Nonetheless, the Tevinter Imperium was run by mages known as the Magisters Sidereal, including Corypheus from Dragon Age: Inquisition. This makes sense since they would be without any connection to the powerful magics of the Fade, and the de-aging process could have just taken years to come into effect. While many blame the contact between elves and humans, Solas seems to imply that it was his doing and the Veil. It's worth mentioning that this de-aging process is still cloaked in some mystery. Many of the elves were enslaved yet again. The leading elves made moves to cut off contact with this new race, but human empire of the Tevinter Imperium rose to prominence, conquered the waning elven empire. The elves not only began contracting diseases from the humans, but also found that those elves that spent time around humans began to age. When humans arrived on the continent around -31000 Ancient, the Veil had long been erected.

Solas freed the slaves and removed the vallaslin from their faces, but eventually, many of his own people came to believe he had betrayed the elven gods.

After the murder of Mythal, Solas led a rebellion against the other gods of the elven pantheon and banished them to the Fade, with the Veil preventing their return. While the Chantry believe that the Maker created the Veil that separated the Fade from the world, it was in fact the Dread Wolf. When Mythal challenged the others, she was killed. All but Mythal the All-Mother and the Dread Wolf Fen’Harel, became corrupt and began enslaving their own people, marking these slaves with facial tattoos called Vallaslin (the same facial markings the Dalish now bear, to Solas' dismay). The elven gods were, in fact, extremely powerful mages who, after an ancient war, became established generals, then revered elders, and eventually became seen as gods. The elves lived in a world where the Fade and the mortal realm had no barrier between them the world of magic and the material plane were joined. During this time, the elven 'gods' like Solas the Dread Wolf and Mythal, who would later possess Flemeth, walked the earth. Dalish sources from the games suggest that under the elves, “life was endless” and some elves would slumber for centuries just to wander the Fade, which was directly connected to Thedas and referred to as 'the sky' by the elves. During the height of their civilization, the elves built a great empire named Elvhenan, meaning “place of our people,” that spanned Thedas.ĭescriptions of life in Elvhenan and its great city of Arlathan are strange to say the least. They resemble lithe humans with pointed ears, but the elves used to be the dominant race of the continent before their numbers dwindled.

As in many fantasy portrayals, the elves of Thedas, Dragon Age's setting, are a humanoid race with a propensity for magic.

Dragon age origins elf