Is a Templar playthrough (both siding with and spec) fun for a Cullenmance, been debating about doing one for a while?
And Rhona Mitra is one of the most stunning women on the planet, she needs to be in more things (and I need to catch up on The Last Ship).
LOL I was pretty much going to say the same thing. 
Soooo . . . for anyone who has expressed interest, I think I finally have a draft of my modern AU Cullen story that evolved from this discussion about THIS lovely, lovely piece of art from the talented feylen. It's being reviewed, and barring any last minute crises or freakouts on my part, I'll probably post in the next day or so.
Is a Templar playthrough (both siding with and spec) fun for a Cullenmance, been debating about doing one for a while?
Templar romance seems too sad with all that lyrium stuff
I'd like to try to romance Iron bull but it will be too hard to resist Cullen, I'll fall in his love trap again XD
A Templar romance with Cullen is all what you make it. I personally love it and have made it my "canon" playthrough. You can make it very heart-wrenching, angsty and sad...or you can make it uplifting and happy. Both myself and Riverbanks are hardcore "Templar peeps" and our playthroughs are polar opposites. Mine was the former type - very angsty. I'll throw it in a spoiler tag, but here's my Templar backstory if you were interested:
I think real life is already full of dissapointments and tragedy, so I like my virtual romances to be sweet and without drama.
A Templar romance with Cullen is all what you make it. I personally love it and have made it my "canon" playthrough. You can make it very heart-wrenching, angsty and sad...or you can make it uplifting and happy. Both myself and Riverbanks are hardcore "Templar peeps" and our playthroughs are polar opposites. Mine was the former type - very angsty. I'll throw it in a spoiler tag, but here's my Templar backstory if you were interested:
SpoilerAnd, in spoiler tags, fan-vids I made about Rhiannon's journey:SpoilerI would highly suggest trying a Templar romance playthrough - to me it's the most engaging out of any romance in the game!
MelissaGT, I hope you record this PT as well! She's really striking, and it'll be fun to see how any changes you make change the tone of the PT. (Especially since I'll never play a Templar who romances him...)
That's what I was thinking. Frankly, it would be kinda cool if there was some mark, brand, tattoo, something from the ritual that shows you're a Real™ Templar. But, um, we've seen naked templars and there's no such thing.
On Alistair, yeah, that's also what I was thinking. He must never have gone through the ritual and the vows, but how could you possibly learn the templar skills without the lyrium, so how could the vows be the first time you take it? Bah. I think they just dug themselves a hole with Alistair that they can't come back from.
I always "headcanon" that some of them get a variation of the Sword of Mercy as a tattoo on their arm. The variation depending on what circle/chantry/etc. they serve under. Sort of like military tattoos, but in their case it's not officially "blessed" (heh) by the Chantry in any way, just something the Templars do between themselves after they take the Vigil (i.e., do final vows). So Alistair wouldn't have one, but Cullen would.
As for Alistair, I think it's totally possible to learn the skills without the lyrium. I always thought that they were taught the "theory" of the skills first. Remember it doesn't require just lyrium but mental focus and concentration as well. You can teach those latter skills without the blue stuff. They also learn the basics of the combat skills (i.e., where to put your feet, how to move, etc.) and you don't need lyrium for that either. In my opinion you put all those skills together later with the lyrium. However, I do like the fanfics that some have written where the initiates "sneak" some lyrium just to see what it's like. I'd be shocked if that kind of mischief didn't happen a lot.
I say this all the time, but my favourite class to romance Cullen with has to be rogue. In my opinion, rogues are the class that Cullen's had the least amount of interaction with; I can't imagine he's ever looked too kindly on shadow dwelling, lock picking backstabbers (looking at you duel daggers ). I just love the idea of a duel dagger rogue running rings around him in training with tricks he's never seen, or him admiring the steady hands and skills of an archer.
And while I'll personally never romance him with a mage, I may have to give templar a try one day. Oh who am I kidding, I don't have the guts to do that 
MelissaGT, I hope you record this PT as well! She's really striking, and it'll be fun to see how any changes you make change the tone of the PT. (Especially since I'll never play a Templar who romances him...)
I wasn't planning on it, but if you guys want me to I can! I think I'm going 2H with her, after I can choose a spec (when she gets cooler moves). Would you rather see something more light-hearted? Rhona MItra always plays such bada$$ characters, so I wanted to play someone very strong. I just won't go as angsty. I was even toying with the idea of going 2H Champ with her, simply because I haven't played a 2H Champ before, and you can go total "shiny Chevalier" with that spec.
I say this all the time, but my favourite class to romance Cullen with has to be rogue. In my opinion, rogues are the class that Cullen's had the least amount of interaction with; I can't imagine he's ever looked too kindly on shadow dwelling, lock picking backstabbers (looking at you duel daggers
And while I'll personally never romance him with a mage, I may have to give templar a try one day. Oh who am I kidding, I don't have the guts to do that
I have a rogue IQ who is also going to romance Cullen. For her, I took inspiration from Eva Green as Artemisia in "300:Rise of an Empire." She has a very dark backstory:
I haven't decided if she's actually going to fall in love with Cullen, or if she's only going to use him to further her own interests. In the beginning, she's definitely going to be using him. She knows how to take advantage of any situation and she immediately saw him as an opportunity to grasp at more power and control. Who better to get in bed with than the commander of the Inquisition's forces?
I know I'm evil... 
I have a rogue IQ who is also going to romance Cullen. For her, I took inspiration from Eva Green as Artemisia in "300:Rise of an Empire." She has a very dark backstory:
Spoiler
Spoiler
I haven't decided if she's actually going to fall in love with Cullen, or if she's going to use him to further her own interests. In the beginning, she's definitely going to be using him. She knows how to take advantage of any situation and she immediately saw him as an opportunity to grasp at more power and control. Who better to get in bed with than the commander of the Inquisiton's forces?
I know I'm evil...
You have some very interesting, and varied, backstories for your characters; it's really awesome (as is her hair do). And I wouldn't say you're evil, in fact I admire the way you can throw yourself into these heartwrenching playthroughs. But yeah, she should totally fall in love with Cullen, though just because she loves him doesn't mean she has to stay with him...
I wasn't planning on it, but if you guys want me to I can! I think I'm going 2H with her, after I can choose a spec (when she gets cooler moves). Would you rather see something more light-hearted? Rhona MItra always plays such bada$$ characters, so I wanted to play someone very strong. I just won't go as angsty. I was even toying with the idea of going 2H Champ with her, simply because I haven't played a 2H Champ before, and you can go total "shiny Chevalier" with that spec.
Ooo, that would be interesting to see what you did with a less angsty one. Not that I didn't enjoy watching Rhiannon's romance with Cullen, but I admit I prefer seeing a lighter one with him (mostly because that sort of ending simply isn't an option for my own favorite race, at least the way I interpret them...others quite reasonably interpret them very differently.)
Well my character is an archer and not a double-dagger assassin, so she is not dark or anything (because archer sounds noble, but I wonder why a noble family would train their daughter to be a thief/assassin?), but yeah the mages had too much background for me, too many differences, so I prefer playing a more regular character first and for a second play I'll try the mage dialogue options.
Pour Cullen, I could never manipulate him. XD but your characters' stories seem interesting ^^
I can think of all sorts of reasons depending on the family. The Trev warrior or rogue is supposed to be youngest, which often means there's not much for that child to inherit, etc. I actually played my rogue Cousland in DAO as having been trained to be the family spymaster and, in a pinch, an assassin. I headcannoned the Couslands as fairly benevolent, but no one survives in power without information, and who better to collect it than one of your own?
A Templar romance with Cullen is all what you make it. I personally love it and have made it my "canon" playthrough. You can make it very heart-wrenching, angsty and sad...or you can make it uplifting and happy. Both myself and Riverbanks are hardcore "Templar peeps" and our playthroughs are polar opposites. Mine was the former type - very angsty. I'll throw it in a spoiler tag, but here's my Templar backstory if you were interested:
I'm working on Inquisitor's Week stuff for Ariana so I don't have time to write the extensive background for my Rhia right now to compare and contrast; but I really want to agree with and reinforce this: a Templar romance with Cullen is whatever you make of it. Mel went for the angsty angle because it's what fit her IQ better, I went for a sweet/cutesy angle because that's what fit my IQ better, and both work just as well.
Like half of Cullen's romance is headcanon anyway because his conversations and cutscenes are so limited, so the Templar romance is not, in and of itself, any more angsty than any other, if you don't want it to be; there's no reason to be scared of it. Just as you can roleplay a mage romance with him that is all drama and angst, you can roleplay a Templar romance with him that's nothing but sweetness and fluff. It's all in what you want out of it.
The hairstyles and bad Skyhold pjs have been a constant complaint since before day one, I think at this point Bioware are being stubborn and simply refusing to patch it in because they don't want to admit that they have no sense of style whatsoever.
It’s got little to do with stubbornness, more along the lines of priorities. Remember the vast majority of the dev team was moved over to work on ME:A. They’ve gone from having a team of a few hundred people to maybe 50 at the absolute most and those devs are now entirely focused on patches for the game and creating new DLC for both SP and MP, that doesn’t exactly leave much room for adding additional cosmetic content. Not to mention creating new hairstyles isn’t exactly a simple job, you need a modeller to create and texture/apply shader to it and weight it, a coder to ensure it actually shows up in the game as it should and doesn’t break anything in the process and then a fair amount of testing to make sure it looks right and doesn’t randomly distort when a character moves a certain way.
Also I really wish people would stop bringing up CDprojekt as a reason why we should get new free content. BW and CD are two completely different studios operating under different rules and guidelines. CDprojekt can do things other developers cannot do because they have been given a load of tax breaks and incentives to continually support their titles. If BW or any other developer were to try and do the same without having similar tax breaks they’d be bankrupt in no time at all.
Well my character is an archer and not a double-dagger assassin, so she is not dark or anything (because archer sounds noble, but I wonder why a noble family would train their daughter to be a thief/assassin?), but yeah the mages had too much background for me, too many differences, so I prefer playing a more regular character first and for a second play I'll try the mage dialogue options.
Pour Cullen, I could never manipulate him. XD but your characters' stories seem interesting ^^
Ooo, that would be interesting to see what you did with a less angsty one. Not that I didn't enjoy watching Rhiannon's romance with Cullen, but I admit I prefer seeing a lighter one with him (mostly because that sort of ending simply isn't an option for my own favorite race, at least the way I interpret them...others quite reasonably interpret them very differently.)
I can think of all sorts of reasons depending on the family. The Trev warrior or rogue is supposed to be youngest, which often means there's not much for that child to inherit, etc. I actually played my rogue Cousland in DAO as having been trained to be the family spymaster and, in a pinch, an assassin. I headcannoned the Couslands as fairly benevolent, but no one survives in power without information, and who better to collect it than one of your own?
It's actually kind of a long story. In this head-canon, House Trevelyan is very powerful and has two faces - the public "noble" face that the world sees, and the dark and bloody underside that furthers the interests of the House quietly behind the scenes. Only the heads of the House know what really goes on. They have their hands in everything. Victoria is the youngest of paternal triplets (which doesn't happen often). The two older triplets (Theo, who is my "facial self insert and Ethan, my male IQ) were dedicated to the Chantry, as is proper for the youngest of each generation. Theo was supposed to go become a Sister (her mother's dream was to see her as Divine). She rebelled and ran away to join a merc company (oh the travesty!). Ethan was to become a Templar. He was the "good son" and followed through on his family's wishes. Victoria was taken from her mother at birth (her immediate family was told she died) and was given over to the dark and secret side of the family. Right from an early age, she was practically brainwashed to put the interests of the Family first - above all else. She was trained in the arts of espionage and assassination - to only carry out the will of the heads of the Family and to do whatever it takes to get the job done.
I'm not sure who watches Supernatural, but I kinda got a lot of influence for my "dark" Trevelyans from the Stein family seen in this past season...short of the witchcraft part.
I say this all the time, but my favourite class to romance Cullen with has to be rogue. In my opinion, rogues are the class that Cullen's had the least amount of interaction with; I can't imagine he's ever looked too kindly on shadow dwelling, lock picking backstabbers (looking at you duel daggers
Rogue romancer high-five! 
I agree, rogue is the class Cullen has the least unique interactions with in-game (that is, none), but I love love love the pathways it opens for roleplaying their relationship. How mister noble honourable knight in shining armor deals with a girlfriend who can do questionable stuff like break into rooms at fancy galas and pickpocket incriminating evidence from nobles over a glass of wine, who has contacts in the underground and knows a guy who knows a guy who can get anything done, who spends a lot of time at the Undercroft working on traps with that creepy Three-Eyes guy or on weird new poisons with Dagna, who can't hold a sword but can dodge one like she's made of out of smoke... I just love the white knight/shady thief romance dynamic overall.
My IQ is a cocky show-off too, so I love the imagery of her and Cullen riding out into the field for a hunt and while she's doing cartwheels on top of her horse shooting birds and nugs and idk darkspawn with her bow all over the place, Cullen is going ???????? at her, barely managing to hold onto his poor horse under the weight of full heavy armor and shield.
Well my character is an archer and not a double-dagger assassin, so she is not dark or anything (because archer sounds noble, but I wonder why a noble family would train their daughter to be a thief/assassin?),
Like Tishina said, you can roleplay any reasons you want, depending on how you interpret your character's family.
In example: based on both the conversation you have with Josephine where you say the Trevelyan's are only the 8th most important house of Ostwick, and the war table quests where the Trevelyan clan is using the Inquisitor's name to make themselves more relevant, my personal interpretation of my Inquisitor's family is that House Trevelyan is ambitious but not that powerful yet, so they play the high society games as well as they need to in order to keep themselves in the race. So my Inquisitor's mother has trained all her daughters, from the heir to the spares, to lie and steal and spy and manipulate and even do a little assassinating, if the occasion calls for it. Nobility games are not pretty, but you gotta do what you gotta do to stay in power.
So even though my Inquisitor is an archer too, and does follow a noble's code of honour, and will always posture an appearance of dignity and grace in public, there's a side of her that is super shady and manipulative too, when no one's looking, because she was raised to play political games and get ahead by any means necessary. One of the most satisfying moments in the game for me was to be able to tell Celene, Gaspard and Briala "I've outplayed you all at your own game" - it was exactly the kind of thing Ari would do and say. 
You know, she's neither good nor evil: she'll play people to get what she wants if she needs to, because that's how she's wired to think, but on the flip side, when she truly likes or loves someone, there's no lie it it - she truly loves Cullen and would never use him, and to protect her friends she would whatever it took, except anything that might hurt them. There's the side of shadow, but there's also the side of light.
Of course, it's all personal preference. I prefer my nobles with a wicked twist and a grayer moral compass, but you could just as well roleplay Trevelyan as a true blue, good and morally upstanding person, or even true evil, as I've seen a lot of people play just for fun, and every headcanon is just as valid as anyone else's.
Soooo . . . for anyone who has expressed interest, I think I finally have a draft of my modern AU Cullen story that evolved from this discussion about THIS lovely, lovely piece of art from the talented feylen. It's being reviewed, and barring any last minute crises or freakouts on my part, I'll probably post in the next day or so.
This is my Inquisitor school girl reaction to Professor Cullen.
Rogue romancer high-five!
My IQ is a cocky show-off too, so I love the imagery of her and Cullen riding out into the field for a hunt and while she's doing cartwheels on top of her horse shooting birds and nugs and idk darkspawn with her bow all over the place, Cullen is going ???????? at her, barely managing to hold onto his poor horse under the weight of full heavy armor and shield.
You put it in better words than I could have! Although what I actually meant by Cullen having limited interaction with rogues is that he's spent his life surrounded by warriors and mages, whereas rogues and their ways are a new phenomenon, as allies and especially as a lover. I just like the newness of it, perhaps newness isn't the right word but I can't think of a better one, maybe freeness? Also, as you said, I love imagining the baffled looks I'm sure he's constantly giving to our crazy contorting quizzies
I adore darker characters, the more morally grey the better. However my Cousland (who's still my fave) was basically a sociopath, so I felt like my quizzie needed to be lighter. I still love my white knight Trevelyan, but man do I miss my crazy queen Cousland.
You put it in better words than I could have! Although what I actually meant by Cullen having limited interaction with rogues is that he's spent his life surrounded by warriors and mages, whereas rogues and their ways are a new phenomenon, as allies and especially as a lover. I just like the newness of it, perhaps newness isn't the right word but I can't think of a better one, maybe freeness? Also, as you said, I love imagining the baffled looks I'm sure he's constantly giving to our crazy contorting quizzies
Yeah, I totally get what you mean. I guess my Cullen was slightly more used to rogues being rogue-y because my Hawke was a sassy P.O.S. rogue too, so he's seen that trick before. (and tapped that too, a long long time ago *cough cough hides pile of Cullen/Hawke fanart under the matress*)
But I can't get over it, Cullen trying to be all I Am a Stoic and Serious Warrior and rogue Inquisitor just going naaaaaaah all over him.
I adore darker characters, the more morally grey the better. However my Cousland (who's still my fave) was basically a sociopath, so I felt like my quizzie needed to be lighter. I still love her, but man do I miss my crazy queen Cousland.
Heh, my Cousland thought that allying with Branka to turn more casteless dwarves into golems, annuling an entire Circle to get expert magic-annuling warriors for her army, marrying her own beloved boyfriend to his own brother's widow to get the nation on her side, and conscripting the traitor teyrn into the same order he'd just tried to kill, were all acceptable compromises in order to defeat the Blight, so I'm here to bump fists with all red-coded pragmatic Couslands too. 
don't worry I was not trying to compare, I'm not one of these people who want everything to be like TW3. It's very different games. I was just talking about a free possible DLC, just like the one BW did (Temple of black Pearl?) added so we could change the face of our character, etc. That was great.
Yeah, I totally get what you mean. I guess my Cullen was slightly more used to rogues being rogue-y because my Hawke was a sassy P.O.S. rogue too, so he's seen that trick before. (and tapped that too, a long long time ago *cough cough hides pile of Cullen/Hawke fanart under the matress*)
But I can't get over it, Cullen trying to be all I Am a Stoic and Serious Warrior and rogue Inquisitor just going naaaaaaah all over him.
Heh, my Cousland thought that allying with Branka to turn more casteless dwarves into golems, annuling an entire Circle to get expert magic-annuling warriors for her army, marrying her own beloved boyfriend to his own brother's widow to get the nation on her side, and conscripting the traitor teyrn into the same order he'd just tried to kill, were all acceptable compromises in order to defeat the Blight, so I'm here to bump fists with all red-coded pragmatic Couslands too.
My Hawke was a rogue too, though she wasn't tapping that very trustful of Cullen (she was fanatically pro mage and doing Anders, a dangerous mix)
btw I totally just followed you on tumblr, don't mind me stalking your blog
Rogue romancer high-five!
My IQ is a cocky show-off too, so I love the imagery of her and Cullen riding out into the field for a hunt and while she's doing cartwheels on top of her horse shooting birds and nugs and idk darkspawn with her bow all over the place, Cullen is going ???????? at her, barely managing to hold onto his poor horse under the weight of full heavy armor and shield.
Which is what I wanted so badly for my Cadashes and just ain't possible, sigh. I would have loved a bad-girl redemption story for Zhenya in particular.
I would not want to run into my Cousland on a dark nightHeh, my Cousland thought that allying with Branka to turn more casteless dwarves into golems, annuling an entire Circle to get expert magic-annuling warriors for her army, marrying her own beloved boyfriend to his own brother's widow to get the nation on her side, and conscripting the traitor teyrn into the same order he'd just tried to kill, were all acceptable compromises in order to defeat the Blight, so I'm here to bump fists with all red-coded pragmatic Couslands too.
And for my rogue, it's a bit sad that we have less dialogue options, is there really a lot of dialogues for the others or just one sentence here and there ?
Not really, Templars and mages just get an extra dialogue choice a handful of times (that you may not even want to take in the end because they sometimes take the romance into questionable territory, as in the mage Inquisitor's case). The difference between classes goes more into how you roleplay your romance, but in practical terms there isn't a whole bunch of different dialogue or anything, it's really just a line here and there.
On the other hand my poor Inquisitors were never quite as politically savvy as I'd wished for. Even my devil-may-care rogues are a bit on the goody two shoes side. Makes me miss snarky Hawke at times, she could out-sass anyone, the bundle of psychopathic laughs
I actually never liked Purple Hawke (unpopular opinion, I know), but I really love the Inquisitor's sarcastic lines. She can be sassy without being cruel, and her light-hearted teasing can lead to adorable reactions from NPCs. Getting Cullen to say that, he's not ordering you or anything but as your advisor he highly recommends coming back from the final battle alive, it's just the sweetest.
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