ooc: application (mandalus)
→ PLAYER INFORMATION;
Name: Mhairi
Personal Journal: uglytidings
Contact: email: eyelinerkisses[at]hotmail[dot]com||aim&plurk: deathwailart
Timezone: GMT
Current Characters: Also apping a douchebag mchoodface this round
→ CHARACTER INFORMATION;
Character Name: Zevran Arainai
Character Journal: lovesleather
Canon: Dragon Age: Origins
Canon Point: Dragon Age: Origins, post-Archdemon battle:
Zevran is coming from a timeline where he was romanced by an f!Cousland who died saving the Archdemon
Canon Building: None because they would be the most depressing little shitholes.
History:
Early life (of woe)
Dragon Age Origins
His personality recounts parts of Origins, with an emphasis on his reaction and feelings as those are very important to understanding Zevran and how he changes throughout the game, particularly in a romance with the Warden.
Warden's Choices
Connor is dead.
Templars recruited, Circle annulled.
Dalish recruited.
King Bhelen was crowned King of Orzammar.
Anvil of the Void recovered.
Urn of Sacred Ashes undefiled.
Loghain killed at the Landsmeet.
Alistair was made king, Anora queen alongside him.
Personalty:
At a first glance, Zevran appears to be a devilishly handsome Antivan rogue who just so happens to be an elf, oozing charm and charisma where he goes, using it to get the job (that job being assassination) done. But actually engage Zevran in conversation and there is a real person lurking under that, a person that has gone through a great deal of traumatic and almost horrifying experiences that he tries to shrug off, keeping his persona on at all times. Zevran is an outrageous flirt to the Warden and makes similar remarks to the other companions (especially Wynne, that lady has such a magical bosom after all). It never takes Zevran long to reveal his attraction to either gender of Warden (there is an approval loss if the Warden is judgemental of him having slept with men if they are a female, again showing how open minded Zevran is).
If you want to befriend Zevran, it's fairly easy: ask him about his life, flirt with him, accept him for who he is and don't judge his previous life choices or his sexual history. It doesn't take long to get him into the tent (but if the Warden faffs around Zevran will offer) but it's the after that shows more about Zevran - bring up love at first is an approval losing option but saying it's just a one night stand means a bigger drop in approval; Zevran doesn't want something just for a night, he wants something more concrete. If the Warden says it's a one night thing? The romance is over.
When Zevran first appears to kill the Grey Wardens, after (or if) he is spared, he will join the party and slot right in. He is confidant, eager to put his abilities to use to aid the Warden and his skills are assassination. Many party members question Zevran being brought along, casting doubt on how much they can trust him but Zevran doesn't let that slow him down and indeed has a lot of witty banter regarding the subject, deflecting their words easily. Zevran is frank about what he does with his life, about the fact that he is a killer, he doesn't glamourise life as an Antivan Crow (even remarking on how tightly packed in they were as children etc) but he does have a moral compass of sorts, even if it's very slanted in certain directions. He can't picture himself as anything else other than an Antivan Crow.
Zevran isn't a judgemental man, something of a rarity in the Warden's party and most decisions made don't really affect his approval ratings too horrendously but there are exceptions:
If the Warden destroys the Anvil of the Void, he'll object because it's important to the war effort.
If the Warden elects to annul the Circle of Magi, he'll protest because his life was spared by the Warden yet the lives of the Mages are being disregarded.
If the Warden sided with the werewolves and Zevran is asked about the Dalish after he becomes snappy and basically says it's ghoulish to ask him about it. But he wil admit that the werewolves deserved revenge, that the Dalish were weak; if he's around for this quest, he'll plead with the Warden about sparing the Dalish but a Warden can persuade and overrule him.
Zevran was clearly scarred by his childhood experiences; when in the Fade, the Warden sees Zevran undergoing torture on a rack to prove himself and that he can handle pain at the hands of the other Antivan Crows and even once it is revealed that it is the Fade, that he is dreaming, he's too terrified to fight, visibly trembling once it's over. Later though, he tries to play it off, pretending he was having a sex dream instead when the whole party meet up to fight Sloth.
Zevran claims that he doesn't really feel any sort of connection with elves, thinking of himself as Antivan first even though he is born of a Dalish mother and lived with a roaming clan; the Dalish are elves who are trying to reclaim their lost knowledge and artifacts from before the fall of Arlathan. He even has comments about Alienage elves and how easily they have accepted that they're inferior to humans, believing that they should fight for more respect. But Zevran does apparently approve of aiding the elves as seen in his approval gains if the Warden aids them ie saving a city elf named Soris from Arl Howe's dungeon and disapproving if Bann Vaughan (who attacked and raped elves) is freed.
A few things that are important for people to understand Zevran:
1) he is an elf and elves in Thedas are basically treated like second class citizens, low class, looked down upon and forbidden to leave their Alienages unless they want to find the Dalish or find 'jobs' more or less as slaves or low-paid servants. And many elves do end up as slaves. Elves are also sexually exploited a great deal and found to be attractive by humans.
2) he was raised in a whorehouse. From an early age Zevran saw sex and power as a mix, a combination both on a personal level between the whore and client and in general with the classes of people in Thedas - higher-class human and low-class elves. He also remarks to the Warden that love was shown as an illusion too.
Adding to this, Zevran was sold to the Crows (he notes that he fetched rather a high price) at the age of seven. He also states, tellingly, that the Antivan Crows recruit elves as assassins because humans find them attractive. So it's easy to surmise that Zevran has pretty much always been seen or trained to see and use himself as a sexual object and he reaches a point where it props up his self-worth. Because he's been in that sort of environment for so long that there's a part of his subconscious that believes it is the only way he has any value. Zevran can come across as insecure, needy and damaged in his romance and if the Warden romances two characters at once, one of them being Zevran, he will automatically state that he shall happily step aside to let the Warden's other romance continue. There is hinting towards his own feelings running deeper but he hides that because of history and how his last love played out as well as his life in general but staying means that he'll approve because he really does want this relationship to go somewhere, even if he doesn't come out and say it.
Along the way, Zevran can be asked about his times as a Crow and his varying missions and finally he will talk about his very last job which he carried out alongside his fellow Crows Taliesen and Rinna. Rinna was someone Zevran was in love with, something that gave him pause because it went against everything he had been taught as being a Crow. It was in planning the attack that Taliesen told Zevran that Rinna had betrayed them, saying she'd taken a bribe and so when Taliesen killed her, Zevran just laughed, making fun of her pleas and when she said she was innocent and that she loved him. However this all turned out to be a great betrayal was but a lie, his Antivan Crow master uncaring and Zevran left utterly heartbroken and filled with disgust at himself for his actions - when the Warden goes to the Gauntlet on the quest for the Urn of Sacred Ashes, if Zevran is taken he will be asked if he feels regrets any assassinations, focussing on one in particular. Zevran cuts the Guardian off, says that yes, he regrets it and says nothing further - it is quite clear that this is Rinna he is speaking of. Rinna's death and his own involvement left Zevran feeling so utterly adrift that he takes the job to kill the Ferelden Grey Wardens (a task no one else bid for due to their reputation) because he wanted to die at their hands. And then they went and showed him mercy. Something Zevran had not shown Rinna which is part of why he is so loyal to the Warden, for being shown that he is still worthy of things he cannot see in himself.
If the Warden romancing him is high enough in the approval setting, after his final confrontation with Taliesen, he will offer the Warden an earring. The Warden can ask if it's a token of affection and then Zevran, uncharacteristically, gets awkward. And he makes the answer very obvious. There are two ways this can go that say a lot about Zevran: pushing Zevran to say that yes, it's a token of affection means that he won't hand the earring over and his approval drops a little. The Warden can also just refuse, again resulting in an approval drop. This shows that yes, Zevran actually does have real feelings but he isn't used to acting upon them and the last time he loved someone, he was involved in her death. It's after the offering of the earring that Zevran refuses when the Warden asks him if he wants to have sex - and Zevran is always willing, eager and able up to that point. The Warden can ask why, Zevran gets snappy but there's an approval gain which leads to a later conversation when the Warden asks about why he's suddenly changed and this is where Zevran confesses that he is conflicted about his feelings; this is crunch time - the Warden can express love and the romance continues, or the romance can end. If the conversation is good, Zevran is happy to sleep with the Warden again. This ties in with the earring: the Warden is able to suggest that the earring is a proposal and Zevran will agree that if the Warden wishes to see it like that then yes, it's a proposal which is what Zevran wants to see it as because if the Warden backs off, the relationship is over. All this goes to show that Zevran wants a future and a future with someone he loves and who loves him back.
If the Warden makes the ultimate sacrifice by dying at the hands of the Archdemon, the epilogue relating to Zevran states that he never loved again, even with the frequent offers of bed partners he still received. This proves just how greatly the Warden helped to change Zevran, by making him see that he was worthy of love and that he wanted to love and be loved and that they fundamentally changed him in such a way that even with them gone, never to return, that he could not fall back into old habits.
Imported Character History: None - he's not been in Aliunde long enough to make importing mean much.
Powers/Abilities:
✘ lock picking
✘ general sneakery
✘ archery
✘ dual wielding of daggers
✘ trap making
✘ poison-making
✘ his deadly deadly charisma
Weapons/Items:
- 2x daggers
- 1x longbow
- leather armour
- Antivan leather boots
- Dalish gloves
- 2x gold bars (medium, silver)
- 2x silver bars (medium, silver)
→ SAMPLES;
First Person Sample: right here
Third Person Sample: involves Warden backstory, the Warden's player and I are playing from the same playthrough.
There was little else for him to do but explore this new place he had woken in only there had been no Warden to stand over him, arms folded, blood splashed across her breastplate and face as she offered him his live in exchange for his services. Cruel to the end, oh she had been that but there was still the ragged hole that she had ripped right through him when she had taken that final blow from the Archdemon, when he had watched her crumble. Oh Alistair had wanted to be the one to make the sacrifice and Zevran had thought an argument about to break out as he tried to catch his breath, Darkspawn lying at his feet as they stood, swords in hand, debating it. But as if Azmariah would have allowed that. He had watched her run and even now it was burned into his memory and seared into the back of his eyelids, there whenever he closed his eyes.
Azmariah Cousland, the Hero of Ferelden in death.
He shook his head and kept walking, exploring and looking for weapons that might help to put him at ease. He had been armed since childhood, told that danger was everywhere and when he had woken he had not seen his bow and quiver, his daggers or any of the other myriad weapons he had picked up along the way in sight. Neither had there been armour or his boots or gloves, items he mourned the loss of; precious gifts, the few he had been given in his life and now they were gone from him too.
"Come Zevran, she would be the first to scold you for mournful sentiment," he scolded himself, pausing as he tried to pick where to go next. He had never felt this aimlessness before but then again his life had been planned for him since he'd been sold off to the Crows. There had been missions, respite between missions and well, missions. The last year or so of his life had seen him swap the warmth of Antiva and its hustle and bustle of Crows and whores and noise for the ever prescent brown and damp dog stench of Ferelden as he had tramped about since his death seeking had been so rudely interrupted although he could and had forgiven such things. "A drink perhaps," he murmured to himself quietly, rubbing his chin in thought before nodding, hurrying up the steps and inside what was hopefully a tavern. He had been wrong before here with all the strange new wonders but he could adapt and he was happy to and after all, people were all too willing to help a handsome elf when he tilted his chin just so, lowered his voice to a purr and flirted outrageously with them in exchange.
"A drink my good man," he called as he hopped up into one of the high stools, the eyes of a woman upon him already, "My dear, I am new here still, might you be able to tell a poor foreigner what would be the most enticing thing on the menu, excluding yourself if you somehow happen to be on it as well."
The smile and the words rang hollow though, because yes, he'd flirted constantly but now he supposed he was 'free' to do as he wished once more but there was no real joy in it, just escape for a time. But he would go on, here and after should he return to Ferelden and so he allowed himself to angle his body towards the young woman as she ordered for him and scooted herself closer, all coy smiles and looks from under her eyelashes. He'd spent years with this being the full sum of him that he allowed himself to admit, it would not be hard to don that mask once again.