Orzammar is a thaig and one of the remaining dwarven kingdoms in Thedas. An underground metropolis, the thaig is located deep beneath the Frostback Mountains. According to legend, the thaig's name derives from one of the seven brothers who founded the dwarven empire and his descendants formed the miner caste.
According to the dwarven history, the dwarven empire once spread across all of Thedas, and that the underground city-fortresses called thaigs were almost beyond counting. Kal-Sharok was the capital then, home to all the noble houses, and Orzammar was simply the home of the miner and smith castes.
Orzammar and its sister-cities of Kal-Sharok and Kal'Hirol, are considered "great thaigs", as opposed to the numerous other thaigs as they were once the main centers of the dwarven empire.
At -1170 Ancient King Orseck Garal moved the capital of the dwarven empire to Orzammar to preside more directly over the commercial aspects of dwarven life, mining and crafting, as Orzammar was the ancestral seat of the Miner and Smith castes and because of the turmoil in the Tevinter Imperium following the death of the Archon Darinius. This sparked the development of several construction projects in the city. The most famous of which is the Stonehammer Hall and the expansion of the Proving Grounds. However some years later, the taxes drained by Orzammar from Kal-Sharok's trade profits began to grow burdensome.
Following the outbreak of the First Blight, the dwarven empire was crumbling. Paragon Aeducan assumed the leadership of Orzammar and managed to push back the darkspawn. Despite his victory, it was not enough and after the end of the First Blight the darkspawn kept pushing; by -15 Ancient, the kingdom of Orzammar was assumed to be the last one still standing. Since then, the kingdom was in a steady decline by losing most of its outlying thaigs.
House Aeducan traces its ancestry back to the Paragon Aeducan, the greatest warrior in Orzammar's history, who led the dwarven armies against the darkspawn horde during the First Blight and saving the empire from annihilation. Endrin was only the second child of King Ansgar Aeducan but became heir to the throne when he convinced his elder brother to fight in a Proving against a convicted murderer, thus resulting in his brother's death. According to Bhelen, Endrin was responsible for the poison found on the murderer's blade.
The most respected king in four generations, he restored Orzammar's contact with Kal-Sharok, the only other known great thaig to survive the First Blight