(no subject)

[faithstarved]

NATIVE APPLICATION

PLAYER

Name: Varis
Age: 30
Contact: humanspectre
Other Characters: Velanna (failedfirst)
Interests: Well, I have Velanna on one side of things, yay dalish, boo-hiss chantry, so Andra I'm creating more or less in contrast to that. I want to play with having a character of faith despite the shit lot she's been cast in life, and I think it'll be fun to have her come up against the Dalish because fuck those guys. Also having someone firmly against the abolishment of Circles and whatnot.

CHARACTER

Name: Andra Riveris
Canon/OC: Dragon Age OC
Journal: faithstarved
Race: Elf
Nationality: Ferelden
Occupation: Rogue / street performer / Inquisition scout
Age: 26

History
Andra was born to a city elf in the Denerim alienage. Her father was the servant of a foreign dignitary who was visiting from Antiva, and was gone before Andra was ever born. Unmarried and after struggling with it for two years Andra's mother took her and attempted to leave to find a new life when Andra was two. Her mother was unfortunately killed in an altercation with humans outside of Denerim, and she was returned to the Alienage.

She was taken in by a family that had just had a child of their own but couldn't bear to see a child left abandoned. She was raised in a religious household, with a strong faith in the Maker. Tragically her adopted family, save her little sister, were killed during the Blight. Deciding it was no longer safe in Denerim, Andra packed up her sister and what few things they had, and convinced a group of performers who were in the area for the Hero of Ferelden's coronation to take her and her sister with them when they left. She'd always had a knack for dancing, and she learned many other skills while traveling with the performance troupe. Viaggiare Passeri, as they were called, was Antivan-originated so many of them doubled as bards and thieves, and she learned how to do both these things.

Eventually, after a few years on the road, Andra's sister decided she didn't enjoy the performer's life, and settled down in Rivain, while Andra continued on. Traveling from city to city somehow felt more like home to her than the alienage ever had. As luck would have it, Andra's troupe had the misfortune of landing in Kirkwall just before the mage uprising. A handful of members of the troupe were mages, and despite the fact that they all had leave by their Circles to be present when the chaos broke they were targeted. As a result several of them were killed, including Luca, their leader, who was not a mage himself but protecting his people from the templars.

Andra and a dozen others escaped, and what was left of the troupe became more of a small mercenary group, taking petty theft jobs and whatever else to get by. In this time Andra was saddled with the role of leader, and feeling that the troupe no longer should be called what they were under the original leader, she renamed them the Surviving Sparrows, a bit of a nod to their original name. Eventually they were tapped by the Inquisition. Andra had her reservations, due to her faith and the Inquisition's apparent opposition to the Chantry, but the presence of the Left and Right hands of the Divine eased her mind enough to agree to the contract, and she and her small group that she'd somehow ended up leading became Inquisition scouts and soldiers.

Personality

Andra is a vibrant young woman who throws herself into everything she does with the mindset that today could be her last day. She has lost family and friends to the Blight and the War, but rather than letting it ruin her she lets that loss fuel her drive forward. She lives for the loved ones lost, and she's warm towards most she meets. Her charisma is the reason she's become the leader of her small company, a position she takes seriously because she's determined not to lose any more of her people.

Despite the warmth there is pain beneath, though she often tries to hide it with dark humor and redirection. She'd prefer to keep people at a slight emotional distance, and even her Sparrows don't know entirely what she's thinking at all times. She likes to claim that it gives her an air of mystery, and it's something she has to live up to given the company's Antivan origins, but that is like many things, a joke to her.

She is a woman of strong faith, although that might not be directly apparent in her day-to-day. She's grown up around thieves and whores, so she swears, drinks, and flirts relatively openly. If she's faced with a mage however she obviously grows uncomfortable, and she holds her own prejudices that have been driven into her by the Chantry sisters who were kind to her as a child. She will regularly offer thanks to the Maker or Andraste, and she can recite several canticles by heart. She might also offer wisdom taught by the Chant to someone who seems lost, if she feels like that won't be immediately shrugged off.

She is somewhat contradictory in her identify as an elf, she both embraces and pushes it away, often hiding her ears beneath her hair or disguising herself to look less "elvish." Though she will go to the mat against anyone who calls her a knife-ear. She is also protective of others, and won't sit by if she hears others being insulted strictly by the shape of their ears. Dalish, however, are another story. She is somewhat prejudiced, and while many city elves look at them in awe, she almost feels pity for them, because they turn against the Maker and his light and as a result have been driven nearly to extinction.

Opinions & Affiliations

Andra is pro-Chantry, although never exactly affiliated. Despite the persecution elves face, she was brought up to never blame the Chantry or the Maker for those things, but rather the people. She has a healthy mistrust of mages due to the events in Kirkwall as well as the uprisings, and she believes the Chantry knows what's best for them. She's also mistrustful of Dalish, due to being scorned by them in the past and she feels they cling too fiercely to old grudges.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths-
Andra is a Bard, so she has learned all the skills associated with that classification, lockpicking, pickpocketing, fighting dirty, subterfuge and deftness. She is quick and flexible, due to her training within the performance troupe, her professional face is that of a dancer and acrobat, and she's performed with fire as well as juggling knives and other dangerous objects. In battle she often uses short swords but is also proficient with a bow.

She can blend in with her surroundings fairly well, and enjoys the freedom that being an elf and largely ignored often times brings her, though she's also learned how to make herself look less "elfish" to get in the places where an elf would stand out.

Her little band of performers and criminals is another strength she draws from, there is only a few of them left and they are often scattered now with Inquisition work, but they are still a team of varying talents she brings to the table.

Weaknesses-
She's a rogue, so brute force is not her forte, and in direct confrontation if she thinks she can't get the upper-hand she'll likely back off.

She's an elf, and can get a little belligerent if people point that out to her, especially negatively. On the flip she isn't entirely proud of her heritage either and doesn't think much about hiding her ears or disguising her features.

Her prejudices are somewhat of a blind spot for her, and unfamiliar mages make her uncomfortable. They could be the nicest mage in the world, but she still might be watching for them to burst into demons at any second. It takes a lot for her to trust a mage.

She's not very good at reading or writing. She's largely self-taught, so her letters tend to be fraught with mistakes and she usually has to ask someone else to re-read missives so she is sure she's understanding them correctly. Her official Inquisition reports as a result end up including a lot of drawings to more clearly make her point.

Inventory

- Inquisition-branded Leather armor
- two short swords
- at least eight daggers
- long bow and quiver of arrows
- satchel of poisons, antidotes, and healing poultices all carefully labeled with pictograms.
- lockpicks
- lute
- casual clothing
- fire sticks and lightable poi, for the performer life
- a wooden pendant with a relief of Andraste etched into the wood, well-worn.

Motivation

Initially it was because the pay is good and she was desperate to get regular work for her people without sacrificing too much integrity, but now she does truly believe they are doing the Maker's work.

SAMPLES

Samples 1

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