Dragon Age

The box art for the first game of the series.

Dragon Age is a fantasy role-playing video game trilogy created by Bioware for the Xbox, PlayStation and PC.

In the first game (Dragon Age: Origins), the player takes control of a new Grey Warden recruit who is called to action to save the land of Ferelden from the Blight. In the second game (Dragon Age 2), the player takes control of Hawke, a refugee from Ferelden who rises to power in Kirkwall over the course of a decade after the defeat of the Blight. In the third game (Dragon Age: Inquisition) the player has to deal with the mage rebellion started in the second game and with a rift in the sky from which demons are pouring out all over Ferelden and Orlais.

The player character of the first game could come from three different races, three different classes (warrior, rogue, and mage), and six different origins. The second game, due to some tweaking to make it similar to its sister series Mass Effect, gave only one possible player character, though the ability to choose between classes remains intact. No matter what, the gender of the character can be changed. In the third game the player character can come from four different races with different backstories and different reactions from the NPCs.

Much like Mass Effect, Dragon Age offers love interests for the player character. Origins offered three love interests for either gender of player character, two of whom were same-sex romance options for one gender but heterosexual options for the other. The second game took this a step further with four love interests (and a fifth love interest available for female PCs as part of a DLC pack), all but one of whom can be romanced by either gender. In the third game there are eight potential love interests, although not all are available to all genders and races.

More information about the various races, specializations, and numerous other things in the series can be found at the Dragon Age Wiki.

Dragon Age in Fanfiction

Much like Mass Effect, most fanfiction concerning events on Thedas involves pairings due to the various love interests in the game. However, thanks to the fact that the continuum offers same-sex romance options in both games, slash fics are usually not as bad or out of character for the characters involved as they are in other fandoms, especially for Dragon Age 2 pairing fanfiction. However, such badfics still do exist.

A very large part of the fanfiction is about one of the potential love interests, Alistair, who will most often either be married to the female player character, have broken up with her, or be dead. Since all of these are canonical outcomes, provided a few conditions are met, these fics rarely sink from mediocre to actual badfic.

As in any series with a player character, the Warden or Hawke can be a Mary Sue. It can be difficult to tell if the Warden or Hawke is a Sue, given the extremely ambiguous nature of many of the moral choices throughout the series and the fact that both the Warden and Hawke are blank slates whose personality, skills, and, to a lesser degree, backstory are determined by the player. However, it is not impossible.

What is unique to the Dragon Age continuum, however, is the multi-origin story. Thanks to the fact that there are six origins in the first game, fanfic authors will sometimes write a fic where more than one character from each origin (usually all six, though there have been multi-origin stories with fewer Wardens) made it to the Joining ceremony and became Grey Wardens.

Dragon Age and the PPC

Minis from the Dragon Age continuum have been known to spawn as darkspawn. The kind of darkspawn summoned to the canon is typically dependent on the darkspawn equivalent of the race of the character who was misspelled. So, humans become mini-Hurlocks, dwarves become mini-Genlocks, elves become mini-Shrieks and Qunari become mini-Ogres. In addition, misspellings of major things, such as organizations, become mini-Archdemons and a misspelling of a type of darkspawn becomes a mini-Broodmother.

There are no active agents from the Dragon Age continuum currently known to be working in the PPC.

Missions in this Continuum

• "Beyond and Above," Agents Mittens and the Radioactive Moss Creature (DF)
• "A Heartless Stu Trio" (crossover with Kingdom Hearts), Agents Florestan and Eusabius (DIC)
• "A Southern Californian in King Calian's Court," Agents Aster and Lore (DMS-Video Games)
• "Hamburgers, Steaks, and Xenomorph Ribs", Agents Anneli Rodriguez, Xanthus Garkaran, and Cinderella (DF)