Highlights
- City elves in Dragon Age: Origins face social disadvantages and are treated as second-class citizens by humans, making them the most disenfranchised race.
- City elves have lost touch with their elven heritage and have adopted human traditions and beliefs to survive, creating a new cultural identity.
- Playing as a city elf Warden allows players to experience the challenges and struggles of being an underdog hero, as they rise above oppression and prove themselves in a world that underestimates them.
Not everyone likes their elves to be ancient and gorgeous. Dragon Age: Originsdoesn't drop the ball in this regard, but it isn't a run-of-the-mill setting when it comes to the trope fantasy races. Whether players choose the Dalish Elf or the City Elf origin, Thedas presents them with complicated social dynamics concerning their species, and it's clear the shemlen have the upper hand in this world.
Although the Dwarf Commoner and Dalish Elf backgrounds also represent outcasts of society, the City Elf has the steepest social climb to make. City elves might not seem like they can take much, but they sure pack a punch. Any shem who thinks they know how bad elves have got it doesn't know the half of it—and that's why it's such fantastic fun to play the City Elf origin in Dragon Age: Origins.
10 The Least Elfy Elves
The elves of the alienages have forgotten their gods. They might recognize names like Falon'Din, Andruil, or Dirthamen, but it won't mean much to them. They don't know how to paint vallaslin, let alone survive a forest or herd halla. It's worse than simply forgetting who they are as a people, though.
Slavery has been abolished in Ferelden for some time, but elves are still treated like second-class citizens. They perform menial labor for cruel humans. No matter their profession, everyone feels the disadvantages of being an elf. The Grey Wardens don't care who their recruits are, but in the case of this origin, becoming one seems by far the better choice.
9 Hollow Traditions For Strong People
Even were Dalish practices and beliefs more than mere remnants of elvhenan culture, to an elf in Denerim, they might as well all be fairytales. The traditions they do have draw more from human cultures than elvhen ones. The vhenadahl, the "tree of the People", is the only symbol calling back to what their people once were in the days of Arlathan, and not all alienages have one.
City elves are far too busy with surviving and building a new cultural identity to be bogged down by the culture they lost long ago. Alienage communities are forced to look out for their members daily. In the face of relentless racism and persecution, these elves appreciate each other and the little they possess as best they can.
8 Andrastians, Flat-Ears, And Wannabe Dalish
It makes sense that some city elves would fantasize about the Dalish way of life. Instead of being harassed by the cook in the kitchens of a human manor, answering only to one's clan and the wilds has its appeal. Players will hear about others who left behind the Andrastian ways of the shems to join their nomadic cousins. No one hears from them again, though.
In the beginning, a Tabris Warden only has Andraste to lean on in moments of crisis. But even with a reason to seek out the Dalish, a Grey Warden has no place there, just as they no longer have a future in the Alienage. This leaves Tabris players with an interesting choice: keep the faith with shem beliefs, or follow the dead gods of a people she or he will never join.
7 The Most Disenfranchised People
The fact that the mighty vhenadahl is both a site of prayer and a convenient urinal at the same time says a lot about just how bad life is as a city elf. Though elves look out for each other and try not to bring the shems down on their community, this way of life is unmistakably born of necessity and not by choice.
For players who want an underdog hero, it doesn't get more disenfranchised than playing Warden Tabris. Alienage elves live in poverty and squalor. Players who choose this origin will be called a "knife-ear". They will be mistaken for a servant and bossed around in full Grey Warden regalia. None of it is Elven Glory. Tabris comes from nothing, they are given nothing, and they still move mountains to save a thankless world.
6 City Elves Don't Talk About Themselves
Players will learn a few basic things about city elves during the Unrest in the Alienage quest line regardless of where their Warden hails from. Yet, there is also a palpable lack of information about them, and they aren't forthcoming with Wardens who aren't one of their own. Players who want to learn more have to try city elf life on for size themselves.
This origin is also fantastic as a first playthrough. No one expects to find out that the commanding Grey Warden comes from the slums of Denerim. Given how much emotional fuel this origin feeds into learning how to deeply hate humans, it's satisfying to be able to be the first city elf everyone has to listen to or suffer the consequences.
5 The Tabris Family Is Cursed With Tragedy
Early on, Tabris players learn their mother died at the hands of shemlen guardsmen. They were likely close: Tabris isn't supposed to have any fighting skills, but whatever he or she does know was taught to them by Aida Tabris. It's also implied that this knowledge might be what got her killed and that the Warden might follow in her footsteps into an early grave.
Cyrion Tabris, the Warden's father, is still alive, but he is either sold into slavery or sacrificed in a blood magic ritual if the Warden doesn't save him. Shianni, the Warden's cousin, is brutalized and raped. Loghain and Howe order the cleansing of the Elven Alienage. If anyone has a reason to loathe shems and desperately want to do something about it, it's this elf.
4 Bride Or Groom Have A Different Story
Contrary to the other origins, the City Elf origin has a different story depending on the player's chosen gender. As the groom, Tabris has to rescue his future bride, his cousin, and a few others. For players who enjoy a damsel-in-distress story, this one has a tragic twist, driving home how helpless elves are made to feel.
As the bride, Tabris is one of those taken by Vaughan and his cronies. Though groom Tabris' story is also visceral, as a female city elf, this origin also becomes a satisfying story of revenge and empowerment. A bride Tabris will feel a different kind of helpless rage that is cathartic to conclude by facing Vaughan.
3 Rogues Can Roleplay As City Thieves
Some alienage elves can twirl a kitchen knife, but apart from Tabris, most of them don't know the first thing about fighting. Shems don't like the idea of their servants being armed and dangerous, and playing a rogue Tabris fits in nicely with this circumstance.
Picking pockets might not be vital to self-defense, but considering the size and population of Denerim, learning skills like this also makes sense for a character who grew up here. A lot of rogue-specific skills in general make much more roleplaying sense for players who choose this origin.
2 The Dalish Juxtaposition
To the Dalish, a flat-ear is almost as bad as a shem. Yet, they take in those alienage elves who find their aravels and teach them how to be real elves. City elves didn't grow up with Dalish beliefs, and thus have the perspective of elves who are almost totally unfamiliar with their heritage.
Tabris is in a unique position to give players a chance to contrast how awful the lives of elves have become, but also how isolated and mired in the past the Dalish are. Unlike the Dalish, alienage elves have little reason to share in the characteristic Dalish pride.
1 It Takes A Knife-Ear To Slay An Archdemon
Dwarven society is quite insular, and the Dalish are nomadic exiles by choice. A city elf, though, is raised to be keenly aware that they are just "elven derelicts", as Loghain puts it. As a result, it's very satisfying to pay the shems back, even more so to have all of Thedas owe a city elf Warden a big one.
All of Ferelden knows who Tabris is: the city elf who dealt with the Archdemon of the Fifth Blight. To someone playing a Warden who grew up so severely oppressed, this carries incredible weight. At the end of this elf's tale, Vaughan, Howe, and Loghain could all tell the world just how sorry they are for having underestimated the Hero of Ferelden. But it would require a Mortalitasi.
Dragon Age: Origins is available on PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and macOS.