#background for rook

[foreverlilmeowmeow]

So I finally got the conversation with Lucanis and Emmerich about Lucanis trying to Gift someone a knife (spoiler it's Viago) and what I find so funny about this conversation is that in my own head cannon that I've created is that my crow!Rook is the younger sibling of Viago and that she knew about this little flirt back then. What she wasn't expecting, though (years later), that she would end up being with Lucanis instead. Does Lucanis still have feelings for Vi? More than likely not, but at least he'll still be apart of the de Riva family after all, and instead of being with Vi he ended up with my Rook.

[rookanisstuff]

Rook got her dance

[egophiliac]

The funniest part of this new event is the fact I can't find out what's going on it from spoilers. All context is lost in the wave of Hot Eel Mom. I love her, all hail Georgina, mother of This and That, but where is the context? What *is* the event?

to be fair, we're still in the intro part, so not much has actually happened yet! Jade and Floyd were supposed to go to their mom's friend's wedding to help with the ancient merfolk marriage custom of

❤️❤️❤️~the Test of Love~❤️❤️❤️

but Floyd last-minute changed his mind (on account of being Floyd) and Azul was like "I'm not going if your mom is going to be there". at which point Jade realized he'd just been handed a golden opportunity to invite the absolute funniest group of people he could think of.

anyway tl;dr Jade manipulates a bunch of nerds into joining him to heckle/throw bricks at/try to drown a couple of randos in the name of love, what could possibly go wrong

[stealingpotatoes]

duh!!!

(commission info // tip jar!)

[silverhalla]

obsessed with how the other backgrounds are like “you had a little oopsie moment with your faction so you’re temporarily benched” and then mourn watch is like “what if this LITTLE ORPHANED BABY!!!! was left IN A TOMB!!!!! to be DISCOVERED BY UNDEAD???? and then RAISED (collectively??) BY NECROMANCERS!!!!!!, only to be taken down by THE NECROPOLIS’ SCARIEST DANGER: BUREAUCRACY”

normalest protagonist in all of thedas tbh

[kanis-things]

_💀👍✨

[vaguely-concerned]

fdskjfhsa mourn watch rook who's somehow never once run into emmrich in all the time they've both been at the necropolis, but does discover after an offhanded comment in passing that they have performed an autopsy on one of lucanis' previous targets when he was hired to take out some nevarran nobleman or other. 'oh my god that was one of yours??? :D you know I thought the knife work rang a bell when I saw it again back in the ossuary, I should've realized right away. we get a lot of murdered pentaghasts in of course, big family with big ambitions it does become a bit of a blur at times, but few showing off such impressive technique, well done I must say. huh. it's a small thedas after all. he's buried down in the whispering halls just across from the storm age pentaghast family memorial, if you ever want to go by and say hi for old times' sake. how did you get the angle to sever the aorta so cleanly, by the way? I've been scratching my head over that one for a decade now I never thought I might actually get an answer from the crow's own beak as it were'

and then they chatter merrily on about murder details while davrin is over on the side squinting at them and gently covering assan's ears with his hands. ('assan. death is a natural part of life and we all have to find our own ways to be at peace with it. but never listen to a word either of these guys have to say about it because they're both fucking freaks')

[jeeaark]

[thimblings]

new first talon leaves his own ceremonial ball early smh

[dicenete]

I find it funny that Epel would have wanted to be in Savanaclaw because they are quite manly and cool, but Pomefiore guys keep up their healthy and fit bodies too : D I offer the sketch phases of these bros for my Sapphire Tier supporters on Ko-Fi :3 Blue Sky || Cara || Ko-Fi Commission Info || Commission Queue list TWST Tag Team: @windalchemist001 @twstsandturns @the-trinket-witch

[r-aindr0p]

Don't worry Rook's a philantropist he will help you aim better next time, perhaps...

No dialog version under the cut

[foreverlilmeowmeow]

Started a new play through and so far really enjoying the connection I have with the Crow's. I haven't decided if I was related to Viago or not, but if I were to say I am, I would say he was probably an older brother if not a father figure she looked up to because he adopted her in. What have other Crow!rooks done? I'm curious!

[chuck-the-goon]

He feels deeply, he feels tenderly.

Charlot painting Emmrich in the nude for the first time, a big step for my loves in their relationship.

[angelsndragons]

hi, veilguard peeps, can we take a moment to talk about rook mercar? because rook mercar is possibly one of the most batshit rooks in the game and they deserve to be recognized as such.

but not only that, mercar's backstory shades the shadow dragons and venatori conflicts in very interesting ways so let's talk about them.

so first, the nessus job.

i don't blame you for forgetting (or not knowing, i know the shadow dragons aren't everyone's cup of tea) so here's your quick refresher from the shadow dragon background blurb found in the character creator:

Breaker of Bonds

“Rook risked everything to liberate the enslaved people of Tevinter, even knowing it would anger the ruling elite. The foundling Rook was adopted into a military family and joined the Shadow Dragons to fight from the shadows for change in Minrathous. While guarding a visiting dignitary who was investigating a slavery ring in the nearby city of Nessus, Rook concluded that the mission would fail without throwing caution to the wind. Alone, s/he(/they) sneaked the dignitary deep into Venatori-controlled zones and brought him back, along with the rescued slaves. These actions brought Rook to the Venatori's attention, and the Shadow Dragons decided to keep Rook out of sight.”

that is the nessus job.

except this doesn't quite square with what the game has to say about it.

the background:

first, here's the viper's letter about the job:

so right away, note how weird it is that the viper's writing mercar's letter. i say this is weird because, with the other factions, the person writing rook's letter is someone they're familiar with, usually in a position of leadership. antoine and evka are the notable leadership exceptions here, having actually been involved in thorne's backstory actions.

here's the rub: mercar doesn't know the viper. they've heard of him, certainly, but when that little popup telling you that you've worked with these faction agents before appears, mercar doesn't have the option to act like they know the viper.

the lines mercar gets are:

it's an honor to stand beside a legend

i know he likes to make an entrance

i know he gets things done

now, i will grant you that some of the responses to mercar's comment indicate tarquin is familiar with both rook and ashur (his response to the honor line is 'well, that'll go straight to his head' while the entrance line earns the viper's comment 'no one watches the rooftops' and tarquin's exasperated 'sure, that's what he says') but the point is, for a character mercar is "supposed" to be very familiar with, neve still tells them about the name ashur. like, seriously, it's the same dialogue tag every rook gets.

which is weird because veilguard is actually pretty good at keeping track of rook's faction and seamlessly changing up the conversation while still getting across the relevant information.

but it doesn't stop there, oh no.

during mercar's unpacking scene, we get these default shadow dragon lines:

now, these right here ping for the following reasons:

varric isn't the "visiting dignitary" that rook was guarding, given that rook had to get to nessus before meeting varric

the fact that rook's backstory happens dao style, where all events are true but only one has duncan varric available to pluck rook out of the immediate consequences

minrathous slaves, specifically, are mentioned as being freed here, even though we're supposed to be in nessus. now i'm not saying that minrathous citizens can't be enslaved and sent elsewhere, i'm just pointing out the phrasing here

the magisters who were financially benefiting from the nessus ring (aka venatori and their backers) knew enough about rook to put a name and a face on them. the structure of the sentence here is that everyone knows who is "too much trouble" to keep around and that is fucking wild kids. no, seriously, that is wild. there is so much wild here, put a pin in it.

no, seriously, this matters and matches the backstory blurb that the job "brought Rook to the Venatori's attention." put a fucking pin in it.

whatever rook's feelings, they always take pride in freeing those slaves- impulsive rook just dislikes that it comes at the cost of putting the shadow dragons in danger (put a pin in it), righteous rook thinks that the shadows should have used the crackdown to start a full out war with the venatori and their magister backers mind you while finally stoic rook just hopes that the shadow dragons weathered the storm safely.

okay, so ready for more batshit mercar?

the next solas conversation is the one where rook tells solas why they're going to stop the gods and here's what mercar has to say about that operation:

i just want y'all to marinate in that little gem of a line for a sec.

done screaming yet? it's cool, take another minute. no one's doing it like mercar.

okay, so finally a fuller picture of mercar's backstory comes into focus, if you ignore the weird bits. like the fact that the shadows made a plan with varric to rescue a friend, which does not appear to be the original nessus job, mind you.

mercar met varric, something went screwy, and mercar and varric decided the only way they had a chance was to start an armed rebellion in the city of nessus. the slavery ring is busted, said rebellion is (apparently) put down, the venatori and the magisters know who to blame for it all, and mercar hightails it out of the country with varric. simple and straightforward, right?

wrong, we have so much to work through.

the fallout:

like why the fuck are ashur, mae, and dorian squatting in dock town, exactly? tarquin lives there but those three surely have a high town shadow dragon cell they can go bug, right? and why is ashur the only one of the three making any cell decisions? i mean, points to mae for being a decent house guest, i guess, but what exactly is going on here? why are the venatori breathing down the shop's neck, to the point that they knew its location well enough to deliberately target it in the save treviso route?

remember those pins? it's time to pull them.

i repeat: this is real fucking bad for the shadow dragons. unlike the rest of the origins, the shadows are a covert operation. they don't want anyone knowing who their members are, who their backers are, any of it. the people in power being able to identify shadow dragons is how you lose shadow dragons: to arrests, targeted killings, beatings, destruction of their livelihoods, etc. ya know, like the viper mentions in his letter.

the fact that the first warden can not only link rook's face and name to the shadow dragons but to very specific crimes, crimes for which rook can absolutely be arrested, should set off all the alarm bells. as dorian says, the man is more politician than warden and as charter's letter from marnas pell states, "Assume every noble Tevinter family not with Shadow Dragons has Venatori pulling strings." this is extremely bad.

after nessus, the venatori had rook's identity as mercar and what did they do? they started looking into every single person mercar had known contact with, every path they took, their home, their family, the bar they stopped in for breakfast that one time. that's how resistance cells die, by the way. including, potentially, mercar's. this is why the shadows were more than happy to see mercar out of the way for a while where they couldn't cause any more trouble; so long as they're not around, they can't compromise more of the various cells' activities and members. it's the safest move for literally everyone involved.

because the damage has been done:

mae's related to varric via marriage, by the way, if the full picture hasn't come into focus yet.

mercar and varric were id'ed in that rebellion, the venatori were pissed at the lost revenue streams and suddenly mae's knocked out of the magisterium?

yeah.

my guess is that there is no high town cell anymore because of the nessus job. for all that mae worked to ensure that dorian was out of the line of fire and squeaky clean, the shadows and their backers couldn't stop the venatori crackdown after nessus, as mentioned by ashur's letter. ashur and mae are here specifically because there is no other cell to go to.

this is why tarquin is snippy, by the by. mercar and the highbloods are drawing attention to him and endangering all of his people just by being there.

hang on, it gets worse.

because the venatori are obsessed with the viper and proving that he's the divine (he is the divine, for the record, there are too many ambient dialogues, codices, and missions pointing in that direction). and to that obsession, i say, what the fuck? how did they come to that conclusion, exactly? what trail did the divine leave behind that first got the venatori on his tail?

well, he's related to and has close ties with mae's family. secondly, the divine is known for being quietly supportive of slave liberation. but the real reason, i think, is the original nessus job.

because again, why were the shadows in nessus originally? why was mercar in nessus to meet varric in the first place? who was the "visiting dignitary" that mercar was guarding?

yeah, i think the dignitary was the divine. and i think he was there in his official capacity. it would handily explain the discrepancy that ashur knows mercar but mercar doesn't know ashur. while the divine might not have a lot of actual power, the power of the press and drawing attention to issues and plights should never be discounted. especially when it's a plausible excuse to get several minrathous shadows in place to shut down the nessus slaver ring.

the divine being guarded by a now known shadow dragon (the viper likely made an appearance, ashur is known to pop up when slave rebellions start) combined with his anti-slavery views and ties to anti-slavery politicians turned the venatori's eye on ashur's night job.

remember, the shadow dragons are officially labeled as insurgents; if the venatori can tie the divine and all his people to them? that would be a death knell for any political support for liberation. the checkmate for the anti-slavery cause for the next age.

tldr: mercar exposed their ties to the shadows (and possibly the divine's) by starting an armed rebellion with varric to free slaves and shut down a slaver hub. in response, the venatori sniped several cells using mercar and varric's likely contacts, which led to ashur, mae, and dorian squatting in the dock town shadow dragon cell instead of some high town cell.

lucky the gods show up to cause trouble, huh?

god i love this game.

[kalivasquezart]

Art attack on @opashoo featuring her slugcat OC, The Rook.

[elvisqueso]

I just don't want to waste time now that you're here.

[ antivan fur mod ]