#oc: phaedra cousland

[baodurs]

ok. informal world state summary:

phaedra cousland

archer rogue (assassin, ranger, shadow)

stoic, dutiful, resolute. a deep sense of honor eternally at war with her unflinching pragmatism.

softspoken and poised. kind of quietly intense, her full attention can be weighty & intimidating. she's not without humor, but her basic manner is quite grim and serious, especially during the blight.

spares loghain, who does the dark ritual. alistair & anora rule. sides with the architect.

romances zevran <3

gets along best with morrigan and sten; they understand each other. close but tense relationship with leliana. codependent with alistair but they divorce at the landsmeet. loghain becomes one of her closest... friends?

bonus: lycanthropy arc during nature of the beast

morven hawke

force mage (and occasional blood mage but it's complicated)

red hawke! she's gruff and both intentionally and unintentionally difficult. an imitation of malcolm's blunt and uncompromising manner.

anti-circle but unwilling to risk rebellion for herself or the people she cares about (and thinks herself cowardly for it). tries to avoid being in a position to help others but is ultimately an incurable bleeding heart who can't not do the right thing when she inevitably finds herself there anyway

sides with the mages, doesn't kill anders. carver is a grey warden.

not a major plot decision, but she accepts help from the demon in the deep roads and spends years beating herself up for it bc malcolm would have done better and then she gets to legacy and has a breakdown 👍

romances isabela <3

closest with fenris. trusts merrill more than anyone. loves anders but sometimes they can't look at each other. i feel like she and varric shouldn't get along as well as they do but they do anyway. rivals sebastian (with respect) and aveline (with resentment. devotion too but mostly resentment)

camellia trevelyan (i might change her name... she's also very new so take everything i say about her with a grain of salt)

knight-enchanter. but her magic sword isn't 2h; it's more like a rapier

an illegitimate elf-blooded child of bann trevelyan. she always had long hair to hide her slightly pointed ears, and her parents made a valiant effort to hide her magic too when it first emerged

rebel mage, and well-suited to the role—she's bold, dashing, charming. has a mischievous streak that developed in her time at the circle, thanks to the relative freedom (vs needing to hide her magic/heritage at home) and lack of consequences (vs other mages that didn't have noble families to intervene on their behalf)

allies with the mages, briala rules through gaspard, camellia drinks from the well of sorrows, leliana becomes divine (steeled)

in trespasser, disbands the inquisition & vows to stop solas by any means necessary

romances blackwall <3

haven't figured out her relationships with everyone yet, but solas was her closest friend lol. she mostly gets along with sera. varric too, but i think she makes him nervous sometimes. she and vivienne have more in common than they initially think they do, and they do come to trust each other. she and dorian are like siblings in that they love but occasionally want to murder one another. ummm that's it

[of-the-starlit-night]

Row 1 - Dragon Age

- Rhiannon Cousland - Hero of Ferelden - Sabine Hawke - Champion of Kirkwall - Aai’la Lavellan - Inquisitor

Row 2 - Mass Effect

- Phaedra Shepard - Commander - Laith Ryder - Pathfinder

Row 3 - Fallout

- Cordelia “Cory” Kavanagh - Lone Wanderer - Bridget “Jet” Monroe - Courier Six - Indrani “Indy” Winter - Sole Survivor

[made with Rinmaru Mega Fantasy Avatar Creator with edits]

[baodurs]

🤥🎂🌙🌋🙉❇️🌠 - for either... or both :o

oc emoji asks

🤥 LYING - are they good liars? do they have tells to show they're lying?

my first instinct for phaedra was to say yes she's a good liar, but i'm not so sure... she's a good speaker, very poised, and good at keeping secrets & dealing with people, but i think outright lying could make her uncomfortable enough to be kind of obvious! i guess it depends on the situation and if she feels guilty. she's a competent utilitarian liar, but she's not good at prolonged deception or lying to people she knows well. if she ever tried it, she'd hesitate and just seem distressed lol

morven doesn't see much point in lying. she's usually blunt and direct (red hawke); when she does want to hide something, she's more likely to just be like "none of your business" or "i'm not telling you." beyond thinking it's usually a waste of time, she doesn't have any qualms with it, and she's a good liar when necessary. usually in the form of denying something when directly questioned—she's good at sounding dismissive or making someone feel foolish enough for asking/stonewalling them long enough that they just drop it

🎂 BIRTHDAY CAKE - when is their birthday? do they like celebrating it?

fictional calendars scare me i haven't thought much about it... but i think this thedas astrology doc is fun! using that, i'd say phaedra was born under eluvia* and morven was born under fervenial*

*assuming i just went for the most obviously fitting ones. but who knows!

phaedra looks forward to her birthday! as much as she is dutiful and self-effacing, she's always been more proud and less satisfied with her role than she wants to be, so she enjoys having a day where the weight of that lightens a bit and she can indulge in those "lesser" emotions. the key is that it's a limited (one day) and sanctioned (literally her birthday!!) form of indulgence, so she lets herself enjoy it

morven prefers to treat it like any other day. being celebrated is uncomfortable for her (if it's sincere, then it's awkward; if it's insincere, then it's annoying), but she rarely does anything big anyway. she likes her birthday as far as she can use it as an excuse to gather her family and friends together!

🌙 MOON - what is your oc's greatest wish? how far are they willing to go for it?

phaedra: her deepest desires are an inscrutable mess i fear. but the clearest and most present one is just to do right by the wardens. and she'll go very far for it! she wants them to have power and respect and she wants to be a good commander. and a good warden, really, but she struggles more with what that means.

morven: just some peace and fucking quiet to be honest!!! she has never dreamed very big. but clearly she's only willing to go so far for it, considering her entire life. she won't sacrifice much for a cause or for the greater good (she's vehemently against the circle and the chantry but too afraid of the consequences for herself and those close to her to do much about it), but she'll do anything for a person she loves

🌋 VOLCANO - how bad is their temper? is it a slow boil, or a instant explosion?

phaedra isn't a very angry character IMO. she feels a lot of frustration or resentment, but true anger is rare for her and fades pretty quickly. so losing her temper is a surprise to her and to others when it happens; she'll just seem the usual level of cold or serious until she lashes out very suddenly and then almost immediately regrets it and tries to save face

comparatively, morven is a generally angrier person with a much longer temper. it's a more familiar and useful emotion to her. i think seeing her lose her temper is also surprising but in a different way—less "where did that come from" and more "i guess i should have seen this coming but i didn't realize where the tipping point was"

🙉 HEAR-NO-EVIL - what is the worse thing your oc could hear from someone?

phaedra: that she's selfish. as a cousland, she struggled with her own ambition vs what was actually expected of her, and as a warden, she struggles with what is necessary vs what feels unacceptable (either to her the cousland that still lives in her brain!). it's her duty to her family vs her duty to the wardens vs her duty to ferelden vs her idealized sense of honor, and for someone to tell her that her own ambition or desires still won out over all of that would be worse than anything else they could say.

morven: that she's not doing enough or hasn't done enough... i think a lot about this act 1 conversation with carver:

hawke: you will not use [bethany] against me like that! she deserves better. carver: then you should have given better. hawke: i gave everything! question me, mother, yourself, but not that.

and that's really just it IMO! she's willing to accept when she's failed, but not that she still didn't give everything she could have. she wants to be malcolm, and on some level her failures become proof to her that she's not and that he was different or better, which is not Great but is something that confirms her worldview and the way she sees her father. like, if there's a flaw, then let it be with Her (and thus not with malcolm) and not with her efforts. this maybe makes her sound more fatalist than she actually is but what can you do

❇️ SPARKLE - what is their most prized possession? what do they value?

phaedra: is it passé to say the reflection amulet from the temple of sacred ashes... i think she tries to honor the idea that when you're a warden, your old life doesn't matter anymore, so she doesn't hold onto much from her origin. but this is something that reminds her of home that she got after leaving it behind, and she has a reverence for spirits, so she appreciates whatever gave it to her.

morven: having too many Things makes morven nervous, so she values things that are useful and don't feel like they're taking up space. a decent candidate for a prized possession would be something like malcolm's grimoire. (i apologize for how many of her answers are about malcolm.) but idk let's just say that for now bc i can't think of something better on the spot!

🌠 SHOOTING STAR - if they could make any wish with no repercussions, what wish would they make?

i think if someone made this offer to phaedra, she might just reject it lol... she's an envious character who wants a lot of things she can't have, but she also thinks she wasn't meant for those things/doesn't have them for a reason. it would feel wrong for her to wish them into existence (just wishing for a cure to the blight, for example, would feel to her like an insult to the wardens). she might pass the wish onto a loved one if possible <3 if she absolutely had to do it, she'd wish for something incredibly minor and practical like "i wish for mild weather on my next trip to the city" lmao

morven... hm. i think a lot of things would occur to her, and it would depend on when the offer was presented. she is not used to thinking big picture or hoping for things out of reach, so most of her wishes would be about safety/security for herself or friends. post-da2 morven is the only one who would entertain something big. first thought would be to cure carver of the blight, but i don't think she'd actually wish for it. i think she'd wish for one last conversation with malcolm, especially after legacy, bc that lack of closure is the one thing that will eat her alive until she's dead!!!!

[baodurs]

Hi Hello Hey 👋👋👋👋

Phaedra 🌌 👻

Morven ✂️📦

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

oc emoji asks

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?

going with her most recent iteration because frankly i have no idea about her initial conception! and she's basically a new character anyway:

most of the wardens i've played were some level of resistant to joining or defiant of their circumstances, so i wanted to make one who took their duty as a warden seriously and committed to the commander role. i made her a cousland partially bc there's a "duty and honor" angle to a cousland that i think is interesting, because their ideas of those things may not have been tested like other origins.

i also wanted to try sparing loghain, and this character premise seemed right for it. willing to do the warden thing and look past it all to see his value as a general in ending the blight and rebuilding the order, even as her duty to the warden grates against everything else instilled in her about duty and honor! and that conflict really became her character.

👻 GHOST - do they believe in ghosts? what are their "ghostly experiences", if any?

i'm not sure if there's a thedas equivalent of "believing in ghosts," but as far as spirits go, i love this post about the religious flavor of highever. phaedra is fairly devout in this weird just-left-of-andrastianism way that places a lot of importance on spirits, so all of the "ghostly" experiences with the fade, spirits, and even "demons" do feel weighty and religious for her.

✂️ SCISSORS - what is the "last straw" for them to cut someone out of their life? how easily do they let go of people?

"the last straw," huh? :/

but ummm morven does not let go very easily <3 i think partially because those close to her have always been quite few! you're either someone she's fought for and/or alongside and has a close connection with and will do anything to protect, or you're not. and if you're not, then cutting you out of her life doesn't feel like a big deal.

i really think someone close to her would have to do something like insanely cartoonishly evil and out of character for her to cut ties... and even then, i feel like "cutting ties" might still entail her keeping tabs on them and thinking about them constantly. one thing she will do is drag someone's dead weight forward!!!

📦 PACKAGE - what are some "most likely to..." that can apply to them?

why can't i think of a single thing someone might be likely to do. hm let's see... most likely to individually walk everyone home from the hanged man. most likely to piss off the next person we talk to. most likely to report an accurate count of how many kills each party member got in the last fight for scorekeeping purposes (most of the others either don't keep good track or lie to boost their own numbers).