heya! i'm quasar (she/her). most of my current roleplays are on hiatus, so i'm on the hunt for something new.
specifically, i'm looking for a dragon age game, because i am a simple creature and veilguard looks like it might actually rule. (is bioware...back?)
if you want to carve out a little pocket in thedas and try to fix problems by causing even more exciting problems, then you're in the right place.
[ introduction ]
i'm a 30-something woman living in the pacific time zone. by day, i'm an analyst and artist. by night, i am sleepy. somewhere in between, i carve out time for play by post and ttrpgs. i've been roleplaying on the mean streets of the internet since the days of msn groups.
i'm pretty chatty, and i tend to wax on poetic and wax off goofs. you should expect the occasional, slightly deranged, tangent about my current hyperfixation. in turn, i want to know about the things that make your brain tick! my favorite thing is to learn about niche fascinations and hobbies from other people, especially if it's completely out of my wheelhouse.
lastly, lets address the heffalump in the room. i have a grudge against using capital letters out of character. let me reassure you, i do submit to the mortifying ordeal of Proper Capitalization in posts and plotting. sample posts are available upon request.
is lower case everything a pointless affect? yes!
[ methods ]
as you romans would call it, i consider myself a high-casual to advanced roleplayer. there's a time and place for shorter posts, especially in dialogue or action heavy scenes. on the whole, i tend to write 500-700 words per posts. more for intros and big scene shifts, less when we're in the action
my posting schedule is about once or twice a week at the moment. i'll let you know if my posts are going to take longer than that. if i'm not vibing with the game, we'll talk about it. it usually just means the scene is dragging on and needs to move forward, or maybe we need to shake things up. 9 times out of 10 that gets the spark back. if it doesn't, i'll let you know. i ask you give me the same courtesy. i don't like to ghost or be ghosted.
i do like getting to know my writing partners! at the very least, i want to be able to talk shop about the game. planned character arcs, twists, ideas about how to move things forward, the works.
i'm comfortable with both freeform and dice rolling in roleplay.
if we're rolling dice, i prefer more rules-light systems for play-by-post. powered by the apocalypse games in particular are great fits:
monster of the week
urban shadows
high magic lowlives
extreme meatpunks forever
etc.
but i'm also just as comfortable playing more rules heavy systems in play by post:
5e
pathfinder 2e
legend of the 5 rings 3e
and so on
i like to run 1 or 2 primary characters, and a healthy scoop of shared npc's, and i prefer my partners to do the same. having a decent sized cast helps keep the plot engaging and makes the world feel more alive. character building and world building are a must for me
i'm fine with using character sheets or keeping it descriptive. i like using non-anime art or faceclaims for characters, but you're free to do as you wish. i'm not your dad.
i'm fine with playing in pm's or threads (moving scenes to pm's as required), but i'm not interested in roleplaying in discord/google docs/what have you.
i love third person present tense. i encourage you to give it a shot, but i can write third person past tense if you have strong feelings about the matter.
romance and smut (not fade to black) are great, and i prefer to have both in my games, but they're usually slow burns and no more than 20%ish of the game. as such, i'm not down to game with minors. 18+ only. we'll hammer out squicks, hard no's, and preferences before launching the game properly. i tend towards mxf pairings but fxf is welcome.
[ results ]
while i'm open to other fandoms (mass effect, bg3 and forgotten realms in general, jovian chronicles, legend of the 5 rings, old republic star wars), right now i'm primarily looking for dragon age. i blame the veilguard trailer and gameplay reveal for infecting me with the brainrot again.
i have a rough idea and a couple of character concepts below. i like keeping things about tone and vibes in the early pitch so we can collaborate more on the details and chart a plot together. if i wanted to control every aspect of the game, that would just be writing fic at you.
i prefer to keep canon characters as side characters at most. i'd love to use dragon age keep to build our worldstate, but the warden, hawke, and the inquisitor are busy off being larger than life. they're not going to make direct appaearances. we can be badasses in our own right, but i want to dig into the stories of people living in the world that the big damn heroes are saving (or breaking).
the idea below is post-inquisition, but pre-trespasser. we can pin down the year in plotting.
if you want to roll dice, i'm certain we could homebrew 5e for this. there's also the dragon age ttrpg which, warts and all, i kind of love.
[The Liberati Lie]
It is well known that desperate times require desperate measures.
And for the mages, the destruction of Kirkwall's Chantry was only the beginning of their desperation.
Backed into a corner at Andoral's Reach, the White Spire blackened with cruelty and the wreckage of Rivain's circle still bleeding, with Templars turning rogue, and whispers of a strange new lyrium on the wind, the Circle called for desperate measures. They rebelled.
No one expected rebellion to be easy. It was a desperate measure, after all. In 9:40 Dragon, all of Thedas threatened to burn.
In 9:41 Dragon, things got worse.
In the ashes of The Conclave, hunted by Templars, poisoned by red lyrium, the rebels turned to Redcliffe as their last hope. The fate of Fereldan has always been tied to Redcliffe Castle; if any walls could provide shelter against the Templars, it would be these.
And they were turned away.
Huddled in the shadow of their last hope, desperate rebellion morphed into the desperation to merely survive. The newly forged Inquisition was nowhere to be found. The hearts and minds of Thedas were turned firmly against the mages.
And so the once Grand Enchanter Fiona, desperate and alone, did the only thing she thought she could, and accepted the only hand outstretched to her people. And she signed away all of their lives to the Tevinter Imperium.
Desperate times. Desperate measures.
--
Whether or not the Inquisitor sided with the mages, it's implied that at least some of the rebel mages in Redcliffe have already been sent to Tevinter by the time the Herald arrives.
So what happened to them?
Many mages in southern Thedas admire the Imperium. It's not unreasonable that those imprisoned in a Circle would consider anti-Tevinter sentiment to be more propaganda than truth, or that they may have seen this as a good deal. Did they make it to the city and find themselves disillusioned? Did they become Liberati as promised? Did they find themselves in a new prison with different walls?
Plenty of mages would have considered this the ultimate betrayal. Did they fight back and try to escape en route? Did they arrive and find themselves with more power than they'd ever had before? Did they try to ignite a new rebellion?
Did anyone ever try to rescue them?
--
i'm especially intrigued by the idea of rescue. surely someone tried to bring those mages home. perhaps it was an off screen war table mission. perhaps a loyalist mage with wealth and means decided to try and help. or maybe some of the rebel mages took it upon themselves to infiltrate tevinter and find their friends.
i have a couple of character concepts, which would work for the idea above or could go an entirely different direction:
The Orlesians have claimed the blood of Inquisitor Ameridan for centuries. But we know the truth.
Ameridan was the best of us. He walked between the shemlen and the people, bridging hearts and minds. Under his hand, Andraste's promise to Shartan would have been made truth.
But the shemlen betrayed us, taking everything from the people--even the name of an elf that they would put in chains if he stood before them.
Savhen started playing with swords as soon as she could run, and she has the scars to prove it. A fierce young woman with boundless curiosity, she was the first to scout ahead wherever the Clan wandered. She would roam further than any of her peers, always in hunt of new mysteries to uncover.
Her magic emerged later than most-- she was already fourteen when she first called a flame to hand. None was more surprised than Savhen that she was a mage. But Keeper Levinia knew better; Savhen, like Ameridan, found her magic only through the love of the blade.
And the Hahren's stories of the Arcane Warriors captured her imagination like they never had before. She spent as much time training under the Keeper as she did at Hahren's side, listening to his stories as she drilled with her great sword. When she came of age, she took after her beloved Hahren, and chose to bear June's Vallaslin.
Savhen knew she was never meant to be the Keeper's First. She roamed too far, turning her gaze towards the horizon, rather than within the Clan. She needed to find...something.
With the Keeper's blessings and stories gifted from Hahren, Savhen left to find whatever that something was.
Savhen found herself on the road. Although she spent most of her time alone, she would walk with other Clans whenever their paths crossed.
In time she found her way to Clan Ralaferin as they wandered the Free Marches. Renowned among Dalish for their willingness to cooperate with shemlen, Savhen was fascinated to learn about the world beyond halla and aravels. But their Hahren also had stories of something more than shemlen-- she had a crumbling journal from the days of Arlathan, which contained a handful of mysteries from the ancient Arcane Warriors.
They were later joined by a former Chevalier turned mercenary, Reynaud. A stern man, he had grown disillusioned with Orlais, and instead turned to more honest work.
They became fast friends, and when Reynaud and his company turned towards Nevarra, Savhen followed, that fragile journal tucked carefully in her pack. And when the breach opened, they turned towards Orlais and Ferelden to help clean up the mess.
The Dreamer
antivan. sominari, primal. thirty-five. former senior enchanter of dairsmuid. passionate, quick witted, silvered tongue.
Tayana was barely five when the dreams began. The only and most beloved daughter of Antivan shipwrights, they were careful to hide any sign of her magic to keep their family together.
But the dreams only got worse. And when she was nine years old, her magic caught the attention of the Templars. But her parents were prepared, and by morning she was on a ship bound for Rivain.
She was welcomed into the harbor of Dairsmuid by her mother's oldest friend, Khryelle. The seer brought Tayana into the Circle, where for the first time in her life, she was free to learn the mysteries of magic. She learned how to harness her dreams to See into the deepest parts of the veil, with the warmth of the Mothers of Dairsmuid at her side.
Tayana was happy. She learned and laughed and loved. In Rivain, she was as free as mages could ever be. She spent hours at the docks, making friends with sailors and pirates. After her harrowing, her friends gifted her the beginnings of her many tattoos. Life was good.
In exchange for politely looking the other way to hedge magic, the Circle would send mages to help Templars hunt maleficar at their request. In early 9:40 Dragon, Tayana joined a small unit to hunt a blood mage prowling the Venefication Sea. She hunted them through dreams and sight, and when they found the mage and his small army of undead, her command of storm and sea pinned him down for Chantry blades. It was a perfectly normal outing.
When they returned to Dairsmuid, they found the Circle annulled, and the Mothers of Dairsmuid slaughtered.
Tayana ran. She talked her way onto a ship to Starkhaven, and into a caravan heading west towards Cumberland, determined to hold the Chantry to account for the massacre.
By the time she reached Nevarra, The Conclave exploded. She dreamed of demons pouring across battlefields, of lyrium that tasted of blighted blood, and droves upon droves of mages killed. And she dreamed of mages in chains on the road to Tevinter.
She dreamed of Montsimmard, where mages who believed in the old Circles gathered. And, more importantly, where mages with capital, social and financial, could help her find the resources she would need to rescue her people from the Imperium.
Alouette remembers very little of life before the Circle.
She knows she was born in Orlais, that she was the only child of the retired Chevalier Ser Astor de Sauveterre, and that her birth in 9:23 Dragon was one of the juicier scandals that spring. Ser Astor's reputation as a pure and honest man was well known-- no one expected him to sire a bastard.
She knows that he adored her. Before Tantervale, there were bright blue skies and vineyards that sprawled for miles, wreathed by the villages beholden to her father's name. She ate pretty little cakes and wore the finest of silks which fluttered like wings whenever she rode with him atop his gleaming white horse. She remembers the feel of his strong hands as he spun her in little dances in the gardens, the warm kiss of the golden sun on her dimpled cheeks.
Alouette knows that he guarded her mother's name like it was more precious than the Divine. She remembers asking, once, and the flash of heartache in his gentle eyes as he explained why he could not name her, how he hated that the world was so cruel as to deny them their family, happy and whole. She remembers nodding and understanding the pain behind his words, not the reason.
She remembers seeing that same heartache when she left the estate under the firm hand of Templars in gleaming plate. She knows she was seven years old when they took her to Tantervale, gentle spirits clinging to her skirts.
And then there was Tantervale.
No more cakes. No more blue skies. No more gardens, or horses, or dances. Only the Circle, shackled by Chantry Law.
-
Alouette didn't thrive in Tantervale. She survived, with her head down and her nose in books. Where other mages railed against their prison bars, she made herself appear as bland as possible. Far too many of her peers fell to accusations and sunburst brands. Someone needed to escape, to find a way to make things right. No one in Tantervale suspected that it would be her.
On the eve of the Mage-Templar War, Alouette managed the first escape from Tantervale in nearly a century, phylactery in hand. She found her way to the rebellion, lending her healing hands and lethal cunning to her fellow apostates.
She gave everything in hopes of freedom--and the Grand Enchanter repaid her effort by promising the next ten years of her life to Tevinter. Two years of war, only to find herself in another cage.
But somewhere in Orlais there are cakes and blue skies and vineyards, and Alouette will do anything to take back the life the Chantry stole from her.
[ discussion ]
you did it. you made it to the end. good job. i'm proud of you, sport.
if you're interested in playing in the absolute dumpster fire that is thedas with me, you can post here or shoot me a pm.
updated with another character concept, so here's a bump.
that's the last of the mages for now. i'll eventually get something scribbled for all the snarky and bastardous rogue characters bouncing around in my brain case.
