Post by Athadra on May 4, 2016 6:54:03 GMT
ATHADRA
THEDAS | BISEXUAL |
TWENTY | WARLORD |
personality
For the past ten years, Athadra had been content to keep her own company as often as not; those who knew her would describe her as reserved, even aloof, but competent enough...not arrogant enough to target for ostracism, nor responsive enough to make the effort worth it. In the last year before entering Astrae, however, circumstances have forced Athadra to come out of her shell in ways that few who knew her before could have imagined. Where once she was bookish, now she shows discipline with training at arms; where once she was reserved, she now commands people to kill---and to die---if the situation warrants. She is quick to anger, quicker to violence, and always ready to turn a situation to her advantage.
She is also fiercely protective of her comrades, mindful that her life is only as valuable as her blade is sharp. She fights so desperately to survive in part because she knows her death must come at the right moment, and she understands that this moment isn't terribly far away, in the course of events. This perspective lends her a coarseness and directness that is accentuated by her secretiveness; she demands information without ceremony, but hardly ever volunteers any of her own.
Since discovering herself in Astrae, with her magic more limited and no allies to hand, Athadra has grown restless; the animating purpose of her life is gone, apparently accomplished, but she has no way of knowing whether that is in fact the case. In this environment, she is likely to revert to her less abrasive ways, at least until she finds a cause worth fighting for once again.
She is also fiercely protective of her comrades, mindful that her life is only as valuable as her blade is sharp. She fights so desperately to survive in part because she knows her death must come at the right moment, and she understands that this moment isn't terribly far away, in the course of events. This perspective lends her a coarseness and directness that is accentuated by her secretiveness; she demands information without ceremony, but hardly ever volunteers any of her own.
Since discovering herself in Astrae, with her magic more limited and no allies to hand, Athadra has grown restless; the animating purpose of her life is gone, apparently accomplished, but she has no way of knowing whether that is in fact the case. In this environment, she is likely to revert to her less abrasive ways, at least until she finds a cause worth fighting for once again.
bIOGRAPHY
Athadra was born on a farmstead in Ferelden, a largely-undeveloped backwater whose greatest achievement to date is being too unruly for the greatest empire in the known world to properly administer. Her family were not taken with the fervent patriotism of their fellow citizens, however, because Athadra's family were elves, subject to suspicion even as they settled into an agricultural life. And that is a life Athadra wouldn't've minded, tending goats and growing tubers, perhaps even getting married and scraping a living out of her own scrap of ground. But Athadra was destined for greater and more terrible things.
When she was a young girl, her grandfather discovered that magic coursed through her veins. For the better part of a thousand years, the nations of Thedas had prosecuted a sort of civil war against the craft of magic and anyone with the talent for it; those so discovered were forcibly removed from their homes and housed in fortified compounds known as Circles, where they could learn to control their talents without threatening the broader populace---and without risking the ire of a mob. Mages manipulated energy from the Fade, a realm separated from the waking world by the Veil, through which most living beings could not cross. Athadra's grandfather tried his best to keep her from that fate, but bad luck saw Athadra imprisoned in Ferelden's Circle Tower when she was ten years old.
For the next nine years Athadra largely kept to herself, studying languages and history, building upon the lessons her grandfather taught her to develop her magical talents and guard against possession by demons, the creatures who dwelt in the Fade, some of whom yearned to cross the Veil and partake in the mortal world through a mage's senses. Of course even the most well-forged manacle chafes, and the most well-intentioned confinement is still imprisonment, and during those nine years Athadra attempted to escape the tower three times. Her final attempt was so successful that she was threatened (likely spuriously) with the Rite of Tranquility if she should repeat it, which would have severed her from her magic, and also would have robbed her of the ability to feel any emotion or express any desire other than the basest obedience to her jailers.
The threat worked, and Athadra resigned herself to becoming an enchanter of the Circle. Just when it seemed this course was unalterable, mere days after she made the transition from an apprentice to a fully-Harrowed mage, Athadra was conscripted out of the tower and into a war she'd never imagined herself fighting, against nightmarish creatures who erupted from the ground by their thousands and wanted nothing more than to corrupt the surface world until it was a black desert. They were led by an archdemon, a tainted dragon that drove them from beneath the ground and spurred them to destroy. The Grey Wardens were an order of warriors dedicated to fighting these creatures, these darkspawn, and it was the Grey Wardens who altered the course of Athadra's life as decisively as the Circle had nine years previously.
Over the course of the next year, Athadra went from being a shy, bookish mage to a terrifying warrior in her own right, able to wield a sword as easily as she cast a spell. An ill-considered order from Ferelden's king saw the main body of Grey Wardens sacrificed not too long after her emancipation, but along with another surviving recruit, Athadra scraped through the months to come with skill, luck, and an overwhelming urge to drive the darkspawn back underground. In order to do this, she first had to reassemble a core of warriors with whom she could face the monsters. After months of combat and politics, during which time she learnt the forbidden art of blood magic and manoeuvred her Grey Warden partner to assume the Fereldan throne, she led her warriors at the head of an army that saw her battle the archdemon directly.
When she struck the killing blow, Athadra fully expected to die, bound by the taint in her Grey Warden blood. Instead of perishing, however, Athadra woke up in a rural area of Astrae, in peasant's clothes, without a weapon or a single scrap of copper to her name. Her magical skills have also been reduced, since this realm lacks a connection to the Fade, and so she can only rely upon her own blood to fuel any magic she wishes to cast. She has yet to meet many people in this new land, but it is only a matter of time before she is labeled an Outworlder.
When she was a young girl, her grandfather discovered that magic coursed through her veins. For the better part of a thousand years, the nations of Thedas had prosecuted a sort of civil war against the craft of magic and anyone with the talent for it; those so discovered were forcibly removed from their homes and housed in fortified compounds known as Circles, where they could learn to control their talents without threatening the broader populace---and without risking the ire of a mob. Mages manipulated energy from the Fade, a realm separated from the waking world by the Veil, through which most living beings could not cross. Athadra's grandfather tried his best to keep her from that fate, but bad luck saw Athadra imprisoned in Ferelden's Circle Tower when she was ten years old.
For the next nine years Athadra largely kept to herself, studying languages and history, building upon the lessons her grandfather taught her to develop her magical talents and guard against possession by demons, the creatures who dwelt in the Fade, some of whom yearned to cross the Veil and partake in the mortal world through a mage's senses. Of course even the most well-forged manacle chafes, and the most well-intentioned confinement is still imprisonment, and during those nine years Athadra attempted to escape the tower three times. Her final attempt was so successful that she was threatened (likely spuriously) with the Rite of Tranquility if she should repeat it, which would have severed her from her magic, and also would have robbed her of the ability to feel any emotion or express any desire other than the basest obedience to her jailers.
The threat worked, and Athadra resigned herself to becoming an enchanter of the Circle. Just when it seemed this course was unalterable, mere days after she made the transition from an apprentice to a fully-Harrowed mage, Athadra was conscripted out of the tower and into a war she'd never imagined herself fighting, against nightmarish creatures who erupted from the ground by their thousands and wanted nothing more than to corrupt the surface world until it was a black desert. They were led by an archdemon, a tainted dragon that drove them from beneath the ground and spurred them to destroy. The Grey Wardens were an order of warriors dedicated to fighting these creatures, these darkspawn, and it was the Grey Wardens who altered the course of Athadra's life as decisively as the Circle had nine years previously.
Over the course of the next year, Athadra went from being a shy, bookish mage to a terrifying warrior in her own right, able to wield a sword as easily as she cast a spell. An ill-considered order from Ferelden's king saw the main body of Grey Wardens sacrificed not too long after her emancipation, but along with another surviving recruit, Athadra scraped through the months to come with skill, luck, and an overwhelming urge to drive the darkspawn back underground. In order to do this, she first had to reassemble a core of warriors with whom she could face the monsters. After months of combat and politics, during which time she learnt the forbidden art of blood magic and manoeuvred her Grey Warden partner to assume the Fereldan throne, she led her warriors at the head of an army that saw her battle the archdemon directly.
When she struck the killing blow, Athadra fully expected to die, bound by the taint in her Grey Warden blood. Instead of perishing, however, Athadra woke up in a rural area of Astrae, in peasant's clothes, without a weapon or a single scrap of copper to her name. Her magical skills have also been reduced, since this realm lacks a connection to the Fade, and so she can only rely upon her own blood to fuel any magic she wishes to cast. She has yet to meet many people in this new land, but it is only a matter of time before she is labeled an Outworlder.
WARDEN (OC) from DRAGON AGE | PLAYED BY: RiptideMonzarc
coded by ulla
