As Above, So Below is a play-by-post RPG based on the Dragon Age series of video games. Play takes place during the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition as our characters navigate cutthroat politics, tumultuous relationships, and the looming threat of a sky torn asunder. Set in a world of dark fantasy, we explore mature topics while crafting thoughtful and compelling plots focusing on OC stories with minimal canon involvement. We're an advanced RP for those who are comfortable with creative writing. 18+, 3/2/2, Faceclaims optional.
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Post by Myanna Tordra on Aug 21, 2018 23:15:39 GMT -5
Myanna Tordra
Current Pseudonym: Livia Galrek
general info
CLASS Rogue, dual wield
GENDER Female
AGE Early 40s
RACE Dwarf
ORIENTATION Lesbian
OCCUPATION Former Carta; knife-for-hire
appearance
Myanna is a dwarf of average build. She has black hair with flecks of gray, which she keeps as neat and well-groomed as she can, even while on the road. She has a weakness for silk hair ribbons, when she can afford to get them. Her clothing choices, on the other hand, tend to be practical so that she can blend in with a crowd and defend herself physically without voluminous garments getting in the way. She carries an unassuming pack full of various supplies, grenades, and potions, and has a number of knives hidden about her person.
She has typical dwarven tattoos on her face, which she changes periodically -- either by adding to them, or by using questionable methods to remove bits -- to hinder anyone recognizing her from job to job.
personality
Myanna has been on the run from the Carta since 9:35 Dragon, and as such, changes her identity generally every few months, or for each new job she takes. She prefers to work alone when possible in order to reduce the number of people who get to know any of her aliases. However, she will work with others when they offer skills or knowledge that she could use.
In her effort to stay anonymous and prevent the Carta from finding her, Myanna shuns friendships and deep relationships even while she craves them. When she finds herself without work, she nearly drowns with loneliness and lack of companionship, so she takes job after job, often accepting tasks that she feels are beneath her.
Myanna tends to be very uncomfortable with things she does not understand, since she cannot predict what she does not understand. However, she will put up with quite a bit in the name of getting the job done.
In a hidden pocket, she stores her cipher book, which contains all of her aliases and their various contacts, all in a code that only she has the key to. The book is in her possession, always.
history
Myanna grew up in and around Kirkwall, one of the youngest children of a Carta family before the Carta had a large presence in The Free Marches. Growing up, she was closest to her older sister, Magra, though the two also had a rivalry born from Magra's bossiness. Still, the two engaged in frequent mischief when they were girls and young women.
Myanna joined the family business as soon as she was old enough, often infiltrating lyrium smuggling rings and merchant guilds as a Carta spy, either to gather information or to perform assassinations.
Myanna has not used her real name in public since running from the Carta in 9:35 Dragon. She rarely uses an alias for more than a few months, and has had to resort to using a cipher to keep track of them all. She roams Thedas working as a knife-for-hire, occasionally using old contacts from her Carta days to secure work, but with them left none the wiser.
The circumstances that led to her flight from the dwarves are not widely known. They began when Myanna's lover, daugher of a Dust Town merchant, earned the ire of the Carta. It is said that Myanna, distraught at the prospect of losing her lover, had interfered with -- or failed to carry out -- the assassinations of Elrin and her entire family. Rumors further suggest that Elrin, terrified and intimidated, had traded knowledge of Myanna in exchange for her own life.
Even Myanna does not know the full truth, though she does know that the entire debacle ended with the deaths of Elrin's family and numerous members of the Carta, the disappearances of both Elrin and a staggering amount of Carta gold, and a massive bullseye on Myanna's head.
"Future" Work
circa 9:42 Dragon - involved in unknown events under the name Eliza Dumas, and working with a mercenary, Eric Tomlin
9:43 Dragon - hired by the Chantry to track down a missing lyrium shipment, and became involved in hunting down a rogue group of Templars who have been kidnapping mages from the Lake Celestine area ("Twisted Oaths" on BSN), using the name Kali Norek
sample
Myanna a.k.a. Kali from "Twisted Oaths" --
It was a very short walk to the chantry, made somewhat longer by Myanna insisting on peering into every shadow and dark corner that they passed, with her knives ready to be drawn. Talk of demons -- demons that had been handling the contents of her pack, no less -- had set Myanna a little bit on edge. It had been easy enough to ignore in the cheerful warmth of the inn’s main room, but now that they were out in the courtyard, Myanna was sure she’d seen one or two pairs of glowing red demon eyes staring out at her from the shadows left behind by the rising sun.
Possibly she had just started at a pair of lightning bugs, though. They came out in the early mornings too, surely? Yes, probably just lightning bugs.
Myanna shook herself, causing a bleary-eyed Orlesian family on their way to the chantry to hustle their small child away from her. (She tried to be offended, but she actually preferred it this way.) Thugs, thieves, assassins, and other ne’er-do-wells, she had no problem with. But with all this demon business, well...that would teach her to accept a job from the terrifying new Divine, even indirectly.
As the pair approached the heavy chantry doors, Helen stepped aside to allow Myanna the honor of letting them both inside. She rolled her eyes but yanked the door open, barely refraining from snarking an, ‘after you, my lady!’ at Helen’s back. The woman strode confidently into the chantry and immediately started greeting villagers, though she remained poised and understated, as if she were one of their betters but didn’t want to rub it in too much.
Though the prayer service itself didn’t seem to have started yet, the gathering congregation was singing a solemn tune about...suffering? Sacrifice? Being depressed in the name of their god?
Myanna couldn’t understand the dialect they were singing in, but Helen evidently did. She greeted one last villager, and then practically spun in a circle with a euphoric smile blossoming across her face.
And she burst into song.
Myanna felt her face heat up, and she took several quick steps away from the bard and her warbling.
It was...beautiful warbling, to be fair. Practically divine. Probably what princesses and delicate ladies heard when they reached their afterlife. But it made Myanna itch.
She wrinkled her nose and watched as Helen pranced toward an altar crowded with candles. The bard dropped several coins into a donation basket and reached for one of the unlit candles, holding its wick against an already flickering one. All the while she continued her singing, drawing hope-filled smiles from the dreary villagers around her.
While Myanna wholly approved of uplifting the poor and fashionable, she hoped this episode was not indicative of what it would be like to conduct this investigation with Helen at her side. She preferred more detective work and less dancing about.
Still, Helen’s frolicing took everyone’s attention off of Myanna, allowing her to look around in relative peace for glowing eyes or grieving dwarves, or even brusque chantry sisters. She noticed a woman she didn’t recognize, clearly a warrior, loitering outside Nenet’s closed office, along with a Dalish woman and a human man standing somewhat apart from the warrior.
When the office door opened suddenly, the warrior woman sprang up so fast that Myanna almost drew her knives on instinct. Nenet appeared in the doorway, ushering out a shorter figure, though it was obscured by the three taller figures now crowding around. Recognition dawned in Nenet’s eyes, however, and she leaned around the Dalish and her companion to make a ‘wait a minute’ gesture to Myanna. Myanna answered her with a wave and a sigh.
Helen was still singing, and the villagers were still enraptured. If Myanna rolled her eyes again, she figured they would probably fall straight out of her eye sockets, just like her older sister Magra had always screeched at her that they would. She sort of missed Magra, sometimes, and she felt a pang of sympathy for Bhegan and his missing brother.
The office door shut again, taking Nenet, the Dalish woman, and the man with it. The tightly-wound warrior woman stayed outside, now towering over the shorter figure who had been with Nenet.
A male dwarf. Bhegan, perhaps? She doubted this village contained too many dwarves these days. She turned around, following the sound of Helen’s crooning to locate her quickly and finding her receiving some sort of Andrastian blessing from a dazzled-looking sister.
“Helen,” she said in an urgent whisper, grabbing the woman’s wrist and causing the sister blessing her to yelp in protest. “Come on. I think this human thug has found Bhegan for us.”
With a look that reminded Myanna of someone who’d been jerked abruptly out of a pleasant dream, Helen’s gaze focused on Myanna . “Ah,” she said. “Good job, Kali.”
Myanna motioned discreetly and let go of Helen’s wrist, pushing down the momentary jolt she’d felt in her stomach at hearing her latest pseudonym. She’d adopted it just before starting this job, and it still didn’t feel natural.
--------------------------
Myanna opted to see what the local apothecary had before venturing out to the hunter's cottage. Besides, it would be a good idea to see what Thene was buying. If the woman had any shifty ideas, Myanna might be able to suss them out based on what the woman bought. Either that, or she would force the woman to return to the shop later for the rest of her purchases, sans nosey dwarf.
Up ahead, Thene entered the apothecary. Myanna quickened her pace just a touch, not wanting to miss anything the warrior might look at in the shop...until she caught sight of a man browsing the market stall set to the left of the apothecary. Casually, Myanna turned the opposite direction and noticed another shop with its door swung wide open. She ducked inside.
The man was Eric Tomlin, mercenary and a wetter blanket than the squealer who'd ratted out Myanna and her sisters when they, as children, had switched out an uncle's stealth grenades for ones filled with a tincture of stinging nettle, and then had used the stealth grenades themselves to watch the fruits of their labor. (Really, telling every one of their elders about what they'd done was a total overreaction. Their uncle had been fine. Eventually. And he'd learned to check his grenades before going pilfering himself.)
Tomlin did not know Myanna Tordra. He did not know Kali Norek. But he did spend several months working with Eliza Dumas, and Myanna hadn't had the opportunity to change her tattoos since then.
Tomlin did not need to see "Eliza" in Velun, and he most certainly did not need to meet "Kali".
"'Ow may I 'elp yoo, meeztress dwarf?" the masked shopkeeper said in one of the strongest Orlesian accents Myanna had heard yet in the village.
"Uh," Myanna said eloquently. She looked around herself, at glass jars filled with colorful wooden buttons and metal thimbles, spools of shimmery silk ribbon, needle cases both practical and ornamental -- even one that appeared to be made of ivory, which made Myanna's jaw drop.
She'd walked into the village haberdashery.
"Uh," she repeated, "I do like silk ribbons for my hair."
The shopkeeper beamed at her and began placing spools of ribbon on the counter between them, jabbering about how well each one would complement Myanna's eyes or skin or hair. After one more glance at Tomlin to make sure he was still at the far market stall, Myanna gave her attention to the haberdasher.
A few minutes later, with her new silk ribbons tucked safely into a pocket, and a green one tied into her hair, Myanna peeked across the square to see Tomlin engaged in haggling with the merchant of the same stall he'd been browsing earlier. It wasn't worth risking that he might see her, so the apothecary was a no-go for now. Instead, Myanna headed the other direction, toward where Helen indicated Thene might find Christoph the hunter and his herb-picking daughter.
----
ooc info
☆ NAME
dragontartare
☆ OTHER CHARACTERS
Mathras Halasan
☆ FACE CLAIM
DAI character CREATOR
THIS CHARACTER BELONGS TO: dragontartare
MADE BY ★MEULK OF GS & THQ
Edited Aug 27, 2018 22:19:10 GMT -5 By Myanna Tordra
