Darkspawn origin?

You basically know everything the rest of us know. There is still much we don't understand about the Old Gods, the Blight and the Black City.

When Corypheus first awakens, he says "The City.. It was supposed to be Golden!"

I've always wondered if the "Golden" City was merely an illusion, a shiny lure the Old Gods used to trick to the Magisters into entering/breaching the Black City (Prison?) to... corrupt them? After which the Golden illusion was dropped.

Definitely a larger plan at work.

Lots of theories floating around...

- Maybe it's Arlathan?
- The prison of the Evanuris?
- Perhaps a place the ancient elves deliberately sealed away to prevent anyone from entering (maybe where the Blight was created)? Maybe the Blight's central "intelligence" was imprisoned there? The Magisters found nothing but "dead whispers" as it's not a material thing, but it corrupted/empowered them and sent them back to the world. Perhaps they're now unwittingly furthering its agenda.

On a similar tangent, perhaps the City (whether it's Arlathan or someplace else) may originally have been a (captured?) Titan, a city carved into it and doubling a living power source. The Blight was created there, corrupted the Titan and they had to imprison it. A blighted Titan empowering the Magisters kinda makes sense since we know one could empower dwarves in Descent. The Titan's music/Blight's music. Whispers to a Magister...

Oooo, I like that one.

However all these elements turn out to connect up, I'm convinced that it's got something to do with sound. There are so many mystical things in Thedas that are described as singing everything from the Titans, and the Old Gods to Andraste herself.

... maybe it's all a secret plot to turn the series into a musical. (I mean, they let Patrick Weeks be in charge.)

I'm actually curious if the blight and/or the darkspawn existed in Thedas long before the golden city was breached. While there are several hints of the taintexisting prior to the rise of the Imperium, the appearance of darkspawn seems to be development that was not particularly mentioned in many of these hints (though some still exist), implying that they were not that well-known yet.

The dwarves in particular are of the mind that the darkspawn were simply 'there' way below the earth all along, and that their existence has little to do with a golden city. But it seems that it was only after the incursion into the golden city that the darkspawn/taint became especially prevalent in Thedas. Particularly because it seems like it was only after this event that Archedemons were able to be created for some reason or another.

I'm of the view that the Blight was at some point contained within the Golden City, though were it originally came from I'm not sure. I think the monsters described in elven myth relating to the void were ghouls, individuals infected with the Blight rather than darkspawn. I think the darkspawn really were created by the magisters. I'm not sure what the tie between the darkspawn and the Old Gods is, the fact that they need to be corrupted by it suggests to me that they are the victims of it rather than it's masters.

When the Magisters Sidereal invaded they let it loose somehow, whether by accident or on purpose, which blackened the city and sent the magisters back to the physical world twisted, an experience that really messed with their heads. There they fled into the Deep Roads either following the song of the Old Gods or so they wouldn't be hunted as monsters. I think some of the magisters were female and they became the first broodmothers, also the sole source of emissaries (Explaining their redesign and some similarity to the magister's we've met). These emissaries kidnapped some dwarves, made genlock broodmothers, and so on, until they had a horde with which to go digging for Dumat. And that's how the first Blight started.

My theory.

I wonder if it was linked in some way to the death of Mythal. When she confronted Andruil and fought her, she is said to have removed her memory of how to return to the Void but it is possible she also removed whatever was causing her madness as well (taint) and somehow contained it within herself. Then when she was murdered the taint was freed from her body and infected the surrounding area. In any case, Andruil is said to have brought plague back with her from the Void and the Dalish teach that the Blight originated in the Void. The arch demons draw their magic from somewhere other than the Fade, so that points to the Void as well.

Mythal is associated with cities and also with defeating the Titans, so there may be some sort of link there. There is definitely that memory of Fen'Harel and his followers finding something horrific in the depths of the earth, either Mythal's corrupted corpse or a corrupted Titan, and they sealed it away to prevent its spread. Then Fen'Harel imprisoned the Evanuris because he feared they would release it in their lust for power. Likely the thing that was shut away was red lyrium.

Arlathan is said to have been the greatest city of the elven empire and clearly was one of those structures than bridged the two realities. It was likely Mythal's greatest creation. When Solas raised the Veil, it was probably split in two, one part being trapped in the Fade (likely with the door to the Evanuris prison within it) and the Thedas side being left wherever it originally was - which could have been underground. The Dalish have always believed that the city in the Fade was the Eternal City, home to their gods and contrary to what people say in game, actually the Dalish have tended to get a lot of their lore right.

I tend to believe Corypheus when he says they didn't cause the creation of the Blight, merely discovered it. Whoever or whatever caused it to infect Thedas, I think its origins lie back before the creation of the Veil. I also think the reason that Solas is adamant that the world has to die and be reborn is because his original plan to contain the Blight didn't work and now there is not only the Blight to contend with but red lyrium as well. So to convince him to stay his plan, we'll need to find a cure for the Blight.

The problem is there are a lot of anomalies and contradictions in what we have been told about darkspawn and red lyrium.

For example, Grey Wardens set up the joining ritual to better combat the darkspawn and presumably because they realised they needed to be tainted in order to defeat the arch demon. So far as we are aware they were successful in this. They can hear the call of the Old Gods but they are not controlled by it in the same way that darkspawn are. The arch demon is not able to prevent them from killing it by will alone.

Then we have Corypheus. He is an intelligent darkspawn, who were only discovered after the defeat of Dumat. We are still to be told what he was doing during the 200 years of the 1st Blight. Apparently the corpse of Dumat and his blood were used to lure him into the Grey Warden trap, so apparently it would seem the corpse still had some sort of potency even after death, even though the Architect, whom we assume was another intelligent darkspawn, claimed to be immune to the call of the Old Gods and used Grey Warden blood to change is brethren in the same way. Yet Grey Wardens could be controlled by Corypheus. When in his prison he seemed to emit a call similar to the Old Gods that attracted darkspawn to the location, yet in DAI there seems no direct link between the darkspawn emerging on the surface and Corypheus. Why is the false calling being heard by the Grey Wardens and not by the darkspawn?

Why is Corypheus able to soul jump to Grey Wardens? It shouldn't be possible. Is it because it is one human being to another? I seem to recall Morrigan saying that Flemeth's grimoire stated that soul jumping was made easier the more alike the target being was to the original. So may be the inability of the arch demon to jump to Grey Wardens has nothing to do with souls and more to do with the fact that they aren't a dragon. (I wonder if the original plot for dark ritual actually did require to father to be Alistair because of his dragon blood heritage).

Corypheus seems to be able to use red lyrium without any ill effects because he is Blighted. Bianca claims that red lyrium has the Blight. As Reznore points out, though, red lyrium farming of humanoids does not result in darkspawn but either behemoths or simply more red lyrium.

Despite the contradictory messages given about blood magic in the various games, could it have some link with the Blight? Solas indicated that the red lyrium at the site of the explosion was due to being corrupted by magic. We know that Oghran deduced that the whole mountain was a gigantic lyrium bed, so the explosion with the resulting huge loss of life (effectively blood magic) could have corrupted the previously pure lyrium. According to the Last Flitght, Arch demon magic is drawn from somewhere other than the Fade and so is blood magic. This would suggest that both derive their power from the Void. So ordinary lyrium is blood of titans with links to the Fade; red lyrium is the corrupted blood of a titan linked to the Void.   Solas maintained he did not do blood magic because it interfered with his connection to the Fade.

In the past we were told that lots of death or blood magic in a particular location led to a thinning of the Veil between Thedas and the Fade. Could it be that instead it leads to a thinning of the Veil between Thedas and the Void? So when Corypheus and buddies did the huge blood sacrifice to open the Veil, it simultaneously opened a portal to the Void that instantly corrupted the Black City.

I do actually rather like the idea of the Golden aspect of the city being an illusion. Since the elves regarded it as their beautiful Eternal City, home to their gods, and the humans did likewise, possibly both groups were recalling a memory of it before the raising of the Veil. Apparently even the most powerful demons shun the Black City and it is the only fixed, constant location in the ever shifting mass of the Fade, so spirits seem to have no affect on it and do not even attempt it. Thus it remained in suspended animation, still Golden as a result of the belief of mortals, until Corypheus and co broke through and shattered the illusion. They then became infected with the corruption that was already there and discovered a new greater power as a result as he suggests in his memories. I seem to recall that in one version of the quest to the Golden City, they were seeking the immortality of the gods. In some ways they achieved this since Corypheus would seem to be immortal (as in not aging) from that point forward, but at the price of his humanity.

It is not Black because people believe it is Black nor it is Golden because people believed it was Golden,that is Matrix not DA.

it's true  that DA is sometimes very incohesive in its plot but I've noticed that this is also some sort of pattern in the way of thinking of many people here in the forum,but the issue is that this kind of arguments will never be cohesive or explanatory on anything because they are literally built on sand.

When exactly dis Cory say that the city was black when they got their?