Darkspawn

The darkspawn are a race of mostly-humanoid tainted creatures that dwell in the Deep Roads. According to the Chantry, they were created when the magisters of the Tevinter Imperium opened a portal into the Golden City, tainting the realm of the Maker with their corruption and returning as the darkspawn, their evil transfiguring them into the monsters they became. When they uncover one of the Old Gods, they expose it to the taint, changing it into an Archdemon, which then leads them in an attack against the surface world called a Blight. The darkspawn are perhaps the greatest single threat to all of Thedas; they are bloodthirsty, exceptionally numerous and willing to indiscriminately kill or corrupt all in their path.

Background
According to the Chantry, it is the hubris of men that brought the darkspawn upon the world. They teach that when the magisters of the old Tevinter Imperium entered the Golden City, their sin brought corruption to it. They were cast out, transformed into the hideous monsters known as darkspawn, and forced to flee the light of the sun, retreating into the Deep Roads, growing in number and digging deeper and deeper into the earth until they found the resting place of the Old God Dumat, where he had been imprisoned. Freed from his prison and warped by the taint the darkspawn bore, Dumat became the first of the archdemons and led the darkspawn to lay waste to the world

The dwarves give little credit to Chantry beliefs, but they themselves have no known origin story for the darkspawn. As far as the dwarves are concerned, the darkspawn simply appeared. The darkspawn hordes that invaded the Deep Roads ended up crippling the dwarven empire, leaving only Orzammar and Kal-Sharok, the latter of which was completely isolated from the outside world until recently.

Whether the Chantry's information on the origin of the darkspawn is correct or not is uncertain, but no opposing story of their origin has been put forward.

{{SpoilerDA2|style=short| The Legacy DLC implies the Chantry's beliefs are true, as Hawke encounters an early, sapient darkspawn emissary named Corypheus who declares himself as a Magister of the ancient Tevinter Imperium who, with an unspecified number of other magisters entered the mythical Golden City. However, Corypheus claims that the Golden City had already been blackened before they had arrived. implying the chantry's story is true but there's more to it than what they now.

History
With the fall of the Golden City and the beginnings of the First Blight in 800 TE, a dark age descended onto Thedas as the darkspawn rampaged across the continent, destroying everything in their path. The Tevinter Imperium suffered greatly, losing considerable territory and fracturing under the strain of the invasion, while the subterranean empire of the dwarves was laid waste, with only Orzammar and Kal-Sharok surviving. After nearly a century of hopeless, unending war, the Order of the Grey Wardens was established at Weisshaupt Fortress in 890 TE, and proved instrumental in the defeat of the Archdemon Dumat at the Battle of the Silent Plains. The darkspawn invasion had been beaten, but the species would retreat into the Deep Roads to rebuild and recover. Over the centuries, four more Blights would occur, the latest occurring in 9:30 Dragon (the events of Dragon Age: Origins). Each time, the Blight would be stopped with heavy losses, with the darkspawn destroying entire cities or even kingdoms before being beaten back by the nations of Thedas and the Grey Wardens. Though darkspawn appearances most frequently promote fears of a Blight, a Blight does not occur until an Archdemon is awakened by the darkspawn. Without the Archdemon leading them, darkspawn hordes are much smaller and and less effective in the raids they often launch, but are still dangerous.

Society and culture
Unlike the other major races of Thedas, the darkspawn have very little resembling any form of culture or social organization, and can barely be considered sapient. The only hint at a native culture is their propensity to convert statues into representations of the Old Gods. The average darkspawn possesses no intelligence beyond a simple animal cunning, and they do not possess any language beyond roars and grunts. They are also completely hostile to outsiders; anyone caught venturing into the Deep Roads will be attacked, and anything caught in their path during a raid or a Blight will be mercilessly slaughtered. The only exceptions are those infected with the darkspawn taint; it is rumoured that their weapons and armour are constructed by groups of servile ghouls, as the darkspawn themselves have no capacity to use tools beyond weapons. When not engaged in raids, the darkspawn endlessly search for the sleeping Old Gods, drawn by what they hear as the "song" of the dragons. Should they find one, the taint will transform it into an Archdemon, a guiding intelligence that sends the darkspawn pouring to the surface in a Blight. The higher-ranking darkspawn, mainly Emissaries and Alphas, show far more intelligence than their lower-ranked brethren, often serving as leaders and officers. Emissaries are the only known darkspawn rank able to communicate in a variety of languages, and often serve as mages and messengers in combat, and "diplomats", for the darkspawn, though their capacity for diplomacy is evidently very slim. A much rarer, but much more powerful, rank exists above Alpha, the Omega rank. Only one Omega-ranked darkspawn is ever fought directly, during a random encounter.

The Taint
The darkspawn horde is connected through the taint, functioning as a hive-mind. While high ranking darkspawn (like emissaries or alphas) have a limited influence upon small groups, and the Architect and the Mother also command larger groups yet, only an Archdemon can command the entire horde.

Territory conquered by the darkspawn becomes diseased, a rotting place of twisted creatures infected by the blight. Creatures that come in close or frequent contact with the darkspawn often become diseased themselves, becoming ghouls, e.g., blight wolves or bereskarns. While the blighted creatures often work alongside the darkspawn, most often because of force, their lifespan is such that their use is severely limited. Even a ghoul's lifespan can usually be measured in months.

Ghouls serve as assistants to their darkspawn masters, often seen as crafters or smith aids. They are far more human than darkspawn, but show signs of insanity and schizophrenia as their body is succumbed to and rotted away by the taint. Females are typically kept alive, however, in order to morph them into brood mothers to expand the horde further. Males are used as food and killed once their effective labor is used up.

It seems that the taint suppresses higher function over time, causing those infected to go mad and potentially cannibalistic. It also allows the tainted to feel the thoughts of the Old Gods. The Joining ritual dramatically slows the corruption of the taint in Grey Wardens, but after about thirty years the major effects of corruption set in. When a Grey Warden begins to hear the call of the Old Gods, they set off into the Deep Roads to fight to the death before their mind is overtaken. The darkspawn find the Old Gods' call pleasurable, compelling them to seek out the Old Gods. Because the Darkspawn are creatures born of the taint, this is likely the reason why they are incapable of higher thought.

Reproduction
{{DAOSpoiler| As a species, the darkspawn are asexual, with the majority, if not all, of their kind being unable to reproduce. This task is left to a specific form of ghoul, referred to as broodmothers. The broodmothers are prisoners, captured from surface raids and incursions into the Deep Roads, and while male prisoners eventually die, females face a fate far worse. Infected by the taint and forced to consume the flesh of their fellows, those that survive this process undergo a horrific transformation and become broodmothers, massively swollen creatures that exist to breed more darkspawn. A single broodmother is capable of giving birth to thousands, if not tens of thousands of darkspawn during their lives, and each race produces a different type of darkspawn. Humans produce hurlocks, dwarves produce genlocks, elves produce shrieks, and Qunari produce ogres. Darkspawn sometimes have features similar to the race their broodmother once was, e.g., shrieks have similar ears to elves, hurlocks and genlocks resemble humans and dwarves, respectively, in size, and ogres, like most Qunari, have horns. Newborn darkspawn look more or less like the Children.

The Disciples
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Trivia

 * In the downloadable content The Darkspawn Chronicles, the player assumes the role of a Hurlock Vanguard in an alternate storyline in which the Warden died during the Joining.
 * According to the Dragon Age lore, darkspawns are soulless creatures, thus making them immune to spirit damage. However, darkspawn encountered in-game are not immune.
 * The origins of the Darkspawn share strong similarity to J. R. R. Tolkien's Orcs and Trolls. Just as the Archdemons were formed from corruption, as were the main antagonists of Middle Earth, Sauron and Morgoth. Darkspawn were formed as "dark mockeries of men, elves, and dwarves", just as Orcs were formed as mockeries of elves.
 * Darkspawn also share similarities to a group of races from Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time called Shadowspawn, sharing similar naming, of both their generic names and the names of their species, the most common variant of Shadowspawn being Trollocs.