The Warden

The Warden is the player controlled protagonist of Dragon Age: Origins. The Warden can come from one of a wide spectrum of Ferelden's social strata, from the lowliest castes of dwarves and elves to the height of dwarven royalty and human nobility. After playing one of six unique origins, the Warden will join the Grey Wardens and deal with the deadly threats facing the land of Ferelden.

Character Creation
The player begins by selecting the Warden's gender, race (human, elf or dwarf), and class (warrior, rogue or mage), though the mage class is not available to dwarves. The player then picks an origin, from whatever origins are available, before choosing a first name, customizing the character's appearance, taking the character’s portrait and choosing a soundeset. Next, attributes and skills are selected. If playing as a warrior or rogue talents are selected next, while mages select spells instead. Finally, the player selects their preferred difficulty level and the story begins.

Surname
While the player can select the first name of the character freely, each origin has a set surname:


 * Human Noble: Cousland
 * Human Mage: Amell
 * Elf Mage: Surana
 * City Elf: Tabris
 * Dalish Elf: Mahariel
 * Dwarf Noble: Aeducan
 * Dwarf Commoner: Brosca

Starting Abilities
Each character begins the adventure with two specific skills and one talent or spell already known. Additionally, one skill and two talents or spells are chosen at character creation. The free starting abilities depend on class and origin.

Warrior
 * All warriors get one point in Combat Training. The second skill and the free talent depend on the origin.
 * Dalish Elf: Survival, Pinning Shot
 * City Elf: Coercion, Dual-Weapon Sweep
 * Dwarf Commoner: Stealing, Dual-Weapon Sweep
 * Human Noble and Dwarf Noble: Improved Combat Training, Shield Bash

Rogue
 * All rogues get Poison-Making and Dirty Fighting. The second free skill depends on the origin:
 * Dalish Elf: Survival.
 * City Elf: Coercion.
 * Dwarf Commoner: Stealing.
 * Human Noble and Dwarf Noble: Combat Training (Human Noble gets Improved Combat Training on the XBox 360).

Mage
 * Mages start with Herbalism, Combat Tactics, and Arcane Bolt.

Story


After the origin story is played out, The Warden is sought out by Duncan, the leader of Ferelden's recently reformed Grey Wardens, to join them and aid King Cailan Theirin and his troops against an upcoming army of darkspawn in Ostagar. This is where the main plot of Dragon Age: Origins begins. The Warden's main task is to gather an army to defeat the Blight. However, they must also deal with political tensions threatening to distract the country from the impending Blight.

The actions of The Warden are entirely decided by the player. But unlike many other cRPGs, choices are not tracked by a single meter or bar, rather each of the companions have their own meter that reflects how they feel about The Warden's actions.

Level
As is typical for roleplaying games, a character's level will display the progress of the character's career and personal power. When the character levels up, certain things are automatically increased (health and stamina/mana), while other things (talents and attributes) must be manually increased, unless Autolevel is activated. There is currently a "hard" level cap of 25. However (since enemies do not re-spawn), there is only enough content in the game (including DLC) to reach between levels 17-24, depending on how many side quests and Codex entries are completed, while a well used rogue can gain the party significant experience over the course of their adventures by picking locks and disarming traps. Level 25 can only be reached by exploiting various experience bugs.

As new content is released (raising the soft cap) it is assumed that the hard cap will also be raised.

Equipment
Player characters have the following equipment slots: Additionally, there is a toggle to switch between two weapon sets.

The Archivist Belt can only be worn by the Warden. It grants an additional 25 EXP for every codex entry discovered by the player, for a total of 75 EXP each.

Quotes

 * "Do not look a gift Warden in the mouth."
 * "My Warden-sense is tingling."
 * "Darkspawn! Destroy the fiends!" (when encountering Darkspawn with the "mystical" voice)
 * "Oh, let's just deal with this and move on..." (when encountering Darkspawn with the "suave" voice)
 * "They're all so eager to die, aren't they?" (when encountering enemies with the "suave" voice)
 * "Ugh... I was hoping for a challenge" (when encountering Darkspawn with the "cocky" voice)
 * "Darkspawn. Kill them all!" (when encountering Darkspawn with the 'violent' voice)
 * "Lifeless Bastards!" (when encountering Undead with the 'violent voice')
 * "It's a massacre, no one gets out alive!" (with the 'violent voice')
 * "Look how desperate you are, it's pathetic!" (with the 'violent voice')

Dialogue

 * Alistair: "One good thing about the blight is how it brings people together."
 * Warden: "You are a very strange man."

--
 * Morrigan: "'Tis cold in my tent, all alone..."

-- --
 * Warden : "Then get a thicker blanket."
 * Morrigan: "I have a thought."
 * Warden: "Just the one?"


 * Leliana: "I think I'll retire to my tent."
 * Warden: "I think I'll stay up and write in my journal."

--


 * Janar: "You made a hole in my wall!"
 * Warden: "Yes. You should get it fixed."

--


 * Doorman: "Password?"
 * Warden: "The grey nug flies north for the winter?"
 * Doorman: (No response)

--

-- --
 * Sten: "You are a Grey Warden. So it follows that you can't be a woman."
 * Warden: "Why not?"
 * Sten: "Women are priests, artisans, shopkeepers, or farmers. They don't fight."
 * Warden: "That's not a universal truth. Some women fight."
 * Sten: "Why would women ever wish to be men? That makes no sense."
 * Warden: "They don't wish to be men. They wish to be women who fight."
 * Sten: "Do they also wish to live on the moon? That's as attainable."
 * Warden: "I'm a woman, and I'm fighting."
 * Sten: "One of those things can't be true. A person is born: qunari, or human, or elven, or dwarf. He doesn't choose that. The size of his hands, whether he is clever or foolish, the land he comes from, the color of his hair. These are beyond his control. We do not choose, we simply are."
 * Warden: "But a person can choose what to do."
 * Sten: "Can they? We'll see."
 * {Dwarf Noble origin] Mercenary Captain: "Where is the shield?!".
 * Warden: "The shield is a metaphor. It is in all of us."


 * Kid: "He's a Chanter. He can only sing the Chant of Light...
 * Lothering Chanter:' "And so Rajmael in the heathen temple recanted. "Speak only the Word; Sing only the Chant. Then the Golden City in thine," spoke Andraste
 * Warden:' "The Maker in a righteouse ass. Anything to say to that?" // "Chanter says, "What?""