Within the universe of Dragon Age, the Maker is the name of the god that the Chantry and its Andrastians believe in. He is the god of the dominant religion in Thedas, and is the being Andraste believes she saw visions of and thus created the Chant of Light. It is believed that the Maker is all-power and created everything from mortals to spirits, as well as the world and the Fade.
Within Dragon Age's Chantry, it is believed that the Maker turned away from his creations and will not be of any help until humanity proves their worthy of his affection again. Due to this, spreading the Chant of Light and getting all in Thedas to believe in the Maker is the top priority for followers of the religion. However, there are a lot of questions as to what the Maker really could be, or if there is more to this all-powerful god than meets the eye.
What The Chantry Believes About The Maker
According to the Chant of Light, the first world the Maker created was the Fade and his first children were the spirits that he created in his own image. Ultimately, though, the Maker abandoned these creations because they lacked a soul and only knew how to imitate whatever they saw. The Maker's second world was Thedas and its people (though the Chantry believes dwarves were not among his creations). He separated it from the Fade by making the Veil.
It is believed that the spirits grew jealous of the Maker's love for mankind, so they tricked humans into believing in the Old Gods instead of the Maker. This act became known as the "Original Sin" and it made the Maker imprison the Old Gods underground and abandon mankind. He left his Golden City, which lead up to the Second Sin, when magisters of the Tevinter Imperium used knowledge given to them by the Old Gods to barge into the Golden City. Their actions turned the city black and created Darkspawn.
The Maker did fall in love with a mortal woman, a human named Andraste. He bid her come to his side, but instead she wished for him to cast his attention back to mankind. In his name, she led the first Exalted March but was ultimately betrayed by her husband and burned at the stake. This betrayal made the Maker turn his back on mankind once again.
The Chantry continues Andraste's mission to get the Maker to love mankind again, believing that he will if they can get every person in Thedas to believe in the Chant of Light. However, they do believe the Maker has his eyes on true believers and bring them to his side when they pass away. Anyone who does not believe in the Maker, when they die, their soul is stuck wandering in the Fade forever.
Doubts About The Maker
While the Chant of Light is the dominant religion in Thedas, there are plenty of non-believers. The elves, qunari, and human tribes have their own gods and are not keen to give up their beliefs, traditions, and culture for the Chant of Light. The Chantry has only made their enemies more bitter by attempting Exalted Marches, a religious crusade against various groups such as elves and the qunari.
In Dragon Age: Awakening, players could speak to the spirit, Justice, and he mentions that spirits are clueless whether the Maker is real or not, while demons just do not care. He also theorized that some spirits may only believe in the Maker because they have seen him in the dreams of humans. Many demons have claimed the Maker is a lie and there is no Golden City, though it is impossible to tell what is true and what is a lie with demons.
The biggest doubters, of course, are the actual players of Dragon Age. Throughout the games and books, most fans at least believe the Chantry's version of the Maker is not true. This is especially so since it was revealed in Trespasser that Solas himself created the Veil that separated the Fade from Thedas, not the Maker.
Theories About The Maker
There are a ton of theories as to what the Maker is, his story, and his motivations. A popular theory is that the Maker that visited Andraste was just a spirit of Faith (as it would be attracted to her since she prayed often). It is also possible that the Maker still exists, and Andraste just met a spirit that pretended to be him in order to gain worship. Others believe Andraste never had contact with a spirit or the Maker and was in fact an Old God Baby like Kieran since she was born the same year Dumat was slain in the First Blight.
Some fans believe the Maker could be more like an Eldritch horror, something too ancient to understand, and it wants the Chant of Light to be spread so that it can gain more and more power. Within that theory, fans have believed the Golden City was not his throne, but a prison which he escaped. Another idea fans have is that the Evanuris that Solas trapped in the Fade could have made contact with Andraste, and made her believe they were the Maker.
In defense of the Maker being real, many fans turn to the events of Dragon Age: Origins during the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest. Much of what happened in that questline seemed to support the fact that Andraste did see the Maker, and that the Maker was indeed real. However, Tevinter believes Andraste was actually a mage, which supports another theory: That all that happened in the temple was from powerful magic.
As many theories as there are, most believe that BioWare will not lean into any stance when it comes to the Maker. In the past, the game developers have mentioned that the Maker is never going to be shown as completely true or false. However, there is always a small possibility that they could change their minds.
Dragon Age 4 is in development.
