(no subject)

[tevinteriscoming]

☾ OOC INFO ☽
Name: Siz
Contact: sizlaria @ plurk
Invite: Cappy
I understand the activity requirements for The Cradle Project: Yep!


☾ IC INFO ☽
Name: Dorian Pavus
Canon: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Age: 30

Canon Description: The Game and Dorian specifically.

Personality:

Background:

Dorian is the well-bred, remarkably brilliant and talented scion of one of the most important noble houses in his country. In a world where most countries distrust magic, Tevinter is a country ruled by mages where the pursuit of power both through magical talent and political endeavors is especially prized, and this means Tevinter has played a complicated and often dangerous role in history. Dorian is the son of a family that by Tevinter standards is liberal, and grew up holding similar view, but it was nonetheless an upbringing among the ruling class, where Dorian was never particularly challenged to accept the real flaws of his country or the serious need for reform.

Also very important to the person Dorian eventually grew to become, however, is that he has an independent and stubborn streak that meant despite his intelligence and talent, he was a troubled kid and often didn’t fit in. A significant part of this was his sexuality - Dorian is gay, and because of the cultural norms of his country and the expectations of his birth, this meant he could look forward to a sham marriage and a life in the closet. From a young age, Dorian dealt with this by acting out and getting in trouble. It was only through the intervention of a mentor, Alexius, and his family that Dorian really came into his own. It was also through that relationship that he began to recognize the problems of his country and to feel passionate about reform.

But Dorian and Alexius eventually had a falling out, and he also, at some point, gave up any pretense of hiding his sexuality. Between the scandals and his refusal to consider marriage, a rift developed between Dorian and his family, culminating in an incident where his father tried to use blood magic to change his sexuality. Dorian was deeply hurt both by what a dangerous and terrible thing this was to do, and also because his father was willing to cast aside his own hatred of blood magic to try it. After this, he left home, and stopped speaking to his parents.

Dorian left Tevinter and joined the Inquisition after learning a plot involving his old mentor and a hardline cult called the Venatori, in support of the efforts of an undead Tevinter magister to bring about the end of the world. Dorian joined the Inquisition to stop Alexius, but stayed both because of the obligation to help stop Corypheus, and also his desire to prove to the rest of the world that Corypheus and the Venatori don’t represent all of Tevinter. Through working with the Inquisition, he also decides that he wants to return to Tevinter again, this time to work to try to reform it from within.

Personality

On a first impression, Dorian is a charming showboat who doesn’t take much seriously and loves nothing more than complaining and talking about himself. He’s indiscriminately friendly - the way he’ll treat the inquisitor, for example, is generally warm and playful, no matter how much he likes or dislikes them. Even in a serious situation, he’s not likely to pass up the chance to quip, or a chance to brag.

This is mostly a front, cultivated as a way to protect himself from other people’s expectations. He’s spent most of his life as time type of outcast - in Tevinter, for his sexuality and his opinions, and in the rest of the world, because he’s from Tevinter. If he’s friendly and likable, it might defuse the tension. If he laughs about himself, he shows he doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him. He’s especially likely to make jokes alluding to his tendency for scandals, his family, his country, and his status as a pariah for this reason. He’s used to being gossiped about, so he gossips about himself first and pretends he doesn’t mind any of it. All of the showier parts of his personality mean he doesn’t have to avoid revealing anything actually personal or vulnerable to anyone, so he doesn’t have to face rejection over anything beyond surface traits.

Behind all that bluster, though, is a fundamentally decent person. He likes to think of himself as toughened up by his upbringing, meaning he’s politically savvy, cynical and distrusting, and doesn’t really need anything from others. But while he does have a lot of trouble trusting and opening up, and generally expects the worst of the world at large, he’s also soft-hearted, upset by cruelty and injustice, and deep down longing to be understood and loved by others.

To people he’s come to care about, he’s very forgiving, willing to look past even some pretty serious mistreatment or betrayal and forgive, or at least still care despite his hurt. He can be hurt easily, but he’s unlikely to really express that hurt, or will at least minimize how much it affected him, and won’t ask for things he wants or needs, especially when asking would leave him vulnerable to rejection. When he cares about someone, he expects at the outset that he’ll wind up getting hurt, and takes anything along the way as confirmation of his fears. And this isn’t without good reason, since he’s experienced some pretty serious and devastating betrayals in his life at the hands of people he loves, like his father, and people he trusted, like Alexius. But overall, he’s had very few true friends in his life, and generally doesn’t act like someone who thinks he deserves to be treated well, so treating him badly isn’t a deal breaker. Rather, the fastest way to lose his trust and affection is to be cruel to others.

It’s also important to note that he’s extremely not self aware about any of this. He knows he spent most of his youth as a fairly selfish and spoiled person, and he looks at himself as though he’s still at his core that same person, despite how much he’s matured since. He tries hard to be good, but he doesn’t think he is good. He has to keep trying, and to keep doing everything he can to do the right thing. He’s extremely prone to self-sacrifice. He admits (joking of course) he didn’t actually think he’d live through the events of Inquisition, and he never thinks twice about abandoning his own chance at personal happiness in life for the sake of his feelings of duty. In every ending, including those where he’s made close friends or fallen in love, he still returns to Tevinter because he sees it as up to him to try to change it. And he does genuinely love his country, but he’s also unlikely to ever be as happy or as free there as he is among the Inquisition. This comes from his sense that he has to work at being a good person and that he has a lot to atone for, even though he’s never personally really done anything much worse than being a bit of a self-absorbed teenager.

Finally, and tying into that, Dorian’s worst fear is temptation. Though this isn’t elaborated on, it fits with the extent to which he’s seen some of the most formative people in his life, whose ideals have shaped his own, give into their worst inclinations. Alexius is notable, especially since he doesn’t really hate Alexius for what he became but more feels sorry for him; he sees him as a cautionary tale, someone who went wrong out of grief and desire to protect the people he loves. He also saw his father betray his own ideals to try to change Dorian into the ideal son. And he’s familiar with the temptations all mages have to deal with, including his own countrymen, who fell into dangerous and harmful practice out of the pursuit of power or just out of the pursuit of magic for magic’s sake. He sees this in himself. He’s a little too enamored by his own talents and cleverness, and believes that he has the type of personality that means he’s in danger or sacrificing his own ideals, and also in danger of being smart enough to trick himself into believing it wasn’t wrong. So he pushes himself and punishes himself for these perceived traits into being especially focused on doing the right thing and not allowing himself to have the things that he wants.

Abilities: He’s a mage, and a very good one. He’s a diligent student of some complicated stuff, and with the proper resources he can do a lot. But so it’s easier on both of us, I’ll say that in addition to whatever limitations you guys want to do, he’s also just limited to using his battle magic.

Generally, Dragon Age mages cast fire/ice/electricity/spirit magic of various types, and also can use magic according to certain specializations. They use staffs, but can use magic without it, it’s just less effective. They can use lyrium to enhance their powers, but raw lyrium will kill them. Magic, especially more complicated or powerful spells, expends mana, and mana can be depleted with too much use, and also there’s a cool down period between complicated spells.

Necromancy: This is his specialization. In practice, it’s less to do with summoning the dead than it is to do with being an intimidating motherfucker and also drawing power from death and spirits.

Things he can do include:

- Unleashing “spirits of fear” (scary purple clouds) that terrorize and incapacitate enemies

- Regaining health and mana when anyone dies near him, and increasing his power whenever he kills someone

- Using spirits to fight for him, either thorough “Spirit Mark” (he casts this on an enemy, then when they die, a spirit takes on their likeness and abilities to help him fight for a short time), or “Simulacrum” (if he’s knocked out or dies, a spirit takes on his likeness for a short time to assist his allies).

- “Walking Bomb,” he curses someone and then they explode.

- “Haste,” for a short time, everybody can run really fast.

Other Abilities:

He can offensively cast fire/ice/electricity/spirit magic. If it matters, electricity/fire are his more powerful elements. Otherwise, he can:

- Create barriers, essentially temporarily protecting himself or allies by absorbing damage with magical energy.

- Dispel hostile magic.

- “Fade step,” ability to briefly and magically travel really fast and through things.

- Generally, he has various abilities that let him increase his power/decrease how much energy he expends while he’s casting.

- Using electricity magic defensively, i.e. to protect himself or paralyze enemies.

Suitability: N/A, he is a human adult. But will discuss suitability re motivations below.

Alignment: Chaotic Good! He’s an innately decent person, and he cares deeply about doing the right thing, but also very rebellious and independently-minded.

Motivations:

1. Things Dorian cares about and would be strongly motivated by include: anything to do with his country, which he cares about a lot and wants to improve; anything to do with bad shit his country and countrymen have done that he feels he has to make amends for; abstract concepts that are of interest to someone who is a huge nerd for magical academia.

The best incentive would likely tie into Dorian’s need to self-flagellate for the sins of his country; if, for example, he was led to believe some sort of universe threatening problem relevant to the murder game was caused by the Venatori or some other Tevinter blood magic cult, and it either needed to be stopped or brought to light, he’d be tempted to do it, especially if in some way it involved self-sacrifice on his part, and especially especially if it hit on his nerdier interests or otherwise made him feel clever.

But even in this kind of situation, it’s fairly unlikely he’d actually go for the murder; a lot will depend on how he develops throughout the game. See my suitability section comments below - its not really about being unmotivated so much as he’s contrarian and unlikely to buy what the person offering these motives is selling. He’d be plenty motivated, it’s just that he perhaps won’t take the bait.

2. A better scenario where he might actually commit a murder would be a set up where he believed someone else intended to kill him, or was plotting to kill someone he cared about. While he’s extremely unlikely to murder for an incentive provided by the game, he’d kill in self-defense or defense of others without hesitation, and as he’s not a very trusting person, there’s some room for misunderstanding or complications. I’d be up for plotting with anyone else who wanted to set up something complicated (like a murder scenario where the “killer” was actually the intended victim).

If this kind of thing happened, Dorian wouldn’t exactly fight hard to save his own life, but he wouldn’t just give up, either. He’d likely try to act normal but wouldn’t go so far as putting a lot of effort into saving himself or covering his tracks.

Suitability: Crafting a motivation for Dorian is very difficult. This is by no means because he’s a pacifist, but rather because of the nature of killing for a self-promoting motion. He’s prone to innately distrust anyone who offers that kind of bargain, and to distrust his own motives in being tempted to take the deal, especially since he’s more afraid of his own ability to be tempted by evil than he’s afraid of other things. And, of course, like all mages, he’s familiar with the danger of exactly this sort of temptation as the way you find yourself tricked by demons. He’d naturally find the idea of going along with this exercise, even if it involved killing the most unpleasant person for the best benefit, extremely distasteful.

That being said, I still think Dorian is suited for the game. First of all, I think his position on motivations for murder is a little unusual, since his problem isn’t with the killing, just the format. He’s generally very comfortable with killing if he needs to do it. He’s not likely to particularly despise those who do kill (judge them, maybe, but he’s a judgmental kind of guy), but he’s also not likely to feel strong sympathy for those who get caught. He’s certainly not going to hesitate to participate in trials and voting out of sentimentality. He’s absolutely not going to advertise his feelings about the motivations, either. He doesn’t think of himself as a particularly good person, and isn’t about to advertise himself that way.

Additionally, Dorian tends to expect the worst in others and not trust others, which can lead to misunderstandings and drama in this kind of environment. And despite his good nature, Dorian can be very pragmatic and ruthless. Games of wit, backstabbing, and intrigue are part of the society he was born into, and he believes he’s well-accustomed to it and fairly good at handling himself, even if deep down he’s actually too sentimental to be a truly skilled manipulator. But either way, he’s well-practiced in doing things that people he cares about will see as a betrayal - he’s essentially become a traitor to most of his homeland, and the fact that he regrets being seen this way doesn’t mean he regrets his actions and choices. With all of these traits, Dorian is less likely to be a game-disrupting anti-murder force, and more likely to play into the mystery and drama and work as a potential suspect, just a potential suspect that actually is very unlikely to intentionally kill anyone.

Are you willing to have a third party role?: Mmmaybe. I’ll leave it to mod discretion with the caveat that activity might be hard for on weekdays but hopefully consistent on weekends.

Deathroll Volunteer: No thanks!