Andraste

AKA:
The Bride of the Maker
Our Lady Redeemer
Glowy Woman?

It is not an exaggeration to say that Andraste is the single most important human to have ever walked Thedas. Despite this, her history is, at this point, a woven knot of fact and myth that is almost impossible to unravel. There are even disagreements about something as basic what color her hair was. Whatever the truth actually is, her actions shook the very foundations of our world. Born the daughter of a barbarian chieftain in ancient Denerim, Andraste was taken and enslaved by the Tevinter Imperium when she was young, but eventually escaped back to her home. She married a powerful leader named Maferath, uniting several tribes together into one of the largest martial forces of the time. Throughout her life, Andraste had dreamt of a being called the Maker, and after her enslavement, she began to believe that He was the sole, supreme deity of our world and that He spoke through her. When the old gods of her people would not hear her prayers, He did. And, while He offered her an immediate place at His side, she instead convinced Him to help her people first. Spurred by the Maker’s blessings, communicated through Andraste, her tribes rallied around her, and the first Exalted March began. Freeing slaves as she went, Andraste’s force tore through Tevinter, which had been weakened by the recently ended First Blight, and she eventually joined with the elven slave leader Shartan to rout the Imperium’s forces at the Battle of Valarian Fields. It was then that her husband earned his now infamous nickname. Maferath the Betrayer, having grown jealous of the adoration shown to his wife, negotiated with the Imperium’s leader, Archon Hessarian, to have her kidnapped. She was taken to the Tevinter capital of Minrathous and burned at the stake. Her follower Havard was able to recover her ashes, however, and returned them to her homeland.

After her death, Andraste’s words were recorded and codified into the Chant of Light, and eventually the Chantry we know today was born. Now, over 900 years later, the Chantry is by far the dominant religion on Thedas, with most of the world’s humans following the teachings of Andraste. In the eyes of the faithful, she was not merely a prophet who spoke the words of the Maker, she was His bride. Because she was betrayed and killed unjustly by men, He turned His back on mankind, never to return until the Chant of Light has been spread to every corner of the world. She remains with Him, the only human allowed in His heavenly presence, still trying to convince Him to take mercy on the rest of us. I am sometimes called the Herald of Andraste because when I fell out of the Fade at Haven, I was guided out by an unknown woman. Though I have repeatedly renounced any holy authority, and we later learned that the woman was actually Divine Justinia V, not Andraste, the rumor had already become an indelible part of my story. So, somehow, an agnostic elf mage has been woven into the story of Andraste. The Maker does move in mysterious ways, I suppose.