When Archon Hessarian of the Tevinter Imperium drove his sword through Andraste’s heart
while she burnt to death atop her pyre, he thought he was putting a final end to the
dangerous, subversive religion which had formed around her.
However, the martyrdom of the Lady Redeemer only increased the rate at which people in
the Empire embraced her cult of the Maker.
Eventually, Hessarian submitted to the inevitable.
Welcome to our fourth video on the history of the world of Dragon Age, where we will
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Ten years after Andraste’s death, Archon Hessarian declared the Maker to be the one
true god.
Worship of the Maker and his divine Bride had found its first stronghold among the barbarians
of the Southlands, but ironically, Lady Redeemer’s magocratic archenemy that would first turn
Andraste’s teachings into a properly organized religion.
To demonstrate his newfound submission to Andraste’s holy message, Archon Hessarian
revealed the truth behind her death to the whole world: that Maferath, the Lady of Restitution’s
own husband, had been the one who betrayed Andraste to the Imperium in exchange for the
independence of his Barbarian Empire.
This revelation shattered the status quo in Southern Thedas.
After the exalted march on Tevinter, almost all the lands not part of the Imperium were
under the rule of Maferath and his sons.
When the peoples of those lands discovered that their Overlord or their Overlord’s
father had directly caused their holy prophetess’ death, there was hell to pay.
The Chant of Light is peculiarly reticent in telling us how Maferath died, but it seems
that he was killed, likely by his own sons, shortly after his betrayal was revealed.
Soon, the sons, too, would lose control over their lands.
Evrion, the middle child and ruler of the Free Marches, had always been the most devoted
to spreading his stepmother’s teachings.
He willingly abdicated his throne out of shame for his father’s duplicity, dispersing his
holdings among the many tribes in the region.
The other two brothers would not enjoy such amiable transitions of power.
In truth, tensions had been bubbling in their land for years, for the local tribes, be they
Nevarran, Planasene, Ciriane or others, had all begun to resent being ruled over by foreign
Alamarri chieftains.
The revelation of Maferath’s betrayal simply ignited the powder keg.
In Nevarra City, the youngest son, Verald, was the victim of a coup in which most of
his court was murdered.
He fled to the court of his brother, Maferath’s eldest son: Isorath.
There, both brothers were outplayed by Isorath’s cunning wife, the Ciriane gyðja, or chieftainess,
Jeshavis.
In a ruthless ploy to free the Ciriane people from Alemarri rule, Jeshavis manipulated Verald
into kinslaying Isorath for his throne, only to lead a popular rebellion that deposed and
killed the subsequently weakened Verald.
The establishment of Jeshavis as the first native ruler of the southern barbarian heartlands
is generally considered to be when the tribal Ciriane culture began evolving into the genteel,
romantic high culture of the modern Orlesians.
Indeed, it would be the successors of Jeshavis who would lead Orlais into not only supplanting
Tevinter as the cultural and political heart of Thedas, but also creating the religious
and social institutions which define the daily lives of nearly every modern Thedosian. 36
years before the founding of the chantry, an unlikely alliance was forged when Septimius
Drakon, the son of an Imperial Tevinter nobleman, was married to Castana, the daughter of a
prominent Ciriane chieftain.
In the generations after Jeshavis, Orlais had been ruled by a succession of female monarchs
known as Gothi.
Castana had ambitions to become the next Gothi of Orlais.
As it so happened, her husband was a brilliant political schemer, having learned from the
best by growing up among Tevinter’s cutthroat nobility.
With Septimius’ support, Castana was able to claim the Orlesian throne.
Soon after, she gave birth to their son: Kordillius Drakon, the man who created modern Thedas.
When Kordillius was but a boy, he claimed to have a holy vision in which Andraste herself
had appeared before him and charged him with redeeming the world in the eyes of the Maker.
By the young prince’s time, most of the humans of Thedas had converted to the monotheistic
worship of the Maker.
However, outside of Tevinter, there was no standardization of this worship, with various
tribes and clans each having their own variety of the cult of Andraste, with their own rituals,
traditions and versions of the Lady Redeemer’s words.
At the tender age of sixteen, Prince Drakon inherited his Castana’s throne but found
he lacked the loyalty of many of the clans who had supported his mother.
In a bid to secure much-needed allies, he married Lady Area Montlaures, who was the
daughter of a powerful lord in Val Chevin, a master markswoman, and a shrewd tactician.
At the time of their marriage, Orlais was barely half the size it is today, but that
was soon to change.
Kordillius and Area soon embarked upon a holy campaign, uniting Orlais by right of the spear
and the sword, transforming the nation from a confederation of loosely united clans and
city-states into an efficient, centralized Empire, all while expanding its borders well
into modern-day Ferelden and Nevarra.
Through these conquests, Drakon also forced all his subject peoples to adopt a universal,
orthodox version of Andraste’s chant of light, thereby standardizing the Andrastian
faith.
To further glorify his god, the righteously guided Prince demolished the ancient Ciriane
fortress, which had once been the seat of Queen Jeshavis.
In its place, he had erected a grand temple to the Maker: “a chantry where the one true
song of Andraste shall forever after be heard.”
After a successful spree of conquests, Kordillius Drakon marched into the city of Val Royeaux
and, in the waning years of the ancient era, was crowned Emperor of Orlais.
As his first act in the Imperial office, Drakon laboured to cement the standardization of
the Andrastian faith.
He declared that an official Church, the Chantry, would be the only official body with the divine
authority to interpret the Chant of Light.
To lead the Chantry, Emperor Drakon appointed Olessa of Montsimmard: the only female general
in Drakon’s armies during his wars of unification and a woman known both for her skill in the
arts of war and for her devotion to her faith.
In Olessa, Drakon saw an echo of Andraste, a spiritual leader and a maiden of war.
So it was that Olessa became the first divine pontiff of the Chantry, taking on the holy
name of “Justinia.”
This day marks the end of the ancient era, the beginning of the chantry calendar, and
year one of the Divine Age.
One of the first acts of the Chantry was to enforce a complete ban on the practice of
magic.
After all, when Tevinter had ruled the world, magic had been their tool of oppression.
Moreover, the practical risks of magic use, such as mages summoning demons from the fade,
were a threat to anyone who lived in proximity to practitioners of sorcery.
However, in the early years of the Divine age, the Chantry found it difficult to actually
suppress the use of magic, which continued to be commonly practiced throughout the land
by rogue hedge mages, cultists and heretics.
In response to the rampant and unchecked sorcery ravaging the land, an independent group of
vigilantes called the Inquisition was created: an organization dedicated to protecting peoples
from the tyrannies and dangers of the arcane wheresoever it appeared.
Before tensions between mages, the Chantry and the inquisition could bubble over, all
parties found themselves facing bigger problems.
In the fifth year of the Divine Age, the Darkspawn, burrowing deep beneath the derelict Dwarven
deep roads, found and awakened the Old God Zazikel, turning it into an Archdemon and
beginning the second Blight.
Like the first blight, the second was a calamity that spanned multiple generations.
However, unlike during the time of accursed Dumat, this time, humanity had a dynamic Emperor
and a holy purpose to unite behind.
Indeed, in the first decades of Zazikel’s onslaught, Kordillius Drakon and the Andrastian
armies of mighty Orlais led the charge against the horde.
The Emperor was nothing if not a pragmatist and knew that to defeat an apocalyptic force
of nature like the Darkspawn, he needed powerful allies and could not be scrupulous about who
they were.
To that end, he enlisted the help of Orlais’ outlaw mages, had the Chantry lift the ban
on their practice, and permitted them to use their full arcane powers against the Darkspawn.
This culminated in the Nevarran accord, which saw the creation of the Circle of Magi, an
organization governed and monitored by the Chantry.
As members of the Circle, mages would be allowed to practice their craft freely.
However, they would also be isolated from mainstream society, locked in towers which
they were locked in, unless granted leave for a specific purpose, such as to fight Darkspawn.
To enforce these rules, the Inquisition of old was transformed into the Templars, a holy
order under Chantry authority which was charged with hunting down any apostate mages who either
refused to join the Circle or escaped from the Circle while also acting as a police force
for the mages within Circle towers to ensure they were not partaking in any forbidden arcane
arts.
Knowing the Gray Wardens were the only force on Thedas capable of slaying their archdemon,
the Darkspawn had brought their full might to bear on their Fortress of Weisshaupt.
Here, Emperor Drakon achieved one of his finest victories when his relief army broke the blighted
siege, delivering the Wardens from certain doom.
So impressed were the Wardens by Drakon’s charisma and command that the order converted
to the teachings of the Chantry.
Indeed, wherever Drakon’s armies fought, from the Anderfels to Nevarra to the Bannorn,
they spread the Chant of Light.
Through the crisis of the blight, the authority of the Chantry spread throughout Thedas as
her Andrastian armies proved themselves to be the foremost bulwark standing between the
world and oblivion.
In the 45th year of the Exalted Age, Kordillius Drakon died of old age, but his successors
took up the mantle and never let up against the Darkspawn.
In year 95 of the Exalted Age, the Gray Warden hero, Corin, slew infernal Zazikel in battle.
Now future generations only had five more blights to look forward to.
By the end of the second blight, numerous new Kingdoms had arisen across Thedas, with
the political geography of the continent beginning to look more or less like it does now in the
modern Dragon Age.
In the south, the Empire of Orlais was the pre-eminent power.
In the Free Marches, the descendants of former Planasene Barbarians and Tevinter colonists
had coalesced into a disunited league of city-states, with Kirkwall, Starkhaven and Tantervale being
the most politically relevant.
Originally, the city of Nevarra was one such marcher city-state, but due to the charismatic
leadership of the Pentaghast dynasty, it rapidly expanded and was soon large enough to be a
formidable Kingdom in its own right.
No such political centralization would occur in the sacred southeastern plains and woodlands
of Andraste’s homeland.
Although the region today is home to the Kingdom of Ferelden, that unification would not occur
until the fifth age.
The Alemarri would remain a stubbornly disunited and tribalistic people for centuries to come.
In the north, the political reach of ailing Tevinter continued to decline as new polities
were birthed out of the Empire’s former territory.
The free-spirited peoples of Rivain had rebelled against the Imperium and forged a Kingdom
for themselves in the waning years of the Ancient Era, which was around the same time
that Antiva, a hive of smuggling and piracy and crystalized into a mercantile Princedom
of good repute.
Antiva, for its part, would never forget its clandestine roots and, to this day, remains
a nation famous for the House of Crows, the most infamous and deadly order of assassins
on Thedas.
Meanwhile, in the northwest, Tevinter had never reclaimed the Anderfels after abandoning
it after the second blight, and eventually, it became an independent Kingdom.
There is an immense amount of cultural diversity throughout all the nations which have thus
far been mentioned.
And yet, throughout Thedas, peoples as different from one another as an Antivan winemaker,
a Nevarran crypt sweeper or a Ferelden dog lord all had one thing in common: they were
adherents of the same Church.
Indeed, from Rialto Bay to the Western Approach and from Denerim to Weisshaupt, the Orlesian
Chantry was the chief religious body that educated the people and governed their daily
lives.
There was, however, one exception to this rule.
There could be no doubt that the Tevinter Imperium was an Andrastian nation.
In fact, they had been organizing the Andrastian faith long centuries before Emperor Drakon
had appointed Divine Justinia as the first holy pontiff of the Chant of Light.
As such, while the authority of the Orlesian Chantry spread throughout the rest of Thedas,
the ancient Empire guardedly kept to their own customs of worship.
Soon, tensions between the Chantry and the Tevinter Clergy begin to simmer over seemingly
irresolvable doctrinal disputes.
The Grand Clerics of Tevinter Andrastianism were male, which chagrined the Orlesian Chantry,
whose hierarchy was comprised exclusively of women.
This was because Andraste herself had been a woman, and it was believed that men were
too prone to anger, jealousy and passion to properly serve as holy leaders, just like
Maferath had been when he betrayed his divine wife.
However, by far, the greatest source of conflict ultimately arose from the second verse of
Canticle of Transfigurations in the Chant of Light, "magic exists to serve man, and
never to rule over him."
The Orlesian Chantry fulfilled this verse by making mages fully subservient and isolating
them in circle towers away from society.
However, Tevinter had been ruled by mages for millennia, and magic had long been a valued
trait, prized and nurtured through selective breeding in the upper classes.
These old habits died hard even after the Empire converted to Andrastianism.
Thus, when the Imperial Clerics argued that when Andraste said that ‘magic exists to
serve man and never to rule over him,’ it meant that mages must serve the greater good,
which was best accomplished by allowing mages to take part in government, thereby allowing
those with arcane prowess to retain their role as Tevinter’s privileged elite.
Eventually, it became evident that this liturgical quibble was irreconcilable, and the Divine
of the Orlesian Chantry declared the worshippers of Tevinter to be heretics.
In response, the Archon of the Imperium officially declared a schism from the Orlesian chantry,
appointing its own Divine, a man, at the head of its own official Chantry.
To this day, the religious rivalry between the Orlesian and Imperial Chantries remains
an omnipresent source of tension in Thedosian politics.
Whatever the case, by the end of the Divine Age, the overwhelming majority of humanity,
Thedas’ dominant race, was now subscribed to one of the two major forms of Andrastianism.
However, the Chantry did not intend to stop its prosthyletizing where humanity ended.
After all, it had been one of Andraste’s core teachings that only when the Chant of
Light had spread to all four corners of the earth and been embraced by all races and peoples
would the Maker return to make the world a paradise.
In our next episode on the history of the Dragon Age world, we will cover the Exalted
March on the Dales and the fall of the last Elven homeland, so make sure you have subscribed
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