Name: Anna
Age: 35
Contact: layonmacduff, annalizabeth#7549
Other Characters: Mohinder Suresh
Interests: Nightmares.


Name: Vandelin Emith (last name slightly changed from before)
Canon/OC: Native OC
Journal: misdirection_hex
Race: Elf
Nationality: Marcher (Hasmal)
Occupation: Enchanter
Division: Diplomacy
Mage or Not: Mage
Age: 36

History

* Born in the city of Hasmal, to conservative religious parents who shed few tears at the templars' arrival when his magic manifested. Vandelin, on the other hand, fought, kicked and bit until one templar stuffed him into a burlap sack to carry him out of the city.

* Despite his antipathy toward his new home, Vandelin thrived as a student of magic--partly because of a clerical error that had resulted in his beloved younger cousin Myr being placed in the same Circle. The authorities had not realized they were related, but quickly realized that it would be useful to have the threat of separation available to ensure their good behavior.

* Nearly failed his Harrowing at the age of nineteen, thanks to the arrogance that led him to run out the clock chatting with a pride demon because he was sure he knew what was going on. The experience was only temporarily humbling.

* Eventually became a popular instructor of entropy studies, and used his influence as both a teacher and a member of the Libertarian fraternity to advance the mage freedom cause within Hasmal's Circle.

* When the official rebellion reached them, the conflict was compounded by the significant influence of the Loyalists--Myr prominent among them. The small contingent of Libertarians led the uprising, and Vandelin found himself on the front lines.

* His study of entropy paid off, rendering the defending forces unconscious, but the sleep spell that he had cast reacted disastrously with a fear spell cast by his apprentice, and Myr was caught in the crossfire and blinded.

* Eventually came to rest in the Hinterlands with the bulk of the rebel forces. Rather than join up with the official mage army, of whose intentions he was suspicious, he fell in with a group of guerrilla apostates in the Witchwood.

* As the group died off from frostbite, infection and templar raids, Vandelin began to rethink the wisdom of throwing his life away for no gain. He escaped the group, joined the Kirkwall branch of the Inquisition, reunited there with his justifiably-pissed cousin, and served for some time as an attaché to the then-head of Diplomacy.

* Returned to Hasmal with Myr to reach out to their connections in the alienage for the Inquisition's benefit, and discovered while there that Vandelin's father and Myr's mother had been complicit in having Myr's father killed.

* After exposing their parents' crimes and ousting them both from the alienage, Van and Myr remained behind, first to reconnect with family, and then to defend Hasmal in vain against Corypheus.

* Spent the next few years attempting to provide some protection to the residents of the alienage, while also tutoring his newly-manifested mage nephew in the absence of a Circle to educate him.

* Determined to do more to end the occupation of Hasmal, Vandelin resolved to rejoin Riftwatch to help the war effort.

Personality

Vandelin is really good at compartmentalizing. He's not a sadist, or even a really callous sort of guy, but if there are people standing between him and something he wants, it's very easy for him to label them as the expendable 'other' and justify getting them out of the way by whatever means are most expedient. (To a point, anyway. He has only ever killed in self-defense or defense of his home, and not frequently.)

He's a control freak who fears vulnerability more than anything, and deals with this by maintaining a disarming facade of unflappable pleasantness. He thinks it's useful to be underestimated, but the strategic benefits of that always chafe at his ego--and it is a rather prodigious ego. As far as he's concerned, demonic possession is a thing that happens to other people. He certainly knows better than to let it happen to him. This isn't to say he wants to get involved in blood magic, or any such thing--mostly because he doesn't think it's anything but a crutch for hacks too lazy to learn how to get the same results with legal magic--but he's not really one to take precautions in his interactions with the Fade. He's fiercely independent, and recklessly insistent on rejecting help of any kind from any source.

He's very fond of teaching and mentoring (and giving unsolicited advice), and was a bit younger than most when he was given permission to start taking on apprentices. Part of it is that he likes being looked-up to and seeming to have all the answers, but his care and concern for his students are very much genuine. He's an idealist about education, if nothing else.

Despite his determination to accomplish things alone, and his willingness to mow people down (mostly figuratively) if they get in his way, Vandelin isn't an antisocial person and doesn't think of himself as one. He means well, in a roundabout way, and thinks of himself as a good guy. He just has a lot fewer compunctions about fighting dirty than some others do.

Opinions & Affiliations

Mages: Vandelin is still devoted to the cause of mage freedom, but he has too many ties to the loyalist movement and has found himself playing demon's advocate at too many rebel gatherings to consider himself a hardliner anymore. His priorities are to ensure that mages can maintain family ties and can police their own without Chantry control.

Templars: Still doesn't trust a single one of them. His cousin-in-law Simon isn't a templar anymore and therefore doesn't count.

Elves: Feels less out-of-touch with his own people after having spent the last several years living in Hasmal's alienage again, but city elves who didn't spend 25 years in an ivory tower still think he's a pretentious little shit, and he still doesn't know how to interact with the Dalish. He's fine. It's fine.

The Chantry: The opiate of the masses and the root of oppression, yada yada, but it's important to his family and so he knows how to keep his mouth shut about it even if he isn't always willing to.

The Qun: Always thought it was creepy bullshit reminiscent of the Circle's worst authoritarian abuses, still does.

Tevinter: Had more complex and nuanced feelings about it before Corypheus took over his hometown, but hahaha not anymore.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths

-- Full-fledged enchanter, with a well-practiced specialty in hexes and other forms of entropic crowd control.

-- Pretty skilled at persuasion and negotiation.

-- Well-read, and relatively well-traveled from his previous tenure with the Inquisition.

-- Good liar, excellent poker face.

Weaknesses

-- Maybe a little too quick to bust out the horrifying eldritch death-magic without remorse.

-- Plays with fire a lot; liable to get burned. (By which I mean pride demons are probably taking bets on which one of them will eventually get to ride him around like an abomination go-cart.)

-- Turns everything into a power struggle; will not tell you that he's keeping a mental scoreboard in every conversation or what the rules are.

-- Tiny, frail, will not survive the winter, etc.

Inventory

-- Simple homespun clothing, designed for warmer weather than Kirkwall's.
-- A staff, in the caduceus model, optimized for frost magic.
-- Basic writing supplies for letters and stuff.
-- A bottle of homemade fish sauce.

Motivation

Vandelin has been focused on his family for the past several years, but now that they're in as stable a position as they can be under the circumstances, he thinks he can do more good for them and everyone else as a member of Riftwatch.


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