Elvhenan

Elvhenan, meaning "place of our people" in the elven language, was the civilization of the elves, or elvhen, in the time when elves were reportedly still immortal and the dominant race on the surface of Thedas. Elvhenan covered most of Thedas.

Background


Elvhenan's political, economic and cultural centre was the great city of Arlathan, or ar lath’an, meaning "this place I love". Arlathan was located in a great forest in the north of Thedas, not far from where the Tevinter Imperium first emerged. The Imperium was to be the cause of its downfall and of centuries of slavery for the elves, during which time much of the lore and history of ancient Elvhenan was lost. What little remains is mainly in the memories of the Keepers of the Dalish elves, who hold the responsibility of gathering, remembering and teaching the lost lore, passing it down from generation to generation through the oral tradition rather than through written media.

Culture


The life of the ancient elves was leisurely: the immortal have no need to hurry. Elven settlements included galleries and amphitheaters in which elves could while away some of the endless time they had at their disposal. And at the centre of the ancient elven world stand the great city of Arlathan, a place of knowledge and debate, where the best of the ancient elves would go to trade knowledge, greet old friends, and settle disputes that had gone on for millennia.

Uthenera
While the ancient elves did not die, the oldest of the elves were said to be weary of life. Memories became too much to bear, and rather than fade into complacency, they voluntarily stood aside to let newer generations guide their people. This practice was known as uthenera, or "the endless dream".

History
"And thus was mighty Arlathan cast down, its people swallowed by darkness—never to rise again."

Presumably elves had already existed on Thedas for some time, but the elven calendar dates events from the founding of Arlathan 8,400 years before the Dragon Age. The start of Elvhenan's fall can probably be dated to the crowning of the first Archon of the Tevinter Imperium nearly six and a half millennia later in what came to be known as 1 TE.

Elven lore holds that the humans first arrived from Par Vollen to the north. They are thought to have arrived around 4,500 years after the founding of Arlathan, and nearly 2000 years before the official foundation of the Tevinter Imperium. For some time, humans and elves interacted and traded peaceably. The elves named the humans shemlen, or "quicklings", because, in comparison to the immortal elves, their lives blinked by in an instant. To the elves, humans appeared brash, warlike and impatient. Even worse, the elves proved susceptible to human diseases, and for the first time in history, elves died of natural causes. Furthermore, elves who spent time with humans found themselves aging. The ancient elves moved to close Elvhenan off from the humans, for fear that this quickening effect would crumble their civilization.

However, the elves' attempted retreat into isolation only facilitated the expansion of the Tevinter Imperium and it continued to gain territory, enslaving any captured elves as it did so. The first “dreamers” learned the use of lyrium to enter the Fade from elven captives, and these dreamers later became the first of the Imperium’s ruling magisters.

Little is known about how or why the Tevinter Imperium came to conquer the great city of Arlathan, but elven lore tells that, rather than fight, the elves chose to flee and that with magic, demons, and even dragons at their behest, the Tevinter magisters used their great destructive power to force the very ground to swallow Arlathan whole, destroying eons of collected knowledge, culture, and art. As the Tevinter Imperium continued to spread over Thedas, Elvhenan fell and the elves were enslaved, losing their lore and supposedly losing their immortality. It was to be centuries before the elves were freed by Shartan and Andraste and found a new homeland in the Dales.

In Witch Hunt DLC, it is revealed that several ancient elves who fled Arlathan, sought refuge in the ancient thaig of Cad'halash. However, when Kal-Sharok learned of this, they attacked Cad-halash and destroyed it in order to cover all the evidence and not jeopardize the alliance of the dwarves with the Imperium.

Language
Along with their lore, much of the language of the ancient elves was lost with the fall of Elvhenan and the long enslavement of the elves by the Tevinter Imperium. Some words survive, however, and are used by modern day elves, primarily the Dalish.

Religion
Ancient elves worshipped a pantheon of five gods and four goddesses. Their religion also mentions another set of gods called the "Forgotten Ones", the enemies of the elven pantheon. Only Fen'Harel, the trickster god of the elven pantheon, was able to walk freely between both groups. Elven legend attributes the failure of their gods to intervene in the fall of Elvhenan to Fen'Harel, who, it is claimed, deceived both the elven pantheon and the Forgotten Ones, trapping the former away in heaven and the latter in the abyss, where they could no longer influence events in the mortal world.

Trivia

 * During the Dalish Elf Origin, Paivel will recite another poem about uthenera.
 * During their campaign, the Warden can discover two Elven Ruins (one only in the Dalish Elf Origin) with architecture and decoration that mixes human and elven styles, implying that, in some places, elements of the culture of Elvhenan survived beyond the human conquest.
 * When you first meet Merrill in the quest Long Way Home and comment on her magic abilities after the first battle, she mentions that all elves had the "gift"(magic) in the days of Arlathan. However like their immortality, it's only known in stories instead of in records or other evidence.