Warden Commander || Champion of Kirkwall || Herald of Andraste
Ilsramel Cousland
A sweet and sunkissed boy, born into a castle built out of –maybe– too much loyalty and nobility to prepare him for what was waiting to happen. He never truly abandons his love for stories, heroes and arts, but, as struggles and responsibility catch up to him, he wonders if he's any good a hero himself, and wonders how many more mistakes he can do before he dooms Thedas with them.
He falls all over heels for Zevran, learns how to be a bard from Leliana, makes his best friend king. The stain of cheating his way out dying the wardens' death by accepting Morrigan's ritual follows him to the North –to Antiva first and then Rivain–, where he hides his sorrows with songs and by offering people who have nothing else to lose a chance with the Wardens.
Claire Hawke
Talented at hiding yes, not in shadows but behind masks of laughter, play and sarcasm. Not many know what sorts of guilts and sorrows lingers in the flurry of her smiles, what fears and demons she conceals behind flirts, vanity and a flair for dangerous things. What hides between the disarming charm of the Hanged Man's starlette? A mage, a family-killer, a liar, a fraud, a greedy, unstable young woman that doesn't know when to quit. Or a fiery heart, loving, burning, devoted, beating as fast and hard as a hummingbird's, pumping life in a dragon's rib cage?
She runs from Kirkwall with her Grey Warden brother, with her free, free and beautiful Fenris –he chose to come with her, Maker, he helped the mages, for her–, with Varric's hand too tight in hers, with a broken friendship on her heart as Anders keeps to the shadows and doesn't speak. Magic never betrayed her as much as it did that day.
Catherina Hammond
Second born to a noble Fereldan family, entrusted to be raised a proud templar, until her older brother dies and suddenly nothing quite fits anymore. Duty thickens her blood, but she is a soldier in all the places that are meant for diplomacy, a stubborn stallion where her throne is painted with the smarts and temper of a mabari. She carries her discomfort as she is made Herald, as she is made Inquisitor, as, once Corypheus is defeated, she is tasked to carry the hopes of so many, when the only thing she knows is war.
Once it's over, once she is no longer key to a door she never understood, she retires. Not answering to anyone –be it her family's name, her lieutenant's orders, her people's needs– is new and raw and scary. It's a country house with her husband. It's Divine Victoria's plan to built together a new order of Seekers –a place for templars to discover themselves anew. It's Cole visiting more and more, helping raising the bunnies. It's Dorian talking her ears off from the far far North. It's a new duty she can get behind.
[picrew]