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Post by bruixa on Apr 25, 2014 20:30:53 GMT
SETTING
Thedas is a continent in turmoil.
To truly understand the world, you have to look to its troubled people: the hard choices they have made, the nations they have built, and the blood legacies they leave behind.
When there isn't a would-be empire threatening war, there's the darkspawn scourge roaring to the surface, threatening to kill everyone, borders be damned. Then there's magic. Mages might not be able to choose their gift, but every nation has ways to deal with it. Some celebrate and foster magic as a skill. Most violently suppress its use and dominate its users.
Over the course of history, humans have warred with elves, the Qunari, and each other. These myriad conflicts have shaped territories and generations of intolerance and oppression, while religion, be it belief in the Maker, the Qun, or any number of pantheons, elevated some societies to power and left others in ashes.
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Post by bruixa on Apr 25, 2014 20:45:54 GMT
HISTORY
The earliest known points of Thedosian history are documented in partial texts and old stories that only hint at the reality of these ancient times. Dalish keepers and the dwarven Shaperate speak of a Thedas entirely devoid of humans, a time when elves reigned over the land and dwarves ruled the underground.
When humans came, everything changed. What peace may or may not have existed gave way to war, and humans nearly destroyed the elves with the rise of the Tevinter Imperium. This first human empire and its worship of the Old Gods spread across Thedas. The elves either fled or were enslaved.
The might of the Tevinter magocracy was unquestioned for generations--until the Blight. Prevailing knowledge teaches that the unchecked power of the Tevinter magisters--specifically, their attempt to touch the realm of the gods--triggered this threat to all living things. This sin corrupted the magisters who entered the Fade, returning them to the waking world as the first darkspawn. The Old Gods they met in the Fade were likewise cast out and locked away underground.
The darkspawn, twisted creatures of singular purpose, sought to unearth the trapped Old Gods. The first to wake was Dumat, who took the form of a blighted high dragon known as an Archdemon. He led the darkspawn to the surface, taking an unspeakable toll on the dwarves before terrorizing the humans and elves. Dumat brought humanity to the brink of destruction before a newly formed order known as the Grey Wardens managed to defeat the Archdemon and end the Blight.
The First Blight lasted one hundred years, greatly weakening the Imperium. When a prophet known as Andraste, leading an army of barbarians, attacked from the south, it was unable to properly defend itself. Andraste declared that magic must serve man and not rule over him, a direct challenge to the Tevinter way of life. Her teachings spread quickly, and while she was eventually burned at the stake, this only made her a martyr for her Cult of the Maker.
At the start of the Divine Age, another Old God awoke and a Second Blight began. Emperor Drakon, of the new nation of Orlais, became the defender of humanity. As he pushed back the darkspawn horde with his armies, his power grew, and with it the influence of the Chantry he created in Andraste's name. Drakon enlisted mages, who eventually formed the Circle of Magi. They harnessed their magic to smite the darkspawn and alongside the Grey Wardens, killed the Archdemon. The Second Blight was over.
It was during these chaotic times that the influence of the Chantry spread and solidified across much of Thedas. The religious body, which preached Andraste's Chant of Light and worship of the Maker, became so powerful that even the Imperium converted--although they would later split to form the Imperial Chantry over differing interpretations of magic's role in society.
Over the ages, three more Blights ignited and threatened the surface world, only to be stopped with aid from the Wardens. In the meantime, humanity squabbled with itself on the surface--but these arguments were put aside with the arrival of the Qunari.
These horned giants sought to convert Thedas to their way of life. They possessed superior technology and in a great war, cut their way into the heart of Thedas. However, humanity banded together and pushed the Qunari back to the fringes of the continent, brokering a fragile peace that has persisted for two ages. Only the Imperium would not relent, and tensions with the Qunari still linger there.
By the time the Fifth Blight struck in the early years of the Dragon Age, it had been generations since Thedas faced an Archdemon. The Warden ranks were thinned as respect waned.
In the Free Marches and Orlais, meanwhile, tensions simmered between the Circle of Magi and the Chantry arm of authority known as the templars. Shoftly after the end of the Fifth Blight, an apostate mage destroyed a Chantry temple in Kirkwall, and outright war emerged between the two sides, with the templars breaking away from the Chantry entirely.
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Post by bruixa on Apr 26, 2014 16:37:26 GMT
CLIMATE
Thedas is a vibrant, diverse land of arid desolation, verdant forests and frigid mountain ranges. Often climate and geography vary widely over short distances. The volatile, volcanic marshland of the Nahashin Marshes in western Orlais, for instance, could not bear less similarity to the fertile Heartlands some three days east.
Cutting through the middle of the continent is the Waking Sea, a busy waterway lined with some of the continent's biggest cities, including Val Royeaux, Cumberland, and Kirkwall. The sea connects to the mighty Amaranthine Ocean, so massive and turbulent that only the bravest dare venture far off the coast.
In the southern regions, temperature changes grow most extreme, as heavy precipitation spells severe rains, and in Ferelden especially, harsh winters. By contrast, heat reigns in the north. This is most pronounced in the driest steppes of the Anderfels. The inhospitable region offers little more than oppressive heat and dust.
That which might lie beyond the known world is of great interest to scholars. Few people have explored and fewer have documented the northern reaches--islands like Seheron and Par Vollen, and the jungles of the Donarks. What lies still further north, and indeed across the Amarathine, is anyone's guess. The Qunari, relatively new to Thedas and perhaps the only race with the means to travel so far, actively suppress any knowledge of where they came from and why they left.
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Post by bruixa on Apr 26, 2014 16:42:22 GMT
GEOGRAPHY
Frostback Mountains: The treacherous Frostbacks run from the Kocari Wilds of southern Ferelden to the banks of the Waking Sea. They are home to the robust human tribe known as the Avvar, and beneath this range's northern foothills lie most of the continent's dwarves. The entrance to the dwarven city of Orzammar lies in Gherlen's Pass, the only Frostback Passage safe for travel year round.
Hunterhorn Mountains: The massive Hunterhorn Mountains stretch across southwestern Thedas like crooked fingers. The largest mountain range in Thedas holds some of the continent's tallest peaks, including its highest: Mt. Ambrosia. In the souther reaches lie the Gamordan Peaks, which cradle the Abyssal Reach, and on its edge, the Warden fortress Adamant.
Vimmark Mountains: The Vimmarks are a steep range that runs along the northern shore of the Waking Sea in the Free Marches. At the foot of the range sit the city-states of Kirkwall and Markham, as well as the Planasene Forest. Noteworthy landmarks include a span of jagged waterside cliffs known as the Wounded Coast, as well as Sundermount, said to be the site of the final battle between the elven empire and the Tevinter Imperium. A massive Grey Warden prison that once held the ancient darkspawn known as Corypheus is embedded in these mountains.
There is also a MAP OF THEDAS should you like a visual reference for the setting!
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