#Mage Templar Dynamics

[theluckywizard]

Together Alone, Ch 4: Lost and Found

Chapter Summary:

Bethany learns her brothers were lost in the Deep Roads and then receives an unexpected visitor.

Fic Summary:

A traumatized newly-promoted Knight Captain who only wants to keep the world safe from the terrors of the Fade. A soft-hearted, sharp-minded mage who spent years evading the law. Maybe they don’t share the same fears. But at least they're not alone in being afraid. Or how two people form an unlikely friendship in the worst possible place and change each other forever.

Excerpt below the cut 👇

The letter finds her when she’s cleaning tables after supper, her second week-long rotation on evening chores. The first had been a stint in laundry that she’d been well prepared for. She squeezes and slops the rag against the table, running it up and down in long wet stripes, catching mislaid bits of food in her hands as the templars look on. How strange it is to be watched while you clean up crumbs.

Orsino’s page whisks across the hall without question, a young woman barely older than Bethany. She’d seen her slipping through the Gallows. Bethany’s bunkmate explained she’s not a mage all, but the daughter of a friend of the viscount and she actually lives in Hightown. She presents the letter without comment, but her eyes dart and dodge around Bethany, which makes the mage nervous.

Unable to leave, she breaks the seal over her dripping rag and reads.

          Enchanter Hawke,

          I regret to inform you that your brothers Garrett and Carver Hawke have been reported dead by expedition leader Bartrand Tethras after a cave-in within the Deep Roads. Their remains have not been recovered. Your mother will be in contact with us regarding funeral services. You can petition to attend with a templar escort if you wish.

          You have my heartfelt sympathy,

          First Enchanter Orsino

Bethany crunches the letter in her fists, the ink feathering and running under the spatter of her tears. She’d been girding herself for this news for weeks now but it still blows through her like an landslide. A lifetime imprisoned inside this place is nothing compared to losing her brothers. And now both are true.

Read the rest here Start the fic here

DAFF Crew:

@warpedlegacy @crackinglamb @rakshadow @dreadfutures @breninarthur

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@plisuu @delicatefade @ir0n-angel @inquisimer @ar-lath-ma-cully

💗

@exalted-dawn-drabbles @hekaerges @oxygenforthewicked @about2dance @leggywillow

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@blarrghe @effelants @bluewren @rosella-writes @agentkatie

[inquisimer]

until it is a shackle

Some Alistair/Amell for @febuwhump day 19! As Solona battles through the remnants of the Circle, she realizes Alistair's past might matter more than she thought.

read it on ao3 here

Alistair/Female Amell | Rated T | 1022 words | CW: injury, fear, existential crisis, crisis of faith, power imbalance

-

It was frightening, how quickly the Circle sank its teeth back into her. Between Wynne at her side and the familiar walls all around, Solona could feel the months of change and growth melting away. Only the Taint in her blood and Alistair at her back kept her grounded in reality.

But even that shifted, blurred in new context.

Alistair trained as a Templar. She knew that, spent a great deal of time pointedly not thinking about it. After that first, awkward conversation, it rarely came up. He wore Warden armor and fought with a Warden’s gear and the enemies before them were darkspawn, not mages. But here, in the hallowed halls of her childhood, she saw it plainly.

He angled his shield down and away, deflecting spells without a second thought. When the demons spun their tempting tales, his mouth formed verses of the Chant to keep his mind his own. Every slash of his sword, every maneuver of his shield, he’d been taught to hunt and kill mages. Mages like her.

At his core, he was a Templar. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that anymore.

Each room they cleared stripped away another layer, pouring salt in the wounds left raw by Neria’s escape. She knew so many, too many of the faces. They were ghosts now and they haunted her as the party went, replacing the love and laughter in every corner with the echo of their screams. An entire lifetime she’d thought to preserve in her memories…gone, just like that.

Her fingers tightened around her staff. Uldred. She would kill him herself for what he’d done to her home.

“Demons,” Alistair whispered as they approached the next room. His gaze lingered on her but she refused to meet it, just nodded at Leliana to open the door.

Desire waited on the other side, a few Templars in its snare. As they launched into battle, Rage crawled up and joined the fray, for passion and anger were never more than a hairsbreadth apart. Ducking around Alistair, Solona engaged the demon head-on. She knew Desire, had spent many nights with its temptations curled around her ears. It offered her nothing she had not rejected before.

Ice sprayed from her staff, a deadly cone that froze the demon mid-air. Her staff spun and twisted, mana woven into a rune that sprang up just as her ice melted away. A wall of electricity caged the demon and Solona darted for an angle at its vulnerable back.

Summon, bend, cast. She threw ice before fire, summoned bolts and nets of pure arcane energy, and held the demon at bay with shield about her mind. Around them, its thralls fell to her companion’s blades, until only Desire remained. Its attention never wavered from Solona.

But it was flagging. Solona tasted victory, just a spell or two away. She thrust her staff toward the ceiling and drew down a bolt of lightning—

—that fizzled into nothing. An invisible wall of force slammed on her from above. She fell to her knees, nearly knocked prone if not for how she clutched her staff.

She knew Desire and this was not one of its abilities. With willpower as strong as hers, very few things laid her out so fully, body and mind both. As the fog cleared from her eyes, she realized that Desire was on its knees beside her, horns pressed to the floor, and she recognized the taste of bitter iron on her tongue.

A lack of Fade. Her connection severed as wholly as if she’d lost a limb.

A Templar’s holy Smite.

Sure enough, when her eyes found Alistair, his expression twisted horribly with grief and guilt. The time for that was later, though. At his side, Wynne siphoned mana from herself and threw it at Solona, who surged upright as the Fade returned to her fingertips.

She whipped her staff around and drove the blade into the base of Desire’s neck. It howled—then choked, as she cast waves of electricity straight into its core. Its back arched and it fell dead at her feet, singed and smoking.

The moment’s adrenaline instantly left Solona and she crumpled.

“Solona!”

Alistair’s concern stung like a whip and when his hand landed on her shoulder, she flinched. Oblivious, he knelt beside her and tipped her head back. She cringed away and this time he couldn’t miss it.

“Solona?”

In her peripheral, he loomed taller and broader than she knew he really was, and the edges of him blurred from the lingering aura of Smite. When he reached for her hand, she clenched it into a fist.

“Please, don’t.” She squeezed her eyes shut. It wasn’t fair—it wasn’t his fault. “Just…Wynne?”

“I—of course.” She owed him an explanation, something to soothe the painful confusion so tangible in his soft words. But she was too raw for that now, her emotions all twisted up in what had been and what was and what she wanted to be.

Templars protected them, protected the tower. They were the Chantry’s arm, carrying the Maker’s message and the Divine’s will in their holy endeavors. So the Circle taught her, so she’d always believed. She never had a reason to doubt.

Until now.

Wynne took Alistair’s place and as soon as her comforting arm settled across Solona’s shoulders, the young mage collapsed. She fell forward against Wynne’s bosom like a child and sobbed as she had not since the Templars took her from Kirkwall. Her mother’s anguish was just a wisp of childish memory, but it echoed in her soul as Wynne stroked gentle comfort down her spine.

“Shh, child, shh,” she murmured. “It will pass. You will be alright.”

Would she? When the world stripped her bare in this way? Confidence had carried her so far, but she wondered now if it had been false, a delusion she painted for herself to cope with the reality she hadn’t wanted to see.

“How?” she sobbed. Wynne buried her face in Solona’s mussed hair and a few silent tears slipped down her face.

“You have no other choice.”

[hel-unleashed]

Yet another normal day in Kirkwall

Original template by ReddsMess

[ghilankisser]

They were so cute

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

So you know this party banter between Aveline and Carver?

Aveline: I don't like some of the people you've been associating with, Carver. Carver: Talk to my brother/sister. He/She's the one in charge.

If you're on the rivalry path with Aveline, she says:

Aveline: Who says I don't mean him/her too? This city's full of people who are dead set on ending badly. I don't want to see you end up the same way.

I just- Aveline, you- you're so- hhhhnnnngggggg

I always rival Aveline when I play a mage, and if you think Edgar Aristide Hawke, who practically raised Carver and Bethany after Malcolm died and Leandra became a distant mother in her grief, wouldn't stop dead in his tracks at Aveline heavily implying he's a bad influence on his brother and Carver shouldn't hang around him so much since apparently Ed's someone set on ending badly...? Absolutely not.

This is another case of me wishing Hawke had the option to jump in during party banter with different options, because Ed would've chewed Aveline out for that.

Oh, and then there's:

Carver: Would asking you to stop spying on me help in the least? Aveline: No.

Aveline...................stop it.

[transmasc-tabris]

Anyway *unhinged scream about blood magic*

[stinkrascal]

also i genuinely think i was just playing da2 wrong the first time bc im having SO much fun in this playthrough... thats the difference between siding with the mages and the templars i suppose

[midnightwind]

god damn it, Inquisition made me like Cullen

[pfeffermuhle]

ok so bear with me bc im still playing dragon age and idk all the lore yet

luka starts out as a mage in the circle of magi (along with carli)

ivan is there as a templar, working as the guard of the magi.

at one point luka escapes the circle, becoming an apostate who is hunted by templars, ivan included but not really bc they are friends. they end up meeting, ivan officially leaves the templar order and they all start their own mercenary group (vatreni)

[zevranunderstander]

i dont think i will ever be over dragon age 2. like. bioware made an epic fantasy story about a chosen one having to save a country and stop the apocalypse and then they made the second installment of the series be about the sociopolitical climate in ONE city through the lens of a family of refugees fleeing from the war of the first game and just. made it about political tensions and class dynamics and the influences of living in a church-mandated state and the growing tension over an occupied piece of the city and political killings and interpersonal conflict and power and its story is ENTIRELY character-driven. it has easily the most iconic set of companion characters. the premise of living through a story told over the course of ten years and knowing from the start that something really bad will happen in the end was so fresh and exciting. the fact that the acts really built on top of each other andhow much the city changed over time. and the game was so mature in terms of the topic of fighting against oppression in so many ways (im usually generous and say that the short development time left some things a bit wanting), and as much as some people say that the game treats mages and templars as being equally bad, i don't think that that is actually true about the game and it very earnestly tries to grapple with some pretty complex political dynamics.

and then the game completely flopped financially and was almost universally hated for its queer themes and its sympathy for "terrorism" and a lot of the things that stemmed from basically having no production time at all and then the studio just made another epic fantasy story about a chosen one that has to save the world from the apocalypse

[edenaziraphale]

There's a lot to be said about the weaknesses and strengths of the writing in Dragon Age games, but for me there's nothing that trumps the way the writers' implicit biases shine through in their treatment of various characters. Anders and Solas showcase the very worst of this. Functionally Anders and Solas could (and I would go so far as to say should) operate as foils to one another. Anders is a victim of decades of abuse at the hands of both individuals and a system that demonized him from a very young age. We are given information about his childhood and time spent in the circle that makes it explicitly clear that Circles are an unjust and abusive system that traumatized him so much that he fled multiple times regardless of the fact that he knew the abuse would escalate each time he escaped. In the end, he chooses to chance death and lifelong struggle via conscription because it is his only shot at escaping his current reality. After that, in DA2, it's made clear that Kirkwall's circle is even worse. Karl is made tranquil, the templars are mad with power, and it's heavily implied that the tranquil are utilized as sex slaves and that some templars may even be selecting mages for tranquility based on their desire for them alone. In the light of all of that, Anders makes a very desperate and destructive choice. Regardless of how players feel about his actions, it's not really up for debate that the context surrounding them creates mitigating circumstances and a sympathetic backing. He was attempting to affect positive change for a group of people facing fates that the game makes clear are worse than death. Despite this, the game's writing treats him as an unsympathetic villain whose actions are not only reprehensible, but completely beyond the realm of human understanding. That dynamic at the end of DA2 carries into DAI. Solas, on the other hand, is on a quest to undo his own actions. His initial construction of the Veil and the problems that it caused can be viewed with (some) similarity to Anders circumstances in that Solas was attempting to right a wrong done by someone else, but the key difference is that, unlike Anders, who was a powerless victim attempting to free other powerless victims, Solas was on a revenge quest to avenge the death of his friend and had an incredible amount of power within the system that he existed as a part of.

His actions had horrific consequences that birthed what is essentially an entirely new existence for everyone in Thedas eons before the start of any of the games. He finds the outcome of his own actions intolerable, and seeks to reverse them. He harms friends and allies to do so, and makes it explicitly clear that he does not care who he harms or what the consequences are to Thedas or the people who live there in his quest to bring back the version of the world that he liked better. Functionally, Solas makes an excellent villain. He stands out from Anders (who operates in his narrative as a symbol of the rage and disenfranchisement of the powerless) as a representation of power and ego unchecked and the damage that they can cause.

Unfortunately, the writing of the game treats him as though he is the tragically complex victim of forces outside of his control when he is in fact the over-powered puppeteer. He is very much the master of his own destiny and he intends to be the master of everyone else's destiny as well by ripping apart the fabric of reality. No character in the series better demonstrates the writer's biases than Varric, who, as a narrator for DA2, essentially acts as the moral arbiter telling players how they should and should not feel about events, explaining what is and is not moral. His reactions to Anders stand out in sharp relief against what we see of his reaction to Solas in the Veilguard releases so far.

To be clear, I don't hate Solas as a character. I think as a villain, he works very well. His complete and total disregard for the wellbeing of others paired with his affect of wise and gentle mage are compelling to witness. His motivations are understandable from the selfish and self-centered core of us as people. He's a fantastic reminder of what happens when we decide that we know what's best with no input from others, when we pursue our desires above all else beneath the veneer of wisdom. He's fun, well rounded, and interesting. He is not, however, a tragic and morally justified sadboi victim of circumstance, and I resent that the writers treated him as though he was.

[theluckywizard]

happy dadwc lucky! for Cullen & Bethany: “If you don’t know my options, don’t judge my choices.”

Thank you, Mer! Here's some Bethany Hawke & Cullen Rutherford in early DA2, Act 2 in the Gallows. for @dadrunkwriting Pairing: Bethany Hawke & Cullen Rutherford WC: 800 Rating: Teen Tags: Mage-templar dynamics, painfully clueless Cullen, Circle Bethany, adjusting to imprisonment, awkward conversations

The next time Cullen saw Bethany Hawke, a strange sensation hitched in his gut. He didn’t want it to be relief, but it felt a lot like it. Her name had been on the harrowing schedule within the first week of her arrival. Meredith had been pushing for earlier harrowings for months. An unharrowed mage puts us all at risk, she decreed. Orsino did his best to argue for the young apprentices, still in the thick of preparations, still maturing and strengthening their resolve, but the uptick in voluntary tranquil spoke volumes. It was the safest way. But it made his stomach cramp and burn.

Bethany was a rarity. It was unusual to capture an apostate who had been free for so long and they didn’t usually fare well in harrowings. Hedge mages who never learned to cope with a true demonic threat, who’d spent years using their mana to heat water and heal wounds wound up tranquil or dead more often than not. Meredith felt it was the natural penalty for evading the law for so long. Cullen sometimes wondered if it wasn’t a wretched waste.

He spotted her dark head bent over a bowl of stew during the third lunch shift in the green and gold Kirkwall’s newly harrowed enchanters wear. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so surprised given all he uncovered during his investigation.

She sat alone. The mages could be as brutally exclusive as the templars. He thought back to his own days at his own table. Now he ate alone in his office more often than not.

“How are you settling in, Enchanter?” he asked. “I hope the facilities meet your expectations.”

He silently cursed himself when he surprised her with a mouthful. She dabbed her mouth with a napkin and swallowed in a hurry.

“It’s— fine.” She looked beyond him at the other mages, and then studied her stew bowl once more, prodding at a carrot with her spoon before stirring it needlessly.

“It can’t be worse than the squalor of Lowtown, can it?” he asked.

Her brow twitched. “Well on the plus side, I suppose it’s nice that the sewage is properly managed here. But in Lowtown I could wander down to Berny’s if I felt like it and buy a—”

“—sweet roll. I— uh. I know it.” Cullen shifted on his feet as he considered the enormous privilege of a sweet roll on a whim. His tongue felt dry and clumsy suddenly. He’d never been good at conversation. “Here they make them at Wintersend.”

Bethany’s lips disappeared into a minor frown. She must already suspect the quality to be inferior. She’d be correct.

“Have you heard news of my brothers?” she asked, folding her napkin into a smaller and smaller triangle. 

“I have not. I saw in the broadsheets that one of the merchant’s guild members returned with his men,” he says. “I could look into it— if you like.” What was he doing?

He felt the force of her sudden gaze blast right through him.

“You— could do that?” she asked.

Cullen regretted making the offer. “I could. I will send the information through the proper channels. Orsino will take care of it.”

“Thank you, Knight Captain,” she says. Cullen glances at over at his shoulder and three dozen staring eyes flicker away to other objects of interest. He could guess how it looked. A fetching, newly harrowed enchanter chatting with the recently promoted right hand to the commander. And yet he found himself inventing a half dozen legitimate ways to steal a real conversation with her.

“I’m— I’m glad you made it. Through your harrowing. It pained me to see that they’d scheduled you so soon.”

She huffed softly. “Aren’t you the second in command here?” It’s that unwitting insolence again, something she hasn’t learned to help yet. 

“I— my duties are surprisingly narrow in scope.”

Bethany regarded him doubtfully. Her skeptical look didn’t change the truth. Meredith was delighted to pawn off operations to him. Provisioning. Staff schedules. Inventories. Low level templar disciplinary issues. And whatever investigations she assigned him. She said it would build his confidence as a leader. He hoped it would earn her trust.

“I heard harrowings are happening sooner, when the apprentices are younger,” she said quietly. “Isn’t there something you could do about that?”

“If I could— I— you don’t know what my options are,” he answered in a low voice. He blinked, frowning at his own floundering thoughts and pivoted to defend Meredith, the woman who believed in him so fiercely. “The Knight Commander is a wise woman. I trust her. And you should too.”

He patted the hilt of his sword and moved to extricate himself from this crumbling situation. “I’ll find out about your brothers. If I can.”

Read the rest of Together Alone here

Summary:

A traumatized newly-promoted Knight Captain who only wants to keep the world safe from the terrors of the Fade. A soft-hearted, sharp-minded mage who spent years evading the law. Maybe they don’t share the same fears. But at least they're not alone in being afraid. Or how two people form an unlikely friendship in the worst possible place and change each other forever.

[princehendir]

Some dragon age fans get really mad when you take mage oppression/mage-templar dynamics seriously as something that informs characterization and interpersonal dynamics in-universe. Which is odd.

[abyssal-ilk]

A thing that people always forget when chastising vivienne for being so apathetic to cole is the fact that she is a circle mage. People whom are forced to learn that you should not trust demons nor spirits or else they’ll put you down AS A RITE OF PASSAGE. Think back to what Mouse says in DAO. “Keep your wits about you, mage; true challenges never end.” She knows that for the rest of her life, demons will tempt her and try to possess her. She has seen mages turn into abominations, knows how they get them- of course she will support templars who have the skills to subdue them. And now to have a spirit scurrying around without supervision what is the last bastion against a Tevinter Sidereal… I too would be worried as hell if i were a circle mage.

EXACTLY!

not only is vivienne a circle mage, but there are also a few other factors that play into it that make cole so untrustworthy to her. vivienne underwent her harrowing when she was young– in fact, she was the youngest mage to have ever gone through a harrowing and survived it. we don't get to learn much about what she went through during her harrowing, but we DO have this banter between her and cole:

harrowings on their own are already traumatic enough, and with the added insistence from the circles that all spirits and demons are dangerous (which we see vivienne repeat above, "all it can do is harm."), it makes complete sense on why vivienne would be so put-off by cole! especially given how kind he is! she thinks that kindness is a ploy, and why wouldn't she if her harrowing was anything like the warden's in DAO?

and then that's not even acknowledging the fact that cole isn't just ANY spirit. he's the ghost of the spire. he's killed mages before and admits to doing so. and even though he was wrong to do so and realizes that what he did was wrong, that does not mean that vivienne automatically has to suddenly be okay with what cole did. of course vivienne takes cole being the ghost of the spire harder than everyone else in the inner circle. she is the only circle mage there. it is entirely plausible that she sees cole as a threat and views herself as being the person most able to recognize that threat because of what she was taught. it's why she struggles so much to empathize with cole on any level.

ive already talked about this briefly on another post, but cole is also fairly antagonistic to vivienne as well. it's easy to look at their dynamic and think that, well, cole is just trying to help vivienne but he... isn't? his version of helping her is prying into her thoughts without permission and continuing to do so even after she has shown clear discomfort with it.

cole drags her worst memories and thoughts out publicly in front of not just vivienne, but the rest of the party and anyone else who may happen to be standing near them. it's DANGEROUS, what he does, because vivienne is a player of the game. her position at court is a precarious one, and to have someone like cole who can just pick into her brain whenever he wants with no repercussions? it's scary! it's scary because vivienne has no defense against it, especially if the player supports cole and downplays the harm he does. and what can vivienne do about it? she's an ally of the inquisitor, and that makes her cole's ally by proxy. telling cole to stop doesn't work, insulting him doesn't work, trying to get the inquisitor to intervine doesn't work– nothing seems to deter cole.

which is why THIS piece of dialogue is so important to me:

despite everything i've said above, vivienne still cannot help but care about cole. no matter how dangerous he is, no matter what she was raised to believe, she still cares about him and worries for him. their dynamic is SO interesting to me and i really wish people dug into it a bit more rather than just dismiss it as vivienne being needlessly cruel to cole. it's so much more than that.

[crossdressingdeath]

A 3 AM thought: Wynne's dynamic with Alistair vs the Warden really is so much crunchier if you're playing Surana/Amell. With the former Templar Wynne is every inch the doting grandmother: she nags him lovingly, she mends his clothes, she fusses over him, he can get basically anything out of her just by acting pathetic until she gives in. She comes across as... for lack of a better word, harmless in a way that's a little uncomfortable when you remember where she grew up. There's an element where I get the sense she's trying to manage Alistair and keep him on her side the way a Circle mage might try to manage a Circle Templar to keep themself safe.

But with the Warden she's very different in a way that doesn't make sense with most Wardens, given that at least on paper they and Alistair hold basically the same position? With the Warden Wynne is harsh, demanding. They have to get everything right, no distractions, no missteps, no fumbles. They can't fall in love, they can't hesitate, they must in short be the fairytale, knight in shining armour image of a "perfect" Grey Warden. Which... y'know, isn't how the Wardens work? But if you're playing Surana/Amell and looking at their conversations with Wynne through the lens of a senior Circle mage speaking to a much younger and less experienced Circle mage... that's basically the advice that that senior mage would give in the Circle. If you want to live, be perfect. You can't slip, you can't fall in love, you must be the very best you can be to the point of inhumanity (for lack of a better term in a setting where not everyone's human) because anything less is unforgivable. No one wants you to be a person, just a tool; that's a feeling that I think both mages and Wardens would understand. The way Wynne treats the Warden makes the most sense with Surana/Amell by a mile, because she is in a way treating the whole situation like being in the Circle!

[shewolfofvilnius]

The dynamic between Neve Gallus and Knight-Templar Rena Savas in The Streets of Minrathous in Tevinter Nights is one of the least heterosexual things I've ever read. I know her character in the game is pan, but it still does not prepare you for the raw sexual tension of the equalist private investigator mage and the Templar she keeps going to see (and who ultimately rallies the troops to rescue her).