Cadmus Laenas
Cadmus Laenas
| {Age} |28
| {Species} |Human
| {Gender} |Male
| {Class/subclass} |Mage/Blood Mage
| {Appearance} |With lush well-groomed black hair and a neatly trimmed beard, at first glance, Cadmus Laenas appeared to be the stereotypical Tevinter Highborn. Completing the look with his navy blue mage robe with gold trim custom-fitted to complement his figure, Cadmus cuts a noble-looking figure. It is no wonder that he is often mistaken as an Altus rather than a first-generation Laetan, especially outside the Imperium where Altus and Laetans are often not distinguished from one another. It is a misconception that Cadmus often neglected to correct when it would be beneficial—and he could get away with it.
Cadmus talks and comports himself in a manner befitting for the Imperium’s high society. His typical mannerisms and etiquette are that of a noble, a byproduct of a Laetan who managed to successfully rub shoulders with the upper classes of the Imperium and has to mimic the way the Altus carry themselves to fit in. After years of mingling with high society, the highborn way of talking and doing things has become habitual, but when not on official functions, Cadmus would often opt for less ostentatious, but more comfortable and practical plain black robes. His staff, however, considered a symbol of status in Tevinter, is an ornate golden-plated mage staff adorned with purple gemstones. As it is both practical and fashionable for high society, Cadmus sees no reason to get a different less ornate staff.
| {Equipment and Personal Belongings} |Courtier Outfit - An ornate mage robe with gold trim, styled in a classic style of the Imperium so as to still be fashionably acceptable with little regard to the fashion cycles. Used only for official functions.
Travelling outfit - A practical and comfortable plain black robe with a belt and various pockets to store things.
Dagger - A sharp dagger worn in the belt for easy access. While can be used as a self-defence tool in an emergency, its primary use is to cut open skin for blood magic.
Mage Staff - An ornate ebony staff with gold plating and purple gemstones. A decorative piece that is also sturdy enough to be used as a blunt instrument in an emergency. Imbued with lighting magic.
Crossbow - A light Crossbow kept as an alternative ranged weapon to conserve mana—and blood—it has no special properties but does its job decently enough.
Ritewine - A custom of the Grey Wardens, as a wine enjoyer, the bottle's content has become a mixture of wines from various origins and bottle ages. Rumour among his colleagues has it that the bottle has never been emptied to the last drop, and thus still contains traces of the Imperium's finest wine he bought just before being conscripted. The bottle is marked with "Vintage: Warden Cadmus. Last drop reserved for the Calling."
| {Skills} |Arcane Lore - A Laetan who has managed to join the upper echelon of the Imperium partly due to his magical talents, Cadmus boasts an impressive resume of magical knowledge and research capability.
Diplomacy - If one-half of what allowed Cadmus to rise to high status was his magical ability, the other half was the ability to navigate the murky waters of Imperium political intrigue, making him an adept diplomat.
Cooking - Born to a family of Soporati that has a tavern business from his mother's side of the family, Cadmus learned to cook from a young age and still considers it a relaxing hobby to indulge in from time to time.
| {Talents} |Marksmanship - After being conscripted as a warden, Cadmus often found himself running out of stamina during missions due to him being more used as part of the Imperium elite. Eventually, he asked a fellow recruit to help him train with a crossbow to conserve his energy. Four years later, now a more seasoned warden with better endurance, Cadmus still continues practising his marksmanship with his crossbow as a practical skill to conserve energy on the field.
Quarterstaff Proficiency - Whacking an opponent with one's staff is considered inelegant and beneath the elite mages of the Imperium. Ask anyone actually serving in the war against the Qunari, though, they will tell you that the ability to use a staff as a blunt quarterstaff can be the difference between being dead or alive. Cadmus' father, who was an Imperium soldier had asked a mage friend he met in the army to teach Cadmus how to use his staff as a pole weapon, just in case.
| {Spells} |Group Heal - A spell from the Creation School of Magic, using himself as the focal point, Cadmus can radiate healing magic to heal multiple people. The more people and range the spell encompasses the more mana—or in his case, sometimes blood—the spell requires.
Drain Life - An offensive spell from the Entropy School, allowing Cadmus to sap life energy from a visible target within 10 yards to heal himself.
Blood Control - The infamous spell of the Blood Magic School, allowing Cadmus to take control of a target and probe into their thoughts unless they have sufficiently strong willpower.
Blood Wound - A spell to boil the blood of hostiles within 12 yards of the caster, causing excruciating pain.
| {Home/Family} |Cadmus was born in Minrathous, the heart of the Tevinter Imperium, to a family of Soporati—commoners with no magic—his father was a soldier in the Tevinter Military and his mother worked in a family-owned tavern business alongside his uncle and cousins. He was a second child, with an older sister five years older than he was. After being elevated as a Laetan instead of a Soporati, Cadmus eventually managed to ingratiate himself with the upper echelons of the Imperium. Through his newly attained influence and financial capability, he helped his family’s tavern expand and paid for his sister’s tuition at the University of Orlais in Val Royeaux, where she now stayed as a lecturer. His father, sadly, passed away while on duty in Seheron a year after Cadmus was conscripted to the Grey Wardens.
| {Flaws and limits} |Stubborn Know-it-All - A 'self-made man' who has achieved great successes in the past, Cadmus often talks as if he is the smartest person in the room with the best opinions. While it has been very much tempered since his fall from grace, it still occasionally comes out as streaks of stubbornness, especially against wild, novel ideas that he thinks are nonsensical.
Hyper Professionalism - While on the one hand, a great sense of personal responsibility and meritocracy make Cadmus possess a good work ethic and idea of fairness, on the other hand, it also often causes friction with others, as he expects the same degree of commitment of others. The sort of person who can fire a man with sick children if said man indeed is failing at his job.
| {Personality} |Stubborn and driven, are perhaps, the two characteristics that define Cadmus Laenas the most. When he was first elevated from Soporati to Laetan and finally started to mingle with the ruling class of the Tevinter Imperium, he was appalled by how inefficient and corrupt the internal workings of the supposed ‘Great Empire’ was. Rather than appointing capable publicans and officials, people who jockeyed for status or great mages but who were inept for non-arcane related things were appointed. Being someone who had always thought of himself as capable, he realized then that only by virtue of luck being born as a mage he could even come close to positions that were a given for people much less competent than he was, which meant there were many, perhaps, among the Soporati who were much more competent but was passed over simply for the fact they were…a Soporati. It was through his sheer stubbornness and drive that he managed to rise so far up—almost marrying into a house of Magister—indignant on enacting a change. Of course, were he less stubborn and heeded some of his allies that he was making too many enemies, he might still be among the Imperium elites instead of the Gray Warden.
Of course, with stubbornness comes strong opinions, and Cadmus is certainly not short of opinions. Cadmus has strong opinions on just about everything that catches his interest, never one to shy away from a debate. He often tries to frame his arguments as objectively as he can, refraining from personal anecdotes. For instance, while one might not think of it at first glance, Cadmus is an Andrastian, albeit of the Imperial Chantry…and with many of his own interpretations of its doctrines, but he does believe in the existence of the Maker and Andraste as his herald. Rather than presenting his case through anecdotes of faith experience, however, more often than not, he resorts to philosophical apologetics instead. Cadmus can also go a great lengths to prove a point, for instance, he has focused quite a bit on healing magic just for the sake of proving that Blood Magic is merely a tool—albeit admittedly a difficult one to use—of which the morality of its usage depends on said usage. After all, if he is able to heal with greater potency and efficacy when fuelled with blood magic, then who can deny it has been used for good?
Undergirding his opinionated and driven personality is a deep sense of personal responsibility that lies at the core of Cadmus as a person. He expects much of himself and expects much of others. The reason he worked so hard to enact a change was that he expected better from the Imperium. Non-meritocratic nepotism shouldn’t be the norm for the so-called ruling class, they are in a position of power and have enjoyed the benefits of said power, so it is only proper that they also give back in the form of fulfilling their obligations to the best of their duty, even if that meant giving their seats to a more competent lower class if need be. To Cadmus, if one were to do something, then that something must be done to the best of their ability. While he had not joined the wardens willingly, he is now a Gray Warden, and he will do his utmost for their mission.
| {Background} |Though born a Soporati, when Cadmus was 7 years old, he manifested magical ability and was then sponsored into the Circle, unlike the Southern part of Thedas, in Tevinter what would typically be a cause for distress was instead a cause for celebration, magical ability being highly valued and the Circles in the Imperium more akin to prestigious learning institutions. Due to his work ethic and magical talent, he eventually found himself in the position of a minor official in the Imperium. He eventually became disillusioned with the way Imperium’s government was run and threw himself deeper into politics, hoping to rise to a higher station to enact a reformation. By 9:41 Dragon, when the Venatori was on the rise within Tevinter, Cadmus correctly identified that their movement was unsustainable and threw his lot in with the Inquisition-backed faction led by Maevaris Tilani. Later, when the Inquisitor defeated Corypheus and the Venatori fell, many among the reformist faction—including Cadmus—with the support of Magister Maevaris Tilani and later Magister Dorian Pavus ended up filling various vacuums of power. Cadmus then used the new station to propel his political career even further.
By 9:46 Dragon, Cadmus was influential enough to be considered for an arranged marriage with one of Tevinter’s Great Houses, whose daughter was in line to be a Magister succeeding her father. It was more a marriage of convenience than actual love—though Cadmus did consider his fiancée a friend—that would cement Cadmus as a prominent figure in the Imperium’s politics. Unfortunately, he was outmanoeuvred, throughout his career, he had made many enemies, most of them people he deemed incompetent and replaced them with competent people, many of whom deemed to be of lower ranks. The culmination of Cadmus’ political adversary’s plot saw him arrested by Imperial Templars for blood magic usage. While he was a blood mage, mages of the Imperium using blood magic were a public secret, and the only mages arrested by Imperial Templars were those targeted for political purposes, such as the case with Cadmus. Cadmus was only spared after a Gray Warden who had been a war buddy of Cadmus’ father before joining the Wardens invoked the rite of conscription to recruit Cadmus to the Grey Wardens instead.
While he was sullen and angry the first few months the joining, both due to still not accepting what had happened to him and that his life was now cut short due to the taint, he eventually accepted his place within the wardens both to ‘repay’ their help in sparing him execution and his personal adage of ‘if one were to do something, then that something must be done to the best of their ability’. He was now a warden, whether he liked it or not, so why not make the most of it rather than sulking until he eventually dies either from darkspawns or the joining?
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