50 Fun Facts About Dragon Age

How did BioWare come up with the title Dragon Age before dragons were even part of the game?

A random name generator produced the title, so lead writer David Gaider wrote dragons into a world planned without them and turned the Archdemon into one.

The world of Dragon Age is called Thedas; where did BioWare's writers get that name?

An acronym for the setting is all it is: Thedas began as shorthand for The Dragon Age Setting and was never replaced, so the continent carries a working label as its name.

The Grey Wardens of Dragon Age closely resemble which sworn brotherhood from A Song of Ice and Fire?

The Night's Watch shares the Wardens' grim outlook and constant readiness for a monstrous invasion. BioWare drew on George R. R. Martin's morally ambiguous world throughout the series.

Which Hollywood actor voices The Iron Bull, the one-eyed mercenary of Dragon Age: Inquisition?

Freddie Prinze Jr. voices The Iron Bull, a spy whose mercenary company, the Bull's Chargers, is part of his cover. BioWare's own developers were unanimous in praising the performance.

Which film composer scored Dragon Age: The Veilguard with Lorne Balfe, replacing Trevor Morris?

Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe took over from Trevor Morris, who had scored Inquisition, as the rebooted project swapped tactical battles for real-time action combat.

Orlais, Dragon Age's empire of courtly intrigue, is based on which country in its Renaissance era?

France in its Renaissance era is the model for Orlais, which is why Orlesian characters speak with a French-tinged accent. Neighbouring Ferelden is based on medieval England.

Which streaming service premiered Dragon Age: Absolution, an animated series set in Tevinter?

Netflix unveiled Absolution at its Geeked Week event and released it that December, with the Korean studio Red Dog Culture House handling the animation.

Dragon Age: Inquisition won the top prize at the first edition of which Geoff Keighley show?

The Game Awards debuted in Las Vegas in December 2014 as the successor to the Spike Video Game Awards, and Inquisition carried off its very first Game of the Year trophy.

Which open-world fantasy hit did BioWare study closely while designing Dragon Age: Inquisition?

Skyrim was the game the team kept checking out as it planned bigger, more open zones, after players attacked Dragon Age II for recycling the same few environments.

Which actress wrote and starred in the web series Dragon Age: Redemption as the elf Tallis?

Felicia Day wrote the six-part series and plays Tallis, who then crossed into the games: she is a guest companion in the Dragon Age II add-on Mark of the Assassin.

Which war hero of Dragon Age: Origins abandons his king on the battlefield and then rules as regent?

Teyrn Loghain was the first character BioWare created for the game: a once-respected general who blames the Grey Wardens for the defeat he caused by retreating.

Which wisecracking companion in Dragon Age: Origins turns out to be a bastard son of King Maric?

Alistair was given to the Chantry to train as a templar before the Wardens took him in, and his royal blood makes him a candidate for Ferelden's empty throne.

Which shape-shifting witch in Dragon Age is voiced by Star Trek: Voyager actress Kate Mulgrew?

Flemeth can take the form of a huge dragon, and she turns up to save the heroes at pivotal moments of the first two games. Kate Mulgrew has voiced her every time.

Which Farscape actress voices Morrigan, the sharp-tongued witch of the Dragon Age games?

Claudia Black never auditioned for Morrigan: she had only sent BioWare a recording to register interest in future work, and the lead writer knew her as Farscape's Aeryn Sun.

Which British actor voices the scheming Arl Rendon Howe, a villain of Dragon Age: Origins?

Tim Curry earned an award nomination for playing Howe, a noble who slaughters a rival family for its title and backs the usurping regent to further his own ambitions.

Which Grey Warden rite in Dragon Age makes recruits drink Darkspawn blood, killing some of them?

The Joining gives survivors the Taint, a link to the Darkspawn hive mind that lets a Warden sense the horde. In the Awakening expansion, the recruit Mhairi dies taking it.

What breed is the loyal war hound that the player can name and fight beside in Dragon Age: Origins?

Mabari is the breed, a powerful dog with an essential role in the Fereldan military. Players who never rename the companion will know him by his default name: Dog.

Which Grey Warden recruits the player at the end of every origin story in Dragon Age: Origins?

Duncan leads Ferelden's Grey Wardens and narrates the opening cinematic, yet he dies beside the king in the first major battle, leaving two junior Wardens to stop the Blight.

Which sarcastic golem, added to Dragon Age: Origins by The Stone Prisoner, was once a female dwarf?

Shale was once Shayle of House Cadash, who volunteered to become a golem to fight the Darkspawn. The golem also loathes birds, after long years stuck in a village as their target.

At which fortress in Dragon Age: Origins is King Cailan killed when his general quits the field?

Ostagar is lost when the signal beacon is lit and the promised flanking charge never comes. The Darkspawn seize the fortress and pour into southern Ferelden.

In Dragon Age, which realm of spirits can most people only reach in their dreams?

The Fade is where sleepers wander in dreams, except dwarves, who never dream their way in. Mages have direct access, which cuts both ways: its demons can reach a careless mage and possess them.

Which blue mineral, mined and traded by the dwarves of Dragon Age, powers the practice of magic?

Lyrium lets a mage channel energy from the spirit realm, yet dwarves cannot wield magic themselves, so they mine it purely to trade. A more dangerous red variety appears in Dragon Age II.

In Dragon Age, what are mages called when they live outside the Chantry's control?

Apostates are hunted by the Templar Order, the Chantry's military wing, which is trained to subdue them by any means necessary. Morrigan is the best-known example in the games.

Which forbidden practice in Dragon Age do some mages use to summon demons to do their bidding?

Blood magic is powered by the blood of living beings rather than the mineral other spells rely on. The Templars of Dragon Age II cite it to justify their crackdown on the Circle.

Which Dragon Age prophet was a former slave who led an uprising against the Tevinter Imperium?

Andraste is revered as the Bride of the Maker, and her revolt against the Imperium is remembered as an Exalted March. The Chantry founded in her name, based in Orlais, is led by a Divine who is always a woman.

In Dragon Age, what name is given to the overcrowded ghettos where elves live inside human cities?

Alienages reverse a fantasy convention: BioWare deliberately cast elves as second-class citizens who resent humans, instead of the high-prestige race of most fiction.

Which people of Dragon Age are named after a region where an elven homeland once stood?

The Dalish are named after the Dales, and they roam in clans to preserve what survives of elven culture after the ancient empire of Elvhenan mysteriously collapsed.

In Dragon Age, which network did the dwarves build to link the cities of their old empire?

The Deep Roads once tied together a far greater dwarven realm, but Darkspawn now infest the tunnels and swarm up from them to the surface whenever a Blight begins.

Which dwarven kingdom, one of the last standing, backs the Warden in Dragon Age: Origins?

Orzammar runs on a rigid caste system and ancestor worship, and a dwarf who leaves for the surface becomes casteless and is usually unwelcome back below.

In Dragon Age: Origins, which trial must a Circle apprentice pass or be killed by a templar?

The Harrowing ends in execution for any apprentice who becomes an abomination. The templar standing ready with the sword in that origin story is Cullen, later the Inquisition's commander.

In Dragon Age, what are mages called after a lobotomy-like procedure strips them of all emotion?

The Tranquil feel nothing at all once it is done. In Dragon Age II, Hawke helps a mage try to rescue a friend from the templars, only to find it has already happened to him.

What do the Qunari of Dragon Age call their own mages, a word meaning 'dangerous thing'?

Saarebas are kept physically shackled, because the Qunari distrust magic so deeply. Their old enemy Tevinter is the reverse: mages there practise freely and run the country.

In Dragon Age, the mage-lords who govern the Tevinter Imperium answer to a ruler with which title?

Imperial Archon is the title, and the office heads a magocracy: in Tevinter the magic-wielding magisters hold power openly, while the southern Chantry shuts its mages away.

Which fortress is the Warden-Commander's base in the Dragon Age: Origins expansion Awakening?

Vigil's Keep is found overrun at the start, in an attack so organised that it points to an intelligent leader, something Darkspawn were thought incapable of without an Archdemon.

Which Darkspawn in Dragon Age: Awakening wants to free his kind from the urge to start Blights?

The Architect is also the cause of the first game's catastrophe: a failed experiment of his is what awakened the Archdemon that the hero of Origins had to slay.

Which dwarven order in Dragon Age counts the Awakening companion Sigrun among its scouts?

Legion of the Dead soldiers form an independent branch of the dwarven army, sworn to fight Darkspawn to the death. Sigrun can become a Grey Warden too, if she survives the initiation.

Which Dragon Age: Awakening companion is a spirit trapped in the corpse of a Grey Warden?

Justice possessed the dead Warden's body by accident and knows little of the mortal world, so the player can help him find closure by tracking down the dead man's wife.

In which city-state does Hawke rise from refugee to Champion over the decade of Dragon Age II?

Kirkwall hosts nearly the whole game, because a rushed schedule led BioWare to set the story in a single city and reuse its art as the place changes over the years.

Which dwarf rogue narrates Dragon Age II as an unreliable storyteller under interrogation?

Varric tells Hawke's story in flashback, and he carries a repeating crossbow he calls Bianca, though how it got that name is the one story he will never tell.

Which mage blows up the Chantry and sparks the mage–templar war in Dragon Age II?

Anders starts out in the Awakening expansion as a runaway concerned only with his own freedom. By the sequel he is a zealot whose bombing kills the Grand Cleric and drives Circles everywhere to rebel.

Which ancient Darkspawn magister tears open the Breach in Dragon Age: Inquisition?

Corypheus first appeared in the Dragon Age II add-on Legacy, where Hawke seemingly killed him in a Grey Warden prison. His soul simply passed into a nearby Warden, who walked away.

Which companion in Dragon Age: Inquisition is unmasked after the credits as the god Fen'Harel?

Solas had let his orb fall into the villain's hands so that it would be unlocked for him, which makes him indirectly responsible for the whole crisis the player has just resolved.

Which fortress becomes the base in Dragon Age: Inquisition after an avalanche buries Haven?

Skyhold is where the hero is formally named Inquisitor, and its war table, where agents and troops are sent out on operations, drives the story from then on.

Under which title did BioWare announce Dragon Age: The Veilguard before renaming it near launch?

Dreadwolf named the elven god at the heart of the plot, but BioWare retitled the game in June 2024 to reflect its focus on the team of companions instead.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, which elven goddess is revealed to be Morrigan's mother?

Mythal binds whoever drinks from the Well of Sorrows to her will, in exchange for the wisdom of her past servants. Either the Inquisitor or Morrigan has to accept that bargain.

Urthemiel, the Archdemon of Dragon Age: Origins, was once worshipped as the Dragon of what?

Beauty was his domain: the Tevinter Imperium honoured him as the patron deity of artists, musicians and poets before he was corrupted into the monster of the Fifth Blight.

Which fortress, besieged in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, is the headquarters of the Grey Wardens?

Weisshaupt comes under attack from a god and an Archdemon after the First Warden refuses to heed the hero's warning, and the order kills the dragon only at heavy cost.

Which city, Tevinter's capital, opens Dragon Age: The Veilguard with a chase through its streets?

Minrathous later faces a blighted dragon at the same moment as the Antivan city of Treviso, and the player is forced to choose which of the two to save.

Which publisher turned Dragon Age into a tabletop RPG built on its three-dice AGE System?

Green Ronin first sold it as a boxed set holding a player's guide, a game master's guide, a map of Ferelden and the three six-sided dice the rules run on.

In Dragon Age, what are Qunari called once they abandon the Qun and are branded traitors?

Tal-Vashoth is the fate awaiting The Iron Bull in Inquisition: if the player has him save his mercenaries rather than a Qunari warship, his people cast him out.