🖊 and Thenasto (TELL ME ABOUT YOUR GODWOKEN TELL ME EVERYTHING MWHAHAHAHA)
So, Thenasto, or Tendon as the shipmates came to knew him aboard the Merryweather, was free elf by the time the Magisters caught him. He was leading a one-elf healing clinic where he sometimes worked for free if people were unable to pay. He accepted trade, food, whatever. That’s where he met the other custom Godwoken of his story, Lady Arne, who was my Husband’s custom character.
As a young elf, he lived in the edge of the Homeland, near a human village where his father was helping the humans with the burials. He literally grew up in a cemetery but it never bothered him. He learned a lot about death, customs, rituals, respect, loss and the Hall of the Echoes was a very interesting thing for him. He also was curious about Source, but he didn’t connect the two yet.
When he was a little older, he had a crush/girlfriend, I don’t how serious it was, but they had a pet squirrel. Only, the squirrel died and he was grieving the poor innocent creature so much, that he somehow brought it back. It was not the same, and eventually not more than a walking (albeit happy) skeleton and the girl was terrified. Of both of them. She screamed and yelled and sent him away. With his broken heart, he ran from home, never to return.
He wandered the forests, silent at first, and then he came to peace with his talents. He vowed never to use these skills as offense, only in self defense, and only if there was nothing else he could do. He was also talented in Hydrosophist spells, so he focused mostly on those. He learned some ice magic, but it was healing that interested him most.
And scholarly stuff. He is a reader and a talented singer. Every night, he would walk the forest and sing to the creatures or the Moon. I know it’s cliche but he really was a pure dumb idiot like that.
So one day, during the New Moon, lizard slavers captured him and it was his voice that saved him. He never stopped singing and didn’t resist. He liked living, even if he wasn’t free. He was immediately put to a different wagon, into a more expensive cage essentially and was sold to the highest bidder. The slavers were paid well for the find.
His first owner was a pleasure garden. He had pretty good life there, the ‘birds’ were respected by the owner, were allowed to refuse clients and most often didn’t even need to perform sexual acts. It was mostly mild things, think courtesan or geisha. They were expensive escorts, not cheap things. It was a prestige to hire a bird and if a client was not behaving they found themselves banned from the garden.
One day, a wealthy human woman came to the garden to buy a new book reader, because her eye sight was failing and her previous one just died. (You know, like you would buy a new e-book reader, I guess?) She quickly chose Thenasto because he spoke more than one language and could sing beautifully.
He continued to have a relatively happy life. He had everything but his freedom. They had fine clothes, free time, were free to leave the mansion and they loved the Lady. The Old Lady was nice, well, as nice as a slave-owner gets, but everyone someone enough owned slaved there.
Thenasto fell in love with a man named Sandor, the cook. The Old Lady allowed them, she said it brought happiness into the ‘big old house’.
But the Old Lady was, well, old and only had relatives that lived in countries where slavery was abolished, and urged her to free her lot, give them wages, but she said she was too old to change now and they’ll be free once she died. All of the relatives squarely refused owning slaves, all but one. So, when she died, everything she had, including all the ‘servants’ in the house, were inherited by her niece, who was the only one not refusing.
Now, the niece was everything but like the Old Lady. She was cruel and selfish. The last year of Thenasto’s slave-life was plain misery. The new lady was keen on showing them what slaves ‘deserved’, whippings were common as verbal abuse and so on. Sandor and Thenasto laid low, but they Lady found out. It led to Thenasto escaping via a literal bloodshed where he killed her, but also lost Sandor.
Since that event he could raise a bloated corpse, one of his starting spells. (Other is decaying touch, also used that night.) He used it only in self defense and was always horrified of it.
He had 3 owners in total, but I’m not sure how long his slave time was actually. He was free by the time the Fog devastated the Homeland and his last hope of seeing his family vanquished.
At that time, he never would’ve thought he will end up with the man he cursed so many times and he would be grateful for meeting him.
(Spelling these all out, I’m now embarrassingly aware how similar some of these elements are to the stories of Fenris and Anders from Dragon Age 2 and Zevran from Origins, but when I conjured it all up, it haven’t played these games yet. Yeah I’m a latecomer.)
So, where did this idea came from? I wanted to play an elf because I was tired of equipping the shapeshifting mask everytime. I chose male, because female elves terrified me personally. I still respect Sebille but hoo boy. She’s a presense, isn’t she? Thenasto sure agrees. Now, I always had a sweet spot for Necromancy since Heroes of Might and Magic III’s Necropolis and my D:OS Source Hunter was a Geomancer/Witchcraft girl, so I was kind of familiar with the playstyle.
Ah, and Thenasto is a well-read one and he craves old stories about Source users. Source Hunters, Arhu, Zandalor, Jahan, Cassandra and Braccus? He knows everything that was written down somewhere. Meeting Jahan, Arhu and Braccus in person was like a dream come true. Or a nightmare, in the latter case. (He personally almost worships my Source Hunter Busdra, even tho official texts claimed it was ‘Roderick and Scarlett’ or whatever, he always believed the ‘Busdra and Blossom’ version was true. That was what the elves taught to him. That was in the memories that he tasted.)
As for the romance? I didn’t even know this game had romance until I accidentally triggered Ifan with the ‘you know, lonely’ dialogue. I was done then and there. In a week I was shipping this boy so hard with Ifan my heart clenched. Because just imagine the possibilities! The back story was born soon and I’m currently 18k into their ‘idiots in love’ fic and half of it wasn’t even written. Or badly. It devolved from a violent climax to a totally tender one and I’m still polishing it to be good enough to share. It’s a quickly escalating thing, really, much like my real falling in love was. ^^
Ifan, as we know, can be in love with the player since the moment they meet on the ship, and I am on board with that. He saw this graceful parrot with his mohawk, soft words and kind soul and went: that’s the one. Thenasto didn’t need much more than a boop on the nose either.
Neither of them was comfortable prodding the other much tho, both thought the other deserved better. Thenasto was not proud of his past as a slave, especially as that kind of slave and well, we know Ifan’s story. It is extra angsty with an elf.)
Lady Arne and the Red Prince (the rest of the party, Hubbo’s characters) were doing their best to make these two idiots realize what they felt before they left Reaper’s coast. They succeeded, bless them.
We finished our game by sharing the source with everyone, but their canon is that Lady Arne became the New Divine in Lucian’s place. This was more or less satisfactory for everyone. Neither Thenasto nor Ifan really ever wanted it, and none of them wanted to outlive or outstrong the other, so they trusted Arne. Turns out, she is much better than Lucian. The only downside was losing Afrit for Ifan.
Thenasto and Ifan went on about the forest rehabilitation project and lived happily ever after. (Or not, but that’s a different story, and I’m still working on that.)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The day Thenasto escaped from slavery, he swore never to fall in love again. After meeting a roguishly handsome mercenary in Fort Joy, the elf is fighting a losing battle.
Ifan headed to Fort Joy in pursuit of a contract. Up until a point everything went according to plan, he even found help in the form of an unlikely trio. The moment he laid eyes upon the elf he was intrigued.
Would you look at that?! Another unfinished work from the queen of procrastination?!
I have 18k words written. I just don’t have the very beginning. But I’ll get there, so I can post the saucy part.
It’s for them. My beloved necro elf. And my beloved graying crossbow man.
Similarities between Fenris (DA2) and Thenasto (D:OS2, my custom character)
Tall elf with very light hair, darkish skin and a bad posture
Ex-slave, freed themselves
Doesn’t like talking about his past as a slave
Resents magic and wishes it was never in his life
Is a terrifying foe on the battlefield
Is mostly barefoot
Dresses ambiguously
Kills magisters for breakfast
Falls for a dark haired mercenary
Once in a relationship he’s in it whole-heartedly
Has no problems with religion itself
There’s wolves involved
Close companions include: one possessed by a demon and (possibly) betrays them, a literal prince, an (ex-)noble drawf too who likes tales, an elf girl who cuts themselves and a pirate captain without a ship
Is far from home and will probably never get home again
