6th Blight? Have questions for people who know the lore better than I do.

NO DLC spoilers: The warden contact, that could be left in the fade, is not the leader of all grey wardens. He is a high ranking warden commander, but not the only one by far. And the wardens in DAI, that are infuenced by Cory, are mostly from Orlais and Ferelden, so even if the inquisitor sends the wardens away, they are still around. Their headquarter is Weisshaupt, which is far from Ferelden and Orlais. There are rumours about trouble there, but even so, there are wardens all over Thedas and by the time, the next Blight might occur, the current troubles might be gone. The troubles in the warden ranks might be the topic of another game or book, but I think, as long as someone survives, who knows how to do the warden ritual, there is still hope.

The only known way to stop a Blight is to have a Grey Warden kill the Archdemon. If anyone else kills it, it comes back to life.

The plot concerning the Wardens in DAI was a bit of a mess. It was said that the Wardens panicked because they were hearing the Calling and were afraid that if they all succumbed there would be no one around to deal with the next Blight. So they decided it would be a good idea to pre-empt the whole thing and head off looking for the remaining two arch-demons and kill them while still in the Deep Roads. However, this did make it seem as though all Wardens were affected instead of just the ones in Orlais and possibly part of Ferelden. Then at the end of DAI, if you banished the Wardens, it was said that they went into decline across the entirety of Thedas.

Of course this was all nonsense, as confirmed in the novel The Last Flight. Up in Weishauppt they were wondering why they hadn't received the periodic report from Clarel but apart from that it was business as usual. They even received a request from the Wardens at Vigil's Keep which suggested that everything there was normal as well. None of the Wardens in the novel were acting oddly or hearing a premature Calling.   Too many nations owe their survival to the Wardens for them to just reject them out of hand.

In World of Thedas the First Warden is said to be getting rather too interested in the politics of the Anderfels and this has led to a deterioration in communications across Thedas, although this would seem to be contradicted by the contact being maintained in the novel and the co-operation between Weishauppt and the monarch of Ferelden in Awakening. If Leliana and Josephine can keep in contact with their agents across the length of Thedas up as far as Qarinus, why cannot the Wardens do so as well?

So essentially, in order to have the Warden plot in DAI, the writers pretty much ignored what they had established in previous games and what would be revealed in a later novel. Then in Trespasser DLC they even seem to ignore the conflict they set up in Warden ranks at the end of DAI. If you spare Hawke, whilst at the Council Varric says he hasn't heard from them (in 2 years?) in the epilogue Hawke is apparently back in Kirkwall safe and sound with no mention of what happened in the Anderfels or why they were away so long.

It may be that the Warden conflict will form a plot in a future game and this is why nothing was said about it in Trespasser but it is equally possible it will be quietly forgotten. As for who will deal with future Blights, I have a feeling that the actions of a certain elf may render such a question moot.

This just tells me that the writers can't keep track of their own lore, or don't even know where they're going with it, aside from the Solas thing. The quest's writing was crap tbh. Not a single warden thought there was something off with all of them hearing the calling? Right.

I, like many people, took that to be a temporary ban only until Corypheus had been dealt with for the sake of the Wardens as much as anything else. Given how he was meant to have got inside their heads and what was implied in the choice, it seemed too risky to keep them in close proximity to him. However, I fully intended that once he was out of the way, the Wardens would return. Subsequent events and the epilogue short changed us. It turned out that there were no adverse consequences from Corypheus to keeping the Wardens with the Inquisition either in the main story or the War Table missions associated with them. So the what was implied in the choices was an outright deception on the part of the writers. Then they punished the sensible choice by having everyone shun the Wardens and have them go into decline across Thedas, which was arrant nonsense.

To be honest I hate the Warden plotline in DAI because it is so contrived and the fact that it ignores everything I did as Warden Commander of Ferelden in Awakening. Clarel had no business controlling things in Ferelden or hunting down Hawke's Warden contact there. She had control of the Wardens in Orlais and nothing else. The letter from her to Teagan asking for admission also ignored the events of Awakening and in fact even the actions of the Hero of Ferelden in the 5th Blight. It is also contradicted by the novel.

If that was the case then why did they mention the danger presented by Corypheus in the choice? It clearly implied the reason you were banishing them was because of the danger he represented to them, not simply because they had been idiots. In my case I had persuaded the non-mage Wardens to stand down but it still seemed wise for all the Wardens to leave while we dealt with Corypheus. It was a specific solution to a unique situation.

Why would the ordinary people of Orlais and Ferelden accept it anyway, particularly the latter? The Hero of Ferelden was a Warden. There is a giant statue of a gryphon in Redcliffe Village honouring the efforts of the Grey Wardens in the 5th Blight. Much of the country was still meant to be recovering from it, so it was clear how much worse it could have been without the Wardens. If the 5th Blight hadn't happened then it was understandable as it had been so many years since the previous one but that was not the case. In any case once the Inquisition was disbanded/cut down in size, then what was to stop the Wardens from returning? Clearly the rulers felt the Inquisition had become too powerful. May be they would also wish to reverse some of its more controversial decisions.

I’ve always assumed the next blight would be the worst of them all. I’m imagining almost a “days of future past” type situation. The blight comes but not enough Wardens around to stop it so the darkspawn decimate the world and our hero’s are forced into hiding or killed.. The inquisitor, Hawke and a few survivors in hiding somewhere.... but now it seems the Wardens aren’t in as bad of shape as I thought they where.

Well, if you take the darkspawn magister out of the equation, the demon army is a good idea in theory.

Don't remind me of that horrible trespasser epilogue. Felt completely lazy shoehorning all live Hawke's back to Kirkwall.

wright1978 I hate that the game speaks for our characters. My Hawke wouldn't even accept the position of Viscount. She would help clean up after the Chantry explosion then grab Fenris and get as far away from Kirkwall as possible.




Honestly, all things considered, the fact that Solas doesn't like it only makes me want to do it more. I never trusted him,

Killing Broodmothers is a good idea, but darkspawn can always make more of them. Hunting them down is a good way to keep the darkspawn numbers under control, but it won't prevent Blights, and I'm sure there are some Broodmothers/darkspawn lairs beyond the reach of Wardens or the Legion.

I'm not sure about the Alpha Broodmother. If I'm not mistaken, Darkspawn are a byproduct of the taint, not the origin. Broodmothers are just female darkspawn. I'm pretty sure it didn't start with them.

Broodmothers are technically ghouls.  Female ghouls that are so deeply tainted they might as well be darkspawn.

Archdemons can focus the darkspawn to a single purpose (as can other powerful darkspawn to a lesser extent) but the real danger of the darkspawn are their sheer NUMBERS.  Killing the archdemons will eventually end the Blights as we know them, but the darkspawn will keep breeding, keep growing in numbers until, even directionless, they will overwhelm Thedas.

I really, really hope Bioware does something different with the last Blights, like one of the Old Gods awakening without being tainted and/or a completely different daughter of Flemeth making an OGB of Razikale or Lusacan. Would they still be able to influence the darkspawn? Would they even want to? Maybe the Seeker* and Seranni's** Awakened could play a factor. What would happen if a Titan could be Tainted? Dragon blood has been shown to combat the Taint, what if the Great Dragons rise? Just something, anything different to what has already played out in the lore and the games.

* This Seeker being the Awakened Disciple who aided the Architect and manipulated Velanna's clan into near destruction. Since the player only learns of him through codex entries and never has a proper encounter, it was likely he was created as a backup Awakened leader in case the player kills the Architect.

**Part of me wonders if the Architect modified Seranni's Taint, or kept it arrested. If the player killed the Architect, would Seranni become a broodmother ? If she was given Grey Warden blood, would that make her a an intelligent ghoul? Part of me would prefer the former to reflect consequences of player choices, while another part of me welcomes the latter as something new.