Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne is a fantasy novel released March 3, 2009. It serves as a prequel to the BioWare role-playing game Dragon Age: Origins and is written by David Gaider, lead writer of Dragon Age: Origins. It is his first novel, as well as the first novel set in the Dragon Age universe. Set thirty years before the events of the game, this novel tells the back-story of characters important to the game as well as explaining how Ferelden, the setting of Dragon Age: Origins, achieved independence from Orlais, an event referred to many times in the game.