-0- Applicaiton (Draft)
User Name/Nick: Rei
User LJ: magdaleina
AIM/IM: SchmooeyFoo
E-mail: weirdophreak17@yahoo.com
Other Characters: Morgan Adams gimmethemap, the Marquis de Sade impure_tale, Mozenrath mightymorbid, Rose Tyler love_dont_roam
Character Name: Sten of the Beresaad
Series: Dragon Age: Origins
Age: 37
From When?: After the game, with the assumptions made (based on the player choices) that his Approval of the main character (mc) was at 100 %, the mc was female, and did not die in the final battle with the Archdemon.
Inmate/Warden: Warden - Sten was sent to Ferelden to learn what the Darkspawn threat truly was. In joining with the Grey Wardens to defeat the Archdemon and drive the Darkspawn back, he found answers he considered sufficient to bring to his homeland. As a Warden his deal with the Admiral is unusual but a necessary step to take, as I will be assuming that for whatever reason, he did not make it back to Seheron (his home country), and when offered the chance to return to life for services rendered, he saw this as a means to complete his mission. However, the task itself will be surprisingly daunting for the warrior, as it is the place of a soldier to do battle, not to teach. Therefore, he will carry out his duties more as a guard for his Inmate, initially, halting and correcting any poor behavior (possibly with brute force), and he will find other people on the Barge that he deems as "teachers" and attempt to foist his Inmate off on them for re-education. This does not mean he will have nothing to offer to an Inmate -- he is responsible, level-headed and rarely angered. His superior strength makes him difficult to ruffle in physical confrontation and adept at neutralizing a threat with ease. In his own way, he is quite wise and he can radiate that. Once he understands it is his calling to teach his Inmate, he will have much that he can impart to them.
Item: The Qunari Prayers for the Dead book -- a gift from the leader of his party in the game -- if he reads passages from it in the game, it will resurrect party members (and if this is acceptable I'd like for this effect to remain while he's out in ports -- it will cut out the middle man and he will not have to petition the Admiral if he does not choose to. People who die in the game suffer a similar death toll already -- they have corresponding injuries to whatever killed them).
Abilities/Powers: Sten, given his impressive height and build and formal training, is an impressive and powerful fighter, both in hand-to-hand combat, and in armed combat. He is able to use his greatsword, Asala, with heightened speed and dexterity, and has been shown to be able to physically overpower multiple assailants of average and above-average size.
Personality: Sten is Qunari, raised among Qunari and therefore he ascribes himself to the full teachings and the authority of the Qun -- the philosophy/religion of his people, described in the wiki as "violently evangelical", which proscribes a role and duty for everyone and everything in society in both the sacred and secular realms. As a soldier, what this means for Sten to the casual onlooker is that he is highly disciplined, stoic, and strong. He has high opinions regarding honor and duty that he never strays from. This covers a wide range of behavior, however:
Sten refers to his mission and makes mention of himself as an antaam, what he calls "the eyes, hands, and mouth" of the Qunari, the means by which others may learn of outside nations, and this may be said of many of his race that are seen outside of their occupied lands. Though they are nonviolent unless provoked, commonly barter with the native people, and otherwise involve themselves peacefully, they are not doing these things to establish trade relations so much as size up potential competition, learn their habits, their strengths and weaknesses. These are pre-emptive tactics, and naturally the people that are counted within this order are regarded as wise and capable of sound and objective critical thinking -- for a Qunari. What this essentially means for Sten is that he, himself, is quite observant and mostly able to simply watch people and gain some understanding of them without the need for incessant questioning. He will view the Barge as a similar experience for the antaam, at least at first. He does seem open to learning (and is shown to admire anyone who is likewise willing to learn), though in the sight of practices that he feels are counter to the ways of the Qun, he is less tolerant and more given to say so. He does seem to lack tact in certain situations, though, for instance telling a recently widowed lady "The man you love has died. It seems you could have chosen better."
All of this being said, Sten is not preachy -- and that can be said of most Qunari. They believe there is only one right way to live, and that is through the Qun. That all people of all races will eventually be governed by it is an inevitability and not a matter for philosophical debate. Sten will never present his views as anything other than fact, rather than ideas in opposition to another person's. The subject of religion, however, is also only one of two in which Sten might be seen as somewhat disrespectful. He mocks most aspects of the human religion found in Ferelden, particularly those elements that seem to defy common sense to him. This will usually come about in some sort of snide comment or another, uttered to no one in particular (usually). Seeing divine power in action does not appear to phase him, either. There is awesome power in many things, and day by day he encounters new forms of it. However, this does not inspire him to think that it is this power which created and governs all things.
The other subject that ruffles his feathers is that of magic and magic users. In his world, mages have a particularly strong connection with an alternate dimension, known as The Fade -- a place people believe they go to when they dream, which is likewise filled with spirits both fearsome and benign. A mage, because of their heightened link to the Fade, is always at risk of being possessed by a malicious spirit (called demons by humans) and becoming an abomination. For this reason, the humans (and indentured elves) maintain a strict and oppressive control over known mages through their church, called the Chantry -- which views mages not as a protectorate group so much as an eventual fire they will have to put out, and they deny these people their freedom and their anonymity and -- in some extreme cases, their humanity and their soul. The Qunari take this oppressiveness several steps further: when one of their own is shown at the young age to have magical potential, they are known as saarebas, or "dangerous thing". They are "defective tools", but still not something they'll waste. Saarebas are literally kept on leashes and guarded by a handler, or arvaarad. If they are caught performing forbidden magic, their tongues are removed to prevent further corruption. What this reflects upon Sten is that he believes all magic is dangerous and unnecessary, and that magic users should be kept under strict control -- any misfortune that befalls them or those that do not properly control them is unavoidable and, frankly, completely deserved. Sten will not trust any magic users on the Barge, and if he is assigned one as an Inmate, he will try to keep them on a leash. He will also not fail to find a parallel between the roles of the Wardens and the Inmates here and that of the Arvaarad and the Saarebas back home.
When Sten is given a responsibility, he does not walk away from it, which attributes itself to his insistence in coming here after dying. Duty, to him, is the means by which all beings find harmony and contentment. If they do well and do their best then they need never want for anything or feel shamed. In times of hardship, it will center a person, bring them calm and focus. In many ways, this will be what keeps him sane aboard the Barge, which will not only make no sense to him, but is filled with people from times and places that do not and should not exist. In turn he will also advise not only his Inmate but other denizens of the Barge to likewise focus on their duties when they are at odds with something.
People might initially view Sten as sexist. He views women soldiers and fighters as an anomaly -- something that is impossible, to the point that he questioned the main character and insisted that while she seemed to be a fighter and a woman, the two could never meet, and therefore one of these things could not be true. This does not necessarily mean he believes women are inferior to men -- in fact far from it. It comes from the sense of determinism all of his people share. You are born to one path and that is what you are. It is unchangable. Qunari simply view one gender as being better suited to certain tasks than the other is; even if they show an aptitude for tasks for the opposite gender, it is the duty of their Tamassrans (teachers, who raise and educate ALL Qunari children) to find something appropriate to which they also excel, and pursue that. "Women are priests, artisans, farmers or shopkeepers", Sten says of females in Ferelden. But in his homeland women are actually assigned to all administrative tasks as well (and are in charge of all education as well as the selective breeding programs) -- he will therefore not feel threatened or surprised to see female Wardens or females with leadership qualities. His fixation on everyone having a place and a role also makes him somewhat uneasy around children -- who are raised to adulthood by the Tamassrans in his culture and have no contact with other grown Qunari until a certain age. Upon seeing human children running and playing in a town square, his first reaction was to say "These are much too small. Send them back to the temples for more training." A kid flood would make him ridiculously uncomfortable. The idea of parenthood the way most people see it is a completely foreign concept to him because there ARE no parents. For instance, he would see a character like Morgan and her mother-hen attitudes and attribute it instead to a woman's natural excellence at administration and keeping order, not maternal instinct.
Sten does have some softer qualities, but he only seems to reveal them to people he trusts (or he's caught at it when nobody is watching). He displays a frustration at how different Ferelden is to his homeland -- not because he wishes the people and geography to conform for him so much that he is, in short, homesick. He misses his own language, his food, his climate, etc. He has a sense of humor, and actually makes jokes quite often; a lot of people just don't understand when he's joking, and he responds favorably when people catch on. This is just one way that people have made him feel less homesick, by showing they at least somewhat understand him. He does find some other comforts in Ferelden -- at least once he reveals (when he trusts the main character enough) that he finds the food there interesting. Cookies will have been one thing he planned to miss when he returned home. He also has an odd fondness for animals -- he bonds with the main character's mabari war hound, as a fellow warrior, and is caught by another party member playing with a kitten in one of the towns they stop in. He brushed aside this moment of uncharacteristic tenderness by explaining he was teaching it to kill.
Finally, all Qunari are given an item that signifies their role in society, and the item is regarded as an extension of themselves, even their soul. For soldiers, it is their weapon. Sten's sword, Asala (which is the Qunari word for "soul"), is of great importance to him in terms of his identity and his honor among his people. A Qunari that loses their item is disgraced and no longer party of their society. A soldier that loses his weapon may be hunted and killed. For this reason, he tends to treat every weapon with respect, though he handles no other, and is shown to be especially testy when others underestimate their worth. When his own sword was lost in battle, its loss caused him to panic and murder a family of farmers that tried to help him. Its eventual recovery by the main character all but cemented his full trust and respect in that person.
The Barge is going to be one enormous bout of culture shock for him. It exists beyond all times, is peopled with beings of every shape and size -- from places that do not exist, of races that do not exist, etc etc yeah. This is going to blow his mind a little bit and he will, in order to remain sane, have to try to observe and come to his own conclusions about what he is seeing. He will eventually conclude that the Barge is some pinpointed area within the Fade, hence its constant changing and disconnect from reality. All the advanced technology, he will take notes on. He is not the best trained to replicate anything -- it's not his place to, but he will try his best to take down relevant information in the hopes that it will be useful to the Ashkaari and the Tamassrans when he returns home.
History: The Sten came up in the same manner as his kind are known to -- raised by the Tamassrans, given his sword Asala, selected for excellence as a soldier and elevated to a position of weight and importance. In his adulthood, the Arishok asked a question: "What is the Blight?" To answer it, he sent a unit of highly trained and distinguished Qunari vanguard into the nation of Ferelden to investigate. Among others of their people, their importance was plain -- a Qunari born without horns was not disfigured, but rather singled out for greatness within their rank, and all the men in this group, the Sten included, were such.
They encountered the beings from the underground known as the Darkspawn -- twisted, infected monsters that were perversions of most sentient lifeforms on the surface. Their flesh and blood would drive a sane person mad and slowly or swiftly kill them -- whatever their strength. From the Deep Roads -- ancient caverns and roadways constructed by the dwarves, overtaken ages ago -- a Blight is so named when the hordes of the Darkspawn leave the shadows and begin to move in organized groups against the lands above. Though a situation of such dire importance had reached all the way to the islands of Par Vollen, the people of Ferelden were largely skeptical -- the last blight had been centuries before. They knew only legends of the terror that it was, and of the Grey Wardens, said to be the great warriors and tactitioners that were the key to ending a blight.
The overall refusal by the local people to believe another Blight was indeed happening caused Sten and his companions to conclude that the threat had been perhaps little more than a rumor, carried far.
Then the Darkspawn attacked. Sten saw the others in his unit cut down, and he was soon overpowered, himself. He woke on a farm days later, far from the battle near Lake Calenhaad. His sword was no longer on his person -- a grave loss for any Qunari warrior, as to lose their weapon was to lose their soul and their place in society. He interrogated the family of farmers that had found him and brought him to their home to nurse him back to health. They insisted they did not discover a sword with him. He panicked, and in a blind rage murdered every last one of them with his bare hands, including the farmer's children.
Wracked with the guilt of what he had done, he permitted himself to be captured by a group of soldiers that passed through, who took him to Lothering, where he was caged to await either starvation or eventual slaughter by the Darkspawn. He remained there willingly, meditating upon his state, ignoring the passerby for the most part, for close to twenty days (thought it might have been thirty; he wasn't counting), when a group of travelers found his cage -- their leader identifying herself as a Grey Warden. He answered her questions, perplexed at her seeming willingness to see him free -- not necessarily so that he might aid her against the Blight (which would have been his preferred death), but because she simply wished him free, regardless of what he would do with it. He chose to accompany her, despite his initial disblief that she could do battle with the Blight, as a woman. His skepticism was met with constant challenge, as she patiently addressed his questions and concerns, asking a ridiculous many herself. He admired her willingness to learn but was in many ways unwilling to open himself to discussion about his own people.
Eventually, he revealed to her the full reason for his crime: the loss of his sword. Rather than revile him for his overreaction, she promised to find it for him, and while he did not believe her at first, it was not long before Asala was delivered to his hands, by her. He marveled at her resourcefulness and determination, insisting she must have been an Ashkaari to find a single and certain sword in a nation at war.
His trust in the Grey Warden constantly found reasons to strengthen -- she attempted to understand his views rather than simply argue with a voice of dissension, she wished to learn, she gave him gifts and accepted him as one of her own. Though her constant detours and the desire to help literally every peasant that stopped them grated on his nerves, but she was often able to reveal her reasoning as sound to him. When their quest took a sharp turn from pursuing the Archdemon commanding the Darkspawn, to seeking the ashes of a dead religious prophet, he stopped her and demanded to know when she intended to face the Archdemon and slay it. She begged his patience and his trust, and at that moment he admitted that he trusted her with his life -- which was not what he considered to be at stake at that moment.
His devotion remained unwavering from that point. When the Grey Warden was captured to stand trial over a crime for which she'd been unjustly accused, he was among the two willing to go and rescue her. When debates for the throne of Ferelden took the attention of the Grey Warden and her party, and she was called to defend a final decision that was left to her to make, he stood as her champion. Ultimately, he saw her to the Archdemon, as promised. When the final task did not kill her, and the Blight came to an end, he bid farewell to her and began the long and lonely journey back to the island of Seheron, his birthplace.
The ship carrying him from Ferelden was stricken by a storm, however, and in the end he did not complete his journey. Here, he encountered the Admiral, with whom he bartered his services for a chance to return to life in order to complete his mission.
Sample Journal Entry: I have examined and observed these journals. I am duly impressed by the level of technology and also the depth of laziness that must come of its regular use. It would not surprise me if I were to learn that no one simply speaks face to face any longer.
But this needs a different name.
Too often in this language, where there are names for all things and a means to create new words, a word that means one thing is attached to something different. This is needlessly confusing.
Sample RP: Sten had to duck his head to enter the library, as part of his full examination of the ship. As with his stop up on the main deck, this was just yet another example of the impossibility of this place. It was not that there were so many books inside -- and there were; the chamber was a veritable labyrinth of the printed word -- but rather that the hallway outside defied its reality. He could step back out and see, within a few steps' reach, doors leading into other cabins where really, there should simply have been more library on the other side of the wall.
It was the same mystery that was his cabin. He had been warned that his residence would resemble a familiar place of rest. The way that he had been told of it, part of him had expected his quarters back in Seheron -- perhaps as a reminder of his ultimate goal here. What he had instead was the empty encampment where he slept nights alongside the Grey Wardens and their other companions -- of course none of them were present. There were the tents, a fire built but never burning all the way down, but there were no Grey Wardens. No Mabari war hound. No dwarves, nor gollums, nor Antivan assassins, nor Chantry bards or Apostates. It was as though they were just as dead as his brethren, despite knowing all were back in Ferelden and moving on with their lives.
The Library was a different kind of lonely. He passed a row of books, and he was painfully aware of the fact that there was a difference between what his eyes could see when he looked directly at them and when he merely glanced. It made his skin crawl to stand in a room filled with only books and yet feel as though he was looked upon by many, all of whom would quickly turn their gaze away the second he caught them.
He circled back toward the door and returned to the hallway.
Special Notes: Dragon Age: Origins can differ based upon choices you make with the main character -- from their personal choices, to their race, to their gender and class, to the conversations they have and how you choose to steer them. Sten's history, therefore, is based upon certain assumptions made (as there is no strict canon origin for the main character) -- namely that the Grey Warden was female and that she had gained his full approval by the end of the game and completed his side quest.
Also as mentioned above with his item, I'd like for the book to still have the ability to resurrect people in ports, and his Inmate when he finds need to make use of it. I would maintain its usual properties from the game: it has to "refresh" after being used once, and people resurrected from death will still suffer a death toll -- just a different kind, with probably more severe injuries rather than just sickness. A person whose throat was slit, for instance, would wake up feeling like someone with significant strength punched them in the throat. People who died from multiple injuries would keep only one -- so a broken bone might result, a concussion, etc etc. Not just things that can be rested, but things that require medical attention.
User LJ: magdaleina
AIM/IM: SchmooeyFoo
E-mail: weirdophreak17@yahoo.com
Other Characters: Morgan Adams gimmethemap, the Marquis de Sade impure_tale, Mozenrath mightymorbid, Rose Tyler love_dont_roam
Character Name: Sten of the Beresaad
Series: Dragon Age: Origins
Age: 37
From When?: After the game, with the assumptions made (based on the player choices) that his Approval of the main character (mc) was at 100 %, the mc was female, and did not die in the final battle with the Archdemon.
Inmate/Warden: Warden - Sten was sent to Ferelden to learn what the Darkspawn threat truly was. In joining with the Grey Wardens to defeat the Archdemon and drive the Darkspawn back, he found answers he considered sufficient to bring to his homeland. As a Warden his deal with the Admiral is unusual but a necessary step to take, as I will be assuming that for whatever reason, he did not make it back to Seheron (his home country), and when offered the chance to return to life for services rendered, he saw this as a means to complete his mission. However, the task itself will be surprisingly daunting for the warrior, as it is the place of a soldier to do battle, not to teach. Therefore, he will carry out his duties more as a guard for his Inmate, initially, halting and correcting any poor behavior (possibly with brute force), and he will find other people on the Barge that he deems as "teachers" and attempt to foist his Inmate off on them for re-education. This does not mean he will have nothing to offer to an Inmate -- he is responsible, level-headed and rarely angered. His superior strength makes him difficult to ruffle in physical confrontation and adept at neutralizing a threat with ease. In his own way, he is quite wise and he can radiate that. Once he understands it is his calling to teach his Inmate, he will have much that he can impart to them.
Item: The Qunari Prayers for the Dead book -- a gift from the leader of his party in the game -- if he reads passages from it in the game, it will resurrect party members (and if this is acceptable I'd like for this effect to remain while he's out in ports -- it will cut out the middle man and he will not have to petition the Admiral if he does not choose to. People who die in the game suffer a similar death toll already -- they have corresponding injuries to whatever killed them).
Abilities/Powers: Sten, given his impressive height and build and formal training, is an impressive and powerful fighter, both in hand-to-hand combat, and in armed combat. He is able to use his greatsword, Asala, with heightened speed and dexterity, and has been shown to be able to physically overpower multiple assailants of average and above-average size.
Personality: Sten is Qunari, raised among Qunari and therefore he ascribes himself to the full teachings and the authority of the Qun -- the philosophy/religion of his people, described in the wiki as "violently evangelical", which proscribes a role and duty for everyone and everything in society in both the sacred and secular realms. As a soldier, what this means for Sten to the casual onlooker is that he is highly disciplined, stoic, and strong. He has high opinions regarding honor and duty that he never strays from. This covers a wide range of behavior, however:
Sten refers to his mission and makes mention of himself as an antaam, what he calls "the eyes, hands, and mouth" of the Qunari, the means by which others may learn of outside nations, and this may be said of many of his race that are seen outside of their occupied lands. Though they are nonviolent unless provoked, commonly barter with the native people, and otherwise involve themselves peacefully, they are not doing these things to establish trade relations so much as size up potential competition, learn their habits, their strengths and weaknesses. These are pre-emptive tactics, and naturally the people that are counted within this order are regarded as wise and capable of sound and objective critical thinking -- for a Qunari. What this essentially means for Sten is that he, himself, is quite observant and mostly able to simply watch people and gain some understanding of them without the need for incessant questioning. He will view the Barge as a similar experience for the antaam, at least at first. He does seem open to learning (and is shown to admire anyone who is likewise willing to learn), though in the sight of practices that he feels are counter to the ways of the Qun, he is less tolerant and more given to say so. He does seem to lack tact in certain situations, though, for instance telling a recently widowed lady "The man you love has died. It seems you could have chosen better."
All of this being said, Sten is not preachy -- and that can be said of most Qunari. They believe there is only one right way to live, and that is through the Qun. That all people of all races will eventually be governed by it is an inevitability and not a matter for philosophical debate. Sten will never present his views as anything other than fact, rather than ideas in opposition to another person's. The subject of religion, however, is also only one of two in which Sten might be seen as somewhat disrespectful. He mocks most aspects of the human religion found in Ferelden, particularly those elements that seem to defy common sense to him. This will usually come about in some sort of snide comment or another, uttered to no one in particular (usually). Seeing divine power in action does not appear to phase him, either. There is awesome power in many things, and day by day he encounters new forms of it. However, this does not inspire him to think that it is this power which created and governs all things.
The other subject that ruffles his feathers is that of magic and magic users. In his world, mages have a particularly strong connection with an alternate dimension, known as The Fade -- a place people believe they go to when they dream, which is likewise filled with spirits both fearsome and benign. A mage, because of their heightened link to the Fade, is always at risk of being possessed by a malicious spirit (called demons by humans) and becoming an abomination. For this reason, the humans (and indentured elves) maintain a strict and oppressive control over known mages through their church, called the Chantry -- which views mages not as a protectorate group so much as an eventual fire they will have to put out, and they deny these people their freedom and their anonymity and -- in some extreme cases, their humanity and their soul. The Qunari take this oppressiveness several steps further: when one of their own is shown at the young age to have magical potential, they are known as saarebas, or "dangerous thing". They are "defective tools", but still not something they'll waste. Saarebas are literally kept on leashes and guarded by a handler, or arvaarad. If they are caught performing forbidden magic, their tongues are removed to prevent further corruption. What this reflects upon Sten is that he believes all magic is dangerous and unnecessary, and that magic users should be kept under strict control -- any misfortune that befalls them or those that do not properly control them is unavoidable and, frankly, completely deserved. Sten will not trust any magic users on the Barge, and if he is assigned one as an Inmate, he will try to keep them on a leash. He will also not fail to find a parallel between the roles of the Wardens and the Inmates here and that of the Arvaarad and the Saarebas back home.
When Sten is given a responsibility, he does not walk away from it, which attributes itself to his insistence in coming here after dying. Duty, to him, is the means by which all beings find harmony and contentment. If they do well and do their best then they need never want for anything or feel shamed. In times of hardship, it will center a person, bring them calm and focus. In many ways, this will be what keeps him sane aboard the Barge, which will not only make no sense to him, but is filled with people from times and places that do not and should not exist. In turn he will also advise not only his Inmate but other denizens of the Barge to likewise focus on their duties when they are at odds with something.
People might initially view Sten as sexist. He views women soldiers and fighters as an anomaly -- something that is impossible, to the point that he questioned the main character and insisted that while she seemed to be a fighter and a woman, the two could never meet, and therefore one of these things could not be true. This does not necessarily mean he believes women are inferior to men -- in fact far from it. It comes from the sense of determinism all of his people share. You are born to one path and that is what you are. It is unchangable. Qunari simply view one gender as being better suited to certain tasks than the other is; even if they show an aptitude for tasks for the opposite gender, it is the duty of their Tamassrans (teachers, who raise and educate ALL Qunari children) to find something appropriate to which they also excel, and pursue that. "Women are priests, artisans, farmers or shopkeepers", Sten says of females in Ferelden. But in his homeland women are actually assigned to all administrative tasks as well (and are in charge of all education as well as the selective breeding programs) -- he will therefore not feel threatened or surprised to see female Wardens or females with leadership qualities. His fixation on everyone having a place and a role also makes him somewhat uneasy around children -- who are raised to adulthood by the Tamassrans in his culture and have no contact with other grown Qunari until a certain age. Upon seeing human children running and playing in a town square, his first reaction was to say "These are much too small. Send them back to the temples for more training." A kid flood would make him ridiculously uncomfortable. The idea of parenthood the way most people see it is a completely foreign concept to him because there ARE no parents. For instance, he would see a character like Morgan and her mother-hen attitudes and attribute it instead to a woman's natural excellence at administration and keeping order, not maternal instinct.
Sten does have some softer qualities, but he only seems to reveal them to people he trusts (or he's caught at it when nobody is watching). He displays a frustration at how different Ferelden is to his homeland -- not because he wishes the people and geography to conform for him so much that he is, in short, homesick. He misses his own language, his food, his climate, etc. He has a sense of humor, and actually makes jokes quite often; a lot of people just don't understand when he's joking, and he responds favorably when people catch on. This is just one way that people have made him feel less homesick, by showing they at least somewhat understand him. He does find some other comforts in Ferelden -- at least once he reveals (when he trusts the main character enough) that he finds the food there interesting. Cookies will have been one thing he planned to miss when he returned home. He also has an odd fondness for animals -- he bonds with the main character's mabari war hound, as a fellow warrior, and is caught by another party member playing with a kitten in one of the towns they stop in. He brushed aside this moment of uncharacteristic tenderness by explaining he was teaching it to kill.
Finally, all Qunari are given an item that signifies their role in society, and the item is regarded as an extension of themselves, even their soul. For soldiers, it is their weapon. Sten's sword, Asala (which is the Qunari word for "soul"), is of great importance to him in terms of his identity and his honor among his people. A Qunari that loses their item is disgraced and no longer party of their society. A soldier that loses his weapon may be hunted and killed. For this reason, he tends to treat every weapon with respect, though he handles no other, and is shown to be especially testy when others underestimate their worth. When his own sword was lost in battle, its loss caused him to panic and murder a family of farmers that tried to help him. Its eventual recovery by the main character all but cemented his full trust and respect in that person.
The Barge is going to be one enormous bout of culture shock for him. It exists beyond all times, is peopled with beings of every shape and size -- from places that do not exist, of races that do not exist, etc etc yeah. This is going to blow his mind a little bit and he will, in order to remain sane, have to try to observe and come to his own conclusions about what he is seeing. He will eventually conclude that the Barge is some pinpointed area within the Fade, hence its constant changing and disconnect from reality. All the advanced technology, he will take notes on. He is not the best trained to replicate anything -- it's not his place to, but he will try his best to take down relevant information in the hopes that it will be useful to the Ashkaari and the Tamassrans when he returns home.
History: The Sten came up in the same manner as his kind are known to -- raised by the Tamassrans, given his sword Asala, selected for excellence as a soldier and elevated to a position of weight and importance. In his adulthood, the Arishok asked a question: "What is the Blight?" To answer it, he sent a unit of highly trained and distinguished Qunari vanguard into the nation of Ferelden to investigate. Among others of their people, their importance was plain -- a Qunari born without horns was not disfigured, but rather singled out for greatness within their rank, and all the men in this group, the Sten included, were such.
They encountered the beings from the underground known as the Darkspawn -- twisted, infected monsters that were perversions of most sentient lifeforms on the surface. Their flesh and blood would drive a sane person mad and slowly or swiftly kill them -- whatever their strength. From the Deep Roads -- ancient caverns and roadways constructed by the dwarves, overtaken ages ago -- a Blight is so named when the hordes of the Darkspawn leave the shadows and begin to move in organized groups against the lands above. Though a situation of such dire importance had reached all the way to the islands of Par Vollen, the people of Ferelden were largely skeptical -- the last blight had been centuries before. They knew only legends of the terror that it was, and of the Grey Wardens, said to be the great warriors and tactitioners that were the key to ending a blight.
The overall refusal by the local people to believe another Blight was indeed happening caused Sten and his companions to conclude that the threat had been perhaps little more than a rumor, carried far.
Then the Darkspawn attacked. Sten saw the others in his unit cut down, and he was soon overpowered, himself. He woke on a farm days later, far from the battle near Lake Calenhaad. His sword was no longer on his person -- a grave loss for any Qunari warrior, as to lose their weapon was to lose their soul and their place in society. He interrogated the family of farmers that had found him and brought him to their home to nurse him back to health. They insisted they did not discover a sword with him. He panicked, and in a blind rage murdered every last one of them with his bare hands, including the farmer's children.
Wracked with the guilt of what he had done, he permitted himself to be captured by a group of soldiers that passed through, who took him to Lothering, where he was caged to await either starvation or eventual slaughter by the Darkspawn. He remained there willingly, meditating upon his state, ignoring the passerby for the most part, for close to twenty days (thought it might have been thirty; he wasn't counting), when a group of travelers found his cage -- their leader identifying herself as a Grey Warden. He answered her questions, perplexed at her seeming willingness to see him free -- not necessarily so that he might aid her against the Blight (which would have been his preferred death), but because she simply wished him free, regardless of what he would do with it. He chose to accompany her, despite his initial disblief that she could do battle with the Blight, as a woman. His skepticism was met with constant challenge, as she patiently addressed his questions and concerns, asking a ridiculous many herself. He admired her willingness to learn but was in many ways unwilling to open himself to discussion about his own people.
Eventually, he revealed to her the full reason for his crime: the loss of his sword. Rather than revile him for his overreaction, she promised to find it for him, and while he did not believe her at first, it was not long before Asala was delivered to his hands, by her. He marveled at her resourcefulness and determination, insisting she must have been an Ashkaari to find a single and certain sword in a nation at war.
His trust in the Grey Warden constantly found reasons to strengthen -- she attempted to understand his views rather than simply argue with a voice of dissension, she wished to learn, she gave him gifts and accepted him as one of her own. Though her constant detours and the desire to help literally every peasant that stopped them grated on his nerves, but she was often able to reveal her reasoning as sound to him. When their quest took a sharp turn from pursuing the Archdemon commanding the Darkspawn, to seeking the ashes of a dead religious prophet, he stopped her and demanded to know when she intended to face the Archdemon and slay it. She begged his patience and his trust, and at that moment he admitted that he trusted her with his life -- which was not what he considered to be at stake at that moment.
His devotion remained unwavering from that point. When the Grey Warden was captured to stand trial over a crime for which she'd been unjustly accused, he was among the two willing to go and rescue her. When debates for the throne of Ferelden took the attention of the Grey Warden and her party, and she was called to defend a final decision that was left to her to make, he stood as her champion. Ultimately, he saw her to the Archdemon, as promised. When the final task did not kill her, and the Blight came to an end, he bid farewell to her and began the long and lonely journey back to the island of Seheron, his birthplace.
The ship carrying him from Ferelden was stricken by a storm, however, and in the end he did not complete his journey. Here, he encountered the Admiral, with whom he bartered his services for a chance to return to life in order to complete his mission.
Sample Journal Entry: I have examined and observed these journals. I am duly impressed by the level of technology and also the depth of laziness that must come of its regular use. It would not surprise me if I were to learn that no one simply speaks face to face any longer.
But this needs a different name.
Too often in this language, where there are names for all things and a means to create new words, a word that means one thing is attached to something different. This is needlessly confusing.
Sample RP: Sten had to duck his head to enter the library, as part of his full examination of the ship. As with his stop up on the main deck, this was just yet another example of the impossibility of this place. It was not that there were so many books inside -- and there were; the chamber was a veritable labyrinth of the printed word -- but rather that the hallway outside defied its reality. He could step back out and see, within a few steps' reach, doors leading into other cabins where really, there should simply have been more library on the other side of the wall.
It was the same mystery that was his cabin. He had been warned that his residence would resemble a familiar place of rest. The way that he had been told of it, part of him had expected his quarters back in Seheron -- perhaps as a reminder of his ultimate goal here. What he had instead was the empty encampment where he slept nights alongside the Grey Wardens and their other companions -- of course none of them were present. There were the tents, a fire built but never burning all the way down, but there were no Grey Wardens. No Mabari war hound. No dwarves, nor gollums, nor Antivan assassins, nor Chantry bards or Apostates. It was as though they were just as dead as his brethren, despite knowing all were back in Ferelden and moving on with their lives.
The Library was a different kind of lonely. He passed a row of books, and he was painfully aware of the fact that there was a difference between what his eyes could see when he looked directly at them and when he merely glanced. It made his skin crawl to stand in a room filled with only books and yet feel as though he was looked upon by many, all of whom would quickly turn their gaze away the second he caught them.
He circled back toward the door and returned to the hallway.
Special Notes: Dragon Age: Origins can differ based upon choices you make with the main character -- from their personal choices, to their race, to their gender and class, to the conversations they have and how you choose to steer them. Sten's history, therefore, is based upon certain assumptions made (as there is no strict canon origin for the main character) -- namely that the Grey Warden was female and that she had gained his full approval by the end of the game and completed his side quest.
Also as mentioned above with his item, I'd like for the book to still have the ability to resurrect people in ports, and his Inmate when he finds need to make use of it. I would maintain its usual properties from the game: it has to "refresh" after being used once, and people resurrected from death will still suffer a death toll -- just a different kind, with probably more severe injuries rather than just sickness. A person whose throat was slit, for instance, would wake up feeling like someone with significant strength punched them in the throat. People who died from multiple injuries would keep only one -- so a broken bone might result, a concussion, etc etc. Not just things that can be rested, but things that require medical attention.