The Darkspawn are a fictional collective of humanoid monsters who serve as recurring antagonists of the Dragon Age video game media franchise, developed by BioWare and owned by Electronic Arts. Within the series, they mostly dwell in the subterranean realms beneath the world of Thedas, the setting of the Dragon Age series. The Darkspawn are depicted as malevolent and ugly creatures who are capable of infecting other beings with a supernatural disease known as the "Taint", which twist its victims into monstrous creatures. The supposed origins of the Darkspawn is presented in Dragon Age: Origins as a religious creation myth by the Chantry, the dominant religious organization of Thedas. The Darkspawn are portrayed as an overarching threat to the world of Thedas, as they periodically rise to the surface as a unified force led by an Archdemon, the corrupted form of ancient draconic beings once worshipped as deities by human civilizations in antiquity, killing indiscriminately and corrupting anything they encounter. The Darkspawn hordes are primarily opposed by the dwarven civilization of Thedas as well as the Grey Wardens, a sworn brotherhood of warriors formed to stop the rampaging hordes of monsters from overrunning the surface world by any necessary means.
The Darkspawn serve as the main antagonists of Origins, where they are initially presented as visually similar to orcs found in other fantasy fiction works such as the fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. They are redesigned from Dragon Age II onwards to match the developers' original vision of a race of diseased, twisted beings derived from the various sentient races of Thedas. The Darkspawn are generally considered to be the most notable monsters of the Dragon Age series, though some critics find them to be lacking in depth and nuance as antagonists. The Broodmother in particular, a type of Darkspawn unit that gives birth to other Darkspawn creatures, have been subject to critical commentary as a horror and gender trope.