants to know the pure truth. Then, he starts to tell what really happened:

Remember the city of Lothering? Like many things, it was destroyed in the Blight, and we follow a fugitive family of survivors, the Hawkes. Here we start by just choosing the classes, in this game the only option is to play with Hawke as a human. The default name is Marian for a female and Garret for a male. Canonically, Garret Hawke is a wizard, but you can change it.

With him is his mother, Leandra, his younger sister, Bethany, and his middle brother, Carver. On the run, you encounter Aveline and her husband, a paladin who is infected by Blight and about to die. When the fugitives encounter an Ogre, one of your siblings (if you choose to be a wizard, Bethany, if you are a rogue or warrior, Carver) dies alongside Aveline's husband. In this fight, a dragon appears to help us. This dragon is actually Flemeth, Morrigan's mother.

In exchange for her help and escort to the nearest port, she only asks that we deliver a medallion to a group of forest elves called the Dalish. With no choice, you bury your dead and head to the port, traveling to the city of Kirkwall, where the Blight hasn't reached, and your family has a mansion (your mother fought with her parents to marry your father and that's why she left everything). However, when you get there, you discover that the city is full of refugees and no one wants to let you in. But because you help a guard solve a problem, he says he'll call your uncle, Gamlen, to talk to you.

Gamlen arrives and says he lost the mansion in a bet and is living in a shack, but agrees to take you in on one condition: Hawke, Aveline and the surviving brother have to work for free for some “shady types” for a year, to pay for the debt. Once more, without a choice, they agree.

A year passes, you end your servitude and Aveline has become a city guard, but your life is still bad and the best chance to change it is to join the expedition that the dwarf Bartand will make to dig for treasures in the Deep Roads (even if they are infested with Darkspawn), but the dwarf doesn't want any more mercenaries or bodyguards, he already has too many. You meet Varric, Bartand's brother, who says: “He doesn't need soldiers, he needs a partner!”

Bartand wants someone to finance the expedition, and Varric suggests that you work to raise money to pay for your entry into it. After that, Hawke's life changes completely.

Dragon Age 2 has one of the most emotional stories in the franchise, as it’s much more personal than the others, you are not saving the world, you are saving your family. You don't want to be a big hero, you just want to be at peace. And peace is everything you can't get!

Regarding companions, in addition to your siblings, Bethany or Carver, you’ll meet:

• Aveline, a strong warrior with well-defined personal goals (she's not just there to help you, she has a life!).

• Varric, the dwarf bard and book writer who fights with his unique crossbow called Bianca (he never tells the reason for the name).

• Fenris, an elf who fled his enslaver and seeks revenge for the experiments he suffered.

• Isabella, a brilliant and seductive pirate captain, who is involved in huge trouble.

• Merrill, a Dalish elf who wants to save the history of the elves, even though she is messing with dangerous things to do so.

• And Anders, a wizard who has a strong opinion against the Circle. Anders first appeared in a Dragon Age Origins DLC and returns possessed by the spirit of Justice, who also appeared in the same DLC.

(some spirits in the Dragon Age universe can be manifestations of ideas, aspects or concepts. They embody an idea and, depending on what happens, can become the opposite of that concept. For example, Justice is the manifestation of justice but, if corrupted by the actions of the one who is with it, it can become the spirit of vengeance.)

• In one DLC, you have the elf assassin companion, Tallis, a member of the Qun and who is played by actress Felicia Day.

• Sebastian, a nobleman seeking revenge. This is the only exclusively heterosexual companion in the game (all others are bi).

Without giving away too many spoilers, just know that Anders did something that changed the world. At this point, you will decide whether to kill him for what he did, spare him, or send him away. At this point too, depending on your actions, some of your companions may have left the party, some may turn against you, which means that you may even have to kill that companion with whom you have a romance. So, you have to be cautious with what you do!

The third game arrived in 2014, highly anticipated by fans, as the end of DA2 left a huge, the size of a hole in the sky, cliffhanger for what would happen next. One of the most significant changes, in addition to the change in console generation, was the way you imported choices from one game to another. In the case of Dragon Age Origins for Dragon Age 2, you just imported your save with all your choices.

In Dragon Age Inquisition, we use Dragon Age Keep, a website which will connect to your EA account, and you will retell your story through the options. Not everything is there, but you can keep track of everything you've done and import it into the game.

In it, Anders' actions showed that the mages are very dissatisfied with the Chantry's management of the Circle and want them to be disbanded. But the Paladins, the “guards” of the Circle, think that, precisely because a wizard did such a bad thing, the opposite must happen, and the wizards must be under even closer watch to prevent something like this from happening again.

The Divine Justinia (the equivalent of the Pope in our world) calls everyone to a meeting in the Temple of Andraste, the Conclave, which will define the future of the Circle, but an explosion happens and a hole in the Veil appears, killing thousands of people, including the Divine, and causing demons of the Fade to arise. And, as it couldn’t not be, you are in the middle of it all.

This time, in addition to wizard, dwarf and human, you will be able to play a Qunari who abandoned the Qun. You can be a warrior, mage or rogue and, over time, acquire a specialization. Face customization is excellent, but it’s not possible to customize the character's body.

You are chained up and being interrogated by Cassandra Pentaghast, a Seeker of the Truth (a slightly more “complicated” branch of the Paladins), and Leliana, who is now no longer a nice cleric but one who is very, very angry at someone. And that someone better not be you!

Cassandra takes us out of the cell only to show a gigantic tear in the sky and wants to know the relation between it and the mark on our hand. We, of course, don't know, but apparently, there is something connecting the two things. We are taken to the temple of Andraste, facing demons from the Veil and reaching the point where the hole is open and, without knowing why, we manage to close it. Everything great, everything beautiful.

In this adventure, in addition to Cassandra and Leliana, we’ll meet our old friend Varric, who came from Kirkwall (unwillingly) to help. The reason? In the second game, Cassandra was interrogating Varric to find out where Hawke was, who disappeared after the end of the second game. She expected Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall, to lead the Inquisition, since the first choice for leader, the Hero of Ferelden (our Gray Warden from the first game), was also missing.

(Yes, when a problem arises, everyone disappears! Just like in real life!)

You will also come across some good companions such as:

• Cassandra, the Seeker, who will be your right-hand woman on the adventure.

• Blackwall, an honorable Gray Warden with a mysterious past.

• Dorian, a wizard from the nation of Tevinter, where wizards reign.

• Vivianne, a very influential politician wizard in the nation of Orlais.

• Iron Bull, a Qunari mercenary sent by the Qun to help you (if you trust it).

• Sera, an elf archer who is part of a strange organization called Friends of the Red Jenny (but no one has ever seen this Red Jenny, and they don't even know if she exists or existed).

• Cole, a mysterious young man with a connection to spirits.

• And, finally, the wizard Solas, who (somehow) knows a lot about that mark on your hand and the gaps in the sky. But how does someone know so much about something that just happened?

In addition to them, you'll have your advisors who stayed at the Operations Table, which are secondary time missions (you don't play them, you just send someone, wait a while and receive a reward). They are non-playable (but romanceable, except for Leliana) companions:

• Cullen, the commander of the Paladins (those that remain organized) and who will help you in operations if you choose to follow the path of combat.

• Josephine, an elegant diplomat from Orlais, will help you if you choose to follow a diplomatic path in the table missions.

• And Leliana herself, who is now a lot more of an assassin than a cleric, and she will help you with the operations of the table if you choose to follow the path of espionage and stealth.

Without the Chantry, without the Divine Justinia, with mages and paladins fighting each other and demons raining from the Veil, the world is without strong leadership in the midst of the crisis, so to resolve this, according to the ancient laws of the kingdoms, the Inquisition was formed. And it's up to you to lead this organization and solve the problem. And which one is it?

The problem is: There are several other gaps in the sky spread across the continent of Ferelden as well as a bigger, much bigger one! We have to find out how this hole opened, who opened it, how to close it and how to remove the mark from our hand before it becomes a hole too and swallows us and everything around us. All cool, right?

As the name says, we already know that the problem now involves the Veil, the barrier that separates the material world from the immaterial one, where spirits and demons are, called the Fade. In this game, we are dealing with the consequences of everything that happened in Inquisition, but since it’s the newest game in the franchise, I won’t tell the story here. This article was the introduction so that you can play The Veilguard without having to know the previous ones in depth (although it’s recommended).

There are many cool things to talk about Dragon Age and I haven't even mentioned the books and comics. If you want a detailed look at each of the games and the franchise, tell me in the comments! Until next time.