You said, "I can't prove to you you're not gonna die alone,"
Content warning: do not follow if you are under eighteen. elvenderelict is nsfw. canon-typical body horror, violence, descriptions of gore, grief, child abuse and injury, fantasy racism, systematic abuse and ethnic cleansing, sexual assault, smoking, drug and alcohol use, suicide ideation, and more.
tagging format is cw: (trigger). let me know what to look out for.
@elvenderelict indie m!tabris from dragon age: origins. private and selective. iconless. nsfw.
[ a story about storms and getting lost in them. the biopsy of a man who breaks everything he tries to fix. ]
written by kels or knave (she/her, 25, est). i am sapphic, fortunately. i do hiking and d&d sometimes. damn i love frogs.
ooc chatter love it. will be doing it in the tags a lot. if we've gotten familiar with each other, feel free to ask for my discord. i will tell you all about the songs i associate with your muse.
activity sporadic.
ghost friendly drop those threads. take care of yourself ♡
interaction new mutuals get an in character greeting if we haven't already started interaction. we can turn that into a thread, if you'd like, but there's no need to reply to it. do tell me if you don't want the greeting post. you can always message me with a plot idea or drop an askmeme in my inbox to break the ice.
shipping sure, i like romance! if you've got an idea, message me, you know i want to hear it.
doubles i'd like to write with other wardens! we can either write in a verse where tabris wasn't conscripted or hash out how the decisions were split. i'm down to play with other tabrises, too - seysil can be their sibling, or i can play shianni or soris for you on request.
style i started off in forums like rpguild and proboards and i tend towards novella. putting a lot of work into aesthetics tends to take the wind out of my sails vis-à-vis roleplaying, so this blog will probably be text heavy, with few graphics and little formatting. i write third person, past tense for rp. the snippets of second person you see are cherrypicked from seysil's fic
001 . I'd like to write with people 21 and older.002 . Don't interact until I follow back. Don't reblog rp threads you aren't involved in.003 . Please hardblock me if I've followed you and you're not interested.004 . Don't needle me for replies or force ships.005 . Normal roleplaying ettiquette. Don't assume an attack hits, don't use OOC knowledge IC, etc.006 . Drama to a minimum please008 . If I start an IC interaction in one tense, please don't respond in a different one. little pet peeve ¯_(ツ)_/¯
"but trust me to take you home."
height, weight 5'5" 110 lbs
build ectomorph, prominent biceps
eyes dark, steel blue
hair auburn, thick/unruly, 2B
complexion fawn, heavily freckled
clothing loose. wool. grey. brown. dark blue. sweaters. avoids black.
scent pipesmoke, petrichor, salt-bleached wood
speech denerim docks accent with th-fronting, swears liberally, stilted, sometimes slurred, many unintentional pormanteaus
name seysil tabris
aliases eys [ pr. 'Ace' ] , tabs , the stray of denerim
b.d. 17 Harvestmere, 9:07 Dragon
b.p. Denerim Alienage, Ferelden
species elf
gender male (he/him)
orientation homosexual
class rogue
specializations night elf, street fighter
affiliations Friends of Red Jenny, ferelden grey wardens
alignment chaotic good
mbti esfj
religion chantry-critical lapsed andrastian; still swears like one. his mother revered fen'harel and he shares some of those beliefs, but doesn't advertise it. Personally, he believes in the indisputable right of each person to direct their life as they choose to without the interference of heavy-handed religious authority or archaic dogma, but you can still catch him praying when things go sideways
health intermittent explosive disorder, traumatic brain injury, aphasia, chronic migraine, blight
skills marksmanship, cqc, lockpicking, trap engineering, mending and repairs, stealth, free running, sleight of hand, intimidation and blackmail, calligraphy and forgery, provisioning, childminding, cleaning and laundering
languages King's Tongue, Denerim Thieves Cant, limited Elvhen
family Adaia [ mother ] , cyrion [ father ] , Soris [ younger cousin ] , shianni [ younger cousin ]
partners mathalin [ ex, dalish apostate ] , nesiara [ betrothed, invalidated ]
pets biscuit [ male mabari ] , jester [ blue dun mare ]
gear 7' Whitewood warbow [ primary, ranged ] biteback axe, fang of fen'harel [ secondary, dual wield ] gambeson, filched steel pauldrons and greaves, close-faced helm, wool shoulder cloak, adaia's boots, repeater tabs, wedding band
personality [ brave, proud, reliable, overemotional, nurturing, unforgiving, genuine, jaded, resourceful, domineering, considerate, overprotective, selfless, self-sacrificing. ] Most of the people who knew wild-hearted Adaia in life would say her son takes after her - including Seysil and Cyrion - but in truth, the core of his personality overlaps more with his father's. They share the same dedication to their own, the desire to shelter what they care about from harm, the same fear of loss. The difference is that Cyrion is subtle, tactful about this devotion, and Seysil is not.There's a raffish quality to Seysil Tabris that's difficult to put a name to. When things are going well for him, he's respectful, but rarely restrained, and never refined. He's the sort of man who's knowledgeable about a truly bizarre potpourri of subjects and enjoys bullshitting about topics he has no authority on despite that. Unless he has misgivings about someone, he's generally kind and open-handed with strangers, willing to sacrifice his time and wealth to offer a hand up as long as it doesn’t put friends and family in a tough spot. Towards those he loves, he’s tolerant, playful, openly affectionate, and deeply protective.But when it’s ugly, it’s very ugly. Sensitive and emotionally volatile, a feeling can come fast, intense, and dominate rational thought - when he’s laughing, that’s not a problem, but when he’s angry he’s furious, waffling between withdrawn and explosive unpredictably, and when he’s sad he’s despondent and prone to bouts of inconsolable tears. He’s aware and self-critical of this problem, as well, but struggles to improve. Talking through it never helps - the more overwhelmed he gets, the less he’s able to articulate himself, and the more likely he is to redirect it onto someone who doesn’t deserve it. The best he can do is point it at darkspawn until he’s spent or climb a tree and take a smoke break when there aren’t any darkspawn convenient.And of course, he’s severely proud. But he doesn’t see a problem with pride, considering how hard the world has worked to strip him of it. He’s only willing to swallow it for those he loves, which makes him difficult to contend with once he’s made up his mind about something.
appearance He has a very distinct, expressive face, but not an especially attractive one by common Thedosian beauty standards. While he's of average height for a city elf, malnutrition has left him awkward in ways he can't grow out of; his face is very narrow in the brow and jaw, but wide in the cheekbones, leaving him with crowded teeth and a dramatic diamond shape that accentuates his gauntness. His eyes are wide, with high, sparse brows, and a shallow, slightly upturned nose.The Maker painted him in vibrant, saturated color, however; he has a warm beige complexion heavily mottled with vermilion freckles. His eyes are a dark, intense shade of blue. He has brick red hair - a lot of it - that grows in wavy at the roots and twists more dramatically at the ends. He usually piles it in a high, wildly voluminous ponytail, but he's been known to sport a similarly uncooperative mullet in warmer climes. If he manages to survive to forty, he will have gone completely grey by then.
likes
Scruffy, pathetic, ugly animals named things like ‘Rubbish’ and ‘Fleaboat’ and ‘Smelfungus’. The more shitty the animal, the more he wants to shower it in love. This extends to inanimate objects.
Fiddles and rebecs, gemshorns, woodsy sounding percussion. Women humming. Plucky working songs. Aggressive wind before a storm. Thunder. Valleys beneath the Frostbacks, full of sedge and wildflowers and endless uncultivated space.
Mechanical puzzles. Ciphers and lateral thinking riddles. Mathematics. Dwarven architecture and engineering. Taking that technology apart to see how it works.
Long conversations over drink or hash, ones that begin in the evening and linger well past the point where both parties are tired, but don’t want the moment of connection to end, so they keep going until they’re both incoherent and soft cornflower light is creeping through the window shutters.
Chatterbox genius types. It’s nice when they’re not condescending, but if they’re hot enough they can get away with it. Men with big brown eyes like a baby cow. He likes them a little high-strung and pathetic. Stop looking at him like that.
Going very, very fast. If you asked him about the best thing that's ever happened to him, he'd cite Mathalin's gift to him the night of his twentieth birthday; fade stepping between rooftops all over Denerim.
night elf The Night Elves were a covert operations unit of archers under Loghain Mac Tir’s leadership during the Ferelden Rebellion. As the name suggests, it consisted entirely of elves, who were chosen for their superior low-light vision, and its primary function was to sow terror among the chevaliers. Adaia set many bolts on the Orlesians before Maric took the throne, but when her unit was disbanded she laid down her bow - she was marrying a doe-eyed boy from an Alienage, where elves were not permitted to bear weapons, and she couldn’t persuade him to leave. Of course, she laid down her bow where seysil could find it.Adaia hoarded tools and weapons in caches around the city and passed her skills onto her son in secret. Seysil learned to make his surroundings his first weapon. Given time to prepare, he’ll create traps that corral his quarry into an ideal location and pick them off from a great distance, under the cover of night. If the enemy is intelligent, he’ll leave a few alive to tell the tale; the goal of a Night Elf isn’t to eradicate, it’s to frighten and disorient.street fighter Seysil’s education under his mother ended when she died at human hands. Frustrated with what he believed to be complacency in his family and neighbors, he ran away from home and made Friends elsewhere. Most of his skills blended nicely with the things Slim asked him to do, but there was work on offer that couldn’t be tied up neatly by playing the cat burglar or sniping some pomp from twelve yards away.He developed his style for close quarters combat in the poor quarter, scrapping with thugs in the employ of a loan shark with more proxies than scruples. His mother had taught him how to use her short sword, but it was never the focus of their sessions - so, instead of throwing himself at those mercenaries and hoping for the best, he took her other lessons and tried to translate them to a different medium. In the same manner that he adapts an environment to himself, he’ll try to stack the odds in his favor, wearing his opponent down with bleeding and bludgeoning damage. Once they’re exhausted, he’ll catch a shoulder or a hip with the hook of his axe and puppeteer their movements, pulling them into Fang. It’s not polished, there’s no clockwork choreography or uncounterable maneuvers, but it’s methodical, brutal, and allows him to contend with much larger opponents.
appearance cont.
He possesses the same spare frame found on a good proportion of city elves, lean by nature and emaciated by a lifetime of thin, inconsistent meals and a weak appetite. His ribs and vertebrae can be counted; his elbows are sharp, hands boney. While the Blight will build more muscle on him, he’ll trade poor nutrition for an altered metabolism and struggle to gain weight over the course of his life.His right ear is jaggedly cropped, missing an inch of length. More of the shell is intact on the bottom than the top, giving the illusion of having one long ear up and one short ear down. His remaining ear is wide and curves more dramatically outward than most elves.He's heavily freckled, with higher concentrations over his face and shoulders. In certain places, the spots are so large and dense they seem more like port wine stains than freckles.He's been scrappy his entire life and he's not precious about his health or appearance, so he boasts quite a few scars, but some are more notable than others.distinguishing features cropped right ear, port wine stains on shoulders, scar that runs over temple into corner of left eye, puckered gash right of adam's apple, many haphazard scratches under chin, laceration on thigh above knee, slightly buck front teeth, missing both lower left incisors with more teeth chipped.
dislikes
The Rich.
The bright midday sun made harsh grey and inescapable by the overcast that characterizes Ferelden weather. Metallic grinding, abrasive voices. Lengths of the Imperial Highway that are particularly worn down. Humidity, both hot and cold.
Tedious, rote memory tasks. Fixed schedules. Staying in one place for longer than a few weeks.
The cleanup after a fight. When it’s darkspawn, it’s always grisly work and he’s usually exhausted by that point, and it sets his mind on the taint in his blood and that he’ll never be home again and what happens after the Calling. With people and animals, he’s coming down from a temper flare, so he course-corrects into cloying guilt unless they really had it coming.
Being spoken down to, the assumption that he’s uneducated and unskilled. When a word’s on the tip of his tongue but reaching for it only chases it away. When other Wardens insist he has more of an obligation to his position than the life that came before it. Dismissive behavior in his direction.
Tobacco; it’s an absolutely pointless luxury that he feels guilty for indulging whenever he finds a box. He never spends actual money on it.
the rich.
001 . Seysil was born in Denerim in the autumn of 9:07 to Adaia, a veteran of the Ferelden rebellion and an all around free spirit, and Cyrion Tabris, a well-spoken servant at the estate of Bann Rodolf. Within the heavily impoverished context of the Alienage, the Tabris family was considered affluent in the early years of the Dragon Age, and a young Seysil benefited from better nutrition and education than many of his peers.It couldn't last. Unfortunately, the Tabrises also had a reputation for being agitators and insurrectionists. When the Denerim Alienage was purged in 9:10, many of Cyrion's siblings were singled out and murdered by the guards. His attempts at shielding them drained money and assets quickly, and he was ultimately only able to save an orphaned and homeless nephew close in age to his son. Seysil was raised alongside his cousin, Soris, after he was adopted into the household. The years after that saw Cyrion's remaining sibling lost to another hate crime. When he returned from a week-long trip to his brother's razed homestead, it was with a five year old Shianni in one arm.These were not the only instances where Cyrion gave what little he had to save another - many friends and neighbors can attest to his generous nature. While this openhandedness emptied Cyrion's savings completely by 9:15, it modeled a principle that Seysil took to heart; what he had was meant to be shared with the community, even if the sacrifice came at great expense to himself.Adaia taught him something else entirely. Before he was even five, it was evident to his parents that he'd never possess the temperament that would secure him a well-paid position as a servant. Cyrion hoped his clever hands meant he could still learn a craft, but Adaia decided that he could do more with the skills she'd used to cut down chevaliers during the war; martial discipline would make something productive of his temper and the Alienage needed as many seasoned fighters in its defense as it could hide, she reasoned. It was illegal for elves to bear arms - these lessons became something of an open secret within the community.Molded by these facets of his upbringing, Seysil grew principled and tenacious - and also pushy and insubordinate, viewing himself as something of a folk hero as a child. Cargo would go missing from the docks and food miraculously appear in his family's cabinets, or infamous bullies would find themselves in a spot of misfortune. He was often argumentative with his elders when they tried to correct his behavior, even Valendrian - he did listen to their lectures, but the prospect that his actions might bring more violence down on them was so frightening that he’d shut down. Why would his mother teach him the skills she had, he wondered, if he was really meant to do nothing?trigger warning: child abuse and injury