#fade creatures

(Another Headcanon/Meta post developed with @faerelden. Just a little one this time, but I like this and the way it would intertwine the ancient beings of the elves and spirits of the Fade.)

The Forbidden Ones were once Elves, who then Allied with the Forgotten Ones/Rebel Elves.

1. The Forbidden ones were originally elves, slaves to the Evanuris, and shed their physical forms to flee and/or hide, either from their masters, or from the Evanuris' war with the Titans.

DAI Codex: Vir Dirthara: Exile of the Forbidden Ones - "for casting aside form to flee to where the Earth could not reach"

2. The Evanuris banished the Forbidden Ones spirit forms to the furthest reaches of the fade. Lyrium powered magic [Earth] could not kill their spirit forms. We know that spirits cannot be killed only banished. We also know that the Evanuris twist things to their advantage.

DAI Codex: Vir Dirthara: Exile of the Forbidden Ones - "The pages of this book—memory?—show the blazing forms of the Evanuris banishing a howling spirit from the reaches of the Fade that touch their lands. A voice rings out, stern and imperial"

This comes across as propaganda, and if you flip the information, then it implies that the Forbidden ones did not abandon the Elvhen people, but possibly betrayed the Evanuris.

3. Forgotten Ones were probably the Rebel Elves.

DAI Codex: Fen'Harel; The Dread Wolf - "The legend says that before the fall of Arlathan, the gods we know and revere fought an endless war with others of their kind. There is not a hahren among us who remembers these others: Only in dreams do we hear whispered the names of Geldauran and Daern'thal and Anaris, for they are the Forgotten Ones, the gods of terror and malice, spite and pestilence."

DAI JoH Codex: Geldauran's Claim - "There are no gods. There is only the subject and the object, the actor and the acted upon. Those with will to earn dominance over others gain title not by nature but by deed. I am Geldauran, and I refuse those who would exert will upon me. Let Andruil's bow crack, let June's fire grow cold. Let them build temples and lure the faithful with promises. Their pride will consume them, and I, forgotten, will claim power of my own, apart from them until I strike in mastery."

DA2 Merrill to Hawke, The Betrayal - "Long ago, there were two clans of gods. The Creators looked after the People. The Forgotten Ones preyed upon us. And one god who was neither. Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf."

This theory is expanded upon further in @faerelden‘s Meta-post HERE.

4. During the Elvhen uprising, the Rebel Elves (Forgotten Ones) needed a source of magical power stronger than their natural connection to the Fade, to combat the Evanuris' use of Lyrium from the felled Titans. This was probably blood magic, which they learned from the Forbidden Ones, previously banished Elvhen slaves.

DAI JoH Codex: Geldauran's Claim - "Their pride will consume them, and I, forgotten, will claim power of my own, apart from them until I strike in mastery."

DA2 Codex: Forbidden Knowledge; Tarohne's Beginning - "The first of the magus cast themselves deep in the Fade in search of answers and power, always power. They found the forbidden ones — Xebenkeck, Imshael, Gaxkang the Unbound, and The Formless One. Many conversations were had and much of the fabric of the world revealed. And thus the magic of blood was born."

Assuming that "Their Pride will consume them" is a reference to Solas, then the discussion with him in Dragon Age Inquisition is also relevant to this point.