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〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Red
AGE: 28
JOURNAL:
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redfirelightIM / EMAIL: AIM @ thisismyomnitool
PLURK: redfirelight
RETURNING: Newbie!
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: The Iron Bull
CHARACTER AGE: Mid 30's by word of God
SERIES: Dragon Age (Dragon Age: Inquisition)
CHRONOLOGY: Post-his personal quest, Demands of The Qun – with the Inquisitor having completed events up to the battle at Adamant Fortress.
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: Wherever!
BACKGROUND:
So once upon a time, there was this world called Thedas and it was pretty rad, populated by a lot of different races that pretty much didn't get along at all -- humans, elves, dwarves, Qunari. There was this alternate plane of existence that fueled magic and whatnot and it was called THE FADE. Not in all caps, just regular font. Anyway, a group of mages or Tevinter Magisters (depending on who the hecky is telling the story) went into the magical Fade and tried to make themselves into Gods with phenomenal cosmic powers. Story goes that they turned a very important part of the Fade into a nasty corrupted wasteland – and basically made life horrible for literally every mage who came after them. The corruption ended up spreading to the Real World (aka: Thedas) which caused creatures and all sentient races to become equally corrupt, or Blighted, infected with a kind of dark taint thing similar to a zombie virus. Blights spread across the world when the corruption infects one of the “old gods” of the universe and makes them wake up as a horrific monster, leading their troops of Darkspawn (aka: blighted individuals) to conquest and pillage and … other awful things.
People fought back by creating the Grey Wardens, people who accepted the Blight and defeated it in their own bodies. They went off and killed the corrupted old gods (aka: Archdemons because everything is demons in this series) and stopped Blights and saved the world. Super important people.
Super important people who were almost wiped out entirely in the 5th Blight, thanks to the actions of a ranking adviser slash BFF to the king of Ferelden, Loghain Mac Tir. He said “screw the Wardens we can take the Blight on our own!” and, spoilers, no, he could not. One Warden and their ragtag band of party members saved the day and killed the Archdemon and stopped the Blight. Hooray!
Meanwhile, over in a place called Kirkwall, in the Free Marches (apparently people are welcome to freely march over there as opposed to other places in Thedas), a Ferelden refugee named Hawke was having adventures of their own. These adventures included the discovery of a magic rock called “Red Lyrium”, essentially a Dark Side version of regular Lyrium, fighting an invasion of Qunari... oh, and being friends with the guy who ended up kicking off a gigantic, world-wide war of mages vs. templars.
Right, so, see, in Thedas, mages are considered pretty terrible people – right after elves and tax collectors. They're confined to Circles, which are usually in Towers, and watched over by the fantasy Church's (aka: the Chantry's) Templars who basically have the power of life and death over them. They're not treated like actual people a lot of times, and none of this sits well with a lot of mages. So they rebelled, because one of them, Anders, blew up a cathedral full of relatively innocent nuns. No one liked that. Hawke vanished, and the mages and templars all started trying to kill each other in the open instead of behind each others' backs.
Okay, so, back on track – sometime during the whole mess, there was a Qunari kid. He showed an aptitude for hitting things and asking questions, by his own words, and so he was raised to become a spy. Sort of. See, under the Qun, the code of conduct all Qunari operate under, you're assigned a job from an early age, then trained and groomed to do that job until you're old enough to do it. This kid got assigned to be one of the Ben-Hassrath. When he was old enough, he got shipped off to one of the Qunari's problem areas, to deal with deserters, violence and the Qunari's longtime enemies, Tevinter. Somewhere along the way, he picked up the nickname, “Hissrad”, or “Liar”. By his own admission, he saw a lot of horrible things there, like kids being murdered while their caretakers watched. He ended up burning out, and submitted himself to be “re-educated” by his superiors. They eventually reassigned him to Orlais, or Fantasy France.
Once there, he changed his name – becoming The Iron Bull instead of Hissrad, preferring how it made him sound like a big weapon of destruction instead of a person. After that, he found a bunch of ragtag warriors, including Krem, a Tevinter runaway who later became Bull's trusted lieutenant. He ran into Krem in a tavern, when Krem was confronted by a Tevinter group charged with finding the runaway and making an example of him. Bull got in the way, losing an eye in the process, but gaining Krem. He figured it was a fair trade. The gang was turned into a competent mercenary band, known as “The Bull's Chargers.” They ended up being some kind of weird family, with Bull drifting further and further away from his own people, despite continuing to report back to them on occasion.
And then the sky ripped open and the Inquisition happened. Off went Bull to sign on and fight the good fight and report back to the Qunari higher-ups. He was sent under the orders to get close to the Inquisition leaders and send important information back home. He sort of did that. He mostly hung around hoping to kill a dragon and actually killing a lot of crazy templars and Venatori, and running the Chargers for whatever good they could do for the Inquisition.
Later on, it came to pass that the Qunari took a lot of interest in the doings of the Inquisition. They offered up an alliance with the Inquisition – something pretty much unheard of in all history. That is, provided the Inquisition help them stop a Red Lyrium smuggling operation run by those lovely Venatori jerks. Bull and the Inquisitor agree, and off they go to fight what looks like an easy battle, with the Chargers in tow. They ended up trying to hold two separate hills while a giant Qunari warship moved in for the kill. But then more Venatori showed up, threatening to overwhelm the Chargers while Bull watched. He was left with a decision – either uphold the alliance, and the Qun, and hold his position until the warship did the job, or break the orders of his superiors and save the Chargers. The latter would cause him to become a deserter, a tal-vashoth, one of the things he'd been trained to hate and to fight for so long.
Bull chose the Chargers. He ordered them to retreat, saving their lives, and ending his life under the Qun. No, he didn't die, he was more or less considered so by his people.
And that was the last thing he remembers before he was taken.
PERSONALITY:
The Bull is a pretty honest sort of guy. He's up front about most things, down-to-earth in most conversations, and tends to play things straight most of the time. He flat out tells the Inquisitor in their first meeting that he's a spy, and will be sending reports back to his superiors. However, he also tells them what the reports will contain. Overall, Bull is friendly and outgoing, making an effort to get to know both his men, and the other members of the Inquisition's “inner circle”. He's not nearly as judgmental as a lot of his people can be – if the assembled Chargers are any indication. At one point he says he actually respects mages who don't misuse their powers, something almost none of his people, or the rest of the world at this point in time, do, because they're people living with great temptation, but still manage to be good people.
He cares a great deal for the men (and women) under his command. The Chargers are, in a lot of ways, his second chance. He formed them after the re-education, after he burned out with his first group. They may have been formed as a cover, as a way to let him operate more freely in Orlais, but they clearly became a lot more than that. He states that he knows everything about his men, he knows their backstories, their strengths, who they're sleeping with, etc. He'll defend Krem very strongly, if the player questions why he accepts Krem so easily, for example. They're the closest friends he has, really, which makes deciding between them and his way of life so difficult.
That's not to say Bull doesn't have prejudices and hangups, because he does – Tevinters and the more violent deserters of the Qun, the Tal-Vashoth. Most of this hatred stems from having to fight them as brutally and consistently as he had to. Even then, however, he's capable of accepting individuals from the first group, as shown by his taking in Krem, and later being on fairly amiable terms (or in a relationship with) Dorian, to an extent.
Bull enjoys the vices in life – drinking, sex, killing things... and dragons. He really, really likes dragons. All this sets him apart from his people, who have a lot more... restraint... in terms of things like sex and indulgences. Bull no longer seems to care. He likes drinking, sleeping with people, so why shouldn't he do it? He has a very nonchalant attitude about these things – if he's attracted to someone, and they're willing, why the hell not? – and tends to be more open to discussing them in public than anyone else. Shameless would be a pretty good word for it. He flirts too, with anything that moves, unless they tell him they're uncomfortable with his advances, earning an honest apology out of the big lug.
However, Bull is still pretty Qunari in terms of relationships – his people don't really love, and it's implied he hasn't ever either. But, should the player choose to engage in a relationship with him, he's shown to be a fairly caring and attentive partner, prioritizing the player character's needs over his own, offering them a “safe haven” from responsibility and the weight of leading a movement like the Inquisition. It's safe, therefore, to say that when he finds something to care about, he takes it seriously, putting its importance above his own.
He has a fear of demons. A really big fear of demons. As in, he hates them. Almost as much as he hates the Tal-Vashoth too, with a passion. But for entirely different reasons. Demons, he can't stand because, by their nature, they are something hard to defend against, something hard to fight. There is a point at which Cole, a veritable mind-reader, remarks on a memory of Bull's from his childhood, in which he asked how he was to cut out a demon if it invaded his mind, strongly implying Bull's fear stems from an inability to combat them with brute strength. Which is really his only asset aside from his “pillowy man bosoms” (thank you Krem). It probably implies he takes issues with other things he can't automatically break in half – such as magic.
Qunari don't have names. They have numbers. Job titles. Stuff like that. Bull is different. He picked his name after working in Orlais, after turning himself in to the re-educators and being burned out from his work. He also picked a name that, by his own admission, dehumanizes him, makes him into more of a thing than a person. Which probably says a lot to how complicated his feelings are about the Qun and the Qunari way of life anymore. He knows his place as 'the muscle', and he's more than happy to apply it as needed against the collective assholes of the world. But, for the most part, he feels out of touch, adrift, and not completely in line with the Qun he knew. He still firmly believes in most of it, but it seems as if his early work burned more than just his drive to be Ben-Hassrath.
POWER:
Durability – Based on his size and strength, Bull comes in with a heightened durability. Not like superman levels of invulnerability, but it takes far more effort to damage him than it would a normal person. Like say, throwing a car onto him would cause bruised ribs and broken bones instead of a completely crushed skeleton.
Sense Motive – His time training to become Ben-Hassrath has enabled him to become fairly adept at reading people. Because of this, he'll gain the power to sense whether or not someone is telling him the truth. This will be done with permission from other players, and limited face-to-face conversation, since body language is key to his being able to read people.
Dragon-Rage – Basically Berserk Mode. Based on the Reaver class ability of the same name, Bull will have the ability to push himself into a berserk sort of rage that vastly increases his strength, at the price of his health – causing rapid fatigue, bleeding from old wounds, and eventually loss of consciousness the longer he pushes himself.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
Hey, everyone. Listen. I had an idea. See, I've heard those... heroes running around have special names for themselves. Different names. Like... super man or something.
So. I've decided.
[Whoa now, he sounds proud of himself. That's probably not a good sign, where Iron Bull is concerned.]
Get this. Instead of the Iron Bull, how about we go with... The Iron Dragon?
[There's a pause. Like he's waiting for a reaction.]
Yeah? Huh? Intimidating enough? I figured it would be. It has a better, scarier ring to it.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
Sample thread
FINAL NOTES:
None.
POWERS - for quick reference
Sense Motive – His time training to become Ben-Hassrath has enabled him to become fairly adept at reading people. Because of this, he'll gain the power to sense whether or not someone is telling him the truth. This will be done with permission from other players, and limited face-to-face conversation, since body language is key to his being able to read people.
Dragon-Rage – Basically Berserk Mode. Based on the Reaver class ability of the same name, Bull will have the ability to push himself into a berserk sort of rage that vastly increases his strength, at the price of his health – causing rapid fatigue, bleeding from old wounds, and eventually loss of consciousness the longer he pushes himself.