A lot of people are excited about the new option to play as qunari in Dragon Age: Inquisition, an option that has never been present in previous games AND that also marks the first ever appearance of female qunari outside the comics! Very exciting!

But some people have also noted that because the qunari aren’t a PC race, we don’t know as much about them as we do others, and the fandom understanding on them isn’t widely covered.

So I’m putting together what I hope is a concise and factual post that’ll help get the basic info across and maybe clear up some things along the way.

Note that this post MIGHT go into some minor spoilers for Dragon: Age Inquisition and the other games, comics, etc.

QUNARI OR KOSSITH?

This is a debate within the fandom and even within the devs to some point, but here’s the cliff notes version so we can get this out of the way pronto!

But for a bit more detailed explanation…

QUNARI is a dual word that refers to A) a follower of the Qun regardless of race, B) a member of the tall, usually horned people from Par Vollen and Seheron, or C) a combo of the two.

Within the context of the lore, this is the word you’ll see used for anyone who even looks tall, has shiny skin, and has horns. Almost every single qunari that is in Thedas does follow the Qun, and as such the people of Thedas associate the word with them.

KOSSITH is a super antiquated term within the lore that refers to the culture that the Qun originated from. Koslun himself would be considered a kossith AND Qunari because he belonged to his culture but became a believer in the Qun.

However, kossith is a term that is largely only used within the lore by the priesthood of the Qun. Practically no one else, even the general Qunari population, know the word. Kossiths and their culture, whether they still live or not, is utterly unimportant to Qunari today who have bigger things to be worried about than ancient history.

So if you’re writing fanfic or RPing or whatever, don’t toss around the word kossith unless you’re playing a really well-educated tamassran.

But!

As a fandom word, it has some stronger ground. Sometimes in conversation, it can be easily confusing to differentiate if the speaker is talking about a character being qunari as in the race or Qunari as in a follower of the Qun.

And if it’s the former, they may not want to be called qunari because it implies the latter in which case we’d probably call them Tal-Vashoth But because all the Tal-Vashoth we have met so far have been of the same race, unless the speaker clarifies that the Tal-Vashoth is elf/human/a nug/etc…

You can see where this gets really confusing for fans who aren’t frickin language experts. :|

So simply put, a lot of people use ‘kossith’ because it’s a simple, one-word explanation to say 'the person I’m talking about is of the tall horned metallic skinned race’ without having to explain whether or not they’re of the Qun. It’s that simple.

For the sake of simplicity, I use “kossith” or “qunari” in lowercase to refer to the race, and “Qunari” in uppercase to refer to the followers of the Qun.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Qunari

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Kossith

I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL THEY’RE SAYING!?

That would be Qunlat

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Qunlat

THE QUNARI IN THEDAS HISTORY

Where’d they come from? What did the Qun arise from? Who are they, exactly?

Those are general questions that, at present, no one really knows both in-game and within the context of the story, even the majority of their own population.

What we DO know is that in the year 6:30 Steel – roughly 300 years before the events of Dragon Age: Origins – the group known as Qunari made landfall in Par Vollen. At this time, that land belonged to the Tevinter Imperium. Remember that part. The Qunari conquer it easily and immediately set it up as a base of operations.

From 6:32 Steel to 7:84 Storm, the Qunari wreak havoc on the majority of Thedas. Though suffering some losses, they take hold in many major areas including Antiva, Rivain, and Seheron, and even as far as the city of Kirkwall. In occupied areas, the survivors were generally gathered together and given a choice – convert or don’t. Those who accepted were sent to be educated in the way of their conquerors, while those who did not were sent off as slave labor to mines or construction camps.

At the time, they have superior technology in the form of massive dreadnoughts, explosive powder called “gaatlok” that had not yet even been dreamt of by their enemies, and the element of surprise against people who had no experience against their tactics or way of thought. But their weaknesses include a lack of numbers and a fear of magic that pushed for the Chantry to allow the Circle of Magi to counter them. For every Qunari cannon that was fired, a mage was there to fire back with fireballs and lightning.

By the end of the Storm Age, the Qunari eventually agreed to a cease-fire with all countries but the Tevinter Imperium. They retracted to Seheron and Par Vollen, and from there they still wage war with the Imperium today.

Rivain, however, immediately violated the treaty. Much of the northern country had been converted, willingly or otherwise, and refused to be exiled to the islands with the rest of the Qunari, but also refused to return to the Chantry. Rivain’s Chantry retaliated by slaughtering hundreds of unarmed civilians and burying them in mass graves. Thankfully, whether through ignorance or lack of knowledge of the act, the Qunari did not retaliate. As it stands, the only pure Qunari settlement left in Rivain (and thus the entire continent) is the peaceful city of Kont-aar

But calling it peace would be a bit foolish at this point.

It’s probably more accurate to call it a breather.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Qunari_Wars

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_The_Llomerryn_Accords

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Kont-Aar#Geography

BUT WHAT IS THE QUN, EXACTLY?

Existence is a choice.

There is no chaos in the world, only complexity.

Knowledge of the complex is wisdom.

From wisdom of the world comes wisdom of the self.

Mastery of the self is mastery of the world. Loss of the self is the source of suffering.

Suffering is a choice, and we can refuse it.

It is in our power to create the world, or destroy it.

And the Ashkaari went forth to his people.

—An excerpt from The Qun, Canto 1

The Qun is a philosophy, a culture, a country, and a way of life all wrapped up into one. Plainly stated for you political nerds, it’s a theocratic meritocracy. It’s a religion, but not in the sense that it’s Thedas counterpart, Andrastianism, is. Andrastianism controls a lot of religious belief and personal values within Thedas society, but there’s many ways to be a follower of it, and it’s possible to function in countries that it dominates and still live quite successfully.

On the other hand, the Qun is not simply a religion, but a way of life and, down to the bone, a way of thinking. One does not believe in the Qun because belief implies that you are given importance to something that may or may not exist. In the minds of its followers, you understand the Qun or you don’t, in which case you are uneducated at best and hopeless at worst. If you are the latter you are either bas (foreign to the Qun) or Vashoth (one who has abandoned the Qun).

The Qun’s basic values could be boiled down to “the needs of the many over the one”. Every action, every effort, goes not to the betterment of any one person but to the betterment of them all. All are equal under the Qun because they are all simply parts of a larger body, and all parts are necessary to keep it alive and healthy, from the highest ruler to the lowest worker.

They reject the idea of private property; merchants only exist to distribute goods like food among the populace, meaning that the Qun operates on no currency except that which they need to deal with outside trade. All followers are given the basics of what they need to live, including housing. This doesn’t mean that any of them live like kings however; Qunari are masters of minimalism, believing that excess clothes or possessions is more hassle than anything.

A second large idea within the Qun is that of self-determination and free will. Which can seem like a contrasting idea with a religion that’s so obsessed with group mentality and one’s place in it. But Sten will be the first to tell you that Qunari are dangerous specifically because they are “thinking men”. Qunari live strongly by the ideal that you and you alone are responsible for your actions as well as the consequences of them. The world around you may factor into it, but it’s you alone who chooses to exist in that world, and it’s you who will decide what your future will hold.

As such, anyone who actively follows the Qun is not simply a believer but an active agent in it because, in their eyes, they are constantly affirming their choice to follow it out of their own choice when they have the option to do anything else, including the end of their life.

The Qun is inspired by a lot of real life philosophies and religions; writer Mary Kirby nodded at samurai code for when she was writing Sten, and the Qun as a nation takes a similar role to the Ottoman Empire during its heyday. Koslun also nods directly to the story of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.

Personally, I see a lot of Plato’s “The Republic” and a hefty douse of Taoism.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Qun

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_The_Qunari_-_Asit_tal-eb

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_The_Qun

THE QUN AND MAGIC

If you thought the Chantry had the copyright on hating magic, they have some things to learn from the Qun.

Qunari hate and fear magic; to them, it’s one of the highest forms of chaos and disorder you can deal with, and anyone cursed with it is permanently dangerous and untrustworthy.

As such, the mages of the Qun, called "saarebas" or literally “dangerous thing”, live under some of the harshest restrictions for mages in Thedas. Denied personhood and referred to more as items than individuals, they are collared from an early age with links that attaches to a leash, masked to prevent them from contaminating others, and generally have their lips sewn shut to stop any possessed mage from communicating with victims. They’re cared for and leashed by the Arvaarad, literally “one who holds back evil”, and any saarebas away from their leash-holder is considered a risk that must be eliminated.

But the Qunari also believe that the saarebas are honorable in the sense that they must always strive under the constant threat of magic while still serving the Qun. How the saarebas feel about their situation is debatable, but the one that we have met chooses to die rather than live outside the Qun.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_The_Qunari_-_Saarebas

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Ketojan

OKAY SO WHAT ARE QUNARI LIKE IN PERSON?

Qunari are generally concerned about one thing – their duty.

What this means can vary from person to person because, yes, the Qunari are individuals with fee fees. If they are a farmer, their duty may be to take care of the harvest, to maximize their crop, and see it as their responsibility and privilege to feed their fellows. For a soldier like Sten, it’s to protect the soldiers under his care, to follow orders as they are given, and to succeed on the battlefield.

Qunari are generally baffled by the chaos and individualism of outside groups; where other cultures see freedom and choice, they would see selfishness and damage to the whole of life. For a Qunari, being selfish is tantamount to sin. The only ones who partake in such acts are generally those who have rejected their roles and left the Qun.

The general stereotype of a qunari is that they’re stern, borish, and easily annoyed. This is largely the result that the majority of qunari that outsiders deal with is (surprise!) the military who not only deal with war but with outside relations to others, including the beresaad.

Yes, you read that right, Sten is technically an ambassador, feel free to have a giggle.

But this does not mean that all Qunari act or think similarly simply because of the soldiers we’ve met. As is noted by the codex

One cannot get to know a person solely by studying his hand or his foot, and so one cannot truly “meet” the Qunari until one has visited their cities. That is where their mind and soul dwell.

THE QUN AND GENDER ROLES

Probably one of Sten’s most infamous and debated lines is his confusion as to why a female PC was fighting on the front lines as a soldier, and there’s a reason for this, nor is it contradicting to Tallis being a female Qunari who knows how to fight in Mark of the Assassin.

Within Qunari society, everything has its place and its reason, and that includes gender. Qunari believe that the genders are inherently better at certain tasks, and assign them to those roles. Women are generally assigned to administrative roles such as farming, priesthood, and trade. Men are generally assigned to labor roles such as the military or craftsmen. There are many roles where these overlap; for instance, the leader of the priesthood, which is generally a female role, can be male or female.

As such, Sten’s confusion is a genuine one. Before now, he would never have met a woman who was in the role of a soldier because women within the Qun do not get assigned as soldiers, and he generally is under the assumption that the PC was purposefully assigned to be a Grey Warden rather than randomly recruited.

But this does not mean women within the Qun are not capable of fighting; it’s simply that it isn’t their role. It’s the role of the antaam, the military, to protect farms and cities from invaders, not the role of farmers and priests. But if the antaam were flattened, it’s likely that the same farmers and priests would take up arms and defend their homes as much as possible. But they would not BE soldiers; they would merely be fighting in the event it is required.

This does not mean that those who excel outside an expected role are wasted however. As explained by Mary Kirby, the writer for Sten and one of the main writers for the Qunari in general:

Qunari have been bred for specific roles for a very long time. Parentage isn’t really the issue anymore: It’s more like pedigree. If you’re a soldier, then there have been lots and lots and lots of soldiers in your bloodline, to the extent that you were probably born with the capacity to march in formation. If you were bred to be a fisherman, you are probably drawn to water the way that Labrador Retrievers are compelled, as if by an unseen force, to jump into the swimming pools of the neighbors. But breeding doesn’t mean you, specifically, are suited for the job. Maybe you’re bred to be a soldier, but you turn out more intellectual – the Tamassrans may stick you in the priesthood, researching weapons technology or the Ben-Hassrath, policing the populace, or who knows what, depending on what roles need filled by someone with your specific traits.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/3308675&lf=8

RELATIONSHIPS? INTERESTS?

An important distinction for Qunari is that they have no idea who they’re related to. Not their parents. Not their siblings. Not even their own children. The only people who do know whose related to who are the priests, who keep lengthy records of parentage and desired breeding aspects

All Qunari born into the Qun are raised communally by the priesthood. They have no interaction with their parents; a father’s role ends at insemination, a mother’s at birth. As such, they have no traditional families at all.

Sexuality is also different from Thedas norms in that Qunari do not associate sex with love. Sex is, point blank, used to make babies because that is its purpose and role. They also do not generally support the idea of monogamous relationships because this implies that they value this person above all others, something quite opposite to the “all are on equal terms” idea of the Qun. If Qunari do have sex and a child is produced however, the parents are taken to be re-educated by the Ben-Hassrath and the child is taken away to be raised like any other. The Qunari do not waste resources, people included.

But don’t let this lead you to believe that they don’t feel affection or even love. Their colleagues are their loved ones, and they view them as close as family. When Sten refers to the beresaad as his brothers, he’s not saying that in the sense of “they were in the army too”, he’s indicating that he cared for them quite deeply.

And this can extend to non-Qunari as well; when Sten calls you 'kadan’, he’s not just calling you his friend. 'Kadan’ literally translates to 'where the heart lies’.

doki doki

Ultimately, Qunari are people. What they enjoy, what they dislike, how firmly they believe, and everything else is as personal as it would be for any other character.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/47/index/450002&lf=8

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/3308675&lf=8

OKAY WHAT IF THEY’RE NOT IN THE QUN?

While many who are Qunari, converted or otherwise, are happy within their place in the Qun, there’s always going to be those who are not.

The term for such people is Tal-Vashoth.

Some leave, having to escape before they are taken by the Ben-Hassrath for either re-education or subjected to the qamek. Generally those who are able to get away without notice are soldiers, as soldiers are the ones who are either exposed the most to outside ideas that might contaminate their world view or closer to the front lines where they might better disappear.

What they do afterwards is mixed. Often, they simply disappear from their homeland, roaming as far south as Ferelden. Lacking in other skills, many become mercenaries, hired for their strength or simply just for their scary looks. Many turn to banditry, either in other lands or against their own people. And some become terrorists, striking at defenseless farms or settlements for whatever reasons they have.

However, there are no organized Tal-Vashoth group or culture, nor are they a resistance against the Qun.

It's likely that the background for a qunari Inquisitor in Inquisition is most likely someone who is of Tal-Vashoth parentage or who are themselves Tal-Vashoth. However, this is unconfirmed.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Tal-Vashoth

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Tal-Vashoth

WHAT ELSE?

Trying to keep this short, I haven’t covered nearly everything that there is out and about on Qunari and the Qun. All I can suggest from here is to read upon the wiki, check out as many codexes as possible, and bug Sten as much as possible next time you play.

Hope this was helpful for anyone curious about Qunari since the PAX reveal!