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hawkepockets · 25 days ago

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31 days of dragon age

oct 1. introduce your hero(es) of ferelden

as promised… post it note drawings from at my job…

matsendra surana (L) is the warden of my all mages worldstate! he’s a honey-tongued half-elf circle mage who specializes in glyphs. he grew up feeling very pampered & privileged in the circle despite being banned from using practical magic since childhood—due to somniari like himself being particularly susceptible & attractive to demons.

he was harrowed, devoted himself to the study of theoretical magic, and ascended to the rank of enchanter due to his scholarly achievements, easygoing nature, and knack for making harmless contraband items like elfroot pipes and soft winter underclothes appear and move around the tower. he was gentle, contented, permissably hedonistic. mages & templars liked him. he was one of the “good” mages…

until he was found guilty of association with an alleged blood mage. matsendra had been quick to betray jowan to the proper authorities, but it didn’t matter. he was sentenced to tranquility. duncan conscripted him so as not to waste his life and talents.

as a warden, he had to learn from scratch how to survive in a world with weather, wild animals, hunger, and no self-warming enchanted teacups, how to interact with people outside the circle mage/templar power dynamic, and how to cast his own spells. at 36 he seems a bit old to be such a baby—especially to alistair, who wants him to replace stern, competent duncan as his mentor.

but he’s always been a quick study. wynne finds it hard to recognize her lazy cat of a student in the hardened, scarred & tattooed spell-slinging arl of amaranthine/lover of a witch of the wilds/father of a tevinter god reborn through blood magic/commander of the grey that comes out of this adventure. he’s become one of the most magically and politically powerful men east of the frostbacks. and, since he was “granted” the royal boon of a free fereldan circle that never came to be, he resents the chantry. they need him back under control.

the templars drag matsendra down, branding him a heretic and finally following through on their promise to make him tranquil. overnight he goes from an arl and beacon for free mages to one of a dozen docile formari. but his witch is still out there, as is his dearest friend anders…

harinder aeducan (center) is the warden of my all DWARVES worldstate! she is a grim, highly traditional noble warrior, specializing in melee archery. as princess of orzammar, hari was said to take after the paragon aeducan himself in her grave, lonesome demeanor and obsession with preserving her city and its traditions. far and away the most conservative aeducan, harinder followed rules the rest of her house had long set aside as archaic and inconvenient, including not touching or speaking directly to casteless dwarves and veiling her face around any lower caste. her total remoteness made her much less popular among their people than bhelen, although still better-liked than trian, thanks to her beauty and her perpetual air of sadness and stoic, doomed resolve against the darkness pressing in on orzammar.

she was a faithful daughter to endrin, but never the sister bhelen wanted. her priority was keeping the family united, not entertaining progressive ideas or sympathizing with his repressed anger toward endrin and trian. it was just all kind of beneath her and beneath an aeducan prince’s dignity… an attitude that got her betrayed, framed for trian’s murder, struck from the memories and cast out into the deep roads. hari pleaded for the right to join the legion of the dead and die with her name in the family records, but she was denied.

the wardens found her and performed the joining, but not before she was mauled across the face by darkspawn and contracted the taint. she made up her mind not to let any part of this waking nightmare disturb her outwardly, and just to perform the duties of a warden with the same grim, graceful efficiency as she had her duties in court. after all she was already dead to herself, a revenant only still animated because she hadn’t been given funeral rites. wynne, sten, and shale all understood her better than the young companions.

alistair’s love threatened to change all that…but in the end she crowned both harrowmont and him—tradition above all—and gave the glorious death she wanted for herself against the archdemon away to loghain. last anyone heard, she was searching for a cure to the calling, though stone knows it’s not to extend her own life. she just wants to pay something back to the wardens, and ali in particular.

melantho mahariel (R) is a floater without a worldstate! she’s a dalish hunter whose blight sickness was already in an advanced stage when duncan abducted saved her through conscription. mela is extremely blunt and bitter, but her upbringing in clan sabrae taught her to greet needy strangers with an open hand and defend those who ask. her frankness and compassion make her an effective warden, if a thorny traveling companion.

zevran is drawn to her first out of admiration of her ferocity in combat and a wistful curiosity about the dalish, but finds quickly that her acid temper and deliberate disregard for social cues are highly endearing to a crow who grew up surrounded by careful mouths and blades. and her penchant for giving thoughtful gifts when she has no kind words to offer is much appreciated too. her almost goblinoid figure, already spare before it was wasted and warped by blight sickness, wouldn’t normally be to his taste—but he can’t deny he likes how easily he can lift his tiny, light-as-a-sick-cat girlfriend off the ground. or how nice it is to have someone who needs a little tending to, after a youth with no one to look after but himself.

#31 days of dragon age #oc: matsendra #oc: harinder #oc: melantho #dao #dragon age

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