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bathymetric) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
unknownseas2020-04-19 01:58 am
bathymetric) wrote in unknownseas2020-04-19 01:58 am
Entry tags:
WEEK 3
Well, the tail end of Week 2 could have gone better. That's the first thing to note.
The second thing is... hang on, should it be Week 3 yet? You've all gone to sleep (or... not, in the case of anyone who doesn't), but when you wake up (and you do all wake up), the calendar and clock on your device informs you that it's Sunday. In-character, all characters explicitly have absolutely no memory of Saturday.
Your sense of time isn't the only thing that's changed - a new branch of the facility has opened and become active overnight, giving you new resources and places to investigate, should you so choose. There's also a new channel on the television, though whether it's an improvement over the last one is questionable.
Otherwise, though, things have mostly settled into normalcy again, or at close to normal as you can find in this place. How long that peace will last, though... that's becoming increasingly uncertain, moving forward.
SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
[ ooc: Welcome to Week 3! Turn in last week's AC over here, and regains remain over this way! And for the sake of consistency, Angel's office hours remain over yonder! ]
The second thing is... hang on, should it be Week 3 yet? You've all gone to sleep (or... not, in the case of anyone who doesn't), but when you wake up (and you do all wake up), the calendar and clock on your device informs you that it's Sunday. In-character, all characters explicitly have absolutely no memory of Saturday.
Your sense of time isn't the only thing that's changed - a new branch of the facility has opened and become active overnight, giving you new resources and places to investigate, should you so choose. There's also a new channel on the television, though whether it's an improvement over the last one is questionable.
Otherwise, though, things have mostly settled into normalcy again, or at close to normal as you can find in this place. How long that peace will last, though... that's becoming increasingly uncertain, moving forward.
SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
[ ooc: Welcome to Week 3! Turn in last week's AC over here, and regains remain over this way! And for the sake of consistency, Angel's office hours remain over yonder! ]
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[She grins, wrinkling her nose at him just a little, then leads the way into the dining room. There's a quick stop to get two cups before she plops down unceremoniously into a chair.]
So...where do we start? With how the Tevinter Imperium used to worship dragons as their gods a few thousand years ago, how the Dragon Age got it's name or how about the story of the original Witch of the Wilds, who's said to be able to shapeshift into a massive, fire-breathing dragon?
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Sounds like a likable protagonist in that last one. Let's go with that.
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She can be, depending on your point of view. [She takes a sip of her wine and settles back into her chair.] Back hundreds of years ago there was a Bann by the name of Connobar Elstan. As the legend goes he took a wife in a beautiful young woman called Flemeth of Highever. Now Flemeth had a secret talent for magic, something she'd managed to hide very well for most of her life. If she hadn't she would have been disinherited and sent to a Circle of Magi years before.
So Connobar and Flemeth are said to have been happily married for several years except one day a young poet arrives. His name was Osen and he was said to be so charming and his poetry so beautiful that he captured the lady Flemeth's heart and the two of them ended up running off together into the Wilds to escape Connobar's wrath.
[She takes another sip of wine.] There will be a dragon in here, I promise.
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(Highever--that's interesting, actually. Everhold was once the seat of a kingdom in the Highlands of Orsterra. How much overlap might there be, across their worlds? It's not part of the story, though, so he keeps it to himself and nurses his wine.)
He raises a hand when she stops herself.]
That's fine. Every story has its setting. But if you don't mind answering a question before you go on...
[He taps his fingers along his cup.]
If she had a talent for magic, why would she be disinherited? Where I'm from, gifted students travel all the way to Atlasdam for proper schooling--if they've got the money. Think even Princess Mary attends classes there.
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Anyway! Yes, other places in Thedas, especially Fereldan where I'm from, if a child starts showing signs of magic they're taken by Templars to whatever Circle is closest to them and that's where they stay for the rest of their lives, being trained by other mages and watched over by the Templars. Highborn children lose all claim to any titles or lands their families might own.
If Flemeth had been discovered to have magic she would have been taken to a Circle without question.
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[A nod and then a gesture.]
So Lady Flemeth and her silver-tongued beau run into the wilds to escape her husband's jealousy.
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They fled into the Wilds in the south of Ferelden and asked for sanctuary from the Chasind Wilders there. For quick context, the Chasind are tribes of people who choose to live outside of the usual Ferelden society. They typically keep to themselves, commune with spirits, all that. The Chantry does not look at them favorably but they've always been lovely every they've passed through my bog, very fair traders- and I'm getting off topic again.
[Ahem, time for more wine.]
The Chasind welcomed them with open arms and there they stayed for a good long while, happy as the day is long. That is until word was sent that Conobar has contracted a wasting sickness and was dying. His final wish, all he wanted in the world as he lay growing weaker by the day, was to see his beautiful wife's face one last time. Flemeth and Osen talked long into the night, weighing their options and the potential dangers of the trip and seeing Conobar again. In the end they made the difficult choice to grant him his dying wish.
Tragically the entire thing was a ruse to get them to come back and once they entered the Bann's estate Conobar himself fell on them and murdered poor Osen in cold blood. Flemeth, after witnessing the death of her beloved, was taken hold of and thrown into the highest tower of the castle with the intent of leaving her to live out the rest of her days in isolation.
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[He maybe sounds a little bitter about that.]
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Locked in that tower, Flemeth had nothing but time and her own company. She felt her way through a whole gambit of emotions: grief for her murdered lover. Despair for her lost freedom. Fear for what was to come next for her. But mostly she was filled with a burning, calculated anger.
In her isolation she crafted a spell to summon a spirit into the physical world and pleaded with it to take revenge on her husband. The spirit granted her the vengeance she wanted but not in the way she'd hoped. It possessed her. Where I'm from when a spirit possesses a mage it changes them, turns them into what's called an abomination. [Another sip of wine and she shifts in her chair, crosses her legs at the ankle. Her least favorite part of the story.]
As my favorite version of the legend goes, Flemeth had a specialty with her magic. She was a shapeshifter and able to take the form of several animals at her discretion. When the spirit took possession of her Flemeth changed into something no recorded mage had ever done before, growing to a hundred times her size with scales and wings with white hot fire pouring from her mouth. She destroyed the tower and then the rest of the castle, killing Conobar and every one of his men, before fleeing back to the Korcari Wilds for the next one hundred years.
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[In the end, he's more interested in Flemeth herself than in the dragon she became.]
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Flemeth spent a century plotting, seducing and stealing away Chasind men to sire her daughters. They were the "Witches of the Wilds", beautiful but also very powerful and deadly. They led an entire army of the Chasind against other pre-Fereldan tribes and were ultimately defeated by a man named Cormac. The witches were burned, all was well, blah blah.
But that wasn't the end of Flemeth or her future daughters.
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I have a guess where this is going. To a bog, maybe?
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Besides, if I was a daughter of the original Witch of the Wilds I somehow doubt I would've been raised by dwarves. [Trivia: Zerinda has seven parents. They are all dwarves.]
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[Mr. Leaps-Before-He-Looks, that's him.]
So what did happen to Flemeth? Sounds like even if those first witches were killed, she survived to birth more.
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There's no clear cut stories about what happened to her after that battle but she does show up in many other tales. "Dane and the Werewolf", the Dalish elves have dozens of them involving her, there's a few about her assisting Calenhad Theirin in uniting Ferelden into one country. A much more recent one is actually about the current king's father, that she had a hand in helping him retake the throne from Orlais abooout... [Math, her foul enemy.] Forty-ish years ago? I've also heard some about the Hero of Ferelden and a Witch of the Wilds but most of them sound like nug shit to me.
It's funny though, in most of the Ferelden legends she's cryptic but ultimately helpful in the end. In any other culture she's much more capricious. She may help you, just not in the way you expect.
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But now I'd love to hear about what other witches you've met.
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