alt title: why im putting corentin in the torment nexus
this is the second instalment of a 2-part essay series. the first part focused on the events of emmrich's quests, as well as my analysis and critique of his quest line overall. this part will focus specifically on the effects these choices have on the romance, as well as my thoughts on how i'm handling the events for my emmrichmancing rook, corentin.
spoilers ahead! beware that both essays are going to assume you have completed The Sacrifice of Souls and at least one of the follow up quests, Heir to the Dead or Will and Testament. if you have not, i suggest returning to this later and playing it out yourself.
so let's start with the most important question of the day:
what happens to the romance after the sacrifice of souls?
good news! no matter what you pick, the romance can continue on unabated. there's just some long-term details and tone changes that need to be considered.
if you choose to save manfred, be prepared for parenthood. previously, the game had poked at the idea of manfred being emmrich's kid, but now that manfred is talking and progressing at a rapid pace, he is in full "magic-flinging skeleton son" territory, and a romanced rook is going on that journey with emmrich. there is also now a near certainty that rook is going to outlive him—regardless of your personal headcanons, the game assumes that rook is younger than emmrich, and now that he's locked into a mortal lifespan that's something that needs to be considered. especially since, as discussed in part one, emmrich's fears of his own mortality haven't really been addressed at all.
but if you're into co-parenting a rambunctious skeleton with an older, gentlemanly necromancer (which, let's be real, is what most people signed up for when they hit those first flirt options anyway), then this path is probably exactly what you were looking for.
that said, let's talk about the lich romance angle. i was worried when i went down this path that the romance would just immediately end, but it actually doesn't! emmrich certainly wonders if it will—before he undergoes his rites, he has a conversation with rook about how they'll navigate a relationship once he's undead. he says that his senses will change, the way he feels (not about rook, but literally the way he feels) will change, and his body will be different. but they agree they can make it work, so hell yeah.
and if you like the whole "immortal lover" trope, there's some stuff here to like. the lich lords, when you arrive to bear witness to the rites, refer to rook as "challenger of the gods, volkarin's beloved", and emmrich waxes poetic about how even after rook passes, the way he feels about them will be immortalized alongside him. there's also a very sweet kiss before he goes into the rite, and rook has the opportunity to tell him they love him, just in case he doesn't come back out. and afterwards, they have a powerful, immortal skeleton boyfriend, so for the monsterfuckers in the audience.... nice.
so what's the catch?
if you're looking for a fairly unambiguously "happy ending", and if you like the idea of your rook parenting for the foreseeable future, saving manfred is your easy option. on this path, rook and emmrich will have many good years together before he dies. there's absolutely still room for angst here because of emmrich's unresolved issues, but there's definitely a more... domestic, low-key quality to this path.
the lich romance has some pretty glaring obstacles, and that's probably a big part of why a lot of people doing the romance might not pick this. first of all, he wasn't joking, he's literally a skeleton. he can put on a glamour for polite company, but he is a skeleton. realistically, intimacy is going to be complicated by that. on top of that, as a lich for the mourn watch, he's going to have certain duties that he can't get away from. myrna herself asks if they're going to be seeing less of emmrich now that he's a lich, and his answer is basically not yet. at some point, some time in the future, he is going to have to go into the necropolis to begin his lich duties and he won't really be coming back out after. so in a very real way, there is an invisible timer on the relationship where it'll basically be dead in the water unless rook makes some serious lifestyle changes* to accommodate that (assuming they're allowed to). so there's some built in angst with the lich romance that may or may not be your preferred flavour, because his job might end their relationship long before rook's mortal lifespan even becomes a consideration.
*theoretically a mourn watcher rook is going to have an easier time with that particular adjustment, but i'm speaking from my perspective as a LoF rook
decisions, decisions
this is the part where i start talking about my rook, but do us both a favour and keep reading, because believe it or not there is still some emmrich analysis in this part, and it might inspire you to do your own dissection for your rook, too.
so my rook is corentin laidir, and from the moment emmrich said the word "lich" he's been quietly freaking out about it. largely because of the whole "you're going to leave me to be a lich in the necropolis" thing.
i had hoped that resolving emmrich's quest line would give me a very clean solution to the lich freak out issue, and it does! ....if i liked the ending where we save manfred. which i don't. controversial opinion, but i don't actually care about manfred enough for corentin to be his second dad, and from a roleplay perspective i don't think corentin would advocate for bringing manfred back.
but on the other hand, the lich!emmrich option is quite literally corentin's nightmare. what corentin wants, at his core, is for emmrich to accept both manfred's death and his own, whenever it may come. he wants emmrich to understand that running from his own fear of death like that is beneath him. is it honouring death to defy it like that, even (supposedly) in the name of service? corentin would argue no, if he could bring himself to argue with emmrich about anything.
selfishly, corentin is also afraid of what eternity means. sure, emmrich says now that he'll always remember corentin and what they have, but what about a thousand years from now? he's afraid of being replaced, and of becoming insignificant to someone who is so, so important to him right now. in this life.
so the question becomes: do i choose an imperfect, happier ending that maintains emmrich's mortality, or do i throw corentin into an emotional blender?
why i'm putting corentin in the torment nexus
one of the problems of being a creatively-minded person while playing decision-based games is that there comes a time when you have to make a choice:
do i work with the options available to me, or do i pull out my scalpel and gut this thing?
and in moments like this, where neither option is quite right, i have no choice but to get surgical. pick what's interesting, and frankenstein that thing into something that works well enough to carry me to the end.
and the fact of the matter is, the lich path is just more interesting to me in this case because it's an angst machine, and because it makes sense for him to get stuck in it. if i dig into corentin's character, in that exact moment when a decision is made, there's no world where he's going to tell emmrich to give up on his life's work just to bring manfred back and stay mortal. but there is a world where he'd recognize that telling emmrich to give up on his life's work for a guy who loves him who he met five minutes ago is a dick move, and then he'd get completely caught off guard when emmrich says he's going to start preparing for his rites now.
so where does this leave corentin?
here's how i'm handling the situation for the time being, unless something comes along that completely revolutionizes how i feel about all this.
every time emmrich has talked about becoming a lich, it's always been a vague future thing with no real timeline attached. in hindsight, it's pretty clear that the only thing delaying the process was himself—emmrich was uncertain if he was willing to risk the danger of the rites. this uncertainty, however, has left corentin with the impression that even if he was 100% sure and raring to go forward, there would be tests and preparation that needed to happen first, and there would be time before the rites could happen.
so when the question of whether or not to save manfred comes up, corentin does what any good boyfriend would and he tells emmrich that he's dedicated his life to potentially becoming a lich, and he needs to be really certain before throwing that away.
corentin is allergic to being a bummer; even when he's really struggling with something, he feels like he can't talk about it if it'll upset someone else. emmrich is desperately afraid of death, and corentin is desperately afraid of being alone, so he's gotten very good at keeping himself... palatable. so when emmrich responds to his encouragement by saying that he'll start preparing for the rites immediately? well, corentin feels locked into the supportive boyfriend schtick. he feels like he has to be unerringly supportive and not question emmrich's decision, even though it is definitely something that effects him, too.
the whole time emmrich's preparing to become a lich, corentin is thumbs up "you got this babe!"-ing his way through it, all while frantically trying to squash down the feeling of impending doom. because he is 100% completely convinced the other shoe is going to drop at any moment and emmrich is going to go to the Lich Corner Store for cigarettes and never come home.
though it should be noted, the skeleton part of "skeleton boyfriend" is really the least of his concerns. it's just everything around that.
and where does this leave emmrich?
he doesn't know it, but it leaves him with a pretty miserable boyfriend. they're going to have to reckon with corentin's issues at some point.
just like they're going to have to deal with emmrich's. becoming a lich is maybe not 100% a good thing, at least not right this second. he says that he "thought he knew its price," and in keeping with that banter i linked in the first part, he seems unprepared for the reality of losing people. it feels a little like he's rushing into it headfirst before the grief can hit him full force and he can get cold feet.
i'm really curious how he's going to feel if something happens to corentin (or almost happens), and it gives him a reality check on his boyfriend's mortality. losing manfred is already unimaginably hard... is he prepared for what it's going to be like when he loses corentin?
because i don't think he's realized that he isn't, yet.
as much as i like the idea of corentin flirting with emmrich and making that old man flustered, i would be so so so delighted if the "gentleman necromancer" took the lead.
corentin is in his room hyping himself up like "okay, we can do it we can GET that silver fox just DO it!!" thinking he's gotta put the romance in necromancer and sweep this guy off his feet
and he walks up to emmrich and gets one solid flirt in before emmrich's like "ah. alright. age gap moral crisis over, he feels the same. i'll take it from here." and then he pulls all the old school romantic stops out and corentin dissolves into a flustered puddle
realistically im not sure if this would happen but i do think it's very funny to imagine emmrich up late in his office head in his hands like "am i a weird pervert. is that what i am now. is everyone going to think im preying on an innocent young man who would never in a million years look at me" because he spent 22 seconds staring at corentin's bare arms at breakfast that morning
can't get that one banter out of my head. the one that goes:
Lucanis: Why would you want to outlast everything you love? It sounds like a terrible fate.
Emmrich: There's always something to discover in the world. A fresh marvel. A new friend. I think I should never grow tired of that.
because as a friend, maybe you can understand that. you're coming together for a brief time to save the world, and then you'll likely go your separate ways. you might keep in touch! visit, send letters. but ultimately, you will both meet and then part, and that's how all things end eventually.
but as his lover, it was a little rough to hear. sure of course there are flings and those can be great, but if your rook is anything like mine, he was thinking... uh, long-term? and emmrich's plans basically mean that one way or another, the relationship is going to end and emmrich is going to live forever and just move on. you know, new things to discover, new friends to make. and eventually, in the span of eternity, rook'll be... a blip. maybe a particularly notable one if you're lucky, but you'll be (statistically, in thedas) ashes, so it's not like you'll be able to have an opinion about it.
and it gets me thinking, because yes, emmrich is deeply petrified of death, this is established. but he is also deeply affected by the loss of his parents. it seemed odd to me that he'd just... brush that off when lucanis asked about outlasting everything. sure, emmrich might be seeing this whole immortality thing with rose-coloured glasses and is trying to look at the positives, but there's no way he's blind to the fact that if he goes through with this, he is going to be on an endless track of repeatedly watching every "new friend" he makes grow old and die. he knows what that loss feels like.
so the only explanation i can think of is that he finds it more tolerable to spare other people the pain of losing him than he does to spare himself the pain of losing others. maybe he feels he's better equipped to handle that, given his experience and his profession, or maybe he's just so terrified of his own mortality that it seems a fair enough trade to him. but i can't imagine he hasn't thought about it.
57. kisses with trembling lips for a ship of your choice
(prompt from here)
57. kisses with trembling lips
(275 words, emmrich/corentin)
Corentin had been spending a lot more time in Nevarra since the almost-end-of-the-world, and truthfully, he liked it a lot. Admittedly, he spent most of it in the Necropolis itself, but every so often he managed to convince Emmrich to don his glamour and surface with him to explore the cities of the living.
Contrary to the stereotypes touted by the rest of Thedas, Nevarra was lively. The emphasis on death fed right back into a vibrancy in life, and Corentin liked wandering the streets and getting hopelessly lost. He found his new favourite jeweler that way, thank you very much.
But there is one thing he doesn't like about Nevarra.
This time of year, this far south? It's fucking cold.
"I did tell you to wear something warm, my love," Emmrich helpfully tells him as his teeth chatter.
"I am wearing something warm." He even thought it would be sufficient, with the way his thick shirt covers all the way up his neck. There isn't even slits in the arms—he'd be sweating to death in this anywhere else. But the material apparently left something to be desired, since the brisk wind was cutting right through it today.
"Layers, dearest. You need to wear layers," Emmrich tuts, pulling him close. Emmrich isn't warm, he's too undead for that, but his body forms a nice barrier between Corentin and the cutting wind, so there is some relief.
"Eugh," Corentin grumbles. "Next winter we're going back to Rivain."
Emmrich cups his cheeks in both hands, rubbing circles over the tingling, cold skin. "If it pleases you," he grants, pressing a gentle kiss to Corentin's trembling lips.
i really appreciate what most emmrichmancers are doing with the whole goth4goth freaks vibe, but it does make it funny that in a sea of goths, i stand out as the one guy lifting up corentin and going "have we considered giving him a jock?"
i need to write my version of the argument with emmrich before tearstone because when emmrich is like "you're going to die one day and that's really hard for me" corentin's Issues jump out and he's like "yeah obviously i thought you thought of that and we just hadn't talked about the future because you were going to dump me when this is over what do you mean you didn't think about it" and emmrich is like "you thought i was going to dump you but you encouraged me to become a lich anyway???" and corentin goes "uhhhm... yes?"
would love to hear about the emmrook fade jail. hand it over
yeah that one is extremely self explanatory. it's basically a 3-in-1:
emmrich gets some hurt/comfort from the veilguard as he processes that the love of his immortal life is missing, potentially forever (right after an argument, yeowch!).
corentin experiences a couple weeks of total isolation in the fade, which is extremely bad for him actually! whump whump whump
reunion from fade jail when emmrich and co finally find corentin and drag him out of the fade, and then we circle back to hurt/comfort land.
here's a snippet of the admittedly very little i've managed to get down for this one:
In the space of a few moments, Emmrich loses him. One second, he is fighting forward against a crashing wave of power, clawing at the air as he calls for Corentin to remove the dagger from Ghilan'nain's body, and the next, everything has stopped and Corentin is... gone.
They have no time to mourn their losses, to figure out what happened. Bellara is missing, Harding is dead, and Corentin has disappeared into thin air, but Elgar'nan's grief is fierce, and the island is aflame shortly after his sister falls. It's all they can do to retreat, and the boat ride back to the eluvian is eerily silent as what remains of them tries to grapple with what they've lost.
This is usually the part where Corentin would count their victories. He did the same after Weisshaupt—even after everything that had gone wrong there, he had been the only one among them to see the light shining through heavy clouds. "We killed an archdemon," he'd said. "People have fought whole wars and come out the other side with less than that. We can do this."
In hindsight, it was his unshakeable optimism that had kept this group moving. The mood on their return to the Lighthouse was more dour than a funeral, and they gathered in the library wordlessly, ignoring the conspicuously empty seats. Emmrich gaze was cast down, his grip on his staff tighter than usual, waiting for someone to break the silence. It was an honour typically given to Corentin or Bellara.
"Okay." Davrin is the one to finally do it. "Did anyone see what happened to him?"
