#Warden Commander Andras

[too-many-lavellans]

Strike a pose Warden Commander

[guminami]

ally or foe? the maker only knows.

[leliwardens]

Wardens | Hawkes | Inquisitors

[illusivesoul]

Was thinking that, while obviously done for gameplay reasons, its very unlikely that, given how deadly the joining can be, that of the 6 people that either the Hero of Ferelden or the orlesian warden can put through the Joining, all but one survive (rip Mhairi. Gone but not forgotten)

I think a cool mechanic (but probably too contrived to implement at the time, but maybe for a posible remake?) for DA Awakening would have been to add a randomness chance for characters to die during the Joining. I feel it could have added that extra tension when it came to deciding if you made the companions wardens or not.

Like on one playthrough Mhairi could have lived but Velanna died, or Nathaniel lived and Sigrun died, Anders died but Oghren lives, etc

[merrillapologist]

what do you mean wardens are supposed to honorably sacrifice themselves when they hear the calling? why do that when you can just hide in the deep roads kissing the architect? superior retirement plan.

[arlathen]

people are always clamoring to have their wardens back in games and i am the lone voice of reason like LEAVE HER ALONE!!! you've already made her an absent ruler i do not trust you to speak on what my warden has been up to bioware. leave her alone. keep her name out of your mouth.

[vigilskeep]

Hey. What did you mean about Alistair falling for an Orlesian? I did not catch that in the most recent blur of posts.

hi sorry LMAO i split half the breakdown into vee’s dms so it may have been confusing on the dash

i am talking about ultimate sacrificing minerva and therefore creating an orlesian warden for awakening, who i am cautiously calling rené caron and by the way, i would love that to be a place of origin and not a straight surname, even though caron is a straight surname and means beloved which is cute. but i’m TRYING to create a human commoner origin here. i might pretend caron is a place and call him rené of caron. rené du caron? i like the sound of that but is that good french i’ve been putting considerable effort into actively forgetting the language. du or de. whichever. caron could also be the name of the warden who recruited him or something, that he took to honour them. i’d still like him to be rené caron of somewhere, in that case. i’ll examine the map. hmmmm.

ANYWAY. i haven’t totally decided on him being a man even we’re not really there yet im just building a little guy in my mind rn. kader is also still on the table technically, including starring-yrsa-aeducan-as-kader, but my point is that the orlesian warden-commander would be as the kids say single and ready to mingle, so i can really pair them with anyone i want. which is more power than i should ever have. alistair better get in here quick if he even wants a shot theres all these cute awakening wardens

[hellafluff]

I've pick up my Asshole playthrough of DAO and just finished the main campaign and decided my Awakening Character is gonna be the one (1) good person in this run. Their name is Karar (kuh-rare), they have a super thick Orlesian accent that Fereldens WILL make fun of them for, and they're the first elf ive ever played in DAO

I love them already, to bad they will never get lore significance

[thornfield13713]

Oh, holy shit, if I go through Dragon Age again, I could have an (almost) all old ladies worldstate...

[asterroses]

have i ever mentioned my andras . my warden andras . my girl vetharil . shes so important actually . the reason why im bringing her up now is cus im finally drawing her in time for artfight :]

[too-many-lavellans]

Behold chibis of all our Dragon Age pcs (so far)!

[guminami]

(orlesian) warden commander.

[inquisimer]

I was tagged by @dungeons-and-dragon-age and @shivunin to create my OCs in this picrew, and their swords in this picrew! Thank you both - this was super fun! I love a good item picrew :3

these are definitely a mix of Actual Swords and Vibes, even for the OCs who actually use swords

Siobhan Hawke - no actual sword use, completely vibes, I just love her so much I couldn't leave her out. All black for Kirkwall, dripping with blood and chains for Symbolism and more Kirkwall

Nika Brosca - a dual wielder, so actual sword use! But the design, particularly the glowy lyrium blade, is all vibes. The hilt wrapped up in fabric with scraps hanging off the end is allllll dust town though. My scrappy Carta girl :3

Ariya Tabris - sword use Optional™️, only when she can't get her hands on proper daggers or an axe, until she has Vigilance. The design here is mostly vibes, especially the black vines up the blade for the Blight.

Ciel Andras - (everyone: Andras? me: the orlesian warden commander that bioware forgot ;-;) my Actual Sword user, a sword and board warrior! The sword here is literal, silverite for the blade and blue on the hilt and grip for the Wardens. Plus the hilt that I thought was close enough to Wing Imagery without being butterfly wings, and the black veins in the blade for, you guessed it, Blight Symbolism.

Ember Cousland - another dual wield sword user (sensing a type here hmmmm) and it's definitely with her family's sword no I don't care that the stats bottom out so fast. The hilt design here is to represent that, with the mirrored wheat design of the Cousland heraldry, but the on-fire blade is 100% vibes, a representation of her vengeance against the Howes.

tagging forward to: @leggywillow | @exalted-dawn | @rosella-writes | @wheat-and-wheat-by-products | @midmorninggrey |

and @thiefbird have fun friends!!

[themournwatcher]

This is the hub for my characters and worldstates! For now, I’m only linking to my Dragon Age OCs. Click on the name and it will take you to the relevant tag! Worldstate One - “To the Victor Go the Toils”

Mahanon Tabris - My original Warden, his story is about themes of death, life, rebirth, and the blood of the baptism. His story is focused on gender, gendered violence, identity, and the resolve to live despite all else. You can also click here to go straight to his fic on AO3!

Elyon Andras - When Mahanon abandons the Grey Wardens in the aftermath of Origins, it is Elyon who is selected to take his place as the Warden-Commander of Vigil’s Keep. Elyon’s story is one of hope throughout despair, motherhood, and the loneliness of never being able to return home.

Laurent Surana - a Veteran of the Blight and a side character in Mahanon’s story throughout Origins. His focus picks up during the events of Dragon Age 2, as an unlikely companion to my Garrett Hawke in Kirkwall. His story focuses on romanticism, chivalry, knighthood, intrigue, and the lies one has to tell. His fic is on the way!

Iveani Lavellan - My Inquisitor, a Dalish somniari and rift mage who has slowly been blinded by his Dreamer abilities. Relying on his staff–all at once a magical conduit, a cane, and a polearm–he leads the way for the Dalish in the rapidly shifting political environment of Thedas. Worldstate Two - “Blood of the Covenant, Blood of the Womb” Naoise Cousland - The Warden I’m currently playing, his story focuses on the themes of loss, grief, vengeance, toxic masculinity, and politics, both noble and gendered. Not yet sure how his story ends, so join him along the way! Trystan Hawke - The parentified eldest sibling of the Hawke family, Trystan must take his father’s place in protecting Bethany from the Templars and dangers of Kirkwall. Angry, jealous, and demanding of the world and what it owes him, his relationships with his friends–and Anders–will shake the very foundations of Thedas. Jurian Amell - The younger cousin to Trystan, Jurian is everything that could be wanted in an Amell grandchild. A gifted mage, clever, and lovely to look at, his story is built off of the folktales of Fereldan into an epic saga that Kirkwall won’t ever forget. Arlan Trevelyan – The youngest child of the faithful and devout Trevelyan family, Arlan being a mage was a stain upon their honor and faith in the Chantry. What he knows about the inner workings of Thedosian politics will shape the Inquisition and its dealings for years to come.

Cas Meta – This link takes you to all META thoughts about all of my characters or the Dragon Age series itself, if you want to dig through my analyses and headcanons without the character spam!

[merrillapologist]

My rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy Gavriel who sneaks off to kiss the Architect and join the Disciples instead of going on his Calling like a normal person

[ID: Two digital busts depicting a sickly pale elven man. His skin is rotting in spots, there are blackened veins on his face, and his eyes are a cloudy grey. He has ginger hair streaked with white, freckles, and pale eyelashes. He wears vertebrae as earrings, a dark blue labcoat, and a dark brown fur coat. In the first bust, he is depicted with a bare face, while in the second he is shown wearing red facepaint across his eyes reminiscent of the Disciples from Dragon Age Awakening. There are snowflakes in the background behind him.]

[bumblewarden]

Happy Playing With Numbers Anniversary

Unsurprisingly, most of the Archive of Our Own data is about the same as last year's, but i was honor-bound to gather it anyway. I also looked up some basic metrics for Inquisitors that may aid me for deciding what to collect next year as well as data from the Favorite Player Background poll i ran when i first gained access to Tumblr polls. I will not be posting the pie graphs for most of the Origins as they are almost identical to last year's, but i did add a few new ones from this year's data collection at the end.

Some thoughts on the disparity between AO3 popularity and Tumblr popularity:

While there is considerable overlap, AO3 and Tumblr do not serve the exact same portion of the fandom, and even though it broke containment, the poll still represents only a part of the Tumblr-side fandom. This blog which made the poll (hi) festers about in a very elfy part of the fandom and bills itself as "The Warden Tabris Agenda". It shouldn't be too suprising that elves, especially the City Elf Origin, are more highly represented here.

The poll offers a single vote per Tumblr user, but on AO3, authors have the ability to post as much as they want about their favorite as well as their second-favorite, third-favorite, etc. And we've all seen those fics who have a character tagged who never appears.

The Tumblr poll ran for a week, but the data from the Archive is accumulative over the lifespan of the fandom. The earliest currently available fic on AO3 tagged with any individual Warden is an f!Cousland one-shot dated to November 17, 2009, two weeks after the game's initial launch.

The Orlesian Warden-Commander is the only one who receives the same percentages of fics/votes between the two popularity calculation methods.

And some other miscellaneous thoughts:

There were 15855 Warden fics tagged by Origin vs 28237 Inquisitor fics tagged by Origin. This is going to give the Inquisitor significantly more weight in the combined PC race distribution.

The data from the Inquisitors finally gives us not just an elf in first place but an elf with a majority of the fics. 46% of Lavellan fics are tagged with Lavellan/Solas, which is likely a factor. The Solavellans came in with the steel chair.

With the Inquisition data, dwarves continue their tradition of least popular (my apologies to the dwarf likers), but by the power of being the only one standing, Cadash in finally giving us a dwarf in quadruple digits.

Andras is the only Origin whose total number of fics has gone down between years. This is possibly due to many of the non-DA fics tagged with this character being removed or retagged as it was only their Unspecified/Other category which shrank. I didn't collect this data last year while it still would have been available, but it seemed a considerable percentage of non-gender tagged fic for Andras was an oc from outside Dragon Age.

Of all Origins' percentages of total fics, only Cousland went down between 2022 and 2023

There may be some correlation between the previous bullet and the elf sweep from the Tumblr poll as well as Lavellan surpassing Trevelyan in AO3 fics by volume. Relative popularity of humans is something to keep an eye on.

Now for the charts!! (Unless otherwise stated, assume the below information is reflective of the AO3 survey.)