faderift application.

PLAYER

Name: Julie
Age: still old
Contact: quadrille & quadrille on discord
Other Characters: Stephen Strange
Interests: The same nonsense I’m into with Strange, but Astrid specifically is to have someone where it makes more sense for her to get into the Scouting/Forces plots and scrappy messy fieldwork. Plus, dipping my toes into the native OC pool and exploring a human being who’s a blunt hammer having to learn to be more subtle over the course of her Riftwatch work. Could possibly also dig into dwarven Carta stuff, considering Orzammar’s trading connections with the Avvar?

CHARACTER

Name: Astrid Runasdotten
Canon/OC: OC
Journal: brennvin
Race: Human
Nationality: Avvar
Occupation: Scout
Division: Scouting
Mage or Not: No
Age: 27

History

• Ástríður Runasdotten — it’s a lot, just call her Astrid, or Asta once you’re close — comes from Wulfhold, an Avvar hold in the Frostback mountains. Father died too early, so most of her childhood memories are with her mother Runa and younger half-brother Kristoffer.


• Her father’s brother Pike was the hold augur; optimistically tried to teach Astrid reading and writing, but she didn’t take to it well and remains only barely-literate to this day.


• Flourished with scouting instead, light and swift on her feet where her brother is more of a brawny brawler. Scouting ran in the family: her mother was one of the scouts temporarily on loan to the Inquisition years ago. Astrid herself has spent her working life hunting for the hold, ranging across mountains and forests, with the occasional trading trip down the river on boats. But the rest of Thedas has been a source of quiet fascination: starry-eyed at tales of big cities with their masses of people and traders going to Val Royeaux or even Denerim. [i wanna be where the people are.mp3]


• In her early 20s, she had a temporary two-year marriage to a woman from another hold; it passed fleetingly, as these things do, and they parted amicably at the end of it.


• Despite the Inquisition being headquartered in the Frostbacks, Wulfhold is so isolated that they escaped most of the war’s direct effects… until recently. Their hold-beast, a giant lone wolf named Raskmodig, started behaving erratically and went missing. Which is a terrible omen, so Astrid and other scouts were sent to track him, see if another hold had killed him.


• Instead, she found that the wolf had become Fade-touched and developed some strange affinity for rifts, meandering west and north across borders. He slowly followed the path of each rift as they opened up, drawn to them like a moth to a flame. It was a process of literal months following him, particularly when the rifts started opening in Antiva at a greater pace.


• At the most recent appearance, there were both demons and Riftwatch on the field, and Raskmodig unexpectedly joined the battle. Quick to fight, Astrid joined in — but in her naïvité, she still thought she was safe from the hold-beast. Out of his mind, Raskmodig pounced on her, and she had to fight him off with a dagger and ultimately be rescued by Riftwatch. The animal died with an arrow in its throat, like putting down a beast with rabies. But then again, the injuries from the demons and her own knife were extensive, too. Who’s to say which was the killing blow? She’ll never know.


• Which is how Riftwatch will take her in: devastated, unable to face the idea of going home with the hold-beast dead, so she’ll instead trail them to Kirkwall. She wants to learn more about the rifts and how the fuck can we someday permanently stop them happening, please. If that also means no more rifters? Oops, sorry, it’s not personal.

Personality

Astrid was raised to be self-sufficient; she’s loud and temperamental and terrifically comfortable with the space she occupies in the world, even as she’s a fish out of water, a mountain barbarian now walking amongst urbane city people. She’s hopelessly blunt and straightforward, gregarious in how she’ll talk to anyone as if she’s known them for years — because, well, her social world once consisted mostly of people she’d known all her life.

That temper means she’ll sometimes come across as rude or fighty, but in the way that brief disagreements might be resolved with one punch to the jaw and a scuffle in the dirt and now you’re best friends thank you. A term of endearment might be go fuck yourself (affectionate).

That said, there’s also a surprisingly naïve streak to her: raised and living only amongst other Avvar, she expects people will keep their word and that they’re fundamentally honourable. She expects a certain level of community welfare and people chipping in to help each other survive, so will be utterly thrown by lying or backstabbing. She’s slightly agoraphobic in crowds and uncomfortable in tight spaces, accustomed to being in the wide-open mountains with the broad sprawling sky above her.

Astrid is used to spending weeks in the wilderness alone and dealing mostly with animals, so is poorly-suited for complex politicking or deceitfulness; the woman’s face and heart is an open book, and so if you feed her nonsense, she’ll likely just believe you outright (and then reciprocate with sharing some of her own superstitions, for your trouble). She gets restless easily, always needing to keep moving and doing something productive with her hands: whittling, carving small animals out of wood, fletching her own arrows, etc.

Outside of hunting, her attention is fleeting and she has trouble sticking to a single project, being easily-distracted — ditto with relationships, drifting in and out of beds — and so it’ll be an interesting challenge, trying to put down new roots in such foreign soil. It’s a chance to see the outside world and experience more of Thedas, though, and so she’s determined to make something good out of it.

Opinions & Affiliations

Avvar: Home. Misses them deeply and will befriend an NPC Avvar expatriate in Lowtown who can hook her up with brown goat cheese and fermented fish. Has a younger brother back home (appable!) and connections to her ex-wife’s hold (appable!), but she’s too ashamed to return.

The Inquisition & Riftwatch: Astrid grew up with her mother being away for long weeks, occasionally scouting for the Inquisition, so she’s been distantly intrigued by them even though she didn’t know much of the nitty-gritty of their existence. They’ve always felt mysterious and somewhat larger-than-life; Riftwatch, as the Inquisition’s splinter cell slash spiritual successor, will feel just as impressive and storied. Until everyday reality sets in, but that’s alright.

Mages & magic: The Avvar have an alarmingly casual approach to spirit possession, and so she’s also pretty blase about it and mages generally. Everything would be a lot better and simpler if people had a more beneficial relationship with their local spirits instead of being so afraid of them all the time, ok. It’s not Astrid’s realm of expertise, though; she’s happy to leave that sort of thing to the augurs.

Lowlander nations in general: All painted with the same brush. Astrid has the habitual Avvar condescension towards lowlanders in their comfortable houses, who would perish in their first winter on the mountains — but at the same time, she’s secretly awestruck by their material comforts. She likes fine clothing and fancy houses and not starving. As confident as she is, she’s a little touchy about being seen as just a dumb barbarian or having her lack of knowledge reflect poorly on Wulfhold.

Orzammar: V comfortable with dwarves, having conducted most of her trading with Orzammar. Some of the business connections might have been Carta. We don’t judge where our supplies come from.

Adaptation Notes

n/a

Strengths & Weaknesses

• Archery & hunting. Excellent at taking someone or something out from afar.
  
• Melee combat, particularly with a dagger. Not as good at it as her brother, but still a competent fighter and doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty or getting into a scrap.
  
• Bog-standard survival skills. Wilderness scouting in general, following tracks, foraging food, and making camp.
  
• Cartography. Mostly good at map-making and has a good sense of location, but can also draw faces surprisingly well in charcoal.
  
• Has a good memory for things she hears, thanks to oral storytelling. Wanna swap folktales? She’s got plenty.



• Relatively clueless about the world otherwise, particularly international politics. Astrid knows the mountains she grew up in and a bit about Orzammar, but the nuances of lowlander nations barely registered for her until recently.
  
• Barely literate. If you hand her a letter she can eventually labour through it in, like, an hour, but it’s not great.
  
• She’s literally just a girl who showed up with a bow and who’s sad about her dog, she does not possess any special abilities.
  
• In terms of scouting, she’s terrible at social infiltration: trying to pass undercover at a fancy party would be a sight to see (which also means it should happen, please). She’s more useful in the field and on the move.

Inventory

• Longbow, arrows, more daggers than you thought
  
• Carved wolf figurine
  
• Leather and hide armour
  
• Wolf pelt cloak, will use as blanket
  
• White facepaint
  
• A broken frost rune, inherited from her uncle. It doesn’t work anymore, but she carries it around as a sentimental trinket.

Motivation

Her hold-beast died and she couldn’t stop it, so sheer shame is keeping her from going home. Considering the animal’s deterioration, Astrid also wants to learn more about Riftwatch’s role in closing rifts (and, as a bonus, more about the outside world and The Big City™).

SAMPLES

one, two

(no subject)

ASTRID RUNASDOTTEN

FADE RIFT.
INFO
INBOX
TRACKER
VISUALS