Even though players have only experienced one Blight in the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age series, the darkspawn, the Archdemons, and the Blights have had a huge part to play in every single Dragon Age game. They're undoubtedly a staple of the franchise and a lot of lore (even some seemingly unrelated lore) revolves around them.RELATED: Dragon Age Inquisition: Every Main Charꦏacter’s Age, Height, And BirthdayThere's a lot of information wrapped up in these huge his🅘torical moments. In this article, we're diving into the what, where, when, why, who, and how of the Blights s🅘o that you'll be prepared for whatever Dragon Age 4 has in store for us.

What Are Blights?

origins darkspawn

A 'Blight' is a period of time when darkspawn leave the Deep Roads in significant numbers and attack the surface, led by an Archdemon.

Darkspawn a🌜re zombie-like 🦂creatures who are thought to be 'soulless.' There are a lot of different kinds of darkspawn, but they all live underground in the Deep Roads. While stragglers may be found above-ground on occasion, they only come to the surface in significant numbers (and purposefully) during a Blight.

Darkspawn carry a disease called 'the taint', which they can spread to others. Most peꦦople (whether human, elves, qunari, dwarves, etc.) who contract the taint will die shortly afteꦉr, though there are ways their life can be prolonged. (You can count on one hand the number of instances that the taint in a person has been cured.) However, a few of them will become ghouls. Ghouls can go on to live for years after contracting the taint, but they slowly become insane and join the darkspawn horde. Female ghouls can become something special: broodmothers. These broodmothers produce more darkspawn, thus increasing and continuing the population. Since darkspawn can't reproduce without broodmothers, darkspawn often capture women specifically for this purpose.

Heroes of Dragon Age - Urthemiel

An Archdemon is a dragon who has been tainted by the darkspawn, but not a mere normal dragon. Throughout the world, it's generally agreed that Archdemons are the Old Gods - dragon gods that used to be worshipped by humans in Tevinter. According to the Orlesian Chantry, the Maker locked the Old Gods in underground prisons, cursed to sleep forever. However, the darkspawn also live underground, so they occasionally run into a slumbering Old God, awaken it, and give it the taint. Though different groups have different interpretations of how the darkspawn ✅came to exist, no one seems to protest much, or give an alt🌸ernate theory, about the Archdemons.

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How The Grey Wardens Combat The Blight

Dragon Age - official artwork of the Grey Wardens

Grey Wardens are sworn to fight the darkspawn and, in the event of a blight, kill the Archdemon. Their order is known throughout Thedas and they have a military presence in almost ♛every nation. Their centre of operations, however, is the Weisshaupt fortress in t🐭he Anderfels.

Their unique goal makes them generally renowned wherever they go and gives them special political powers. For example, Grey Wardens can invoke the right of 'Conscription', which means that they can force someone to join the Warden Order regardless of their circumstances or 🍌whether they have consented. If someone was facing execution in the afternoon, they could be conscripted by the Warden൲s in the morning and never be executed.

The Joining

Dragon Age Origins - Duncan during the Joining

Once a person has agreed (or been forced) to join the Grey Wardens, they must go through a special ceremony called the Joining. Nothing about this ceremony is known to outsiders. Technically, the Joining is actually blood magic. Darkspawn blood is gathered, e🌳nchanted with magic, and drunk by the recruits. Most do no🍷t survive the ceremony: they die immediately. If a recruit does survive, then they have officially become a Grey Warden.

The Joining serves two purposes:

  1. It's thought to test the recruit's physical and spiritual abilities; if they can't pass the Joining, they wouldn't have made a good Grey Warden anyway.
  2. It causes the recruit to contract the taint. Unlike most people, a tainted Grey Warden will live a long time after contracting it (usually about 20 years). The taint allows the Grey Warden to be connected to the Darkspawn hive mind to sense when they are nearby and to hear the Archdemon's call when one has awoken.

Fighting Darkspawn And The Archdemon

Dragon Age Origins - Darkspawn and Archdemon

Due to their taint, Grey Wardens are much more skilled at fighting darkspawn than your average soldier. Not all Grey Wardens are fighters, but those who are train heavily to face darkspawn in battle. Their taint also makes Grey Wardens exclusively prepared to face an Archdemon. When an Archdemon dies, its tainted soul will transfer to the nearest darkspawn and the Blight will continue. This can happen because darkspawn are 'soulless.' However, if an Archdemon is killed by a Grey Warden, its soul enters the Grey Warden instead, drawn in by their taint. The soul of the Grey Warden and the soul of the Archdemon are destroyed when this happens. So, unless a Grey Warden kills the Archdemon, the Blight could go on forever.

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Every Blight Thedas Has Experienced So Far

The First Blight

Dragon Age Inquisition The Descent - dwarf fighting darkspawn
  • The Archdemon: the Old God Dumat, the Dragon of Silence
  • Lasted From: -395 Ancient to -203 Ancient

The First Blight is the longest recorded Blight in Thedas' history. According to the Chantry, it occ🏅urred shortly after the Tevinter Magisters entered the Golden City (the seat of the Maker) in the 🍌Fade and corrupted it; they were cast out as the first Darkspawn. The current Tevinter Magisters deny this suggestion, of course.

Regardless of how it started, the Old God Dumat was discovered by the darkspawn and tainted. After this, the darkspawn began to organize under Dumat's orders and spread to decimate the Deep Roads, which were once part of a sprawling Dwarven Empire. They moved on to the surface afterward.

When things were at their worst in -305 Ancient, the Grey Warden order came into existence. Though Dumat was killed numerous times, he always managed to return. Eventually, they 🐷realized that he had to be killed by a Grey Warden so that he would be sucked into a body that already had a soul.

The Second Blight

Dragon Age - Templar on left, Mage on right, Ferelden Circle concept art in centre
  • The Archdemon: the Old God Zazikel, the Dragon of Chaos
  • Lasted From: 1:5 Divine to 1:95 Divine

Even though Thedas had the Grey Wardens to protect them by this point, the Second Blight was still devastating.ꦜ Interestingly, the Darkspawn seemed to adapt with the knowledge that they'd have to face Gജrey Wardens again.

As the Blight dragged on, the Orlesian emperor Drakon called on the mages to help him protect Orlais. To do this, he founded the first Chantry-organized 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Circle of Magi, the Templar Order, and the Seekers of Truth.

The Third Blight

Dragon Age - map of the Free Marches
  • The Archdemon: the Old God Toth, the Dragon of Fire
  • Lasted From: 3:10 Towers to 3:25 Towers

The Third Blight was less eventful than the previous two. It began chaotically but the Grey Wardens were able to organize quickly and protect the first cities in Tevinter and Orlais, which were hit. The darkspawn horde adapted again to the Grey Wardens by focusing their attacks on the Free Marches, which was an area that wasn't well protected. Eventually, though, Toth was slain an♎d peace returned.

Notably, right after the Blight ended, the Orlesian and Tevinter armies that had been fighting alongside the Free Marchers suddenly turned around and attacked. Tevinter took Hunter Fell and Orlais took Nevarra. Both places regained their independence later during the same age.

The Fourth Blight

Dragon Age - art of a Grey Warden on a Griffon
  • The Archdemon: the Old God Andoral, the Dragon of Slaves
  • Lasted From: 5:12 Exalted to 5:24 Exalted

At the start of the Fourth Blight, the darkspawn horde attacked the nation of Antiva and wiped out the entire country♒ - though﷽ the capital, Antiva City, made a good stand for a while.

To combat the darkspawn, Grey Wardens had to rely heavily on their pet griffons in combat. So many of them died that the species became extinct not long after the Fourth Blight had ended.

Though the Fourth Blight was shorter than any previous Blight, more darkspawn were killed than ever before, too. This caused many people to (mistakenly) believe that there would never be another Blight. When the next Blight finally came around, it🏅 proved incredibly difficult to get people to take it seriously.

The Fifth Blight

Dragon Age Origins - Loghain abandons the Grey Wardens by sounding the retreat
  • The Archdemon: the Old God Urthemiel, the Dragon of Beauty
  • Lasted From: 9:30 Dragon to 9:31 Dragon

The Fifth Blight is the one that the player experiences during Dragon Age: Origins. As such, you probably know the details, but I'll giv🌳e you the highlights:

  • The Grey Wardens had trouble convincing others that they were in a Blight until after the Battle of Ostagar.
  • During the Battle of Ostagar the King of Ferelden and all the Grey Wardens were killed.
  • The only two Grey Wardens to survive were the player of Dragon Age: Origins and Alistair Theirin.
  • The player and Alistair rallied support from the elves, dwarves, mages, and humans to fight against the darkspawn horde.
  • They were successful in killing the Archdemon during the Battle of Denerim, ending the shortest blight ever known in Thedas.

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Will The Blights Ever End?

Dragon Age Origins - Group of Darkspawn

Since every blight is caused by an Old God, and there were a finite number of Old Gods, we have to wonder if the Blights might one day come to an end. We do know that the Grey Wardens know th🧸e locations of the Old God prisons underground, eౠven though they're so deep that they're unreachable.

The official number of Old Gods is 7...

  1. Dumat
  2. Zazikel
  3. Toth
  4. Andoral
  5. Urthemiel
  6. Razikale
  7. Lusacan

...the last two of which have not yet been awoken. However, an Orlesian Chantry scholar has noted that there might have been an eighth Old God.

Will there only ever be two or three more blights? For now, we ha💃ve no information to make us think that there could be more.

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