I personally love the idea that Fereldens are some of the tallest people in Thedas, whereas people from the Free Marches are generally a lot shorter. Mostly because the idea of Hawke and pals immediately getting clocked as Fereldens because they tower over everyone else in Kirkwall is hilarious to me.
In my mind Leandra is like 5’4” and Malcom was like 6’5”, this massive Ferelden dude that was transferred to Kirkwall and bumps his head against everything, it’s one of the main reasons why they run away back to Ferelden, Malcome needs Ferelden architecture. Default M!Hawke is like 6’3”, default F!Hawke is like 5’10”, Carver is stupid tall like his dad at 6’4” (he’s dense too, hence why he gets called out as a ‘sinker’ by that lady at the docks lmao), and Bethany is 5’9”.
My other headcanons include:
City elves are usually short, due to usually being underfed and not taking up too much space. Dalish elves are usually a little taller, average heights across the majority would probably only have the Dalish being like 1-2 inches taller, but you’re more likely to have outlier tall elves among the Dalish (though they do happen in the cities, just more rarely)
Dwarves families who have been on the surface for several generations are usually a little taller than Orzammar dwarves (maybe they’re less connected to the stone or whatever, but my personal bc is that it’s also a mental thing, like they see there isn’t a ceiling so they grow taller)
Most Circle mages tend to not eat much meat and fat, that goes to the Templars and the mages just get cheaper, simpler foods like grains and the vegetables that they grow along with herbs for potions. This leads to a lot of mages being leaner and shorter due to less balanced diets. Of course genetics is a strong factor too, so this is definitely not universal, just general
The general headcanons that I have for the DA2 crew is this:
M!Hawke- 6’3”
F!Hawke- 5’10”
Carver- 6’4”
Bethany- 5’9”
Aveline- 5’11”
Varric- 4’10” (I’m not confident on this one tho. As a tall person, I’m not an expert on short people heights and how realistic this would be for him)
Anders- 6’2”ish (but he slouches and he’s fairly skinny and lean so he feels shorter most of the time, but he might even be taller if he stretches and decompresses his spine even the slightest amount.)
Isabela- 5’4” (I feel like a fairly average height works for her but I'm not married to the headcanon)
Fenris- 5’8” (tall for an elf, but still not that tall)
Merrill- 5’3” (slightly taller than people expect)
Sebastian- 5’9.5” (Marcher man short haha. Also I feel like Sebastian is the embodiment of the ‘younger sibling who is several inches shorter than their older siblings for no reason’ phenomenon that I’ve seen a lot, and I think it’s really funny. I can just imagine him crying like “it’s not fair, both my brothers were six feet 😭”)
Tallis- 5’2”
