#and yeah novhen is nov + vhen

[bumblewarden]

First a rapid fire reaction to your drawings! They are! So good!!!!

I stand by what i said in the notes about Valendrian's next gray hair forming then and there! The poor man doesn't deserve half of the stress they put him through XD

If Novhen's already a Warden going through the stages of "Astala?????" to "Duncan, you went to my sister's wedding and didn't bring me?" to "Wait. Did you recruit my sister 🗡" He can't actually do anything to his CO, but that's beside the point. Why is she here 🗡🗡🗡

Also, the Team Rocket bit! All the trouble for a fraction of the incompetence! Loghain better watch out! And Morri too from the looks of the next one XD

Them napping on each other is so sweet too 😭😭😭 There's not a lot in the way of comforting presences during this shit year, but they still have each other at least. And then you just hit me with the Angst :'( Poor things

*Exhale*

I hope that's able to give them justice, but there's only so much i can say before i need to put the readmore on. I left some angst for you under there

It's worth noting that my Companion Novhen isn't a Warden. He's wandering with a mercenary group up until Lothering because he is either wanted in Denerim (all that thieving caught up with him) or trying to find his kidnapped daughter (who will only exist if i take this route). In Lothering, they try to turn to robbing refugees, and he has a messy falling out with them because that’s not the kind of thief he is and joins up with the Warden instead

I’m just way too emotionally attached to this codex entry lmao

I also make him non-Warden for theoretical game balance purposes. It takes a lot of weight out of the decision to have the Dark Ritual if you have a Warden on the side who’s been flirting with her for the past year. She would probably skip asking the player entirely if that were the case

Also also, i want to allow him the opportunity of being a father one way or another

All of these options you've presented are fun, and personally, i think it's cool to go back and sample from multiple AUs. But if our primary concern is 🔥Angst Factor🔥, double Wardens may be the way to go for our primary lens. Of the two versions of that, i'm partial to Novhen getting recruited a little earlier for ease of plot. I’m sure he was forced to leave Denerim under some sketchy circumstances. He probably then got caught in some other illegal act he was doing to survive, and Duncan conscripted him. It also means i can keep him sharing his Joining with Alistair :3

But who gets the mabari :0 Griffon vs Rascal, fight!

I don’t know how much he’d feel able to tell about the Joining. (He would’ve sent a letter home after his Joining to let them know he was still alive and forced to join the Grey Wardens, so she should at least be able to go in knowing he would probably be there.) He’s been with the Wardens a while at that point and was starting to develop loyalty. Not enough to overrule his need to protect his family but enough to not betray why the Joining is so bad. Still, he’ll insist with every tactic he knows that she has to go home, she has to leave before the Joining. But she can’t, and she doesn’t

He probably knows enough to know that any doubt makes your odds of surviving makes your odds plummet (don't remember if that's canon or fanon though), and they’re already too low for comfort. He doesn’t want to directly mention that it can kill you, but she’s going to learn that on her own anyway. Once he realizes he can't save her, he just tells her he knows she will make it through

He’s still mad at Duncan though. That man’s absolutely complicit, and there had to have been another way

Then, we need to figure out who gets the HoF title and if that same elf would also be WC and/or arl(essa). Alistair doesn't get the HoF title when he makes the ultimate sacrifice, but that's probably chalked up to the pc doing all of the work the entire game prior. Between the twin Tabrises, those titles probably would just go to whoever slayed it

Before the Battle of Denerim, Warden Novhen would try to tell Alistair and Warden Astala that he will make the sacrifice if Riordan is unable. This is half because he sees it as part of his duty to Morrigan and as the father but also, if it fails, he couldn’t feel right making someone else suffer for it, even if logically they would have died anyway if he did nothing. Alistair opposes this suggestion, and it doesn't sound like Astala would be too thrilled either. (They've been through so much together! Their family shouldn't have to lose anyone else! Oh, that sounds bad said out loud. Sorry, Alistair.) He might try to pull the seniority card (well. senior to her. equal seniority to alistair), but i don't think that'd actually work much here

In the actual combat, Novhen is an archer and manning the ballistae, so he's as far from the action as he can be on that roof. He does also get knocked down pretty bad (i had that one post where i described how that battle went but ten seconds ago his chest was ripped open) and, in canon, is only conscious because of pure adrenaline. It would probably be pretty easy for Astala to take that final blow for herself if she took the initiative to do so

So much for the "Let's not die. Okay?" :( And if she loses him this time, it'll stick…

For the king of Orzammar, the gameplay could always reflect Astala's opinions by just controlling *how much* she disapproves instead of approval vs disapproval. I think BW's done that a small handful of times(?) While not a huge supporter of either option (damn nobles), i think Novhen could buckle down enough to give some small approval for Bhelen. He makes improvements for the Casteless, and Novhen's desparate enough to take that. He's also gonna disapprove should the Warden establish a Chantry in Orzammar

If Novhen is a Warden and thus dating Morrigan, he's absolutely killing Flemeth. He's not… overly fond of the idea of killing someone's mother, but he convinces himself it's okay because she's very clearly abusive and it's either her or Morrigan. As a non-Warden, he has roughly the same line of thought but is much less convinced of it

On a related topic, with the Zevran romance, i think it sounds like Astala would be obvious enough with her crush for Novhen to step back before getting involved himself and also it's no fun if he hogs all the smoochquesting for himself XD Normally, Novhen would very much be the type to silently step back and pretend [he was never even attracted to him why would even think that], but in this specific situation, he might field for some gossip in the process. "So, you've been sitting pretty close to Zevran lately, nudge nudge." He's still going to be watching him like a hawk tho, and a few threats wouldn't be unexpected (the staring him down is So accurate) (And Morrigan definitely understands when she's getting lectured as a bird. She just pretends not to. It's quite amusing to watch)

When Astala tries to confront him about his little witchy crush, he's going to first lean into the tried-and-true tactic ~deny everything~, but i have faith she can get him to admit it XD

Astala: Then why have you been sleeping in Morrigan's tent every night for the past week now?

Novhen: She happens to know many fascinating stories.

Astala: Does she? And you haven't invited me to listen in? I'm hurt, Novhen/Novris/Vhen (whichever she would deign to tease him as)

Also, oooooo, if both are Wardens, Novhen does have to be the one to do Witch Hunt for ship reasons, but imagine in a slight AU of that worldstate if for whatever reason (maybe they had a time sensitive lead + pressure from Weisshaupt + Novhen was bedbound at the time), it was Astala instead. He would probably give her a small list of questions to ask (How was the pregnancy? Are she and the baby safe? Is she ready now for him to share the ritual with Weisshaupt?) to which she'd only be prepared to answer the last one

And Novhen is taking total offense he takes when he whispers a suggestion she doesn't accept. He did all that conspiring just for her! They had a system!

Oh! If Astala tends to side with Valendrian, how would she have reacted to the time Novhen took their cousins and tried to "borrow" the shield? Would it have been a situation where would have had to tactfully not bring it up to her before he went to do it? Maybe she was sent to lead the stick/sword gathering instead?

Also, i can imagine him employing Shianni as a distraction on occasion if he were doing something he knew Astala would disapprove of. He used Soris as the distraction exactly once, but he was acting even more nervous than usual, and Astala saw through it immediately XD

Yeah, you've got Novhen down about not being great about speaking to crowds. When he was younger, it was more due to just general Quiet Kid Syndrome, but by the time he's learned to be more assertive, he had already earned some throat scarring from the smallpox that makes it a bit painful for him to project his voice 😔 He's much better suited for one-on-one communication

I think that's a good timeline for Adaia. We could have her imprisoned long enough for Astala's entire sick arc then have her return in poor health. She wouldn't be able to return to her previous condition between then and the fateful day, but she would be able to be up and about again. She wasn't recovered enough to even begin planning a return to crime on the day she was murdered. It was supposed to just be errands

This way, Astala gets her chance to fester and her chance to confront

Novhen would think her rude for becoming distant while Adaia's recovering, but wouldn't think it worthy of commenting on. Once Astala lets it out though, he wouldn't take well to her criticizing their ma at all. It's an emotionally charged time for all of them. He'd maybe say a few words he'd regret, insult her own lack of rogue talents in the process. He'd take any post-mortem criticism of Adaia even worse, i would think. He already idolized her in life and now is struggling to cope with her death. It's… not a happy topic of conversation

And just put the booze on the top shelf while he's sleeping, it might at least slow his consumption enough for him to wait until he's sober enough to climb to get more

For work, Novhen smuggles for Alarith. I'm sure Astala's thrilled that he's establishing himself in the same line of work that ultimately got their mother killed. Alarith's whole business is run under-the-table, and especially when the gates are forcibly shut, smuggling is very important to the livelihood of the alienage. Outside of that, Novhen'll take the occassional legal gig elsewhere. He doesn’t have very consistent work, but he’s able to contribute his fair portion to maintaining the household finances. She can try to dissuade him from the smuggling, but even if he were to stop entirely, he'd still find himself resorting to burglary by the end of the month to retrieve the remaining coins needed from traders with weak locks

(I think you've Alarith's age set a lot closer to the Warden's than i do, so i can also just swap him out here for whoever ran that store before him. It's more important to be able to tease Astala for her former crush on him than the specifics of who Novhen worked for)

I like Astala starting work at Adaia's first disappearance at one place to make up for the lost income, stopping once she's returned, and resuming at the same place if they'll let her back or elsewhere if they won't after her death. It's very dramatic and emphasizes the (if sometimes complicated and bittersweet) childhood bliss that Adaia being around once represented and really drives home how hard her absence affected them

Hopping back to the Dark Ritual, with both as Wardens, Novhen will obviously perform the ritual, but about after that… 🤔 The thing is, as much of a liar Novhen is, he does not like extending that dis/courtesy to his family. He's going to be so torn about whether or not to tell her about the Dark Ritual

To Astala, i think he will confide as much as Morrigan performed a ritual to save the life of the Warden who took the final blow (bc she's going to have questions about that too) and that she was pregnant when she left. Her business was done here, so so was she. He'll emphasize that both the ritual and the child are very secret and nobody else can know, but he's also going to do as much as he can to keep her from putting together that those two things are related. "I don't know how the ritual worked. I just trusted her"

He's good at hiding his feelings, but Astala knows him too well, especially as impacted as she would have been by that year after Adaia's death where he was basically a zombie. And he definitely needs someone to cry to

It's going to be about just after Witch Hunt that Novhen becomes more willing to share the mostly-truth of the matter. Morrigan just needed to be in a less vulnerable position than pregnant and on-the-run before he could be allowed to share, but she doesn't want Urthemiel to be the only old god able to be saved. He does still lie a little bit about the archdemon soul being cleansed vs destroyed. People wouldn’t like that

Also!!!!!!! A thing to consider is that if he's not the only one available to protect his family and lead the Wardens in this verse, he might follow Morrigan through the eluvian after all 👀. He would clear the idea by Astala first before even leaving (because he may get an oppurtunity and he misses her so bad and wants to meet his son! but also astala might need him there), but if he gets the nod from both her and Morri, he's going to quickly pen a letter for Ariane and Finn to bring back to her after Morrigan's agreement. He doesn't have a lot of time for anything too elegant, but he can at least say goodbye. Just a short little–

I'm leaving with Morrigan. When they ask, tell Da and them I got reassigned to Rivain. The truth will only disappoint them. If Weisshaupt asks, I'm dead. I don't know if I'll be able to write you where I'm going, but I will if I can.

There should be a book being delivered with this letter. Morrigan claims it holds some early information on the Grey Wardens and the Taint that may prove useful. It also includes details of the ritual she used to save us. You may share that information at your discretion, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry about what you'll find.

Love you,

Novhen

(maybe not those exact words but something short and sweet like that- anyway that's what i assume her gift at the end of witch hunt is and it's especially useful in kickstarting the search for the cure)

For a brief detour to an angsty AU until the orange text returns, our prerequisites are 1) Morrigan and Novhen eventually return to Thedas but are unable to visit Astala and/or share a return address and 2) neither them nor Astala and Zevran are able to find a Cure. So yeah, a little death cw for the next few paragraphs :(

For the next many years starting around 9:25, he'd send semi-regular letters to Vigil's Keep. (Might need someone to forward his letters to Antiva if she's moved on by then.) Because he can't provide a safe or stable return address, he can't receive any letters back. He mostly tells her mundane stuff like how quickly Kieran's growing and different plum pastry recipes from across Thedas

Wardens get up to thirty from their Joining if they're lucky. Most are not Avernus Georg is an outlier and not to be counted

Eventually, Astala has to go on her Calling. She had more regular exposure to darkspawn after the Blight and fought in closer quarters. She caught the Blightsickness before her Joining. She didn't have Morrigan's arcane knowledge to preserve her. It makes sense she would go first even if she had a few months advantage

The letters continue to arrive even after her Calling, but her successor or a former housemate (depending if she was in Amaranthine or Antiva) gathers them together unopened out of respect. Soon, they stop. Time passes, and out of curiosity, the successor/housemate opens the final one.

The paper is tear-stained and written in a familiar tone. The name signed at the bottom rings a bell. If this is the successor, they recognize the name as the Commander's brother who was reported KIA. Clearly, she was lying for him if he had been contacting her regularly all this time. If this is the housemate, they also recognize the name as Astala's brother but likely already knew he hasn't been dead for the past 30 years. He disappeared those years ago to protect his wife and child

The final letter says that the Blight has progressed too far in him and not even Morrigan's magic can prolong him any further. He states an intent to die while still himself shortly after sending the letter. There's a bitter note that he doesn't know if she’s still around to read it, but he hopes she is

Sorrysorrysorry

And now a happier palate cleanser: wipe those prereqs aside. We're going to post-Inquisition, pre-DA:D.

One day, a hooded Warden who smells vaguely of pickles arrives at Vigil's Keep (or her residence in Antiva, if that’s the case), and he's got with him two courser hounds. He claims to be Warden Ben'cyrion* of Rivain and requires an audience with the arlessa

*Ben'cyrion being “ben Cyrion” (son of Cyrion) with a more elven grammar. I have elaborate headcanons about elven naming conventions but part of that would be that even when they have family names, most elves usually would use the p/matronym of whichever parent didn't have to move for the wedding approximately. Astala would recognize it as him

Now that their little family unit is safe again, they're all going to combine their knowledges and expedite the search for the Cure!

Most of the Jewish culture i determined was better to attach to the alienage rather than the Cult of Fen'Harel - fewer unfortunate implications. Besides, that was the group originally with that intent by the devs. I mean, alienages are the ghettos

Alfish is definitely for the alienage at large and not just the Cult. It's much easier for a whole community to keep a language alive than one or two families. In fact, there are several different alienage languages depending where you are! Idk the exact delineation, but Alfish is in Ferelden and parts of the Marches

There's also a Rivaini Elven (doesn't have a name yet) that my Adaia grew up speaking and thus taught Novhen and Soris (Shianni picked up a little but moved in too late to gain their fluency. She's better at hearing than speaking.) That language is actually unique among city elven languages for actually being part of the Dalish language family instead of the local human language's. Despite that, i imagine it also shares a decent amount of vocabulary with Antivan Elven based purely on geographical proximity, so if (we import my language hcs for the following imagine and) Astala picked any of it up, she may recognize some words whenever she visits the alienages in Antiva :D

And Alfish is very very WIP (currently avoiding verbs like the plague so grammar is at a standstill, but Elven is mostly a cipher anyway, so it'll be pretty similar to English grammar), but i can send you the excel document of what i currently have for Alfish if you want. Well, maybe i should tidy it and transfer it into Google spreadsheet first, so it actually can be shared. I've been meaning to put it on a more stable server anyway

So!! I've been wanting to do this for a while, but life got in the way, so now I'm here to take that thing up again because!!! Fun!!!! This is about the relationships between OCs, and I don't want to impose anything but. Regarding how Novhen and Astala would get along:

What if they HAD grown up together? Maybe not in the same family (although, it would be fun 👀👀👀👀👀👀 they are very similar and very different from each other in different aspects. For example both are very loyal and community oriented, but also Astala is loud and boisterous while Novhen is quieter and more underhanded), but definitely the same Alienage. They'd know each others' quirks and habits. Maybe Novhen got frustrated with Astala because she'd always hide in these really obvious spots when playing hide and seek and Astala in turn would never be able to find Novhen? Maybe Novhen would at some point have stolen a plum tart for her and maybe Astala would've helped him against another kid who made fun of Novhen? Maybe, if we wanted them to meet up later during the Blight, Astala had to move away from Denerim at some point. I think she's a bit older than Novhen; maybe she got married elsewhere. Or, if not, now we gave more elves storming Vaughan's estate, which is alwats fun. I think Novhen would get to lead that one operation until Nelaros's death, because before that, stealth does seem to be the best option.

I think these two would get along well, differences aside. Astala would make an effort to lower her if needed, and having a familiar face to lean on during the Blight year would probably be a big comfort to them both. I think they'd be comfortable enough with each other to talk about the recruitment and how it didn't exactly happen willingly; they could gripe about nobles and politics; they could just. Sit in silence after Broken Circle and try and digest Sloth's nightmare. They could kill the slavers at the Alienage together!!! I think having a like-minded person from the same cultural background would help enormously.

One thing Astala probably wouldn't be on board with is the Cult of Fen'Harel. She'd let Novhen practice alright and defend him if accusations about this were levelled against him, but I think she would either have fallen out of it if she'd ever been introduced to it (it didn't save Adaia after all, so...), or never warmed up to the idea of this elvhen trickster god

These are my thoughts as far as they go. What do you think? Also I hadn't thought of it, but if you want to move this conversation to DMs, they're open ^^

(And if this doesn't tickle your fancy anymore, feel free to ignore ^^)

👀👀👀👀👀 I am eating this ask up like breakfast. Or, er, ramen. Which is the thing i am actually eating atm. But yes yes yes to all of this, i love it so much

Full response under the readmore for length, but i'm realizing now my response is mostly about them as kids 😅 Oops

[Ask Game]

The way i play with companion!Novhen, i'd assume he and Astala are probably either siblings or cousins (i waffle), except this time on their mothers' sides. I don't know Astala's exact age, but Novhen was born in *pulls out notes* Wintermarch of 9:7 Dragon. If we try to stagger them based on Adaia's death, that's probably close to a decade between them which seems a tad bit higher than it should be. We'll just have to dance around that matter

Even if Astala isn't significantly older, there's probably never a single moment where he's taller than her XD Add onto that that girls tend to hit puberty first, there's gonna be quite the height difference around age 10

But yes, their personalities go in very different directions but are probably pretty compatible, especially if given the benefit of a shared childhood! They're both very sociable, but i suspect most people like Astala more, especially authority figures. She's much less of a troublemaker, and Novhen definitely took a while to come into his own as a social mastermind. (This also would make her the ideal candidate for a distraction whenever Novhen’s a-scheming. That’s gonna do her a lot of favors when trying to get him to steal plum tarts for her XD These two are the real blight as far as anyone in the alienage is concerned XDD)

Oh, actually! If they knew each other, i can imagine pretty well him practicing with or studying Astala to get better at social situation! And clearly it worked! (A: "Ok now make an angry face... You just look like you can't find a chamberpot. You have to scrunch your eyebrows like this." *jams her thumb down his forhead*)

Astala seems to prefer her hair shorter during the Blight, but how was it as a child? Because if it were in some sort of puff, i can imagine her child-level object permanence resulting in her hiding in an empty barrel with the puff still peeking over the top! (Artist's Rendition Below)

I don’t think he’d be too frustrated with her poor stealth outside of team games at least! (If they’re partnered is another story…) He does sometimes tease her that she’s not going to be a very good criminal when she gets bigger. Idk, how would she respond to that? Because how does she feels about the fact that she's not going to follow in her mother's footsteps (or how aware of that she'd be as a child) or maybe she would retort about how she’s already bigger or something else? Definitely a lot of ways to take that one lol

But also the idea of Novhen as alienage king of hide and seek is kinda cute. He's usually the last one left (all that damn thief training), so it’s not unheard of to see a parade of Astala, Shianni, Soris, and whoever else they've wrapped into their game (which with Astala could be quite a number) turning the alienage upsidedown to find him. There's probably at least one time he gets found in the first minute, and he thinks he's going to die of embarrassment. Because of that, they almost never let him be a hider in the first round. Sometimes when he’s hiding, they'll accidentally pick up seekers who weren't even playing along the way because they want to see him knocked down a peg XD That's what happens when you win too much!

Astala probably has him beat at wrestling tho! And the game where i imagine they’re most evenly matched would be arm wrestling. As an archer, Novhen has insane upper body and especially shoulder strength, but Astala has insane everywhere strength

On the less competitive side, imagine them as dance partners as little kids ☺️ Astala’s probably the more enthusiastic one about it, but i’d imagine she could drag him into it Easy whether through blackmail or Ole Reliable (puppy dog eyes). There have to be lots of events in the alienage that call for dancing, so it’s good to have a go-to dance partner! And if they ever get a Silly Urge while dancing, the one thing that i’ve found little kids most reliable to do is spin so fast they nearly make themselves sick, and when there’s two of them spinning each other, there’s no stopping them until the centrifugal force throws them both to the ground. At least they’re having fun lol

The Cult of Fen'Harel thing makes sense. I wouldn't expect Astala to be into that. I imagine in this case that Cyrion and Adaia agreed to expose the children to both sets of beliefs, so they could choose once they got older

It's a good thing Novhen's good at keeping matters hush because otherwise Astala would likely get stuck constantly mediating between Novhen and Ilanlas on matters of religion 🤭

Tbh Novhen would slightly begrudge her for choosing the Chantry, but i don't think he'd ever let her know if he could help it. It's just not worth it, and you can't talk about that without talking about Adaia's death which nobody is excited to talk about. Still, it's a potential source of drama, esp as the politics of DA:D are winding up

Back in the present day, if the endgame configuration is one where they live in the same location (which i think could only be the case if they were both companions), Novhen would offer her once for him to educate her child/ren in the way of the Cult of Fen'Harel and/or the Vir Banal'ras fighting style, probably get denied at least on the first one, and never bring it back up. He knows she's Andrastian and also wouldn't expect her to teach them that fighting style herself (too rogue-based), but if he had permission, he'd want to at least try to expose them to their family's traditions, so they could make a choice themselves like Novhen and Astala did

And honestly, if he's present for the origin, once Nelaros dies, Novhen would more than happily hand leadership of the mission over to Astala. Stealth only goes so far, and she has first dibs on revenge #SupportWomen

And with Unrest in the Alienage! As soon as Caladrius is dead, Novhen is scampering over his corpse to pick the lock on Cyrion's cage. Doesn't even wait for someone else to pilfer the key. Astala is free to react to that little scene however she wishes, and we get the whole Tabris family reunion after

Whoever’s Warden, i imagine those two leaning on each other a lot for emotional support during the Blight because not only are they the only alienage elves in the party, they’re family (or at the least childhood friends). Once we personalize the Broken Circle dreams, they get upsetting fast. If either of them get sent into that mission (or Maker forbid both of them), they’re definitely going to need to share a blanket by the fire for a minute

EDIT: the paragraph looks like it's been eaten but also! Novhen would be very cautious about Astala's Zevran romance at first. ("Yes, Stala, he's very dreamy, but let's not forget he's only here because he was hired to kill you.") We know he's very protective, and they're both so eldest sibling-coded