Appearance Ori is a petite woman, standing at a mere 5'2" with a meager 127 pounds of weight on her bones. She favors wearing her curly blonde hair in disarray around her face, visually chaotic but actually well taken care of. Her pale tresses clash dramatically with her ice blue gaze.
Bio: Orianna has a notoriously bad memory and the ones from the earliest parts of her life are more common to appear to her in bits and pieces of her dreams. Most of the time, she remembers large fields and laughter... Happiness.. Over the years she has pieced together that she belonged to a prominent farm family, providing the majority of grain to a noble house in England.
Her family name is still unknown to her. Ori has also been unable to locate any of her blood line, curious as to why they were not also immortals.
Personality: Ori is a cheerful sort, always looking for the silver lining of any situation. This does not mean that she is immune to emotion, only that she has perfected hiding behind a mask. She is perhaps too trusting, befriending total strangers almost immediately.
Possessions:
4 Earth Vestis Crystals
A field Scythe for harvesting
Various articles of "hippie" clothing, mostly in varying shades of tan
Barely any money
An optimistic attitude
Skills: Ori has perfected her ability to live off of the land, learning what plants are native to certain regions, which are harmful and which are helpful. She has learned through practice, trial & error and reading books. She lacks any real combat skills against other humans but, is quite masterful in hunting. She is quite literally a hippie and is always striving to find the love and peace in any situation.
Fast facts: While not a true Nymph, Ori has always surrounded herself with nature, preferring to live off of the land than the modern luxuries of the world. As time has shifted, she has adapted 'tiny living', minimizing her carbon footprint and growing her own food. She is not opposed to eating meat but, will not go out of her way to purchase it preferring to instead hunt for her meals.
The mysterious letter did not cause Ori any initial discomfort until she saw the check. Packing her bags, she has set out on bike to this occasion to return the money to this 'Oskar'.
Contrary to popular belief, she does in fact own a cell phone.
I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep;
I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.
Name: Lady Rachel of House Brekken Age: 24 Race: Human Height: 5'6" Weight: 124 lbs Social Class: Lady Location of Recruitment: Brekken Manor Previous occupation: Lady
Appearance
Rachel has fair skin and pale yellow tresses that fall about halfway down her back. She sports a faint green gaze that can often be found piercing through ones facade. Her frame is slim and very feminine, a fact that was not lost in the courts.
Chosen Specialization: Duelist Chosen Weapon(s): Rapier Chosen Armor Class: Padded Leather Items Carried: Recruits' tunic, pants and belt. A silver chain with the Brekken family Crest. Positive Traits: | Quick Witted | Fast Learner | Neutral Traits: | Conversationalist | Perceptive | Negative Traits: | Alcoholic | Spoiled | Narcissistic | Reason for pursuing Knighthood: Displeasure with the current state of the world. She finds herself annoyed with the amount of poverty and famine she has had to insufferably witness and wishes to rid it from her life. Clearly, the knights are not doing a well enough job and require guidance.
Backstory
Rachel was born into nobility, being trained from a young age in manners and etiquette. She was tutored to be more than pretty face and instead a pretty face that could also keep up with the men in the courts. It was evident at a young age that Rachel did not like having to bite her tongue. "You may speak your mind with your husband but, with no one else" her mother would tell her, warranting an eye roll from Rachel every time.
As she grew older, Rachel would stray from the manor more often, growing bored of the court proceedings that were so repetitive. Outside the walls of her manor, Rachel encountered an injured women, dressed in full plate armor and offered her assistance. COuld she heal the woman or provide any comfort? No. But, Rachel knew that the means for her recovery were not far off in the distance to her home. Carefully, she and the mystery woman shambled back to the manor where the woman would stay until a full recovery had been made, as was Rachels wish.
This woman was none other than Pereylia Meringold, a senior knight of the order. Whenever Rachel could evade her classes, she would be in the medical wing of the manor listening to the stories Pereylia told about the order, about her husband and her son. It was fascinating to dream about life outside of the nobility courts.
Once Pereylia recovered completely, Rachel vowed to herself to leave with her. Thankfully, Pereylia saw no issue with this and despite the Brekken familys complaints, the two left the manor heading towards the order where Rachel would finally become a recruit. Something not so awfully dreadful as living in the courts, a mere treasure for people to gaze upon.
Nationality/Birthplace: Ferelden-Orlesian Heritage Born in Val Royeaux, Orlais
Age: 17
Attributes: Worldly (Noble education + Real life experience) Rebellious (Brash & Sarcastic. Naturally defiant) Lithe (Athletically skinny)
Appearance:
I claim no credit for the photo depicted above as work of my own. All rights belong to its respective owner.
Background: Marguerite was born in Val Royeaux of Orlais to Comtess Odette and her husband, though unbeknownst to him, he was not her blood father. She lived a normal noble girls life, delighting in expanding her knowledge of herbs and such from a very young age. However, she was a dreamer and on the eve of her seventh birthday, she blasted her mother across the room during one of her nightly episodes. Her acting-father, enraged by the girls accident, ensured that she was taken by the Circle to the White Spire nearly within the same hour.
For the next two years, she expanded her knowledge and practiced innate control over her manifested abilities. She grew stronger, smarter and more cunning though her nightly dreams still plagued her. During her time in the Spire, she starts to receive Anonymous letter from one of the kinder Templar Guards. The anonymous author of these letters claimed to be her true father. Over the course of the next year and a half, the frequency of which she was exchanging letters to and from her father "Derrik" increased and they began to plot an escape. Derrik would be provided Templar gear and would go to Marguerittes room under the guise of escorting her to the First Enchanter, a new concern of her dreaming abilities having come up. From there, they would divert down into the PIts of the Spire, trudging through unexplored rooms filled with stagnant water and never before traveled passageways. They'd move cautiously through the winding halls until they reached the surface in Val Royeaux, far enough away from the Spire for safety.
The next few years, Marguerite became better known as Margot, a pet name her father had given her and they traveled far and wide to escape from the scrutinous eye of the Orlesian Templars. They traveled through Orlais towards Cumberland, diverting upwards from the marked path towards Nevarra. Before reaching their destination, Derrik diverted them East again to Wildervale in the Free Marches. It is there that a group of Templars catch up to them, cornering Margot and her father. With no other option, Margot is forced to use her control over the element of fire to battle the group of templars, killing two among the group of three. In a panic, the third templar flees for reinforcements and the father-daughter duo shift their path southwards to Kirkwall. Due to her fathers unease of magic, he arranges for hedgemages through out the Free Marches to assist Margot in training her abilities, causing her to travel throughout the Vimmark Mountains as far as Markham numerous times for training. This continues on for years, expanding her knowledge and grasp of her powers up until the age of twelve.
Derrik had done well to keep Margot out of the way of Templars, knowing that they would track her down eventually being that they had never been able to remove her blood from the Phylactery in Orlais. He did not, however, expect for them follow himself and Margot into the Vimmark Mountains on one of her newest travels. Again, Margot was forced into action, her merchant father suffering from old age and lack of practice in self defense. Again, she fought valiantly, using her new training and fought off the Templars. Her father insisted it was time to move to Denerim and, without doubt or delay, they began their journey. As they reached Denerim, Derrik persuaded Margot to hide her abilities and the pair began posing as Apothecary merchants, moving from place to place, never maintaining the same name or address for too long. She became very adept during the next two years at blending in and avoiding areas where Templars were thickest.
One morning as her father was setting up shop while Margot was performing a delivery into the Alienage, Derrik was approached by local gang members and they attempted a 'shakedown' of sorts, resulting in the mans death as he refused them. Upon finding out of her father death, Margot tracked the small group of lowlifes down and immolated all three of them. Immediately, she returned to the alienage and asked the few elven friends she'd made for hints to find the Dalish in the Brecilian Forest. Denerim was no longer safe for her.
She'd heeded the hints her elven friends had given her and sought out the Dalish in the Brecilian Forest. Upon finding a camp, she respectfully requested to speak with the Keeper. Margot explained openly that she was an apostate, a dreamer and an orphan and the Dalish allowed her to remain with them, introducing her to an herb that would prevent her from dreaming when she slept. Spending merely a year with the Dalish, Margot left at the age of sixteen to explore on her own, not wanting to risk the friends she'd made (and also having grown tired of being called a "Shemlen").
Recalling the places her father would always tell her about in his stories, she traveled to them to enjoy them as he would have always wanted her to, embracing the merchant her father had taught her to be to fund her journey along the way. As always, she did her best to hide her abilities and avoid the Templars whenever she could. However, as she grew closer to Orzammar, there was an unusually large group of Templars parading through the streets. Instinctively, she hid in a dark alleyway only to bump into a man and his Templar companion. Before she could begin to defend herself, as she had become so prone to doing, the man stopped her and pushed the Templar back from behind him , studying Margot for a long moment before invoking the rite of conscription. The man was a Grey Warden and now, she was to follow him to Ostagar.
Marguerite was born the youngest twin to Comtess Odette de Montsimmard of Orlais and her dutiful husband, though her true father remained a humble Feralden merchant banished from Orlais by the family due to his lack of status. In appearance she mirrored her mothers pale complexion and bold green eyes as no one had doubted. Her raven locks an apparent surprise to one of her lighter haired parents, her mother knowingly thinking back to the throws of passion shared shortly before she was betrothed. Notably, there was also a glimmer that shone in Marguerites eyes that would develop over the course of her life into a powerful force.
She lived a normal noble girls life, drifting from corridor to corridor of her home, distracting the staff with her innocent beauty and her overwhelming desire to learn. Yes, even before she could read, she would sneak off to the library and pick books out to have read to her. She would stare intently at the pages while a member of the staff would read to her, trying to best to follow along with the words and comprehend them. Her favorites were always the books with the pretty flowers on them.
Her nightly routine, however, was much different to that of which she held during the day. The normally rambunctious and upbeat child suffered from what her mother called "night terrors" and insisted they were normal and they would go away over time. Comtess Odette spent many evenings in her daughters room, smoothing the creases in her forehead and humming softly to ease her childs nightly suffering. Her advisors had told the Comtess ultimately what these terrors could be a sign of but, the Comtess refused to heed their words.
Each night was different whilst Marguerite was asleep. There were occasions where the Comtess would enter her chamber to find her daughters furniture shaking, the temperature immensely warm in the room, bringing a sweat to her skin or even cold enough that she could see her breath in the air. Still, she refused to see the signs as anything out of the norm, insisting the weather was fluctuating and the location of her daughters chambers simply felt the shift the most. However, her disillusions came to an end on the eve of Marguerites seventh birthday.
As had become expected, Odette took her place in the chair at her daughters bedside, the long nights having taken a toll on her once flawless face, now aging with concern for her child and the evenings of restlessness. There was nothing out of the norm this evening, which the Comtess found both comforting and oddly unusual. Slinking back into the chair, she clasped her daughters hand and closed her eyes.
Just as Odette was beginning to drift off to sleep, Marguerite began to toss and turn violently, slipping from her mothers grasp. In a panic, Odette yelled out for help to restrain her daughter, her husband bursting into the door instead of the staff and demanded she leave well enough alone, that what was happening to Marguerite was not natural and that there was nothing Odette could do to prevent it. Desperately, Odette pled with her husband continuing to try to restrain her daughter as he angrily loomed in the door. Their argument escalated and Odette stood protectively in front of her daughter bed, now facing her husband as he crossed the room. He told in his angered tone that he'd already called upon the Circle of Magi that resided within Val Royeauxs own White Spire and that they were on their way to retrieve her. He reached for her, clasping his hands on the frantic mothers shoulders to remove her from the room.
Without warning, the couple flew across the room, sliding across the floor into the wall before crumpling into a heap on the ground. Her husband, having been mostly shielded by Odette, was unaffected. Odette however, had taken the brunt of the damage from the push from her daughter, lying unconscious on the girls chamber floor.
Marguerite jolted upright in her bed, newly awakened, panting and drenched with sweat, confused as to why her mother was on her floor with the staff quickly trying to remove her from the room. And the look on his face. Disgust. Hate. Spite. All mixed up in one stomach curdling expression.
With Odette unconscious and being cared for in her own chambers, her husband furiously commanded the staff to have the "filthy maleficar" removed from his home, to pack her things and see to it that the she was the circles problem now.
---
Marguerites time with the circle can be summed into one word; Educational. At first, she had been bitter for being there, hating that her family had simply abandoned her but, as they began to teach her how to use the magics she once only used in her dreams, she became much happier, a hunger to learn growing within her. They called her a dreamer, telling her that in her dreams, she was actually entering the fade without the aid of lyrium. They also warned her that demons would try to take her over because she so easily accessed the fade. On several occasions, she was commended by her older Magi for not having already succumb to a demon, noting that her young age should have made her an easy target for them.
Edmon, a kind Templar in the Spire, knocked on her chamber door one evening and handed her an anonymous letter, clarifying that it was from a friend on the outside. It was from her father, Derrik, or at least he claimed to be her father.
"The tale of Margot de Montsimmard is an interesting tale indeed." she began, stoking the fire as it died with the light of the day, watching as the embers arose to dance in the air before herself and the Warden. A smirk played on her lips as she stared across the hot pit between them, the light casting an unnatural glow to her light, foreign complexion and lighting the shade of olive in her eyes. "Well, I suppose I should air out the dirty laundry first. Not only am I Feralden but, I am also Orlesian. Nobilty even. Shocked, yes I'm sure. But, before you get ahead of yourself, I will explain and you," she paused, handing him the sturdy length of stick she'd chosen "You, my fine sir, can maintain the fire while I weave you a fine tale."
"The setting was Val Royeaux, Orlais on a busy trade day. The character of this story is not I sir, no, no." she shook her head, her raven locks swaying from the motion, a soft chuckle escaping her lips. "His name was {Fathers Name}, a humble Apothecary merchant traveling from marketplace to marketplace in search of the finest ingredients for his concoctions. It is only natural that a High Freeman of Feralden should end up in the land of Orlais with such exquisite tastes. However, this particular visit was not a search for a particular ingredient he desperately needed but instead, a business venture of sorts. You see, Feralden is only but so large for all the merchants it held and business was dwindling for the man. Therefore, one most go where the money goes. And Orlais has more than their fair share of wealth." Lifting her hand, she rubbed her thumb along the pad of her middle and forefinger in the gesture for money before leaning back to brace her weight on her elbows, head turned up to the darkening night sky.
"He had received letter beckoning him to meet a well known trader where the edge of the marketplace and the capital converged. There were many little shoppes to be found in the area; fine silks and cloth, fresh fruits and the sweetest of bath perfumes on perfect little displays for the wealthy to devour. And pay for with the heavy purses, of course. It was there he waited, floating from stall to stall, ignoring the glares from the snootier of Orlesians as he did so." Turning onto her side, she grinned widely at the warden. "If there is a maker, they certainly have a sense of humor for, who should this Feralden freeman bump into other than the most beautiful woman in all of Orlais, Comtess Odette. Yes, she was only minor nobility but, there was not a man in Orlais who did not know of her immense beauty. And here, the merchant had nearly knocked her into a jewelry stall. He apologized profusely, as well as he could whilst distracted by how her pale skin contrasted her dark hair and how her eyes shone like emeralds". She could barely say the last portion with a straight face, burying her face into the palm of her hand. "He really used to tell it best." she chuckled, a flash of sorrow coursing through her before she delved back into her story. "I digress! Where was I? Oh yes. In his apology, he bought her a vibrant emerald necklace from the very stall she'd bumped into, complimenting that they pale in comparison to hers. And, went on to have his meeting with the local merchant."
The woman wagged her finger at the warden, enjoying telling the tale more than she had originally intended. "But, this man was no longer focused on just business. Not after meeting Odette. He inquired the merchant for information and spent the rest of the day going from stall to stall, acquiring information about the woman, her likes, her favorite bathing perfumes, all sorts of odds and ends.. And as the sun began to set in the sky, he remained in the marketplace by the jewelry stall. He could faintly smell her on his hand from when he swept her hair aside to clasp the necklace onto her. He didn't know how long passed but, in a dark alley, he spotted movement. The Comtess had returned to the spot as well in hopes of finding our kind merchant man.
They conversed and shared stories, having more in common than expected despite their vastly different upbringing. As the night drew a chill, they moved closer, closing the night with a bout of intimacy only lovers share." She paused for a long moment, holding her hand out to the fire, the flames beckoning to her hand, seeming to liven at her focused presence.
"But, they do not have a happy ending. The Comtess would continue to steal away from her life to spend time with her beloved merchant so often that her chambermaid took notice. And also made note that the Comtess was late for her..uhm, bodys feminine routine, if you get the picture. Confiding in the Comtess' parents her theory, they confronted the Comtess, forbiding her from continuing her relationship with one so beneath her. The family guards, with the chambermaids assistance, hunted down the merchant, threatening him on the Montsimmard familys behalf that he would have the privilege of keeping his life if the family had his silence and his word to never again return to Orlais." She took a moment to pause, allowing the severity of her words sink in. "The Montsimmards, of course, did what they had to do to quickly wed Odette off, urging her to consummate the marriage quickly so that the child would be raised as nobility. And so, the merchant left with a heavy heart, and the Comtess married a noble man and went on to have her children. a boy and a girl."
Personality: Margot is a confident young woman, sometimes even a bit brash and cocky. This does not go without reason as she is incredibly intelligent in both book and street smarts. She is incredibly persuasive, joking that she could make any merchant pay her for taking their wares from them. She is a persistent soul, known to repeatedly try her hand at new things until she has grasped the concept of the task. In the few occasions where she was not successful, she was still persistent in her attempts to learn.
Skills: Appraisal, Survival (Forest), Streetwise, Herbalism, Apothecary and Reach Weapons(Staves).
Knack: Reach Weapons (Staves). Being on the run constantly from the Templars and having been exposed to many different mage teachers has made Margot incredibly proficient in the multiple uses of her staff.
Spells: Margot is mainly a Primal school based mage, though she also has some very limited knowledge of Spirit spells.
Fireblast: The caster's hands erupt with a cone of flame, inflicting fire damage on all targets in the area for a short time. Rock Armor: The caster's skin becomes as hard as stone, granting a bonus to armor for as long as this mode is sustained with mana. Mind Blast:* The caster projects a wave of telekinetic force that stuns enemies caught in the sphere.
* : Margot does not have a high affinity for Creation or Spirit based magics. Mind Blast is the only Spirit spell she can currently use and it drains twice as much mana to cast because of her inexperience using it.
Equipment: × Luciole - A Red Steel Fire Staff (It's basic attack is fire-based) × Healing Potion x 3 × Leather Satchel Bag slung over her shoulder × Various herbs for potion making × Water Skin equipped to belt × 1 Sovereign (Gold) × A Necklace her mother had given to her father years ago
Advantages: Pyromancer: Long practice with wielding fire magics increases all fire damage that Margot inflicts, including the basic attacks from her fire staff.
Specialization: N/Y/A
Flaw(s): As stated above, Margot does not have a high affinity for Creation or Spirit based magics. Mind Blast is the only Spirit spell she can currently use and it drains twice as much mana to cast because of her inexperience using it. Her inability to cast any Creation spells also demands that she always have a supply of health potions on hand.
Being that Margot is a dreamer, she must also maintain a constant supply of the herb that keeps her from dreaming while she sleeps. This sometimes makes her restless as it is a side effect of prolonged use of the herb.
