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Story of Dragon Age

The story of the game Dragon Age: Origins begins with six different origins. You can play the game as a Human Noble, Human Mage, Dalish Elf, City Elf, Dwarf Noble or Dwarf Commoner. Every origin story differs from the others, the only matching thing is that you'll be recruited by Duncan and become a Grey Warden. After this the main story begins.

After a big battle you are starting your journey through the kingdom Ferelden together with Alistair, you have to try to find other Grey Wardens, gather a hugh army and save the world. You'll need the assistance of all important fractions in Ferelden to fight against the Blight and the Archdemon.
While you're traveling through the kingdom Ferelden, you will meet several people who are willing to join your group and they stay at a campside, so you are able to change them and travel with those 3 who are best for the next quest. Sometimes you also have to choose between good and evil and the way you want to go.

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Characters

Dragon Age Origins can be played with six different characters, each of these characters has it's own origin and is played very difficulty. Depending on the character you choose you will encounter different quests and also very different answers by NPC's, you can also go different ways throughout the main story.
But don't worry: You will see nearly the whole game with each character because the main parts of the story are equal, at least you'll get the same options with a mage as with a warrior when it comes to an important decision within the game. But you may want to play the game again with another character just to see the differences.

Like in every other typical roleplaying game there are some important non-player-characters in Dragon Age Origins. Some of them may need your help, others may cause trouble to you. Depending on the player character you choose at the beginning they will be friendly to you or hate you, this is one of the reasons why you really should play this game twice at least.
Some of them can join your group and you have to be careful what you do or say, if you do something wrong the NPC may fight against you or at least leave your group. So always think twice about an action.

Player Characters (Origins)

Human Noble
The Human Noble is the only character who begins his origin story with a Mabari War Dog. This origin story begins with the typical Kill the rats quest, but it happens to be everything else than typical. Oh, and keep an eye on your dog, some people could really hate it when it runs through their food storage.
However, the dog is your best friend and you can give it a name. Later in this origin story you'll meet Duncan who recruits you for the Grey Wardens.
The Human Noble is a warrior and so he gets the normal warrior skills like Two Weapon Fighter or Combat Tactics.

Human Mage
The Human Mage is the only character who will see the fade in his first minutes of the origin story. As a Mage you have to pass a test in the Circle Tower, watched by a guard of the Chantry. You have to go into the fade and stay alive while killing a demon. But in the fade nothing is as it seems and a small talking rat is your key to this strange world. Later you have to make a decision that will lead you through the rest of your origin story and Duncan is still waiting to recruit you for the Grey Wardens.
As Mage you'll get some typical spells like Flamebolt right in the beginning. But you can also choose combat skills like Combat Tactics. The Mage is not so strong as a warrior but with his spells it is possible to kill several monsters in one strike.

Dalish Elf
The Dalish Elf has to make his first important decision when his origin story starts. Kill the peasants or kill them not? However, you will come across your first ruin in the Brecilian Forest and find the first traps in the game, mostly by walking over them without having seen anything (sigh). You'll see the Dalish Camp and after a bit smalltalk Duncan is recruiting you for his Grey Wardens and nobody is interested in your feelings. That's your elven destiny.
A Dalish Elf is good with weapons like a bow or even a sword. You can also get some spells later. Skills like Combat Tactics are also known to an Elf as to a Human or a Dwarf.

City Elf
The City Elf may be the most interesting character in the game, at least this origin story is very different from the other stories. You are forced to marry a man (or woman) and you can decide whether you'll like him/her or not. During your marriage a noble Human is killing your better part and you have to flee from the jail without having a simple dagger. Ok, you'll get one later, but for what price! When everything is fine you'll get recruited by Duncan to join his Grey Wardens.
The City Elf is more or less a rogue with warrior skills. Some skills you can get as City Elf are Stealing, Combat Tactics or Two Weapon Fighter.

Dwarf Noble
I haven't played the Dwarf Noble yet...

Dwarf Commoner
The Dwarf Commoner is starting his origin story in Orzammar, but different to the noble Dwarf. The common Dwarves are mostly thieves or robbers and the women are mostly whores. Because of some interesting jobs and a drunken Arena fighter you'll get a fine expensive armor and a good sword, but you have to kill some warriors in the Arena for this. Once you're finished with your origin story you'll get recruited by Duncan to join the Grey Wardens.
The common Dwarf is a warrior and so he fights his way through life with swords, clubs, warhammers and other weapons. The Dwarf gets the normal warrior skills like Combat Tactics or Two Weapon Fighter, he also has rogue skills like Stealing.

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Important NPC's

Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir
Born into a time when his country was under the boot of a foreign tyrant, Loghain and his close friend Prince Maric drove out the occupying forces of the Orlesian Empire. He is more a symbol than a man, representing the Fereldan ideals of hard work and independence. Now with his friend's death, he is left to defend their land with a naive and inexperienced king.
There is only one chance to make Loghain joining your party near the end of the game. During the Landsmeet you have to spare his life and force him to become a Grey Warden, but you will lose Alistair then. It's a hard choice!

Duncan
Like many others, Duncan gave up his family name when he joined the ranks of the Wardens, a symbolic gesture of cutting ties. He might say this was a convenience in his case, however. His mother was from the Anderfels, his father from Rivain, and he spent his childhood in the Free Marches and Orlais.
His people were everywhere and his homeland was nowhere. He was given the almost impossible task of leading the Wardens in Ferelden, a kingdom that had thrown the Order out two hundred years earlier. Facing local suspicion and hostility, he set about finding recruits.
Duncan is the one who recruits you just after you've finished your origin story.

King Cailan
Son of the legendary King Maric Theirin, Cailan was the first Ferelden king born into a land free from foreign rule in three generations. Now with Loghain's tactical genius and the legendary Grey Wardens at his side, Cailan leads Ferelden's army into the final, glorious battle to crush the darkspawn.

Alistair
Alistair is a young Grey Warden recruited by Duncan less than six months before the Blight began. Alistair's mother died long ago in childbirth, and after being raised in Redcliffe castle he was turned over to the Chantry for religious instruction. He began the martial training necessary to become a templar of the Chantry's military order that watches over the Circle of Magi and hunts down dangerous apostates.
He was found to be ill-suited to a life of religious devotion, however, Alistair is irreverent at the best of times, and his wry sense of humor often put him at odds with his more serious-minded teachers. When Duncan of the Grey Wardens found him, Alistair had not yet taken his vows and was desperately unhappy.
Sensing that he had a good and loyal heart, Duncan used the Right of Conscription to force the Chantry to hand Alistair over to the Grey Wardens... and Alistair has never looked back since.
Alistair will be the most important character who joins your party right at the beginning of the game (after the origin). It's your decision if you want to replace him later with Loghain near the end of the game.

Zevran Arainai
Zevran is an Antivan rogue and an assassin, he was sent to kill you and you'll have a random encounter some day, where you have to fight him and make him your slave. His mother was a whore and died when he was born, he then was raised by other prostitutes until they sold him to an Assassin-guild called Crows of Antiva.
Zevran is one of two possible companions who is bisexual and you might have a nice foursome (or only threesome) with him, if you do everything right. You have to exactly follow a bunch of quests and dialog-answers to fulfill this. Depending on what you did to him during the game (there's a choice to kill him, and also one to be hated by him!) Zevran will also stay on your side as a lover if you become the king with Anora, or queen with Alistair.

Leliana
In Orlais, bards travel throughout the courts of the land, trading entertainment for the hospitality of the aristocracy while simultaneously playing a more sinister trade, often, they are secretly spies or assassins. Leliana, however, speaks little of her history as a bard, having left her life in Orlais behind long ago.
She came to the village of Lothering seeking refuge in the Chantry, where she has assumed a life of quiet contemplation and prayer to the Maker, asking him to forgive a life of deeds that her fellow sisters can only guess at. But although it is the last path that Leliana would ever choose for herself, she believes that the time will soon come to take up that old life once again. A higher calling awaits her, and with it a road to true redemption. The Maker has told her this, and she believes.
Beside Zevran she is the other companion who might love either men or women, you just have to be careful how you treat her. To get Leliana for a foursome together with Zevran you have to fulfill her personal quest first.

Morrigan
Morrigan is the daughter of Flemeth, the legendary and frightening Witch of the Wilds. Raised alone by her mother in the most remote corners in the Great Forest, she is an exotic beauty who has come to hold the rest of mankind in contempt. She has watched humanity from afar, hating people for their weakness even as she yearned to explore their world - and keenly aware of the hatred that others would hold for her if they knew what she was.
Morrigan has learned her mother's arts outside the constraints of the supervision of the templars, becoming a mage as well as a shapeshifter, and she will stop at nothing to further her mysterious obsessions.

Wynne
Wynne is a spirit healer from the Circle of Magi, focusing her magic on the ability to briefly summon protective and restorative spirits from the Fade. She has served the Circle for most of her life and is well-respected for her strong sense of duty and morals.
She believes wholeheartedly in what the Circle stands for and has been a vocal advocate in the College of Enchanters that through discipline and education mages can learn to control their gifts and use them to serve mankind.
The fear of magic is born of misunderstanding, but Wynne cautions mages to never forget that the fear is also a real one, for all the good that a mage's gifts can bring, it will also always attract demons and bring the risk of possession. Too many times in history have possessed abominations wrecked destruction on the lands, and thus every mage has a debt to repay.
Earn your place, she has said, and you shall not be reviled.
Her peers thought so highly of her that she was asked to become the new First Enchanter of Ferelden's tower. She refused, saying that she had no desire to work in upper ranks of the Circle. When word recently reached the tower of King Cailan's call to arms against the Blight, Wynne readily volunteered to go to Ostagar.

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Creatures

Surely there are monsters in Dragon Age too but some of them, like spiders for example, are not behaving very normal during fights. They are able to crunch your character while standing over him and pushing his body on the ground. You have to be careful with such monsters.

Monsters

Mabari War Dogs
Dogs are an essential part of Ferelden culture, and no dog is more prized than the Mabari. The breed is as old as myth: Said to have been bred from the wolves who served the legendary hero, Dane. Prized for their intelligence and loyalty, these dogs are more than mere weapons or status symbols, the hounds choose their masters, and pair with them for life. To be the master of a Mabari anywhere in Ferelden is to be recognized instantly as a person of worth.
The Mabari are an essential part of Ferelden military strategy. Trained hounds can easily pull knights from horseback or break lines of pike men, and the sight and sound of a wave of war dogs, howling and snarling, has been known to cause panic among even the most hardened infantry soldiers.

Blight Wolves
In Blights past, as the corruption of the Darkspawn spread through the wilder areas of Thedas it infected the animals found there... and the more powerful of them would survive and be transformed into a more vicious and dangerous beast.
A Blight Wolf is one such example, mad with the pain of its infection, and only through the overriding command of the Darkspawn does it still retain some semblance of its pack instincts. Blight Wolves are always found in large groups and will tend to overwhelm a single target if they can, using their numbers to their advantage. It is fortunate that these creatures rarely survive their corruption for very long.

Deep Stalker
Vicious predators of the dark, deep stalkers carve small tunnels through the stone in search of prey. Scaled like a lizard but with the head and frightful maw of a worm, the deep stalker walks and leaps on two legs and is able to curl up into a ball that will be indistinguishable from the stone around it. Rarely are there any signs of an impending deep stalker ambush, and even more rarely do unwary victims survive such an encounter.
They attack with a mighty leap, their razor-sharp foot claws bared for the kill, or they spew acidic spittle that begins to digest their prey. The only chance most stalker victims get is when one of their companions falls; the stalkers are beasts, after all, and most will stop to devour a kill before moving on to the next fresh victim.
Deep stalkers are found throughout the Deep Roads. They feed on anything they can get their fangs on, including the harmless nugs, the deadly spiders, and even the vile Darkspawn that walk the world below.

Bronto
This hulking beast was originally engineered by the dwarven Shaperate as a beast of burden and food source, the rough equivalent to surface oxen and cows. Some versions of Bronto have even been developed as dwarven mounts, valued far more for their sure-footedness and stamina than for their speed. While present within Orzammar in large numbers, some Bronto still exist in packs within the Deep Roads, having returned to a wild state after the fall of the dwarven kingdoms.
They require remarkably little sustenance, consuming organic material from water, fungus and even rocks (hence the rock-licker appellation used by many dwarves to describe Bronto), and exist in primarily dormant states until provoked. An angry, charging Bronto is considered to be a rather dangerous opponent.

Corrupted Spiders
These giant arachnids grew in the depths of the Deep Roads, and fed on numerous species of large bats. When the Deep Roads were lost to the Darkspawn, they started feeding on Genlocks and their numbers began to grow exponentially. Some moved up to make their lairs in surface forests, but most remained underground, close to their Blight-tainted meals that make them larger and fiercer than they've ever been.

Werewolves
Ferelden lore is full of instances where these creatures have plagued the countryside: Wolves possessed by Rage Demons and transformed into humanoid monsters with incredible speed and strength, able to spread a curse to those they bit that would drive them mad with rage. Indeed, the ability of normal dogs to detect a Werewolf even when it is in a human guise is what first led Fereldans to adopt dogs as an indispensible companion in every farmhold.
The hero Dane led a crusade to eliminate this threat once and for all, and while Werewolves have never assumed the same prominence since there have still been reports of individual packs lurking in remote forests. In recent years, some have even been reported to have developed an uncanny willpower and intelligence... though why this is so is still unknown.

Genlocks
Most numerous of the Darkspawn, the stocky, tough Genlocks are notoriously difficult to kill. The few stronger and more intelligent Genlocks are the alphas: the generals and commanders among the Darkspawn armies. While many common Genlocks possess a resistance to magic, the most intelligent of the alphas become gifted sorcerers, with many abilities akin to blood magic. These are the emissaries and they usually only appear during a Blight to watch that the commanders and generals serve the archdemon's interests and not their own.

Shriek
Scholars call these tall, lean Darkspawn the Sharlock, though they are more popularly known as Shrieks due to the ear-splitting cries they emit when in battle. Many tales exist of soldiers being unnerved by the sounds of approaching Shrieks, cloaked in darkness and never seen until the moment they strike. Horrors of the night, Shrieks are renowned for their incredible speed and agility as well as their stealth.
They are the assassins of the Darkspawn, penetrating the enemy lines and striking their targets using long, jagged blades attached to their forearms to rip their opponent to shreds in seconds. They have been known to employ poison, often drawn from their own blood, and have demonstrated cunning group tactics when attacking in numbers.

Devouring Corpses
As demons pass through the Veil into our world, they seek out that which they desire most: Life. Being unable to distinguish between something which is still living and which no longer is, many demons will possess the bodies of the dead. Trapped within the lifeless corpse, the demon will be driven mad and will lash out at the truly living around it.
A Devouring Corpse is the name given to a dead body that has been possessed by a Hunger Demon. It possesses a ravenous appetite and will seek to feed on any living thing it finds, and many of these creatures have demonstrated the ability to drain the very life force from their opponents.

Fanged Skeletons
The demons of the Fade are jealous of the world they sense from across the Veil. They constantly push against the boundaries of the Fade, and when they finally cross over, they attempt to possess the first thing they encounter. Since the Veil is weakest in places where many lives have been lost, demons commonly end up possessing the bodies of the recently dead. A skeleton is exactly that: a demon that has possessed and animated a pile of bones, driven insane once it has realized it is trapped within a body that can only barely sustain it.

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Special Places

There are some important cities in the kingdom of Ferelden. Most are human cities and only two dwarven cities are known to the people. Long ago the Darkspawn conquered the Deep Roads and eliminated many dwarves and their cities crumbled.
Also the elves are living as outsiders in the human cities these days. Only the Dalish Elves are living in small camps, far away from their ancient places, always trying to keep their ancient knowledge alive for their descendants.
Several interesting places are designed by Bioware to keep your character busy. There are ruins in the Brecilian Forest as well as the Circle Tower in Lake Calenhad. The most interesting place seems to be the underground, the Deep Roads.

Orzammar

The Lands of the dwarves once were numerous and extended far beyond the Frostback Mountains. The thaigs were once almost beyond counting. Kal-Sharok was the capital then, home to all noble houses of the dwarves, and Orzammar was simply home to the Miner and Smith castes. It was with the coming of the Tevinter Imperium that things began to change.
Paragon Garal moved the seat of power to Orzammar to more closely oversee the trade that began with the surface. It seemed that the dwarves were entering a new age of prosperity. They taught such concepts as commerce and coinage to the humans, and in return they provided them with a wealth of things the dwarves had never possessed in the deep: grains and wood.

The dwarven memories hold no explanations for the coming of the darkspawn, only questions. One moment there was no such thing as a darkspawn, and the next there was. The darkspawn poured into the Deep Roads like smoke, and the Warrior Caste struggled to hold them back. Countless thaigs were lost in that first Blight.
But as ever, in the time of need, a Paragon arose. Paragon Aeducan led the defenses of Orzammar, and the dwarves were saved from utter annihilation. The cost of victory, however, was great. The Deep Roads were sealed to hold back the darkspawn, cutting off thaigs and whole cities forever. Only Orzammar itself remained, the last bastion of an ancient empire that had once sprawled over all of the deep of Thedas. The dwarves had been brought low, but they had survived.

Ostagar

Representing the furthest point of encroachment by the ancient Tevinter Imperium into the barbarian lands of the southeast, the fortress of Ostagar was once one of the most important defensive Imperial holdings south of the Waking Sea. It stood at the edge of the Korcari Wilds and watched for any signs of invasion by the barbarians today known as the Chasind wilders.
Straddling a narrow pass in the hills, the fortress needed to be by-passed in order for the Wilders to reach the fertile lowlands to the north and proved to be exceedingly difficult for the Wilders to attack due to its naturally defensible position. Like most Imperial holdings in the south, Ostagar was abandoned after Tevinter's collapse during the First Blight.

It was successfully sacked by the Chasind wilders and then, as the Chasind threat dwindled following the creation of the modern Ferelden nation, fell to ruin completely. It has remained unmanned for four centuries, though most of the walls still stand - as does the tall Tower of Ishal, named after the great Archon that ordered its construction - and Ostagar remains a testament to the magical power of the Imperium that created it.

Deep Roads

Deep Roads are old underground roads made by the dwarves. Once there were runes and famous ornaments on the walls, steps went down deep into the earth, above are hundreds of feets of stone. These roads are hugh tunnels that lead to their thaigs and citys, some old rusted wagons and rails here and there telling from the mining activity of the dwarves.
The thaigs are impressing as well as the Giant Spiders, that have spun their webs therein now. A few hundred feets high the ceiling of the thaigs can only be imagined when standing at the ground which is covered with ornaments. Statues, showing the Paragons of the Dwarves, are build to last for eternity. They stand there mileshigh, as if to prevent the ceiling from dropping down.

Now with the Darkspawn filling those Deep Roads, the dwarves have only the Legion of the Death fighting against the spawn. Dwarves who are not worthy to live in Orzammar any longer, go down into the roads to fight the Darkspawn and get back their honor and their family names. They are painted with skulls on their faces and they are meant to never get back anywhere, only to die fighting the Darkspawn.

The Deep Roads were once sealed by the dwarves, sealed with big steel doors, and in some places those seals are so near to the surface, that it is possible to get in, but maybe never come out there.
The city of Gwaren was build above an old Dwarven outpost and here is one of that seals leading into a Deep Road hundreds of feets under the stone.

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Screenshots

As soon as I find my old screenshots I will place them in a gallery, until then only the Making of for my Ferelden Map is linked in the side navigation.

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