Dorian Pavus is one of the most important characters ever written for a video game. Originally appearing in 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition – and being a shoo-in for the highly anticipated Dragon Age 4, which is set in his home nation of Tevinter – Dorian has become beloved for a variety of different but equally valuable reasons. On one hand, he’s one of the most prominent LGBTQ characters in contemporary fiction, even outside of video games. On the other, his stalwart conviction to principles is something that anyone with even the slightest commitment to truth and justice can appreciate and learn from. Plus he is very fun at parties.
Writing Dorian was, understandably, complex. According to Dragon Age: Inquisition lead writer David Gaider, Dorian was originally conceived as part of very specific BioWare methodology: instead of writing an entire character before the art team had the chance to inject their own input into it, Gaider and his co-writers would come up with “quick concepts” to pitch the artists.
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“Phrases like ‘rock star mage’ and ‘grizzled warrior’ with just a paragraph blurb,” Gaider explains. “We could do a lot of these, and the artists could come up with various ideas for them pretty quickly… and it was much easier to see which ones clicked with the artists right away. Sometimes the portraits they produced inspired us in return.
“The ‘rock star mage’ was one of these. The result looked a bit like Freddie Mercury, which I thought was cool… but we had no idea he’d be gay. We simply knew that he was a Tevinter mage, and that he’d have a kind of rock star attitude. He’d be very flashy compared to mages we’d typically seen elsewhere. It wasn’t until later when the team started discussing who the romances could possibly be the idea was floated that maybe our ‘rock star mage’ could also be gay. I remember the moment, because at that point the reason he’d left his homeland and his family became very clear to me. I knew what his story would be and instantly claimed him as mine. Everything else followed from there.”
Although Dorian wasn’t initially pitched as a gay companion, his sexuality became an essential part of his character as soon as Gaider took the reins. There were other vital aspects of his character too, mind – up until this point, most characters from Tevinter were originally from Minrathous, its capital city. When the art team produced concepts with versions of Dorian that were darker-skinned, Gaider decided he would come from the eastern Imperium. In his eyes, this is what people from cities in the east of Tevinter like Qarinus would look like, although he’s not 100 percent sure if that will continue to be the case from here on out.
Still, even though the Dragon Age team didn’t necessarily define characters by their sexuality, Dorian quickly became an exception to the rule. His being gay was obviously not the only element of his character that was important – if you’ve played Inquisition, you’ll likely remember him as one of the most intricate and enduring companions in the entire Dragon Age series. The reason Dorian’s sexuality became such a core tenet of his makeup was because it informed every other aspect of who he was for the better.
“The moment we raised the possibility of Dorian being gay, it clicked in my head what his personal story would be,” Gaider tells me. “I knew, as well, that I wanted that to be his story. With a lot of characters, their sexualities are incidental and only affect their romances. They aren’t really mentioned otherwise. Sexuality certainly doesn’t have to be a character’s story, but in this case I felt like I had something to say. I’d never had the opportunity to put a piece of myself in a character I was writing, so it was a very personal experience.
“We knew that Dorian needed a reason to leave Tevinter. Originally the vague idea was that he was a ‘conscientious objector’ to how magic in Tevinter was rife with corruption and blood magic. I knew I still wanted that, to a degree, but I was also a bit leery about having yet another mage be 100 percent defined by his stance on blood magic. Having this additional angle, where Dorian wasn’t just privately gay but also wasn’t willing to conform to his parents’ expectations simply for the sake of appearances really informed, for me, the kind of idealism he needed to also be the conscientious objector – the Tevinter mage who opposed blood magic on principle, no matter how common a practice it was by every mage around him. It just made sense.”
Alongside Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins – who was the first major character Gaider wrote for the series – Dorian holds a special place in his heart. This is largely because of the fact he was the first gay character Gaider got to write, and his story came from a very personal place. He also had a profound impact on the series’ LGBTQ audience, which, to Gaider, is “the sort of thing you can’t ever quite replicate.”
I also ask Gaider what his favourite thing about Dorian is, to which his response is simple: “He has a very fine ass.”
To this day, Dorian continues to be important to Dragon Age fans all over the world. This is in spite of the fact that, according to metrics available to developers at BioWare at the time, he wasn’t necessarily popular in comparison to some of Inquisition's other personalities like Varric or Iron Bull.
“According to the telemetry, Dorian wasn’t an active companion in very many peoples’ parties,” Gaider says. “He was also the least-romanced of the romanceable NPCs, percentage-wise. I don’t think numbers really matter to those who loved him, however. He struck a chord with a lot of people. I think I received more personal mail from fans about Dorian than any other character I’ve written, including ones for whom Dorian was a vehicle for them to come out to friends and family, or for whom Dorian’s story allowed them to process trauma from gay conversion therapy they’d experienced. So it’s clear those who love him love him a lot. I’m always glad when anything I’ve written manages to touch someone, so I’m tickled that a character who was such a personal project also turned out to be such a success.
“I am [also] grateful to Dorian for another reason, and it’s that he’s directly responsible for me meeting my best friend, Elie Young. Through them, it’s also how my current studio at Summerfall Studios became a thing, and how I’m now about to move to Australia. So Dorian gave me a new life, which is kind of appropriate and cool if you think about it.”
Next: The Oral History Of Dragon Age: Origins
