Fx Male The story of a Champion and the Herald (Dragon Age)

[Krasnaya]

Dragon Age - The Champion and the Herald​

Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition
Pairing: Female human Champion x male Qunari from the Antaam, turned Herald/Inquisitor​

Quick introduction

I had just returned from a much needed writing hiatus after life hadn't been all too good and spent my free time mostly gaming, returning to the Dragon Age franchise (except for the Veilguard, I don't count it as Dragon Age considering how they massacred my boy) and I have been wanting to do this kind of roleplay for a while. I had been roleplaying a lot of Dragon Age roleplay stories, with a large variety of characters and races. I had been playing against (including romanced) humans, elves and even a dwarf, but I had yet to experience someone playing a good qunari, which is understandable considering how specific and a little outlandish they are, as they are the most original race in most of the fantasy franchises as I've seen. Their culture and their societal structure, how it affects the character, which in my eyes is a perfect way to play a character who comes from such a firm and unforgiving structure and is faced with humanity's chaos in the Free Marches (DA2) and then the disaster that affects the Ferelden as the rift is created.

So I am looking for someone to play a male qunari, with the understanding of the lore from both the race and the world itself, as long as it is rooted in what the games have presented. When I was looking for this kind of pairing in the past, I had some messages from people wanting to play another race for this kind of story or even saying that me wanting to play against a qunari is a big ask, but I'm setting my foot down. It's been probably over a year since I was looking for this kind of pairing, which was unsuccessful, but it does not matter to me if I have to wait until the right partner shows up. This plot has been very important to me and something I've been wanting to do for a while, so I am not worried if I have to wait for a little bit longer until that right writer shows up.

I'll get into some important OOC stuff first before getting into ideas regarding the story.

Expectations for you and me:

The standards I hold for myself are the equal standards I expect from my partner, making sure we are on the same wave length.

Post length and detail: The more, the better. But the length consistently doesn't have to be novella-like, it should be appropriate for each scene. Whenever we are setting up the scene or introducing the character, I will always put more time and effort in painting a picture. I am an artist in real life, nuisance, atmosphere and overall feeling is always what I aim for and I like to see in the roleplay as well. The beauty of roleplaying is that you only need your mind and words to perfectly draw the picture and create the scenes that can be like a movie when reading it back. But I am always happy to include some short back and forth during the scenes of conversation or action. This is, after all, a Dragon Age based roleplay.

Here is the example of my post. I would prefer for you to share your own with me as well, just so I can get a feel for your mind.

OOC communication: I don't expect or need constant chatting, but its good to keep a friendly atmosphere. I am very open-minded and like to share ideas whenever it strikes me, I would always love to know your opinions, ideas, hell even fangirling over our story is something that really fans the flames over my creativity. And also just to keep one another up to date when real life does it's thing, so we're both prepared for delays.

Maturity: I'm gonna be thirty his year. So I would prefer someone closer to my age range or older. I will not discriminate if you're in your early twenties and offer exactly what I asked for. There are gonna be heavy scenes and adult themes, as every good Dragon Age game offers, so I like to explore every aspect of it, especially if romance is going to be involved. More on that later.

Patience and activity: We all want daily posts and without a doubt, we all want to post as much as we can. Sometimes you can have multiple posts from me throughout the day, which happens. Other times it's a post a day. Sometimes it's just once a week. Other times it takes a bit longer because we both have lives and also other roleplays in our queue and not enough time to get to each roleplay in a day. I am perfectly understanding and patient. Communicating is important, though. Just recently I needed a hiatus due to real life problems that has drained my creativity dry and I disappear, but you'll be notified in case things are not doing well. I don't expect someone who's not having the best time to be eager to write as much as this is a great source of escapism. In short: I am patient and I have a life that is more important, and I also understand you are the same, as well. Even writers have breaks from writing their books. Human nature and responsibility. What matters is that we keep each other in the know. Big plus is discord, as I am OOCly active there. When I'm not writing, I don't tend to visit the sites so I don't startle my patient partners awaiting for my return.

Adult themes: This is a Dragon Age roleplay, what else to say? I don't like sugarcoating or censoring anything. Especially when it comes to romance, there's gonna be some steam. For some nuanced themes regarding the adult themes, I'd prefer to talk about it privately, but in general when romances are in question, love slowburn and buildup, hesitancy getting overwhelmed in intimacy and emotion. Especially in the case between a human and a qunari, where the two races have completely different views of love and intimacy, it's an amazing way to explore this.

Canon characters: I like using them, if you don't want to risk butchering some of the canon characters, that is perfectly understandable. I welcome you to make your own versions to fill the story. Meanwhile, I definitely plan on using the canon characters for this roleplay, especially Varric, that I have written before in the past and he's my favorite DA character. I can also play Cassandra and Leliana, as they're playing big returns in the Inquisition timeline. I find these three to be the most important characters for this story that I plan to use. As for Anders, he wasn't really that much of my favorite, but we can make a new mage character who will start the uproar in Kirkwall Circle.

The story

Of course, it starts in Kirkwall, somewhat following the game. I don't plan to use some irrelevant storylines that has nothing to do with the substance of our story. It will follow the main questline, the red lyrium as it transitions its importance in the Inquisition and the focus on the qunari threat (as well as the problem with Saarebas and Samson's tragic friendship with a qunari that can open up some problems and doubts for your character regarding the friendship with the humans and how they deal with loss of someone completely different from them) and how my character ends up having the Tome by simple mistake and how it creates this problem within Kirkwall. And I have some of my own original content I added tied to my character, so bear with me!

I'll start from the easiest part - your character. Member of the Antaam, the Qun is all he knows and he is in Kirkwall because of a simple reason that got far too complicated and gets to see the human life in disarray. He is assigned to join the cloaked organization of mostly humans, who came to Arishok with the knowledge of where the Tome is. These cloaked people had shown some level or responsibility and favor in Arishok's eyes to even giving them a time of day... And this is where things get tangled and complicated. In true Dragon Age style.

This group of cloaked people are the Serpents. If you want to look at it very simply, it's like a mix of Antivan Crows and Red Jenny, but their history is complex. This assassination and borderline Robin Hood-esque organization is where broken people without a place seek to find justice and purpose. A lot of orphans who never found a home, veterans forgotten by the system, elves from alienages and even children with nowhere to go and no families to care for them, found a community and a way to earn good money and a place to lay their head. Serpents are a network of people who serve as spies, eyes and ears, keeping their head low an even their leader is just like a phantom, a boogie man for those who are a threat to minorities. They come from every corner of Thedas where the "little people" as Sera would put it, crave organization and purpose.

Not all of them are just rogues, as they seek connections, one of them being Le Fantome or just Phantoms, a very notorious Orlesian (masked, of course) pirate organization who are connected with the Serpents. They operate as one - Phantoms being the sea-faring nightmare, while Serpents tread the land. Their targets range from political figures to nobles to pirates to bandits who are a threat to the common-folk. While Phantoms have existed for longer, originating from Orlais, they are somewhat legendary as Orlesians love great exaggerations and tales, while Serpents are secretive and lowkey, as their success lies in the shadow so nobody can see them coming.

And it's with the Phantoms where their story starts, and will be relevant later. They had pillaged one of well-known pirate's ships - which happens to be Isabela's and make a stop at the Kirkwall as there is nowhere safe for them to go during the Blight, the threat of Darkspawn far too great even for these two organizations to deal with. With what they got from their previous raid, the Serpents had taken to Kirkwall everything, while the Phantoms decided to stay at the sea. The Serpents had a lot of infighting due to their previous leader dying under suspicious circumstances who happened to leave everything to one person to lead the organization - that being my character.

Frances holds morals to a T fitting for someone from the organization. Their arrival at Kirkwall was almost like a saving grace for regular people, suffering at the hands of the corrupt and bandits who want to take everything. Her leadership as a Serpent was almost heroic, being an orphan who has been in the organization since she was a child, not knowing who her family was would eventually lead her to finding out that she is basically Hawke - a noble with no family. That would be part of the storyline.

But the story starts as they realize that the problem with the qunari has to do with them, at least, it became their problem after pillaging Isabela's ship.

They had the Tome. Had. Upon their realization that they had the core reason as to why the qunari threat is here, the Tome was gone due to the infighting with the Serpents. A man betrayed them, took the Tome and Maker knows what he plans to do with it (this is up for discussion what this Serpent traitor wants to do with the Tome.) So, Frances decides to stop this mess and goes to Arishok to tell him that they know who has it, but they do not know where is it. However, under the advice of Frances' right-hand man who is familiar with the qunari (replacing Fenris' role basically) advised her to lie to Arishok about their involvement with the Tome for the time being, as he knew that Arishok would kill them... So this lie will follow them until they finally face the Serpent traitor. Dun dun duuun.

So that's where our characters get involved. They are searching for this ex-Serpent who had the Tome, while dealing with Kirkwall mess, leading it all to mage rebellion and Meredith's consumption of red lyrium, and of course, Arishok's patience running short. Your character's personal development happens overtime and in the end, he leaves the qun... Which leads to the Inquisition timeline, of him becoming the Herald.

And Frances? She disappears from Kirkwall after being named the Champion. And that's where I'll end my introduction to this story. But she returns in a very strange way to join the Inquisition. Which I'll get into when time comes! Phantom and Serpents will be relevant.

This took forever to write, but I hope it wasn't too much for you! I wanted to put everything here, so you're aware of all these details before deciding if this interests you or not. I am more than happy to hear any ideas that you may have about this!

 

[Krasnaya]

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