Black Age

The **Black Age** (4:00–4:99) is the fourth named Age in the history of Thedas. The Black Age is named as the **Chantry** calls for retribution against the so-called "Black" Divine of the Imperial Chantry in the Tevinter Imperium.

## Chronology

* **4:00 Black**: Werewolves, long present in Fereldan lore, are said to reappear, assuming the appearance of regular people. The use of dogs as guards able to "detect" werewolves becomes common. An especially bloody chapter of Fereldan history ends with the apparent extinction of the creatures.

* **4:20 Black**: Herbalists re-discover the "medicinal qualities" of elfroot.

* **4:22 Black**: The Antivan King Guiomar the Younger meets his end at the hands of Callisti di Bastion, a soon-to-be legendary member of the Antivan Crows.

* **4:30 Black**: Asha Subira Bahadur, the future Queen of Antiva and "Queen Mother of Thedas," is born in Rivain.

* **4:40 Black–5:10 Exalted**: The Chantry declares a series of four Exalted Marches to destroy the "heathens" within the Tevinter Imperium. All four times, large armies are gathered from around the Chantry's domains, and an assault is launched deep into Tevinter. Every time, however, the Exalted March falls just short of its goal of conquering Minrathous. In the end, the Exalted Marches serve simply to cement the separation between Minrathous and Val Royeaux. The Imperial Chantry starts to form its own dogma and policies, and the groundswell of mages fleeing from southern lands into Tevinter bolsters the Imperium's waning power.

* **4:45 Black**: The most famous elven criminal in Orlais, Alidda of Halamshiral, is arrested for slaying twelve chevaliers. She escapes and kills twenty more, before cutting her throat to avoid capture.

* **4:46 Black**: Divine Clemence I commissions Tevinter fugitive (and former magister) Adralla of Vyrantium to write the Litany of Adralla, a tool to protect against blood mages and demonic possession.

* **4:52 Black**: The Great Riot of Val Royeaux occurs. Some historians allege that the riot was sparked by a performance of the lost play *The Setting of the Light*.

* **4:80–84 Black**: The Orlesian Empire takes advantage of Alamarri's fractured state and crosses the Frostback Mountains to invade the land for the first time. However, the Alamarri teyrns set aside age-old differences to push the Orlesian Empire back. The Orlesians hope to take the port of Highever, but the fortress of Redcliffe holds out too long, and winter in the Frostbacks leaves many Orlesian units without supplies. By the spring of 4:84 Black, most of the invaders pull out or are captured.

* **4:85 Black**: Alamarri legends of Dane and the Werewolf are recorded about a time in the past when the tribes suffered repeated werewolf attacks until the hero Dane managed to slay the lycanthropes. The events these legends refer to most likely took place in the Divine Age.

* **4:90 Black**: The famed Fortress Haine is built in the western Vimmark Mountains by Lord Norbert de la Haine, who uses it to stage numerous failed invasions of Marcher states.

* **4:99 Black**: Divine Justinia II names the next age Exalted as the war with the Tevinter Imperium persists.