yall ANOTHER person got fired at work. I'll give you three guesses who they asked to come in on their last non-school day off for what looks like the rest of the month.
@jenchwuq you've known me long enough that you should know better than to open these floodgates /j
so. we gotta start w the five amells.
all 5 amell children were born mages, much to the disappointment and ultimate reputation downfall of the rest of the family. they were each sent to circles across thedas, oldest to youngest, as follows, with their various status(es):
lucien: cumberland circle, tragically killed during the initial days of the mage uprisings; he was never a particularly powerful mage, and unfortunately he paid the price for it
belladonna: 'bella' for short, she was sent to the markham circle, and later joins the inquisition
stirling: was a special case from the start, and was ultimately sent to dairsmuid, in rivain, for their unusually powerful connection to spirits
damian: sent to kinloch hold in ferelden, where he made the ultimate sacrifice during the blight to slay the archdemon
marigold: sent to antiva, whereupon she escaped in her mid teens and fell in with the crows, so they ended up with their very own pet blood mage.
for the purposes of this fic, at least, stirling is the one most relevant, so we'll get going with their specific lore:
stirling is a somniari, a dreamwalking mage, like feynriel in da2; their original circle, in ostwick, didn't perceive stirling as anything out of the ordinary magic-wise until they started talking about their very vivid and very well-controlled walks through the fade, as well as the spirits ("friends", stirling called them) that they'd met in their dreams
more than a little freaked out, the enchanters tried to decide wtf to do, they didn't want to make a kid tranquil, but none of them were equipped to deal with very-little-known magic that could be so unpredictable. finally, one of the enchanters wrote a friend of a friend, who suggested stirling be sent to rivain, to see if the rivaini seers there could handle the situation.
fortunately, they could, and stirling grew up there, better learning how to use their connection to the fade and the dreams they experienced/how to shape them in ways that wouldn't leave them vulnerable. things were going pretty well until the rebellion broke out, at which point the dairsmuid circle was annulled
stirling escaped, along with a handful of other rivaini mages, and they made their way south, eventually winding up in redcliffe. theo, my inquisitor, recruited the templars, and thus, calpernia ended up in command of the southern mages along with her venatori
("but val!" i hear you saying, "how could stirling support the venatori??")
they were raised/trained by rivaini seers, and know that their magic is far outside the scope of what the chantry would consider allowing any mage to keep without being made tranquil. after the annulment of dairsmuid, from which only a select few mages escaped, stirling's opinion of the chantry and anything chantry-related plummeted into nothing
so, enter the venatori, when they take command of the southern mages. stirling learns they intend to pacify an organization known as the inquisition, founded with chantry leaders, ostensibly still with those principles. even if stirling doesn't know as much about the venatori, they know that the venatori isn't the chantry, and with the southern mages being recruited by them, by a group that is a solid percentage of mages themselves, stirling knows that they are far, far less likely to make them tranquil for their abilties and what they're capable of doing with them
it was, in fact, something that made stirling very, very useful in helping calpernia become the vessel, and so they worked together very closely on that: stirling even became known, eventually, as the oracle of the venatori, and was well-respected in their ranks, even outside of being calpernia's partner in her vessel preparations
then we reach the shrine of dumat nonsense, and calpernia's multiple attempts to get corypheus to let her see it. both her and stirling sensed something fishy, of course, but calpernia couldn't openly defy corypheus just yet.
so, stirling goes. but they don't tell calpernia they planned on going. so when they end up captured by the inquisition, when theo + gang also go to inspect the shrine, the first hint calpernia gets re: what happened to stirling is in her dreams. stirling uses a very, very brief window of time to explain they'd been captured, but was yanked away--woken up, and then placed in a magic-nullifying cell to prevent them from trying again--before they could explain what they'd found there
(theo wasn't going to make stirling tranquil, the very concept horrified him, especially after reuniting with violet, but he also couldn't allow them to communicate with calpernia)
this all leads up to wellspring, and its eventual aftermath that i never got around to writing
and there we have it! stirling lore! plus eventual calpernia
She's babygirl she's a grumpy old man she's a wanted woman she's creepy and wet she's cursed by the gods she's terrible to intern for she's an enemy of the state... i didn't use her name but she popped into your head didn't she
