I've never been in a Dragon Age RP before but I'm a huge fan of Origins. I hope the characters okay.
Name: Edward
Race: Human
Nationality/Birthplace: Ferelden
Attributes: Cunning, Violent and Adaptable
Background: Thus far Edward hasn't done anything really special with his life. He was born and raised in the Poor Quarter of Denerim, his father doing what he could to raise the young boy well despite the very imperfect circumstances. His father didn't really have a trade but was nevertheless a very hard working man and picked up every job he could whenever he could. This meant that over a period of years he became skilled at a whole range of things but never really specialized in anything. As he grew Edward believed that to be a mistake but respected his fathers skill anyway, not really understanding why a man as skilled as his father was couldn't get a long term job in the market. His age making him naïve.
As Edward grew he too became skilled and his father planned to use the connections he had made over the years to call in a favour and get his son an apprenticeship under one of the traders in the marketplace. Unfortunately that time would never come. It was always a risky business being a handyman in a place where laissez-faire was the de-facto way of doing things, but Edward never thought it would be the cause of his fathers death. One day his father did a job for someone, there was a disagreement on payment, that disagreement lead to his fathers death. That was all there was to it really, there was no dramatic revenge, nothing. It happened, no one felt like anything wrong had gone on really, people refused to pay for what they called shoddy work all the time. Sure, everyone his father had ever worked for over the years had said that he had never done a bad bit of work in his life but in the end it was a middle-classed merchant versus a lower-class poor man and the guards sure as hell weren't getting involved in that. Life went on.
Without his fathers many skills and no friends that were in a position to help him out a eleven year old Edward started doing what the majority of the Poor Quarter kids do at one point or another. He started thieving. He was terrible at it at first and in the first couple of years of his new career he was on the receiving end of more beatings than he cared to remember. Eventually his skill grew though, he learnt new tactics and was pretty damn fast both in mind and body. Soon thieving was making him enough to support himself, both food and shelter wise, though as he grew older the danger of getting caught grew as well. Most people were willing to let a scrawny kid off with a bit of a beating and a talking to, but when it came to adults what little mercy they had straight up disappeared, by the time he was seventeen being caught meant getting a hand cut off or worse. It just wasn't worth it.
It was around then that Edward decided to try his hand at back alley fighting. It was brutal, no holds barred action with the contestants beating seven shades of shit out of each other before the end of the bouts. Why would someone like Edward want to get in on this? One, there was a lot of money to be made in it. Merchants, drunks, even guards paid good money to watch two men beat the hell out of each other. Two, aside from the battering you took in the fight there was no more risk to it. The guards watched the damn things and no one else could care less about poor people killing each other. So Edward got in on it and soon found himself being beaten bloody in a bout.
Amazingly he managed to win that first fight though. At sixteen years of age he beat a fifty something bloke down and won his first bout, proving that with his great amount of speed, his quick mind and an unfortunate capacity for violence this was actually an open opportunity for him. He couldn't get cocky though, if the rumours were to be believed the man he had fought had been a drunk and that meant he still wasn't anything to take seriously in the eyes of the crowd. The next week he won again though and as the years passed he probably won three out of every five fights. Yeah, he took savage beatings quite regularly but few contestants could match him in terms of speed and violence.
By the time he met Duncan he was a celebrity in the back alley fighting industry in Denerim, now even taking part in occasional fights to the death where weapons would be drawn in a lottery type thing at the beginning and you were expected to kill with whatever you got. People actually began to pay him to come and get paid in their own special fights. Of course everything went to shit one day when some young buck around Edward's age stepped into the ring boasting about superior training and being able to beat any man there. He wasn't without skill, that was for sure, but he fought too cleanly, the type of fighting done by one with buckets of training by no real pain and experience to back it. He certainly wasn't expecting Edward to bite his ear off or even head-butt him. The man had entered a world he didn't know and had drawn a very short straw. By the end of the fight he was on the ground shivering, bleeding badly and not being able to breathe properly due to his panicking. How was Edward supposed to know he was some noble? It wasn't like they wore name-tags. Before he knew it though he was being seized by the guards and beaten senseless. That was when he met Duncan, who stepped in and invoked The Right of Conscription. That is how Edward ended up in Ostagar.
Personality: The easiest and most basic way to describe Edward would be to say he is a survivor. Quite basically Edward does whatever he needs to in order to insure his best chance of survival. If he's low on money like he has been for the majority of his life for example he'll find a way to get some money, whether that be through thieving, fighting or killing. If he had a trade he might actually make a living that way but as it is all he really excels at is violence and so he uses that as his go to skill to survive. He is someone who is very much a practical and is typically only interested in whatever he thinks will get the job done. He likes to be set on a course and be there to see it through and is certainly not one for too much deliberating.
When it comes to being social Edward is surprisingly adept but not quite what anyone would call outgoing. He has kept few friends over the years but the ones in which he has kept he genuinely cares for. He is a loyal man if only he feels that the same loyalty has been shown to him. Despite his often cold demeanour he does value the friendship of others, not that he himself would ever tell anyone as much.
When it comes to morality Edward is very much in a grey area. He doesn't see the point of or like seeing people being needlessly cruel but believes people have to do what they have to do to achieve their objectives. Overall Edward is a confident individual who is surprising intelligent despite his lack of education.
Skills: Unarmed Combat, Streetwise, Coercion, Pickpocketing, Duel Weapons and Dodging
Knack: Coercion. Years of brutal fighting and day to day survival have given Edward a menacing aura, giving his words and actions more weight than they would usually carry.
Combat style: Edward's combat style is a rare mix of brute force and deadly finesse. He wears a Cestus on his left hand in which he uses like a boxing glove on steroids to stun and sometimes even kill his opponents. In his other hand he typically holds a Dagger in which he quickly and efficiently brings to vulnerable kill and maim spots after savagely beating and stunning his opponents with the Cestus. It is a brutal but effective fighting style, against humans at least.
Equipment: Edward was forced to leave Denerim quickly after the incident with the noble and the guards. He currently owns little more than the clothes on his back. He did manage to keep a hold of his trusty Cestus however for it is hard to lose something quite literally bound to your hand.
Advantages: Desensitization. Years of experiencing brutality at such a young age has worn on Edward psychologically to the point that violence, danger and even death no longer effect him mentally or emotionally in the way that they should. To be specific this doesn't mean that Edward doesn't fear death but rather that he is likely to be completely calm in the face of it. In the midst of danger no strong emotion grips him, leaving him completely calm for the most part and able to observe the battlefield or whatever else and take action unhindered by the things most people would be held back by. Obviously this is pretty damn useful in the action as well, allowing Edward to perform mostly on reflex and knowledge instead of fear.
Specialization: N/Y/A
Flaw(s): Edward is now technically an outlaw after beating a relatively powerful Noblemen's son half to death so that may cause him quite a bit of trouble when it comes to the guards in certain areas. Aside from that he is audacious, callous, fierce, hard, illiterate, impious, indifferent, pessimistic, reckless and tactless. All of which make him that little bit more of a shitty person to somebody.
