application.

[satinet]

PLAYER

Name: Abby
Age: Old
Contact: prosodi; you know where to find me.
Other Characters: Flint, Wysteria, Fitcher (side), Miriam (side).
Interests: Unpopular opinions guy who is irritatingly good at appealing to more moderate/conservative voices. Need someone to cockblock your revolutionaries? Cassius is your man. Need someone to be studiously getting a lot of paperwork done in the background to legitimize x y z thing? Cassius is here to do you letter writing. Need someone to sally forth and do some brave adventuring? Hard pass.

CHARACTER

Name: Cassius Black
Canon/OC: OC (Native)
Journal: satinet
Race: Human
Nationality: Nevarra
Occupation: First Senior Enchanter
Division: Diplomacy
Mage or Not: Yeah
Age: 50

History

Cassius is a Loyalist mage and Senior Enchanter from the Perendale Circle. Born to field laborers, Cassius has always understood life in the Circle as being a marked improvement over whatever circumstances he would have found himself in otherwise. The Perendale Circle was strict but not cruel, and with hard work and the right relationships it afforded an education and the sort of social mobility that would have been alien to him outside it.

Having endeared himself to the First Enchanter in Perendale, Cassius fully anticipated one day inheriting the role. When the events of White Spire occurred and the First Enchanter disappeared into the rebellion, Cassius kindly took it upon himself to rally the Circle from splintering (give or take; don't let the door hit you on the way out, Petronella) and find a third path through the war by appealing directly to the Chantry and bolstering the ranks (spiritually or otherwise; Cassius certainly didn't take up arms though he did write a great many letters) of other Loyalists such as the esteemed Madame de Fer.

In the aftermath of the Conclave, Perendale itself became untenable. Cassius and the other remaining mages were delicately extricated and recruited to the Inquisition where he has been making the most of it ever since. Which isn't to say his service has been wholly self-serving. At his core, he fundamentally believes in the security and opportunity afforded by the Circles and is adamant about restoring the reputation of mages in the eyes of the general populace. He works very hard to see that the sympathy Divine Justinia had for mages' treatment within the Circle system is a sentiment which her successor (or those surrounding her) be encouraged to share. If that work just so happens to make him a few friends who might send him extravagant Satinalia gifts or recall his name when it comes to selecting who gets to be in the room where decisions get made, then that's just how the cookie crumbles baby.

So when his close personal friend, a prominent Mother in Montsimmard, let slip that an escort request submitted to the Inquisition would in fact be accompanying a cadre of Chantry officials and one or two Wardens bound for Val Royeaux to discuss the next stages of the war, Cassius saw an opportunity and snatched it. Did this involve casually forging some very minor paperwork and playing the equivalent of the shell game between himself and someone more equipped for combat? Yes. Was everyone very surprised to see him ride out to adventure? Maybe, but these are strange times. Does he regret it? Well, he would have said no only it all went poorly when a rift opened above them while en route, one or two people being mortally wounded, and him catching an anchor shard before being dragged to safety by a few industrious Chantry Mothers.

So yes, a little. But no one needs to know the exact details.

Personality

Cassius is a social climber with a heart of, checks notes, --why which color is your favorite? He'll try that one on for size. While some might describe his personality as gratingly sycophantic, or like the human embodiment of nails on a chalk board, or maybe just "Oh, that fucking guy," his candidly snake salesman-like approach to politicking has served him well in building relationships and coming to agreement with the type of people (see: Chantry higher-ups, old rich people, etc) who want to see a mage being a little conniving and self serving. He may not be everyone's cup of tea, but everyone thinks they know exactly who he is and that works out for almost everyone.

(Especially him.)

Fiercely Loyalist, Cassius believes sincerely in the advantages afforded by the Circles to mages and in the ability to reform the system in such a way as to minimize the abuses which have plagued it in the past. Repairing the damage done by the rebellion in the eyes of society and seeing that mages are once more afforded an education and security in a stable environment backed by the wealth and influence of the Chantry is his top and he's more than willing to align himself with the interests of an Exalted March or be the unpopular man in the Gallows if it means preserving his reputation as a voice for reconciliation between mages and those in Thedas with more conservative viewpoints. If that means winning a war, then sure. Let's win a war.

That said, he's very specific about how he does his work. He's good at talking, schmoozing, and in general making connections. He is not good at going out and doing brave and exciting action adventure things, and will staunchly beg off being responsible for the enacting part of enacting a plan. Cassius views himself as an organizing - the man who does the work that takes a lot of thought - so that other people can hit things with sticks and do the heavy lifting. That's not cowardice; that's economical time management! Also, a dominating sense of sense preservation has really worked for him so far so why quit now?

Otherwise, Cassius is quick to tell a joke (even ones at his own expense...so long as they're directed at him being intolerably arrogant and not something he's actually sensitive about like, say, his upbringing or the fact that his career's sort of stalled out) and surprisingly honest for a guy who reliably wakes up and chooses sleeze. Want to know his motivations? He'll tell you them. Want to call him out for being a tool? He knows, but it's funny that you'd mention it. A little bit of arrogance is good for you.

Opinions & Affiliations

MAGE RELATIONS: Pretending like mages are separate from the the societies which surround them is ridiculous at best and irresponsible at worst. Circles are an excellent framework which, with time and effort and a willingness to collaborate in the rebuilding of them, might be recreated in such a way as to benefit everyone. While it's true that the system was rife with abuse, the fall of the Kirkwall Circle and the subsequent rebellion destroyed reform efforts and Cassius has yet to see much progress made to replace those burnt bridges. He's anxious about the war with Corypheus ending and mages suffering under the same bad PR they started it with.

THE CHANTRY: Is so rich and despite, y'know, the whole Exalted March thing is far more willing to negotiate than it ever has been.

THE WAR: Look, Cassius is never going to hack it under the rule of an Ancient Magister void-bent on being the master of the world. He knows this, you know this, we all know this. Let's end the war so he can go back to collecting paintings.

EVERYTHING ELSE: That depends, what will it get him?

Strengths & Weaknesses

MAGE: Cassius is a force mage who specializes in the art of subtlety. While he's theoretically capable of the big bombastic stuff, his interests lie closer in line with "Hey remember the sorcerer's apprentice segment from Fantasia." Sure, he could use his magic to throw someone through a wall, but it's way more impressive to peel an egg with it. Bonus: then he gets to eat the peeled egg afterward.

In addition to the usual Force Mage stuff (which he's rusty and not great with - I'll be pulling a majority of his Force spells from the tree's starting level), here are some custom spec variants for your consideration:

LIGHT TOUCH: The telekinetic manipulation of objects within a twenty foot radius. The amount of time he can spend affecting an object is inversely proportional to the number of objects he's interacting with (i.e. he can yoink a shelf full of books down from across a room, but that spends the same amount of energy as telekinetically turning the pages of a book for an hour). In general: fine control of force magic takes considerable concentration; the more he divides his attention, the less subtle he's able to be. Can telekinetically pen a letter, but can't do that and magically tie his own shoes at the same time. Range also presents difficulties (can do finer work up close vs at his maximum radius), but one might argue that has more to do with Cassius' eyesight than anything else. Can't effect people who are actively resisting (so no puppetting fellow player characters beyond pulling their hair, etc), but he could theoretically use this to carry an unconscious body a short distance (maker forbid he use his actual arms for anything).

STEP LIGHTLY: An inversion of the gravitic ring spell; Cassius can compel one individual to float imperceptibly off the ground. Big mana tax. Takes practice to actually stay upright (walking on air is slippery). In theory this would be great for an adventurer looking to avoid triggering pressure plates or something. In practice, Cassius has historically used it to listen at keyholes where footsteps might betray him or to sneak out of rooms unnoticed. He can cast this on another person, but that person would need to stay within twenty feet of him and not fall on their face.

WELL CONNECTED: Cassius has friends in high places. While some of them may be less willing to lend his causes overt support now that he's working under Riftwatch and not with the Inquisition/Divine March, some of them might still be willing to offer under the table information or do subtle favors.

TUNNEL VISION: Cassius is fantastically skilled at working inside the box provided to him by society. If you need someone to exploit the social contract, then he can be relied on to know every loophole (or at least know someone who knows someone who does). But he's painfully skeptical or maybe just downright bad at thinking beyond those constraints. A pessimist at heart, Cassius trusts old ideas and is suspicions of too much innovation. Radical pipedreams are dangerous.

PATIENT OR COWARDICE?: Cassius is rarely bold but often dogged. He's the intellectual equivalent of that humans-as-apex-predator meme where he will just continue forward toward an idea forever. That said, if he finds himself in a dangerous situation he will absolutely prioritize saving his neck as a means to come back and "fight" another day. Women, children, and Cassius in the lifeboats first.

Inventory

- A (painfully truncated, he assures you) collection of fine landscape paintings
- A large collection of books
- In general, whatever he could grab out of Perendale Circle before leaving it for "purposes of preservation" (And his concerns were valid! Ugh, imagine what the Venatori have done to the circle's collections)
- A hook ended mage's stave. Yes, he has picked things up with it.
- A calico cat named "Sweet Tomasina" who does what she wants.
- An exquisite wardrobe

Motivation

Cassius caught an anchor shard while performing badly on an escort mission that he shouldn't have been on in the first place. Between slumming it in Kirkwall or cutting off his hand, he'll take the former.

SAMPLES

SAMPLE 1
SAMPLE 2