#can't resist working in my Amaranthine Wardens of course

[anderstrevelyan]

Hello, can I introduce you to my veilguard OCs?

Ivar Thorne (née Blackthorne)

(Warden, rogue, I think he'll romance Emmrich)

He doesn't remember the details of his father's ruthless push for power: just how you were supposed to ignore strange sounds at night, or new bones in the crypts. Not ask questions when an older cousin disappears. But he does remember the night the Veil wore too thin: demons and chaos and death, and a young boy's instinct to grab his baby sister and run.

By the time he reaches the city, rumours festering, talk of all the Blackthornes dead, he drops the first part of his surname. He leaves his sister near Compassion spirits in the Grand Necropolis, terrified to tell anyone who he is. He seeks refuge in the Chantry, terrified to tell anyone what he's done.

When he's old enough to set out on his own, he journeys to Amaranthine—to see the Chantry where Andraste first spread the Chant, he'd tell you, but it's conveniently away from Nevarra, too. Eventually recruited by the Wardens there, he learns to fight from Sigrun and Nathaniel Howe, and volunteers for experiments with Warden-Commander Garrett Amell and the mysterious mage Avernus about whether non-mage Wardens can pick up some basics of blood magic. He suspects the latter is why Weisshaupt reassigns him to report there, but he stays in touch with Amell, who introduces him to Varric.

He never stops regretting abandoning his sister, and he regrets more each year his reluctance to write to the Necropolis to try to learn of her fate—so it's a relief and a joy when she joins the team along with their new Fade expert.

(Too shy at first to broach discussing the details with his sister, he finds himself spending time with said Fade expert to ask questions about his own upbringing as an orphan in the place, until he finds more reasons to keep coming back.)

Vita Ingellvar (née Juliana Blackthorne)

(Mourn Watcher, warrior, romances Neve)

Found in a crypt by a Mourn Watcher taking an extra lap in their rounds—the wisps seemed especially active that day—Vita is embraced and adopted by the Mortalitasi. Raised by mages, named for Vitus Fabria (the founder of the Mortalitasi), and often more comfortable with spirits and the undead than other children, she was certain she'd grow up to become a mage, and dreamed of the day her ability would manifest.

It never did, but her determination and affinity with spirits led to her being invited to join the Mourn Watch as soon as she was of age.

She did most of her work alongside a spirit of Valor, whose purpose she admired, but kept finding friction in the Necropolis's focus on appeasing those of lauded lineage, especially as someone with no knowledge of her own roots. She fumed so much that Valor felt it, too, forbidden from bravely standing up to wayward noble undead, and twisted against his purpose into something malign. Inflexibility, Recklessness, Idealism: she's not sure what she'd call what the spirit became, but she was devastated when he had to be destroyed by the Watch.

Devastated, but determined to finish their work and stop the nobles' uprising no matter the cost—she only regrets that she didn't disobey sooner.

The Watch encourages her to leave alongside Prof. Volkarin, and she's startled to see so much of herself in this group's leader's face. For the first time, she's curious about piecing together who she was and could have been. (And about the beautiful detective all the wisps seem enamoured with, too.)