Probably getting intel on their enemies, and if possible, sabotage the peace efforts amongst the involved parties.
Also, some Dalish hate the Shemlen passionately but most hate them in the abstract sense.
"I hate Shemlen" but you don't necessarily hate the guy in front of you.
I dunno, I think the Dalish might actually want the conflict to end.
Look at it this way, with no Circle to corral the Mages into anymore, the Templars are no longer be forced to spend all their time guarding them. That means they're now free to go out into the countryside and hunt down all Apostates, including those among the Dalish. And most hardline Templars don't discriminate when dealing with Apostates and those caught harbouring them.
The Mage-Templar conflict might hurt the Chantry, but it's screwing the Dalish over as well.
Well, in the description of the Dalish background, it says that the Keeper sends them because of "something" that may have importance to the elves in some unspecified way... so it's possible that spirits are involved in how the Keeper is aware of this.
I don't think the conclave is supposed to be a secret (even the carta hear about it), and there are a number of ways Clan Lavellan could have heard about the meeting, from trading with humans in the Free Marches who heard about it to elven mages from the Circles seeking sanctuary with the clan. Sending a single, trusted Dalish probably helped the First or hunter reach the conclave in time.
I don't think the conclave is supposed to be a secret (even the carta hear about it), and there are a number of ways Clan Lavellan could have heard about the meeting, from trading with humans in the Free Marches who heard about it to elven mages from the Circles seeking sanctuary with the clan. Sending a single, trusted Dalish probably helped the First or hunter reach the conclave in time.
See, I was going by this quote from the website: "What happened there, she said, would impact not only the Dalish but indeed all elves. She could not have known how right she was." Combined with what was being discussed in the old threads when this info was first released, I assumed that the Keeper actually did have some kind of mystical insight and that the impact on elves had to do with magic... like she had some idea of what would happen with the Fade tear in advance.
At this point though, I think it's probably more likely that the Keeper was concerned with the more mundane aspects of the Mage-Templar Conflict... that's certainly the simplest explanation... (edit: and of course, the Keeper wouldn't need to be in contact with spirits to know about any of that...)
You know that actually seems pretty likely to be an issue the longer the conflict goes on.
Which of course brings the threat of a Templar assault against Dalish clans for harboring rebel mages.
True. Getting refugees in increasing numbers is a bad sign, but if that ends up dragging them to a war, I can see the Dalish being very interested in the peace conference even if it's just for pragmatic reasons. As in "we don't want to fight in a war we didn't ask for". Probably the Templars were less problematic when most of them were guarding the circles instead of roaming the countryside in search of mages.
The Mage Templar war is creating a lot of collateral damage. Being in small clans that are potentially vulnerable to such upheavals, many Dalish probably don't like that.
I'm still catching up on a couple of things but I've yet to see anything that actually states the peace conference is secret. In fact considering that even in DA:II it was pretty clear the mage/Templar conflict was far reaching and well known to many it's not at all out of even basic possibility that the clan knows. Part of the Keeper's job quite simply is to keep track of what's going on in the world because they are the ones that choose where the clan moves and how often. To do that they need to know the state of the world. They need to know that the area they are in is getting too dangerous, that the area they are going into isn't in violent conflict, and even simpler things like droughts and famines so they don't get somewhere and end up starving from lack of the renewable resources they survive on.
So sending somebody at least to be aware of what's going on is completely normal in these conditions. The Keeper can't go on their own. Too many other things to worry about. So you get sent instead.
And if the biggest religion and its institutions in the world are really falling apart enough to have such important conversations with lots of different groups interested. Saying that it can affect the fates of everybody is like saying water flows in a river.
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