athalantan

[athalantan]

The thing about making AUs for El is it's "well what are they involved in? oh right — EVERYTHING"

[athalantan]

DRAGON AGE.

BORN: -440 Ancient RACE: Human NATIONALITY: Most recently Fereldan CLASS: A bit of all three but dominantly mage

BACKGROUND.

There are powers in Thedas the likes of which mortals can scarce imagine and that the Chantry has long tried to suppress. Mystra, Mother of Mysteries, is one such power. As a guardian of magic and balance in its use, She has raised up many Chosen to propagate the Art across Thedas. Elminster is the oldest of these Chosen still living. Though regarded as a myth by some, they are as real as the dawn and have meddled long in Thedas' affairs, trying to guide it toward a greater good.

DA:O.

For the past few centuries, El has made their home in rural Ferelden. They travel as extensively and frequently as ever, but it is to their remote tower that they always return. They were in contact with Warden-Commander Duncan as the crown mustered forces at Ostagar. Reports of the horrendous defeat to follow leads them to investigate; all signs point toward a true Blight. They thus encounter the Warden's party not far from Lothering. El is protecting a group of refugees beset by darkspawn. The Warden can lend their aid and then ask El to join them. El not only brings incredible arcane knowledge but expertise in the realm of political intrigue as well.

DAII.

Hawke has the chance to run into El at random throughout the game's run. Anywhere around Kirkwall, Sundermount, and the Wounded Coast of course but in the Deep Roads and other odd locations as well. The Old Mage gets around. They're overarching involvement is as a friend of the Mage Underground smuggling mages out of Kirkwall, but they've always been the type to have all ten fingers in a different pie. They won't become a permanent member of Hawke's party, but they'll rarely say no to a pint and can even be convinced to help with certain specific adventures.

DA:I.

The Breach is exactly the sort of mass mayhem El has spent over a thousand years dealing with. They arrived at Haven to keep an eye on the Conclave but wisely chose not to enter the Temple of Sacred Ashes. They did what they could to help in the immediate aftermath but soon disappeared as Inquisition soldiers (many of them templars) began rounding up anyone suspicious. Which mostly meant anyone who was a mage.

It's Cullen who kept an ear to the ground for their whereabouts and counsels the Herald to investigate. They can be found battling the demons from the rift near Dennet's farm, though they cannot close the rift without the Herald. They will handle all the demons while the Herald does so. There will afterward be an opportunity to recruit them. They contribute incredible expertise to studying the rifts and strengthening the Veil. They also turn up legendary artifacts and invaluable information when necessary. You amass an eclectic collection when you're their age.

[athalantan]

Inquisitor Elminster would be hilarious actually

[athalantan]

Why is it whenever they put Morgan Freeman in a period piece he has an El-coded wardrobe

[athalantan]

Speaking of my reading — El called Mys.tra their "beloved tyrant" in a chapter I read this morning and I had to put the book down for a minute

[athalantan]

I have not forgotten El. My brain is just "you can't be here full time til you finish the books" even though I feel solid in my characterization and I am almost done with what I consider essential reading. Silly, I know lmao

[athalantan]

I can't make a playlist for El because it'd be songs like Army Dreamers by Kate Bush and Ashes by The Longest Johns, then suddenly WAP

[athalantan]

I was going to make this all polished, but it’s more convenient for me to post from my phone atm. Baseline thoughts on the other Chosen where Gale and the orb are concerned. This will apply to my Laeral and Elm.ins.ter. I am very open to being flexible on this. It just gives me a base to work with, but if anyone wants to discus an alternative, I’m down. Parting note that I’m not including supporting quotations atm, but if anyone wants me to dig them up, I will.

My reasoning is based on:

The current Mys.tra is an amalgamation of Mystr.yl, prev!Mys.tra, and Midnight!Mys.tra. Mys.try.l died when Karsus tried to usurp her power. Midnight!Mys.tra died when Cyric murdered Her and Shar attempted to usurp control of the Weave. Mys.tra knows She exists in a cycle where someone will always try to usurp Her, and She will die and be reborn constantly.

Prev!Mys.tra we know went through many Chosen who failed to meet Her standards, including ones who tried to usurp Her or Azuth. We also know prev!Mys.tra took steps to ensure the Seven would have enough conflict with each other and others to limit their ambitions, and Midnight!Mys.tra admitted to being frightened of Elm.ins.ter and took back some of what Her predecessor shared with them.

Mys.tra has become more paranoid and secretive after the Spellplague. Getting murdered in your own home does that to you. She keeps much from Her Chosen — more than She ever did before — and requires them to keep information from each other.

Gale was able to quarantine himself in his tower in Waterdeep. It’s clearly well-known he fell from grace, but as far as we know, no one sought him and he didn’t seek anyone else.

It’s implied Mys.tra was controlling communication between Gale and the other Chosen. At the very least, She seems to have been closely watching.

My take on the situation:

Based on what Gale says, I theorize that being one of My.stra’s Chosen at the time he found the orb both damned and saved him. Her Chosen are unique in that each holds a portion of her “essential power” that they cannot use and that cannot be taken from them by force — even by Mys.tra. I posit that the orb sought to devour that piece of power but could not. Hence the parasitic bond it formed instead, staved off by the dweomers from enchanted objects.

Normally, when a Chosen dies, that essential power is released and slowly reabsorbed by Mys.tra. I posit that, if the orb had gotten ahold of it, it would have consumed it, and it would have been lost to Mys.tra forever. This is why She’s so desperate to see Gale die — in addition to how such an object scares Her after the Spellplague (and Karsus’ original attempt to use it).

So where the other Chosen are concerned:

Though they knew Gale was no longer one of them, they didn’t know why. Mys.tra told them nothing of the orb.

She enforced a quarantine, forbidding Her Chosen from coming within proximity of Gale. She feared the orb might hop to them if they did. This is why Elm.ins.ter only sent a simulacrum even when delivering the Goddess’ mandate.

She did not forbid them from contacting Gale by other means. Doing so would undoubtedly make them too curious to keep from investigating — or pique someone else’s curiosity. This is also why nothing was done about Gale living in Waterdeep: too suspicious. Better to let people speculate he’s simply fallen short of Her standards / couldn’t take the pressure. She did, however, closely monitor and manipulate any contact they had.

Lael and El were hesitant to contact Gale because they cared about him. Other Chosen who’d gone rogue had to be hunted and slain. That wasn’t immediately the case with Gale, and they didn’t want that to become the case. The less they knew about his situation, the closer they followed Mys.tra’s mandate, the smaller the chance they’d have to put him down.

You also have to consider that the life of a Chosen is a life without even a moment of rest. Literally. We know Lael and El had other major events to attend during the year preceding BG3. (We also know Lael’s power was greatly diminished for part of that year, and that the Chosen in general aren’t as powerful as they used to be.) If they rocked the boat where Gale was concerned, they’d risk a crisis of some sort. At any given moment, they have a dozen on their plate.

That having been said —

Neither would ignore Gale or Tara if they reached out first, and it’s very like both of them to do some investigations from afar or through agents. Pair of nosy meddlers. Lael would especially send Dove and Syluné (both Weave ghosts) to discreetly look in on Gale’s tower. What they discover — if anything— I leave to individual plotting.

El has been around the block too many times to give too much blind aid, but they’re clearly not without love and sympathy for Gale still. Depending on what’s asked and what they know, they may help.

Lael is more of a bleeding heart in this regard and has been sick of grief for centuries. She is more likely to give aid blindly — though still within reason. If Gale or Tara, while researching their options, go to Lael for sources or, while hunting for enchanted items, ask her for direction — she is likely to do so as long as she can reasonably assume it won’t endanger Waterdeep.

Both of them are willing to play fast and loose with or even defy divine mandates if they deem the cause great enough. Just as a note.

[athalantan]

Honestly??? $100 says Gale didn't even know who El was when they first met. This was during a period where El was driven literally barking mad by casting even the smallest spells, was widely believed dead, and was thus keeping as low of a profile as possible. They still traveled and did what they could, but by god it was not much. So y'know. Like as not Gale didn't learn that old wizard he met when he was eight who gave him good advice about his fireball spell was THE Elminster until decades later.

[athalantan]

Mmmmm I have timeline dates for when certain people became El's apprentices, but can I be bothered . . .

[athalantan]

#parenting

[athalantan]

[doubled for size] I will never get over how the stock illustration for the Wizard class looks so close to how I see El

[athalantan]

fencing lessons with Elminster

[athalantan]

Okay no I'm gonna go into this rant here. I mentioned it in passing elsewhere, but it's most relevant here.

Look. I get what Greenwood is saying about the combination of unnatural age + continuous trauma and grief + the fuckery of being a vessel for divine power making things weird as hell for the Chosen in every facet of their lives. I get what he's saying about the Chosen really have no one other than each other who understands their experiences, can share their burdens, and in whom they can find comfort — and even how that makes relationships develop in unexpected directions.

What I REFUSE to get is that El's relationship with the Seven specifically has at any point been romantic or sexual. Especially the three El raised, but I am officially extending this to all of them. And, Greenwood will try to make this seem okay by pointing out El isn't related to them, and saying that El was only a Mys.tra-assigned uncle figure — but that is NOT any better. Furthermore, he explicitly refers to El as their father and mother, as well as having El explicitly call them foster daughters. And, not just the three El raised! So far I've read at least Alustriel explicitly included in that!

I am all here for the fucked up consequences of being a Chosen, but that's not even the angle Greenwood is taking. Not entirely. The fucked up consequences are what he points to sort of leading to this, but he doesn't seem to consider this specific evolution to be one of them, you see what I'm saying? What I would like to pound home right now, though, is that romance and sex are not the only ways to give comfort to or receive comfort from someone. Especially when you have a really close bond that cannot be understood by or explained to others.

I am firmly rejecting any and all implications of such things. In fact, I am taking such dynamics with all the Seven off the table wholesale — including the Simbul. El looks on the Seven as their children and ONLY as their children. That they are adopted family does not matter. Their relationship has developed beyond and added layers to it over the centuries, but never in a romantic direction. It's more in line with them becoming equals, colleagues, friends, occasionally adversaries tbh — but they are always family.

[athalantan]

I’m finding The Herald an enjoyable read, but I’m oddly not in love with El’s plot. I can’t believe they’d just up and trust Larloch like that. Honestly the whole book does feel a bit rushed so far and like it should have a couple hundred more pages or an additional book. It’s an enjoyable read but not up to what you normally expect from his books.

I got similar vibes from Death Masks. Not that that book felt rushed, but these both exhibit a divergence from Greenwood’s usual style, including pointed reminders about El and other characters / parts of the setting. Iirc Greenwood wasn’t happy about some of the Second Sundering decisions? In any case, you do get the vibe that he’s trying to wrestle things back to a certain direction; it’s currently less about storytelling and more about course correction.

[athalantan]

Actually it's interesting that El calls Alustriel a foster daughter. They definitely raised Laeral, but Alustriel was raised by Thamator. That having been said . . . Thamator was a Harper, as was Hauliyr who took Syluné as an apprentice; and both the women were Harpers for a time. I think it's pretty clear they were raised separately from Dove, Storm, and Laeral, but they could easily have come into contact with El when they were still fairly young. Even if El didn't technically foster those two, they could still come to see El in that role.

[athalantan]

Mumbling something about El being aged, yes, by stress but also perhaps a conscious desire to age. So people will take them seriously and find it at least a little credible that they are as ancient as they say they are. At any rate, they're clearly old enough to have plenty of experience; even if they don't believe El's ancient, surely they know something of use.