Application
Apr. 2nd, 2011 02:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unasked_forCharacter Name: Fenris
Character Series: Dragon Age 2; he'll be taken from near the beginning of Act 2, prior to his companion quests in that act.
Character Age: Unknown, but guessed to be mid to late twenties
Background: (I always write my own tl;dr backgrounds, but here is a wiki link if you'd like something shorter/want to compare!)
In the world of Thedas, elves were long ago conquered and enslaved by humans. Though most of the world has banned slavery, at least on paper - slaves are still bought and sold illegally, some elves are employed as 'servants' in conditions little better than slaves might expect, and even free elves tend to be treated as second-class citizens in human society at best - there is one nation, the Tevinter Imperium, where not only is slavery legal, but incredibly widespread.
Fenris was born into this delightful state of affairs as an elven slave in Tevinter. Or so he assumes; he doesn't actually remember a thing about his childhood, or even about himself.
The Tevinter Imperium is governed by magisters, mages of no small magical and political power - and, as one might expect from the nation's love affair with slavery and forbidden blood magic, no excess of compassion or morals. Years ago, Fenris' master Danarius - a mage himself - embedded lines of lyrium (a dangerous mineral with magical properties) into Fenris' skin, in a ritual so agonizing that it wiped Fenris' mind clean of all memory and, it is suggested, has left him in constant pain ever since. (It may also be what turned his hair white, judging by the color of his eyebrows; his hair may have once matched them.)
This is not to say that they come without their practical applications; Fenris' role as Danarius' slave was to be his bodyguard, and the lyrium markings give him the ability to phase through solid objects. While this might seem like a passive ability, Fenris has weaponized it - one of his favorite tricks is to reach his hand into a man's chest and crush his heart. While Danarius no doubt used the procedure partially to see if such a thing could be done, and may have used it and Fenris himself as a trophy to his own power and ingenuity once the ritual proved successful, the markings were ultimately meant to aid Fenris' ability to fight. Even Fenris appreciates their usefulness, despite what they've cost him.
With no memory of his life before the ritual - no family, no desires, no goals - Fenris had no particular reason to seek freedom from his master, and was certainly never encouraged to entertain the idea. This isn't to say that his time with Danarius was pleasant; the man kept Fenris quite literally leashed as a mockery to the customs of the qunari, a people the Tevinter Imperium has been at war with for centuries. (The qunari leash their mages due to considering them dangerous to all around them; a magister leashing a warrior was not only an insulting reversal of asit tal-eb, the way things should be as the qunari understand it, but also an insult merely by virtue of the practice being used insolently by a non-qunari.) He used Fenris as a tool for murder, an amusing conversation piece, and anything else he deemed convenient. Danarius' apprentice, Hadriana, likewise tormented him - mocking him, denying him food, even haunting his dreams. The life of an elven slave in Tevinter is rarely pleasant, but one would suspect that Fenris' was even more difficult than most. He might have been trapped to it forever, save for unexpected circumstances.
Six years ago, Fenris and Danarius were on the island of Seheron - a hotly contested piece of land between the qunari and the Imperium - when the qunari attacked. Though Fenris was able to get Danarius to the safety of a ship sailing back to Tevinter, there was no room aboard for a mere slave; despite the high value Danarius placed on Fenris(or, more accurately, the markings he'd taken such pains to give him), he was forced to leave Fenris behind, gravely injured but - technically - free.
A group of rebel qunari known as Fog Warriors discovered Fenris and took him in, nursing him back to health. During the few months before Danarius' inevitable return for him, Fenris learned much of the qunari and their culture - not to mention gaining a healthy admiration for the rebels, and the still-unfamiliar concepts of freedom and not having a master. When Danarius did in fact come to retrieve his possession, the Fog Warriors refused to turn Fenris over to him. Unsurprisingly, Danarius ordered Fenris to kill them; more surprisingly, perhaps, Fenris obeyed him. Fenris had believed that his brief experience with freedom had ended, that his return to slavery was inevitable and any illusion of choice he had in the matter was just that - an illusion. It was only after he'd killed them, and the full weight of his remorse and anger hit him, that he was able to bring himself to run - but from there, he has never looked back.
Since then, Fenris has been on the run from Danarius, who has relentlessly pursued him - either in person or, far more often, in the form of hunters sent after him. Danarius desires the return of his property, which focuses more on Fenris' markings than Fenris himself; it's implied he would take Fenris' skin as readily as the whole package. Fenris has claimed to have killed more hunters than he can count, and after three years of running, he grew understandably tired of it. Realizing his former master would never stop hunting him as long as he lived, Fenris came to the obvious solution: kill him. Easier said than done, of course.
It was through an encounter with yet more of Danarius' hunters in the city of Kirkwall that Fenris met Hawke - a refugee from another country who Fenris tricked into helping him. (It was only afterwards that Fenris discovered he could have had the help by simply asking outright, a fact he feels ever so slightly guilty about...but, given his history, it's not surprising he didn't expect ready aid.) In exchange for Hawke's help in wiping out Danarius' newest wave of hunters, and in hopes of eventually luring Danarius out into the open to be dealt with once and for all, Fenris has stayed at Hawke's side for the past three years, living in his master's abandoned Kirkwall mansion and assisting Hawke in her various ventures while waiting for any news of Danarius.
Personality: Fenris' earliest remaining memory is that of suffering through the unspeakable agony of the ritual that robbed him of every other memory he ever had. 'Bitter' barely begins to cover it.
With almost every memory Fenris has being heavily influenced by his magister master, Fenris' entire life since the ritual has been completely dominated by Danarius - either as his master, or as the man he wants to kill above all others. He's been away from Danarius for no less than six years by now, and hasn't seen any hunters since meeting Hawke, but he still lives in uneasy, angry paranoia of when they'll come again. He's unable to believe that Danarius would cease pursuing him - and the entire reason he's unable to escape his master is due to the very markings Danarius gave him, the very thing that makes him too precious to be left alone. Add to this whatever constant pain Fenris feels from the markings themselves, and it's no wonder he doesn't smile often.
But it isn't simply Danarius that he hates. Fenris dislikes all mages - distrusting the well-intentioned ones and outright hating all the others. Coming from the Tevinter Imperium - the one place in Thedas where mages are not carefully restricted and restrained by trained templars for public safety - he's seen what happens when mages are given the freedom to govern themselves and to seek out as much power as they can grab. In his experience, mages will inevitably scrabble for whatever power they can get, and the ones that resort to practices like dealing with demons or using blood magic will always edge out the mages who refuse such unscrupulous means. This inevitably leads the most dangerous, depraved, and power-hungry mages to become magisters(he seems to apply the term 'magister' to any mage who takes political ruling power), and likewise leads any mage who doesn't to become little better than a slave themselves, ground under the heel of the magisters or forced to resort to the same dark practices in order to match them. While Fenris acknowledges that there are good mages, ones with nothing but the best intentions, he is firmly of the belief that any mage will give into temptation if not forcibly stopped, and will justify even the most horrific acts to themselves if they deem it 'necessary'. Even having been a slave himself, there is next to nothing that could convince Fenris that mages don't need to be controlled when he's lived the reality of what happens when they aren't.
As dark as all this sounds, however, Fenris isn't without his lighter sides. He has a wry sense of humor that occasionally rears its head, and he's far less tightly wound than he sometimes appears. He enjoys drinking and, on occasion, casual sex, and jokes around with Hawke's other companions(or at least the ones he likes; he's no fan of the mages of their group, although he does find Bethany fairly tolerable as mages go). He still feels a fondness and something of a kinship to the qunari, although he never adopted their Qun as his own philosophy, and tends to both understand and get along with them far better than others with less knowledge of them...at least, if anyone can be said to get along with qunari. Though he can speak several languages relatively fluently(he speaks phrases in both Arcanum - the language of the Tevinter Imperium - and the qunari tongue, as well as conversing readily in whatever common tongue is used in Kirkwall), as a slave he's illiterate. Hawke has only just recently begun to teach him to read, but he still barely has a child's grasp of it. But he does tend toward the serious, due to his turbulent past and his lack of any self beyond Danarius' dominating presence over his life - it leaves him little in the way of other personal interests or desires. It may take him awhile in Mayfield to find any direction for himself.
Abilities: Aside from his considerable prowess as a two-handed swordfighter - Fenris' favored weapon is a claymore or maul nearly as big as he is - Fenris' lyrium markings give him extraordinary abilities shared by no one else. He's able to phase through solid objects; though in-game this is only ever seen to function with his hand, it might be possible - with the expenditure of significant energy - to actually phase through doors or walls, at least very briefly. (He might be able to move through a wall to the other side; he couldn't walk through a mountain.) Further, one of his abilities in combat is to actually fade into a 'wraithlike' state that makes him difficult to track or hit. It's not actually invisibility, as he's still visible as an indistinct blue shape; it's just much harder to follow his movements or keep focus on him.
Sample Entry: Here's a nice long sample thread with our reserved Arishok on dear_mun!
Character Series: Dragon Age 2; he'll be taken from near the beginning of Act 2, prior to his companion quests in that act.
Character Age: Unknown, but guessed to be mid to late twenties
Background: (I always write my own tl;dr backgrounds, but here is a wiki link if you'd like something shorter/want to compare!)
In the world of Thedas, elves were long ago conquered and enslaved by humans. Though most of the world has banned slavery, at least on paper - slaves are still bought and sold illegally, some elves are employed as 'servants' in conditions little better than slaves might expect, and even free elves tend to be treated as second-class citizens in human society at best - there is one nation, the Tevinter Imperium, where not only is slavery legal, but incredibly widespread.
Fenris was born into this delightful state of affairs as an elven slave in Tevinter. Or so he assumes; he doesn't actually remember a thing about his childhood, or even about himself.
The Tevinter Imperium is governed by magisters, mages of no small magical and political power - and, as one might expect from the nation's love affair with slavery and forbidden blood magic, no excess of compassion or morals. Years ago, Fenris' master Danarius - a mage himself - embedded lines of lyrium (a dangerous mineral with magical properties) into Fenris' skin, in a ritual so agonizing that it wiped Fenris' mind clean of all memory and, it is suggested, has left him in constant pain ever since. (It may also be what turned his hair white, judging by the color of his eyebrows; his hair may have once matched them.)
This is not to say that they come without their practical applications; Fenris' role as Danarius' slave was to be his bodyguard, and the lyrium markings give him the ability to phase through solid objects. While this might seem like a passive ability, Fenris has weaponized it - one of his favorite tricks is to reach his hand into a man's chest and crush his heart. While Danarius no doubt used the procedure partially to see if such a thing could be done, and may have used it and Fenris himself as a trophy to his own power and ingenuity once the ritual proved successful, the markings were ultimately meant to aid Fenris' ability to fight. Even Fenris appreciates their usefulness, despite what they've cost him.
With no memory of his life before the ritual - no family, no desires, no goals - Fenris had no particular reason to seek freedom from his master, and was certainly never encouraged to entertain the idea. This isn't to say that his time with Danarius was pleasant; the man kept Fenris quite literally leashed as a mockery to the customs of the qunari, a people the Tevinter Imperium has been at war with for centuries. (The qunari leash their mages due to considering them dangerous to all around them; a magister leashing a warrior was not only an insulting reversal of asit tal-eb, the way things should be as the qunari understand it, but also an insult merely by virtue of the practice being used insolently by a non-qunari.) He used Fenris as a tool for murder, an amusing conversation piece, and anything else he deemed convenient. Danarius' apprentice, Hadriana, likewise tormented him - mocking him, denying him food, even haunting his dreams. The life of an elven slave in Tevinter is rarely pleasant, but one would suspect that Fenris' was even more difficult than most. He might have been trapped to it forever, save for unexpected circumstances.
Six years ago, Fenris and Danarius were on the island of Seheron - a hotly contested piece of land between the qunari and the Imperium - when the qunari attacked. Though Fenris was able to get Danarius to the safety of a ship sailing back to Tevinter, there was no room aboard for a mere slave; despite the high value Danarius placed on Fenris(or, more accurately, the markings he'd taken such pains to give him), he was forced to leave Fenris behind, gravely injured but - technically - free.
A group of rebel qunari known as Fog Warriors discovered Fenris and took him in, nursing him back to health. During the few months before Danarius' inevitable return for him, Fenris learned much of the qunari and their culture - not to mention gaining a healthy admiration for the rebels, and the still-unfamiliar concepts of freedom and not having a master. When Danarius did in fact come to retrieve his possession, the Fog Warriors refused to turn Fenris over to him. Unsurprisingly, Danarius ordered Fenris to kill them; more surprisingly, perhaps, Fenris obeyed him. Fenris had believed that his brief experience with freedom had ended, that his return to slavery was inevitable and any illusion of choice he had in the matter was just that - an illusion. It was only after he'd killed them, and the full weight of his remorse and anger hit him, that he was able to bring himself to run - but from there, he has never looked back.
Since then, Fenris has been on the run from Danarius, who has relentlessly pursued him - either in person or, far more often, in the form of hunters sent after him. Danarius desires the return of his property, which focuses more on Fenris' markings than Fenris himself; it's implied he would take Fenris' skin as readily as the whole package. Fenris has claimed to have killed more hunters than he can count, and after three years of running, he grew understandably tired of it. Realizing his former master would never stop hunting him as long as he lived, Fenris came to the obvious solution: kill him. Easier said than done, of course.
It was through an encounter with yet more of Danarius' hunters in the city of Kirkwall that Fenris met Hawke - a refugee from another country who Fenris tricked into helping him. (It was only afterwards that Fenris discovered he could have had the help by simply asking outright, a fact he feels ever so slightly guilty about...but, given his history, it's not surprising he didn't expect ready aid.) In exchange for Hawke's help in wiping out Danarius' newest wave of hunters, and in hopes of eventually luring Danarius out into the open to be dealt with once and for all, Fenris has stayed at Hawke's side for the past three years, living in his master's abandoned Kirkwall mansion and assisting Hawke in her various ventures while waiting for any news of Danarius.
Personality: Fenris' earliest remaining memory is that of suffering through the unspeakable agony of the ritual that robbed him of every other memory he ever had. 'Bitter' barely begins to cover it.
With almost every memory Fenris has being heavily influenced by his magister master, Fenris' entire life since the ritual has been completely dominated by Danarius - either as his master, or as the man he wants to kill above all others. He's been away from Danarius for no less than six years by now, and hasn't seen any hunters since meeting Hawke, but he still lives in uneasy, angry paranoia of when they'll come again. He's unable to believe that Danarius would cease pursuing him - and the entire reason he's unable to escape his master is due to the very markings Danarius gave him, the very thing that makes him too precious to be left alone. Add to this whatever constant pain Fenris feels from the markings themselves, and it's no wonder he doesn't smile often.
But it isn't simply Danarius that he hates. Fenris dislikes all mages - distrusting the well-intentioned ones and outright hating all the others. Coming from the Tevinter Imperium - the one place in Thedas where mages are not carefully restricted and restrained by trained templars for public safety - he's seen what happens when mages are given the freedom to govern themselves and to seek out as much power as they can grab. In his experience, mages will inevitably scrabble for whatever power they can get, and the ones that resort to practices like dealing with demons or using blood magic will always edge out the mages who refuse such unscrupulous means. This inevitably leads the most dangerous, depraved, and power-hungry mages to become magisters(he seems to apply the term 'magister' to any mage who takes political ruling power), and likewise leads any mage who doesn't to become little better than a slave themselves, ground under the heel of the magisters or forced to resort to the same dark practices in order to match them. While Fenris acknowledges that there are good mages, ones with nothing but the best intentions, he is firmly of the belief that any mage will give into temptation if not forcibly stopped, and will justify even the most horrific acts to themselves if they deem it 'necessary'. Even having been a slave himself, there is next to nothing that could convince Fenris that mages don't need to be controlled when he's lived the reality of what happens when they aren't.
As dark as all this sounds, however, Fenris isn't without his lighter sides. He has a wry sense of humor that occasionally rears its head, and he's far less tightly wound than he sometimes appears. He enjoys drinking and, on occasion, casual sex, and jokes around with Hawke's other companions(or at least the ones he likes; he's no fan of the mages of their group, although he does find Bethany fairly tolerable as mages go). He still feels a fondness and something of a kinship to the qunari, although he never adopted their Qun as his own philosophy, and tends to both understand and get along with them far better than others with less knowledge of them...at least, if anyone can be said to get along with qunari. Though he can speak several languages relatively fluently(he speaks phrases in both Arcanum - the language of the Tevinter Imperium - and the qunari tongue, as well as conversing readily in whatever common tongue is used in Kirkwall), as a slave he's illiterate. Hawke has only just recently begun to teach him to read, but he still barely has a child's grasp of it. But he does tend toward the serious, due to his turbulent past and his lack of any self beyond Danarius' dominating presence over his life - it leaves him little in the way of other personal interests or desires. It may take him awhile in Mayfield to find any direction for himself.
Abilities: Aside from his considerable prowess as a two-handed swordfighter - Fenris' favored weapon is a claymore or maul nearly as big as he is - Fenris' lyrium markings give him extraordinary abilities shared by no one else. He's able to phase through solid objects; though in-game this is only ever seen to function with his hand, it might be possible - with the expenditure of significant energy - to actually phase through doors or walls, at least very briefly. (He might be able to move through a wall to the other side; he couldn't walk through a mountain.) Further, one of his abilities in combat is to actually fade into a 'wraithlike' state that makes him difficult to track or hit. It's not actually invisibility, as he's still visible as an indistinct blue shape; it's just much harder to follow his movements or keep focus on him.
Sample Entry: Here's a nice long sample thread with our reserved Arishok on dear_mun!
