App for Teleios

[spellpower]

Player Info

Name: Megan
Age: over 18
Contact: lavellan
Characters Already in Teleios: *deep breath* Liv Durand, Clara Oswald, Piper McLean, Evelina Kallan
Reserve: { wha-BAM }

Character Basics:

Character Name: Neria Surana/The Warden/Hero of Ferelden
Journal: spellpower
Age: 29
Fandom: Dragon Age
Canon Point: during the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition after the mission "Contact Hero of Ferelden" is done.
Debt:

Class A: 2010
Class B: 105
Class C: 167
GRAND TOTAL: 2076 years, 5 months

Canon Character Section:

History:
The Warden; Mage Origin; Storyline of Dragon Age: Origins; Specific choices made during my playthrough

Additionally, because I don't expect you to really have to read all those wiki articles...

• Neria is an Elf Mage whose origin takes place at the Circle Tower of Ferelden. Mages are taken away from their families at a young age -- as soon as they develop magic -- and so Neria doesn't know where she comes from.

• Elves in this world are shorter than humans, but not as short as dwarves. They are usually treated badly by humans, working as servants or being sold into slavery in the country of Tevinter. Neria has faced discrimination in her life, being mistaken for a servant and ordered around, or outright scorned for what she is.

• As a mage, she is very succeptable to possession by demons. Demons are corrupted spirits who dwell in the Fade, a place where humans and Elves go when they dream, in addition to mages' spirits being able to reach it through the use of the mana-enhancing potion, lyrium. Mages need to draw from the Fade in order to use magic in the first place. Demons are eager to enter the real world with a mage as their host body, and they'll try to make a deal with a mage in order to "help" them. If successful, both the demon and mage's spirit are still in the Fade, but the demon can use the mage's body, becoming an Abomination. Templars are soldiers tasked with watching mages for corruption, and to kill them if they're possessed by a demon. They can also make a mage Tranquil, which cuts them off from the Fade so they can no longer draw from it to perform magic. The side effects of this are they can no longer dream and have no emotions, only having logical thoughts and speaking in a monotone. It's equitable in the real world to having a lobotomy. As a result, there is a lot of tension between Templars and mages, and during the events of Inquisition, they're in an all out war. Neria is loyal to the mages, naturally.

• The Blight is an event that happens every hundred years, where an Old God -- called the Archdemon -- awakens and calls out to his darkspawn. The darkspawn come up from underground and wage war on the land. Grey Wardens are people who ingest darkspawn blood in a ritual called the Joining. If they survive, they are able to sense the darkspawn nearby. They're also the only ones capable of killing an archdemon. When Neria is recruited as a Grey Warden, the fifth Blight is just beginning. All Grey Wardens in Ferelden except herself and Alistair are killed at the battle of Ostagar. The Grey Wardens can call upon the people of Ferelden to raise armies against the Archdemon, and over the course of a year, Neria and her collected companions travel across Ferelden to raise an army. In the final battle, Neria deals the killing blow to the Archdemon and is thereafter called the Hero of Ferelden.

• Just because the Blight is over doesn't mean there aren't still darkspawn. Though they're around in smaller numbers, Neria continues to sense them and kill them to protect the people of Ferelden. After the Blight, she's named Warden-Commander and given a post at Vigil's Keep, a fortress in northern Ferelden. There she helps rebuild the Grey Wardens in that country. For the next ten years, she's just doing her thing, but at some point she becomes determined to find the information needed to end the Grey Wardens' Calling. To specify, all Grey Wardens ingest darkspawn blood, which allows them the ability to sense the darkspawn. Their blood inside a Grey Warden is called the Taint, and this has an adverse effect on the Wardens, giving them something called "blight sickness." Grey Wardens can live about ten to thirty years with this, but eventually the nightmares and the "calling" of the Old Gods become too much and the Warden travels underground to fight darkspawn until they're overwhelmed and killed.

• In Dragon Age: Inquisition, if you're using a world state where the Warden is still alive after the events of the first game, it's revealed in game that the Warden is searching for a way to stop the Calling from happening. According to her lover (husband? we just don't know) Alistair, Neria was following up a lead that took her far into the west of Thedas, therefore when Cassandra tried searching for the Hero of Ferelden to become Inquisitor, Neria couldn't be found. Luckily Alistair tells the Inquisition how to contact her and though she can't return, she sends along a letter and gifts.

• During Inquisition, the Wardens are corrupted by the story's villain, Corypheus, who makes them intensely hear the Calling and makes them believe they're going to die, leading them to take drastic steps to destroy the Old Gods and the darkspawn before the Wardens succumb to the Calling. In her letter, the Warden says that luckily she is currently outside of this influence, and hasn't had her Calling intensified. Alistair adds that in her personal letter to him, she says she might be on to something, and that it's dangerous. Before the events of Inquisition, she and Alistair were working together to end the Calling, but when Corypheus was "killed" by a non-Warden, they wondered if he could survive like an Archdemon could, and so they had to split up their research, with the Warden following up a lead on the Calling, and Alistair investigating Corypheus.

Personality:

Neria belongs to two of the most hated and feared groups in the world of Thedas and specifically the country of Ferelden: elves and mages. Elves have a long history of a fall from grace, and in Neria's time, they are definitely discriminated against. Most elves find work as servants and Neria has been mistaken for one before. They endure physical and mental abuse from humans, often being referred to as "knife ears." Despite this, her philosophy is to be kind to anyone who shows kindness to her. If they start out with racist remarks or are generally rude, she'll be rude back, though she'll never sneer back that they're a stupid human. She won't lower herself to their level. She has a very strong sense of right and wrong, though she's grown more lax with following the rules as the years have passed.

Being a mage is hardly seen as better. Mages are dangerous, as is proven when a group of mages rebel in the Circle Tower where Neria grew up, torturing Templars and turning to blood magic to turn into Abominations. (Note: even though I have the Power of Blood spells on her roster of spells, it was just to see what they were like. No where in game do I actually have her support using blood magic, so those spells aren't really a canon part of her.)

With these two strikes against her, the average person can be rather wary of Neria. Her response to people's suspicions are to take a more aggressive stance, not wanting to appear weak. However, plenty of people Neria meets have no problem with her. Often people have problems that Neria takes the time out to solve. She'll mediate disputes, search for people and objects, clear areas of darkspawn or bandits, and more. Sometimes she does this for money, since she doesn't have the support of anyone as she literally crosses the country recruiting armies and a girl's gotta eat and buy supplies. Other times, she doesn't accept a reward if it's clear the person doesn't have a lot they can spare. She's a compassionate soul who pays attention to the individuals around her as much as the darkspawn threat spreading across Ferelden.

With the group of people she collects to help her fight darkspawn and raise these armies, Neria is more often than not kind. She bounces well off people who are generally good natured. When Alistair jokes with her, she jokes back. When Leliana is heartfelt, Neria expresses the same sentiment. Characters who are more harsh or just generally more abrasive, Neria either gets sarcastic with, or treats them more neutrally. She argues with Sten, who can't wrap his head around how a woman can fight. She expresses exasperation at Oghren's attitude. And she snips at Morrigan when the woman takes potshots at Alistair. Her behavior is often determined by people's behavior towards her, which comes as no surprise based on her background. Knowing that a large percentage of the population dislikes, distrusts, or outright hates you without even knowing you as a person can have a profound effect.

At times, Neria is tasked with making some very hard decisions. The world is a terrible place, and all she can do is try to make decisions to make certain situations a little less terrible. As the leader of her group, her followers don't always agree with her decisions and she has to try and convince them that she's doing the best she can with what she has available to her. She doesn't always want to support one person or group over another person or group, but she weighs her options to see what is the lesser of two evils. Outwardly, she appears to be completely confident and a true leader, but on the inside, she's riddled with self-doubt. Even though every decision leads her one step closer to the confrontation with the archdemon and the end of the Blight, she doesn't savor having to make these choices. But she does them because in the end, she believes they will make a difference. The fate of the world is the most important thing. Saving as many lives as possible is the important thing.

At one point she kills a child possessed by a demon rather than resort to blood magic or leaving the castle in order to gather the mages of the Circle Tower. While using the mages in a ritual to force the demon to let the boy go would have worked, Neria wasn't sure it would. She worried what the demon would do to people if she left on a long journey to get the mages, and made the hard call to deal with it then and there. When she discovers that on killing the archdemon, his spirit would just possess a Grey Warden and that Warden would have to be killed, Neria realizes that means her killing Alistair, or him killing her. By this point the two are in love and this is pretty much the most devastating thing that could happen to them. When Morrigan offers them a way out, Neria accepts, even though that way is not something good. Basically Alistair has to impregnant Morrigan to save them. Neria is a very determined person, who will use persuasion, intimidation, and/or outright violence to reach her goals. And while she doesn't like this anymore than Alistair, she manages to convince him. It ends up saving their lives when the archdemon is killed.

After that, Neria has to get used to the 180 degree spin in how people perceive her. The elf mage killed the archdemon and ended the Blight. She's hailed as the Hero of Ferelden and is treated with respect and sometimes reverence wherever she goes. Everyone from city guards, to soldiers, to new Wardens follow her commands. She works to rebuild the Wardens in Ferelden, now a much more confident person. It isn't that she loves the title and thinks she deserves all the attention, but she's seen her determination and decision making bear fruit. Armies came together at her request and they defeated the darkspawn horde. There's no need to second guess herself and worry so much about making the wrong move.

In the ten years between becoming the Hero of Ferelden and the Inquisition forming, Neria basically continued working alongside her fellow Wardens. She killed small groups of darkspawn, helped recruit more Wardens, and at one point she decided to tackle the problem of the Calling. Her determination leads her to believe there is a way to free Wardens from the Taint that slowly poisons them. One of the many downsides to being a Warden is that it's very hard for them to reproduce. It was pure luck that Alistair managed to procreate with Morrigan, but for him and Neria? It's virtually impossible. Both she and Alistair are still young, and if Neria can find a cure, not only does that mean saving Wardens from an early grave, but she and Alistair can have a family.

Being in Teleios will give Neria mixed feelings. Being cut off from the Fade and her magic will feel so strange and unsettling at first. She'll hate it and want her magic back. But on the other hand, being cut off from her world means being cut off from the darkspawn and the Old Gods. Every single night Wardens have bad dreams of darkspawn, and the dreams get worse the longer they live. But for the first time since becoming a Warden, Neria will have pleasant dreams again. It's not exactly a trade off she would have agreed to: losing her Fade connection in exchange for nightmare-free sleep, but she certainly can appreciate being spared those bad dreams.

Powers/Abilities:
As a mage, Neria has access to a lot of spells. They're all individually listed here, but to sum up, she has spells for healing herself or others, powers to affect others' minds, spells that use fire, electricity, earth, and cold, and spells to steal away other spellcasters' mana. Mana is the pool of energy a Mage draws from to cast spells, and is equatable with a warrior or rogue's stamina. She uses a magic staff (also called a stave) to focus her magic attacks, though it's not a requirement. Mages can just as easily cast magic out of their hands or their body as a whole.

Appearance:



PB is Alexandra Daddario only picture her with a more reddish tint to her hair, plus elongated, pointed ears. Neria is only around 5'0" and beyond the ears looks human.


Samples:

Actionspam Sample:

{ link 1 }

Prose Sample:

Neria set down her quill and slumped back in her chair. She'd finished her letter to the Inquisitor, now she just had to write Alistair's. She'd sent him brief messages when she could, though she rarely had anything new to report. Leads turned into dead ends, or worse, traps. Sometimes it seemed everyone was out for themselves in this world, though she knew it wasn't so. There must have been something alluring about taking down a snooping Grey Warden. People needed better hobbies.

Her eyes skimmed across the blank page before her, wondering how to start. The news about Corypheus and what he was doing to the Wardens was grave. While she was lucky to not be under the effects of the fake Calling, it pained her that her fellow Wardens were. They were all capable men and women, but she imagined some couldn't handle the constant urge in their head to awaken the Old Gods very well. No wonder they'd grown so desperate as to turn to blood magic. At least Alistair wasn't with the rest of them, but they needed to be stopped, before there weren't even any Wardens left to save when she returned back home with the way to stop the Calling.

Because she would find the way. There was no doubt in her mind. She didn't turn away from things just because they were hard. She never would. And so she would see this through to the end.

Leaning forward, she picked up her quill and began:

My love,

Have you been watering the plants while I have been away? Probably not, as last I heard, you were hiding out in a cave. Was it a nice cave? Did you decorate it?

And on she went, the jokes at the start making it easier to get to her worries over Alistair further into the letter. Her thoughts flowed into one another and soon she had a letter that covered the whole parchment. Signing her name, she set aside the quill and waited for the ink to dry before folding it up and sealing it with wax. Her next letter would have better news for him; she was sure of it. And his next letter would have to contain better news too, or she was marching back to yell at him.