fade rift au application

[hemitheoi]

PLAYER

Name: Lily
Age: 27 idfk
Contact: aeneia @ plurk
Other Characters: N/A
Interests: I am always keen for heavy politics and intense action scenes and volatile character arcss.

CHARACTER

Name: Deimos / Alexios
Canon/OC: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
Journal: hemitheoi
Race: Qunari
Nationality: Qunari
Occupation: Solider / Antaam / Beresaad
Division: Forces
Mage or Not: Not
Age: 25

History

• Deimos was the second child of an arranged match meant to breed the perfect soldier for the antaam, and initially born under the Qun. This was complicated by a shady group known as Kosmos, a cult-Tal-Vashoth group with spies within the Qunari that interprets the Qun more conservatively. (It's possible, though not proven, that they work with Corypheus, though if they do, it's more because they see a path to their own ends rather than a genuine interest in his rhetoric. Deimos, however, has no idea about it.) Kosmos decided that they had a better idea of what to do with such perfect children and began their attempts to kidnap both children.


• The initial attempt failed, and almost caused both children to die.


• The plan was almost foiled by tamassran and possibly their biological mother (details are scarce), but in the escape, the first child was lost at sea. The cult successfully managed to kidnap and raise Deimos as their own amongst other children who were similar victims.


• He and the other children were put through a brutal program to become the best solider possible from the minute he could walk. He was raised by a Tamassran who believed that re-education and taking the rites to become a reaver had to be done young, to be an ultimate servant and soldier of the Qun. In her words, "the world is full of pain, so I taught him to love pain and to welcome it." Deimos has been stripped apart, tortured, put back together several times over from that time onwards. His mind is an addled mess but who can never bring himself to question it, if only because his memories are so fragmented and disjointed. He is not the only child this happened to, but he is one of few to have survived the brutality of the training.


• He's part assassin-part soldier so far as his service for the Cult has been. He goes where they tell him, he kills who they tell him to kill. If they need to him fight in Seheron, he fights in Seheron, they need him to kill a noble child in their bed, he does it. He doesn't question it. Though he gets outwardly treated as little more than a mercenary, and he does nothing to correct that notion to anyone but his own people, he has no scruples or concerns about who he works with. Internally he considers himself a child of the Qun and nothing else, even if the Qun just doesn't know it yet.


• Say what you will about Kosmos, but they definitely created one terrifying soldier, Deimos has and always will fight with a ferocity that borders on mildly unhinged, and his reputation grew only stronger - and how he earned his nick-name. Deimos, "One Who Brings Battle-Fear", after some terrified Tevinter ran away from him. His Tama found it fitting to jokingly call him that after he told her about it, so it stuck.


• Deimos believes Kosmos better serves the Qun than the current administration; Kosmos agrees.


• Kosmos is looking for a way to take over and assert their system, and Deimos in turn, is one of their prizefighters and proof of their strength. This has earned him a high place in their ranks, or that's what they tell him at least. But they are always looking for the advantage to rise higher within the Qun, so they can rejoin it and to finally gain ultimate control.


• Unfortunately, he got a shard after he was sent to investigate the demons pouring out of a rift. Though Kosmos decided that worked for them, because of Riftwatch becoming its own presence outside of the Inquisition as a whole, and they sent him under the excuse of the shard to join their ranks to try and get more information.

Personality

Take one fairly normal boy, shake liberally on behalf of a crazy-ass bitch, then throw the result onto the fire. When you pull out what remains, you get Deimos. Deimos has been tortured mentally and physically all of his life, whilst being told he's been told he's the perfectly created soldier, that everyone else is beneath him due to his perfectly selected breeding and inherited abilities. It's not much of a wonder that he turned out nuts.

Which let's be clear: he's nuts. He was taught to love pain, love fighting, to relish in what he is best at - and that remains what he does. He doesn't understand loyalty to an idea or as a concept, he understands strength and anything but seeking out strength seems foolish to him because adherence to that is the only thing that let him stay alive through his violent childhood training (and the crushing empty loneliness that is total inside of his being). He is arrogant, full of himself to the core, likely to mock people around him as he is to punch them in the face. He considers himself the perfect weapon and is comfortable with bragging about it. Especially when it comes to things that he feels challenge him. Things like: his sister. But that is coming up very slowly because he is re-educated so often, it muddles his feelings a great deal. In many ways, he clings to that violence, because in the shattered place of his mind, the violence at least makes sense. He doesn't know anything else, and where he doesn't have anything else, he devotes himself to his targets, with a very un-Qun like possessiveness and demandingness because at least he can latch onto that.

But inside of that, he is furious. He knows something terrible happened to him that cannot be undone. In the worst endings of the video game he's from, he is so unable to see what the point of his life is any more, except what he has become because he cannot imagine ever being able to come back from it. That being said, he's terrified of it. He doesn't know how to be a person not made only for violence, he struggles to see what good there is in him anymore. But he needs control too much, is afraid of not having it. When Kassandra reaches out to so much as brush his shoulder he recoils in fear and violence, and when he finally reaches back much later on, it's unsure and scared. He's deep down, a little boy that desperately wants someone to save him, but is faced with swallowing the reality every day that no one is ever coming for him. There is no end to his pain or being what he is.

He's a man who has lived with barely a concept of self-definition that was very much on purpose, and it could all go to hell or someone might actually be able to talk him down from this. But that is a long, long journey to reach the end of. Being in the Riftwatch is the first extended time he will spend away from Kosmos direct control, and no doubt with it, that part of him will grow. But what comes of that is hard to say, because he is a man that has done some very bad things.

And like, is a giant jerk. Just an asshole. He mocks his sister for wanting for feeling a single positive thing in her life. Like. Just. Such a jerk.

Opinions & Affiliations

• The Chantry: Pathetic on one hand, and largely confusing on the other. He doesn't even know the vaguest words of the chant, he heard it once in passing and just through it was a badly sung off-key bar song.
  
• The Qun: the best, perfect, flawless, no other social ideals need to apply. This is more than just instruction, he does find a lot of relief to the order, especially when that nasty PTSD gets bad.
  
• The Mage/Templar War: Good Job fucking it up, Bas. This is why you need the Qun. Has no problem with either one as a concept though, given the proper restraints. Not that he likes mages as a concept, even if he can handle them individually. He's a good Qun Boy after all, and mages are icky.
  
• Elves / Dwarves / Humans: He largely doesn't delineate between them beyond briefly taking in their appearances. The most sympathetic thought he has about them is it much sucks to be short and not have horns. They're all kind of the same to him in so much as they're all Bas, ie, not Qun. He does appreciate how tightly the dwarves keep their secrets, and he has no idea why the Elves haven't just murdered the humans yet. But that isn't his business.
  
• Corypheus: That Sure Is Some Bullshit. It suddenly became personal because Deimos long term goal was to take Tevinter himself, and who the fuck is this guy? Because if Kosmos is in cahoots with Corypheus, he's got no idea and he was fed the line that the city was his.
  
• Tevinter: You'll be HIS one day. He is very aware that his possessiveness if very Un-Qun like, he doesn't care. It's still his.
  
• Magisters of Tevinter: Oh my god, do you hear yourselves speak? He thought he was arrogant? Oh my god, you elitist pricks. Just stop talking and let him murder you already.

Adaptation Notes

So my initial question was "what group in Thedas is both naked enough and extra enough to feasibly be from the ancient world?" And that was largely what my criteria was for Deimos' adaption. Assassin's Creed Odyssey is set during the Peloponnesian War, and centres between a war of two great cities, Sparta and Athens. Which is largely what is reflected between Tevinter and the Qunari in theme, and when it came to the coin toss of which side he belonged on, I decided on the Qunari because they reflected the very different style of familial relationships in ancient spartan families that is a central theme in Odyssey. As well as the Extremely Extra Training and Mentality when it comes to duty and that whole "sure, we find it socially acceptable to brutally train children from age 5" that Sparta has, but seems reflected less in other cultural groups in Thedas. Nevermind the whole "throw your kids off a cliff" thing, which is canonical what actually happened to Deimos.

Strengths & Weaknesses

• REAVER - He's been blooded by a Dragon, no less. He has been custom tortured to be the perfect soldier. Deimos is a reaver and is noted for his use and skill of it above almost all other attributes. He's a whirlwind with a sword. But his temper is a furious, loud, and immediate thing that doesn't see what he's doing until it's over. He is absolutely driven at times by bloodlust, and killing keeps him going on the field. He doesn't pull his punches. Put him in the front lines, ask him to intimidate someone until they cry, but don't ask him to soften the blow, he has no idea how. If he's fighting someone, unless it's very stipulated as a training arena, he fights to the death as often as he can. He lives for that rush. He's killed people by accident more than once. There is a reason he was put forward to the Front Lines and stayed there so long.
  
• EAGLE VISION - Adapting this from the Assassin's Creed universe in a rough sense, or the purposes of the game, it isn't supernatural so much as a noted ability the Tamassran try to emphasize in his bloodline. It's an inherited family line and what gives him his 'edge', he and his sister both share it, it allows him to see details keenly, and in turn track, individuals even amongst crowds. Be more aware of the people around him, their movements, reactions, reading them. It doesn't let him necessarily know someone's intentions, but he can read body language very well to predict when someone might swing a punch. It can be extremely overstimulating and irritating to be interrupted in the middle of.
  
• CULT CONNECTIONS - the Cult of Kosmos likes to get their little fingers everywhere, so he probably knows one or two spies here and there. They are also the people horribly manipulating him at all times and are their own weakness.
  
• LANGUAGES - Speaks Qunlat, Trade & Tevene

Inventory

• Sword - his soul, per the rules of the Qun. It's a fancy blade, made by some of the best, but it's Just A Sword, so no magic there. It's just good because he's good.
  
• Armour - One full kit of a Qunari Diplomatic Soldier's armour. All White & Gold, this a nice clean vain boy.
  
• Horse - A mount that actually holds him, and you know it's some dramatic all black horse that terrifies everyone because he's an extra ass bitch.
  
• MANY SPARKLY HAIR THINGS - he's a Pretty Boy. He has many nice pretty hair things.

Motivation
Deimos is going to be coming because his Shard started to hurt him and apparently this is where you go when you get one of those things to make it stop doing that. He's additionally coming to find out information to send back to the cult about whether they should be taking this offshoot of the inquisition seriously or not. Largely he'll be applying his use as a soldier with minimal fuss on that behalf from him, and will talk himself up to that end.

Deimos is also trying to find out information about his biological mother and sister who are theoretically still alive, and who he wants to hunt down and kill, thnx.

SAMPLES

THREAD WITH MIRIAM | THREAD WITH ESHAL