#ostwick circle is the circle voted most likely to be shut down due to money laundering. to me.

[cassiaorsellio]

thinking (dangerous, i know) about the ostwick circle a bit today during work.

my headcanon at least, based off the various dialogue options mage trev can pick from their conversation with josephine (though i've not exhausted them all), is that its reputation as a sedate circle and a part of the reason why it would stay neutral in the mage-templar war, is that it developed into the circle where free marcher nobles would send their mageborn children. they were willing to pour good money into a circle that didn't have, say, kirkwall's reputation. trevelyan can comment that their family could pay off the templars, or that they were allowed to go home now and again, or that the worst conflict they ever saw was a couple of templars getting into a scuffle over a tavern bill.

it sets ostwick up as a lucrosian-centric circle — and the lucrosians are a faction that are barely mentioned at all behind a throwaway line in the mage warden origin from memory: they're there to make money and accumulate political influence, but the ostwick circle's influence is more limited to the free marches vs the entirety of the south, particularly when circles like montsimmard, cumberland and the white spire exist(ed.))

i reflected that through arthur: he was meant to be sent to kirkwall (yikes!) - out of sight, out of mind, right? - but his aunt paid a lot of money to make sure he went to ostwick (to reflect the 'trevelyans paid the templars off' dialogue), and he got far more leniency on a lot of things than if he hadn't been noble born. the trevelyan name protected him — it would've kept him from being made tranquil had compassion not 'called' him to spirit healing, as an example. it probably reflects why even by inquisition he still has those moments of "how much could one cookie possibly cost, sera? 10 gold?" / "you've never been in a bakery have you?" despite being pretty self-aware that even as a circle mage, he was hardly poor (he probably would say he was 'comfortable' aka codeword for rich people who don't want to admit it.)

ostwick definitely had its issues (corruption, nepotism, a lot of bribery, any non-nobleborn mages bearing the brunt of the abuse and getting treated as lesser), but i think arthur at least was not super aware of it until he became first enchanter and saw the sheer amount of corruption etc in the circle's financials etc.