V: ASTRATYCHE; (Suikoden)
V: ZOIASTRA; (Eiyuden Chronicle)
V: ROOK; (DA)
V: PTEROCARDIA; (Baten Kaitos)
V: VESUVIA; (Arcana; INACTIVE)
V: LETHOPHILOS; (General Patron AU)
Note: Each Verse covers each game.
Doctor Kar Aster is an adventurer-scholar who at the very least claims to be Rivaini. Rumors say she is elf-blooded– but she have never confirmed nor denied. However, they have ties to Rivain at least, though very well connected for an adventurer-scholar. Oddly enough. despite possessing magic, is quite comfortable with using (and quite interested) in various technology.
The Story she tells of her origins is that she was foundling in Arlathan, and temporarily fostered the Dalish, who in turn gave her to a Seer as a toddler to raise. When she came of age, she opted to travel and learn through various circles, but none seems to keep her attention for longer than a term or two. (However her Doctoral status is legitimate!) Over time however, she may forgo the cover if given sufficient reason to, considering some of her more...unnatural habits popping out.
Overall they seem friendly enough, kind even, but never really letting on more than what they deem necessary to the situation. Can be pragmatic, but often deflects things with jokes. But underneath the seemingly carefree attitude seethes a rage that has never stopped. They seethe at indentured beings– whether it be spirit, animal, or another being.
Because of this ingrained talent of making friends, their correspondences have led them to be a well-connected person. Many have sought her guidance in some matters or not. No one is really sure how someone such as her lives as comfortably as they do, though some note they may have been involved in some below the table activities to make coins. Most hire them for their repatriation services, or dealing with the antiques trade, or sometimes for their “readings”.
Their magic is rather uncommon– she is sensitive to the veil and the fade, making her fall under the "Rift Mage" category of sorts. A unique ability to of hers is psychometry. She can read and experience memories from objects and people. While while it can be focused and control it on demand, the ability is not one that they cannot simply turn off. For every clasp on the shoulder, shake of the hand she could accidentally come across your worst traumas, embarrassing childhood memory, the intimate moment of your first love, et cetera unwillingly. In order to keep people’s privacy and for them to avoid unnecessary trauma, she is often known to cover up, and wear gloves nearly all the time.
(As such their specialty is handling/caring for or purging cursed artifacts, or ask to ‘read’ an object for a memory. It is not guaranteed that it is the memory the requester wants, but all the same.)
Another peculiarity is the smoked glass eyewear she often wears to hide her eyes, citing they are sensitive to the light. (And yet are still wear them inside…) It does make them stand out, they know, but it is more comfortable for them to hide what is underneath.
Close friends have seen Kar without her glasses, and it takes a great deal of trust for her to go gloveless.
Before the Fifth Blight, they planned to head south in hopes of furthering the breadth of knowledge and research. Researching what? Yes. Anything. Everything. They are a polymath, having a variety of expertise– but some studies are simply for fun.
Among those things, the Fade has been a keen subject of interest. Almost too keen.
What her journey was before that? Well, it will take a lot for her to be comfortable to share...
[Everything past this is subject to writing; I may have some ideas of her being at X event, however I am keeping it open for flexibility with HoFs/Inquisitors/Rooks/etc]
Note: Main Timeline mostly follows SV on. SIV Headcanons on occasion.
The Catalyst Rune: Primordial Spark, the Magnet of Fate manifested in the form of a human. Consort to an Ancient Armes King. Travelling with the Sindar. One of the first Queen's Knights. One of Hikusaak's Generals. Co-Founder of the howling Voice Guild. A Liberator on the Dauntless. Only a handful of many lives lived. And lives yet to be remembered still.
Pulled from the ocean by the crew of the Lino en Kuldes after a storm, the little girl who only really remembered her name was adopted by Skald, the ship's captain, and raised alongside his myriad children on the island nation of Obel. Some years later an envoy from Harmonia visited the small island, eager to learn of the child of exceptional intelligence. Under the guise of goodwill, they would offer her a full scholarship at the academy in Crystal Valley.
In truth, the High Priest had ambitions of once again having the Catalyst Rune in his possession once more. After several uneasy years, the ink had barely dried on her diploma when she departed Harmonia, not waiting for the trap to shut. Practically rescued by her brother Ferid, she was much of the Northern Continent at his side, and followed him south into Falena.
Ferid winning the Sacred Games as a dark horse competitor changed their lives. Absorbed into the Falenan Royal Family, their idenitities carefully omitted; all the public knew were the brother-sister pair. Knight Commander and Knight, Kar served her brother and sister-in-law faithfully through the succession crises and the invasion from Armes, cementing her as well-respected among Falenans, particularly the common citizenry.
After being injured in the coup of the Sun Palace and claimed dead by the Godwins, she spent most of the Sun Rune War assumed dead, working alongside her nephew and his Loyalist Army in the shadows. After peace was restored to the nation,Kar remained only for a short while as Lymsleia and Freyjadour settled into their new roles and quietly retired from the Queen's Knights to travel north.
In the years to come she would be a figure in the fall of the Scarlet Moon Empire in the Toran Liberation, the defeat of Highland with the Dunan Unification, and walking shoulder to shoulder with the new Flame Champion as a Fire Bringer in the second Fire Bringer War...
Long before even the Eldest Realm's time, she was born from a falling star crashing into the sea (at least that's the story her father told her). Kar is the product of pure lensosynthesis, meaning she is a being of pure, raw, and primordial lens magic. Found on the shores of an Island nation to seas south of Allraan after a meteor shower, Kar was raised by the king of this island nation. Known to history eventually as "The Sea Dragon King" and revered as a local hero for his ferocity against his enemies and skills in naval warfare. Kar was raised in a time where runebarrows technology was commonplace and used readily. As the third of nine children she had been at one time third in line to the throne of her nation, grateful for the passing of time when her two older brothers had families of their own allowed her to sink further down the line.
A clever, capricious, and willful child, who loved her freedom more than anything, cause some difficulties with her parents as she passed on suitors, and having a particular habit of disappearing off to some place, only to return in her own time. A compromise: she served as her nation's envoy, travelling to foreign lands and learning about them, providing a window to the outside world to her father, brother, nephew, and so forth. The fact she stopped aging as her family grew older and passed was strange; but she was born of magic and most considered it a unfortunate side effect of her birth.
Some centuries after her family's passing, Kar was a wandering scholar-knight. In the service of one lord, she was protector of his daughter, Salie. When Salie came of age, Kar followed her lady to the castle of her betrothed, King Markus. After a sordid tale of betrayal, sedition, and Primal Lens magic, Salie was turned into a revenant against her will by the man who coveted her and the kingdom. Markus too, sought this state, swearing to face off against his once former friend to free his love. He created both a kingdom of revenants and a rift between the immortal guardian of his beloved, that even today has not been resolved.
Sometime in the most recent half century or so, Kar has resided in Grum County, in service of its Count. Kar was one of the first and longest members of the Count's Eltisweiss Watch-- a band of a mercenaries that supplimented the League of Nation's army in war, but in peace were tasked handing odd-jobs of all kinds. Here Kar was once again a teacher and protector of the future Countess Perielle
NEW NEVAEH TBA
NORTHERN BARROWS EXPEDITIONS TBA
RETURN SOUTH AND THE BATTLE OF HISHAHN TBA
KAR IN THE ALLIANCE TBA
Note: Kar will not be based on any of the established game backstories, so if you want your character as a companion in the AU (or double Rook!) I’m cool with either.
This isn’t a story of forgotten maps, defying the leadership, or undead risings, but of an old colleague. Sort of.
After all, the wandering adventurer-scholar had been minorly consulting during the Inquisition. When the Breach closed, Kar back, following her feet to the next destination, then the next. So when Kar got the request years later to finally see Varric Tethras face-to-face, she was definitely intrigued.
A rift mage who dabbled in anything and everything, knew her shit, even though she wasn't exactly the most...conventional of company. Definitely was knew the Well travelled, somewhat connected in the oddest of places. Got shit done. Knew weird well enough, and most of all: a bit of a wild card.
Exactly what he needed.
Not even ten minutes the dwarf pegged her as something more. She hadn’t blinked at the request to “Hunt the Dread Wolf.” There was something of interest in her expression, a drive. Like Varric threw down a gauntlet and she was hearing the challenge. Something about this job felt serendipitous, like the answers she had been hunting all long coincided with hunting the Wolf.
Of course, she accepted. When would she ever get the opportunity? Besides, if the world fell apart, how'd she get any work done?
What they didn’t know was just how much of the truth will follow…
BATEN KAITOS AU TBA
Note: Heavily under construction; as I haven't played the game in YEARS
A woman in all black, with peculiar smoked lenses steps of the traveler's cart back into the city of Canals. Kar Aster, a scholar-adventurer hailing from the tropical lands of the north returns to Vesuvia after the Plague forced her back home. An archaeologists, she is an expert in relics and curios, her machinist hobbies and her abilities to read memories from objects and people has been know to both useful and a subject of interest of many...
Makaria Lethephilos; Friend of the forgotten. A primordial goddess of both destruction and creation, death, and fate. Psychopomp, Queen of the Crossroads, guardian of the liminal spaces, mistress of magic and secrets. Warlocks who seek her patronage are few and far in between...well...because she's one of the few of her kind who likes to be just a little bit more hands on with the mortal realm...
[Inspirations: Hecate, Leanan Sidhe, La Belle Dame Sans Merci]