Sixth Iteration App

[magerights]

BASICS

Your name or nickname: Kes
Your year of birth: 1984
A reliable DW account the mods can PM to reach you: magerights
Who you currently play at 6I: No one
Link to your hold comment: Here
Referral: Hawke was super good at enabling!

Character name: Anders
Character type: Fandom
Fandom/Canon: Dragon Age
Character DW journal: magerights
Does this character have previous CR?: No

HISTORY

Anders on the Dragon Age wiki

What is your canon exit point?: Act III, immediately post destruction of the chantry, before Hawke makes a choice.

PERSONALITY OVERVIEW

N/A

PERSONALITY QUESTIONS

What skills does your character bring to the situation?
Anders is a skilled healer despite all the other things he's done that have been terrible or at the very least extremely poorly thought out. Even without his magic he's good at helping people and learning how to use herbalism and other methods to aid people, and he is keenly focused on offering aid to others. He can also be surprisingly empathetic and good humoured overall when he's not caught up in his own problems and can be very supportive and positive to his friends.
On top of this Anders is also stubborn as hell about anything he believes in, and not only because he's got a spirit making him more inflexible at times. This isn't always a good thing admittedly, but it does mean that when Anders is focusing on finding a solution to something important, he'll stop at nothing to find it and doesn't get discouraged easily.

Why did you choose this specific character for 6I, and how do you picture them fitting into the game?
Anders would be interesting to play in this setting as he'd be without his magic, something that has literally shaped his entire life and worldview. His magic and how mages are treated in Thedas was why he left his family, why he was treated as he was in the Circle, and a driving force behind his fight for change in Kirkwall. Anders defines himself as a mage first and foremost and taking that away forces him to find a new drive for himself. On top of that, Hawke and others who know what he has done and what he started makes for an interesting situation as well, as Anders makes it quite clear in canon that he does not expect to live after his choice. He'd say that this is primarily because he doesn't deserve to live but it also means he doesn't have to worry about the consequences of his choice. Having others there means he now has to talk to them about his actions and see what he started and all those other fun conversations he doesn't want to have.
Additionally, having Justice in game but not having his magic makes the situation interesting in other ways that will be fun to explore as Anders will still be driven to address the injustices of the setting but without a clear target he will have to learn to temper and control himself more which can also make for interesting CR opportunities.

How do you imagine your character will survive in 6I, and in what ways will they contribute to the settlement, if any?
Anders will likely try throwing himself into healing again if possible. It will be more challenging for him without his magic but it would give him a chance to learn how to use plants and other parts of the setting and perhaps learn skills from any other characters from more advanced worlds. He'll be the first to admit that he's not as skilled when it comes to hunting or gathering food (and would probably couple it with a rant about how mages are locked up and how was he supposed to learn) but he would know something of survival from his time in the Wardens and with Hawke. It's just something else he'll have to learn how to manage without magic.
In shortage situations, Anders is more likely to prioritise other people over himself, something he would argue is the right thing to do but also links in strongly with his desire to martyr himself, and he doesn't always consider that his behaviour can cause problems in different ways so it would be interesting to have to address that as some point.


How will your character react to...

Being separated, possibly permanently, from loved ones and their previous life, including loss of powers, if applicable?
While being without his magic would be a huge adjustment and problem for Anders, he'd also chafe at the loss of control in his life. It can probably be argued that Anders might have only had tenuous control previously due to Justice, he felt that he had a drive and a goal to focus on that he wouldn't have now. Before he could justify to himself that he and Justice were working towards the same goal and, particularly towards the end of the game, he was less concerned about the times Justice took control and he couldn't remember what happened. In 6I he would be missing that focus and the lack of control over being there and over Justice, as well as the lack of someone or something to rally against would leave him unsettled and at a loss so he might have to consider other options.

Their environment being manipulated, possibly in strange or extraordinary ways, and possibly in ways which restrain them?
Anders has had experiences with strange environments, primarily with the Fade which doesn't follow normal rules in the slightest and is a dreamlike and dangerous place. As a mage he's learned not to accept everything he sees as real because of the risk of it being trickery so he'd be able to employ those skills in certain situations. However some experiences he would have a much harder time rationalising and dealing with. Specifically situations where he's trapped - especially if close spaces are involved - would upset him immensely and he would struggle to deal with them, probably internalising the panic and fear and trying to focus on other matters. Which is how he tends to deal with most situations. Anders tends to focus himself on helping others as much as he can and try to bury his own fears in action, even when that action isn't always entirely helpful.

Being physically and/or mentally manipulated, such as having hallucinations or suddenly possessing special abilities they did not have before?
Anders would hate being manipulated in any form; it is far too close to his time in the Circle and he would immediately try to fight against it as much as he could. He'd also be panicking a great deal about the loss of control but he would try internalising it as much as he could and convert it to anger. Which also comes with a risk for Justice to show up and ruin everything. Possessing magic again, even in more limited forms, would be something Anders would favour a lot more and would likely even go looking for. As mentioned, it's a large part of how he identifies himself to go missing so the lure of getting even a taste of that back is huge for him. To the point where he would likely even agree to things or make choices he knows he shouldn't, because the idea of living without it is too much for him.
Hallucinations could potentially unsettle him depending on the context, or Anders might assume that they're similar to the Fade and attempting to manipulate him. But if it were different from how Thedas tends to work with demons trying to convince people to do things they shouldn't, he would have a much harder time dealing with them due to lack of experience.

POWERS & SPECIAL ABILITIES

* Healing magic - allowing self and others to heal physical injuries rapidly.
* Elemental magic - able to use fire, ice, stone, and lightning offensively.
* Shield spell.

WRITING SAMPLES

SAMPLE 1
Why did you choose this sample? Because it's from the TDM for the game so shows a good snapshot of how Anders might cope in the game setting and interaction with characters both canon and not.
Linked or pasted sample: HERE

SAMPLE 2
Why did you choose this sample? This sample demonstrates general writing ability for the character and (hopefully) insight into his thought processes in a canon 'normal' situation.
Linked or pasted sample: Anders bit back a curse as a sword caught his arm a glancing blow, pain and the heat of his own blood making him fumble with his staff and stagger back a step, throwing himself to the side awkwardly to avoid a second swing.

How in the Maker’s name had the templars found them?! he thought, not for the first time. The mage resistance always tried to ensure that only the bare minimum of people knew what their latest plan was to try and prevent situations just like this. This should have been an easy mission, a simply job of sneaking out two Circle mages that were hiding in the city already. They shouldn’t have run into a cadre of templars before they were even halfway clear of the tunnels.

What had gone wrong?

It was a question that would have to wait another day, Anders reminded himself, narrowly avoiding another sword’s attempt to remove his head from his shoulders. His hands flashed bright with flames and heat tore into the templar, turning that armour into a personalised oven in seconds. That gave him enough space to look around for the others. From the looks of what he could make out in brief glances, both the mages they’d been trying to aid and the others helping him were either dead or gone already. Anders was alone.

Good. There wouldn’t be any risk of hurting a friend or having to answer uncomfortable questions this way.

With that thought, Justice surged forward and Anders felt himself getting lost in the spirit’s – his own – rage at this injustice, and the world broke down into a series of disjointed images. Blood; the screaming face of a templar, eyes wide with fear, his helmet lost somewhere in the carnage and face too young for the death that claimed him; fire and slumped corpses. Memories he didn’t always want to look too closely at.

He came back to himself some distance away, feeling drained and his arm aching. Splaying his hand against the injury, Anders pulsed a little of his remaining mana into a mild healing spell. It took the edge off the pain, but he knew it would need more treatment later. It would wait, he thought as he started back towards his clinic. The pain of it helped focus his anger as well, which was better than it boiling over now.

There shouldn’t have been any templars there; his mind kept turning back to that singular point. That and there hadn’t even been any attempts to capture them. No, the templars and their clearly insane Knight-Commander obviously meant to kill any mage outside the Circle now. And probably most of the ones inside it, he’d wager. It was clear that this was becoming a problem that would need more than late night missions to smuggle mages out of the city and peaceful solutions.

No, if anything was going to change, it would need something else. Something bigger that would make it obvious that things couldn’t continue as they did now. Something that would force everyone to choose...

A horrible thought occurred to him and Anders stopped, a sick feeling in his stomach. But... it would work, wouldn’t it? That was probably the worst part of it. It would work to change everything, for better or worse, and there would be little anyone could do to stop it, Maker help him. But he couldn’t do it alone. Tomorrow, he’d have to talk to Hawke. Try and come up with a reason to be looking for what he’d need. And then... well, he’d see what happened then.

But one way or another, he would see this through to the end.