#i probably need a tag for rook rex huh

[leothelionsaysgrrrr]

3, 11, 12, and 24 from the Rook questions!

3. What was Rook’s life before their faction?

Rook’s story is, of course, that he was adopted as a baby by an Imperial Legion commander who found him on a battlefield near Ventus, moved around a lot, trained to fight and bothered everyone while doing it, worked as a bodyguard for Minrathous’s most elite courtesans in a high end pleasure house, then for a magister when one of the courtesans he protected inherited a Senate seat from an estranged uncle, and later joined the Shadow Dragons to make a difference. 

Which is, of course, complete and utter bullshit. Except for the bothering people, there's no version of this story where he isn't bothering people.

Now, Falx Verus Mercar was a guard at the Ivory Oasis for several years, and their most prominent courtesan, Silver, did through some inheritance fuckery from his maternal uncle become a magister around the time of the Exalted Council, and he did bring his dear and trusted friend Mercar with him as his personal bodyguard. But Falx Verus Mercar himself is a fiction, and didn’t exist at all until about a decade ago, when he needed a new name and cover story for what this snarky long-haired beardy guy was doing in Minrathous when noted scoundrel and infamous frumentarius - a spy, saboteur, fixer, thug, slave hunter, general doer of dirty work for the magister who employed him, basically his job was to make his boss's problems disappear and be a problem to everyone else - Rexus Leventis had long since been presumed dead. Coming back gave him a chance to start over, and the new name and new story let him do the real work he came back to do - use the skills and knowledge gained in his youth to help Silver help people escape slavery, and grow into a better person himself - unbothered. Mostly.

11. Does Rook keep up with current events? (How aware of the situation are they at the start of the game?)

He has a local ear to the ground, as one might expect, and is quite familiar with the Antaam invasions in the east since Silver's - sorry, Magister Sisenna's - holdings are near Carastes and he actually bothers taking care of the people he represents. Traveling with Varric got him up to speed on a lot of things going on outside Tevinter, but he usually has a pretty good idea of what's going on at any given time. He just likes to seem like he's completely oblivious because it annoys people.

12. Does Rook have any family? Do they keep in touch?

He's the firstborn son of a prominent Altus family, but his father disowned him when he failed to manifest magic. His mother hated his father, so she doted on him as best and as publicly as she could - it was at her suggestion that another magister (Rexus's father's best friend and his mother's longtime lover) agreed to employ Rexus as one of his frumentarii. He also has a golden child younger brother who everyone knows was born solely to replace him, and they've never liked each other. His father was among those assassinated when Rexus's last job went bad and ended with a lot of dead magisters, including his boss, and his mother went into hiding after that. He's not sure she's even still alive. His brother masterminded the whole thing to seize power in the Magisterium and remains there to this day. He's not Venatori, and does actively oppose them, but he's definitely not one of the good ones and would have Rexus killed on sight if he knew he'd survived.

So, yeah. They don't keep in touch.

24. Does Rook have any nightly rituals before bed?

He’s very much a "fall into bed face down, arms and legs out, stay there until morning" kind of guy. He’s at least let Silver prevail upon him to use a silk pillowcase for the sake of his hair. The one hygiene thing he's always been really fastidious about is taking care of his teeth, though, so he'll do that before bed if nothing else to have an excuse to see how long he can gargle something. And how long it will take before someone tells him to stop.

50 questions for Rook!