#alhanin lavellan

[menialfiend]

Some wips of Alhanin one of my many MANY Lavellans. I’ve been having problems with my drawing arm these r pm all i’ve gotten done recently while i try to let my arm rest a bit.

first thing is a style/coloring experiment and the is a obligatory ‘draw ur oc in some couture shit’ thing.

i cannot begin to express how difficult drawing a broken nose in and i Regret that design choice every time i draw her no matter how cool i think it is.

[captusmomentum]

“She had a highly developed sense of humor which in some lights looked a bit like a sense of justice.” 

― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

general information.

full name Alhanin Sahlin’ehn Lavellan ➶  age 27~34 (depends on verse) ➶  place of birth Free Marches ➶  zodiac Libra ➶  gender Female  ➶  religion Devotee of Mythal  ➶  orientation Good Question

physical attributes.

height  ~5'10 ➶  hair color Brassy Red ➶  eye color Amber ➶  skintone Russet  ➶  vallasin Mythal - Full Face ➶  distinguishing marks freckles, a lot of scars, broken nose ➶   clothing style any verse’s equivalent of lumderjack

background information. (Modern Aus mainly)

hometown Dalish camps + outside ➶ Ostwick current residence Starkhaven (aus) ➶  past residences All over the Free Marches and Antiva ➶  spoken languages Common, some Elven, some Antivan, all badly ➶  financial status Working Poor ➶ education level  Base requirements + master level hunting (canon) | Military (aus) ➶ occupation A Lead Hunter,  Mid-rank Mythal Devotee, Successor to Elder(s) (Mythal’s Judgement + Master Hunter), Starkhaven Militiaman (aus only), Inquisitor (sometimes), Herald of Andraste (sometimes)

familial information.

mother Who I Need to Name (biological)  ➶  father ???? (biological), Needs a name (step-father) ➶  siblings Féwena (full sister), 3 half sisters I still need to name  ➶  children Currently none

personality.

positive traits Funny, Loving, Competent, Fair  ➶  negative traits Strict, Workaholic, Doubting  ➶  likes Kids, Hunting, Bow and Arrow, Halla, Camping, Music, Comedy, Friendship  ➶  dislikes Injustice, Cruelty, Cowardice, Prejudice, Party-poopers  ➶  moral alignment Lawful Good  ➶  mbti ENFJ  ➶  enneagram Type 6: the Loyalist +Type 9: the Peacemaker  ➶  temperament Sanguine 

“She left a week to roam/ Your protector's coming home/ Keep your secrets with you/ Safe from the outside/ You walk along the stream/ Your head caught in a waking dream/ Your protector's coming home, coming home” ―Fleet Foxes, Your Protector

[candlejoke]

* / INANALLAS

AVAILABILITY…    primary.    PORTRAYAL…    game & hc based.    SHIPPING…    open.

                        verses . headcanons .  interactions .   aesthetics  .  tapestry 

THE BASICS

full name.  tba Inanallas Nuveninari Lavellan Anurlal   aka.    Inan, Inni/Inny (hATES IT) age.    24 base, verse dependent  gender & pronouns. Agender / They/Them / She/her    orientation.    Pansexual (Demi) , Panromantic (Demi) species.   Elvhen ethnicity.  Dalish occupation.    First ( former ), Spy ( former ), Herald / Inquisitor  ( verse dependent ), Inquisition Minion ( verse dependent ) birth place.    the Anderfels  parents.    tba siblings.    BIRTH: Imshi, Eth’Menala, Varenasal + 2 more | ADOPTED: Nehnara, Samahllen, Thenvas

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

hair.    Black, thick, poorly maintained, to thighs usually in a braided updo mess eyes.    Large and unsettlingly blue complexion.   Naturally pale but generally tan thanks to lifestyle, freckly and quick to get red/ruddy build.    REFERENCE IMAGE height.   5′3 face claim(s).    Zhu Zhu scars.  tba tattoos.    SEE HERE piercings.    earlobes etc.    tba

PERSONALITY

alignment.   chaotic neutral  positive traits.    Creative, Caring, Unstoppable when she puts her mind to it, Understanding, Empathetic, Open minded, Assertive and even-handed when she lets herself be negative traits.    Self-isolating, Deeply anxious with an uneven sense of self-esteem, Functions via denial, compartmentalization and disassociation, Lacks confidence in social/inter-personal areas, Distorted ideas of how people view her from anxiety, poor self-esteem and confidence, Prone to depression, Censors herself to avoid confrontation, Avoids literally everything she can honestly, even good things for fear of losing/ruining them, Almost constantly caught between hesitation and recklessness mental.    anxiety, depression, INTENSE RECKLESSNESS phobias.   spiders, responsibility, dinner parties optimist, pessimist, realist.  Yes, just spin the wheel you’ll get one of them

tropes.  cloudcuckoolander genre savvy complexity addiction cannot spit it out nervous wreck Intelligible Unintelligible Open Mouth, Insert Foot Not-So-Phony Psychic

INANALLAS IS BUILT ON DICHOTOMY. They both act like a coward and a mad man with a death wish. They claim utter incompetency as a leader yet when under the impression they’re not in charge they’re extremely capable at leading and managing people and tasks. Desperately unsure of themselves in social situations but shockingly aggressive in a fight. Seems to be a machine running on endless energy yet constantly complains about being dead tired. It’s an internal struggle that’s externally visible in their affinity for the spirits Patience and Action. They’re also deeply curious and invested in the occult and larger mysteries of Thedas and can come off as Pretty Spooky. 

BACKGROUND

TL; DR

▪�� Born into clan Anurlal ▪︎ Meets her spirit wolf companions at about 3-4 in the Fade ▪︎ Brought into clan Lavellan at 6-8 to be the first ▪︎ Effectively adopted as new sibling by Thenvas, Samahllen and Nehnara ▪︎ First meets the spirit of the ( mainly dalish ) concept of fen'harel ( it’s complicated ) at about 12 ▪︎ 16-17 recieves vallaslin ▪︎ Teenage boy from clan killed in fight with bandits, clan thrown into uproar ▪︎ Inan is alerted to Thenvas’ plan to attack the village the bandits are in by Samahllen, goes to stop him ▪︎ Utter failure, saves Alhanin ( first hunter ) who was already trying to stop them, helps Thenvas and lets his crew escape, ends up trying to do damage control, then has to fight templars and escape ▪︎ Becomes even more insecure about becoming keeper, eventually talks to Deshanna when it causes a meltdown ▪︎ Conclave is announced and she and Deshanna agree this is a good time for her to step down, honorably resigns as first under pretext of being a spy for the clan ▪︎ DA:I happens, and we all know how messy that was. 

LONG Inanallas isn't from clan Lavellan originally. They were born into clan Anurlal, a clan that travels mainly through the Anderfels and surrounding areas. They were the youngest of 6 children and came into magic ( and dreamer capacities ) at the very young age of 3. It took awhile for anyone to realize exactly that was what was going on however, as it manifested mainly as Fade travel in dreams and periods of inactivity the clan at first chalked up to daydreaming and a vivid imagination. It was during this period they met the twin spirits Patience and Action, who they cite as the only reason they survived in the Fade at that age. When their clan finally figured it out they started magical training with the keeper immediately. However there was lingering concern about having such a young dreamer mage in an area with so much death. When they were about 6 clan Anurlal was made aware of the fact clan Lavellan currently had no apprentice mages and after some deliberation they decided to send Inanallas to clan Lavellan to protect them. It was a very hard period for them since they were too young to really understand why they were being sent away and were a painfully shy child. To make matters worse children from the clan started to come into magic after they'd arrived which made them feel even more useless and unwanted. 

 The saving grace for Inanallas was the siblings, Nehnara, Samahllen and Thenvas who basically adopted them on sight thanks to Thenvas' Magic Obsession. They spent a lot of their childhood from then on studying then passing it on Thenvas and acting as a test dummy for Thenvas and Samahllen's fighting practice. It was also around this time They and Thenvas began working through the idea of magic tattoos.

 Not long after they got their vallaslin at about 16-17 another member of their clan was killed by bandits camped out in a nearby village. There was an uproar in the clan about what to do and while the elders decided it was wisest to not engage and just get out. Inan had the sinking feeling that Thenvas was mustering some of the more radical youths to retaliate but ignored it to avoid the confrontation. Then Samahllen came to them in the middle of the night to get them to help stop Thenvas. By the time they got there Alhanin, one of the lead hunters and a sort of voice of reason in the clan, had already been forced to engage with the radicals had killed one and the village was on fire. With Alhanin pretty much catatonic at having killed her own kin it was left to Inanallas sort out, first ordering Samahllen to get her out of there and leave it to them ( shit plan ). They barely even started to fight when they realized Thenvas had been wounded already, lost all stomach for it and just healed him and told them to get the fuck out and not to come back to the clan. 

Then they stayed behind to try and do damage control on the fire when the local templars noticed the magic and came for them. Upon realizing that the damage from the fight was making things worse Inanallas ran for it and went awol for like 3 days to keep them away from the clan. When they came back they were crippled by the guilt of how much of a massive failure they were as a First and became increasingly depressed and self-loathing over the years. Finally they couldn't bear it anymore and spoke to Deshanna and asked to be removed from the position of first. Deshanna agreed reluctantly and asked Inanallas to go and spy on the conclave as a means of giving them a way to gracefully bow out from being first. And here we are today. The rest is Verse Dependent. 

SKILLS + ABILITIES 

class.     Mage specialization.    Rift / Arcane Warrior notable skills.    hand to hand / close range + magic combos, AoE attacks languages.    Ancient Elvhen, Common, smatterings of Dwarven and Qunlat.

★★★☆☆ Edged weapons ★★★★☆ Dual Weapons ★★★☆☆ Crushing weapons (mazes, clubs, etc) ★★☆☆☆ Two-handed weapons ★★☆☆☆ Thrown weapons (knives, axes, javelins) ☆☆☆☆☆ Archery

★★★★☆ Herbalism ★★★★☆ Poison-Making ★★★☆☆ Traps-Making ★☆☆☆☆ Armor-Crafting ★☆☆☆☆ Weapon-Crafting ★★★★☆ Rune-Crafting

★★☆☆☆ Acting ★★★★★ Appraisal ★☆☆☆☆ Bribery ★★★☆☆ Diplomacy ★☆☆☆☆ Gambling ☆☆☆☆☆ Interrogation ★★★☆☆ Leadership ☆☆☆☆☆ Public Speaking ☆☆☆☆☆ Seduction ★★★☆☆ Trading ★★☆☆☆ Trickery ★★★★★ Read / Write

[captusmomentum]

fun fact:

the death of Lathuien’s brother is what spurred Thenvas into his violent anti-shemlen radical revolutionarism (not that he wasn’t already but that was what broke the leash so to speak).

which resulted in him lighting the shemlen’s settlement on fire, which Inanallas feels Responsible for bc at the time she was acting first and had inkling he might do something extreme but didn’t act on it from anxiety and fear of confrontation even after her sister Samhllen agreed he was up to something.

Which meant that Samhllen tipped off Alhanin who honestly didn’t need more evidence because she’d already picked up on it and been tailing him so then they went to try and stop Thenvas and his posse from making shit worse for them.

Which meant that Alhanin ended up having to fight against and even kill one of her own people which caused her to have a heroic BSOD and almost get her killed if Samahllen hadn’t all but dragged Inanallas there.

Which resulted in Inanallas having Samahllen drag Alhanin back to camp while she let them all go because she couldn’t bear to make the hard choice or fight them and stayed to try and put out the fire they’d started.

Which mean she was still there when templars and such showed up and she made the damage she’d been trying to fix worse and she had to like, actually fight and kill people before running into the woods and wander aimlessly for days to throw them off before returning to camp so she didn’t lead them al there.

All of which lead to her nervous breakdown and like 90% of all of Lathuien and Alhanin’s struggles in life from then on and helped make Féwena even more radical.

and then Thenvas show up at Skyhold when either one is Inquisitor.    

[candlejoke]

* / INANALLAS

AVAILABILITY…    secondary.    PORTRAYAL…    game & hc based.    SHIPPING…   selectve.

THE BASICS

full name.  Inanallas Nuveninari Lavellan Anurlal   aka.    Inan, Inni/Inny (hATES IT) age.    24 base, verse dependent gender & pronouns. Agender / They/Them / She/her   orientation.    Pansexual (Demi) , Panromantic (Demi) species.    Elf, Dalish occupation.  Inquisitor, First, Inquisition Lackey residence.    Nomadic, Skyhold

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

hair.    Black eyes.   Blue complexion.   Naturally pale but generally tan thanks to lifestyle, freckly and quick to get red/ruddy build.    5'3"/1.6m / gymnastic build, muscled scars.  several tattoos.  the full mythal, face tattoo of her own design (post-dai) piercings.    none etc.    FULL BODY MAGIC TATTOOS face claim(s).    Zhu Zhu

PERSONALITY

zodiac.    tba alignment. tba hogwarts.    tba positive traits. tba negative traits.    tba

BACKGROUND

birth place.    Anderfels ethnicity. Dalish parents.    tba siblings.    tba pets.    tba education.    tba notable skills.    tba languages.    Elvhen, Common abilities. tba

LINKS

verses headcanons interactions aesthetics

CHOICES 

Allies: Free Mages Dreadnaught: Chargers live Left behind in the Fade: Neither, (in game Stroud) The Warden’s Fate: Allowed to stay Orlesian succession: Celene with Brialla  Cole’s fate: Spirit Warden Blackwall: Let’s him make his own choice, becomes Warden Money troubles: does things the official way Vallasin: allows it to be removed

HISTORY

tl;dr version

▪︎ Born into clan Anurlal ▪︎ Meets her spirit wolf companions at about 3-4 in the Fade ▪︎ Brought into clan Lavellan at 6-8 to be the first ▪︎ Effectively adopted as new sibling by Thenvas, Samahllen and Nehnara ▪︎ First meets the spirit of the ( mainly dalish ) concept of fen'harel ( it’s complicated ) at about 12 ▪︎ 16-17 recieves vallaslin ▪︎ Teenage boy from clan killed in fight with bandits, clan thrown into uproar is alerted to Thenvas’ plan 2 attack the village the bandits are in by Samahllen, goes to stop him ▪︎ Utter failure, saves Alhanin ( first hunter ) who was already trying to stop them, helps Thenvas and lets them escape, ends up trying to do damage control, then have to fight templars and escape ▪︎ Becomes even more insecure about becoming keeper, eventually talks to Deshanna ▪︎ Conclave is announced and she and Deshanna agree this is a good time for her to step down, honorably resigns as first under pretext of being a spy for the clan ▪︎ DA:I happens

[captusmomentum]

[opens up old psd from like a year ago] [canned horror scream]

wow holy shit these faces are Hideous (what is up w/ the eyES???) Seriously wtf did i do to merrill??????? what did she do to deserve that????

Regardless posting bc they’re sketches of the new customize/personal vallaslin many dalish, especially dalish youth get after the truth comes out about the vallaslin thanks to ancient elves like abelas about 5 years prior to AMD here we have merrill (still can’t think of a good one for her RIP), alhanin, and fewena

there were several different pockets of people discussing the concept of new vallaslin designs that pulled from dalish and elven design and aesthetic but the first people to go through with it was clan lavellan starting with inan. inan and thenvas had been working on their full body tats for years already and a design was already toyed with for inan’s face so it was just a Logical Choice in the circumstance and thenvas had been doing the art and actual tattoo work for all their shit so.

thenvas is/was one of the few dalish who was experienced with tattoo work outside of the preexisting designs and could easily create original dalish aesthetic heavy tattoos (especially then). Via the web he got in touch with other dalish wanting to get the movement going and helped them learn to design good looking tattoos that held to the character of vallaslin and the wishes of the client. inan has never been very artistic in a drawing sense so their help is traditionally in conceptualizing, researching elven art motifs, removing any previous vallaslin and acting as a tattooing assistant. This does mean that they have both been interviewed before about it, inan still does not recognize she’s sort of a minor cultural icon bc of all this. They just wanted new face tats bc they didn’t really like the full mythal and these ones are ~magic~.

merril’s i wanted to try and do something with wings or feathers bc she’s very focused on griffons in this way that i feel is similar to inan and wolves. they’re an animal she identifies with and are very intelligent, sleek, powerful, inspiring and create a sense of magic and wonder which is very Merrill. also feather are Pretty. tho this design isn’t......

al’s is an arrow with some minor surrounding elements to balance bc archery and it’s symbology and meaning to the dalish is very tied to her identity and values. she also kept the roots element of the full mythal because Regardless of the origins it is part of her history and so she respects and honors it and the things the Idea of mythal tho not the evanuris herself did for her in shaping her. her literal + metaphorical roots.

few swapped out her mythal headpiece for one with some heavily stylized elven daggers and some Vague Elven Designwork. She’s not very sentimental she just wants to look good (and lines knives). i based all her shit off of concept art for the ancient elves i then massacred to make it.