Since the beginning of BioWare's Dragon Age franchise in 2009, Ferelden has been a central point of focus for the games. A fairly new kingdom built around the notion of freedom, Ferelden lies in the Southeastern hemisphere of Thedas.

More than 2800 years before the Fifth Blight, the Alamarri people migrated Southeast into a lush and fertile valley they called Ferelden, which actually means fertile valley in the Alamarri tongue. Over the centuries, they established a casual political system, which remained largely intact even after King Calenhad won the crown during the Exalted Age.

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With the Frostback Mountains rolling along the Western border and separating Ferelden from Orlais, Ferelden truly seems a green valley ripe for growth and fertility. The rich and lush Brecelian Forest lays in the southeast of the kingdom, while even further South are the untamed Korcari Wilds. Moving north through the Hinterlands will bring travelers to Lake Calenhad and the Circle of Magi, known formally as Kinloch Hold, which rests in the center of the lake and is only accessible by boat. Moving Northeast from the Hinterlands, one passes through the Bannorn and will eventually reach the Coastlands, where Denerim, Ferelden's seat of power, rests.

Despite its lush, green promise for growth, Ferelden is a nation that always seems to be at war, both within itself and beyond its borders. One of Ferelden's greatest foes is its Western neighbor, the Empire of Orlais, on the other side of the Frostback Mountains. During the Blessed Age, Orlais invaded and eventually occupied Ferelden for a period spanning nearly 80 years.

The rightful heir to the throne, Maric Theirin, allied himself with a commoner named Loghain Mac Tir. Together, the two of them raised enough power to drive the Orlesians from their land. Their union inspired the people to rise up and fight for their kingdom once more, and when Loghain met the Orlesian king of Ferelden in single combat, he killed him, and freed Ferelden from Orlais's tyranny at long last.

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With King Maric on the throne, Ferelden began the process of rebuilding, but things did not remain peaceful. King Maric mysteriously disappeared, leaving the throne to his young son, Cailan. As evidence began surfacing that a Fifth Blight was about to breach in the south of Ferelden, King Cailan worked to set aside an old hardship with the Grey Wardens, who had been banned from Ferelden when Warden Commander Sophia Dryden went against Warden protocol during the Storm Age and attempted to take the Ferelden throne from the tyrant king, Arland Theirin.

King Cailan invited the Grey Wardens back into Ferelden at the launch of Dragon Age: Origins and quietly attempted to negotiate with former enemies the Orlesian Empire for aid against the Blight. However, Loghain Mac Tir refused to believe the Darkspawn gathering in the South to be a threat worthy of Blight status. He took King Cailan's negotiations with Orlais as a personal attack against the freedom he and Cailan's father fought so hard to achieve and bitterly stewed against the king.

When King Cailan and the Grey Wardens attacked the Darkspawn horde at Ostagar, Loghain withdrew his men and left the King and the Wardens to their fate. Blight began to spread across the land, and the two wardens who survived the attack at Ostagar worked against Loghain to beat back the Blight and save their kingdom. One of those surviving wardens was King Maric's bastard son, Alistair Theirin, who had no desire to rise to power despite Ferelden's need for a strong leader.

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Blight and internal strife did little to strengthen Ferelden, and even as the Wardens ended the Blight by defeating the archdemon Urthemiel, the kingdom was in shambles. According to Dragon Age canon, Alistair Theirin, took the throne, and through his efforts (guided and advised by Bann Teagan Guerrin), the process of rebuilding Ferelden began again. King Alistair sat the throne for only ten years before events at the Temple of Sacred Ashes and the death of Divine Justinia V launched Dragon Age: Inquisition.

A military nation that grants its cities and its people far more freedom than most other nations would dare, Ferelden holds to that freedom so tightly because they fought long and hard to obtain it. The thought of taking such freedoms away, even from the elves who live in the alienage, is a foreign concept most Fereldens have no desire to explore. Elves in Ferelden believe they have it better than elves elsewhere, as they are granted opportunities to work and have rights, freedoms and opportunities to seek out more meaningful lives with their families.

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a close up image of a Mabari in Dragon Age

From the outside looking in, many nations consider Ferelden to be rather barbaric and uncivilized, some going so far as to call it a nation of dog lords who allow their children to roll around in the mud with their stinking Mabari hounds. Ferelden's affinity for dogs, most especially Mabari hounds, began long before the Alamarri marched southward in search of a new home, and has carried on through the centuries. Some believe this connection to dogs began when they discovered that Mabari could detect werewolves, even when those werewolves wore their human skins. Regardless of the connection's origin, Mabari certainly shape the identity of Ferelden and its people.

Despite its seeming lack of civility to the world beyond its borders, the Chantry considers the capital city, Denerim, to be a holy city, as it is alleged to have been the birthplace of the Maker's bride, Andraste.

BioWare has already explored beyond Ferelden, taking players to Kirkwall in the Free Marches in Dragon Age 2 and allowing deeper exploration of Orlais in Inquisition. Still, Ferelden and its politics, problems and people continue to play a major role in the shaping of the overall plot and canon of the series, and it's all but guaranteed that Ferelden will be revisited in the upcoming Dragon Age 4.

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