Update: No longer accepting random starters. Please inbox me to plot!
To be quite honest, I think of myself as rather approachable and lenient regarding roleplays. Here are some guidelines, which can and will be updated as I see fit. Additionally, I would recommend that you read this for a brief introduction to the writer, and this for Abelas’ verses.
Basics;; Writer 21+, not selective or private. I don't want to exclude anyone on principle, so I am free to be approached by non-mutuals. multi-ship/multi-verse. standard rules apply, including remembering to trim posts and not reblogging asks. reply to asks as a new post for the thread. skype available to all (sunshinehalla)! open to all writing styles, from one-liners to para or novella.
Abelas is aromantic & asexual. what this means is while I’m open to multiple platonic ships with the same character, he is not open to romantic or sexual shipping.
On tagging;; I have no triggers, personally, but I’ll try to be as considerate as possible. The format will be -> trigger ///<- and -> nsfw /// <- and if I miss something, please don’t be afraid to approach me politely about it.
Regarding the story;; I will automatically assume that all interactions take place at any point after the Arbor Wilds/What Pride Had Wrought questline, unless otherwise specified. Accordingly, this is not a spoiler-free blog, and end-game plot points may be mentioned. This is a good reference for Abelas’ Inquisition verse.
Regarding characters;; Abelas will automatically interact with all companions as though they had been present at the Well of Sorrows and that he left in peace — again, unless otherwise specified. Every character will be treated as unique. There are no duplicates. Therefore, if you see me interacting with a like muse, don’t feel intimidated/threatened/disappointed, etc. Every player has a different perspective and approach, and they all bring something new to the table. Besides, each exists singularly for Abelas.
I’ll love you if;; you send me a meme, you strike up a conversation, you ask questions! Abelas might be super srs disagreeable, but I promise I try to be perfectly friendly. c:
Also, please note that I tend to use endearments -- sweetie, sweetheart -- because I am trying to show my affection. If these bother you in any way, let me know and I will accommodate accordingly!
№1 I have the right to refuse to roleplay. I don’t need a reason. I don’t need to offer a reason. Usually, it’s because I’m bogged down with threads, or I want to focus on the ones I have. Please understand and be respectful, and I will be respectful in return.
№2 Similarly, I reserve the right to unfollow at any time. Same rules apply — I don’t need to have or give a reason. Typically, this will occur when we haven’t interacted ever or in a long time, and/or there are too many ooc posts on my dash and I want to keep things clean. It’s truly nothing personal against you.
№3 I sometimes do drop threads. I drop more often that I like. So of course, you can, too. Sometimes roleplays or character interaction moves beyond that particular thread. Sometimes inspiration just doesn’t come to me. 95% of the time, however, I’ve just saved it to drafts or I happened to miss it. You can always step forward to communicate with me. If it’s been a few weeks and I haven’t replied, it’s perfectly fine to casually let me know.
№4 On that note — communicate! I LOVE to talk ooc. It’s fun to get to know my partner and I think the roleplays turn out better when we discuss things outside of the thread. Is it getting stale? Do you have a new idea? Do you want to drop it? Are you uncomfortable with something I wrote? Please let me know. Feel free to add me on skype -- sunshinehalla. Please keep in mind that I have 180+ contacts on there and I tend to very quickly get overwhelmed. Furthermore, I am often not logged in to that skype, so do not take it to heart if you send me a message and I do not respond, even if you see me active on tumblr.
№5 I will not roleplay with personals, and generally prefer that all roleplay blogs have a rules page in addition to a codex or an "about" equivalent.
law
Vita: : a brief biographical sketch; Latin ⊰∬ literally, L I F E
( spoilers to follow )
Malas amelin ne halam, Abelas
What once might have been known of Abelas’ life before the fall of Arlathan has been lost to the ocean of time. Indeed, it is likely that his very name, Abelas {Sorrow}, was given to him — or that it was a title which he, himself, took up years later.
He was a servant - slave ? - and guardian of Mythal’s temple in the Arbor Wilds for thousands of years, adrift in the long slumber of uthenera when not directly required to defend it. Each time he and his brethren awoke, a little more of the world they had known was lost forever, slipped from their grasp.
Their numbers dwindling and the treasures of the Elvhen nearly gone from this world, Abelas had little to defend by the time Morrigan and the Inquisitor reached his sacred charge — the Well of Sorrows. He was willing to destroy the Well to protect the Vir’Abelasan from the corrupting taint of unworthy shemlen and ignorant blunderers seeking to wrest away his life’s purpose.
His destiny upon him now, one way or another, Abelas relinquished his ancient duty at last…or fell into shadow and memory.
Mythal sulevin
{ If Abelas is dead in your world state, feel free to plot with me or otherwise assume that he clawed his way back into consciousness, and fled the Arbor Wilds after his singular purpose for staying there had been taken away. Otherwise, assume that he is quite alive. }
For the first time in millennia, he has no duty, no reason to exist or to linger in one place. He searches for any trace of the Elvhen; he searches for purpose…and for the Inquisition that dances on the knife’s edge, and which holds the power to change the very fate of the world.
—In time, he might seek out the Inquisitor, his curiosity and his quest for purpose providing him with few other options. In the Inquisition, he might find a cause, even if he could never bring himself to pledge his services or his spirit fully to them. He could never replace what he had lost — but somewhere in his wanderings, it is not so impossible a thing for his hope in the Elvhen to be r e i g n i t e d.
- - -
The Sentinel;;
Born during the height of Arlathan and promised to the service of Mythal as a youth, his notions of freedom and slavery have a very different meaning to him than to just about every culture extant today. Freedom was never something he sought nor desired. He respects Mythal greatly, and was proud of the purpose he had while following her dictates.
His world crumbled as Arlathan buckled beneath its own bloated power, the treachery and warring raging throughout Elvhenan. { The Dalish and their infantile need to blame it all upon the humans brings but a curled sneer to his lips— }
Even when Mythal had been struck down, he knew that she endured in some form, and so he compelled his fellows to tend to their duties still, drawing them to the place that had once been her sanctum sanctorum. Only now, her temple was still and empty, barred from within to keep out a world that had gone mad.
His years spent awake passed much the same as those deep in the slumber of uthenera — only when he returned to consciousness, his rest stirred by something troubling the Vir’Abelasan, did he see how the world had changed that much more from what he knew. The death of Elvhenan didn’t end with Arlathan, although it had been its gem. The death continues, and a little more of some fundamental part of Abelas dies with it each time he wakes.
By the time the Well of Sorrows falls to the hands of the Inquisition, what had once been a force worthy of representing the Will of Mythal was reduced to a beleaguered handful. Those few that survived Corypheus’ assault scattered to the winds, each seeking to discover or preserve one last remnant of the People. It made sense, at the time, but while Abelas regrets it now, it is far too late to call them back.
Time and tradition are the factors which molded a young elven devotee into a cynical and wearied keeper. Mythal the Protector demanded justice delivered with clear minds and open hearts, and these are precisely the qualities that Abelas has lost. It is too great a blow for him to accept, and so he continues to dig himself deeper, channeling his disgust outward, disdainful of all the races infesting Thedas and repulsed by the Dalish in particular.
But it is not that simple. He sees the Dalish as orphaned children, shambling and ignorant, but what pity he might feel is tempered by how alien they are to one another — they have so little in common that the sting of it hurts him most of all.
—And while he might disdain of them, of the vallaslin worn without comprehension, they are all that was left to him of his kin.
Art credit to swevenfox, qissus and artemorte.
vita
Hello! You can call me Sam! 22. She/Her. From California but living in New England for college (studying osteology and archaeology). I’m honestly really quite friendly and a dork and I’d love you forever if you snuck into my inbox to chat, even if it’s just to say hi.
I love video games and leatherbound novels and mint. I’m 30% enthusiasm, 60% water and 10% everything else. I’m petite sized in real life but people tend to forget that I’m short until we’re all standing up.
I love science and know a little bit about a lot of things, although sometimes I wish my knowledge base was more precisely detailed. I think that the ocean and space are basically the coolest things ever and in an alternate universe I might have become a physicist.
I have a terrible memory, so sorry in advance.
Regarding Roleplays:
My skype is available to everyone, even non-mutuals. sunshinehalla !
I personally have zero triggers but if something I write or do makes you uncomfortable, come to me privately and we can talk about how to fix it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can roleplay with you?
- Absolutely anyone, so long as I'm somewhat familiar with the universe and the character has both about and rules pages.
Even crossovers or like characters?
- Sure, although having a DA or fantasy verse increases the chance of us interacting. Still, I do have a crossover verse page here.
Can I send an ask even if we've never talked?
- Absolutely. I'm very friendly (more so than Abelas). You can send any questions to me or to my muse.
But what if I'm a Personal blog?
- As long as it doesn't require me to create an entire thread, I have no problems interacting with Personals. I will answer asks (even in character) but I will not roleplay with them.
Do you still take drabble requests?
- I do! Keep in mind that I have the right to refuse and that I may be slow, but I will write drabbles. Don't be afraid to send me some, although please note I will not accept romantic or sexual themes with this character!
He is young, but Arlathan is already in its prime. The vallaslin are fresh upon his face, and the towers stand gold and strong. He is Vallasvhen, and his are the hands fated to inscribe the runes upon the holiest of holies.
In the Shadow of Tarasyl'an Te'las
He is given purpose, finding a place in the Inquisitor's Inner Circle. More than completing the ancient rituals, the Inquisitor saw fit to spare his life and see the Well's Legacy continued. For better or worse, he has become a member of their companions. In time, their cause might give him purpose — whether for a new principle in which to believe, or a foul heresy he cannot allow to continue.
He has forged his own purpose, for although Elvhenan is dead, the People yet remain. ( May or may not follow the 'Wanderer Without Purpose' or 'Shadow of Tarasyl'an Te'las' trees ) — He has come to terms, as best he can, with this time and its peoples. He seeks to aid what remains of the elves and their true heritage, and they see him as one of their own. He is not so angry as he once was. He is not so sorrowful. He has taken a new name, Suledin, and for the first time, he is free.
As the organization of the hierarchies and temples of the Evanuris, their different aspects, interests, and domains are all intrinsically woven through the foundation of elvhen society, it would be natural to understand that different structures for their most formalized followers would evolve to fit the niche of their specific needs.
Some organized worshipers, such as the priestesses of Ghilan’nain, might seek to find transcendence through pain, through elaborate scarification, transformation, warging, or bloodletting, as best suited to express the aspects of their goddess. This could be even extended to physical sacrifice, let alone the dimension of emotional, mental, or even magical sacrifice. That is another post entirely to define.
Yet, for Mythal, and perhaps for others, I do not think priests would engage in body modification, as there is a sense that it is not “their” body to make changes to. We know, to a degree, they defer their personhood upon initiation – Abelas canonically changed his name twice, including, notably, when entering her service. In this sense, the dedicates of the Evanuris are stripped of individual autonomy, either taking upon or receiving new identities or designations to reflect their geas.
How this manifests, from such a point, is relative to conditioning and culture among the cults of the Evanuris. Without recognition of the agency of the individual, body and soul are forfeit to the will of the gods. Consider the followers of Dirthamen, souls bound to their bodies like fleshly golems with all the intelligence of the elves they are, becoming regenerative constructs to best serve his needs and purposes. There is a broad dimensionality to which the bearers of vallaslin would be subject to transfiguration and habituation, sometimes terrifying in the scope to which it could be applied.
While some gods and priesthoods may be more permissive of the degree to which personal affectation was followed amongst their ranks, I think the general order of the time followed paths of consistency, efficiency, and denial of change.
As noted, those promised to the gods have no body of their own.
Before there had been a Veil, there was only the Weave. The worlds were fluid, and one, and language a thing of sensation, of memory, emotion, thought. It was known, because it was.
There is little way to describe what had been, for in losing the Weave, they lost the language, too. The corpse of Vir’Dirthara hangs in fractured space, shunted, frozen, lost in the void, and stands as reminder of the flattening of the worlds, the inability to maintain an empire that spanned dreams themselves.
And so remains the Well of Sorrows - the Source.
The nexus of collected memories of all those who walked beneath the aegis of the Great Protector, who bore her branches on their skin. Like an eternal spring bubbled by deep flowing water, the Well of Sorrows found its renewal in the living. So long as they endured, so, too, did the last core of Mythal’s energies cling to the frayed soul of a shallow earth. Such is the purity of the Source, the untapped waters free from the great crippling, the Sundering that smote the infinite library.
She walked these woods. Her feet strode these halls. She was too bright; She left Her presence in the patterns of light, in the sweetness of the air. She was seared into the memory of the place, an afterimpression burning behind closed eyes. Her power abides here, most of all places.
And here, too, does some shadow of the tongue remain.
It is quiet, the trickling of water through the halls, carrying the whisper of Her presence. Only the perfect, eternal stillness that claimed this place yet carries the murmur of the perennial flow. Without this silence, the silence of the tomb, its voice would be lost.
( It had not always been a sigh. )
Countless were the channels cut through tile limned in painted gold. As other temples reflected their gods, pathways yielding patterns of arterial design, so, too, did these halls register the domain of their potentate. This place of worship had been alive. Innumerable had been the threaded streams - conduits of water and energy to feed the Heart, the Source, the Well. Mythal’s servants kept these channels, stood as keepers to its fonts.
In the world that was, it had been the language, the tongue. A sip, a promise of honeysuckle and cinnamon, a kiss to the lips of the sanctified. It was memory, words, feelings, images. To drink was to know, and when life faded, it was to the waters Her servants returned.
What is left of the flow yet grounds this sanctuary, never the greatest, but now the last.
The susurration of the undying waters guides the last of Her sentinels into the great sleep, anchors their souls in the devastation of the Dreaming. They will be its guardians, until they are no more. And the waters will fall silent.
AESTHETIC MEME:list your muses aesthetic. anyone can do this, list your muse’s aesthetic from tastes, smells, outfits, and sceneries. add as many subjects as you like, it can help with people tagging you in aesthetically pleasing things towards your muse! (REPOST, don’t reblog!)
TASTES: Simple, hearty stews that taste of home; the ghosting of honey across his lips; the copper bite of blood from a lip split open; fibrous, fresh-plucked leaves spilling bitter tang when chewed open; cool spring water sliding down the throat;;
SMELLS: The fetid stink of dead matter in the decaying humic underfoot; the crispness of air sweetened by clinging greens; old leather; sharp metal and the airiness of ozone; petrichor upon the temple grounds; candles of tallow and wax burnt down to the nub; fresh, wet earth;;
SIGHTS: Choking vines wrapped around ancient trees - small things, but in centuries, enough to bring them crashing down; verdant foliage etching green channels in the crumble and cracks of holy walls; a line of faithful, heads bowed as one entity; the shapes of clouds in the block of open sky; elvhen corpses weeping blood from fatal wounds; dreams of burning spires; ancient eyes in unchanged faces; nocked arrows glancing in dappled light; toppled monuments of silent gods;;
OUTFITS: The simple robes of one who writes in magic; the golden armor of ceremony never meant to know the touch of blood; dyed cowls to cover the head in penitence; a branding of ink branches; the raiment of a sentinel;;
SOUNDS: Birdsong and the chatter of animals in the sweep of jungle; the hollow clap of metal through empty halls; the steady hum of measured hymns; sharp, screaming metal and the crack of magic; cries cut short deep in the chest; muted weeping quickly smothered; absolute silence;;
I really don’t want an Abelas who serves at Solas’ side in DA4.
I just don’t, man. I want an Abelas who gets whispered to from the darkness and realizes that Solas didn’t kill Mythal the first time, but that his hands definitely aren’t clean now.
I want an Abelas who looks at the people who lived in the temple alongside him, looks at what the Dread Wolf promises, and wonders where the poison in his gift is.
I want an Abelas who wonders what will happen if, even if the Veil comes down, the humans still outnumber the Elvhen and have extra magic to wreak havoc with. What will happen if the Elvhen can’t quite beat back the demons created by the subsequent trauma.
I want an Abelas who thinks about the war and who will be left to preserve all that remains of his history.
Please don’t give me an Abelas who falls in line. Give me an Abelas who fights.
His prayers sing from the tapered edges of his blade, conjured energy condensed into cutting spirit, each muscular pull and torsion sensed like an infinity in the hyper-aware. He weeps benedictions from his pores. Sweat collects in the hollow of his throat, trickles like oil beneath the metal plate of his armor, beads in the furrows of brows knitted in essential focus. His gratitude looks a grimace, but in battle, he is touched by the the breath of clarity.
He knows Mythal best when he keeps to her path. He strains for her answer in the sharp inhalations between each arc of his weapon, in the waiting static just after the crackle and flow of his magic shrieks through the web of worlds. He waits for her in the spaces between heartbeats. He knows her hymns and theodicies, has spent a lifetime in negation of self, and extends all his being into a manifestation of her justice in all the spheres he has ever touched. He loves her as he loves the Vir’Abelasan: the infinity pressed into the spaces of the finite, respected, ineffable, feared, adored. The love of a deity is a terrible thing, consuming and splendid, platonic pathways lingering in the echoes of the wisdom she has shared with the People.
He senses her still, in the drooping jungle trees, the dense moisture of the fetid tropical air. He breathes and inhales the memory of her, and sees her shadow cast in the impressions of the Veilfire. But he knows they are dying; his memory of her, his People, and the empty beings in the edges of his vision who glint gold and bronze, ghosts just like him.
And so Sorrow prays more fervently, more desperately, in each waning century. His unspoken invocations metamorphose into dirges and laments. And he waits for his goddess to answer.
I didn't look into Abelas as much as I probably should have, but I've been wondering lately... His name literally matches the Well of Sorrows. Is he just a protector of the Well or was he a high priest? Wouldn't he recognise Solas if he was? Hmm...
It seems the Abelas is a higher rank than the other guardians in Mythal’s temple, but I’m not certain if he is a high priest. After all high priests of Mythal all added and took knowledge from the Well, but Abelas obviously did not.
I think he is more like the “captain” of the guards, rather than a high priest and I’m not sure he would know Solas/Fen’Harel because of this. He would have heard stories of the Rebel God, but he probably never met Fen’Harel in the flesh and therefore doesn’t know more than the grand image of a dreaded wolf leading an army against the Evanuris.
Time is his nursery and his foundry; the osmosis of eons which wash past the silent halls, buttresses breaking the crush of years. They are preserved and they are made anew. A rock tumbling in a riverbed becomes no less a thing wrought of stone when ages polish the edges away.
( He shows his age. )
And so he dreams still. Visions and fragrances of an empire which no longer exists, moving images captured like the glimpse of shadows cast, disjointed against the swell of a cavern wall. Memories color and shape the boundaries of this living past. A living past determined in the form of a dead world.
Sometimes, he feels he almost pierces the yolk of the sleepers’ minds surrounding his own, bodies near but minds an infinity away, sensed but unseen, he has learned to take comfort in even this. It is a different breed of loneliness, but he has known it for millennia.
Now, he dreams of fire. Of a sickness stretching across a land of the blind, the deaf, the dumb. Stunted, earthly towers built by the scrabbling hands of an alien race, devouring maws hungry for satiation in a blink’s worth of a life. They will not know it. They do not know what they live without.
He treads the edges of a new landscape in the creases of sleepers’ unremembered dreams, stepping through the Beyond into the intimacy of the impressions they left behind.
He dreams of today. He dreams of yesterday. He dreams in the paradox of an infinite microcosm, until the sentinels wake again.
Acersecomic: How much effort do they put into personal grooming and hygiene?
He is fastidious, but not obsessive. He does not mind filth accumulated in labor or duty, but he will not linger in it. The magics that kept a sleeper in uthenera whole and vital have weakened, and it is harder to rise from it each time since the last. There is - and was - a certain methodical nature to the life of a sentinel. He lives, and understands, an ordered universe. Particularly in a climate as wet and seasonal as that of the Arbor Wilds, magic does only so much to keep the rigors of warm humidity at bay.
It is, in this sense, he keeps to a general schedule, a way of life that he has adopted over centuries and to which he has kept even between his many long years of waking sleep. He lives neatly and ascetically, and he maintains a thorough routine of hygiene according to these standards.
If you destroy the gaatlok bombs in front of an eluvian in the Deep Roads, you can reach another Dread Wolf puzzle. However, there is something else in the room, something extremely interesting.
Another mural, depicting the Evanuris as they destroy a Titan. By activating the rune on the wall with Veilfire, you can read the following Codex entry:
In the light of the veilfire, the runes seems to shift, coiling
and uncoiling like snakes. A thunderous voice shatters the stillness,
shouting:
“Hail Mythal, adjudicator and savior! She has struck down the Pillars of
the Earth and rendered their Demesne unto the People! Praise her name
forever!”
For a moment, the scent of blood fills the air, and there is a
vivid image of green vines growing and enveloping a sphere of fire.
The vision grows dark. An aeon seems to pass. Then the runes crackle, as if filled with an angry energy.
A new vision appears: Elves collapsing caverns, sealing the Deep Roads with stone and magic.
Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast.
A voice whispers:
“What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let
this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The people must
rise before their false gods destroy them all.”
The Inquisitor comments about it, saying: “"The runes say the Evanuris fought the Titans. They mined their bodies for lyrium and… something else. It’s not clear.“
Now, in the Deep Roads, you can also find notes left by a elven Qunari who was translating the Elvhen writings scattered among the ruins and the statues.
The elven Qunari notices that “da’durgen’lin” actually means “dwarves” and wonders with horror what Mythal has done.
So it’s confirmed: the Elves used to hunt and kill the Titans, wishing to obtain their lyrium/blood and that “something else” the Inquisitor mentions. The part of the Deep Roads you visit in the DLC is described as a lyrium-excavating center and other notes notices how odd it is that Elven statues can be found in a dwarven area.
“You don’t go to a friend’s place, push away the statues of their gods, and put yours in their place.”
It seems, however, that Mythal actually destroyed the Titans and sealed away the dwarves to stop the other Evanuris from taking more lyrium. That would explain why her statues are in a “guarding stance” as the notes state, as if they are protecting and surveilling something.
This answers some questions, but also arises new ones: what is lyrium exactly?
Is the lyrium what gives people dream and the dwarves, being cut off from the Titans, can’t dream anymore, despite being so near it every day? Did the Evanuris wanted it to be powerful (“it fills you, within you, making our leaders proud”) and maintain their status quo over the People?
He is young, but Arlathan is already in its prime. The vallaslin are fresh upon his face, and the towers stand gold and strong. He is Vallasvhen, and his are the hands fated to inscribe the runes upon the holiest of holies.
He is given purpose, finding a place in the Inquisitor's Inner Circle. More than completing the ancient rituals, the Inquisitor saw fit to spare his life and see the Well's Legacy continued. For better or worse, he has become a member of their companions. In time, their cause might give him purpose — whether for a new principle in which to believe, or a foul heresy he cannot allow to continue.
He has forged his own purpose, for although Elvhenan is dead, the People yet remain. ( May or may not follow the 'Wanderer Without Purpose' or 'Shadow of Tarasyl'an Te'las' trees ) — He has come to terms, as best he can, with this time and its peoples. He seeks to aid what remains of the elves and their true heritage, and they see him as one of their own. He is not so angry as he once was. He is not so sorrowful. He has taken a new name, Suledin, and for the first time, he is 
