Possible Character Origins for Dragon Age 4

He forgot the most important one: The Inquisitor background.

I'm still going with Lord of Fortune.

Whilst I like his ideas, 12 backgrounds is way too many if they are to have any relevance beyond that opening selection. Then there only seems one actual option for a mage, the human Laetans, or can the Dalish be a mage, can the Tal'Vashoth? Also a small nit-pick, Soporati are still citizens of the Empire, but freed slaves are initially Liberati and not citizens. As in Ancient Rome there is an important distinction between citizen and non-citizen with regard to your rights. So the master not only frees them but would also need to have bought them citizenship for them to be Soporati.

Whilst I am hoping for a Kal-Sharok companion, I doubt we actually play as a Kal-Sharok dwarf without a proper origin introduction to explain why we are so different from the other dwarves, because it has been made quite clear that there is something different, which probably lies behind their survival and, if the Core Rule Book is anything to go by, they look different too.

Personally, I've always felt that slave/liberati would cover practically every race and class, even dwarves because the casteless are non people to the Orzammar dwarves, so why wouldn't they become slaves? The different take on this for a human was interesting though. Instead of being born into slavery or captured elsewhere, it was actually a fall from grace by a high ranking family, who were then stripped of their citizenship and sold off.

Also, with regard to the Ben-Hassrath, this person could still be a slave because they had deliberately allowed themselves to be made a slave for their own purposes. We know this does happen but more normally by human or elven converts rather than racial Qunari but that doesn't mean the idea couldn't be applied to all three. However, they would be working to a particular agenda that would require more resources than simply being a slave, so as with the Kal-Sharok dwarf, that is more likely to be something in the background of a companion rather than the PC.

So I think we are going to have either multiple backgrounds for just one race or a single set background for all races but naturally I could be wrong about that. I would, just for once, like the human background not to be a noble one. In previous games our human PC has been variously a Cousland, Amell (both DAO and DA2) and Trevelyan. At least the video doesn't have the human from an Altus background, although I have to admit that playing a non-mage from an Altus background might be interesting, if they put the resources into making it significant.

Please no random slave origin. I don't want my character to be a dull dud Bethesda type character.

I can think of a few possibilities if they decide to go with the one background for all races with a shared beginning route.


Lord of Fortune – Adventurers and treasure hunters who take on jobs for a price. Examples might be to break into an ancient tomb and liberate its treasure from the traps and creatures; a lucrative bounty to hunt down a dangerous creature menacing a town; a contract to steal a magic item from a public event; or being payed to bodyguard and guide a client through dangerous locations. They're based out of Rivain but there are no apparent barriers to foreigners joining. We’ve seen multiple races, genders and skillsets from this faction.

The game could start with you having entered a difficult to find ruin to retrieve a relic for a client - you fight your way through strange enemies and traps and translating old runes until you figure out that the contents of this tomb was more then you bargained for, the relic more dangerous than you knew and the client cannot be trusted.


Slave (Guard) – The Tevinter Slave background has been talked about a lot as a possibility for any class/race combo. It’s also been suggested that because dwarves have a high status in Tevinter that means they aren’t taken as slaves but we have no canon proof for or against that. However in Paying the Ferryman Magister Erasthenes’ household stewerd who orders around and beats the slaves is a Dwarf named Sorka. It’s not clear whether she is a payed servant or a slave with a higher station, but at the very least this shows that there are dwarves who serve in human households. They’re not all held up in their embassies like foreign dignitaries, or visiting merchants, or carta dwarves. I would suggest that rather than being just any labourer it would make most sense for a Slave origin to be a Guard as Marius was before he was sold to the magekiller trainer. Whilst a slave mage might be taught the bare minimum necessary to control themselves and not be possessed then sent right back to dusting, much as Calpernia was, any slave taught to use a blade would probably be expected to use it (unless perhaps they were recently captured and not trusted yet).

While you could be guarding anything, when say the city is attacked, it might be more interesting if what you were guarding were more connected to the plot. For example if you were guarding the Archon or Black Divine when an assassination attempt is made. Or you could be guarding a vault or museum containing a collection of valuable magical and historical artefacts the night of a heist by one or multiple parties.


Siccari – The Tevinter network of spies and assassins mostly made up of freed slaves whose families are promised safety as motivation and a threat to pressure their agents to perform. Like the slave background this theoretically allows for any race and class, as you are liberati made so to become Siccari. But you are also a spy with elite combat skills. Suiting covert operative vibe we seem to be getting. You are powerless yet skilled.

You could be investigating suspicious activity for the Siccari discovering something far more dangerous behind it then your superiors thought. At some point in the game there could be a quest to get rid of the leverage your Siccari handler has over you – either by sneaking your family/friend out and assassinating who would know it was you, or by finding leverage to control them.

(Even if it does transpire that Dwarves can’t become slaves, the Siccari don’t only recruit from slaves so this backgrounds still viable for them.)

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If they do decide to do one shared background for all races then I think they should re-embrace and expand on what they did with the inquisitor: allowing you to decide/fillout details of your background through conversation with npcs.


Their lives before they came to the shared background and during the background may have been different after all. Eg. Is was a LoF a Rivaini native or did they come from elsewhere? What is their specialisation? Was a Slave descended from a long line of slaves, sold themselves to pay off debt, or were they captured? Did they hope to escape, buy their way to freedom, achieve a special status like magekiller?


It would also be neat from a roleplaying perspective to have the options to Lie or Say Nothing, and have that decision reflected later aswell.


While I would like to have multiple either non-playable backgrounds or playable origins to choose from (and will probably make a post about those too) this would be a decent option too, even if I would wish I could have more than one of them. 

Whatever they do I hope there will be lots of reactivity to what race you choose and what background you have.

While I would love a return to multiple origins (DAO), that's not something I expect we'll get. I think they are going to continue with a single playable origin (DA2) or multiple "text" origins (DAI)

As of now, my bets are on a slave origin or a Lord of Fortune origin. Slavery is something, more or less, unique to the Tevinter Imperium and it would place you as far into the role of nobody as someone can get. On the other hand, the Lords of Fortune were apparently quite prominent in the Tevinter Nights book so I'm inclined to think that hints them having some sort of relevancy to fourth game.

Please not another human noble origin. Let them start at the bottom of the heap the same as everyone else. This is why I favour a slave origin because that fits any race or class.

It might be difficult to have a Kal'Sharok origin unless we actually start there. They are meant to be so different from other dwarves that you need some context to role play it properly. We are more likely to get a Kal'Sharok companion.

Qunari agent would be difficult because you'd have to have a cover story as well. So you'd be a Qunari XXXXX who is really an agent and that would mean Ben'Hassrath. That would be complicated unless every other race was really an agent for someone else because of working in the various aspects to it.

This is why a slave would be best for the background because they could have been a follower of the Qun but then got captured. Thus they could had any role in the Qun but that was no longer the case, although they could still want to follow the Qun or instead take the opportunity to reject it. If the former they are effectively an agent of the Qun without the dialogue having to be too specific as opposed to the other races.

Antivan Crow, Lord of Fortune, Tevinter Slave are the only ones I can think of where any class and race are available (expect for Dwarven slaves maybe).

4 origins.
1) The Hero (Warden commander of Ferelden)
2) The Champion (Hawke)
3) The inquisitor
4) a fresh new start with a fresh new character (a Tevinter slave, dunno)



Would you like it?

I don't necessarily think this is true. I mean, as Brosca or Aeducan they dumped us in the middle of Dust Town/dwarven politics/the caste system/etc. and you had dialogue options that reflected what you should know as a character but also worked in "what's that?" lines for new players' benefit. If I'm roleplaying, I just ignore those options, but it's nice that they're there.

So I don't think we have to have more context in order to rp such a character and it'd work better if we got full on origin stories and not just a text blurb. You're right, a companion is more likely. Or an antagonist.