Dragon Age

The franchise takes place on the fictional continent Thedas, and follows the experiences of its various inhabitants. The first game in the series, Dragon Age: Origins, follows the story of a recent recruit to a legendary order of warriors known as the Grey Wardens. Their mission is to save the kingdom of Ferelden from being overrun by the Darkspawn, a monstrous race of subterranean-dwelling beings who swarm the surface world every few hundred years in a movement known as a Blight. Its sequel Dragon Age II is centered around the eldest child of the Hawke family, a Blight refugee who eventually becomes the Champion of the city state of Kirkwall. A third installment, Dragon Age: Inquisition centers on the Inquisition, an organization tasked with restoring peace and order to Thedas, which is ravaged by a demonic invasion from beyond the mortal realm over a decade after the events of the first game. In addition to video games, the franchise has expanded to other media and now spans multiple spin-off games, novels, graphic novels, comic books, webseries, an anime film, as well as other licensed products and merchandise. The Dragon Age franchise is set in Thedas, with events from the main series games taking place primarily in its southern regions. Thedas is the only continent of the known world and consists of various clans, nations and states inhabited by multiple humanoid peoples. Several kingdoms and countries have emerged over nine centuries of a calendar era based on the traditionally reckoned year of the founding of The Chantry, the dominant religious organization in the Dragon Age series, and each century is referred to as a separate "Age". Three out of several human nations play a prominent role in the series: the kingdom of Ferelden to the southeast of Thedas, which is politically organized in a similar manner to the English peerage system; the Orlesian Empire to the west of Ferelden, where its nobility is notorious for undermining each other with intrigue and subterfuge in their jostling for favor and patronage with its absolutist ruler; and the Tevinter Imperium in the northern region of Thedas, which once subjugated southern Thedas during ancient times, and is governed by a powerful oligarchy of magic-wielding magisters led by an Imperial Archon. Other noteworthy civilizations explored in the main series games include the Free Marches, a human-dominated confederation of politically independent territorial entities to the north of Ferelden, and the Kingdom of Orzammar, one of the few remaining dwarven city states scattered throughout the Deep Roads, an underground highway system beneath the surface of Thedas created by the dwarves millennia ago. Race, class and heritage combine to determine social class and political dynamics in Thedas. While the dwarves cannot wield magic themselves, their economic activity primarily revolves around the mining of lyrium, a mineral substance which powers the practice of magic, which they trade with the surface world.