varric nicknames for some of my inquisition characters:
obviously all the hawkes get a canon nickname in the DLC based on their temperment, but given that it never comes up again i tend to think of that as him doing a Single Bit, not assigning them a real nickname. i actually prefer varric sticking to "hawke" or their first name for them broadly speaking (they're special! he isn't trying to keep them at a distance the way he often does via nicknames!) so that's why i'm skipping my hawkes and just talking about inkies/inqusition ocs, in alexei's case. he doesn't have a nickname (aside the canon jokey "your inquisitorialness" sorts) for all of them!
ahvir — "dawn." this one pops up after she explains that her name is a diminutive of the elvish word for "tomorrow." he also, however much he might not admit it, does see her as a sort of first light — the sign that night is over, that you've survived the worst. she's just that kind of leader.
isala — "jester." after it becomes apparent that she's an abomination, she expects him to update it to reflect that (seems like there's more material there), which he doesn't. it's one of the early signs that, despite being disquieted by the abomination thing for anders reasons, his opinion of her and his sense of who she is hasn't ultimately changed.
emathenan — "ash." she initially assumes it's just because she's a little creepy; when she asks him about it, he at first asserts that that's most of it. after solas dumps her, varric tells her that burning down a forest helps it grow, and he sees her and her power and her goals the same way. she's changing a lot, often violently, but he can tell she wants good things to grow in the ash she leaves behind. she's very touched.
alexei — it's not a real nickname, but varric calls him a "byronic hero" a couple times. alexei is pretty sure he's making a joke about how alexei doesn't actually fit that archetype at all outwardly, but is secretly worried that varric's managed to see through the facade enough to figure that he does actually tick a lot of the boxes.
dove — "starling." dove thinks he's just riffing on the bird theme of her actual name, and he is, to a certain extent. to a certain extent, he thinks the religious imagery that doves have is a little too on the nose, and he can tell how much she hates being made into a religious symbol, so he's trying to extricate her from some of that.
rain!!! have u thought about why ahvir picked the vallaslin they have? :D i'm nosy!!
yes! it's vallaslin to ghilan'nain, which some see as an odd choice for a mage!
when ahvir was young, she was in love with a girl named rem. the two were partners and much of the rest of the clan disapproved — many dalish clans take a dim view of non - procreative pairings, particularly with mages, due to the nature of being a dying people. this led to regular arguments between ahvir and the keeper, which was very difficult because ahvir otherwise worshipped deshanna and adored her approval. one day, when she was fifteen, ahvir and deshanna got in a huge fight, and ahvir nicked the keeper's staff and ran off into the forest with rem to dick around and play and be mad.
the clan was nearer to a human settlement than they usually stayed at the time. ahvir and rem swapped weapons, just for fun. templars were searching the forest for — something, ahv never learned what. they happened upon the pair. rem was holding a staff. the templars thought she was an apostate mage, and killed her. ahv managed to escape, but it was extremely difficult and traumatizing to watch your partner die in front of you because you gave her a staff, let alone at such a young age.
a few years later, ahv would get the vallaslin. prior to rem's death, she'd planned to take mythal's. but rem had wanted ghil's, and the story was a favourite of the pair. it felt like a good way to honor her. and in the years since her death, ahvir had more-or-less replaced her personality with rem's, as a way of keeping her alive (as ahvir saw it, rem deserved to be alive more than she did), so...there's some of that, too.
that's the in-universe explanation! additionally, ahvir sacrifices hawke in the fade, and i think there's some delicious irony to ghilan'nain beginning her ascent to godhood via cursing someone for....killing a hawk
If you’re still interested in talking about your OCs it’d be cool to hear more about your elven Inquisitors and if they were in any romances :) No rush, it’s whenever you have the time to
as my handle would suggest, i have a lotta elven inkies. ahvir, dhea'mis, emathenan, isala aaaaand viasyl. (also, more who never got developed enough to make it here) they're all very dear to me, and they all do have romances, so — let's crack in!
we'll start with ahvir (she/they, which i mention so it doesn't get confusing when i start switching) cos she's the inky of my canon worldstate and i love her the MOST. her canon romance is varric, which is actually based on the fact that i rp'd her for a really long time, a friend wrote varric, we shipped, the rest is history. i do love shipping them with others, but ahvir is very much a mage right's activist, VERY elven, and all of that, and all the romance options in dai are...pretty conservative! there's really nobody who's stringently pro-mage freedom or pro-elves ( blackwall ironically is probably the closest for elves and second closest, behind solas, for mages ). and while i do at least sorta ship varric with both sion and sybil, i do generally prefer varhawke platonically, so there wasn't that hangup. varric isn't some like, crusader the way ahv is, but he's not a chantry fundamentalist or an elf-hater like the rest of the romanceables are.
beyond the like, Utilitarian flavoring of it, they really just bring out the best in each other. ahv has a lot of complexes relating to a lost love ( her partner, a girl called rem, was killed when ahvir was fifteen when the pair snuck out, swapped weapons to play, and some templars happened to see rem with a staff) that varric can relate to for bianca reasons. ahvir's passion and fire gives varric more room to actually give a shit about things, and varric's laid back nature catches ahv when they're being sanctimonious or taking things too seriously. they both have problems with masks and their true identities, if they even have them anymore. they're just...good for each other, and very much in love.
after trespasser, she moves into kirkwall with him — not that she's there all the time, what with running what's left of the inquisition and hunting solas, but still. the dwarven viscount's elven mistress. they both find the uproar it causes funny, and when ahv proposes, they joke that it's to stop being his mistress and become his wife.
dhea’mis is a josiemancer! i love them so much. i think with other elf and josie romances i’ve done, i’ve often imagined there being some anxiety on the elf’s part because of the whole ‘elf dating a noble’ thing, but there’s really none for dhea. she knows josie loves her, trusts that implicitly, and they’re exactly as sweet as they are in canon. that being said, dhea does take it very poorly when josie’s engaged to another person; she just got out of the fade where she saw horrific, corrupted versions of herself (rather than spiders in the fade, she sees herself as the envy demon presented her) — this is also when the rogue in the party switches from being sera to being cole, because sera is coping badly with the fade and is furious for being in there, so that’s also stressful. she’s just really stressed and traumatized and it happens at a bad time. when josephine says it might take years to untangle and refuses to do in a Faster, even if improper, manner, dhea snaps, unfairly, “i see how much i mean to you!” and there’s a fight. they make up after dhea challenges what’s his face to a fight, though, so it’s okay.
also, josie is quietly delighted when dhea’mis’s reaver - ness gives her claws, a few scales, and slitted pupils. josie won’t talk about why she likes it but dhea has a guess or two :)
emathenan is super canon divergent, which influences her romance with solas a LOT. her basic story is that she was the daughter of elven servants — her mother was dalish before her clan was wiped out, hence the name — and raised in that environment. when her family’s employers and all the other servants were murdered, emathenan unlocked her magic to escape, killing some of the bards that killed her family and fleeing. (she got the scar on her face sprinting thru the forest as she escaped.) she was found, badly injured, by an orlesian dalish clan, who nursed her back to health. she ended up staying with them for a while until they gave her to another clan who didn’t already have too many mages, and she became second.
an important think about enan is, because she was raised a servant and badly gaslit into thinking that was fine by the humans around her, is that she has a lot of complexes about subservience and badly wants power. emporer tarot card. like, very morally rooted, and good, and all that, but she wants all power and intends to get it. she forces the empress, gaspard and briala into working together because that means they all work for her, making her the defacto leader or orlais. (unlike most of my inkies, who dissolve the inquisition, she submits it to orlais — but only because she knows celene can’t actually touch her.) she uses that power to protect herself, yeah, but also to advocate for mages, elves, etc. uses that power for good.
and part of why she’s attracted to solas, aside from the fact that he’s interesting and mysterious and knows so much, is because she is so good and is attracted to people who she knows can curb her power hungry nature, who will call her on it if she’s being evil. and who will stop her.
but she takes his leaving hard. and she takes finding out that she’d been made the pawn of a god — mad SUBSERVIENT to a god — even worse.
she’s one of my few inkies who vows to kill him.
viasyl also romances solas, and she’s also very canon divergent, but in a way that has less influence on the romance. their romance is generally more Normal, but viasyl takes solas dumping her worse than emathenan does. enan is completely devastated and maybe has a fling with varric, but she's got too much of her self-image invested in being competent and unflappable for it to Show much. viasyl is public devastated, takes it HARD, and just avoids him til he fucking leaves. that being said, she does vow to redeem him rather than kill him, even if only out of a sense of stubbornness. “i’ll prove you’re not at shit as you think you are, and i’m going to make you realize that if it’s the last thing i do JUST TO PROVE A FUCKING POINT.” but mellower.
then there’s isala (real name tarasyl. isala literally means ‘to lust’ and is a joke she took as her name after being exiled from her clan for becoming an abomination) who romances thom! they’re really fun. isala is an abomination (bonded with the spirit of remorse, who was not that when she was initially possessed) and most of the companions take that EXPLOSIVELY badly when it’s revealed just post - haven’s destruction. but blackwall — who knows all about second names, about identities, about hiding — doesn’t. it’s so funny, how consistently decent and understanding he is about non-humans, about mages, and aside from a few weird moments that feel real ooc, i just can’t imagine him being anything other than curious. like, this is the woman who’s led them all, who stayed behind and almost died for them...abominations or not, she’s good.
and isala is so, so touched that he trusts her, despite all her secrets. it gives her real insight into blackwall’s lie, and he has insight into hers. she tells him her real name several weeks after sparing him; “i know yours. it seems fair that you should know mine.” nobody else (sans cole, which is obviously different) finds that out during the game, and she only tells varric, sera and dorian at the very end of trespasser because she believes she’s going to die, and she wants some of her friends to know who she is.
also i have another elf i wanna make eventually and i think she’ll probs romance sera? i dunno about her name yet she but shes gonna be Tricksy
