Since people have shared their Inquisitors before... Here is a pic of my Qunari Inquisitor, Zef, in her armor: Spoiler: She likes blue ok And this is her in the formal attire from Wicked Hearts because DAMN she looked fine: Spoiler: She was glad it was military-formal and not dresses And I am currently playing as a Dalish Elf mage lady who is part curiosity, part humor, part mother hen, and all sass. Her name is Nayeli :'D Spoiler: Cute elf lady I realized after about the third cutscene that I didn't like how I did her nose and her lips and I kinda want to make the tattoos silver instead but it's TOO LATE NOW LOL. I really wish the character creation screen didn't have that green lighting though because her lips didn't look NEARLY that bright of a shade of red in the character creation screen so when she came out into the real world it was like WHOA THERE
@raginghearts if your game is completely up to date, you should have access to the Black Emporium once you can get to the War Table, which makes it possible to change a character's face post-CC. I'm pretty sure it came out for all game versions. The lighting in CC isn't actually green, by the way. It is neutral like Bioware claims... but by having a swirling green background, our eyes end up kind of mushing it all together and it seems like the lighting is green. I remember some people saying they put a piece of paper with a cutout for the face up to their screen to neutralize the effect.
@Mercury Ooh, really? I'll have to look that up, because maaaan certain parts of her design are really bugging me XD And huh... I can see that happening, actually. Maybe it's the neutral lighting plus the green background, and then the fact that a decent amount of the game--especially in cutscenes--has sort of warm-ish lighting, that makes it look so vastly different? Either way I kinda like how the lip color ended up so that, at least, was a happy mistake lol. Thanks for the info though!!
Yeah, that's definitely part of it. The lighting in the game is pretty weird in general - some materials have a consistent color no matter the lighting, but some get weird shadows and artefacts in some lighting and look fine in others. It makes making retextures a real headache sometimes. >_< Here's more info on the Black Emporium! While it's considered a DLC for downloading purposes, it's free.
Wow, Nayeli looks a lot like my Razeia Lavellan! Spoiler: Raz She has basically accepted the fact that she is the Underpaid Babysitter of the Continent (though the giant castle helps somewhat. And hey, it's not dripping with Chantry symbols like the last place! Pity about all the Orlesians...)
@Mercury aaaaaaaah thank you for all the help, I'm super excited now because this'll make things SO MUCH BETTER @KarrinBlue :U Daaaaang they look like they could be sisters! Or closely related, anyhow. That is a hilarious coincidence omg. Underpaid Babysitter sisters. XD
Heh, yeah. The thing about Raz is, she does think that there's something divine taking an interest in her life - except she has no idea what. She's pretty sure it's one of the Creators, except they're all locked away by the Dread Wolf. She also has no idea why a Creator would pick her, or if that's entirely a good thing, but she's basically accepted that she's apparently now the Keeper for the world.
Nayeli's not quite sure what's going on with this whole thing and is waiting for more information before she makes an opinion. Could be Andraste, like the humans say, could be one of her own gods, could just be magical shenanigans (*cough demons cough*), could be Fate--all she knows is that something weird that happened and everyone else is running around like chickens with their heads cut off and worrying about the wrong thing, so it's her job to get them all to stop being dumb and help out. And in the mean time she's going to take care of this merry band of misfits because she likes them. |P
Raz has a constant low-level irritation of 'I worship elven gods, it is literally tattooed on my face, stop pressuring me to convert' going on. She doesn't see why, since she respects that everyone else has their own faith, they don't accept that a glowing hand thing is going to overwrite her own culture. She hasn't protested the Herald thing so much for Josie's sake (presenting a united front is important, and it does give her some power) but she is very grateful to have an actual not-overtly-religious title now. And in the meantime, she'll keep every bit of chantry decoration in some box somewhere. Maybe some of them will take the damn hint.
Yeah, that's definitely something Nayeli would probably agree on--questioning why these people are all SO sure it was THEIR god and not one of hers, it feels a lot like trying to push their religion onto her--but on that same token, she doesn't feel like she can say for absolute certain that it isn't Andraste. So she's just going along with it for now. I should mention that in her actual canon that my moirail and I have decided on, Nayeli isn't actually the Inquisitor. Instead, that title goes to her son, Daho. And so after Daho and crew reach Skyhold, Nayeli shows up (with A ravel in tow) and goes "WE HEARD YOU NEEDED HELP, ALSO HOW ARE YOU TREATING MY SON. DAHO HAVE YOU BEEN EATING ENOUGH. INTRODUCE ME TO YOUR FRIENDS. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON A TEVINTER MAN." And then she mothers the shit out of everyone |P
Aaaaaaaand here we have Nayeli 2.0! Spoiler I like the silver tattoos a lot better, mostly because it's not so much gold everywhere, and man I like this hair for her a lot better. Not sure why I didn't see this the first time through? But it fits so much betterrrrrr.
Ok, so lemme tell you all about my Warden/Inquisitor. Berit Surana was taken from a city elf family at a very young age, young enough that she doesn't really remember them. Her childhood in the circle was largely peacefully uneventful, except for how she absolutely internalized that the way to get by in life (without Templar problems) was to be very polite, show no signs of disrespect or anger ever, and ask as many questions as possible so that you know what's going on. Also at one point she and some of her friends got drunk and gave her a face tattoo they found in a book under the impression it was vallaslin. Who knows, it might be really old archaic vallaslin! But it's certainly not used any more, and she didn't have the Dalish ritual surrounding it. She didn't really like Jowan, but was unwilling to rock the boat by telling him they weren't friends. Still, when she learned about his plan, she cracked and told Enchanter Irving immediately. She still doesn't feel very bad about that - especially since Jowan turned out to be a blood mage - but she did feel very betrayed by Irving not supporting her, such that she had to go with Duncan. Being outside the Circle was exhilarating - her first act as a free woman was to mouth of to THE ACTUAL KING - but mostly terrifying - immediately after that she had to to hyperventilate. She was rude to people who were elf-racist to her, but otherwise, overwhelmed by stress and everything going on, retreated even more into her politely inquisitive persona. Her reaction to Alistair was mostly confusion. Her reaction to Morrigan... was an immediate, intense, head-over-heels crush. She had it so bad that she was willing to overlook the fact that her morals clashed with Morrigan's more often than not, and in conversation with her Berit pretty much agreed with everything she said. When Loghain betrayed Cailan and everything went to hell .. it didn't change much of what Berit felt, because her world had already completely changed, but now she was also worried about having to be in charge. She started to find Alistair's sarcasm and evasiveness more annoying than cute, but felt bad enough about his situation that she was still perfectly nice to him. In Lothering she recruited Sten and Leliana; Sten mystified her, but she was glad to have another fighter along, and Leliana.. well, she made Berit re-think her stance on the Chantry. Since leaving - especially since meeting Morrigan, who was an apostate and not (too) evil and awful - Berit had been feeling pretty negatively towards not only the Circle and the Chantry, but towards Andrasteanism (?) in general. Leliana genuinely cared so much, and had such conviction. Her version of Andraste was something Berit could get behind. (Plus she was cute, but Berit was still distracted by her huge Morrigan problem.) I'm typing this on my phone and I'm worried I'll delete the whole thing, so I'm gonna split it into parts like a nerd.
In Redcliffe, Berit was not entirely surprised to learn about Alistair's parentage, but sort of empathized with how much he didn't want the responsibility of being King. She was INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTED to find #fuckingjowan at the heart of everything again, but let him live, because.. she just isn't very good at killing people who she's not in the middle of a fight with. Then she let Isolde sacrifice herself - Berit tended to let people do what they had decided to do, no matter what a bad choice it might be - and went into the fade to save Connor. After the clusterfuck that was Redcliffe, she had, I think, her first episode of "run away into the woods and turn that internal screaming into external screaming." I don't remember .. if I did Nature of the Beast or Broken Circle first? In Nature of the Beast she brokered a peace; in Broken Circle she sided with the mages, but had to kill Wynne because she brought Morrigan and picked the wrong dialogue option. THAT was the most upsetting experience of Berit's life - she grew up with Wynne, after all, and she spent a lot of the fight running and dodging and apologizing and trying to make it work. Which it didn't. ): She recruited Zevran, and liked him, but didn't really get him? Although she did get him presents. :P After a while Berit realized that her thing for Morrigan wasn't going to work out. As the starry-eyes giddiness waned slightly, she figured out that even if Morrigan *was* interested in her, any relationship between them would be kind of a wreck. That.. didn't make her get over it 100%. She still made puppy dog eyes at Morrigan all the time and did whatever she asked. But she did start dating Leliana!
With Leliana, Berit was a perfect romantic. It was really sweet and adorable! Unfortunately, it was as much of a facade as regular polite-and-inquisitive Berit. It was way too easy to figure out how Leliana wanted her to act and be that person, instead of dealing with the somewhat difficult problem of who she actually was. Still - whether or not Leliana's backstory allowed her to see through this, or whether or not the fact of her having eyes allowed her to see that Berit was still carrying a huge torch for Morrigan - they got really close. Berit continually reassured Leliana that she was a good person, told her to make non-violent choices, etc. It was super validating, if kind of scary, for Berit to have someone trust her enough to listen to her advice on who to become. So she cared a lot about .. preserving? restoring? Leliana's innocence, even if sometimes she worried that she was being unrealistic about the world (what did she know? She grew up in a Circle! and so on.) In Orzammar she recruited Oghren, RELUCTANTLY, and went into the Deep Roads, WHICH WERE HORRIFYING AND AWFUL. She killed Branka and destroyed the anvil, because, to be honest, Berit wasn't a very pragmatic person. Could it help them win the war? Yes, but it was a hard and ugly choice and so she didn't want to make it. She put Harrowmont on the throne more or less because he talked to her first - that kept happening, with her, that she would listen to the first person who gave her clear instructions. Berit killed Flemeth (although it took me a few tries to find her because I kept spacing out and bringing Morrigan), restored Sten's sword, and tried to reunite Oghren with his girlfriend but gave up when she said she didn't want to. She took Leliana to see Marjolaine and didn't kill her; she took Alistair to see Goldanna and he ended up un-hardened. Which.. now that I know more about it I might have picked differently, but it does make RP sense that Berit couldn't make herself pick the harsher-seeming option. They got the ashes and restored Eamon, and Berit did not become a blood mage. She hated Loghain, especially after seeing what he'd done in the Alienage, but she kept trusting Anora even when maybe she didn't have reason to. (Alistair REALLY didn't want to be king! So she was leaning hard on any other potential candidate.) Eamon she absolutely did not like. She tried to broker a marriage between Anora and Alistair, but gave up when Alistair said he didn't want to, because, as you may have gleaned, she was something of a pushover.
At the Landsmeet she killed Loghain.. or maybe Alistair killed Loghain? Yeah, I think she dueled him and then Alistair killed him, because when she made one last attempt at a joint marriage - all the competency of Anora with all the legitimacy of Alistair's bloodline, without him having to do anything! Come on! - Anora was way not into it. So she just put Anora on the throne by herself. Riordan told her and Alistair about the archdemon and Berit was SORT OF HORRIFIED THAT NO ONE HAD TOLD HER THIS EARLIER. She heard Morrigan out, tried to talk to Alistair, and got.. absolutely the most hilarious and character-appropriate dialogue option a Dragon Age game has ever presented to me: "I'd do it myself if I could!" (Hopefully Leliana did not overhear that.) But Alistair wasn't convinced after she told him the whole demon god baby thing, and I went on with it. But then outside the gates I had to say goodbye to my dog, and just.. started bawling IRL. Pet related pathos is my weakness, apparently - I absolutely would have gone through with the Ultimate Sacrifice were it not for the dialogue choice >It's not safe for you to come/>I guess this is goodbye, boy. So I reloaded a save, which I'd been trying not to do, and retconned that Berit had had some kind of fade vision about saying goodbye to her dog and had realized she couldn't deal with either her or Alistair dying. I went through the conversation with Alistair again and this time didn't tell him the whole story, and he agreed to the Dark Ritual. I also teared up at Morrigan's goodbye, but that I could deal with. After an enormous amount of fighting, dying, and swearing at my computer for dying in the middle of the arch-demon fight, I eventually beat it. By letting everyone else die and soloing it with Berit + allies + trebuchets. Hooray?
There was much rejoicing! Berit reunited with her dog, had an awkward reunion with Anora (who I'm sure would not have minded very much if Berit or Alistair had stopped being a problem), got called Kadan by Sten (which was genuinely touching for her), and made plans to travel (as far from the Wardens, as fast as possible) with Zevran and Leliana. Happy endings! Getting to know Zevran better, which I was sad about missing during the game! Probable threesomes! But then I realized I also wanted her to be my Inquisitor (because I had no other character ideas, haha.) So her relatively idyllic post-Blight life was interrupted. As I played through the fist parts of Inquisition, I back-engineered a history for the last ten-ish years (Berit was 20-ish during Origins): UNFORTUNATELY, SAVING THE WORLD DOESN'T MAGICALLY FIX YOUR EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS. After a few weeks of blissful not caring about what people thought, Berit went back to being a neurotically repressed disaster. She felt more and more trapped - by people knowing her, by Leliana knowing her, by being in a relationship, by the threat of the Wardens making her be a Warden again (bad) or getting real curious about how she and Alistair survived (worse). Then I realized the Keep worldstate I'd imported was not, in fact, Berit's, and featured a dead Hero of Ferelden. And @luckydicekirby suggested Berit had faked her death. Not at the arch-demon fight- everyone knew she survived that. It wasn't premeditated, or particularly complicated. She just found herself in a situation (I have yet to work out exactly what - falling off a cliff or something? :P) where everyone thought she was dead, and saw freedom, and.. ran for it.
Berit Surana disappeared into as much obscurity as an elven apostate could manage, and wandered. Eventually she joined up with Clan Lavellan. She told the Keeper about her, uh, darkspawn blood problem, and thus her backstory, but the rest of the Clan didn't know. After all, there aren't photographs in Thedas, so she wasn't as recognizable as she might be. This is where Berit first told the bare-faced lie that no, she was NAMED after the Hero of Ferelden. (It patently doesn't work timeline-wise, but she didn't want to change her name and she's not actually a very good liar!) (Berit gets much funnier when you look at her from literally any outside perspective, and realize that for all her frantic repression, she is not very good at hiding what she thinks.) In her absence, Leliana became the Left Hand, and character-developed into Inquisition!Leliana. Berit was never QUITE comfortable among the Dalish - she grew up not going outside on a regular basis, after all, and she kind of dislikes halla - but she relaxed into that life, and could have had at least a reasonably happy ending there, if a bittersweet one. Then Anders ruined everything as usual. :P Berit by this point was fairly solidly anti-Circle (she asked Anora to free the Fereldan circle, but it didn't go anywhere), but was furious at what happened in Kirkwall and upset and scared about the war. And, as the war started to affect Clan Lavellan, the reminder that life outside the Dalish still existed made her feel guilty about leaving Leliana. Plus, she had a vague, unlikely notion that maybe she could make a difference at the Conclave. So she headed there. And the beginning of Inquisition happened. At first Leliana was unsure if it was her - she had different hair and a lot more scars and a visibly broken nose - but when she realized who it was she was angry. There were a lot of whisper-shouted conversations. For reasons that are again vague because I haven't worked them out yet (no one would believe it if the Hero of Ferelden apparently came back from the dead? Elven apostate Berit Surana, who consorted with assassins and Qunari and barbarian witches, was not a politically popular figure? Berit's irrational insistence?) it stayed a secret. I have to go, but I'll wrap this up when I come back. Sorry for running so long! X)
