Credit
Pronunciation: “RIL-lee-ehn FA-la-vehl”
Age: 33 (as of Act Three)
Race: Elf
Sex: Male
Sexuality: Rilien was once a Bard. This necessitated a certain degree of flexibility. Being Tranquil however, however imperfect his Rite, makes it unclear if he is capable of romantic attachment.
Height: 5’9”
Build: Like most else about him, Rilien’s structure is best characterized by the word efficient. There is little excess to be found, but he is not overly sparing, either. Lots of smooth muscle, densely-packed onto a frame of perhaps average size, though on the taller end of things for an elf. He is athletic and well-proportioned, in exemplary physical condition without being particularly geared to one end or the other of the rangy/built spectrum.
Class: Closest to rogue, with the occasional faint touch of something resembling magic.
Appearance: Rilien is certainly an unusual-looking fellow, likely to draw attention wherever he goes, as much for his strange mannerisms as his appearance per se. Snowy-white hair is paired with flawlessly-citrine irises, set into a typically-elven-angular face with a hint of sun. Upon his forehead rests the sunburst mark of the Chantry, the sign of a Tranquil.
If that wasn’t strange enough, his movement seems to glide rather then walk as most people do; even at a running pace, it seems effortlessly so, perhaps aided by the perfect serenity which comprises his facial expression on almost every occasion. His voice is generally that strange, lilting monotone characteristic of the Tranquil, except when he sings. Occasionally, it takes on an edge of barely-perceptible emotion, but he is known to withdraw from conversations after such occurrences.
He does not wear Chantry robes, and it can be inferred that for whatever reason, he gained enough independent inclination to move about on his own and pursue personal goals, or at least a life of some kind separate from what he once was.
Act Two: With his windfall from the Deep Roads expedition and the opening of a (very lucrative) business in Hightown, it would likely not be a mistake to assume that Rilien is worth more financially than the majority of humans in Kirkwall, to say nothing of the other elves. His clothing, to a certain extent, reflects this. Though always tasteful, his garments are impeccably tailored and made from high-quality imported fabrics. He favors tunics with distended sleeves in dark jewel-tones, well-fitted trousers, and boots of deerhide. He has allowed his hair to grow a little, and the ends of it now brush his nape, though of course he looks ever put-together as always. Notably, however, Kirkwall summers have caused him to forgo the sleeves on occasion, and it is now observable that his upper arms and back seem to bear a tattoo with a serpentine dragon motif. What this indicates is unclear. It seems to be purely cosmetic.
Act Three: Over the past three years, Rilien has allowed his hair to regain most of the length it had in his days in Orlais. Which is to say, it now cascades to about his lower back, though for the sake of convenience, it is usually pulled into a tail high on his head, something that has the side-effect of making the shape of his ears rather prominent. Age seems to have affected him little if at all—he may have gained a bit more muscle definition due to the fact that he now fights and labors more than he plays or sings, but his face shows little discernible difference from what it did at twenty-six, save perhaps that the broken nose he suffered from Silian healed just slightly less than ideally, so what was once a perfectly-straight facial feature is now a smidge crooked. If anything, it makes him seem more… normal, interrupting the uncanny symmetry of the rest of him.
when utilized appropriately.”
Credit
He does, however, feel the occasional emotion, and these tend to perplex him more than anything else, and make him a trifle uncomfortable. When he underwent the Rite of Tranquility, his magic was severed from him, but he did not lose absolutely all connection to the Fade, which means he is still capable of things like emotional attachment and dreams, but they tend to trouble him far less frequently than they do other people. He is still clearly capable of independent thought, though his reasoning process is painfully logical enough to be a mystery to most other people.
Occasionally, a fragment of his former personality will slip out, and it is in these moments that the failure of his Rite is most clear, but even then, he is careful to act his part, because if anyone knew of the incomplete nature of his severance from the Fade, he’d probably be reported to the Chantry.
Act Two: Given Rapture's abilities and frequent presence in his life, as well as his own perplexing but growing attachment to those around him, Rilien is showing fragments of the person he used to be more now than he has in the past, and this person is quite the enigma. Aside from the counter-seduction of Rapture, the occasional demonstrated traits seem mostly to be instances of very black humor indeed, some uncertainty, and sarcasm in spades, but what else is under there remains to be seen.
Act Three: The episode in the caves outside Kirkwall shook him considerably, and seems to have shaken loose a few things he believed were long buried beneath his Tranquility. Rilien is not sure what to do with these things, these emotions, both old and relatively new, so for the moment, he has not let on that he has them at all, and he’s grown so used to concealing things that he appears to act no different on the surface of things, really. Perhaps, in time, those closest to him will begin to pick up on the subtleties. He is certainly more capable of attachment than he used to be—or perhaps he was always capable, and has finally found a reason to exercise the capacity. With him, it’s hard to say for sure.
Fears: It may be true that he does not feel afraid on a day-to-day, dangerous-situation sort of basis, but Rilien has developed fears. He was afraid he would fail, that he would not be able to help Sparrow overcome Rapture. Now, he is afraid that those he has become accustomed to will die, or leave on a permanent basis. He is not used to his life having much meaning, and he certainly has not sought it actively, but… he has found it. Or perhaps meaning has found him. And while he may be poor at or incapable of feeling or expressing it as well as others do, he still dreads losing the purpose they provide him. He fears losing a sense of home, of belonging. Of acceptance.
Opinions: (Act Three)
- The Chantry: Rilien will never like the Chantry. This is a relatively obvious fact about his psychology and would hold even in the event that he came to like other things. They have taken much from him, with little justification, and more than that, they have taken and continue to threaten to take from the people he has chosen to concern himself with. He watches their activity with caution, especially that of the Templars.
- Mages: He was most poignantly reminded of what it is, to have that kind of power at the very tips of his fingers, just waiting for a thought. To brandish firestorm, snowfall and sturdy earth against those who would resist his intentions. To feather over their minds with delicate tendrils of thought, leaving fear or pain or even calm in his wake. To dip deeply into the Fade and be cleansed in the ablutions of knowledge, power. He does not need it. But he does not disdain it, nor those who use it.
- Templars: He finds no fault in Emeric, or Thrask, or Cullen, or any of the Templars he interacts with on a relatively frequent basis. It is difficult still, for him to form opinions on generic categories of thing, but he also remembers even still that it was because of a Templar that he was made into half an elf, robbed of the things that kept him whole.
- Elves: He has dealt with the racism inherent in human power structures like anyone else has, but the opinions of others are as always of little relevance to him. Should any of these attempt violence, that would be something to deal with then. He cannot feel kinship to elves as a whole, and even when he could, he didn’t, particularly. For all he knows, one or both of his parents could have been Dalish at one time or another, but such speculations are fruitless and without point. As is bothering to identify himself with the elves in the Alienage. He is not, and has never been as they are. First, he was too prideful, too certain of himself. And then he was Tranquil, and that has erased everything else.
- Dwarves: Sandal is a most apt student of his craft, and Bodahn a competent keeper of books and merchant. Varric provides him with lucrative opportunities to do business, and occasionally information. Other than that, Rilien does not interact with dwarves, and so he has no opinions regarding them.
- Humans: They are everywhere. To some, he has come to call himself a friend, even if he is not sure he can muster the feeling of camaraderie required. To others, he is only a death sentence. The vast majority concern him not at all.
- Qunari: They are gone, and that is really the end of it.
- Kirkwall: Rilien does not really operate with concepts like “home,” but this is the place where they are. The people that matter to him in a way that does not find purchase in his vocabulary, extensive as it may be. It is also the place that frequently endangers them. This produces a different kind of ambivalence from his usual sort, perhaps.
but for what reason would I wish to?”
Credit
Armor/Apparel: Rilien doesn’t wear much armor, but when he does, his shirts are loose-sleeved and cinch at the wrists, overlaid by boiled leather plates in dark grey. His boots are soft and designed for stealth more than pure protection.
Combat Overview: Rilien’s style is… an odd mix. He’s not quite a duelist and not quite a bard, but he’s been trained in ways conducive to both. His combat is much more direct than that of the average saboteur, and seems to be most inclined towards weapon talents and bardsong. If the properties of his buffs are a little more inexplicable than the ordinary bard, if his potion making is a bit better than the average craftsman, and his enchanting a smidge more impressive than your usual fare, well, certainly it’s not magic, right? His weakness is probably in dealing with ranged combatants, as he has to be up-close to do damage. His buffing skills tend to help reduce damage until he can get up in someone’s face, but, well- he’s not heavily-armored, and a well-placed arrow he can’t get away from could put him down for a while. Other than that, though, he’s quite flexible in terms of the volume of opponents he can handle, switching between single combat and juggling multiple foes with apparent ease.
Act Two: Three more years of open-combat experience have further honed Rilien's quickness and proclivity for silence, and he tends to rely less often upon his bardsong and more straightforwardly upon the talents of his body and mind. His weapons are all still close range, things that can move and bend and twist with him, and though his flexibility is not perhaps on level with Amalia, he is a very agile opponent with no feeble strength. Overall, a very balanced mix, but geared towards the ruthless, the sudden, and the precise.
Act Three: While still rather useless at range, Rilien is an adaptable, versatile melee combatant, the skills honed further by eventful years fighting demons, men, and various other nasties alike. He has acquired a small arsenal of weapons, notable for the fact that each of them has a different form of enchantment on it, meaning that he is more able to accommodate the strengths and weaknesses of any exotic foes he should encounter. What he lacks in armor, he makes up for in mobility and the potency of his potions, which allow him to hold his own even against things capable of dealing him a great deal of damage very quickly. His greatest strength is as it always was: efficiency, and a logical frame of mind that is generally left unclouded by emotional interference.
Credit
Place of Birth, Nation of Origin: Monrenny, Orlais
Social Status: Rilien occupies the rather unique position of wealthy elf. It hasn’t made him any friends, but he does not require any beyond the ones he has. Aside from the Hightown storefront and the well-tailored clothes, it’s not even obvious.
Personal History: Let it never be said that Rilien Falavel led an uninteresting life.
His origins are rather humble: his parents were two city elves in a minor regional capital in Orlias. His mother was a chambermaid and his father a farmhand, so it was fairly predictable that Rilien would be much the same. Of course, this is Orlais we’re talking about, and the Orlesians love nothing more than a pretty oddity, so when your child is born with snowy hair, delicate features, and orange-golden eyes, it is perhaps equally-predictable that some lord or lady will take a shine to him.
Such was the case with Rilien, who was quickly taken in by his mother’s employer, at first simply for the curiosity of him and then within a year or two to be trained as a bard for the purpose of gathering information and assassinating people. And why not? Elven bards were far from unheard-of, and the flashier a bard was, generally the better.
All that was fine until Rilien hit about ten, and accidentally discovered his magic. Given that Orlais is so devoted to the Chantry, it wasn’t long before someone reported it and the boy was taken to the Circle. His employer kicked up quite the fuss, but of course there was no defying the will of the Divine. Unfortunately for the Templar Order, he was nothing if not a petulant, mischievous child, and frankly they had their hands full. Already halfway to a silver-tongued charmer, he didn’t much enjoy the staid life of imprisonment foisted upon him, and he gained quite the reputation for trouble.
He might have grown out of it, had he not come upon a Templar of the worst kind harassing his friend Tanith. The world can be a brutal place, and Rilien would come to know that better than most. He did what seemed right at the time- attacked the Templar and defended her. For his trouble, he was condemned to the Rite of Tranquility at the tender age of sixteen--after having passed his Harrowing.
It was halfway done by the time his bardmaster managed to shoot the Templar performing it and break him out of the Circle. He’d lost most of his emotions, all but the barest traces of his magic, and basically his entire moral compass. In other words, he was the perfect bard. Remorseless, unlikely to disobey, and with the advantage of being able to sense changes in the Fade around him- to detect magic.
How he got from a full-fledged career as one of the most successful bards in Orlais (you’d be surprised what the Chantry will overlook with sufficient incentive) to another piece of refugee waste in the filthiest area of Kirkwall is anyone’s guess, but it’s probably a hell of a story.
Act Two: Rilien arrived in Kirkwall after a time spent fleeing his home country of Orlais in the company of Lord Lucien Drakon, former heir to the Orlesian throne. The two had come to travel together as a result of an incident in which Rilien was contracted to assassinate the Chevalier, though the exact details of what happened after that are yet murky. Sometime after their participation in the battle of Denerim, Rilien and Lucien parted ways, the former taking a ship immediately bound for Kirkwall. The next five years were spent integrating himself into the local society, mostly avoiding any run-ins with Templars or Chantry folk. At some point during his first year in Kirkwall, Rilien came across Sparrow squatting in his house, and the two have been cohabitators ever since, an arrangement that keeps Sparrow out of debt. Rilien, well... it's less clear what he was getting out of the deal, but it didn't bother him anyway.
In the years to come, he would meet several people who would later be of much concern to him, and find that, in a strange twist of fate, Lucien, too, had made his way into the City of Chains...
Act Three: Nobody is perhaps more surprised than Rilien himself that he has managed to form actual bonds with people in Kirkwall. Well… perhaps a few people might be more surprised, given that the feeling is very dull in him personally, but nevertheless, that he is surprised at all is rather telling. He has solidified himself into a life as an enchanter and occasionally a minstrel, and whenever it should be required, a combatant. He has become… comfortable, with this and with those who call themselves his friends. It is a most unusual feeling, and not only because it is a feeling at all.
There is only what is.”
Credit
The former Qunari is clearly someone very important to Sparrow. Her ability to speak and understand subtleties is quite far above the norm, and she catches on to his hidden meanings almost as quickly as Lucien does, something which he finds interesting. Her craftsmanship is something he certainly holds in esteem. They are also business partners, of a sort now, and he does not believe she expects anything of him but that of which he is already quite capable. It makes interactions with her untroubling, and he appreciates that, insofar as he can.
Saferwaters
The hunter is a strange fellow, to be so at-ease in his presence. Rilien is not unaware that he makes people a bit nervous, usually, but the fact that Ashton seems to not care in the slightest is actually something he appreciates, in his own sort of way. It is most often with Ashton that the remnants of the Tranquil’s bone-dry humor surface, and it could be said that they have a sort of effortless camaraderie where neither need be anything other than what they are. The bard appreciates also that Ashton is good for Sparrow, in the ways that he himself cannot be. For this, he is inexpressibly grateful.
Butterflies and Hurricanes
They seem to run into each other more often than Rilien “runs into” most people. At first, it was really just the fact that they both happened to be helping Emeric with the investigation into the missing women, but Rilien has since realized that Aurora is also a friend to both Sparrow and Lucien. This doesn’t exactly change his opinion of her, but it does influence his view of her relevance to him—to be more precise, she now has relevance to him. Should she have something to ask of him, the Tranquil would most likely grant it. He does not mind answering her questions or talking to her about topics he usually avoids with others, ones that are considerably personal. She reminds him of someone, though he has't told her whom.
Seven Devils
This is one of those rare cases of two people who know the same other parties without really knowing one another. Rilien has no business with the Alienage, and Ithilian presumably has no business with a Tranquil enchanter. Though he does carry some of his work, which is something that he’s made a note of but chosen not to mention. Why would he, after all? It’s not that Ril actively avoids interaction with Ithilian, there just has never been a reason for it, and so it hasn’t happened. This is really neither here nor there as far as he’s concerned.
Radioactive
Credit
Rilien has always held Lucien in relatively high esteem, even if the two men seem as different as night and day. Certainly there is a values dissonance between them that makes for very strange bedfellows, so to speak, but there is no mistaking that, even if the Tranquil finds the Chevalier’s morals to be impractical and antiquated, he respects the man’s adherence to them. Of late, he has found that he even seems to understand them a little. Rilien does not miss his life in Orlais, as nostalgia is hardly in his limited emotional repertoire, but he finds himself seeking Lucien’s company on occasion anyway, as though something else but obligation bound them now. With time, he has been able to acknowledge that, whatever it means for him, they are friends, or the closest kind of thing that Rilien will ever have to a real friendship.
Indestructible
Credit
Rilien has had very few interactions with the Warden. She seems to be friends with both Ashton and Sparrow, and honestly, friends is no longer the appropriate word when it comes to the former. Regardless, she does not often cross his path, though they have reached somewhat better terms than they began on. Rilien, at the behest of Lucien, makes a monthly contribution to the clinic’s stock of potions and remedies, which leads to the occasional conversation. She’s digging, trying to discover what makes him unlike other Tranquil. He doesn’t really care to know what she will decide on the matter, but he has thus far not attempted to mislead her.
Blue
Credit
That Sophia was willing to help find a remedy to Sparrow’s possession rather than simply sending her directly to the Gallows was not what Rilien had expected of her, and has done about as much as anything can do to tilt Ril’s general neutrality in a favorable direction as far as it can go without a more personal form of acquaintance. Her importance to Lucien is rather evident to the observant Tranquil, but he has never been one to let such facts color his judgement overmuch. He prefers to treat people as singular entities, despite the shortcomings of such a method. Regardless, he does not mind her, and would not find anything particularly inconvenient in her presence should she decide to pay another visit to the shop. Such a thing is unlikely, however.
The Wretched
It is difficult, to put words to such nebulous things as feelings, particularly when they are the feelings of someone still Tranquil. He cares about Sparrow, of that there is no doubt. There is much he would give for her benefit, and he would do so even if his endeavors were entirely thankless, which they have been before, where she is concerned. But the fact of the matter is, there is still an insurmountable wall between them, a wall Rilien is content to leave there and does not attempt to climb. This, he believes is for the best. While it might be that the profound differences between them contributed to their initial draw to one another, such diametrically-opposed lifestyles and frames of mind would hardly be a good basis for anything further than what they have, even if he were capable of it. She has told him she loves him; he can only hope that will fade with time, for nothing good can come of holding onto it.
The Fragile
on the company of others. Yet…”