#warden: mathalin surana

[therookandthecrow]

My Hero of Ferelden and my Rook are first cousins, by the way. The white hair and golden eye genes are very strong in their family (yet with my Rook dyeing his hair black, the resemblance is muted) but their fathers are brothers (albeit they ended up in two different Dalish clans; one in Nevarra where my Rook was born and the other in Orlais, where my Hero of Ferelden was born)

My Rook was born with white hair, and the one silver eye he has is from his mother. Lethanavir's original last name is Surana. 😳 And yes, Mathalin is still alive, and he's mastered avoiding the Calling even before [redacted] happened in Veilguard by improving on Avernus' techniques and by accidentally ingesting high dragon's blood.

[therookandthecrow]

I originally planned for Mathalin to romance Morrigan only, but he has such exquisite chemistry with Loghain. They're truly meant to be with one another, although I sincerely think that Maric was Loghain's first love.

[therookandthecrow]

If he wasn't the "Hero" of Ferelden, I think that Mathalin Surana would be considered a villain easily. I think that his campaign as the Warden can be easily called Dragon Age: Villain Origins, as he bids for the chancellorship of Ferelden, a country which he has no love for, as an Orlesian.

Take an elf with a Napoleon complex [technically, he is 5' 9" which was the same height that Napoleon had, and a certain painter from Austria], and have him write about his 'my struggle' while in the prison that is a Mage circle in most of Thedas, and give him the chance to grab power for himself.

The next step is to give him a position in an organization where morality is thrown out the window in the name of having to stop a blight, and you've got a villain origin story. He's an ends justify the means sort of person, just as Anders is.

Mathalin sides with Branka in the Deep Roads, he puts Bhaelen on the throne in Orzammar, he lets Avernus continue his experiments without ethical boundaries just as he was before. Not only that, but he recruits Loghain Mac Tir into the Grey Wardens. Furthermore, he sides with the Architect in Awakening, but at least he is beautiful.

The cherry on top, is that he finds blood magic to be not only a-okay to use, but he believes that it is only feared due to the sensibilities of Chantry folk. His views on necromancy are more or less the same.

[therookandthecrow]

Loghain, developing feelings for my Warden: Dear Maker, did it have to be another blonde man?

[therookandthecrow]

Out of all four of what I consider my canon playthroughs of Dragon Age, there is only one heterosexual romance, and that one is between a repressed bisexual witch of the wilds and a confidently bisexual blood mage who definitely could and should be trusted to end Fifth Blight.

With that being said, I headcanon that Morrigan gave him permission to sleep with Loghain as well, so long as he sleeps with no other women than her. With that said, he told Morrigan just as well that he wouldn't hold her back from other women so long as he was her only man.

While Morrigan and Mathalin spent some years together raising their son after the Blight, when Morrigan got her position in the court of Empress Celene and when Mathalin went on a search for a cure for the Calling. He admired Avernus and thus spared him, and let him continue his research without ethical boundaries.

Loghain turned into an awkward godfather figure of sorts who'd visit their family occasionally, and actually they were far more functional than one would have thought them to be. I personally like to think that they had one more child together after Inquisition.

However, he left that choice entirely Morrigan's because like her, he was happy with them just having Kieran. His relationship with Alistair never got any better, and the resentment that the King of Ferelden held for his shadow chancellor and one time fellow Warden never mellowed.

[therookandthecrow]

Lethanavir Ingellvar never really trusted the Grey Wardens, truth be told, because he'd heard of the Hero of Ferelden in my canon who'd done terrible things (as evil as one can be in Origins aside from abandoning Redcliffe, he made every single other bad decision). That was before he found out that he was related to said "Hero" of Ferelden, so his ex leaving him for a Warden solidified his distrust to the organization as an entirety going into the Veilguard.

He sees the order as a loophole for morally corrupt people to be able to do what they want in the name of "fighting the blight". Maybe I ought to have elaborated on this before I wrote all of those posts where my main Rook was being antagonistic and distrusting towards Davrin in particular. He heard stories about Wardens taking family's entire stores of food for the winter and quartering in their homes for "fighting the blight" and doing other things that he sees as being heinous morally - short of murder.

It takes a while for him to trust Evka and Antoine, let alone Davrin and the other Wardens he meets after leaving the Grand Necropolis. Granted, a lot of the stories he heard about the Wardens in general had come from Fade spirits who may have embellished some of the more criminal acts committed by Wardens, such as theft, what he deems as protection racketeering and other things during Blights, much of those things seen as war crimes. This is because the Fade's residents tend to give biased recollections of events.

I think that he got particularly biased stories about them that painted them as secretive, cultish, blood drinking villains who loot and burn cities instead of the heroes that they are seen as to most people in Thedas. It's common knowledge that they recruit criminals, but in his eyes, people often turned into criminals after joining the Wardens, or that they joined it so that they can hide behind their titles as a way to get away with their crimes. I guess moral grayness is lost on him indeed.

When he heard of my "Hero" of Ferelden, who is actually an Orlesian blood mage who manipulated his way into chancellordom of Ferelden, burning Amaranthine to the ground, letting the casteless dwarves get enslaved as golems, letting a Tevinter slaver get away unscathed in exchange for information on Loghain only to not use said documents against him, but instead to recruit him into the Wardens, and how he broke into civilians' houses and stole from them and other things-- it didn't paint Wardens as heroes in his eyes.

I hope that this at least gives some context to his distrust of Wardens. There's all that, and the Rite of Conscription worries him greatly. He sees it as an abortion of justice, and as a lack of oversight that one organization has been given so much power to recruit anyone they want to, willingly or not, and that turning down Warden conscription is a death sentence. So, one of his childhood fears was that a Blight was going to start and that the Wardens would come and abduct him, and he'd have no way of saying "No" to said conscription, which he sees as abduction.

[therookandthecrow]

I am not sure if I like Lethanavir being my Hero of Ferelden's cousin or his nephew, because I was considering writing him as my Rook's uncle at one point. I'm kind of liking the uncle version of their relationship better, although they work just fine as cousins. Maybe I want their relationship to be somehow similar to Aemond and Daemon Targaryen, with a bit of an uncle-nephew rivalry.

I like to think that he's got some level of familiarity with my infamous Hero of Ferelden who had burnt down Amaranthine, spared the Architect, sided with Branka, but Bhelen on the throne and let said Branka continue to make golems, tossed Alistair aside to recruit Loghain then to get into a relationship with said Loghain, only after becoming Avernus' apprentice, protégé and eventual successor.

Lethanavir knows about the Hero of Ferelden, but he doesn't find him to be a likable figure. I like to think that he's seen images of him and that he's noted the resemblance. Due to the fact that my Rook has a poor relationship with his biological parents, I like to think that he hasn't properly met my Hero of Ferelden, and maybe for the better?

I don't think that Lucanis will judge him for having a messed up family, because, after all, he turned out surprisingly well-adjusted if you look past his socially-awkward charm and the comfort he has around the undead, spirits and all matters of death. He actually turned out far better raised among the Mortalitasi than with his birth family, truth be told.

[therookandthecrow]

My Warden Surana looks as cunty in the DD2 character-creator as headcanon him to supposed to look in Origins. Just to think, he is an Orlesian born blood mage who managed to snake his way into becoming the chancellor of Ferelden through a series of Machiavellian maneuvers after making Alistair Theirin's life a veritable hell during the duration of the Fifth Blight, and made it even worse by marrying him off to Loghain Mac Tir's daughter, Anora and then got into a relationship with said Loghain Mac Tir himself.

[therookandthecrow]

Regardless if the Hero of Ferelden is said to be dead by the time that Veilguard happens or not, I headcanon that my canon Hero of Ferelden Mathalin Surana had become Avernus' apprentice and eventual successor and that he's used the same method that Avernus uses to postpone the Calling. His name in Elven means 'the blood that quenches', and he is also a blood mage, aside from being a necromancer and being the shadow chancellor of Ferelden. He's a real stand-up guy. He was also good friends with Loghain Mac Tir, who is not confirmed to be still alive or not, as he had spared him during the Fifth Blight.

[therookandthecrow]

Mathalin Surana still has a light Orlesian accent, in spite of having lived in Ferleden for sixteen years by the time he was recruited into the Grey Wardens. Despite most of the elves having American accents in Origins, he primarily speaks with an RP ("Queen's English") accent.

I like to headcanon that he picked up on an accent that he liked from another Mage in the tower, and he adopted it as his own. Clan Surana in this case was one of the Dalish clans who worship the Forgotten Ones and those whom which wear brilliant crimson Vallaslins.

[therookandthecrow]

Mathalin's bid for chancellorship of Ferelden stems primarily from the feeling of powerlessness that he had from years as a circle mage. It was all that he was allowed to know for fourteen years of his life, from when he was eight years old until he "graduated" thanks to the event of the Fifth Blight when he was twenty-four.

The disenfranchisement and marginalization he felt as an elf living in a chantry run circle, surrounded by the tin-tyrants of the Templar order, and being forced into Andrastian rites while being born Dalish, and devout to the pantheon of elven gods.

That created a level of resentment that wasn't going to go away when he was recruited into the Grey Wardens, although it allowed him unprecedented freedom that the circle would never allow. There was a great feeling of hurt that drove this bid for chancellorship as well, wounded pride, if you will.

Mathalin was robbed of his birthright to be the Keeper of Clan Surana, so he was going to forge a new birthright, regardless of if the Grey Wardens were supposed to meddle in politics or not.

[therookandthecrow]

My Warden Surana's first thought at seeing Loghain at the war table in Ostagar is that he wanted to bend him over the table and 😏😗👉💋😋. Duncan disapproves -20, Alistair disapproves -20

[therookandthecrow]

I was thinking up Mathalin's Zodiac chart, and I've concluded that he was born under the sign of Solis (or Solium), which is associated with both Fen'harel and with Elgar'nan according to the Dalish. He was born with a massive ego, to say the least.

Structurally, his astrological chart is not too dissimilar from what of Napoleon Bonaparte's, at least so far as to where he is according to our solar system's Zodiac, a Leo Sun / Capricorn Moon / Scorpio Rising.

Knight-Commander Greagoir's reaction to him showing up at the Circle as a resentful eight-year-old was probably a lot like this:

[therookandthecrow]

Of course, my canon Rook will be a long-haired male elven mage with silver/white hair and either lavender, golden, silver or red eyes, high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, a sharp chin and if we can be blood mages he is definitely going to be one.

Hopefully the RP lets my Rook be a grim, sardonic, edgelord kind of a character so he can irritate his more chipper, bouyant companions and develop tension between him and Lucanis who is apparently a mage-killer.

He will still flirt with everyone else for the lolz before picking out Lucanis as his romance partner since it's a tradition for me to make my player character flirt with everyone before picking out my canon romance.

I will be transfering my world state where my Dorian romanced mage Lavellan Aedanthir is the Inquisitor, along with those where my chaotic, blood-mage Red Hawke Serenity who rival-romanced Anders was the Champion of Kirkwall, and the one where my megalomaniac, blood mage Warden Surana Mathalin who became the chancellor of Ferelden and romanced Morrigan was the Hero of Ferelden.

Later on I'd make other Rooks to romance everyone else. Although I am not a huge fan of Bioware as it is, I am still going to buy the game, because it's Dragon Age.