Human Ethnicity/Culture/Nations in Dragon Age 4

I want to be a vint this time. Tho I will be satisfied as long as we're something other than fereldan or marcher

I normally prefer to play elves but as a human I'd quite like being from Seheron and either a Fog Warrior (warrior or rogue) or Fog Dancer (mage) as I've been interested in them ever since DA2 and only more after I read about them in WoT2. The only problem is I think it would work better if I had a companion from Seheron because if I was a native I ought to know even more about my ancient culture than I would. The same would apply to a lesser extent to someone from Rivain, which is another region with its own culture that I would like to know more about. Both these countries also have native populations of elves, although the ones in Seheron are mostly escaped slaves, and Tal'Vashoth, plus Rivain also seems to have a fair number of surface dwarves, so the background doesn't necessarily have to be racially human.

Still the lack of prior knowledge means that, whilst I ticked Seheron, I concede that it would probably be easiest if I came from Tevinter as I already know a fair bit about that country. It would also fit any racial background.   May be I could have been born on Seheron but captured as a child and sold into slavery on the mainland, so I would have the Seheron connection but that would account for only having a limited knowledge of my culture.

I think i would like to play someone from Tevinter. It would be interesting to play someone from a culture that regards magic in such a different way from the other nations. Also i love playing mages and it would be nice to play one that isn`t seen as a menace simply for being a mage but instead that his/her magic it`s apreciated from the start. That would be a nice change.

If they follow the trend they’ve done so far, the next will be Orlesian. They can’t break trends, after all.

I consider this the start of a new trilogy, a new Origins if you will, and in Origins, we played as a native to Ferelden (exceptions including Dwarves and Dalish Elves). So we should (hopefully) avoid an Orlesian player character.

I’d love to be a Free Marcher (a certain one at least). But beyond that, I’d like to be Antivan like Josephine (would still prefer a whole game for this region rather than the one and done it’s going to be, in a game I hate at that).

New setting in Northern Thedas. Also it's difficult getting decent French vocalists in games without sounding like stereotypes. I wouldn't be entirely opposed to it. But we already had an Orlesian player character in the Warden Commander in Awakening if the one in Origins died.

I get the feeling they'll stay away from our PC having a particularly strong accent. No doubt even if our character was Orlesian, we'd play the least Orlesian of them all lol

We are continuing the plot of the previous game but we are going to a completely different part of Thedas. I don't think having Hawke as from Ferelden was meant to set a trend. It just fitted the story they wished to tell was that of a refugee and an outsider becoming involved in the politics of Kirkwall rather than someone who was local to it.

Likewise, in DAI, since there was going to be a focus on the countries of Ferelden and Orlais, they once again opted to make the PC an outsider, so effectively neutral when it came to the politics. However, beyond a label saying where we came from it didn't impact on our story much at all beyond, perhaps, the personal War Table mission.

It should also be remembered that the Freemarches is a region not a country. For this to follow a pattern we should have come from Kirkwall, as that was the city state in which the action occurred. It is emphasised in the codex on the Freemarches, which is also found in WoT, that each of these city states are very different in character. In fact, apart from the human background, which was Ostwick, none of the other races had a link to any particular city state, just vaguely from that area, the Dalish, or nowhere in particular, Vashoth mercenary and Carta dwarf.

So there is not a trend that the writers are following; this was just an idea put forward on these boards. There is no reason why the PC should be from Orlais and to be honest it wouldn't make much sense if they were. They need to be grounded in the north in some way.

If this were the case then it would be better if they were taken as a child as they would then most likely have lost any accent and know little of the culture of their country, thus explaining a lack of knowledge of their background, but what would be the point? However, I have said more than once that giving us a slave origin would also be an effective way of introducing new players to the country of Tevinter, would allow them to be reasonably ignorant of life outside of their original master's estate and most importantly would match with the idea that the new PC starts off from a position of no power whatsoever. Of course, it would buck the trend with a human PC as in every previous game they have been connected with nobility (even Hawke), but I think this would make a refreshing change from always having the human PC from the higher echelons of society.

You think! I seem to recall we had several run-ins with slavers in Kirkwall, not just those hunting Fenris. Isabella was working with slave traffickers before she developed a conscience about it and the guy we confront in Act 3 is a slaver. Loghain was working with a slaver from Tevinter in order to finance his war effort and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be the only noble across the south who has done that. Zevran says that he was bought by the Crows and that is what gives them the additional hold over their recruits as they literally own them. (Of course Tevinter Nights seemed to go to some lengths to try and improve the image of the Crows). So the message I have got across three games is that whilst slavery is "officially" outlawed in the south and some rulers are more conscientious about enforcing this than others, trading in slaves is actually rife by the underworld contingents and anyone, but particularly those on the margins of society, are vulnerable to being exploited.

Slaves can be from any race although WoT says the split is roughly 50/50 elves and humans. Nevrtheless, a qunari/vashoth is also shown in the Tevinter section on slavery and I have constantly argued that there is no reason why the Vints wouldn't accept casteless dwarves as slaves because since they are already non-persons to the dwarves with caste, why would they object to them being made into slaves? They literally mark them from birth to show they are different.

I don't think they're going to give the player character any specific accent regardless of where they come from. If they want to continue the trend of having the main character be from the previous game's main location, they could simply have something like the protagonist's mother\father be from Orlais, or the childhood spent there, or, as I've seen written, be born in Orlais but taken as a slave very young, etc... so by the time we get to play as them, they're for all intents and purposes, "Vints".