The last leg of the story at the temple in the Arbor Wilds, plus some of the Solas dialogue, pretty much abolished the idea of there being a 'maker' to me.
From what I gathered, the whole world used to be a lot more like the fade during the time of the elves. Arlathan was the center of this world, and it was ruled by some very powerful elves, the ones they refer to as gods now. Those orbs were likely the source of their power. They eventually became corrupt rulers (red lyrium may have been involved already at this point) and slavery was rampant. Solas, aka Fen'Harel the Dread Wolf, started a revolution against the other 'gods' in an attempt to return some semblance of balance to elven society. He sealed them inside Arlathan, aka the Golden City. Either at this point, or soon afterwards, the Fade and the mortal world became separated, I think something happened at Skyhold ("The Place the Sky Was Held Back") long ago that had something to do with this. He also sealed the 'Forgotten Ones' in the Abyss, which is probably the deep roads, and those are probably the Old God corpses they find down there, not really the Old Gods but just their lifeless bodies.
Regardless, elven society never bounced back after their gods were banished, as no structure rose to replace them, and they were already weak by the time Tevinter ever got there. The Tevinter Imperium rose to power on of what was left of the elven empire, and adopted their culture of slavery and corruption. The Tevinter magisters DID attempt to breach the Golden City to claim the power of the elven 'gods' but didn't like what they found... they unleashed *something* (possible that the old god's souls were what powered those orbs the elven gods used?) but it certainly wasn't the blight, the blight has existed as long as red lyrium has which pre-dates that period by quite a while (the primevial thaig in Dragon Age 2 is filled with the stuff and that place is way older than the Tevinter Imperium.) Mythal may have escaped at this time, or prior, not sure.
Further, it seems clear to me that reason the Orlesian Chantry is so racist against elves is because the truth is likely that Andraste was an elf, or at least had one elven parent. The legends say that most of her supporters were elven slaves of Tevinter so why wouldn't she be an elf too? Or another possibility is that they really make no distinction between the corrupt elven empire and the Tevinter empire that came in an adopted all the same ideals. Regardless, Andraste's rebellion may have been sparked by the Dread Wolf, as that kind of thing is his MO. Heck, the Chantry itself could have been founded with the influence of Solas, learning from his mistakes the first time and creating a structure in the wake of the revolution. There's some good party dialogue between Sera and Solas where Solas lectures her on how to build an effective revolution.
