Hi. I’m Dan Tudge, the Executive Producer and Project Director on Dragon Age: Origins. Welcome to my first blog entry for IGN.

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Over the next few months, I’m going to give you a crash course about the game and I’ll begin today by introducing you to the Grey Wardens, a secretive brotherhood that spans the ages.

Throughout the history of Thedas, there have been multiple Blights: events of incredible evil when hordes of darkspawn rose up from beneath the surface and spread across the world, slaughtering and enslaving anything in their path. With each Blight, the civilized world was brought to the brink of complete destruction, and it is only thanks to the Grey Wardens that the darkspawn were defeated and driven back underground.

The Grey Wardens are an ancient order of fearsome elite warriors, made up of only the most physically and mentally superior of all civilized races. Their sole purpose: to destroy all darkspawn and drive back the Blight. They are the last line of defense against a Blight, and are said to possess the unique ability to sense the presence of darkspawn, and have a greater knowledge than anyone else in Thedas of tactics used to combat these twisted creatures. The Grey Wardens were once a large and magnificent organization, the sight of them arriving in glorious numbers wherever darkspawn threatened was truly a sight to behold. They were revered by the people, and the nations of humanity once gladly supported them with food, equipment and a steady stream of recruits.

But it has been four hundred years since the last Blight, and many now think the Grey Wardens to be irrelevant and obsolete. Their numbers have dwindled to near extinction, and although they are now seen to be only a relic of a once great and proud league of heroes, the few remaining Grey Wardens still keep up their training and maintain a watchful eye for signs of another Blight.

They now believe another Blight is at hand. Fearing that their numbers are too few to defend Thedas once more, they will turn to you for help. When you create your character in Dragon Age: Origins, your choice of Origin Story will determine how you are recruited into the Grey Wardens, and your personal motivations for joining them. To become a Grey Warden is to be endowed with great power and responsibility, to battle the deadliest threats imaginable, and to free a nation from the Blight.

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I’ll leave you this week with the mantra of the Grey Wardens.

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Grey Warden’s Motto
"In war, victory
In peace, vigilance
In death, sacrifice"