Know Your Lore: The Qunari

“The people of the Qun are, perhaps, the least-understood group in Thedas. The Qunari Wars were brutal, but so was the Chantry Schism. So was the fall of the Imperium. Some of this misunderstanding is an accident of nature: The race we call "Qunari" are formidable. Nature has given them fierce horns and strange eyes, and the ignorant look on them and see monsters.

Some is an accident of language: Few among the Qun's people speak the common tongue, and fewer speak it well. In a culture that strives for mastery, to have only a passable degree of skill is humiliating indeed, and so they often keep quiet among foreigners, out of shame.”

“But much of it is a result of the culture itself. The Qunari view their whole society as a single creature: a living entity whose health and well-being is the responsibility of all. Each individual is only a tiny part of the whole, a drop of blood in its veins. Important not for itself, but for what it is to the whole creature. Because of this, the Qunari most outsiders meet belong to the army, which the Qun regards as if it were the physical body: arms, legs, eyes and ears, the things a creature needs in order to interact with the world. 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.

In Seheron and Par Vollen, one can truly see the Qunari in their entirety. There, the unification of the Qunari into a single being is most evident. Workers, whom the Qun calls the mind, produce everything the Qunari require. The soul, the priesthood, seeks a greater understanding of the self, the world, and exhorts the body and mind to continually strive for perfection. The body serves as the go-between for the mind, the soul, and the world. Everyone and everything has a place, decided by the Qun, in which they work for the good of the whole. It is a life of certainty, of equality, if not individuality.”

—From the writings of the seer of Kont-arr, 8:41 Blessed

The Ben-Hassrath

“The ox-men do not kill their prisoners. The Qun abhors waste, and a person is a valuable commodity. Instead of death, we found ourselves housed in a labor camp run by the Ben-Hassrath. They called us "kabethari"—simple ones—and this was where we were to be inducted into the Qun.

The accommodations were no match for the State Inn in Minrathous, but we never expected them to be. Our dormitory was kept spotless, and we were fed three daily meals of a bland but nourishing porridge. Water and a strong unsweetened tea were always available as well.”

“Both males and females are chosen to join the Ben-Hassrath, which struck me as peculiar. I'd always heard that the Qunari drew distinctions between what counted as men's work and women's work. Thinking on it, however, perhaps it makes sense. The Ben-Hassrath are responsible for "re-education" and the assimilation of conqured peoples. Both women and men, in my experience, relate better to those of their own sex. It is thus prudent to choose women for the re-education of women and children, and men for that of men.

To their credit, the Ben-Hassrath were never cruel. They were always reasonable, if firm. I played along, repeating what they taught, but holding in my heart the truths by which I was raised.

Others were not so clever. Some of my platoon resisted the indoctrination, refusing even to pretend. The Ben-Hassrath see rebellion and discontent as an illness that can be cured, and they took these men to the "viddathlok," temples dedicated to healing and recovery. I do not know what happened there. The men who returned were changed in profound ways.

Others, we never saw again. I can only assume the "cure" did not take.”

—From the memoirs of an Imperial soldier captured at sea