The Mother

“You took that beautiful music from us, and left us nothing!”

The Mother is a unique awakened broodmother who leads the darkspawn attacking the Arling of Amaranthine. She used to be a female human before she was turned into a broodmother.

Background

This section contains spoilers for:
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening.

The Mother is a broodmother who was freed from the call of the Old Gods by the Architect. However, contrary to the Architect's expectation, the Mother was not grateful, instead driven to insanity by the deprivation from her "sweet music" and the realization that she had become a monster, and so she strives to re-connect herself and her loyal darkspawn to the Calling, acting in direct opposition to the Architect's goals.

Involvement

Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening

This section contains spoilers for:
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening.

The Mother controls one faction of the Disciples as well as a large number of unawakened darkspawn. Most importantly, the Mother is the one breeding the Children. The Mother begins sending Darkspawn to assault the Arling of Amaranthine as part of her conflict with the Architect. To remove any obstacles preventing her from confronting the Architect, she attempts to eliminate the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. To remove the Warden-Commander, she dispatches one of her disciples, The First, to strand the Wardens in The Fade by luring them into a trap at the Blackmarsh. The Mother deliberately fails to disclose that the First will also be trapped there, believing she is doing him a favour by allowing him to 'hear the song again'. She also charges another disciple The Lost with defending Kal'Hirol where she houses several unawakened broodmothers who provide darkspawn troops for her. However, although the Architect's darkspawn are repulsed, the mother's Darkspawn are slain by the Grey Wardens in the aftermath. With her power base badly weakened, the Mother launches an all out offensive to eliminate the Grey Wardens. The Mother unleashes a horde of darkspawn on the City of Amaranthine to lure the Wardens out, while sending another force led by The Herald to lay siege to Vigil's Keep.

Eventually the Warden-Commander and the Grey Wardens attack the Mother's own stronghold of Drake's Fall beneath the Dragonbone Wastes, following in the wake of the Architect's own attack. The Warden-Commander confronts the Mother in The Nest, where she reveals that it was the Architect who was responsible for turning the Old God, Urthemiel into an Archdemon through a botched attempt at an awakening Joining thus triggering the Fifth Blight. The Mother's efforts prove futile and she is slain by the Wardens.

Strategy

See The Mother (strategy).

Quotes

(regarding the Architect) "He claims he wishes the darkspawn to be free. What he truly wants is to CORRECT them!"
The Mother: "Am I not beautiful?" (laughs)

Trivia

In Jade Empire, another BioWare game, there is a creature called 'The Mother' that bears similar traits - a corpulent matriarchal entity of a race of twisted humanoids ("Cannibals"), begetting a legion of 'offspring', with the desire to wreak havoc upon the land on the surface.
It is never explain as to why The Architect was motivated to free her or what his purpose was in creating a freed Broodmother.
She is the only human Broodmother seen so far.
She is the only Broodmother who seems to be able to use magic as she "gave" The First the magic to send the Warden Commander into the Fade in Black Marsh and is able to banish The Architect's projection.

Bugs

Some experience the cutscene of the Mother's death being replayed in an endless loop, preventing the credits from being shown. pc Hitting Esc repeatedly may end the cycle. xbox360Pressing the start button several times seems to end the loop.

The Mother

Contents