Meghren

Meghren was named King of Ferelden and sent there as a punishment for having offended Emperor Florian somehow. However before this, the Emperor and Meghren were rumored to be lovers, causing much scandal as they were also first cousins.^{[4][note 1&2]} Despite being named King of Ferelden, Meghren was very unhappy with his position and longed to return to Orlais. For this purpose he often wrote letters to the Orlesian Emperor asking for forgiveness and to be recalled to Orlais. However, his requests were never granted.

As the king, Meghren did a fairly poor job; he despised the Fereldans, looking down upon them as little more than a barbaric and primitive population. Thus, he never attempted to appeal to the Fereldans by adopting to their ways or doing things that might have made him more acceptable as their king, despite his advisors' advice that he should do so. Furthermore he was downright sadistic, often tormenting other people for his own amusement, ordering executions on a large scale as well as having a habit of beating people who made him angry. He was also remarkably decadent, being used to 'cultured' Orlais; he once ordered all courtiers to wear masks, punishing the noble whose mask he liked least, only abandoning the practice after it led to an assassination attempt. He mostly left the job of ruling Ferelden to his mage advisor, Severan. Overall he ruled through tyranny and military might, carelessly sending Orlesian chevaliers to their deaths.

He mostly viewed the rebellion in Ferelden as little more than an inconvenience and usually left Severan the task of handling the rebels. When Severan's double agent readied the rebel army to be ambushed at West Hill, Meghren, who was stuck in bed with fever, changed his mind from capturing Prince Maric to having him die in the fighting. When the Battle of West Hill ended in an Orlesian victory, Meghren was quick to announce Maric's death without firm confirmation of it, believing the rebel prince to be indistinguishable from any other Fereldan. He was later utterly livid when Severan informed him that Maric had survived and had made it to Gwaren, his survival believed to be the Maker's resurrection, spurring on open rebellions amongst the common Fereldan folk. This forced Meghren to take the matter more seriously. However, instead of following the advice of his advisors to bide his time and try to convince the people he was the better ruler, his way of dealing with the rebellion was to impose even harsher conditions on the Fereldans than they were already under.

This attempt backfired - the general populace continued to rebel, many among the nobility went over to Prince Maric's side, one of his chief advisors- the Grand cleric of Ferelden, Bronach, abandoned him and voiced her (or rather the Maker's) support for Prince Maric Theirin and Severan was killed not long after that by Maric himself. To make matters worse, two legions sent by the Emperor as reinforcements were defeated by Loghain at the Battle of River Dane. After that, the Emperor decided that Ferelden was a lost cause and abandoned Meghren, refusing to send him more men or support.

Despite being robbed of most of its support, Meghren's rule still lasted three further years, after which he and his few supporters barricaded themselves inside Fort Drakon in Denerim when the rebels finally laid siege to the capital. At that point King Maric challenged Meghren to a duel, which Meghren accepted, believing he would prevail, and lost. After this King Maric put his head on a pike outside the gates of the palace, possibly as revenge, for Meghren had done the same thing to Maric's own mother, Moira Theirin and other supporters of Maric. Thus Meghren's rule ended at 9:02 Dragon, which also marked the end of the Orlesian occupation of Ferelden.^{[note 3]}