Originally Posted by Motoki 
He figures prominently in the mage origin but makes a minor reappearance later no matter what origin you went with. The girl in the elf ghetto is like that too for the city elf origin.
He helps you with the situation in Redcliff Castle, and iirc he's a Blood Mage, right?
I'd really like to do another playthrough of DA:O, but one thing I didn't like about the game was its length. Imo it should have been at least 1/4 shorter than it was. There were too many filler areas for my taste.
I did enjoy it though, and I agree that we probably won't see anything like that from Bioware again.