River of Stars

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_{Red Bear Adaar}

Red Bear AdaarWhere it all started in May 2014, where I first developed his character bio outline and disposition and voice. My canon Inquisitor from my main worldstate.Full name: Red Bear AdaarAge: 24 at the Conclave; 27 by Trespasser endHeight: 6’9” (nice) with horns, 6'3"ish withoutPronouns: He/HimClass: Mage; Specialization – Healer/Spirit HealerTitles: Inquisitor; Little Bear; The Scion of Sunlight, The Orlesian Needle, Sugar Cake KingSexuality: GayLove interest: Iron BullFavorite pastime: Sewing, embroidery, baking, snowball fights, reading romance novels, avoiding Cassandra’s glare and Cullen'ss combat drills.Family: Aunt Renga (non-bio aunt); Iron Bull (husband at Trespasser’s end), everyone at Skyhold (found family)- Terminally naïve and trusting with people close to him, yet diplomatically shrewd in peacekeeping talks, diplomatic negotiations, mercantile finance deals, and politics.- Boisterous, lively baritone voice, always sunny disposition, "My friend(s)!" ringing throughout Skyhold dozens of times a day upon seeing each person he knows and acting as if they have been apart for years too long.- Afraid of moths.- Incredible baker and great cook. Loves to make sweets, treats, and candies for everyone, including guests and visiting diplomats and dignitaries. He leaves little candy drops on everyone's pillow each day, and feeds everyone sweet cake cupcakes of various flavors and icing whenever he can.- He is a tailor/mender by skill and trade, and it is a big part of his life. Making clothes, embroidering and personalizing clothes (for himself and for all those he cares around around him). It is his life's passion. He finally opens up his own tailor shop after Trespasser, and achieves a dream he's had since he was a lonely boy that had no friends and only knew needle and thread as fellows to keep him company.- Record holder of Skyhold’s Cake Eating Contest; 32 counts of lemon sugar cake.- When healing, he views pushing and pulling and mending the magics through a wounded body like sewing and stitching on a garment. Sealing up holes in the energetic body as well as the physical body, mending over tears, patching over holes.- He knew nothing of real romance save for what he's read out of books and heard from bard songs and tales. Of which he loves and cannot get enough of listening to, by the way. So he truly had many, many misconceptions of how to go about showing affection and courting someone he was interested in. For example, he'd write long, long sonnets and poetry to be recited (or sung) to the person of his affection. The problem is he is horrible with writing poetry and sonnets and romantic prose. Comically so.- He is also one of the worst singers in Southern Thedas. Yet thinks he sounds quite brilliant and dashing. So he sings... a lot. Much to the chagrin of all those around him. Even more so when it is his personal song and works that he is singing.- His magic manifested at 12, explosively, when he had his first kiss by a gap-toothed copper-headed farmboy. Fire and lightning uncontrollably ripped across the farm, barn, croplands, and spread to other buildings quickly. He and his aunt had to flee immediately. Half the sleepy hamlet burned down that night. And Red vowed never ever to use destructive magic, and he was so thoroughly traumatized by the event that he never would be efficient at it anyway.- He is abysmal at combat. Completely incapable. No matter how much he is given instruction by Cassandra and drilled by Cullen and pushed by his mage mentors, he is hopeless at combat, both martial and magical.- Deviating from the game’s offerings, Red Bear is a Spirit Healer and specializes in Healing, protection, barriers, and rejuvenation. He learns first aid for out in the field and longterm care over the course of the game's timeline.- He has an ugly, raggedy stuffed druffalo doll named Mr. Druffles. He has stitched it into the back lining of his traveling pack so that he can always have his comfort and stim item that reminds him of love, home, memories of getting comfort from his dolly when times were tough growing up and being alone. It is the one item that Renga ever gave him, and one real visible, tangible means of her showing love for him. She does love him and they do get along great together, but she’s not an expressive or overly emotional person. Emotions are difficult, but she tries hard specifically with Red Bear. Just not always in the ways a sensitive and kind soul like he may have needed/wanted growing up.- After gaining the mark, the power of health/vitality transference emerged, and it is something fascinating, confusing, and frightening to him. He's able to transfer the vitality of one subject to another, provided he has one hand on each party. This evolves post-Trespasser to him being able to draw it out of people like threads and connect them or sew them into another person to link them together for the transfer.- He doesn’t curse. His version of expletives are like, “Oh crumbs!” “Fade it!” “Aw sugar!” “Fudge cakes!” and “Mother druffalo!”- He learned through the Inquisition magic tutors that he was a Spirit Healer and had a Spirit of Compassion connected to him. And that this spirit had been tethered to him since he was 12, when his magic manifested. The spirit had been watching him since he was a baby, when his parents were killed by a bigoted (anti-Qunari) and superstitious mob when he wasn't even a year old.- He was raised by his Aunt Renga, a foul-talking, hard-drinking, and short-tempered ex-Carta dwarf. It was a vow she made to his parents, whom were her only people she ever called friends: To take care of their baby should anything happen to them (like the Qun agents coming after them for fleeing Seheron). The irony is that it wasn't agents of the Qun that killed them, it was the hatreds and fears of the people in southern Thedas. A place they thought would be their freedom from where they had lived.- Renga loves Red as much as she can and in her own ways. She never wanted children, never knew what to do with one, but Red became something she never knew she needed and wanted. Through him, she learned to love and feel again (even if, on the outside, that didn't look like much of a change; the woman didn't hug/touch or say sentimental praise and love). Red knew she loved him in the little ways, and caring for him all these years, keeping him safe, but he grew up on the run from the Carta and the past catching up with them, leaving him with a very sheltered and isolated life. Never in one place for longer than a couple months at most. Never able to make or keep friends. Always alone. Longing and yearning and love-starved.- Red has deep fears about being abandoned, rooted in his parents being killed and left alone in this world, and a desperate hunger for love and friendship and family that he never was able to have. And so he tries his best -- even at his own detriment -- to become the warmth and home that others never had or knew they needed, too. This can result in him letting those he loves take a lot of liberties with him, and him willing to easily forgive or even let people walk over him if it means he maintains the relationship. He's very self-sacrificing, too much so.- He married Iron Bull at the end of Trespasser, and they adopted a seven year-old daughter together. They named her Renga, after his aunt, in homage to her for all she did in raising Red. Parallels, synchronicity, and paying it forward. (She will also become the protagonist for DA4 sometime too.)- Afer Trespasser, Red purchases a large estate land on the outskirts of Orlais. On the grounds, he builds homes for each one of his cherished found family members, so that they will always have a home to return to. A home with him, together. One is also built for Solas, ready for him when the day he comes back home, to where he belongs. An easel with paints stand ready beside the window overlooking the valley and horizon. And a desk in his alcove library, with pressed flowers for each year without him.- Themes explored with Red Bear include: found family, going against the grain of expectations (as a Qunari, as a mage, as a visually imposing person who is just a big softie healer and only want to help others and hug the world close), loneliness/abandonment, resiliency in the face of exhausting insurmountable circumstances, hope in the darkness, and never giving up because the beauty of the world (and in people) are worth fighting to protect, unity as strength, emotions as strength (not weakness), and how to reach across barriers to find solutions together, hand in hand.Note: Feel free to search 'Red Bear' over on my twitter history to find a lot of other questionnaires, lore and background threads, screenshots, and art. There's a lot over there for him, and every post about him I make sure to put 'Red Bear' somewhere in the message so it makes it easy to search for.Click Here To Return To The Main Page.

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_{Kahlan Lavellan}

Kahlan LavelannThe lost and cerebral lady I made for Solasmancing, specifically, after doing my first run on Red Bear. Wanting to explore the elven sides of the stories and how much impact through being an elf and being under Solas' wing would have on her.Full name: Kahlan LavellanAge: 27 at the Conclave; 30 by Trespasser's endHeight: 5'2"Build: Slender but toned with strong sinewy muscles.Pronouns: She/HerClass: Mage; Specialization - Knight EnchanterTitles: Inquisitor; Knight Enchanter of the Second Moon; Dream Thief; Ancient Elvhen Scholar; Relic Huntress; Moonflower (by Deshanna, her mother); Kitten (by Varric); Da banal'ras (Little Shadow by Solas); The Puma of Wildervale Wood; and Amateur PainterSexuality: SolasLove Interest: SolasFavorite pastime: Academia study, strategy games, painting, dancing under the moonlightFamily: Clan Lavellan. Deshanner (her mother); Eurvan (brother); One Eye Shadowheart (adopted uncle; werewolf)- Kahlan has always been searching and seeking for something bigger than herself, for a purpose, a meaning, a cause. She feels unmoored and aimless, adrift at sea, looking for a beacon or a savior-guide to set her on her purpose.- She wants better for her elven people. She refuses to accept the state of the world as it is, and that this is the way of things. Being a Dalish, constantly under threat within the Free Marcher lands between city-states, and her alienage cousins living in filth and squalor at the whims of those with power. She wants more, but (before the Mark and Inquisition) feels powerless to do anything about it. She's just an elf, a girl in the world, grasping at what it all means.- Her personality is mercurial, aloof, cerebral, cautious, and strategic. She is a thinker by nature, and prefers to watch and observe, to read and research, in order to glean as much information about a person or a topic before speaking on it (or replying to them). This can make her come off as cold at times, or keeping people at arm's length, or even snobbish, but she's far from it. She has a kind and fierce heart, she just has to understand the world (and the people) before engaging with it.- She is a scholar of ancient elven lore, ancient sites, and places of power. A research of language and decrypter of murals and glyphs. From a young age, she thought that learning more about her ancient history and heritage would give more meaning to her life, but all it filled her with were romanticized and idealized notions of the past. Rosy-colored glasses of wishing for the glorious elven past to make a return and whisk her away from her reality.- She is an amateur painter, simply inspired by nature and a need to be alone and away from other people in order to decompress and think. While painting, she is able to let her mind rest and think clearer about problems in her life.- Kahlan loves to dance. Part of that comes from the ceremonial dances and celebration days that her Lavellan Clan celebrated. Dancing under the moon in the weathered groves, sweating out fears and stresses until dawn, and revering the ancestors that walked before. It'd bring her a sense of peace and, later on in life when she'd become a Knight Enchanter, it would form the foundation of her fluid and devastating fighting style.- Her magic manifested at the age of 7 and she cannot remember a time when she was not touched by the gift. When magic was not at her fingertips. The day her magic awakened, the sky cried. A light rain poured from the clear sky and purple lotus blossoms bloomed around her feet.- Heedless to the warnings her elders put in front of her about getting near the dangerous human cities, Kahlan snuck out in a fit of curiosity to see what these cities were like. She was 12 and wore a heavy hooded cloak to hide her ears. She went to the city market and saw the bustling world of humans for the first time, as well as the nightmare of how alienage elves lived.- In the city, there was a group of kids playing, and, being still a child herself that wanted to try connecting with others her age, and learn more about humans, she joined in. nUnfortunately, her cloak slipped off, revealing her dress and her ears as Dalish. She quickly fled, with the children throwing rocks at her back, and a group of men being called to get 'the knife-ear spy.' She was beaten and humiliated ruthlessly, and managed to get away by sheer luck into the deeper wood to hide.- It is there that Kahlan first met someone she would come to call her 'Uncle.' He adopted her, really. Bloodied and wounded, she came across a hurt werewolf, hungry and stuck under rubble, left to wither. But she used her magic to get him free, and gave him food, and was unafraid. He liked her bravery, cleverness, and kindness. His name is One Eye Shadowheart (Texum pre-lycanthropy). He’s not completely coherent and lucid in his mind, and has one eye (naturally). She just calls him Uncle Tex. A male ‘father’ figure, misguided as it is, to replace the father she no longer has.- As she grew older, she and Uncle Tex began to patrol the Wildervale Wood. They'd scare off people encroaching on Dalish lands, they'd scare off or fight poachers, they'd attack slavers and those trying to abduct elves. This earned her the name 'The Puma of Wildervale Wood.' Stories told to human children about the monster that lives in the wood, twisted and exaggerated about how they slaughtered innocents. And combining her and her uncle into one being. For a time, this game her some meaning, but it still was so small and fueled more by past trauma than any meaning.- Kahlan is daughter of the Keeper of Clan Levallan, Deshanna. Deshanna is a fluid person, using both male and female pronouns. Deshanna lost their husband in a human skirmish in the borderlands of the Free March city-states. Kahlan has a younger brother, a hunter, named Eurvan. They don’t see much of each other, and don’t see eye to eye well. He sees things in traditional ways, reveres the gods and the old ways, and status quo.- Kahlan's Clan Lavellan operates on the usual Dalish succession rights of Keeper and their chosen apprentice, the First, but if the Keeper has any gifted mage children, then they are also brought up in the ways of magic and trained to potentially be a First as well.  Choosing a First would come down to who shows the most aptitude, who shows the most willingness to protect the clan and their ways. This also generated competition and rivalries.- As a daughter of the Keeper, as part of the traditions of Lavellan, she is trained to be the First. However she does poorly at it due to mental and emotional anguish, fears, aimlessness, feeling lost, no direction, purpose, and fleeting hope. She is NOT named the First, even though usual succession rights of Keeper and gifted child would result in them being trained and a shoo-in for the First.- Kahlan's Clan is a mixture of Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Irish cultures and blending of heritages. Her clan is composed of black and brown elves, primarily.- Kahlan herself is Indian and designed out of inspiration from Indian actresses and the love of bollywood media. She speaks with a Maharashtrian english accent.- The elders (including her mother) deem Kahlan unfit and unworthy of vallaslin at eighteen, and every year thereafter. They claim she is without purpose, no conviction and focus on the Clan and the duties that come with it, too aimless, too lost. It is painful, and it is true. But it doesn't make it hurt less or the humiliation any less.- This is why Kahlan has no vallaslin in the game. She never had it. And there was nothing for Solas to remove. It was one of many things that brought them closer, ironically. He saw her as unmarked, and found it enticing and unexpected. Instead, she wears a gold circlet on her forehead, as a kind of independence for herself and declaration of how she needs no god or clan or anyone else's blessing. She can be her own person, a clan of one.- She goes to the conclave as assistant to the newly chosen First of the clan.  A spry and mischievous (good natured) young man named, Havasaran. He dies and she survives with the Mark.- After gaining the Mark, Kahlan's magical affinity and capabilities grow at an exponential rate. Raw power, force, and stamina increase at remarkable rates, as if the Mark had unleashed something within her, tapped into her true potential, or became a conduit of her gift that she never realized possible.- She becomes a Knight Enchanter, focusing on her ferocity in the heat of battle into her spirit blade, dancing through the battlefield with elegant and lethal movements full of raw power and grace.- She and Solas' relationship crested and broke like the waves on the shore. It came fast, and intense, and swept them both away. She lost herself in him, thinking that she had finally found her path, the guide that would show her the way to the future she dreamed of since she was a child. A future of the return of the ancient elvan ways and the rise in station for all elves across Thedas. A true revolution and return to how things were better, how things could finally be more equal.- Solas was the only person that Kahlan ever felt romantic love and attraction to. He was the sun, Sol, and she was the Moon, Lune. She thought they could get through anything together.- Then the reveals across the game, from the gods being false, to the truth of the Evanuris, to Solas pushing her away several times, and ultimately leaving her at the end of the main game happen. And in all this anguish and chipping away everything she thought she knew, and thought she needed, she realized the real truths. Her truths. She did not need gods, or a savior, or a man, to hold her by the hand and tell her what she should do and believe to give her life meaning. She would be her own hero, she would rescue herself.- Now that she had the Inquisition, she had power, incredible magic, the ear of countless royals and countries at the snap of her fingers, and was stronger than she had ever been in her life. Why was she continually looking outward for meaning, when she should have looked inward all along. She now knew her true purpose and her own goals. No more childhood fantasies of eras long gone and the return to 'the good old days' that were still horrible by all accounts she studied over the years and countless ruins. Why not build something better? Solas was wrong. She wanted to keep this world but make it better for her people, to liberate them in the present, not look to the dust of the past of fallen empires and continue destructive cycles.- It is by the time of Trespasser that Kahlan is fully her own person, in control of her own destiny, and knows what her purpose is. Finally. This is the moment where Kahlan's real story and journey actually begins.- Post-Trespasser, Kahlan tasks the Inquisition with utilizing its resources and contacts to keep an eye on Solas and to strategically complicate or foil plans they become aware of. In the meantime, Kahlan becomes a relic hunter and goes to seek the long lost sites of the elves and the old ones, intent on finding artifacts of power from ages long lost that can give her more insight into the past. Why things fell. What the real stories behind the ancient theosophy and manipulated historical accounts really were about.- The more power she could accrue, the more knowledge she could gain, the more powerful she could become -- as a person and as a political figure in Thedas -- to cause real, true change across the known world. And, at some point, her opposing views of the future and what it needs vs. what Solas wants are going to come into conflict. When it comes, she'll want to be as powerful and as learned to do whatever must be done. For her people.Note: Feel free to search 'Kahlan' over on my twitter history to find a lot of other questionnaires, lore and background threads, screenshots, and art. There's a lot over there for her, and every post about her I make sure to put 'Kahlan' somewhere in the message so it makes it easy to search for.Click Here To Return To The Main Page.

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_{Evander Bazelton Treveylan}

Evandur TreveylanMy creature that came to life in a fit of creative energy, like a lightning storm, and he jumped out fully formed with a strong narrative voice and characterization and visual and history that wrote itself. He is my troubled self-loathing fella that has been constantly thrown away by life and those around him, and always running to try escaping the things that get too hard.Full name: Evandur Bazelton Treveylan von OstwickNicknames: Evan (from Evandur) or Baz (from Bazelton) for short. Broody by Varric.Age: 28 at the Conclave; 31 by Trespasser end.Height: 5'11"Build: Muscular outdoorsman, swimmer's buildPronouns: He/HimClass: Mage; Specialization - Blood Mage and NecromancerTitles: Inquisitor, Apostate, Fugitive, FailureSexuality: Gay (but fluid)Love Interest: CullenFavorite pastime: Playing the cello, sleeping around, getting into fights/scraps, blaming himself and brooding in regrets.Family: House Treveylan. Cathán Kraneux Treveylan (father); Chanda Lutine Treveylan (mother); Clover (younger sister); Lorcán Treveylan (uncle, deceased);  Jarrek Treveylan (cousin, missing); Great Aunt Lucille (great aunt); Dorian Pavus (third cousin);Flower: Orange lilies (you can look up the symbolism)- House Treveylan follows a strict line of succession and political power and prestige and optics. In the political arena, optics and scandal are their weight in gold, and the currency to which houses flounder or rise. At the time of being born, Evan's House Treveylan is at the height of their esteem, a heavyweight noble house that revels in the spotlight.- Only the firstborn male children, in the direct line of house patriarch heirs can inherit the seat of power. In the event that the patriarch cannot produce a male heir or the male heir dies, then the line of succession turns to the patriarch's eldest brother that has a male heir. In hundreds of years, this succession has never run into any wrinkles. Evan is the eldest and, for that matter, only son of the current House Treveylan Patriarch.- At the time of his birth, House Treveylan has Evan and his cousin Jarrek. There is no concerns over succession. The House is enjoying its time in the sun. Unfortunately for them, Evan is born into a house and a suffocating gilded cage that he wants no part of. And somewhere he feels as though he cannot truly be himself. The obligations and pressures, training and abuses he has to suffer in order to be molded and drilled into the 'perfect heir,' overburdened with expectations and demands, and his life planned out - including the girl he'd even be wed to - since before he was even born.- So, quite simply, he rebelled. He learned how to become a manipulator and charmer to get his way, to get around blocks and obstacles in his life, to eke out even little bits of freedom and self-expression he could scrape together. Every bit of personal power fueled into these little, small victories of rebellion. Of getting what he wanted from others.- Political power in Ostwick's noble circle was coded heavily in the hypermasculine, of deeds and victories, of intimidation and legacy, of martial prowess and might. But Evan continued going against the grain of expectations. He observed, learned, and exploited how others (namely, women) would use passive power and clout to get around the oppressive old traditions and find how to control the system in their own ways. Evan using charm, wit, guile, seduction, and other forms of 'passive' means within this structure was seen as unseemly. Beneath a man, especially an heir's behavior. Namely, Evan brought trouble and he played the games in ways that were viewed as degrading.- His cousin, Jarrek, and his uncle, Lorcan, were both very verbally and physically abusive to Evan behind closed doors. Much more so than the usual abuses suffered at the hands of his family. They took great pleasure in trying to take him 'down a peg' from his highhorse and making of mockery of their House and flouting his deviant behaviors.- Evan knew he was gay and, to some degree, pretty fluid, since he was a child. It never was a question, it just was always there. And in this House, this was something that was not polished for optics. It was not something you could be if you were going to adhere to your duties, your obligations, your rights to succession and power in this political system. You could have lovers, discreetly, on the side, but you were still expected to marry and have heirs and continue your dutiful line in your father's honor. And yet, all of this was more reason for why Evan would act out where he could, break the boughs that held him. At least for a little while.- Evan caused many scandals over his young life, and was the source of gossip that spread even beyond the walls of Ostwick. By the time he was in his mid-teens, it was causing the House ample hits to reputation and optics, with things that could not be easily cleaned up, denied, or bribed away. In turn, this caused even more friction and pressure and abuse within the family to be heaped on Evan. Especially his cold, calculating father and his socialite mother (that loved to drink and had zero cares about anything beyond vanity).- This continued on until he was sixteen, when his magic manifested late in his adolescence, and was a surprise to everyone. One side of the house saw this as an opportunity to be rid of Evan and have the line of succession go to his cousin, Jarrek.- In-house drama and arguments boiled over until a compromise was found. That one being that Evan would be sent away to the Circle. But not the one in Ostwick. He'd go to the Tower Circle in Fereldan next door, to be even further away from the city, and out of prying eyes and ears for him to act out and cause more reputation damage. And over the years, perhaps it would let the rumors and scandals from previous years die down and be forgotten.- His magic manifested not with a roar but a drip. He had a pet beagle that he loved and was the only creature on earth that he thought truly cared for him, and would always be there for him. When the beagle, Free, suddenly died, he was inconsolable. The sheer emotional shock shook something in him out, and the desire for his buddy to live and return to him was so strong that it innately tapped into magics that revived the dead canine. Only it wasn't Free, it was something hollow, a pale imitation, a living mockery. Something with no soul, something undead. An unshackled puppet. The dog rampaged across the mansion (where a gala for his father's birthday ceremony was being held) and caused a huge social outrage. And caused no less than 3 serious wounds to party-goers.- Evan loves playing the cello. It is his one emotional outlet, since he is terrible with expressing himself in word and deed, as they always are subject to his flares of temper and self-shame. It is the one healthy outlet he has to channel his emotions and thoughts, where he's able to think more clearly and process complex, heavy emotions and traumas.- At the Tower Circle in Fereldan, turning seventeen, is where he met Cullen for the first time. They sparked with a mixture of oil and water, and moth to a flame. There was an undercurrent of electricity humming behind their friction and their budding friendship. They would argue, butt heads, and have the most biting quips and barbs at one another, but it wasn't animosity. It was a kindling in a furnace they both were building but had no idea what it was, because mage-templar politics, Circle rules and politics, and young adolescence for both of them caused them to be at a loss of where they stood with one another. Or even how to understand the shape of it.- Over the year, both Cullen and Evan grew closer, yet the word friendship was an elusive word to describe their relationship. They enjoyed each other's company, even if it was often something that devolved into snark and competitiveness and political arguments and pushing boundaries and frustration and tensions. But there was an unspoken connection pulling them toward each other.- Unlike other people in his life up to that point, Evan did not use his gift of twisted speech, manipulation, or sex appeal to try getting things from Cullen, or to use against him. Cullen was different to him... He didn't care about privilege and power, he was dutiful and focused, but there was something troubled and darker beneath his skin. Something that Evan could relate to, one that reached out as much as it pushed away.- While Evan's pull and push and fears were rooted in trust issues and growing up in an environment where he could never be himself, and so he had no real tools to 'talk' to people normally; Cullen's struggles were born more in his confusion and wariness of Evan being an unpredictable mage element and denying the whisper of feelings that might have been bubbling up inside of him. And issues over sexuality and acceptance, what it all mean, were lager abstract questions he couldn't afford to deal with.- Things crest to a conflicting head when one night, caught in another heated (and snarky) argument over the restraints and lack of freedom mages had in the Circle Tower, something shifted. That burning wick blossomed into something enflamed and messy within Evan. He goaded Cullen into an impromptu sparring match, which he then lost (and expected to lose), and then pushed Cullen toward showering together after working up a sweat. As they were soaking in the wooden tubs beside one another, Evan invaded his space, whispered possibilities and enticing offers, played with clues to feelings and care he didn't understand. They nearly kissed in that vulnerable moment, but at the last second, Cullen pushed away and left without a word.- As Cullen grew more distant and 'professional' in his duties, Evandur turned his eyes on the turmoil growing within the politics of the Circle Tower. There were always whispers, talk behind bookcases, clandestine meetings to vent frustrations about the cage of living this Circle life. There was growing animosity toward First Enchanter Irving and his way of maintaining the status quo. Dissenters felt that his method of giving up so many freedoms and sacrificing so much privacy to the Templars and this Circle life, that he was unfit to speak on their behalf. Perhaps new leadership would be better. One that wanted to speak to mages being given more freedom to live a life, and not just be a prisoner.- This is how Evan became caught up in Uldred's sweet promises. He painted a future where mages had more autonomy, more agency, where they could leave and return to the Tower whenever they wished. And suffered less supervision and invasion of privacy within the Tower as well. Boundaries, rules, benefits for the mages living under this Circle life. It tasted like honey to Evander, and he drank deep of Uldred's ideology and plans. He became Uldred's right-hand, helping with coordinating and strategizing this future reclamation of power from Irving and the elders. It was for their own good.- The closer the time of wresting control from Irving drew near, the more fanatical that Uldred became, and the more he draw people into his web with sugar-coated visions of what kind of better life mages could have when the power structure was toppled and he (and his loyalists) were installed in the former enchanters' stead. This is also when he began introducing the logic and strategic use of blood magic, and how all magic could serve man, it was just in how you used it. And in using it for righteous goals like his cause, it wasn't dangerous, it was destiny.- Then, the Blight happened. King Cailan was betrayed and died at died. Tensions within the country were rising, civil war fever was boiling. Everything at the Tower and with Uldred's plans escalated on timetables, straining under the pressure and desperation of the dark days they were entering. He made Evan (and the others in his cult of personality) truly believe that blood magic not only was harmless but was the way forward in these desperate times. Fighting fire with fire methodology. Think of the power beyond the change in leadership within the Circle, they could use their might to help truly turn the tides in the greater Blight plague sweeping their corner of Thedas. He was great at salesmanship, but flawed with hubris and ego.- With great internal debate and reservations suffered in silence, Evan partook of the blood magic rituals and summonings. What was supposed to have been calls to increase their prowess and boon them with protection turned into something much, much darker. Uldred was consumed in possession. Demons poured forth to rampage across the Tower, shedding mayhem and blood in their wake. Templar and Mage alike were brutalized, tortured, and killed. Evan was traumatized and overwhelmed in regret and horror and self-blame. This was his fault. He did this. This taint inside of him now, this blood magic stain, would never be washed away. It burned.- His first thoughts were to run, escape. He could add coward to his list of sins. But then he thought of Cullen... That same thought must've been on his mind, too, because they both found each other while looking for one another. A mixture of emotions frayed them. The cuts from blood magic on Evan's hands spoke loudly. A chasm once again grew between them and swallowed them up.- Before they could speak/argue more, Uldred captured them in a magical prison. Enjoying the emotional agony playing out between the two, as well as thriving on the literal magical agony and pain he could inflict and influence upon them both as well. Their minds were toyed with, feelings and baser negative emotions heightened. They argued about their confusing relationship, they screamed about duty vs. enslavement, they hurled blame at each other's feet for who each other was.- And at the height of it all, Evan asked if Cullen would call for the Rite of Annulment. Cullen said he would without hesitation. Evan asked even if it meant that he would be killed, did he deserve to be killed. In a revealing, pressured, breakdown moment, Cullen said yes, even if it meant Evan's life. Though he lived a life full of disappointments and betrayals and hate thrown at him, Evan felt that this cut was the deepest. He went numb to whatever heart he had been growing while at the Circle, prison though it was; it still was a cage that had more room to move than Ostwick.- Hating himself, blaming himself, being angry at himself, being spiteful of the life and world he was born into. Fear of his own choices continually being the wrong ones... and bringing misery wherever he stepped. The one person he felt a kinship and strange understanding with just admitting, yes, he'd want him dead (or so that is how it felt and sounded in Evan's ears); it was all too much. Uldred laughed. And laughed. And laughed. A sound that would etch itself into Evan's soul.- As Uldred ascended the stairs to where the Harrowing chamber, he taunted the Treveylan with a deal. He'd let Evan out of the prison if he'd agree to leave Cullen behind. And that one day, somewhere, he'd owe him. And he (the demon within Uldred) would come to collect on this debt. Cullen yelled about making deals with demons, how foolish it would be. "You would bleed me to save yourself? Coward. Filth."- They were words that would haunt him every night in his sleep. But still, he made his choice. Cullen had clearly made his known not more than minutes before. If Cullen didn't care about his life, or what he thought was a bond between them, then neither would he. An eye for an eye, right. This cruel world showed him the only thing he could do in it was to survive it.- Leaving the prison behind, he carved a safe path through cackling demons, screaming familiar faces, and the Hero of Fereldan leading their party in a blaze of blades and magic through the halls, to the room where his phylactery was stored before escaping through the underground tunnelway that lead out to treacherous waters.

- And somehow, through it all, he managed to survive. But what were the costs... He was now an apostate on the run, a fugitive with no place and no one. It was the taste of freedom; the taste of bitter ashes drying in his mouth.- Self-loathing and regret and being haunted by his life's traumas and poor choices are core parts of Evandur. They are what follow him to sleep each night. What lives within him. Along with the taint of blood magic that he can now never be rid of. Something that felt alive within him, moved with its own instincts. A dark shadow of his sins and weakness that made itself a home inside him. He 'had it all' and yet all of it had made his life nothing but misery. He was from a privileged House, with money and power, and he even had a powerful chord of magic. All these 'gifts' and yet he still failed at everything, or so he perceived it as. And he was simply never enough.- Going into hiding was his choice. To remove himself from the world so that he couldn't inflict himself on it and it could not harm him. Or so he thought... and so he tried... Over the next ten years, he'd have many names and be many people, visit many cities and towns, and charm and manipulate his way through life to get by and survive. But was it much of a life, was he really living? It didn't matter.- Evan isn't shy about using sex to numb the pain and the brain demons that are loud in his mind. He uses it as a crutch to get out of his own head and to be somewhere else, be someone else, untethered from his own body and thought. For a little while. He also isn't shy about using his body and charm to get him through life, or even get paid for using it. He had no shame, because he was already filled with plenty of it for other reasons.- His blood magic is viewed almost like a semi-conscious entity that lives within him. Something primal, instinctual, and lurking beneath the surface of his skin and soul. Waiting for a break or a slip to seep out and 'make' Evan perform reactive, intuitive blood magic. He doesn't know where it comes from. He's never had formal training. It is something that, in times of great duress and flight-or-fright/fear for his life, will leap out and take over his body to react. Usually leaving Evan with more literal blood coating his hands and not knowing where or why.- When 'blacking out' and the blood shadow takes over, Evan's eyes will grow completely black. And he will make sigils and glyphs in the air with his blood automatically, unconsciously, intuitively, instinctually. Over the course of his ten years as an apostate fugitive, it hasn't happened frequently but more than a couple dozen times. And more than enough to cause more grief and self-loathing with each time it happens.- Over these ten years, too, he does reestablish contact with the Treveylan House. His sister, specifically. Their once arrogant hold on power has waned, and their House has fallen greatly in reputation and further scandal and suspicion for being cursed. He learns through Clover (his sister) that after what happened with him being sent away to the Ferelden Circle, and the Blight, and the Tower falling and everyone assuming Evan dead, his father passed away. And leadership for Treveylan Patriarch went to his father's brother and his son, the new heir.- But not long after his uncle's ascension was it found out that Lorcan, his uncle, actually poisoned and plotted to kill Evan's father. To wholly seize the seat of power of House Treveylan. Lorcan was forcibly ousted and arrested. But before even getting to trial and judgement, they say a bard visited him in the night. To play a merry tune. And in the morning, he was dead. Rumor spread that it was actually Jarrek, Evan's cousin, and the new heir, that hired the bard. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, perhaps? It is still an unknown. But shortly thereafter, Jarrek disappeared and a fortune from the House vaults - of liquid currency and bonds and deeds - disappeared along with him.- This left House Treveylan with no male heirs of age to take the patriarch's place. And it left House Treveylan imperiled socially, financially, and politically. They were on the verge of becoming irrelevant, collapsing within on themselves. Cousins and uncles and aunts did try to have children, but it was always baby girls. Yet more fuel for the rumor mill that the house was now cursed and to keep away from their ill fortunes, scandal, and bloodshed.- Upon learning that Evan was, in fact, actually alive, it was news that was met with cheer - and for all the wrong reasons. It wasn't out of love and joy for his safety, it was elation over the political and social optics and what it could mean for their House. They could have their 'true' direct heir return and take his place, and revitalize House Treveylan once again, back to its proper place in Ostwick. But to do that... they would need to pull their shred political strings. A delicate play to make his reemergence back into courtly life as an inspirational tale, socially, and one of many aristocratic benefits to welcome the Treveylans back into elevated status.- The first step in this plan would be to end the Mage-Templar war that had broken out over the years since the Blight. So there would be far less scandal and scrutiny in Evan's return to the fold in Ostwick's noble elite circles. And less suspicion cast when House Treveylan welcomes a mage as Patriarch, and one that has been conveniently missing for so many years, and presumed dead after the horrors that happened in the Fereldan Circle.- Did Evan want to return to Ostwick and the gilded cage he left behind so long ago? No. Was he so exhausted, weary, and numb of the life he was currently living, day in and out? Yes. It was lonely and confusing and a blur of months that bled into years. Unable to be free of the past and hunted by it in his remorse. In moments of weakness, he agreed to try.- Perhaps he could change things from within when he returned to Ostwick. Perhaps now, with power and the patriarch seat, he could change age-old traditions and rules that excluded those like him, and traumatized those like him. He could change things to make it better for all those who would come after him, and perhaps he could make better changes in Ostwick itself. He fed himself little balls of rationalizing sunshine because he dared not give hope succor.- He went in person to the Conclave to oversee the mage-templar war discussions and the efforts of House Treveylan (and allied Ostwick houses) to end the war and give amnesty to those left out in the cold. On either/any side. All could be forgiven if they just returned home, to their place, and ceased hostilities and any plans for hostile actions. It would be the first time that Evan saw people from his House. Two distant second cousins (perhaps) and a great aunt some-times-removed. He did not know. Just that he did know. They were from his House and he saw them at family galas as a child. This was meant to be a new beginning, and a way for Evan to slowly test the waters of this life again...- And then the world erupted. Evan, once again, thrown prostrate in the dirt of his own life and rowing in the wake of death and more tragedy. A new stain upon his hands, this one green with the blood of the Fade, and his other red with the blood of his mistakes.- Something Evan does not know of and will not find out until much later on in his time with the Inquisition is that, due to the Mark and his blood magic and the unique 'shadow self' inside of Evan, it all mixed together and heightened his innate powers. Specifically his blood magic powers. And, in turn, fueled the burning fire churning within him, this shadowy seed that was now expanding within him, stretching out, engulfing every inch of his spirit body and energetic field. Filling every free spot of real estate within him.- One of the unique byproducts of this is that Evan cannot be possessed, for he is already 'occupied' in every cell of his being. It's very similar to how a demon cannot possess an already possessed vessel, it is already a filled vessel. Evan is filled. But with what... something that the convergence of the Anchor's power, blood magic, and this formless darkness and taint that Evan gave a name to, all came together to create something unheard of.- He was taken to Haven and it is the first time he meets Cullen since the events at the Tower in Fereldan, since their last painful and bitter ending.- Evan did learn of Cullen making it out and living in Kirkwall for a time. Gladdened by that news, he made - what he later viewed a mistake - a letter to send to him. A simple one, filled with words foreign for his lips but forever running through his mind: "I'm sorry."- It is a shock, then, that Evan comes face to face with somebody he thought he knew so well and that knew him, even if they were so far apart in temperament and youthful ideas of life, duty, and the world. Thinking they both knew everything at 17 and 18. And realizing over the years just how naive and how much they both did not know at all. The meeting comes with a whole host of emotions (for both of them), but they both are great at sweeping things under the rug to lie buried until it can't be hidden any longer.- Dorian Pavus is Evandur's third cousin. They share great-greatgrand parents. A House Treveylan sister of the then-patriarch and a House Pavus magister. This will also be the first time he has seen Dorian since Evan was 15 and Dorian 17. Though they only saw each other once or twice a year at social events, they got on very well, and Dorian was one of the few people that made him just feel... almost-normal. And they liked to get up to trouble together.- Leliana, spymaster that she is, knows of Evandur's past at the Circle Tower and that he was one of the only mages to have escaped that day. But, for now, she says nothing and holds her tongue, wanting to observe and to watch Evan rather than play any of her cards. And Evan, for his part, has zero interest in divulging that he is a survivor of the Annulment at the Fereldan Tower. He has no interest in dredging up the past (publicly). Though he and Cullen will have many, many thorny and brutal days behind closed doors to deal with things they've both put off dealing with for over ten years.- Story Still Unfolding As I Continue Evandur's Playthrough.Note: Feel free to search 'Evan' or 'Evandur' over on my twitter history to find a lot of other questionnaires, lore and background threads, screenshots, and art. Every post about him I make sure to put 'Evan' or 'Evandur' somewhere in the message so it makes it easy to search for.Click Here To Return To The Main Page.