The Fade In Dragon Age, Explained

The Fade is a dangerous and confusing realm in the Dragon Age series. The Fade takes the main stage in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This is the first game where your actual campgrounds are inside the Fade itself. But what is the Fade, really?

The Fade is this scary, looming realm that gets mentioned thousands of times throughout the Dragon Age series. It’s loosely depicted as the ‘dream realm’ – suggesting that where we go when we dream is real and tangible with the right magic. This article will go into detail about what the Fade really is.

What Is The Fade?

The Fade is a mystical location that is a hotspot for magic. It can only be visited inside one’s own head or by dying.

As the lore goes, people can enter the Fade through sleep. Spirits are found in the Fade. The Fade can be considered the ‘veil’ that separates the living from the dead, where only those with magic can enter.

When the veil is thin or broken, spirits and demons start to enter what we know as reality.

The World of Thedas Volume 1 has a chapter all about The Fade on page 130.

How Do You Enter The Fade?

Most people enter the Fade each time they close their eyes at night, but they have no control and immediately return to the living.

Dreamers are not aware that they are in the Fade and will soon forget. You need to be lucid dreaming to actually walk around and remember.

People of Thedas will ingest lyrium, a powerful and magical mineral, which allows them to lucid dream on a whim.

Dwarves are special in that
they can’t dream
, therefore they cannot enter the Fade. On top of not being able to dream, they are immune to the effects of lyrium, which allows lucid dreaming.

Can You Die In The Fade?

Not many living people wander around the Fade, and for good reason. If you are lucid while dreaming, if you are facing the dangers of the Fade head-on, you will die both in the Fade and real life.

If you get attacked in the Fade while dreaming regularly, you get booted back to your normal body. The magic used to lucid dream prevents that person from returning to their body upon dying in the Fade.

Even if you are lucid dreaming and able to walk around the Fade, you will have no control over what you see and what happens. Only the spirits and demons of the Fade have control.

What Is It Like Inside The Fade?

There are wandering spirits with their stories unfinished. There are demons hungry for blood and spirits waiting for a chance to possess the living. There are even gods, locked away in a very special place.

Visually, the Fade is ever-changing. Spirits can morph your dreams into different human desires. The only thing that remains the same is the view of the Black City at the heart of the Fade.

Dragon Age: The World of Thedas Volume 1 explains that there are different
regions
of the Fade. These regions affect the type of dream a dreamer will have. Fear is one of them.

Only one group of people tried to physically enter the Fade and map it out. This was the Tevinter Imperium. Legends say that the Tevinter’s attempt at mapping out the Fade is what caused Blight to occur.

What Is The Black City?

While inside the Fade and lucid dreaming, it’s said you can see a looming large city in the distance. People call it the heart of the Fade. The elves call it the Eternal City. There are different cultural interpretations of this city, but no one has ever been there.

Chantry followers believe that the city used to be called the Golden City. Their experience of heaven, where the Maker would be.

As the history goes, one of the Maker’s children started worshiping the ‘Old Gods’, causing the Maker to abandon everyone. This would be when the Golden City turned into the Black City.

The ‘Old Gods’ are ancient beings that are no longer. They are depicted as dragons.

To the elves, their trickster god Fen’Harel trapped the elven gods in the Black City to imprison them. Elves are detached from their gods because of this.

The Fade In Relation To The Games

The Fade is introduced in the first Dragon Age game, Dragon Age: Origins.

If you play as a mage in the first game, you get to experience what The Harrowing was really like. The Harrowing is when young mages are forced into the Fade to fight off a demon to prove they have control over their magic.

The first two games’ main concern is with Blight. Cultures around Thedas believe that the Blight and the monsters that come with it are a direct result of corruption within the heart of the Fade.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the veil between the living and the Fade is thinned and enemies behind the scenes are working to merge both realms into one.

It’s a similar case in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. When the veil is thin in a certain area, this allows for demons and spirits to enter our world.