Most Evil Entities In The Dragon Age Series

The world of Thedas is filled with a great deal of beauty and terror in equal measure. The upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard has players bursting out of their seats to once again delve back into this fantastic setting – but lest they forget how gruesome it can be, it’s important to remind everyone about some of the most evil entities in the Dragon Age series.

The game has no shortage of characters who are antagonistic towards the player and the party. Loghain Mac Tir, for example, is one such antagonist that, while certainly reprehensible, cannot be described as truly evil the same way the Darkspawn hordes are. For beings that are truly the most destructive in the Dragon Age series, fans need look no further.

5 The Darkspawn

These Creatures Are Mindless And Serve Only To Destroy

• Worst act committed: Torturing mortal women into Broodmothers.

The Darkspawn are the central, driving force of darkness that put the events of the first game into motion. In many ways, the Darkspawn are a manifestation of the Blight that will rise to the surface when an forgotten old god is corrupted over time. Fighting through hordes of these ravenous enemies is what defines a large part of Dragon Age: Origins and, to a lesser extent, its two sequel titles. The Darkspawn serve only to try and unmake civilization as the hand of the ruthless archdemon, a corrupted old god woken from its sleep.

Like some other RPGs, Dragon Age: Origins gives players the capacity to become villainous – but even the most cold-hearted of Grey Wardens won’t be able to win over these vicious and vile hordes of destructive demons. It’s worth mentioning, however, that due to the nature of the blood in their veins, a small part every Grey Warden is imbued with the essence of these singularly evil creatures.

4 Desire Demons

Among The Most Insidious And Cunning Demons

• First appearance: Dragon Age: Origins
• Worst act committed: Possessing Connor

Desire Demons are among the most adept at seducing mages into possession. They, alongside the more brutish (but still intelligent) Pride Demons, are among the major sources of abominations spawning across Ferelden. They are incredibly cunning and understand how to use the inhibitions and lusts of mortals to their own advantage. While in theory, these demons are more opportunistic or ‘neutral evil,’ there are some clear instances in Dragon Age: Origins of these demons doing some fairly reprehensible things to mortals.

Utilizing one of the many forms of magic in Dragon Age, the Desire Demon’s possession of Connor is an incredibly brutal and confronting scene in Origins, one that combines that mystical horror with a more emotionally focused one as players watch a mother struggling to deal with a comatose husband and tormented son. If not dealt with appropriately, the Desire Demon will force the player into a rather brutal decision of either killing a small child or allowing him to be possessed by this ruthless demon.

3 The Mother

A Mad Broodmother That Gives Darkspawn Unique Strength

• First appearance: Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening
• Worst act committed: Producing hordes of awakened Darkspawn to attack Amaranthine

The Mother was one of the two major Darkspawn pushing forward the events in Awakening. Like other Broodmothers, she was once a mortal woman. This means that a particularly dark and gruesome fate befell her in order to change her into the monster players see by the time of Awakening, when she is sending ceaseless Darkspawn hordes to the Arling of Amaranthine in order to destroy it and, by extension, the Grey Warden. There is some semblance of pity that should be given to her as, unlike others on this list, she was not always evil.

She and her ever shifting army of Darkspawn want to reconnect to the Archdemon, who seemingly kept their individual thoughts submerged in the fog of an entrancing song, perhaps the same kind of terrible sound the Grey Wardens hear in their dreams.

2 Corypheus

An Ancient And Vengeful Evil

• Worst act committed: Tearing a rift between Thedas and the Fade.

Corypheus has a long and deeply connected background with the history of Thedas. He was a magister and priest of the magisterium and one of the ambitious wizards who walked upon the Maker’s halls and forever de-sanctified them, leading to the Blight. This is how the official narrative of the Chantry depicts things, anyway. Even if the magisters were actually stopping by the Maker’s abode to drop off a fruit basket, or as Corypheus says, the mages found the Golden City of the Maker already blackened and empty, Corypheus is still a twisted and tyrannical individual who has served as a driving force of evil on more than one occasion.

Corypheus, besides being one of the first Darkspawn and instigator of the Blight, abused the Calling within all Grey Wardens to manipulate them into freeing him. By Inquisition, his revelations at the Black City make him come to the belief that there is, in fact, no god. Most people turn to Nietzsche, or maybe Fall Out Boy, when they hit this conclusion, but Corypheus instead tries to shatter the bounds between Thedas and the Fade and ascend to become a deity that can physically manipulate the mortal world. His attack on Haven is one of the most thorough sackings in the entire series, even if it leads the Inquisition to the very impressive Skyhold.

1 Fen’Harel

A Trickster God Personified By Betrayal

• Worst act committed: Sealing away the gods, which allowed the enslavement of the Daelish elves.

In the expansive lore of Dragon Age, Fen’Harel was a trickster god venerated by the elves, who occupied a place within the two clans of gods – the Forgotten Ones, about whom very little information remains, and the Creators, who fill the role of ancestor gods of a sort for the elves. Fen’Harel, also known as the Dreadwolf, tricked both these camps of gods and sealed them away in the abyss and the heavens respectively, shutting off their contact with the mortal world.

Regardless of how any one group feels about this action, shutting away the gods has been a consistent starting point for many of the world’s woes, not least of all was the catastrophic massacre and enslavement that happened at Arlathan, which resulted in a blow to Daelish culture that never recovered. Fen’Harel, it’s said, went positively mad with laughter after his tricking of the gods, showing he did so with malice in mind. As people might have been able to gather from Veilguard‘s preliminary title, Dread Wolf Fen’Harel, who went under the guise of a well-known character in Inquisition, will be playing a prominent role in the next epic installment to the Dragon Age series. There is no denying the evil that Fen’Harel is capable of unleashing, but will everything be so black and white in the new title? Players will simply have to wait and see.