(no subject)

[apostafuckyou]

APPLICATION / INBOX

Basics

NAME: Raymond "Raylan" Gibbs AGE: 44 NATIONALITY: Fereldan RACE: human OCCUPATION: mage/researcher TITLE/RANK: Member of the Mage Council BEARING: Catlike, but not deliberately so. He's just naturally comfortable, confident, and adept inhabiting the body he inhabits, and it shows. The confidence that comes with having had it a long time, not yet touched by the creaks and cracks of age.	HEIGHT: 6'0 BUILD: thin. Lanky but graceful, he's noticeably skinny even at his bulkiest -- in canon he's referred to as "scarecrow" and "skinny-minnie". HAIR: Brown shot with silver, especially at the temples. EYES: On the brown side of hazel SKIN: Tannish. He's definitely darker than 'pale,' but not dark enough to be mistaken for not white. A Greek sort of tone.
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: A few scars on the torso and a dog bite scar on the leg.

Status

Wake up: about 10am.
Just after 10-2 or 3pm: teaches mage children basic lessons. Reading and writing, basic knowledge of plants and spells, basic spell control. On days he's not with them, he's researching in his room.
3-6: Wanders Skyhold. May be found in the library, battlements, or training grounds.
Around 6: dinner.
7pm-3am: researching in his room. He refers to it as his lab, and it's in the dungeon.
Sleep: 3am. If at all -- sometimes the research bug gets him.

Reputation

Pro-circle member of the mage council. Generally taciturn, doesn't speak too much at meetings. Keeps to himself otherwise. Doesn't seem to be doing much of anything -- he's deliberately created an image that he's just a grumpy old man not getting anything of value done. Word is slowly getting around, though, that his father was one of the slavers in Crestwood, and he died as part of that process.

Hooks

Research: Anyone doing particular research into the veil, the fade, or the rifts is of interest to Raylan. His current research goal is to learn everything he can about the veil, so he might understand the holes in it better. Not much information on this exists, so anything tangentially related is relevant.
Friends: Anyone near his age (here meaning within ten or fifteen years) who isn't actively an asshole or too political to keep their shit contained, he's interested in trying to make friends!
Shipping: We all know Fade Rift is secretly a shipping game anyway. I am super into any ship ideas you have, with the caveat that a) he's not into anyone younger than late 20s and b) he's got a weird thing happening with Boyd right now, but it has yet to be seen where that's going.

Not-so-much hooks:
Mentor: Raylan naturally lends himself to mentor/big brother/father figure CR, but I want to limit this a lot because it's only fun to play so many times.
Negative CR: Being a pro-circle mage and a fairly abrasive personality, I expect Raylan to pick up negative CR. However, he's too old to be pursuing people he hates (in words he would use), so he's not likely to engage with someone who doesn't like him and he doesn't like. So this is a pretty sure way to make sure Raylan doesn't have anything interesting to say to your character ever again (he can work with someone he dislikes, but it will be all business and not particularly interesting).

PLAYER

Name: Carley
Age: 21 and holding, damn it
Contact: shockvaluecola
Other Characters: none
Interests: I mean, I'm mostly joining cause I love Dragon Age and cause my friends are in it? I do like the political stuff in particular, though.

CHARACTER

Name: in canon: Raylan Givens. in FR: Raymond Gibbs, called Raylan because he couldn't say his own name as a kid and it stuck.
Canon/OC: Justified
Journal: putyoudown
Race: human
Nationality: Fereldan
Occupation: ...is apostate an occupation?
Age: 44

History

http://justified.wikia.com/wiki/Raylan_Givens
Raylan was born in Crestwood. His father worked as a farmhand when he couldn't manage to con gold out of passing couriers (and Maker knows he tried). Raylan started showing signs of magic in late childhood, but demons never showed a strong interest in him (he suspects because he wasn't strong enough to be appealing) and he was enough of an oppositional little shit to tell them to fuck off, when they did come in his dreams.

When Raylan was 19, his aunt slipped some gold and a note to a courier. A week later, templars arrived and took Raylan away to the circle. He passed his Harrowing with little trouble, having built up that resistance to demons by being mostly self-taught. He spent most of his adult life in the Redcliffe circle, doing his experiments and reading his books and generally keeping to himself, only drawing notice when he accidentally blew something up (this didn't happen all that often, he'll tell you, and it was never catastrophic. What's a little broken glass to the face in the name of research?). He was present for the whole thing with the demon during the Blight, and survived the incident by barricading himself in his laboratory with several children and teenagers, to protect them.

When the circles were dissolved, he stayed in the tower as long as he could, because he Did Not Approve of splitting from the Chantry and argued strongly against it when the issue was brought up. Soon, though, the templars turned, and Raylan fled into the woods, forced to accept that there was no non-apostate option anymore. He built himself a shack in the Hinterlands and tried to avoid picking a side, subsisting by trading his help for food with villagers around him -- he was never great at healing magic, but he understands herbs and bandages well enough. He's finally realized that his neutrality is untenable and he's probably going to get scurvy with the economy where it's at right now (he can hunt for meat, but he doesn't know what vegetables are okay and you can't eat elfroot), so he's set out to join the Inquisition, because they seem the least apostate-y of the bunch.

Personality
Raylan hides it well and doesn't think of himself this way, but he is a very angry man. More than one character comments on this, in canon including his ex-wife (citing that as why she left him) and his boss, making an ironic comment that Raylan's father clearly has anger issues and isn't it fortunate those tendencies were not passed to Raylan. This manifests in his daily life as him being fairly ornery and oppositional unless he feels he has good reason to listen to you, but it is possible to earn his respect.

Raylan is driven by what he feels is right and just, and what he feels is right and just is for everyone to be safe (primarily) and comfortable. Raylan is about as trusted as mages ever get, and he still knows a demon could get into his head at any time. Maybe one finds the thing Raylan didn't even know he wanted and convinces him, or maybe one makes it in by force. He also knows that a mage is dangerous even if not possessed -- an abomination can destroy a village, but so can a determined mage who is mentally ill or just a moody teenager. He knows templars abuse mages in some places, but you don't throw out a tool just because someone misused it.

Raylan is surprisingly good at teaching and talking to children, with a particular soft spot for teenagers. If he'd ever had his own children, they'd probably be in their teens now, so maybe that's why he feels protective of them. Either way, he had a reputation in the circle as being a good person to go to if you were between 12 and 18 and you needed help with something -- whether it be magic or how to talk to a girl. He generally manages to contain his grouchiness around teenagers and children. On the other hand, being raised by one taught Raylan how scumbags work, and he doesn't hesitate to call them out when he sees one.

Raylan's a pretty taciturn sort of man. He's not exactly the quiet type, but when he speaks, his words are well-chosen and to the point. He adapts well to different situations, speaking differently to different people and different situations. This is a skill, among many other useful ones, he mentions in canon having learned from his Aunt Helen. He shows an easy ability to charm and soothe people into at least cooperating with him, if not outright liking him. He's also not all grump and hatred, because he's always willing to offer emotional support to people he's close to.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Raylan is a mage, obviously, but he's not especially powerful in the sense of sheer brute strength. What he is is fast and precise. He can't take out a whole army (or even a whole party) on his own, but he can snipe one dude from a half mile away before they even know he's coming, or take out someone's knees to let a warrior get close and finish them off.

His strongest magic, generally, is lightning magic, but he likes to experiment with random not-terribly-useful magic, too -- whittling a little dragon and trying to make it fly, for example. He knows basic medicine and first aid, so he can bandage wounds or bring down a fever, but he's not very good with healing magic. He's also a passably good cook, having been taught by his mother as a child and kept it up as he could.

He's also not averse to physical labor if necessary. Having grown up in rural Ferelden, there was always something to be done. But he's no spring chicken, and he won't hesitate to say so if there's someone younger than him who can move that heavy box or crouch in the garden for an hour. His general ornery nature and refusal to play nicely with others could pose problems, although he's not going to actively antagonize anyone who doesn't do it to him first. He's more likely to just keep to himself.

Inventory

A few small, normal tools (knife, etc), and a really crappy staff. Otherwise, the boots on his feet and clothes on his back.

Motivation

Living on his own and ignoring everything out of grumpiness has become untenable, and he's going to die sooner rather than later if he keeps trying. He's certainly not going to join those damned rebel apostates, but there doesn't really seem to be any circle to take shelter with, either. The Inquisition seems like the least apostate-y of all the options, so here he is. (Also I'd like it if possibly some members of the Inquisition found and/or saved and recruited him, if that's possible, but he could also have decided on his own.)

SAMPLES

http://allthisshitisweird.dreamwidth.org/9952.html?thread=5141472#cmt5141472
http://templegates.dreamwidth.org/3986.html