Freemen of the Dales

A group of rebels that split off from both sides of the Orlesian civil war, the Freemen of the Dales were an annoyance to the Inquisition in several locations. When the War of the Lions kicked off, there were soldiers on both sides who quickly grew tired of being expected to die for someone else’s right to sit on a throne. While I can absolutely sympathize with this line of thinking, the Freemen were a bit extreme for my tastes. They were hostile to everyone else, including the Inquisition, and repeatedly attacked us on sight. That, and they were being used by Corypheus to advance his own agenda. They started by taking parts of the Dales, mainly in the Exalted Plains and Emerald Graves, away from Orlais and controlling them independently. The Freemen were always loosely organized, with no central power running the entire operation, so it was simple for Cory to install his own Venatori into their various groups and nudge them in the directions he wanted them to go. In the Exalted Plains, this included collecting corpses so they wouldn’t be burned and moving them to places where the Veil was thin so they would rise as undead. When that is your strategy, your original motivations kind of don’t matter anymore. The organization was ultimately decimated by the Inquisition, and is no longer a threat to anyone.