What's Ethial's favorite memory of Dirthamen? And of Falon'Din?
Come ask my character really hard questions about themselves, their past, or their relationships.
How casually you ask.Memories of the Evanuris, of the Twins, are not polished pebbles nestled into a box on a shelf, which one may draw from, cradle in one’s hand, and proclaim, Ah, here it is! This! This is my favorite of the lot! Easier by far to select a favorite drop of water from a soothing pool; a favorite petal from a field of perfect blossoms; a favorite snowflake upon a mountaintop. The memories are a monolith: ages spent basking in Their presence, and to choose but one, to choose a single breath in time -A fleeting memory, a moment he does not mean to remember, yet cannot forget: a ceremony, a ritual - and Falon’Din in attendance, a rare, precious honor, terrifying and humbling all at once - and a glimpse of a smile on Falon’Din’s severe, somber face, as those stormcloud eyes lighted briefly on His other half: when for the merest of seconds His face was suffused with such adoration as to put the room full of priests devoted to Dirthamen’s worship to shame. It was not meant for Ethial to notice - and yet the memory remains; Dirthamen never took it from him, and so he holds it close.But of Dirthamen?Of Dirthamen...He gathers up the water drops, the petals, the snowflakes, clutches them close as though he might carry them all with him, always, yet they slip through his fingers. Even basking in Dirthamen’s very Presence, how was he to know how precious each moment might be? How was he to know there would one day come a final time he might kneel before his Keeper; how was he meant to know he should cling to each second of their final meeting as though his every heartbeat from that moment forward should depend upon remembering every detail?Of Dirthamen, he has no favorite memory; it is all too beloved to set one moment apart. Of Dirthamen he cherishes the pool, the field, the mountaintop: the whole, and nothing less.
Falon’Din, upon being inflicted with one (1) sunburn: “I’M DYING, THIS IS HOW I DIE, DIRTHAMEN MY HEART AND SOUL HAVE I EVER TOLD YOU HOW DEAR YOU ARE TO ME THE PAIN HAS GROWN TOO GREAT TO BEAR I SHALL SOON BELONG TO THE DUST AND GRAVEWORMS”
Falon’Din: I’M DYING I CANNOT LIVE ANY LONGER MY TIME HAS COME, DIRTHAMEN AVENGE ME
(More can be found on @deathsreflection, but please note that is not an RP blog/not open to interaction, and I don’t really want people to follow it. The Falon’Din described in these headcanons is @ofxelvhen‘s specifically.)
Dirthamen was Falon’Din’s spymaster long before he was a god, and remains one to this day, though in a capacity both much reduced and much expanded - he maintains a large hidden enclave of spies and assassins. He uses them almost entirely to his brother’s benefit, particularly as Falon’Din prepares for war: while Dirthamen gathers information in the Fade, he also sends out his spies to seek information in far more mundane ways.
Ethial is somewhat aware of this small, silent army; on occasion the more devout among the enclave will seek out the temple in a sort of pilgrimage, wishing to request his blessing on behalf of their god. What precisely these spies do is something Ethial has never been told, nor is he foolish enough to ask; he knows only that they serve the Keeper of Secrets, and the Path of Shadows falls well within His dominion.
Dirthamen conceals himself, typically seen wearing only a heavy cloak that hides his face from view, leaving only his yellow eyes exposed. He is very small of frame, and tends to mask it by floating whenever he has to make a public appearance. Here is a FFXIV’d version of how he looks beneath the cloak. Concealing himself thus adds to his mystique - but also simply stems from a deep anxiety surrounding people staring at him.
As a mark of his favor Dirthamen removes the cloak in his priests’ presence, so Ethial is aware of what his god truly looks like - or at least what his earthly avatar looks like. (This gesture in no way indicates that Dirthamen is comfortable doing so, but it is an easy way to command adoration.)
...I’ll put a cut; this is getting long.
In terms of personality Dirthamen is quiet, observant - very little escapes his attention, and his memory is vast. That he knows something may be taken for granted, the question is what he will do with that knowledge, and when. What he does not know, he will learn. He is cold. He is detached, seemingly indifferent to much of the world. While this is in part simply because his emotions are very muted and he does not emote often, it is also... entirely true; he’s indifferent and bored by much of the world. Falon’Din alone holds his interest for long.
He should have entered Uthenera centuries ago; he is constantly exhausted. Only Falon’Din holds him in the waking world, as he will not enter Uthenera, not even temporarily, without his twin - he believes they were meant to be one soul, one body, and that in Uthenera they will be joined at last. He refuses to go alone.
On that note he loves Falon’Din with his entire heart, and leaves no room within it for any other. He follows where his wilder twin leads - leading many to assume he is being forced to act on Falon’Din’s behalf against his will, which is far from the truth. Dirthamen may at times be passive, lacking ambition of his own and content to fuel his brother’s, but he is not submissive, and is in fact the only person in perhaps the entire world who can bring Falon’Din to heel. He never would, mind you, but he could.
As little more than children, Dirthamen found a forbidden spell that would allow him to join his mind with Falon’Din’s. It was forbidden because of the inevitability that the casters would drive one another mad - it is not easily severed, nor easily shuttered. The twins may very well be mad, but the spell has little to do with it; their minds are typically in perfect sync, and if they are not, that can easily be mended. The bond itself is technically blood magic, and technically sustained mind control, but they exercise very little influence over one another.
Ethial is something of a divisive point between the twins, one of the few things they fail to agree upon, as Falon’Din cannot understand the time and effort Dirthamen put into grooming his High Priest - time and effort Dirthamen had never exerted elsewhere on anyone or anything else save for him. As a result Falon’Din bears a grudge against Ethial... and while Ethial himself is not entirely aware of the grudge or its causes, he is smart enough to fear the God of the Dead and show absolute respect in his presence.
Dirthamen has power over the mind, an inherent ability to sense and feel a person’s thoughts and memories. This extends to the Fade, where he routinely gathers information by picking up thoughts from other Dreamers and spirits: many believe this allows him to foresee the future; this is not necessarily the case. He is not scrying, simply listening for plans, ideas, and intentions, allowing them to shape the future into something for which he may plan.
He may also manipulate minds directly, though this requires blood magic. Relatedly, Dirthamen uses his priests as a sort of living memory, manipulating their minds in order to place secrets he has uncovered within their memories - they are not directly aware of what they have “learned,” but they know they have been blessed with a secret from their god, and it is enough. In preparation for this, their own memories are erased when they are anointed: it is well-known among the priesthood that only those who can perform this sacrifice are worthy. Those who cannot provide their memories for this ritual must provide their blood instead. This practice of frequently manipulating his priests’ memories directly contributed to their collapse into paranoia once Dirthamen himself was taken from them.
Ethial is somewhat unique in that he was permitted to retain his own memories. He considers this a blessing, a mark of his god’s favor, proof that he was chosen. The truth is that he was raised in such perfect isolation and provided so little worth remembering that his memories are hardly worth erasing in the first place.
Dirthamen is something of a hermit, seldom emerging from his home (which is, it is important to note, not his temple; he does not live there). He primarily communicates with Ethial through the Wisdom shield, or in the Fade, visiting the temple itself only on holy days or to access the memories of his priests. He visits his enclave somewhat more often, though typically only when he is either sending out or recalling many agents at once. Most frequently, though, if he is seen in public, it is either at a gathering of the Evanuris (which even then he may not attend; his presence is almost never actually expected) or, more commonly, at the Vir Dirthara, where he will routinely hold court among scholars, scientists, and students.
He loves the library - and built it, even going so far as to request Fen’Harel’s aid in doing so.
He considers Solas a friend of sorts, and laments the necessary end of their friendship after Mythal’s murder - though not enough to regret the hand he had in it, and not enough to join Solas’s cause. He plays at it for a time prior to Mythal’s death, however, primarily for the sake of gathering information... and in part simply for entertainment.
Dirthamen is mostly non-verbal. He can speak, but it takes effort, and he usually isn’t willing to exert the necessary energy. He’ll speak in sign language with Ethial and the leader of his spies - and to a lesser extent with Falon’Din, though a) words come far easier for Falon’Din and b) their mental link makes words unnecessary.
God I’m sure there’s more
I’ll write more specific things about Ethial’s training later, but here’s all of this for now.
not a hard question but just give me Ethial about Falon'Din. anything, really.
Come ask my character really hard questions about themselves, their past, or their relationships.
What would you have me say?Falon’Din, Guide to the fallen. The Keeper’s Shadow. Fear and love in equal measure: the uncertainty of seeking knowledge; the inevitability of death - and the secrets only the grave may hold, the fickle twists of fortune. What answer would you have me give? Whose name had Ethial screamed as the maddened, wild-eyed temple dwellers bore him down; whose name had been on his tongue before they carved it out?He does not now recall.It must have been one of the gods’ -Or perhaps both?They are the same, in the end. And in the end, neither could aid me.
