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[warden_silifel_surana]

Player Information:
Name: Faun
Age/18+?: 24
Contact: PM this journal or Faun
Other Characters Played: Genjyo Sanzo and Tektite
Most Recent AC Link: Here!

Character Information:
Name: Silifel Surana
Canon: Dragon Age
Canon Point: At the end of Inquisition, post Trespasser (Dragon 9:44)
Age: Early 30's

Type of Character: Canon (malleable protagonist)
Reference:
Dragon Age: Origins
The Warden
(And just in case...)
Timeline (Dragon 9:30- Dragon 9:44)
Dragon age: Awakening
Dragon age II
Dragon age: Inquisition

Setting concepts:
Thedas: - wiki - While DA: Origins mainly focuses on Ferelden, there are many different countries covered across three games and various DLC. As Silifel is from after Inquisition has ended, he's more familiar with the rest of Thedas than end of Awakening Warden. The world itself is pretty standard fantasy. Elves are smaller than humans with pointy ears, dwarves mostly live underground and are pretty obnoxious and short, and humans are pricks. There are a myriad of other sentient races and factions, creating a mess of alliances, rivalries, and political pissing matches across the continent and beyond. There's magic, dragons, horrible zombie-like beasts, living gods, all that good shit.

Grey Wardens: - wiki - Arguably one of the most important factions on Thedas. While they might show political leanings on occasion, they are meant to be removed from such things and focus on their work: ridding the world of darkspawn. Their influence waxes and wanes as Blights- resurgences of darkspawn led by an archdemon- come and pass. They are the strongest force against the darkspawn and the only group that can effectively kill an archdemon. Their secret, and it is a very carefully guarded secret, is that they ingest darkspawn blood as part of their joining. Surviving the joining is not a given.

This gives Wardens a connection to darkspawn, allowing them to sense when darkspawn are near, how many there are, and allows for an archdemon's soul to jump to their bodies when one is killed. This is the only known method of destroying an archdemon. The taint brought on by this connection to darkspawn does eventually kill Wardens, shortening their lifespan dramatically, even. Those that survive in battle will eventually fall to The Calling or become ghouls.

The Warden: - wiki - The Grey Wardens choose their members from all parts of society, from criminals of any race to human nobility. The origin one picks at the start of Origins determines the race, class, and background of The Warden, the impromptu leader of the remaining Grey Wardens of Ferelden who eventually becomes know as the Hero of Ferelden for defeating the archdemon attacking Denerim. In Awakening, they become the Warden Commander of Vigil Keep. This title is lost when The Warden eventually leaves Vigil Keep for their own reasons.

In this case, The Warden is an elf mage from Ferelden's Circle of Magi.

Mages and the Circle of Magi: - wiki (mage) | wiki (circles) - Silifel is a mage, a person born with magical talent. They are less common than the average, non-magical people, and, in most countries of Thedas during the time of Dragon Age: Origins, were restricted to mage towers by and large. Mages not under the rule of the Chantry, the widespread, religious authority of Thedas, and their Templars are considered apostates and are hunted down. The mage rebellion, starting in earnest between Dragon Age II and Inquisition, is a major conflict, even leading to the Templars leaving the Chantry.

There are mixed opinions on mages and their freedom or lack thereof. As a rule they are considered dangerous and their connection to the Fade leaves them open to the risk of possession by demons. A possessed mage easily becomes an abomination, unless the possession is done by a friendly spirit. The results in that case are mixed.

- Blood Mage: - wiki - A subsect of magic that is heavily feared among most of Thedas. Blood magic is often learned from demons, but doesn't have to be, and can include skills such as life drain, mind control, reanimating the dead, and powers derived from demons. It's pretty much what it says on the tin, the mage in question uses blood, often their own, at least at the start, to utilize their magical talents. Sacrifices can be used for some of the spells involved, as a high volume of blood mind be needed.

Blood mages are not necessarily evil but the temptation of power runs strong among them with the occasional exception. To most of Thedas, the term Maleficar and Blood Mage are interchangeable, with any blood mage assumed to be a malicious mage.

Elves: - wiki - Either Dalish or city elves, they aren't treated well by humans and are, in general, not very fond of humans in return. Dalish are notably wary to aggressive in regards to humans and city elves either live in alienages, run down portions of human cities, or act as servants. Mage, Warden, and Inquisition elves are treated a bit better, or with more wariness at least, but aren't immune to being treated like servants or having slurs flung their way.

The actual appearance of elves has changed with each game. Silifel's appearance is based on the assumption that elves can appear in any way they've been depicted so far and sticks more to the Dragon Age II look.

The Inquisition: - wiki - As Silifel is being taken from after the Trespasser DLC, the Inquisition is relevant to him, if tangentially. Now officially disbanded by its Inquisitor (in Silifel's canon, a qunari mage, Aqun Adaar), it is not the force it was, but it was one of the most powerful military forces when Corypheus was a threat. With the Inquisitor more preoccupied with the Dread Wolf's activity, the remaining forces of the Inquisition that still stick with their former leader are also less prominent now.

Kieran | Old God Child: - wiki - During Origins, Morrigan proposes an idea to the Warden, that she bear a child with the Warden (or Alistair/Loghain) and this child would hold the soul of the slain Archdemon. This plan saves the life of the Warden or whatever other Grey Warden they might take up to fight the Archdemon. In Silifel's canon, this is Alistair and Morrigan's son. As this option was chosen, both Alistair and Silifel were spared in the fight against the Archdemon.

Game Choices: It would be difficult to fully go into all the choices made by Silifel, not to mention Marian Hawke and Aqun Adaar. In general, the options made across three games sided with saving lives, over-preparation, favoring mages, dabbling in the most dangerous magic options available, and generally being good people, if only on the surface for the first two assholes. The Inquisitor was the only honestly good person out of the three. Silifel thought the Architect was a pretty cool guy, all in all.

Silifel's world state in the Dragon Age Keep for more detail.

Personality:
Silifel's personality can be baffling to some, as he can be just as cheery and polite while doing good as he is while being sharp and ruthless. At his core, Silifel is self-serving with a well defined moral code he tends to keep to himself and doesn't quite align with what one would normally consider "good". He has no interest in harming innocents but there is a fine line between "innocent" and "acceptable loss for the cause of further study of blood magic."

Templars in particular tend to sit on the unfortunate side of that line. His time in the Circle of Magi, with the influence of the questionable First Enchanter Irving, the suicide of a fellow mage and childhood friend, and general mistreatment he's seen (and sometimes experienced) of mages by templars, he has a sour opinion of the group as a whole. He'll give younger templars a chance to not get on his bad side, but it's a very fickle chance and he's unlikely to show mercy if templars or anyone from the Chantry tries to question, attack, or apprehend him. Whether unsavory types of other groups, bandits or the like, live or die if they attempt to rob or assault him depends on the day. If he's in need of bodies or blood for an experiment, they're out of luck. If not, he'll cheerily sidestep and outmaneuver their attacks and go about his day!

Silifel's cheerfulness is a mix of an act and not. He's very hard to ruffle and rarely grows angry. Often times his politeness is completely sincere, he does enjoy nice conversation with others and strongly dislikes being rude when he can help it. Any good deed he does could either be because it falls into range of what he considers "right" or because it serves him well. Like, say, fighting against the Blight plaguing Ferelden, largely in part because he wished to continue living and had the power to make that happen.

Where his smile becomes more of a facade is how he likes to keep personal information about himself under lock and key. He carefully maintains the image that he has few concerns or clinging demons from his past. He makes an effort to have any friendship appear deeper than it actually is, casually dancing around invasive questions about his past or downplaying events that strongly affected him that he can't help others knowing. This is both to avoid others playing on his weaknesses and to maintain confidence in his abilities. To some he seems shallow and creepy but his pleasantness can be disarming all the same.

The exception to his cageyness is his lover, Zevran Arainai, an assassin sent to kill him during the events of Origins that he spared and recruited. The two are still together by current canon of the games, even if they might spend several months at a time apart if the situation requires it. Zevran is the only one to see how eccentric, ruthless, and exceptionally affectionate Silifel can be. While Silifel is not especially cruel, slights or ernest attacks against his lover are some of the few things that makes him angry and dangerously vicious. He's learned a lot from the rogue and master assassin and generally prefers a mix of leather armor and warm clothing after travelling alone with Zevran for so long.

While devoted to Zevran, Silifel is still a shameless flirt. He was quite promiscuous before falling for the assassin and neither really object to his flirtatiousness, especially as it never amounts to anything.

To touch on his eccentricity: Silifel is quite determined to achieve immortality. He's not very grandiose about it, he strives to be practical, but he has been experimenting with various magics, especially blood magic, for quite some time to both stave off the effects of the taint and, potentially, extend his life indefinitely. Most of his research is completely self generated, he is mistrusting of the past failures of others. He's frightfully intelligent, at least in the matters of magical study, so is confident in his own work.

Because of the situation with Jowan and the ease of finding material on blood magic in the mage tower, I think it's feasible that Silifel has been studying blood magic since he was a young apprentice. Irving's favoritism of the Warden allows for Silifel to get away with this. This is actually what led to both the loss of sight in his right eye and the development of his over politeness. He learned to be very polite with spirits when asking them favors and has applied this politeness to not lose body parts to most aspects of life. It has continued to help him not lose body parts, except for his right arm. There is only so polite one can be with demons. While he won that fight, he did lose his arm from the shoulder down and hasn't done anything to replace it.

Note: Not of particular rp relevance, but it does play into part of his cageyness; Silifel is trans. There's no hint that this would be a huge concern growing up in Ferelden, even as an elf mage. At most, there is some confusion but still acceptance of a trans character in Inquisition, Krem. He also deals with a lot of chronic pain, insomnia, and general health issues. His pain is mostly cold triggered, prompting him to dress warmly unless he's at risk of overheating.

Appearance:
Some screenshots and drawings. As Origins is not the prettiest of games and allows no body type customization, I'll leave a description as well:

Silifel is notably shorter than the average human male, similar to how elves were depicted in Origins. He's in the 4'10"-5' range. He's quite thin and scrawny, not much muscle and he doesn't have much use for it. He has shoulder length, black hair; very straight and usually has one or two braids in it. His face in narrow and flecked with scars, the most prominent on his chin and lips. His pale skin, dark eye tattoos, and brilliant, icy blue eyes make for very striking contrast. The right eye has a pale coating that makes it obvious it's blind, the iris and pupil much lighter than the left eye.

He wears a mix of leather armor and thick, warm clothing, to include a cloak. Until temperatures get unbearably hot, he's rarely without the cloak. He both needs the warmth and it helps cover the fact that he's missing his right arm. His staff is usually separated into two parts, bound together, and hidden by the cloak. The staff in question looks similar to this one.

He almost always as a serene, pleasant expression, complete with a smile that's hard to remove. The air of calmness he has to him can get creepy after a while.

Abilities:
Mage: The vast majority of Silifel's abilities are magical in nature. The Warden is meant to be quite an accomplished mage with a lot of opportunities to improve their magical talent to be a head above the average mage. Silifel's general magical ability is quite high, given his trial by fire training once he left the Circle and the thirteen or so years after the end of Origins he dedicated to furthering his magical talent. His mage abilities will be based on spells the character can actually have but not listed verbatim as they don't make much sense described outside the game setting.

* Friendly fire: While I played the game with friendly fire off, I am working with the assumption that a fireball doesn't give a shit if you're friend or foe. If someone gets in the way of one of his basic spells, they'll get hurt. His blood magic is more directed and does not carry this risk.

Basic spells:

* These spells require the use of mana and he'll grow mentally and physically tired after using several spells back to back without regenerating his mana, either with rest, a lyrium potion, or blood magic.

- Hexes and glyphs: Large glyphs can be etched on the ground or summoned within several yards of Silifel. These glyphs or hexes can stun, paralyze, harm, repulse, or weaken the foe that walks over them. These are his go to basic spells and the ones that carry the most power of this group. Etched or drawn glyphs take several seconds to put in place, but are more powerful. Cast glyphs or hexes only take about a second to cast and are weaker and more temporary.

He can cast the effects directly onto a foe but prefers glyphs for their wider radius and greater power.

- Death magic: A very lethal strain of magic, as the name implies. If he's really out to kill and isn't up for blood magic, he'll use something from this pool. This includes spells that make enemies explode on death, spreads the death explosion spell, draws mana from the residual life force of dead enemies, and even allows him to re-animate corpses. He can usually only keep up one corpse at a time as it does take mana to keep the corpse upright.

- Healing: While even his own healing skills will not work when he's using blood magic, he still readily uses healing magic for when he doesn't need his blood magic or is healing someone else. Spells of this nature are pretty straightforward; he can instantly grant a small amount of heal to himself or a target, cast a spell that heals over time, or he can cast a spell that regenerates the physical energy or mana pool of the target (which can be himself) at a much faster rate than normal.

He's fairly generous with this skillset and considers it right to heal others in need. He will heal any that he doesn't deem worthy of dying.

- Elemental spells: His weakest array of skills. He can summon a small bolt of arcane energy or a little fireball, but only if he needs to, say, light a campfire. Elemental magic has never been his strong suit. The basics of it are taught to apprentices all the same.

Blood magic:

* These spells are more physically draining, either on Silifel, an enemy he's draining, or a willing ally. Blood magic is a state that is activated willingly and makes it impossible for him to use conventional healing magic or potions on himself while it's active. Instead of relying on mana, these spells rely on blood. As an experienced blood mage, the drain on himself is not any more intense than the use of mana but it is still more dangerous.

Obviously, beings without blood, like, say, cybernetic dog creatures or Gems, are immune to this ability. Weak demons can be controlled with this magic, more powerful ones? Not so much. The range of what is immune to his blood magic in a multiverse setting would have to be determined per character and player wishes.

- Drain: Using his blood, the blood of an enemy, an ally (who does not need to be willing but he prefers they are), or the blood of the recently dead, Silifel can effectively have a secondary mana pool. If only using himself, he'll grow physically tired after prolonged use of blood magic. This drain, if used on others, can be significant as an attack as it is literally draining the blood and life from another. He has an efficient conversion rate of blood to power but he doesn't have to restrain his draining if he's out to cause harm.

- Blood manipulation: This covers a wide range of things. As an offensive skill, this talent can be used to control enemies by taking control of their blood and mind, shred the insides of foes, stun others, and generally give someone a really hard time. Recently dead enemies can be controlled by their blood as well, much in the way he would control a corpse through

While this is not in any skill description, the blood manipulation skills do describe literally moving and manipulating blood in the bodies of others, so it is very possible this could be used in a positive way. Silifel has used this skill for healing purposes, like stopping bleeding and clearing up blood clots, as well as helping filter deadly toxins out of the blood of others or himself. It's not a cure for something like his darkspawn taint but it has allowed him to dramatically delay the damage the taint would normally cause. This skill is his primary tool for experimenting with extending his lifespan.

- Tainted blood: Considering that darkspawn taint in his blood, he can use his own blood as a toxin against others. Even altered darkspawn blood is dangerous and can cause a foe a great deal of pain, even killing them depending on how he approaches getting the blood in their system or how much of his own blood he uses. There is a tiny chance this might turn someone into a Grey Warden. Oops.

Potion making: As part of being a mage, he knows how to use lyrium, the substance that grants mages boosts in mana and can be addictive, either directly or to make potions to boost his mana during extended use of magic. He's also learned how to make basic healing potions from elfroot and various other components, it's a very simple skill in that setting. From Zevran and Morrigan he learned how to make various poisons. Just in case. As the ingredients are dependent on his setting, he'll have a limited supply to make his usual concoctions but still have the basic knowledge of how to make new potions with some practice.

Staff: Many of the staves in this setting are as fit for combat as the spells they channel. Silifel's staff has blades on either end in case of emergency, close quarters combat. While he's fast, he's not greatly skilled at fighting with the staff alone, especially as he only has one arm to use it with. It's still a lethal weapon and he should be approached with caution in a fight by those inexperienced with close quarters combat.

Tailoring: He's had to mend his clothes, tents, blankets, Zevran, and various other things over the years and has picked up some basic tailoring skills. He's found it handy to be able to make and adjust his own clothing so he's kept up on this skill. He's not fantastic but he gets the job done.

Wilderness survival: As much as he dislikes camping and having to trudge through unfamiliar and unfriendly wilderness, he's done it a lot. He struggles a lot more in a cold and damp climates but there's little that will actually stop him getting where he wants to go, or surviving along the way, as long as he can find a way there.

Inventory:

- Clothing: Partial leather armor of high quality, warm, practical clothing, a thick cloak with a silver gryphon brooch, his staff, separated into two pieces, wrapped in leather, and attached to his belt, an amulet holding a small amount of darkspawn blood, and a single gold hoop earring, worn on either ear, usually the left.

- Carried in a large array of pouches and a large satchel is the following: five each, health and mana potions, a pouch of lyrium dust (contained in a separate bag for safety), a pouch holding mostly elfroot, a set of nicer clothing just in case, a thick blanket, a small bedroll, several days of lean rations, neatly stacked and wrapped cookware, supplies for making potions (glass vials, small measuring tools, various herbs), three vials of a mild poison, a pouch containing wrapped packages of tea leaves and various pain relieving herbs, and a small kit for repairing clothing on the move.

Soul Gem:
Teardrop hubnerite set into a silver gryphon brooch for his cloak. (Bonus internal red reflections seen when light shines on/through this gemstone)

Writing Samples:
Third Person:
[Warnings: Blood, death, violence. Blood mages man.]

It had been educational, to say the least, to watch the “conflict”. Silifel looked down at the three dead on the dusty trail below, still musing over what he had observed. A brisk wind made him shudder and he hopped down from his perch in a nearby tree, only to stumble. He hadn’t been high up, but clearly far enough up for the wind to bother him! It was sure to strike again and he knew he really should be on his way.

Yet this was interesting! Three bandits, humans, none of them mages and none of them very bright. In fact, Silifel hadn’t even been the one to kill the first! His own teammate slashed his throat! Perhaps out of spite for some past rivalry or so there would be more valuables to share between just two of them? He had meant it to look like his unfortunate teammate had died fighting the sore, limping traveller. Terribly, terribly mistaken he was. Silifel had been out of sight before the two survivors- survivors no more- had realized where the elf had vanished to.

And, well, Silifel had intended to leave them alive! But slaughtering his companion like that, no, Silifel couldn’t let that sit. So the dead man had gotten to his feet and the stab wounds told the rest of the story. It was a pity, really, that the fight had ended so soon. If he could even call it a fight. The living pair had been so horrified to see their blood-soaked companion rise they didn’t even have their swords up in time! Such a pity.

The mage crouched by the first of the dead men, eyes still open and glassy, skin even paler than his former companions’ from how Silifel had used his blood to animate his own corpse. He saw no reason to use his own for a small scuffle, afterall. Mmm. He raised a hand, his only hand, and twirled it. The left hand of the dead man moved in turn, but sluggishly. Silifel allowed the slightest of frowns to show, there was no one here to put on a smile for and he had been working hard on improving the movement of the dead he controlled.

A glance to the other bodies, soaking in the wound patterns, showed his mark had been off. Far more than he should allow himself! A disgrace, really, he thought in disgust as he rose to his feet. He stumbled again and a soft hiss escaped between his teeth as he was reminded of why he had been limping in the first place. His right hip had been aching for a fortnight and he was growing sick of it!

The thought of a warm fire, warm meal, warm arms, all distracted him from his “study”. There would be plenty of other traitorous bandits to examine in time, should he see fit to let them murder each other again. Instead he could be receiving pity and comfort for his aching hip and that was far, far more tempting. It was only a few hours from home now and it was sure to be sunset by then. Oh dear, maybe he shouldn’t have lingered.

Silifel turned his back on the corpses without another thought about them as the wind pick up again. His right leg shook, displeased by the jolt of pain the cold brought that damned hip. The mage tugged his cloak tighter around himself and started, again, back to home and his lover’s arms. It really was unfortunate he’d let himself run out of painkilling medicine two days ago. He really did need to plan better!

His thoughts flitted about as he limped down the trail. There was always so much to think about.

Network:

[Silifel is looking into the camera, brand new to so many forms of technology but completely unruffled regardless. He looks pleased. Pleased he's gotten the console working or just generally content? It's hard to tell.]

Hello~ I am new here, very new. I believed I arrived a few hours ago, I haven't really been keeping track of the time. That's not very important now is it?

[A small laugh.]

No, it's not. But this business is fascinating. I must get to studying what magic is available to be examined here. I feel I have already wasted plenty of time just finding my way here. Mmm. So I am off, I will be sure to be available to chat some other time.

[With that he cut the feed.]