system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Dragon Age: Origins] Why can't elven mages get the Dalish Elf origin?

So, from what I understand, the Dalish elves live in the wilds away from human civilization and preserve the old elven culture. By contrast, city elves have integrated into human society, live in human cities, and are treated as second-class citizens.

If your player character is an elven warrior or rogue, they can have the City Elf or Dalish Elf origins. But if your character is an elven mage, they are forced to take the Mage origin. I don't understand this.

If the player character was a city elf, I can see this happening. The Templars would know about their existence and would put them into the Circle of Magi like they would with human mages. But if the Dalish don't live under human authority, why would an elven mage among them end up in the Circle?

Did the Templars threaten to attack the Dalish if they didn't give them up? Do the Dalish fear/hate mages as much as humans do? Do Dalish elves not have mages?

I would appreciate any insight into this, and I'm sorry if I'm getting any details wrong.
gpt
It's important to note that the potential wardens are not just generic examples of their kind- they're specific people, with specific families, backstories and lives up until this point. More specifically, these are all situations where Duncan finds a person both worthy of and had completely lost their previous lives such that Duncan felt it justified to recruit them . it's mentioned in a few things that the other origins did happen, but Duncan was unable to save the proto-warden.

As such, while there absolutely *are* Dalish Mages, there simply wasn't a situation leading up to the blight where Duncan found himself around a Dalish Mage who showed they were worthy of joining the grey wardens and had lost enough that he could justify recruiting them- just like he never met a templar or tevinten magister or surface dwarf or tal-vashoth or bandit in that context. All those people exist, and no doubt many of them could have become potent grey wardens. But their paths simply didn't align in a way that allowed them to.

TL;DR To become the Warden, you need to be recruited by Duncan. As Duncan didn't find a Dalish Mage worthy of recruiting on his way to Ostegar, one couldn't be come The Warden.