Dragon Age’s Elves aren’t the usual fantasy kind established by J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, where Elves are an undying race with special magical talents and an established, sprawling society. The elves in Dragon Age could have been described this way, once upon a time, but have fallen far and hit rock bottom.

The Elven kingdom was destroyed by the Chantry years before the start of the games, leaving the surviving Elves with two choices: submit to Chantry laws and live in human cities, or survive on the fringes of society in nomadic Dalish clans. As Dragon Age: 4 looms in the back of fans’ minds and Elves promise to have a huge role, here’s a quick refresh on the differences between Dalish and City Elves.

Updated August 18, 2021, by Gabrielle Huston: In honour of TheGamer’s Dragon Age Week, we’ve updated this article with new entries about the differences between Dalish elves and City elves, as well as details for every entry about where this cultural marker is seen in canon Dragon Age content.

14 Dalish: Nomadic

Ever since the Elven empire fell, the Dalish have been travelling Thedas with large wagons called Aravels. They never get very close to any major human settlement, preferring the remote forests and regions where most races don’t dare tread.

Since they seldom meet humans, the Dalish rely heavily on hunting and foraging, as well as the milk produced by Halla (a kind of strong, white deer that pull the Aravels). This nomadic lifestyle leads to Elves who are strongly community-minded and fearful of outsiders.

Where Can We See This?

  • by choosing the Dalish Elf Origin in Dragon Age: Origins
  • visiting Merrill’s clan in Dragon Age 2
  • in the Exalted Plains in Dragon Age: Inquisition

13 City: Live in Alienages

The City Elves live in major human cities like Denerim or Val Royeaux. The slums where they live are called Alienages. These neighbourhoods are notoriously poor, dismal, and falling apart.

The Alienages were established by a previous Divine after the Exalted March on the Dales so that Elves who submitted to their power would have a place to live among the people. Humans like to feel good about themselves since Elves haven’t been formally enslaved in hundreds of years, but the current state of the Alienages is undoubtedly a form of financial enslavement.

  • the Denerim Alienage during the City Elf origin and at the end of Dragon Age: Origins
  • the Kirkwall alienage in Dragon Age 2, which Merrill moves into
  • the Edgehall alienage in the comic series Dragon Age: Knight Errant

12 Dalish: Still Worship The Elven Gods

The Dalish worship a pantheon of five gods and four goddesses known as “the Creators.” The leaders of the pantheon are the goddess of motherhood and justice, Mythal, and the god of fatherhood and vengeance, Elgar’nan.

The fifth god, Fen’Harel (the Dread Wolf), was thought to be different from the rest of the pantheon since he could travel between the Creators and their enemies, called “the Forgotten Ones.” During Dragon Age: Inquisition and its DLC, fans learned that these gods were not actually divine, but simply extraordinarily powerful mages who rose to power above their peers.

  • Dalish in Dragon Age: Inquisition wearing vallaslin to represent particular gods
  • the Dalish clan during Nature of the Beast quest, who worship the pantheon
  • talking to Merrill and her clanmates in Dragon Age 2

11 City: Adopted the Faith of Andraste and the Maker

When the first city Elves submitted to human rule, they were forced to accept many human traditions - especially the worship of the Maker and his bride, Andraste. The way Elves in alienages worship is notably different from the usual human form, but they worship the Maker all the same.

Markers of the Elven culture, such as the tree in the centre of every alienage, and certain facial tattoos, are attempts by Elves to retain their identity (despite the Chantry’s best efforts). Some Elves simply pretend to worship the Maker and secretly worship the pantheon instead.

  • Andrastian wedding during City Elf Origin in Dragon Age: Origins
  • the elves bow to the Keeper upon her arrival in the Alienage during Dragon Age 2

10 Dalish: Train Mages Within The Clan

The lore in Dragon Age is infamously unclear about how mages are treated among the Dalish. Dalish clans are run by a mage because they’re the best equipped to carry forward the old Elven culture when all Elves used to be mages. This mage is called the Keeper, and the Keeper’s “First” is the title given to the young Elven mage being trained to inherit the Keeper’s role.

Many sources agree that Dalish clans share mages, and send young people to other clans where a mage hasn’t been born naturally. However, they disagree about what the Dalish do if another clan can’t be found. Some people say that clans will have a “First”, a “Second”, a “Third”, and so forth as necessary. Others claim that clans believe having too many mages in a clan is a recipe for disaster, so young mages are abandoned or killed.

  • Minaeve, a young elven woman in Dragon Age: Inquisition who was abandoned by her clan
  • multiple mages are found in Zathrian’s unnamed clan in Nature of the Beast during Dragon Age: Origins
  • Merrill discusses how mages will be moved between clans in Dragon Age 2
  • Notable Clan Firsts include the elven mage Inquisitor in Dragon Age: Inquisition, Merrill in Dragon Age 2 and the Dalish Elf Origin in Dragon Age: Origins, and Lanaya of the unnamed clan in Nature of the Beast during Dragon Age: Origins

9 City: Mages Are Sent To The Circle

Young Elves in the Alienage who start to exhibit magical abilities are eventually identified by a Templar and are forcefully taken to the local Circle. This was the case for Fiona, Alistair’s mother and a Grey Warden mage.

The Circle was one of the human traditions that the city Elves had to adopt when they submitted during the Exalted March. It had a more sinister motive, however. If magical Elves were allowed to stay with their community, the culture would have stayed more intact, which humans couldn’t allow.

  • if you choose to play a Mage in Dragon Age: Origins, you are sent to the Circle regardless of race
  • Fiona, who appears in Dragon Age: Inquisition, is an elf who was a circle mage before becoming a Grey Warden

8 Dalish: Vallaslin

The Dalish coming-of-age ritual is when they are tattooed with Vallaslin (translated into Common as ‘Blood Writing) on their face. The ceremony has no assigned age - it is performed when the young man or woman is mature enough. They have to be able to complete the process in total silence; crying out in pain is an indication that the Elf is not yet mature enough to handle it.

Each design represents a particular god or goddess from the Elven pantheon. The Vallaslin appeared as early as Dragon Age: Origins, but it wasn’t clarified which style correlated to which God until Dragon Age: Inquisition.

  • Dalish characters have Vallaslin in every Dragon Age game - for example, Merrill in Dragon Age 2, Zathrian in Dragon Age: Origins, and Hawen in Dragon Age: Inquisition
  • young clan members are shown not to have tattoos, like Minaeve in Dragon Age: Inquisition, who was abandoned by her clan at a young age

7 City: Tattoos, But Not Religious

In Dragon Age: Origins, gamers who chose to play a city Elf could tattoo their character with all the same face tattoos as the Dalish Elf character could. It was later clarified (retconned) that the city Elves don’t wear Vallaslin. If they are tattooed, it’s through normal human methods with ink, and not necessarily religious.

The process of “blood writing” may have been magical, removing Elven mages from the community might have stunted the practice especially. The NPCs that the Warden meets in the city Elf introduction, or later during the Landsmeet quest, are generally bare-faced.

  • elves who live in the Denerim and Kirkwall Alienages do not have tattoos on their faces
  • a City Elf Origin Warden has the option of choosing from a variety of tattoos

6 Dalish: Recovering Cultural Artifacts Keeps The Culture Alive

The Dalish are deadly serious about preserving their culture. The average clan members use a number of Elven words in day-to-day conversation, and the clan’s Keeper and First are expected to be fluent in the language.

Due to their nomadic lifestyle, Dalish Elves can travel to ruins that were previously forgotten or lost and attempt to recover parts of their culture that were scattered throughout Thedas after the Exalted March. The Dalish Elf origin story in Dragon Age: Origins follows two young Dalish hunters who stumble upon a lost Elven artifact.

  • the Dalish Origin in Dragon Age: Origins features the player and a companion discovering an Eluvian, a very old Elven artifact that they want to bring back to their tribe for its cultural significance
  • during Dragon Age: Inquisition its discussed how the Dalish believe all cultural artifacts belong to all Dalish, and will trade them between tribes
  • in the book Dragon Age: The World of Thedas, Volume 2, it’s discussed how Dalish elves have no written history - it’s entirely passed down orally, meaning that artifacts are all they have for proof

5 City: Vhenadahl Keeps The Culture Alive

One of the last connections that the city Elves have to their racial heritage is the Vhenadahl, a huge tree that grows in the centre of every Elven Alienage. Each alienage has different traditions surrounding the Vhenadahl.

In the DLC “The Darkspawn Chronicles”, the Archdemons particularly emphasizes the destruction of Denerim’s Vhenadahl. It’s not clear whether this is due to the impact it would have on their morale, or some potential magical power it could have, but its importance is clear either way.

  • as mentioned, the Archdemon emphasizes the destruction of the Vhenadahl
  • a Vhenadahl appears in both the Kirkwall and Denerim Alienages in Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age: Origins
  • Sera discusses how the elves in Denerim would “pray” at the Vhenadahl
  • the wood of a Vhenadahl is sometimes used for as a very special material for weapons; in Dragon Age: Awakening, the wood of the Vhenadahl is a Tier 8 material

4 Dalish: Pure(st) Blood

Dalish elves are thought to have the “purest” elven blood compared to city elves and others. Dalish Keepers are said to be descended from the noble elves who lived long ago and once ruled over the Dales, their ancestral homeland. While the Dalish make claims like these, there’s no solid evidence to back it up.

In fact, in the case of “pure” blood, there’s clear evidence against it. That’s because half-elves, known in Thedas as “elf-blooded” people, don’t retain any elvish features. Half-elven characters appear to be entirely human. Their children, regardless of the elven blood of their partner, also look entirely human.

Regarding the ancestral status of Keepers, there’s no clear way to verify it except by word of mouth. If it were the case, surely only certain families would be able to produce mages, since all Keepers are mages. That doesn’t hold true. There might be something to be said that the population is small and that every elf has a drop of noble blood in them somewhere, but that renders the brag to be basically meaningless.

  • elf-blooded characters are entirely human, like Alistair and Slim Couldry from Dragon Age: Origins, Feynriel from Dragon Age 2, and Michel de Chevin and (potentially) Kieran in Dragon Age: Inquisition

3 City: Blood Quantum Doesn’t Matter

City Elves don’t claim to have pure blood; it’s hard to make a convincing argument to yourself, let alone anyone else, that you’re special when you live in squalor. All elves are (generally) welcome in the Alienage, even the elf-blooded people who look human.

There may be some minor tension, since an elf-blooded person’s existence means that an elf from their community was in a relationship with (or violated by) a human, but none of that is the elf-blooded person’s fault. In such a small community, it’s not like people don’t know who they are and why they’re there.

  • Slim Couldry, an elf-blooded man from Dragon Age: Origins, lives in the Alienage among other elves and considers them to be his family/community
  • the skewed power dynamic between noble human men and city elven women can be observed in the City Elf Origin in Dragon Age: Origins; though the Warden manages to free the women, not all are so lucky

2 Dalish: Look Down Upon City Elves

Most City Elves are the descendants of elves who, during The Fall of the Dales, took a truce offered by the Chantry. They stopped fighting and were protected, so long as they converted to the Chantry and accepted human rule.

As a result, it’s not uncommon for Dalish to look down upon those who live in the Alienage. Whether it’s in disgust or pity (or both) depends on the Dalish Elf, but most Dalish do not envy their brothers and sisters in human cities. The cruellest Dalish call City Elves a slur - “flat-ears” - and believe that they are human in spirit, thus they are undeserving of the Dalish’s time.

It’s known that a few Dalish choose to run away from their tribes to live in Alienages, but the rarity of these runners speaks to the kinds of stories the Dalish tell about their history.

  • Keeper Marethari pities the City Elves and their living situation in Dragon Age 2 - she pauses outside the Vhendahl
  • in Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, a Dalish Clan, Clan Virnehn, doesn’t care about the City Elves in Orlais
  • certain characters in Dragon Age: Origins may call the Warden “flat-ears” if they chose the City Elf Origin or Elf Magi Origin

1 City: Look Up To Dalish Elves

City Elves have a fascination with Dalish Elves, similar to the way that humans see them: as a foreign, mysterious entity only described in stories. However, unlike humans, City Elves have an intrinsic connection with the Dalish: they are all elven. How a certain Alienage views the Dalish depends heavily on how successful the humans were at wiping away their culture and raising the next generation in ignorance.

Some see the Dalish as savages or bandits and take pride in the work they do for humans. Others are fascinated and awed by the Dalish elves’ ability to survive. Whichever way a particular group of City Elves falls, they almost always keep the Dalish in mind as a last resort.

​​​​​​​If the Alienage should become too dangerous - for them all or even for just one elf - they can always flee and find a Dalish clan. Elves who anger local nobles, expecting mothers, young people who cannot be contained - all these people may leave their Alienage to find a Dalish Clan.

  • when Keeper Marethari visits the Kirkwall Alienage, they bow to show their respect
  • if the Warden has the City Elf Origin, their father notes that he told the Warden stories about Dalish elves while they were growing up
  • in Dragon Age: Inquisition, Clan Lavellan strives to protect the elves who live in the human city of Wycome
  • in Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, Briala’s father is very proud of his work for humans

NEXT: Dragon Age: Chantry Stories And Their Alternate Tellings