Frosty peaks in the Hunterhorns. Tangles jungles on Par Vollen. The marvelous tunnels of dwarven construction known as the Deep Roads. From these distance edges of Thedas to the center of Chantry power in Val Royeaux, blood has been spilt. Thedas is a continent in turmoil.
To truly understand the world, you must look to its troubled people: the hard choices they have made, the nations they have built, and the bloody 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 oprression, 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.
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 is said to have changed. What peace may or may not have existed gave way to all-out war, and humans nearly destroyed the elves with the rise of the Tevinter Imperium. The first human empire and its worship of the Old Gods spread across Thedas. The elves either fled to the far reaches of the continent 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 tool 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 his Blight.
The First Blight lasted one hundred years, greatly weakening the Imperium. When the prophet Andraste led an army of barbarians to attack from the south, the Imperium no longer had the strength to defend itself. Andraste proclaimed that magic must serve humanity rather than rule over it, a direct challenge to the Tevinter way of life. Railing against the Imperial magisters, Andraste called the Old Gods lies and blamed their worship for the Blight. Her teachings spread quickly, and much of the Imperium crumbled before her armies. When Andraste burned at the stake, her martyrdom only fueled faith in 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 the new nation of Orlais, became humanity's defender. As he pushed back the darkspawn hordes with his armies, his own power grew, and with it, the influence of the Chantry he created in the name of Andraste. Drakon enlisted mages, who eventually formed the circle of Magi. They ahrnesses their magic to smite the darkspawn, and alongside the Grey Wardens, killed the Archdemon. The second Blight was over.
It was during there troubled times that the influence of the Chantry spread and solidified across much of Thedas. The religious body, which preached Andrate'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 between Blights, the Schism between the Chantry and the Imperial Chantry led to a series of conflicts between Olrais and the Imperium. Their warring accomplished little for either power, and was put aside with the landing of a mysterious new race who called themselves the Qunari.
The horned giants who followed a strange set of ridged ideals, sought to convert Thedas to their way of life. They possessed superior technology, and in a great war, cut into the heart of Thedas. Together the human nations of Thedas pushed the Quanri back to the continents fringes, forcing a fragile peace between the Chantry and the Qunari that has persisted for two ages. Only the Imperium would not relent, and tensions with the Qunari persist there.
By the time of the Fifth Blight stuck in the early years of the Dragon Age, it had been generations since Thedas faced an Archdemon. The Warden ranks were considerably thinner as respect waned. Somehow, two young Wardens and a united Ferelden beat impossible odds to kill the new Archdemon and stop the Fifth Blight from spreading across the continent.
In the Free Marches and Orlais meanwhile, tensions between the Circle of Magi and Chantry arm of authority known as the templars, were coming to a head. Shortly after the end of the Fifth Blight, an apostate mage destroyed a Chantry temple in Kirkwall. Further unrest in the Orlesian capital of Val Royeaux led to a battle in the city's Circle between templars and high-ranking mages. When it was revealed that the Divine, head of the Chantry, had all but supported the mages in this conflict, many templars and Seekers severed ties with the Chantry, spelling an uncertain future for all.
Geography and Climate
Thedas is a vibrant land of arid desolation, verdant forests, and frigid mountains ranges. Often climate and geography vary widely over short distances. The volatile, volcanic marshlands of the Nashashin Marshers 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 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. Fereldans are accustomed to unpredictable and often miserable weather. 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 blowing 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 impenetrable jungles of Donarks. What lies still further north and indeed, across the Amaranthine, 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.