Mage-Templar War

The Conflict

Prelude

Kirkwall Rebellion
Following the deaths of Viscount Marlowe Dumar and his son during the First Battle of Kirkwall in 9:34, Meredith Stannard, the knight-commander of Kirkwall's templars, assumed control of the city, inciting discontent amongst both the citizenry and the mages. Meredith's sanctions against the latter became increasingly harsh over the succeeding years, while members of the nobility began to object to her rule of the city, many wishing for one of the Hawke Twins to become Viscount.
Meredith's sanctions against the mages were strongly opposed by First Enchanter Orsino, who publicly declaimed the knight-commander and believed Meredith was losing her mind, seeing maleficarum where none existed. Grand Cleric Elthina attempted to moderate the clashes between the two and refused to pick a side in the conflict. The Divine took notice of the growing tensions and the Resolutionist presence in the city. She sent an agent to assess the danger and warn Elthina to leave Kirkwall, though the Grand Cleric was unwilling to abandon her flock.
Tensions reached a peak, and exploded into violence due to the actions of the apostate Anders in 9:37. During another confrontation between Meredith and Orsino in Lowtown, Anders declared that he would no longer allow the templars to persecute mages and caused an explosion that destroyed the Kirkwall Chantry and killed all those inside, the Grand Cleric included, thus removing the possibility of compromise. Furthermore, as Anders did not contain the explosion, deadly debris from the blast also rained over half of Kirkwall, creating more chaos.
Claiming that the people would demand blood, Meredith immediately invoked the Right of Annulment and the Hawke Twins were forced to pick sides in the conflict. The city erupted into chaos as mages and templars clashed, some of the former resorting to blood magic, becoming abominations and unleashing demons onto the streets. The violence culminated in a confrontation at the Gallows, the city's Circle of Magi, ending with most of Kirkwall's Circle, including First Enchanter Orsino, dead.
While Templar reinforcements arrived at Kirkwall to suppress further resistance, news from escaping mages of what had occurred spread to other Circles. Outraged that the templars of Kirkwall would invoke the Right of Annulment to justify the extermination of an entire Circle for the crimes of one apostate, some Circles revolted, while others were close to doing so. In response, the Templar Order cracked down, further restricting mage freedoms in an attempt to quell further disturbance.
Despite this, the College of Enchanters, meeting for the last time in Cumberland before being disbanded in 9:38, voted against secession from the Chantry at the urging of Senior Enchanter Wynne, in opposition to the motion tendered by its newly elected Grand Enchanter Fiona. Nonetheless, many of the Libertarian faction, who wished for independence, continued to encourage mages to rebel.
Fearing the possibility of a mage-templar conflict igniting within Orlais, Empress Celene Valmont I appealed to the Divine to take action and end the war before it began before she would be forced to utilize her own military to fight the conflict within her own empire.
Among The White Spire Circle in Val Royeaux, tensions continued to mount throughout the following year. The Divine, Justinia V, sought to use her position to reform the Circle of Magi and thereby bring an end to the troubles, but was hindered by both the templars and the mages, culminating with Jeannot, one of the White Spire's senior enchanters, attempting to assassinate her in 9:39 Dragon, despite her mage-sympathetic views. In response, Lord Seeker Lambert took control of the White Spire Circle and its templar contingent in order to attempt to bring matters under control.
Revolt at the White Spire
Archmage Wynne, acting on Justinia V's personal orders, took her estranged son Rhys, a senior enchanter of the White Spire; his friend Adrian and the templar Knight-Captain Evangeline to the Adamant Fortress in order to save her friend, Pharamond, a Tranquil who had become an abomination. In freeing Pharamond, he told the party that he had managed to find a way to reverse the Rite of Tranquility.
Presenting this information before Justinia V, it having already been sent to each of the fifteen Circles, and against strong objections from Lord Seeker Lambert, the Divine concluded that a conclave of first enchanters must meet, ostensibly to hear from Pharamond and to discuss the findings. Eleven of the fifteen first enchanters who could make the meeting in time arrived, along with the Grand Enchanter Fiona and Wynne, Rhys and Adrian. Watched by the templars, the Grand Enchanter nonetheless sought another vote to separate the Circle from the Chantry. Before the vote could be taken, the meeting was disrupted by Lord Seeker Lambert, who on presenting news that Pharamond had been murdered and the bloodstained knife found in the quarters of Rhys, attempted to disband the Conclave. Unknown to everyone, the murder was committed by Adrian, who knew that Wynne would've convinced the Circle to vote against independence once again, thus forcing Wynne to abandon her position of compromise for the sake of her son. Suspecting that Rhys was being framed, the mages refused to stand down, including Wynne, and the Lord Seeker ordered his templars to attack.
At first the mages fought in defense, but when a templar killed a mage who tried to surrender, they attacked in fury and killed several templars. Several of the first enchanters were slain, most were imprisoned, including Rhys, and only Wynne and Knight-Captain Evangeline managed to escape. They returned to White Spire to rescue those imprisoned with the assistance of the golem, Shale, and Leliana, an agent of the Divine. The Divine herself ordered Lord Seeker Lambert and a number of his templars to meet with her, a ruse to try and ensure the rescue succeeded.
Evangeline, Wynne and Shale succeeded in destroying those phylacteries contained in the White Spire vault, including those of the surviving first enchanters, while Leliana led those imprisoned to safety. In an echo of the rebellion of the Kirkwall Circle, other mages of White Spire rose up and fought their templar jailers. By the time Lord Seeker Lambert returned to the White Spire, most of the templars had been slaughtered.
Retreat to Andoral's Reach
The surviving first enchanters, the Grand Enchanter among them, retreated to the fortress of Andoral's Reach. Most of the fifteen Circles rose against the templars, with thousands of mages gathering at Andoral's Reach in the following months. It is predicted that with hundreds of mages manning the battlements, they could fend off an army ten times their size.
About a month after the Battle of White Spire, a vote for independence was once again proposed by the Grand Enchanter. As several first enchanters were either killed or absent, the mages were represented in the conclave by their fraternities, while they vowed to whichever decision they were going to take, they were all going to abide by it, be it submission or rebellion. The Loyalists insisted on submitting to the Chantry, arguing that they cannot defeat the templars, an argument most of the smaller fraternities chose to side with. The larger fraternities, the Liberitarians and the Aequitarians, voted to fight, winning the vote, arguing that submission would impose harsher conditions for all Circle mages.
While the vote passed, it did so by a very slim margin. The other half of the mages who voted against secession were soon forced to fight the rebel mages, and united under First Enchanter Vivienne de Fer of the Montsimmard Circle. They identified themselves as "Loyalist" mages, wishing to reinstate the Circles and end the war. Meanwhile, the "Isolationist" mages, true to their name, chose to go into hiding rather than fight.
Templars and Seekers Rebel
In 9:40 Dragon, in response to Justinia V's interference at the White Spire, Lord Seeker Lambert declared the Nevarran Accord, which had led to the Seekers and the Templars submitting to the Divine and establishing the Circle of Magi, to be null and void. The Seekers of Truth and the Templar Order they commanded would no longer be under the authority of the Chantry. At the time of this declaration, a large Templar host was about three days march from Andoral's Reach. The Lord Seeker predicted that once the mage rebellion was defeated, the Chantry would be forced to replace the Divine and reach a new agreement with the Seekers and Templars. Lambert vanished shortly after annulling the accord without a trace. Many templars assumed he had been assassinated by the mage rebellion in retaliation for his actions at the White Spire.
Following the disappearance of Lambert van Reeves, Lucius Corin succeeded him as Lord Seeker and led the Templar Order in the Mage-Templar War.
With neither side under the authority and regulations of the Chantry, the Circle of Magi and the Templar Order along with the Seekers prepared for all out war with each other.
Annulment of the Circle of Dairsmuid
In Rivain, at the capital city of Dairsmuid, the Right of Annulment was invoked on the Circle of Dairsmuid with the Seekers citing that the mages freely interact with their families and training females mages as seers. First Enchanter Rivella led the defense, using the skills she learned from her father, Captain Revaud of the Felicisima Armada. The templars and Seekers slew all mages inside, but not without suffering heavy casualties.
Chantry Mediation
By 9:40 Dragon, the Andrastian Chantry was crumbling, with over nine hundred years of relative stability shattered. All the Circles of Magi had separated from the Chantry. While some of the Seekers remained loyal to the Chantry and the reigning Divine, others - as well as many of the Templars - rebelled and left Chantry oversight to hunt and fight mages on their own terms. Some, such as the loyalist mages and templas of Hasmal, elected to join the Grey Wardens, who were willing to offer amnesty to such refugees on the condition they undertook the Joining after their arrival. Many refugees from the Hossberg Circle of Magi elected to travel to Weisshaupt Fortress to partake of the offer.
The Ferelden monarchy offered the rebel mages sanctuary in the Arling of Redcliffe. The mages gratefully accepted the offer; however, the Templar host pursued them across the border. Skirmishes between rebel mages and templars raged throughout the Hinterlands, with the peasantry of Ferelden caught in the middle, fighting in support of one faction or the other, or merely to defend themselves.
The Divine sought to put an end to the conflict, and she assigned those Seekers remaining loyal to her to track down the only two people in all Thedas who might have the power and influence to put an end to the conflict and lead The Inquisition. One of her agents, Leliana, was sent to track down one of them, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden.
Meanwhile, a Seeker still loyal to the Chantry, Cassandra Pentaghast was also sent to find the Hawke Twins, the Champions of Kirkwall. She captured one of their companions, the dwarf Varric Tethras and brought him back to Kirkwall, interrogating him in the old Hawke Estate in an attempt to discover their current whereabouts and the true origins of the war. Varric said he knew nothing of their fate, but that he highly doubted they were dead. Satisfied, Cassandra then took her contingent of Seekers and departed Kirkwall.

Deployment

In 9:41 Dragon, a peace summit was called by the Chantry in an attempt to end the bloodshed, located at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, which was rediscovered in the Frostback Mountains, a decade earlier. The leaders of both factions feared the possibility of a trap and sent emissaries in their place. During the summit, an ancient darkspawn magister called The Elder One infiltrated the Conclave and captured the Divine using enthralled Grey Warden mages. He planned on using her as a sacrifice to power an elven orb he had acquired, which would open the Fade for him to return to the Black City and claim the Maker's throne. However, an unexpected attendant of the Conclave - Merai Lavellan - interrupted the ritual and accidentally made contact with the orb, causing a massive explosion that destroyed the temple, killing thousands, and sundering the Veil on an enormous scale, creating multiple rifts across Thedas. The largest of these rifts was called The Breach, and the Veil's tearing caused legions of demons and spirits to tumble out . The only survivor emerged out of a rift with a mysterious magical mark granted by the orb that glowed with the same magic as the Breach, and was found by loyalist Chantry forces.
Rebirth of the Inquisition
Three days later, Merai Lavellan regained consciousness and was accused by the Hands of the Divine to be the perpetrator behind the Breach. Though Chancellor Roderick wanted the survivor to be taken back to Val Royeaux for trial and execution, Cassandra gave the survivor a chance to prove their innocence by using the mark to seal the Breach. The attempt almost succeeded, stopping the Breach from growing, but not sealing it.
In the intervening three days, the people of Haven began to hear of a mysterious woman seen in the rift from which the survivor emerged, and thus assumed the figure was the prophet Andraste, and labeled Merai her Herald. When the Herald awoke, Roderick was still convinced of their guilt, but Cassandra believed the Herald was sent by the Maker. She and Leliana then invoked the late Justinia V's writ to restore the Inquisition, independent of Chantry control, for the purpose of finding the true perpetrators behind the Breach. In response, Roderick used his influence in the Chantry to denounce the Inquisition, claiming them heretics for harboring the Herald, which the surviving clerics declared blasphemy.

Battlefield

With the best attempt at a peaceful resolution destroyed at the Temple of Sacred Ashes by the Breach's explosion, the war continued to rage across Thedas. The Hinterlands region particularly became a site of fierce conflict with heavy collateral damage caused by both sides. Deserters from both sides actively fought each other in the Hinterlands. Rogue Templars supplied by lyrium smugglers attacked and raped Hinterland peasants they deemed mage sympathizers or suspected of hiding apostates, while spiteful megalomaniacal apostates abandoned Fiona's refuge in Redcliffe to attack anything that dared challenge their power. These extremists killed and pillaged anyone in their way until the Inquisition hunted down and exterminated the extremists.
With the Mage-Templar War wreaking havoc across Thedas, Raleigh Samson was able to rally some of the floundering Templar Order and was made their general. Samson had begun serving Corypheus and introduced his Red Templar Order to the Red Lyrium he supplied. Samson inspired his fellow Red Templars to master the red lyrium with the sole purpose of overthrowing the Chantry that cast them aside and to make the world a place free of the Chantry's oppression. Meanwhile, Lord Seeker Lucius Corin had gone rogue and joined forces with The Order of Fiery Promise to seek out and ambush the remaining Seekers of Truth. The commanders of the Templar Order became corrupted and began corrupting the rest of their subordinates, by force if necessary. Soon, physical changes began to emerge and red lyrium veins appear to manifest on the skin of those exposed. Thus the Red Templar order was born under Corypheus' control.
Red Templar and Venatori Subversion
The Venatori continued to operate covertly throughout Thedas to weaknen any who could oppose the rise of the Elder One's new Tevinter Imperium. Venatori agents infiltrated several locations across Thedas, including the court of King Markus Pentaghast of Nevarra, the Mortalitasi and the court of the Duke of Hunter Fell. They also infiltrated the Royal Palace in Denerim. A senior Venatori operative infiltrated the Imperial army and began to encourage desertions among the troops of both the claimants to the Orlesian throne. Another member of the Venatori manipulated the Grey Wardens of Orlais into performing Blood magic sacrifices that summoned demons and enslaved the Grey Warden mages.
The Red Templars deployed across Thedas, to the Hissing Wastes, the Western Approach, and Emprise du Lion specifically.
As the brutality of the Mage-Templar War escalated, many hunted rebel mages and apostates congregated to Fiona's refuge in Redcliffe. Some of these mage refugees were Tevinter infiltrators who encouraged an alliance with the Tevinter Imperium as the situation with the mage rebellion grew dire.
Tranquil mages, however, were largely ignored by the rebel mages and many were subsequently possessed by force at the hands of the Venatori in order to produce Ocularia. If the mage rebels were even aware of what the Venatori were doing, they were helpless to act after they'd indentured themselves to the Tevinter Imperium.
In a final bid to leave Orlais leaderless, the Venatori secured an alliance with Grand Duchess Florianne de Chalons to assassinate Empress Celene Valmont I during the peace talks at the Winter Palace in Halamshiral and frame her brother Gaspard for the deed. Florianne was successful in sneaking a large number of Venatori into the Palace; however, Gaspard had invited the Inquisitor as his guest. Ambassador Briala and her operatives assisted the Inquisition with combating the Venatori, and through their combined effort, the plot failed.

Outcome

The Inquisition was forced to seek the aid of the Rebel Mages in order to close the Breach. The celebrations, however, were cut short when Corypheus attacked Haven with his army of Red Templars, led by Samson. It meant the end of the Mage-Templar War, but the start of the War Against The Elder One.

Included under Conflict

Mage-Templar War

Included Conflicts

• Mage-Templar War

Conflict Type

War

Battlefield Type

Land

Start Date

940

Ending Date

941

Belligerents

• Templar Order

Strength

Casualties

Objectives