This verse still takes place during Inquisition, but it's the human mage Cole and Compassion did not feel the need to take his shape.
Cole survived the Spire and was eventually freed to be trained. He didn't get to take his Harrowing because things went sideways before he could.
This Cole knows Rhys and Evangeline, but he doesn't know them more than in passing.
He initially fled on foot towards Starkhaven because he heard the Prince was at least a little sympathetic to mages after what he'd seen at Kirkwall, despite what Anders had done to the Chantry there, and hoped he'd find a safer place to hide out and get work there. He made it to Kirkwall first with the intention of heading north from there. On his way out, he ran into Sebastian—literally—who was also on his way to Starkhaven, and later Samson and Maddox just outside of the capitol. Both treated him kindly. Sebastian offered him a job at the palace, while Samson offered to take Cole with him or help him relocate elsewhere and offered him work with him and his employer as a scribe or clerk.
All of the options were tempting, but Cole felt like he might have a bit more protection if he took the Prince's offer over traveling with Samson. He really enjoyed Samson's company, however, and asked if he could write him, which he accepted but warned him that they were on a mission for someone and may not always be able to respond immediately.
Cole was already becoming adept in healing magics and potion making, and Sebastian set him up as an apprentice with the palace's mage physician to continue his training rather than sending him straight to the Circle. He becomes a spirit healer, opening up that subclass option for a mage Inquisitor.
He's more twitchy than Compassion!Cole, and also far more depressed, traumatized, and brokenhearted. He lives with the scars left behind from his time in the dungeons, his time back home with his family before they all died, and now everything that's happened since the Conclave. He eventually joins the Inquisition at the physician's urging when said mentor receives a letter from Josephine.
Because he sort of befriended Samson before everything went to shit through their infrequent letters, and before it came out that he was working for Corypheus, his approval rating can determine his actions when you face him in What Pride Had Wrought if he's brought along. Cole's approval rating will jump exponentially if the Inquisitor chooses to give Maddox a funeral, and later tell Samson that Maddox is dead. If the Inquisitor chooses not to, then his approval rating will drop and might not be high enough by What Pride Had Wrought. He will try to stand between you and Samson regardless of your choice but will move when you urge him to if his rating is high enough after those other two decisions. Otherwise, he can't be swayed to step aside when you try to convince him to move. The Inquisitor will then be forced to make a decision: kill Cole to get him out of the way or knock him out. If you knock him out, he'll be tried during Judgement, leaving the Inquisitor to dismiss what happened or brand him as a traitor and either exile or imprison him. This also leaves the player to fight Samson without a full party.
The results of Cole moving will also affect the choices available in Samson's Judgement. If you convinced him or he wasn't present, he will demand to be there for the hearing but will be on the Inquisitor's right side opposite Cullen. Cole will try to defend Samson given what he knows of Samson's past actions in Kirkwall and his intentions—even if it didn't work out like he had hoped—along with Cole's own experiences with him and his time in the Circle. If he hadn't been there to defend Samson before the fight, his presence wouldn't have made as much sense, but he'd been there to argue for Samson to be shown mercy anyway.
It's unheard of for him to be angry for others to see, if at all, given his timidness, but Cullen's and the Inquisitor's comments will/could set him off. He'll do a bit of yelling and vehemently argue with Cullen over Samson's fate and honor. It's the first time anyone has seen him this pissed off or ready to fight a Templar, or in Cullen's case, Ex-Templar. It won't happen, but if it did, his first instinct would be to just jump Cullen rather than draw from his magic to attack. The Inquisitor, or Samson, if the player chooses not to intervene, will call him off and keep him from attacking. If the player didn't convince Cole to move and chooses to only knock him out, then he won't be present at the hearing and will be judged only after Samson is.
After Cassandra finds out more about reversing Tranquility and the other secrets that were kept from the order, Cole requests that she allow him to help rebuild the Seekers and/or rehabilitate mages if their Tranquility is reversed, which she accepts. Several years down the road, they'll begin allowing mages to join the order again, with Cole being the first one inducted.
If the JOH DLC is played, the above will happen much sooner; however, this leads to him becoming the new Lord Seeker in his mid to late thirties like Ameridan did after Cassandra held the title. If Cassandra is the Divine, he will instead be the first, personally trained by Cassandra before she became the Divine. If she isn't the Divine, she will be the first of the reformed order, and Cole will be the second. Either way, he will be the first mage, and mage Lord Seeker, since Ameridan.
Role in Champions of the Just:
Josephine sent out letters to known contacts trying to find more healers. Cole's mentor received such a letter and discussed it with Cole. After his mentor suggested that Cole join the Inquisition to help heal soldiers and civilians, Cole was given the option to either go straight to Haven or to go to Therinfal to meet Inquisition agents who had planned to meet the Templars. Cole is not a fan of Templars, paranoid with good reason, but what if the Templars did something? The agents would need help. So rather than go the shorter way to Haven, he goes to Therinfal to meet with the Inquisition and join them on their journey back.
When he arrives early, he notices that something about the whole thing just feels...wrong. Cole isn't sure if it's because he's paranoid and afraid of Templars, given his history, or if something is actually happening.
He's given a bed for the night by one of the Templars who seemed to have been friendly with an Inquisition courier that had arrived a few days before and had little choice but to take it and hope he could trust them. Cole couldn't sleep, however, and got up in the night to try and exhaust himself. He dozed off in one of the stables while talking to the horses and woke again early in the morning to a whispered conversation. Something about how the Herald was coming and that Corin suddenly wanted to meet with them personally. Why did they sound like it was so strange?
He crawled across the stable floor to get closer to hear more of the conversation but it was too late. The two soldiers had already moved on.
After that, Cole felt more unsafe and made his way back to where he was given a bed to sleep in. In his case, there's safety in numbers, and Cole would rather be near the friendlier Templar and that courier than alone in the stables. Unfortunately, he runs headfirst into the Lord Seeker and would have fallen on his ass if the man hadn't caught him by the arm to keep him upright.
Wrong. Very, very, very wrong, but why? He can't pinpoint why exactly, but it's the eyes. Something about those eyes. His mother once said that the eyes could tell you everything you need to know about someone, and Lucius Corin's eyes bellowed out 'danger' and 'threat.' Cole's father had called his mother's words the superstitions of barbarians, but it had stuck with Cole since the Templars arrived at his home after he killed his father. So many of their eyes were just...wrong.
The Lord Seeker seems surprised by his own reflexive action to catch Cole's arm and quickly let go with a horrible sneer, growling out, 'It's dangerous to wander the ramparts alone at night, little rabbit.'
Cole needed no more warning than that to bolt for bed after mumbling a thank you for stopping his fall.
When the Herald and their entourage arrive early the next morning, Cole goes to give the letter of Josephine's request to one of the many agents to check in and remains at their side until things go south.
When all hell breaks loose and, in the chaos, he gets turned around and loses track of the people he had kept close to. He runs off after the Herald and their party to avoid being left behind when he can't find the others. He catches up to them and Barris and fights alongside them but hesitates at the sight of Lucius with his back to them when they reach the stairs.
The eyes, his mother had said. Lucius's eyes had been hollow and cold that morning, like life without life. Wrong. Not normal, not sane, not human...
He tries to stop the Herald from getting too close with a 'wait, don't!', only to get caught up in the exchange between them and the Lord Seeker.
This is how Cole gets stuck in the Herald's mind, and he remains there until they get the Envy demon out of the Herald's head.
The boss battle will include Envy shouting little jabs at Cole about getting in the way, a boy in a man's shoes—no more than a scared child—and continuing to refer to him as 'little rabbit,' the latter doing something akin to stunning him. He won't say until much later in the game why that nickname had thrown him off as much as it had.
Effects and changes in the story if the player does Champions of the Just:
Roderick can actually survive, as Cole will already be there to use his magic to heal him. This is regardless if Cole is in the player's party or not during this event.
Effects and changes in the story if the player does In Hushed Whispers:
Cole went to Therinfal in the same events the Champions route above says, but after he runs into the Lord Seeker, he scurries off, a bit terrified, and blindly winds up stumbling into Denam's Quarters, finding the body of Knight-Vigilant Trentwatch. In there, he finds a few missives about what's coming, and immediately, Cole grabs them as evidence and makes for the communal quarters he was set up in to grab his things. From there, he went to the stables to grab his borrowed horse and escape to Haven. He has to warn the Inquisition and its Herald that the Templars plan to attack at the orders of some Elder One. He does not run across the plans Corypheus has for Orlais or the demon army, only what parts of the war the Red Templars will play in the immediate future. Denam isn't important enough to know everything.
Obviously, the events of In Your Heart Shall Burn will mostly follow the game, with Cole barely making it ahead of the Templars, even though he's too late to give Haven enough warning to be prepared.
How this will affect immediate events:
Roderick will die in this scene, despite the game's canon of him dying regardless of any decisions. If Cole was the delayed messenger for the coming of the Red Templars, he will not have already been there and able to help Roderick and provide medical aid. If the player allied with the Templars, Roderick can survive.
He will eventually stop sending letters to Samson shortly after In Your Heart Shall Burn, expressing in his final letter that he'd hoped Samson would be different from the Templars Cole had been made to fear at the Circle, based on their conversations on the road and in the letters, along with the reason Samson disliked the Chantry and what it did to mages and Templars.
Despite ceasing contact, Cole will come to the defense of Samson if in the player's party in What Pride Had Wrought, and if his approval is too low from the player's choice with what to do with Maddox's body, he can't be swayed to move.
If the player asked Cullen to give Maddox a proper funeral, the player gains 3 points of approval. If not, the player loses three points.
Approval/Disproval:
Like Compassion!Cole, he favors mercy and helpfulness in the Inquisitor's decisions. However, he will be more likely to disprove of mercy shown to the Templars, save for Samson. It depends on who and what the decision is as to how much approval/disproval is gained. Quests that require you to hunt down and kill a certain number of Templars to get letters and things are how you can gain approval through violence.
He will not approve of letting Celene die, nor will he if you put Gaspard in power by himself. He has no approval/disproval of Briala ruling alongside Celene or Celene ruling alone. He favors the three of them working together, even though it requires blackmail to do so.
As for other decisions, they follow Compassion!Cole's approval/disproval.
The approval/disproval for Maddox is already listed above.
He can be romanced, and his personal quests surround him healing from his trauma in the Spire and the abuse he was subjected to in his youth. There is no marriage scene in Trespasser. He can be romanced by any gender.
Saving/Stopping Solas:
He approves of either choice, to save Solas (+3) or to stop him by any means necessary (+1). He understands the importance of stopping Solas from bringing down the veil. However, Solas was still his friend, and he didn't want anything terrible to happen to him unless absolutely necessary.