OOC: APPLICATION | native application for faderift

PLAYER

Name: Mar
Age: 25
Contact: mar#3772, pm's t/h this account
Other Characters: n/a
Interests: I enjoy horror themes, social politics of various stripes, and obviously, dwarves! Mostly, I'm interested in exploring the dynamics of a member of a diaspora who's been intentionally alienated from his culture, and is now trying to reconnect with it in strange ways  - and I think, in the context of all of the elves in the game, this would be a lot of fun to mirror this experience against the various ones represented there? Along with the fact dwarves are more accepted and less stigmatised than elves, and *certainly* less than mages, but they're still inhuman, as seen through the perspective of a character who's aware of this, but.. basically intentionally been raised as human, and who's primary interactions have always been human.

CHARACTER

Name: Lhezan "Wren" Gavorn
Canon/OC: OC
Journal: wreninrome
Race: Dwarf
Nationality: Antivan
Occupation: Up-and-coming merchant lord, "former" pirate, emissary of the Raiders of the Waking Sea
Division: Diplomacy
Mage or Not: N
Age: 26

History

• Lhezan was born in Antiva, to a house Gavorn courtier who traveled to the surface to begin selling weapons, giving up her caste to further her family's profits. His family was well established from very early on: he grew up in luxury, with the knowledge that they had made a great sacrifice to help their family below, and that they were glorious, righteous people for it. The surface dwarf community thought they had delusions of grandeur. His mother stated they weren't delusions.

• The Gavorn brothers were raised knowing they'd support their eldest sister in running the business - or they'd be married off to further their connections for it. Lhezan was brought up and taught accordingly, with a focus on accounts, music,  basic sword fighting and household management, all the skills that would attract suitors and further the family's plans.

• When he was sixteen, the ship he was on to visit a customer was waylaid. The captain, a rising star of the Felicisima Armada, seized the ship and attempted to ransom Lhezan back to his mother. She'd heard the Gavorn sons were the gems of the dwarven community, and she thought she'd caught the sort of treasure that would bring her diamonds.

• Lhezan's mother, as it turned out, did not agree. She did not pay. She did not answer the letters, or the demands, and the most acknowledgement she gave was a large public soiree mourning the loss of her most beloved, beautiful son, and which just so happened to showcase off the next brother in the process.

• So, left with no other option, on the ship of a girl who had just slaughtered her way through his crew, Lhezan made a choice. He joined onto the captain's crew, and began putting his education to work. The prizes raided from ships were invested, rather than whittled away. The most volatile of the merchants were avoided, and the most easily cowed were harried. Over the course of the next six years, Lhezan helped to turn the ship from one of the thousands bearing the Armada's name and into a proper business, guarding merchant vessels passing through the sea and personally transporting the goods too dangerous to be risked otherwise.

• And in the process, much to his own dismay, he found that he'd won over the captain's heart.

•  He did not forgive her for the kidnapping.

• On the seventh year he was on the ship, Lhezan used the connections he had made and the captain's trust to help stage a mutiny. The captain was killed. Lhezan and his partner in crime took over the ship, and over the course of the next three years, they expanded the enterprise significantly. Lhezan is currently the head of a rapidly growing merchant company. By itself, this wouldn't be remarkable - however, he's cultivated connections amongst the Raiders of the Waking Sea as well as throughout Antiva's thriving merchant's class, and his reappearance amongst them has led to a reconnection with his family, and the surface dwarf community.

Personality

Most people can easily agree that Lhezan is bitter. It's one thing to know that he was seen as a commodity: it was another to have it proven at such a young age, and he took it to heart. Lhezan tries to view other people as chess pieces and to stay emotionally disconnected from them. He prefers for his social interactions to stay shallow, and when people slip deeper, he tends to get awkward and stilted, as a result of missing several vital periods for socialisation.

Despite that, he's very social, and he always welcomes company. Lhezan earned his keep off of knowing everything, and knowing everyone: he's always sticking his nose in other people's business and offering advice, and his proclivity towards talking, once prompted, is what earned him the nickname of Wren. He doesn't tend to be very likeable, however. Lhezan's success in life is a result of his logic, his ruthlessness, and his desperation to survive, no matter the circumstances: these same traits, however, tend to make people see him as brittle as best, and actively treacherous at worst. Most people tend to come to him when they need a plan, or they need money, and then they leave immediately afterwards. He has dozens on dozens of business partners, because everyone knows he'll be a merchant prince by forty.

Lhezan does not really have friends.

He's well aware of this, and this tends to mean he craves approval and affection, even as he's suspicious of anyone that offers it. While Lhezan's mother arranged for a proper dwarven marriage for her daughter, she largely kept her sons from the surface dwarf community, and kept an eye towards the humans and elves that make up the majority of Antiva's merchant class instead. Among the dwarves, Lhezan has never fit in as a result - and among the raiders, he never wanted to fit in. For all that he is able to readily smother his empathy when needed, Lhezan is largely a guilty, bitter man. He's aware that working with the Raiders has led to the same victimisation that he faced. He's aware that it's wrong, and there might have been other options to change his circumstances, if he'd tried.

He didn't try to look for them, and he doesn't bother to try now. Joining the Inquisition is an attempt to alleviate his guilt in a number of ways. He isn't a good person, obviously, but if he can help restore order to Thedas.. maybe it'll make up for some of the rest of his failures.

Opinions & Affiliations

THE RAIDERS OF THE WAKING SEA: Lhezan spent a large portion of his adolescence with the Raiders, but despite that - and the fact he actively works with them, even now - he still views himself as distinct from them. Pirates are monsters, but he's just an opportunist.

THE SURFACE DWARVES: Lhezan's never been a firm part of the surface dwarf community. With all that's said and done, though, he's poured a great deal of his identity into being a surface dwarf, and he's very stuck on what he views as the essentials.

THE CARTA: Lhezan craves the acceptance of his community and the attention of his people, and while his mother largely kept him isolated from other dwarves in hopes of making for better connections, he's not unaware that the Carta is not something most dwarves approve of. They've approached him, but he's avoiding them for now.

THE CHANTRY / TEMPLARS: Lhezan views the magic and the Chantry as a thoroughly non-dwarven thing. While he's willing to use them, he doesn't see them as particularly relevant to his life. Until he can turn a profit from the war, it's someone else's problem.

ELVES AND THE DALISH: The Dalish aren't proper elves, because proper elves are docile elves - when he thinks of them, he tends to picture courtesans, servants, and assassins, courtesy of their general roles in the higher echelon of Antivan society. Elfin discrimination baffles him. If they don't want to be called knife-ears, why not just dock them?

THE CROWS: Lhezan has, like most Antivans, a fervent respect for the Crows, courtesy of not wanting to end up on the wrong side of the blade of one. The fall of the organisation has not changed this.

Strengths & Weaknesses

STRENGTHS:

• Lhezan is a major merchant of Antiva. While he's not on the level of the merchant princes, he is a well-known face in those spheres, and he is steadily rising up in rank.. even if people want to throttle him in the process.

• In addition to this, the boy is ambitious, he has the will to follow up on that, and Lhezan's past means that he has a reputation for entering bad situations, and inevitably coming out on top. His reputation is a strength that he leans on to get things done, but it's more than just a reputation: he has a large, thriving and rapidly growing business under his belt to show he isn't all bark.

• Lhezan is not charismatic. He is not likable. What he is is incredibly astute at people! He is capable of looking at people, and coming to conclusions based on what they want, and what sort of tactics will work on them with a modicum of effort. When it's him coming up with plans and other people utilising them, then he's brilliant.

• Unfortunately, to follow up on point #2: while he's brilliant at coming up with plans, he's a stilted, awkward mess hiding behind manners on his own. He can tell you how to schmooze the baroness. Any attempts to schmooze the baroness on his end will result in him accidentally insulting her out of sheer nerves. Dude gets stage fright.

• Lhezan has been meticulously educated until age sixteen in a variety of pursuits. After age sixteen, he started getting hands-on experience. While his handling of history is stunted and he can come across as naive and sheltered about topics not related to his work (elves!), he's got an amazing mind for numbers, knows several languages, has memorised entire genealogies to more properly handle the merchant nobility, and he knows a fuck-ton about birds.

• Lhezan hates stories, fiction, anything that's even vaguely fake and not an outright lie. He doesn't understand them, he doesn't like them, he's horribly biased against them - try to give him a storybook and watch him throw a complete shitfit. Try to reference the fact parts of his history sound like a bad ballad - he got abducted by pirates? really? - and watch him completely go off.

• Lhezan was raised up with the idea that he's cream of the crop, appearance wise, and it's very, very easy to stab him directly in the vanity as a result. His looks are one of his only saving graces, and he is incredibly easy to neg over it. Similarly, bring up the fact he's a bad person, and watch him falter.

• With that said: he's a bad person. Lhezan has survived for the past ten years by being ruthless to a fault. When it comes down to him or anyone else, he will always choose himself, and while he'll cry about it later, he absolutely *will* sell others up-river with no hesitation if he thinks it'll work out better for him in the long-term.

Inventory

Lhezan makes money off of transporting and handling goods, not owning them. He has purchased a spartan shop in Kirkwall, where he lives in a sliver of a loft above the office, and most of his personal items are dedicated to office supplies and grooming/wardrobe.

He does own:

• a sword-breaker (always kept on him, used more commonly for peeling apples than stabbing)
• a short sword (bejeweled, kept in a holster on his waist)
• a mule (handsome, kept stabled away from his shop)
• hand-carved flute
• way too much fine Antivan leather for one person to reasonably own, but you have to keep up appearances

Motivation

Lhezan is largely motivated by spite, and guilt. His life has been defined by the inaction of his mother and his siblings, when he was abducted as a teenager. Instead of paying for his return, or enlisting mercenaries to retrieve him, they chose the easy way out - they left him, and as a result, the thought of ignoring wrong-doing for his own convenience has always made him ill. He manages it, sometimes, with more than a touch of self-loathing, but the Rifts are too large of an issue for him to neglect.

He's a bad person. He's perfectly aware of this, but he doesn't want to be an awful person, and ignoring the world fracturing around him is the sort of inaction he can't abide. Lhezan's primary motivation is helping the Inquisition to repair the world, one way or another, because he thinks it has to be done.

He's less aware of the fact he's hoping that, maybe, he'll like himself better if he can manage it.

SAMPLES

SAMPLE ONE: "Are those scales?" he remarks, curiousity winning out over manners as he steps over to the table. When she's sitting down like this, they're of a height.


SAMPLE TWO: Absolutely none of that plan had included standing at the door of his shop, broom in hand, engaged in a stand-off with some street moggy that nearly reached his knees, and the half-dead rat she had clutched firmly in her mouth.