Questions 4 and 5 for your ocs! :)
4) What is their favored mount (and why)? Do they like riding at all or do they prefer another mode of transport?
Okay! Let’s go! For my DAO OCs, pretty much all of them prefer walking, except for Gazza, who has learned to ride and very much enjoys it. Velyn has learned to ride some as well, but he hasn’t seen many halla or harts since leaving the Brecilian Forest. Plus he can maneuver in and out of vantage points and hiding places better when on foot.
For DA2, Jaren Hawke is game for anything, but really trusts his own two feet more than anything else. Though if he could ride a mabari into battle, he absolutely would.
DAI is where things get a little more interesting! Jem absolutely loves horse-riding, and learned to ride when he was young, so he’s quite skilled. He loves the feeling of riding hard and fast just for the hell of it. In general, he prefers a Fereldan mount to others because he’s had the most experience with them and has found them to be the most reliable and easiest to train.
Lena knows how to ride because she’s an Orlesian noble with a chevalier for a brother; riding while at ceremonies or presentations was an important part of her lessons growing up, and she’s quite comfortable on a horse. She is, of course, most familiar with Orlesian Coursers.
Trilyn and Saara have never ridden in their lives and have no real desire to, but Floortje can ride quite well, being a noble, and is most used to the Free Marches Ranger.
5) Do they enjoy fighting or are they just doing this to live and/or survive?
For the majority of my OCs, it’s something done to survive, but some of them do enjoy fighting as well. Gundhram, for example, sees fighting as an art and a measure of honor and worthiness. Fighting is a huge part of dwarven culture in Orzammar (with Provings and all) and Gundhram takes pride in that. Tristan, on the other hand, views fighting from a more practical view, but still looks on his own skills with a more subtle kind of pride.
Gazza and Velyn also take the view that there is more to fighting than simply surviving; however, they would both contest the notion that they enjoy the bloodshed itself. Like Gundhram, they see physical combat as an honest way of proving one’s skill, especially one-on-one combat. There’s an honor to it, and they respect that. That being said, the Blight forces a more practical perspective. They all love killing darkspawn though.
Aja and Ila are a little different. Aja dislikes fighting very much at first, and it’s really only something she does to survive. That feeling never completely goes away, but there is a sense of pride in her that bubbles up when she’s executed a tricky maneuver or taken down a gaggle of darkspawn with a single spell. She grows to be a little nervous of that response.
Ila is practical to a fault and learns to fight primarily to survive, but she has a definite preference for her mother’s style of fighting, and when she was young, she learned that style because she thought it was beautiful and she had romantic notions about being able to defend her family or come to someone’s rescue using those skills. It didn’t exactly turn out that way in reality though… And once she grew into adulthood she kept honing her skills so that no one would be able to take her down, pushing all the romantic ideas surrounding the fighting style out of her mind.
DA2: Jaren Hawke loves fighting. It’s exhilarating, especially when it’s just fists. There’s something honest in that kind of fighting that he appreciates, but he’s learned to extend that feeling to his swordsmanship as well. While he doesn’t like the act of killing itself, the fights that lead up to the killing blow are invigorating for him. He absolutely loves sparring with Aveline or Fenris for that reason; it’s the excitement of a fight without the killing at the end.
None of my DAI crew particularly enjoy fighting; Lena is not a fighter at all and hates to be in the middle of a battle. Floortje is a trained fighter and takes that seriously, but she never seeks out a fight, nor does she really ever get lost in any kind of bloodlust or anything like that. Trilyn, like Lena, is no fighter, though he’s had to defend himself in battle a few times, and sometimes he allows his anger to seep into his spell-casting, which can lead to a vicious satisfaction whenever he makes a kill.
Jem takes to fighting because it’s one of the ways in which he knows he can be useful. He’s not particularly excited or disgusted by it, though. He simply does it when it’s needed.
Saara, on the other hand, isn’t particularly given to fighting; she’s been used all her life as a tool for fighting under the Qun, and she’s always wanted to try using her magic for less destructive purposes. She fights to protect the people close to her, and willingly uses her magic for that, but she doesn’t enjoy the act of fighting in war or battle itself. She does like sparring though, especially without her magic.