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PLAYER
Player name: lyn
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chanterie
Characters currently in-game: n/a
CHARACTER
Character Name: Ser Cullen Stanton Rutherford of Honnleath. Commander of the forces of the Inquisition. Former Knight-Commander of Kirkwall.
Character Age: 33-ish
Canon: Dragon Age
Canon Point: At the beginning of the Trespasser DLC, just as the first meeting of the Exalted Council is starting and before they discover the Qunari corpse
History: Wikia link!
Personality: For all that he's a secondary character, Cullen's got a lot of character development over the three Dragon Age games. He started out as an awkward teenager whose entire purpose was to protect the innocent. And he grew up to be an awkward adult whose entire purpose is to protect the innocent, but more grumpy and with more Emotional Trauma™.
The best place to start with explaining Cullen and all his idiosyncrasies is at his core with two very similar and occasionally conflated things--duty and purpose. For a long time, it looks to Cullen as if these two things are the same. From a very young age, he's known that he has been called to protect people. The best way, in his mind, to do that was to become a templar. His duty as a templar was to protect people, mages and non-mages alike, from the dangers of magic. So devoted was he to this that, as a nineteen year old kid he was mentally preparing himself to quite literally kill the girl he had a crush on should things go wrong in what was essentially her graduation ceremony.
It's not until the middle and end of Dragon Age II that we see him learning that his duty as a templar and his life's purpose are not necessarily the same things. Inquisition takes that a step further and we see a man who has completely abandoned the Templar Order to command the Inquisition, an organization devoted to protecting the innocent. But, like when he was younger, the duties that come with this position take precedence over everything else, even the love of his life. In his romance track, he expresses dismay that he has to send the Inquisitor to what could be her death, but he does it anyway. Because he is her commander and that is what a commander does.
As you might expect of someone so preoccupied with his duty, Cullen can be a bit dour. He's fairly often grumpy and has no patience for politicking. Much to the chagrin of some of his colleagues, he's also not afraid of letting people know exactly what he's thinking. Well. Most of the time, anyway. Cullen has some things he likes to play very close to the chest.
Almost all of those things center around what happened to him when he was stationed in Ferelden. He was tortured and that gave him some serious issues. While he has tried very hard to move on from that, there's still a part of him that will always be a templar, worried about the ramifications of magic, especially when he's seen the worst of it. And there's an anger in him that, while severely lessened now and more often than not directed towards other things (i.e. Samson in DA:I) that may or may not deserve it. That's not even mentioning the immense amount of guilt he carries around for what he did when he was a templar. He feels so bad about that, that it drives him to leave the Order and to quit taking lyrium--the drug that gives templars their abilities. He does this even knowing that the withdrawals are likely to kill him or drive him mad, and at the very least will be very long and very painful.
It's not all grim and dark with Cullen, though. I did say he was a completely awkward human being, didn't I? Because he is. He's a total dweeb. His inherent knack for strategy and his introversion combine to make him the kind of person who plans out their potential conversations in the shower. (I'm serious--he mentions a few times that he's thought about what he would say in certain situations and how things often sound better in his head.) This sometimes leads to him stumbling over his words and getting flustered. When he was younger, he quite literally ran away from someone flirting with him. While he was in full plate armor. Like I said. Dweeb.
But he's a dork with a competitive streak. He's a smug little shit when he beats someone at chess when they cheat. When he plays Wicked Grace he gets beat to the point where he loses all his armor and all his clothes and has to run across the keep naked. Hell, he even wears the mane of a lion he apparently killed when the lion is the symbol of the ruling family of the country that was occupying his like forty years ago. When you consider that, it's also not a surprise that he's also extremely sarcastic at times.
But beneath his prickly exterior is a good heart that cares too much. He's spent his entire life, even after he went through hell, completely committed to taking care of other people and keeping them safe. He's one of the few people who makes time to ask the Inquisitor how they're holding up with all the pressure put on them. When it's discovered that some of his former brothers in arms are Red Templars and must be cut down, he asks that it's done swiftly and with some mercy. And, should he be unromanced, he dedicates a large part of his life post-game to helping former templars who have quit lyrium and/or lost their minds to it. The man is stupidly selfless at times, and it's horribly endearing. But I don't know what else you would expect from someone who made up their mind that they were going to be a storybook sort of knight when they were eight years old and then actually went through with it.
Inventory: Formal attire. Two small throwing knives. And his mabari.
Abilities: As a former templar, Cullen has some magic-nullification abilities. There's some debate in canon as to just how powerful these are without lyrium augmenting them, but it's pretty safe to say they're... not overly strong anymore and aren't the first thing he would draw on.
Outside of supernatural abilities, Cullen is an accomplished warrior. He's sword and board himself, but from some of his missives in game it's fair to assume he's got at least a rudimentary knowledge of how two-handed weapons work. He's also been seen using throwing knives and word of god says he can use a bow and arrow. No, I don't know how one guy gets so skilled. Vidya games, man.
Chess is also a thing worth mentioning--he's very good at it and at other strategic endeavors. He leads a number of assaults with fairly large armies behind him. He also lead the templars in Kirkwall when the city was rebuilding so leadership is a thing.
And he's also a theology nerd with a good singing voice.
Flaws: When Cullen was nineteen-ish, he was held captive by blood mages and tortured by them and by demons. This gave him a nasty case of PTSD and a fear of mages. As Star Wars says, fear turned to anger, anger turned to hate, and hate turned to suffering. After he was transferred to Kirkwall, Cullen was complicit in and overlooked a lot of really terrible treatment of mages. It's implied that some of it was kept from him, but he was still second in command of a place where mages were whipped, magically lobotomized, and raped fairly regularly.
While he slowly got past his anger and eventually tried to make the Gallows a better place for mages, and then went on to leave the Templar Order that had committed such atrocities, he was still a part of it. He still feels immense amounts of guilt over what he was party to. And, as much as he may not want to admit it, there's still a fair amount of fear and anger in him. He's just gotten better at rationalizing away the fear and putting the anger towards more useful pursuits.
SAMPLES
Action Log Sample: TDM topthread and other TDM thread.
Player name: lyn
Contact:
Characters currently in-game: n/a
CHARACTER
Character Name: Ser Cullen Stanton Rutherford of Honnleath. Commander of the forces of the Inquisition. Former Knight-Commander of Kirkwall.
Character Age: 33-ish
Canon: Dragon Age
Canon Point: At the beginning of the Trespasser DLC, just as the first meeting of the Exalted Council is starting and before they discover the Qunari corpse
History: Wikia link!
Personality: For all that he's a secondary character, Cullen's got a lot of character development over the three Dragon Age games. He started out as an awkward teenager whose entire purpose was to protect the innocent. And he grew up to be an awkward adult whose entire purpose is to protect the innocent, but more grumpy and with more Emotional Trauma™.
The best place to start with explaining Cullen and all his idiosyncrasies is at his core with two very similar and occasionally conflated things--duty and purpose. For a long time, it looks to Cullen as if these two things are the same. From a very young age, he's known that he has been called to protect people. The best way, in his mind, to do that was to become a templar. His duty as a templar was to protect people, mages and non-mages alike, from the dangers of magic. So devoted was he to this that, as a nineteen year old kid he was mentally preparing himself to quite literally kill the girl he had a crush on should things go wrong in what was essentially her graduation ceremony.
It's not until the middle and end of Dragon Age II that we see him learning that his duty as a templar and his life's purpose are not necessarily the same things. Inquisition takes that a step further and we see a man who has completely abandoned the Templar Order to command the Inquisition, an organization devoted to protecting the innocent. But, like when he was younger, the duties that come with this position take precedence over everything else, even the love of his life. In his romance track, he expresses dismay that he has to send the Inquisitor to what could be her death, but he does it anyway. Because he is her commander and that is what a commander does.
As you might expect of someone so preoccupied with his duty, Cullen can be a bit dour. He's fairly often grumpy and has no patience for politicking. Much to the chagrin of some of his colleagues, he's also not afraid of letting people know exactly what he's thinking. Well. Most of the time, anyway. Cullen has some things he likes to play very close to the chest.
Almost all of those things center around what happened to him when he was stationed in Ferelden. He was tortured and that gave him some serious issues. While he has tried very hard to move on from that, there's still a part of him that will always be a templar, worried about the ramifications of magic, especially when he's seen the worst of it. And there's an anger in him that, while severely lessened now and more often than not directed towards other things (i.e. Samson in DA:I) that may or may not deserve it. That's not even mentioning the immense amount of guilt he carries around for what he did when he was a templar. He feels so bad about that, that it drives him to leave the Order and to quit taking lyrium--the drug that gives templars their abilities. He does this even knowing that the withdrawals are likely to kill him or drive him mad, and at the very least will be very long and very painful.
It's not all grim and dark with Cullen, though. I did say he was a completely awkward human being, didn't I? Because he is. He's a total dweeb. His inherent knack for strategy and his introversion combine to make him the kind of person who plans out their potential conversations in the shower. (I'm serious--he mentions a few times that he's thought about what he would say in certain situations and how things often sound better in his head.) This sometimes leads to him stumbling over his words and getting flustered. When he was younger, he quite literally ran away from someone flirting with him. While he was in full plate armor. Like I said. Dweeb.
But he's a dork with a competitive streak. He's a smug little shit when he beats someone at chess when they cheat. When he plays Wicked Grace he gets beat to the point where he loses all his armor and all his clothes and has to run across the keep naked. Hell, he even wears the mane of a lion he apparently killed when the lion is the symbol of the ruling family of the country that was occupying his like forty years ago. When you consider that, it's also not a surprise that he's also extremely sarcastic at times.
But beneath his prickly exterior is a good heart that cares too much. He's spent his entire life, even after he went through hell, completely committed to taking care of other people and keeping them safe. He's one of the few people who makes time to ask the Inquisitor how they're holding up with all the pressure put on them. When it's discovered that some of his former brothers in arms are Red Templars and must be cut down, he asks that it's done swiftly and with some mercy. And, should he be unromanced, he dedicates a large part of his life post-game to helping former templars who have quit lyrium and/or lost their minds to it. The man is stupidly selfless at times, and it's horribly endearing. But I don't know what else you would expect from someone who made up their mind that they were going to be a storybook sort of knight when they were eight years old and then actually went through with it.
Inventory: Formal attire. Two small throwing knives. And his mabari.
Abilities: As a former templar, Cullen has some magic-nullification abilities. There's some debate in canon as to just how powerful these are without lyrium augmenting them, but it's pretty safe to say they're... not overly strong anymore and aren't the first thing he would draw on.
Outside of supernatural abilities, Cullen is an accomplished warrior. He's sword and board himself, but from some of his missives in game it's fair to assume he's got at least a rudimentary knowledge of how two-handed weapons work. He's also been seen using throwing knives and word of god says he can use a bow and arrow. No, I don't know how one guy gets so skilled. Vidya games, man.
Chess is also a thing worth mentioning--he's very good at it and at other strategic endeavors. He leads a number of assaults with fairly large armies behind him. He also lead the templars in Kirkwall when the city was rebuilding so leadership is a thing.
And he's also a theology nerd with a good singing voice.
Flaws: When Cullen was nineteen-ish, he was held captive by blood mages and tortured by them and by demons. This gave him a nasty case of PTSD and a fear of mages. As Star Wars says, fear turned to anger, anger turned to hate, and hate turned to suffering. After he was transferred to Kirkwall, Cullen was complicit in and overlooked a lot of really terrible treatment of mages. It's implied that some of it was kept from him, but he was still second in command of a place where mages were whipped, magically lobotomized, and raped fairly regularly.
While he slowly got past his anger and eventually tried to make the Gallows a better place for mages, and then went on to leave the Templar Order that had committed such atrocities, he was still a part of it. He still feels immense amounts of guilt over what he was party to. And, as much as he may not want to admit it, there's still a fair amount of fear and anger in him. He's just gotten better at rationalizing away the fear and putting the anger towards more useful pursuits.
SAMPLES
Action Log Sample: TDM topthread and other TDM thread.