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[lil yonce]

Camilla Blackishaw: "Magic and technology need not be separate. Extract yourself from the dusty corners of the Grand Cathedral, your Grace, and learn what mages and the brightest minds of Orlais can do together for your Empire, and for your unbridled benefit."

 

A fortunate fosterage in Tevinter provided the young Nevarran noble a unique foundation to Thedosian mage culture and politics. Anxious over templar attention her talent received in Cumberland, Camilla relished the opportunity to flex her magical muscle in Minrathous a free mage. There in the custody of her Altus guardian Magister Ceresia, she existed in one bulwark of a bubble training in a magical tradition reserved for the true elite of Tevinter. The university education she additionally received cultivated abilities in trade and negotiation - talents necessary to her later achievement at court, she first practiced them to a contract of Chantry pardon from the Nevarran Circle upon returning home.

 

A mage of means, she bargained a piece of her inheritance for exemption and tenaciously exercised her liberty. Consecutive mortalitasi backed successes in magic supported city improvements sealed Camilla's business style approach to political and social change in Thedas. As done in the Tevinter Empire, she prioritized city infrastructure expansion with magic's quick aid to boost the stumbling Nevarran war economy. Alongside others, she supported the elimination of the largest guilds to generate competition and spur innovation, the removal of trade barriers to ease the acquisition of necessary materials for the projects, and the lifting of Circle restrictions to this end - pitching the concepts with a spin that advocated the value of a technology and nobility beneficial magic.

 

The spirit of their arrangement abandoned, she bumped heads with the Chantry for a dangerous second time, but striking another deal she married into a favored Orlesian family of the church's near the border as a buffer against reproach - the Lavigne family landed in Arleans. Their ties to the Chantry alone carried the arrangement to success but useful connections within the Orlesian elite forged a stalwart alliance from the Blackishaw perspective. In Orlais, Camilla courted progressive nobles aware of magic reform's necessity and dangled bait before conservatives eager for a slice of Circle profits. A gift of her dowry, she injected new coin into the Orlesian countryside and teased the promise of more should the nation bend knee to enlightenment.

 

Presently, Camilla advocates a mediation of the Circle-Chantry split, favoring a proposal of Lucrosian collaboration as the best solution in treaty. Wary of being drawn into the actual fighting of mage-templar conflict, however, she has stayed close to her husband's estate on the Waking Sea. Confident of the struggle's near end upon hearing of a peace summit, Camilla has focused her attention on the Orlesian throne, angling at the first steps for secular protection of mages from Empress Celene in a transition to an era of greater mage freedoms.

[lil yonce]

Marcel Lavigne: "I know little about life outside the one I've lived, and though a man of my position has little motivation to learn, it may be yet that I have an affection for the lower classes and a talent for action on their behalf. We shall see."

 

A typical younger son of Orlesian nobility, Marcel's path in life was early set before him. From childhood on, training for the Chevaliars monopolized his time, politics, and psyche as daily life centered on combat, courtly manners, and strict adherence to Orlesian-style honor and obedience. His vigor in instruction culminated in knighthood at age 21, and in pledging service to a high lord of Halamshiral, Marcel's career as chevalier began. Well off from a decade of stand out frontier fighting, he cobbled his fees into a fief on the Dalish coast and eagerly took up the landed knight's lifestyle - his only apparent need being for a wife to run his household while he served his liege.

 

At his brother's prompt, he met with Camilla Blackishaw - a young scion of a very wealthy Nevarran clan. A rebel mage with freedom thus far protected by coin, stature, and the more liberal landscape of Nevarran politics, she feared that after twice burning the Chantry the templars that once let go of her would return to jail her in the Circle of Magi. She sought marriage into the Lavigine family for their ironclad church connection - a complete buffer against templar reproach - and would pay handsomely for the protection.

 

At Marcel's suggestion to honor the family martyr, saint Geneviève Lavigne, construction of a new cathedral in Arleans would start underway behind an army of Orlesian laborers. The cathedral's main attraction - an oversized ambulatory with a half dozen radiating chapels to house the reliquaries of twice as many saints - promised to draw thousands of tithing pilgrims from every corner of the empire, and attract even a steady stream of devout Nevarrans just a few miles from the border - easing otherwise tense relations. The countryside farming town could carve out a new economy from the massive influx of visitors, and the Lavignes could rake in life-long financial and social riches from the extravagant dowry.

 

Any Lavigne hesitancy to marry a mage into the family vanished as the deal lingered on the table and in weeks Marcel and Camilla wed at a large chapel in Cumberland on Blackishaw family property. His holdings tripled via auxiliary pact of his brother's thanks, the chevalier swore to her his fiercest loyalty and defense.

 

Largely unquestioning and content in personality before marrying, Marcel has been challenged by Camilla to re-evaluate his traditional opinions on every matter. Shouldn't the nastiness of Orlesian politics be eliminated and not celebrated? Shouldn't chevaliers be open to all men and women of ability, even elves? And what of freedom? Do you truly believe it right to jail a mage that has committed no crime? Testing the waters of social justice, he has wrestled with the circumstances of his nobility and Chevalier post to no clear resolution. Having survived the surprise attack by Gaspard de Chalon outside Halamshiral, he presently prepares for war with Chevaliers and soldiers of the northern host to re-claim the Orlesian throne for Empress Celene.

[dragonflight288]

Dalyen Amell

 

Magic is just like sovereigns, bits and pieces, or even art. It has value because people apply value to it. And it can be devalued by popular opinion or cultural dogma. My job is to make it as valuable as possible so the demand never goes away. 

 

Born to a noble family in Kirkwall, he was discovered to have magic and was taken to Ferelden's circle, offically to keep him away from his family, but unofficially the templars were bribed by his family to take him to a Circle where he'd have more freedoms than Kirkwall offered. 

 

His first mentor, who trained him and the peers his age the basics, was a stout lucrosion Soija Sabran, an elf who was born to the Dalish but her mother left them to be with a city elf she fell in love with while trading in Denerim while she was only seven. Soija was in charge of the Circle's stores and handled supplying the tranquil the necessary supplies for the stockroom and let the First Enchanter and Knight-Commander know when they needed to requisition new supplies like lyrium. 

 

Daylen was often her assistant while she handled these responsibilities, and learned a great deal of stock keeping, budgeting supplies, and the laws of supply and demand while under her care. He also learned first hand how desperate templars can be for lyrium, and the value it had among them and mages both, as the demand was constantly placed on him to try and smuggle both groups some of the lyrium he helped store. 

 

He didn't count on Soija's record keeping catching him before he could truly begin as a lyrium smuggler. It was then he learned the value of keeping track of inventory, budgeting supplies so that the supply would always be there for the demand. He also learned from her that some customers are never happy, and sometimes you simply have to put your foot down and say "no, you can't have any." She publicly scolded him and he was put in solitary confinement for a week.

 

Soija later took him aside and told him that if it never gets recorded in the books, it never happened officially, and gave him the 'job' of picking up the lyrium when it arrived at the Circle from the Grand Cleric in Denerim, and 'recording' how much the circle had in stock for budgeting, whether for rituals, the rite of tranquility and even the Harrowing. 

 

After Irving took him on as an apprentice, he still worked with Soija, now assigned as her assistant. He learned from Irving how to watch and gauge fellow apprentices and templars, learning who he could befriend and who he should avoid for a variety of reasons, and witnessed first hand the subtle manipulations Irving used to get the templars to agree to some concessions, but also witnessed the sacrifices Irving had to make to get those concessions. 

 

He also saw the fate of apprentices who tried to force various issues, like escaping for freedom, or using blood magic to empower themselves. He learned in his teens that change cannot be forced. He felt everyday how badly some of the more zealous templars wanted to control the mages, and saw how it affected not only himself and the other apprentices, his mentor the First Enchanter, but also how it affected the templars who spoke with Irving while they were studying together. It came to a head when one templar tried to take lyrium by force from his friend Surana while she was covering for Soija and made the mistake of not accounting for Greigore being nearby with an appointment with Irving to cover lyrium budgeting. 

 

The excuses didn't fly since Irving and Greigore both heard everything, and the templars were forced to give mages more breathing room rather than cater to the templars every demand. 

 

Daylen learned, even if he didn't recognize it at the time, that those in authority had power to influence the actions of those under them, as the outright demand slowed to a near halt, at least in the open. 

 

Daylen loves the feeling of accomplishment that comes with sticking to a strict budget, knowing how hard it is to resist spending it or using up supplies, and took what he learned from Soija to help manage the party's inventory, amount of money available for spending, and keeping track of food stores during the blight. 

 

Since joining the Grey Wardens and befriending Alistair, Daylen has made it his personal mission to show the value of not only the Grey Wardens, but also the value of magic in the world outside the Circle, and to keep the demand high. Working hard to show Ferelden that mages can help people through creation magic, make great support troops in the army, skilled battlemages in strike teams, or even simply great enchanters to bolster local economies.

 

He feels the goods and services a skilled mage can provide can be beneficial, not only to the mage who now has more freedoms, but also are irreplaceable in an economy or a military setting. He tries to rule Amaranthine wisely, focusing most of his efforts on food stores and trade to provide people stability.

 

He's hopeful that by gaining acceptance in governance, and by using his magic to defend his arling from bandits, raiders and darkspawn that he'll change popular opinion on magic in general, thus increasing the demand for more of it outside the Circle's. 

[dragonflight288]

Soija Sabran

 

The world is controlled by two factors. Who has something, be it money, goods and services, or even political office, and how much someone is willing to pay for it.

 

The first mentor to Daylen Amell, Soija is a Dalish elf who learned to be part of the people until she was seven when her mother took her to a shem city to be with a City Elf she fell in love with. 

 

Soija was there for a week before she was taken to a Circle as she was learning magic from the Keeper and hadn't been taught to hide it yet. 

 

Never fully trusting of the Chantry or the templars that never wastes an opportunity to tell her how she is condemned unless she worships the Maker, she worships the creators in secret, while never paying tithes or makes any prayers, she had been threatened by the templars repeatedly to convert. 

 

Eventually Irving took her aside and told her that, while she was a skilled mage, she was still just an elf to many templars, and just a mage to all of them, and was not seen as valuable. She'd have to make sacrifices if she wished to survive in the Circle. 

 

Soija took that advice to heart and to the shock of many templars, she publicly announced in the chapel that she wished to be baptized in the faith, asked to lead the chant the following week even though the Revered Mother told her that only consecrated priests could do that, it was encouraging to see her newfound dedication. 

 

Now that she was no longer in direct danger, she set about making herself as valuable to the templars as possible, asked Irving to put her in charge of the Circle's stores.

 

She studied ancient Tevinter Runes extensively and observed from a distance how the tranquil manipulated lyrium to make enchantments, and how to fold it into weapons and armor. 

 

Although given minor tasks at first, she did everything she could to make herself irreplaceable to the Circle, whether through carving and enchanting minor training staffs for apprentices, or simply taking inventory, she excelled. When she was given enough authority she did everything she could to make herself just as irreplaceable to the templars by smuggling them lyrium or by enchanting their weapons on the side. 

 

When she became a senior enchanter, Uldred approached her about freedom for all mages and offered the power to fight for it in vague terms, but she rejected him out of hand. While a good friend of hers, she felt she was already running too much of a risk with her smuggling operation with one of her apprentices Godwin to get involved in whatever Uldred was planning. 

 

Alerted that Uldred was planning something, but not aware of what, she gave more control of the lyrium smuggling operation to Godwin, cut her losses and played it safe in case things went fubar. 

 

She survived the troubles at the Circle during the blight and remains one of the only mages in all of Ferelden who can enchant weapons or armor that isn't also a tranquil. A skill she gleefully uses to make clear that she is utterly irreplaceable. 

[lil yonce]

I love that Daylen got a full drug dealer education in the Circle. hehe. And a mage that can enchant without being tranquil? Interesting. I wonder how lore compatible it is - if it is possible in the end - or if what Soija does is magic that lasts longer than regular spells because of a little extra lyrium power. Very interesting though.

[dragonflight288]

It's lore compatible to the point we have that one elven ambassador join our court in Awakening to serve as our enchanter, and she's not tranquil. 

 

I imagine it would take a very skilled mage, and a great deal of precaution to directly work with lyrium for enchantment, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be possibe.

 

The inherent danger of lyrium would make it so that the best option is for the tranquil to do it. 

[lil yonce]

Yes, that's right, I forgot about her! Good catch.

 

EDIT: So what do you think about Camilla and Marcel? Do you have any criticisms about their backstories. I'm always trying to get better as a writer so any comments you have would help.

[dragonflight288]

None whatsoever. It wouldn't suprise me if Camilla ends up as a Necromancer in Inquisition because that seems to be a Nevarran based magic from what I know of their culture. 

 

And Marcel? He seems alright. I liked in the dialogue that there was a bit of tension between her use of blood magic to help an apostate, and also the discussion on her ball of light for reading vs him twirling his daggers, and both saying they're always armed with no inclination to hurt others. 

 

Seems like it has the potential to be a gloriously complex relationship. 

[lil yonce]

Yes, Camilla and Marcel argue a lot about some things. She recognizes that he's at least more progressive than others, being willing to marry her in the first place, that he tolerates her being a blood mage even though he's wary (though there isn't much he can do about it anyway), that he's somewhat open to change about Orlesian politics. She does mention divorce at the end of one dialogue, but it really rather empty.

 

With each dialogue I want to get address some of magic's biggest issues, so blood magic use, is casual use in leisure activities crossing a line, templar perception of mages, the endless struggle between mage and mundane, apostasy, can reform really work. And since people can assume a lot about a person because of a label - getting to know people beyond labels, realizing they're just like you in a lot of ways, is important. I have some others planned too so I'll see soon where these two characters wind up. The dagger dialogue was great to me because the sword vs. magic debate is so commonplace.

 

So what do your characters do with all of the money they make and influence they gain from their lyrium side deals?

[dragonflight288]

Nice. 

 

As for Soija and Daylen and what they do with the money? Well, they're too different people with their own individual agendas. 

 

Soija taught Daylen the skills to successfully barter, trade, be discreet, and how to stretch every sovereign to get the most out of it. But her reasons for smuggling and drug dealing are quite different from Daylen's. 

 

She's in it for both ego and survival. She was a Dalish taken by the templars while she was young, and holds her own native beliefs on a super high pedestal. Almost unrealistically so. She wants to become as irreplaceable to as many parties as possible as a way to shield herself from the idiocy of fellow mages. She's hoping to eventually be offered a position in an Arl's, bann's or even the King's court where it would be much easier to expand her connections and hopefully get news of her clan, make contact with them, and maybe eventually influence some kind of trade with the Dalish clans. 

 

Having lived among humans for so long, she knows many of them are not bad, but she takes a great deal of pride in being Dalish. Getting baptized into the Chantry and praying each week is absolutely emotional torture for her, but she bears it as she hopes to use her connections in the Chantry, the templars and whatever court she eventually, hopefully, ends up in to ultimately try and end the racial tensions. 

 

Which is also a huge reason why she studied enchantment. She figured that almost any noble would love to have a personal enchanter in their court as it would be a way to one-up their fellows. 

 

So she pretty much spends her money on making connections and widening her influence both in the tower and out of it. 

 

Daylen on the other hand is trying to regain some semblance of what he lost. He came from a noble family in Kirkwall. As far as he knew, his family was well on their way to being the new leaders of the city, his father may very well could have been the new Viscount before his magic was discovered. 

 

He spends his money on nicer things. Higher quality robes with more ornate designs, expensive books, both for magical study and simply recreational reading. He tried buying pets but the templars wouldn't let him get the raven he wanted. Thought he would use it as a courier to contact his family. 

 

He doesn't have, well before joining the Wardens, Soija's connections. They aren't really running two exclusive operations. Soija is the head honcho of it, and Daylen is more like one of her higher ranked underlings in that operation.  He gets paid very well to help Soija out.

 

He hasn't really committed to any actual cause like she's working on because he's still an apprentice, and thus under a lot more scrutiny from the templars, but he is a teenager during most of this, and is more materialistic than he is by the time he joins the Wardens. 

[dragonflight288]

By that last statement, if it wasn't clear, I mean Daylen hasn't fully matured and is more frivolous, and looks for the newest and best as they become available. Having advanced spell tomes, the First Enchanter as his official mentor, and an assignment that gives him access to a lot of time and lyrium, he uses it productively to be a better mage but also one who is well off. 

 

He lacks what all apprentices lack. Privacy, contact with family, dignity as a mage by most templars. But he has nicer bedding, more ornate robes made from finer fabric, more valuable books, a lot of time in the store room to practice and so on. 

 

By the time the game starts and he's taking his Harrowing, he's matured and has started saving his money rather than spending it, and was investigaing the fraternities, the various causes, and possible opportunities he would have. He wasn't expecting to be kept as an assistant in the store room once he passed his Harrowing. 

[dragonflight288]

Very nice! Sounds like a satisfying controversial figure.

 

Not sure if I'd get along with him in real life, but I like the idea. 

[lil yonce]

I'll just drop my first inquistor's profile here too. 

 

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