A Baldur’s Gate 3 player’s guide to Dragon Age lore

There’s a brand new Dragon Age sport out, and for followers who’ve been tapped into the collection for 15 years, it’s an extremely thrilling time (particularly since 10 of these years concerned merely… ready for this sport). However 15 years and three video games means a lot of lore for brand new followers, particularly in the event you’re a brand new fan coming from final yr’s sprawling choice-driven fantasy RPG.

In case you’re a fan of Baldur’s Gate 3 who’s determined to take an opportunity on Dragon Age, leaping proper into the lore generally is a lot. It’s not completely inaccessible, however there are a variety of large reveals that may really feel extra impactful if in case you have some context in regards to the world of Thedas and what the earlier three video games have constructed towards.

Dragon Age is outlined by apocalypses

The historical past of Dragon Age’s setting is form of like a rolling succession of apocalypses. For near a millennium, Thedas (an inside BioWare abbreviation for “The Dragon Age Setting” that caught) has been affected by 5 Blights, by which monsters known as Darkspawn erupt from underground, spreading a bloodborne illness (the Taint) that turns victims into extra Darkspawn.

However even earlier than the Blights, Thedas was rocked by upheavals — the rise and fall of the Tevinter Empire, which at one level had conquered practically each nation you’ll see on Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s world map, and the mysterious fall of the elven empire that preceded it. Historical past, in Thedas, could be very a lot written by survivors, victors, and different biased sources, and all this upheaval has meant that even students don’t know what actually occurred “again then.” The Dragon Age video games themselves are sometimes about revealing that what everybody thinks is true is at finest a simplification and at worst an outright lie.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s setting in Northern Thedas is a superb instance of this: It’s a bunch of nations that the video games have by no means really allow us to go to earlier than, and which have till now largely been outlined by outsiders. In earlier Dragon Age video games, Tevinter is called the final remnant of the conquering empire whose yoke was thrown off centuries in the past, a spot the place mages sacrifice slaves to gasoline decadent blood magic (suppose late Rome, or Byzantium). Rivain is called a nation of piracy and witch-like seers (and form of the Spanish Caribbean within the age of sail?), Antiva as a mercantile nation dominated by a cabal of unstoppable assassins (fantasy medieval Italy, however with Spanish accents for some cause), and Nevarra as a creepy place the place they let spirits inhabit the our bodies of their useless family members in large tombs (as an alternative of cremating them, like mainly everybody else in Thedas does).

But when you already know something about Dragon Age, you already know that what we “know” about these locations is, once more, at finest a simplification and at worst an outright lie. In case you’re a brand new fan, Dragon Age: The Veilguard offers you every thing you’ll want to find out about them, and it’ll be the outdated followers who’ll need to replace their assumptions.

…Mainly zombie infestations. Besides on this case, the zombies are known as Darkspawn and so they’re extra akin to the “an infection” zombie trope versus the “resurrected undead” one. The Darkspawn are at all times round, often lurking underground. However a Blight kicks off once they corrupt a strong sleeping dragon (certainly one of a pantheon of “the Previous Gods” as soon as worshipped in Tevinter), which finally ends up rising as an Archdemon and main a horde. Often, it turns every thing darkish and grey and useless. The one technique to cease the Blight is to slay the Archdemon that’s main it, and the one technique to slay that Archdemon is to have a Gray Warden sacrifice their life to do it.

The Gray Wardens are a mysterious order devoted to eradicating Darkspawn. Their becoming a member of ritual provides them a minor model of the Taint that permits them to sense Darkspawn and struggle them. The primary sport’s protagonist was a Gray Warden who fought off the Blight in Ferelden (fantasy England), in order that faction has been an enormous a part of the lore from the very starting.

One of many collection’ largest mysteries is how the Blight got here to be. Most people who observe the in-universe fantasy Catholicism attribute it to divine punishment from the Maker (God), after a gaggle of human mages from Tevinter bought too cocky and marched upon the Golden Metropolis (heaven). However there have been hints in previous video games that this broadly believed rationalization shouldn’t be the true story, particularly contemplating how comparatively just lately people have been round Thedas.

What are gods in Dragon Age?

In case you’re used to Baldur’s Gate 3, by which characters can speak with gods, kill gods, and even develop into gods, you’ll need to alter your expectations for Dragon Age. Andrastianism, the biggest human faith in Thedas, worships a single god, the Maker, who doesn’t communicate to his topics, and the video games have by no means explicitly weighed in on whether or not he even exists.

Maker-worship started centuries in the past when his prophet, Andraste, rallied the armies of Southern Thedas to stand up and overthrow the Tevinter empire. And although her forces did achieve liberating the nations that ultimately turned Ferelden and Orlais (fantasy England and fantasy France), she was betrayed, captured, and burned on the stake within the capital of Tevinter.

Andrastianism (usually merely known as “the Chantry”) has large Catholic Church vibes — but when Joan of Arc was Jesus, and if a type of anti-popes had really succeeded in inflicting a full schism. The Cult of Andraste ultimately grew into the dominant organized human faith in Thedas, administered by church buildings known as “Chantries” and led by a pope-like determine known as the Divine. Then the Chantry break up into two based mostly on a disagreement in regards to the position of magic. The Southern Chantry adopted the concept mages have been harmful and must be managed by the church, whereas Tevinter’s Chantry broke away and appointed its personal Imperial Divine (often called “the Black Divine” within the South, which we point out solely as a result of it’s metallic as fuck), adopting the concept the Maker wished his folks to make use of magic to its fullest extent, really.

Each Chantries train that for the crime of killing his prophet, the Maker turned away from his folks till such a time that the phrases of Andrastianism’s holy textual content, the Chant, have been sung in all corners of the world. However the scattered elves of Thedas, who’re handled as second-class residents in lots of locations, particularly within the South, have an much more distant relationship with their gods. For hundreds of years, elven legend held that the trickster god Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf, trapped the elven pantheon of their realm within the heavens, slicing the elven folks off from the safety of their gods and resulting in the autumn of a golden elven civilization.

However as just lately as the ultimate DLC of Dragon Age: Inquisition, the heroes of that sport found that the elven gods have been by no means gods in any respect: They have been simply actually highly effective mages who had enslaved their very own folks. Considered one of that sport’s companion characters, Solas, turned out to secretly be Fen’Harel, just lately woken from a thousand years of slumber, an historic insurgent who had sealed these elven mages away by making a barrier between the fabric world and the Fade.

However for as a lot as Dragon Age video games present the failings of organized faith — significantly the bias in how establishments just like the Chantry therapeutic massage historical past to their very own benefit — it is usually a franchise stuffed with characters who’ve deep and particular person relationships with religion.

OK, so how do mages work?

Not like in D&D lore, the place magic can come from all kinds of locations, the magic within the Dragon Age world comes from one particular place: the Fade, a metaphysical realm separated from the world by a barrier often called the Veil. People, elves, and Qunari enter the Fade of their desires; dwarves, nevertheless, are reduce off from it and can’t dream (Why? No person is aware of).

The Fade is a mirrored image of the particular world, populated by spirits, beings of pure magic who usually embody a personality trait like Compassion, Religion, or Justice. There are additionally spirits who embody damaging traits, like Despair, Vengeance, or Spite, often as a result of they’ve been corrupted in a roundabout way — or as a result of the restricted human viewpoint sees them as vices. Many individuals refer to those ones as demons, however the extra we’ve realized about how spirits work, the blurrier the road between sprites and demons will get. Regardless, they’re all fueled by the presence of the human feelings they embody, which suggests demons are typically aggressive and sometimes seem when issues already kinda suck.

Anyway, some people, elves, and Qunari are born with a connection to the Fade, which permits them to control it within the type of magic. This additionally leaves them extra weak to possession by dangerous spirits, which is the supply of the South’s worry of mages. Magic can be utilized to control parts, converse with spirits, heal wounds, and shape-shift, amongst different issues.

There’s additionally a particular, magic, glowing blue mineral known as lyrium, which strengthens a mage’s connection to the Fade. Solely dwarves can mine uncooked lyrium with out unintended effects, as a result of they’re reduce off from the Fade. Earlier video games additionally launched the idea of pink lyrium, which is lyrium corrupted by the Blight that drives folks to insanity. It’s dangerous! TL;DR: glowing blue rock = highly effective, revered, good; glowing pink rock = highly effective, damaging, BAD BAD BAD.

Within the earlier three video games all set in Southern Thedas, being a mage was an enormous no-no, as a result of the Chantry had a doctrine that “magic should not rule over man,” which everybody interpreted to imply “magic is evil.” However it’s been over 10 years for the reason that Mage Insurrection fastened that to a point, and the areas you go to in The Veilguard have traditionally been fairly chill with most mages, so all you actually need to know is that there’s some passing mentions to how barbarically the South treats their mages.

Blood magic is usually seen as a nasty factor, although the video games’ definition of precisely what blood magic is has diversified. Numerous the Dying Caller skills in The Veilguard are literally fairly much like what earlier video games known as blood magic. (And this could in all probability be attributed to how the completely different areas view magic). For the needs of this sport — and Tevinter particularly — blood magic entails utilizing the blood of others to reinforce magical powers, oftentimes using it to regulate others’ minds and summon demons. Blood magic is exclusive in that it really doesn’t require tapping into the Fade, and in reality, it makes coming into the Fade tougher.

Who is that this Solas man and what does he need with the Fade?

Your participant character initially is aware of that Solas is definitely Fen’Harel, the elven god of lies, who’s out to destroy the world by eliminating the Veil that separates the Fade from the true world.

That’s the fast and soiled model.

The longer one is that within the earlier sport, Solas was launched as Simply Some Mage who determined to return and assist the Inquisitor (the participant character) out of the goodness of his coronary heart. He spends all the sport with the Inquisitor, sharing tales of his explorations of the Fade in his desires and his information of magic. The Inquisitor may forge a friendship with him, or discover him annoying, or — in the event that they have been a feminine elf — begin a romance.

However Solas mysteriously vanishes after the occasions of the primary sport, and within the epilogue DLC, he reveals that he was the facility behind Inquisition’s largest dangerous man. When he awoke from his 1000’s of years of slumber, he was devastated to seek out that his actions reduce the world off from magic — and disadvantaged the elven folks of their tradition and heritage. His first try at fixing the world concerned an enormous explosion that ripped a tear within the Veil, and likewise unintentionally gave the Inquisitor (who simply occurred to be within the mistaken place on the mistaken time) the Anchor, a mysterious glowing inexperienced mark that would seal the rifts within the Veil. This time, Solas desires to get it proper, even when which means destroying the identified world within the course of. And within the case of a romanced Inquisitor, even when it means shedding her.

The default setup in The Veilguard is an elven Inquisitor who romanced Solas and desires to avoid wasting him from himself — which isn’t a lot BioWare declaring canon as it’s organising the juiciest storyline for individuals who didn’t play the earlier sport. However if you wish to mess with the defaults, you possibly can create a brand new Inquisitor who didn’t romance Solas in any respect, or who desires to cease him as an alternative of save him (or some other mixture). No matter who they romanced, the ultimate good selection the Inquisitor makes in Inquisition’s DLC Trespasser is whether or not or to not save or cease Solas. Oh, additionally, he cuts off the Inquisitor’s hand, for the reason that Anchor is slowly killing them.

Varric Tethras is a fan-favorite Dragon Age companion who’s now on his third sport working as a serious character. He began out as a full companion character in Dragon Age 2, a sport the place it’s straightforward to piss off your companions a lot that they go away or outright stand towards you. However Varric was designed to be your largest supporter, it doesn’t matter what — he was the sport’s narrator, and so he had to be there for the entire story.

That early position as your finest bud endeared the deadpan dwarf with a coronary heart of gold to many gamers. He returned as a companion character in Dragon Age: Inquisition, the place he had a caring however extra standoffish relationship with the Inquisitor. His facet hustle as Thedas’ hottest writer has had him publishing tell-all books in regards to the heroes of Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition, so he’s intimately accustomed to the wildest occasions in Thedas’ current historical past. It was his brother’s dangerous underground expedition that first found pink lyrium, certainly one of his buddies began the Mage Insurrection, and he adventured alongside Solas with the Inquisition, serving to uncover the reality in regards to the elven gods.

And now right here he’s, 20 years older than once we first noticed him, gray-haired, with new facial scars, nonetheless adventuring on (presumably?) the behalf of the Inquisition, and seemingly actually invested in speaking Solas down from his complete destroy-the-world plan. To offer you an even bigger peek behind the fandom curtain: Numerous us are actually nervous that his narrative position in Veilguard is to make us very unhappy, in a technique or one other. Knock on wooden he makes it out OK, however with BioWare, you by no means know.

Veilguard gained’t provide the identical freedom as Baldur’s Gate 3 — however that’s the purpose

Pc RPGs can by no means be as versatile as a tabletop role-playing sport, and completely different franchises work round this drawback in several methods. Baldur’s Gate 3 made its mark with a frankly unbelievable stage of alternative complexity. Traditionally, Dragon Age has taken a unique tack.

Missing the technological, monetary, or human sources essential to make a sport that advanced, Dragon Age video games are sometimes very straight about characters whose selections are constrained. That franchise theme that the true historical past was often extra advanced than the story instructed about it? Dragon Age 2 utilized that concept on to its principal character, Hawke, with a framing system by which Varric was being interrogated in regards to the ebook he wrote about Hawke’s life, on the suspicion that it was all too coincidental for therefore many dangerous issues to have occurred to 1 particular person with out it being a plan all alongside.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Inquisitor is swept up in a story — that they’ve been touched by the Maker — no matter how they personally really feel about it. All they know is that in the event that they don’t decide up the facility of that story and use it for good, the world will finish.

Dragon Age is, in some ways, the “doomed by the narrative” CRPG franchise. The alternatives that are typically mirrored most in future video games are the affect your character has on their companions, not the world, as if to say: People can’t really change the world on their very own; what issues is who you like and the way you do it.

“Yeah, that also form of sucks, although,” you may say. “It’s extra enjoyable when a participant could make selections that basically matter.” However have a look at it one other means: Given the sheer variety of divergent endings to Baldur’s Gate 3, it could be prohibitively troublesome to make a direct sequel to it. However Dragon Age followers have been capable of return to Thedas, and get an replace on a minimum of a few of their outdated buddies (or within the case of characters like Varric, journey alongside them once more), for 3 sequels and counting.

There’s nothing inherently dangerous with Dragon Age providing much less alternative than Baldur’s Gate 3 — you simply get completely different outcomes for it. Give Dragon Age: The Veilguard a shot, and also you simply may end up hooked.