MARKUS AMELL, mage

[attr="class","qty"]"love as a corpse loves the beak of a vulture"

[attr="class","bxy"][attr="class","bb"]there isn't much that he remembers about kirkwall. he had been a stain, a blemish upon the house of amell. funny, he thinks. funny how things worked out, since he has nothing left from his mother but a messily scribbled name upon the records. he isn't even connected enough to that old family to be much of a threat. 

(he isn't connected enough to his mother to be missed. not an abnormal child like him.)

he's harmless, he tells the enchanter. he's harmless, and he just wants to go home. the rickety old cart that he had encased in a prison of ice was worthless and broken anyway. she pats mark's head and tells him that it is for his own good. how will he live with others if he does not even understand himself? mother knows best. mother always does.

he strives to understand himself. he strives not only to understand the limits of his magic but also the limits of his soul (oftentimes, they crossed often enough to be a seamless transition). maybe he should be grateful for his name, grateful for the smallest of threads to connect him to the outside world. mark is not grateful, mark is a greedy child with a mind that houses a voracious appetite. he is everything that a mage should be, although some of the magisters would say that he is everything that an apostate would be.

he never actually imagined that he would be proving them right. mark has always been a rather stubborn boy.

he is even worse as an adult, although he is always careful to tread the line between 'healthy curiosity' and 'impending blood mage'. there have been accusations, but no outright persecution. wynne had been a sharp one, and no amoung of false sympathy could break him. mark cannot deny that there has always been a certain thrill to outwitting a persistent opponent.

his harrowing had been a rather welcome birthday present. it is a birthday cake that he devours too quicly. when jowan proposes his plans to leave the circle, mark is grinning ear to ear. excellent. a challenge is precisely what he needed after the pride demon's boorish game. he gets a little more than he asked for. mark does not mind. he is not unaware of the risks, but what are they to a boy who has nothing to lose? the magisters have wiped him clean. 

when a child is told that he will become a monster on a daily basis, he will no longer check underneath his bed at night.

(they tell him that he has a chance. they tell him that he can be better than what he was born as. they tell him these things as they lock him up like a rat)

he tells the first enchanter irwing of jowan's plans simply because it would make things more...interesting. mark did not consider it betraying his friend. after all, he did agree to help them destroy the phylacteries. that promise still stood. whether they actually succeeded or not - well. that would depend on jowan and lily, wouldn't it?

lily disappoints him. chantry girls usually did. jowan, surprisingly enough, less so. it takes more than a stiffer spine to escape half a dozen templars and magisters, after all. 

things seem to return to normal after that, largely aided by mark's willingness to cooperate with irwing. or so it seemed. a man named uldred approaches him a month after the incident and tells mark that he can teach him a few magic tricks.

mark proves to be an especially talented student, but he still takes precautions with his work. he still makes sure to be careful. it does not take a genius to see that there is something odd about uldred's offer when he has been routinely assisting irwing in their witch hunts for blood mages.

his suspicions prove themselves to be true during the broken circle. there was the initial shock of seeing the consequences of apostates in real time, certainly. many of the apprentices confess to their crimes after order is restored to the ferelden circle. mark is not one of them. he is not so eager to damn himself readily, eagerly.  

between being swallowed by self loathing and overblown self-importance, mark chooses neither.

he fights at the final battle against the archdemon. he kills a few hemlocks, and fakes his own death when he sees an opportune moment. there isn't much of the ferelden circle left after what tabris walked them into. he slips out quietly. they say that in a world like thedas, glory is the only thing that is worth dying for. mark hasn't even begun to live, and he knows it. he knows, and embraces the apostate life fully. 

LIST OF TALENTS: 
blood magic, grave robber, winter's grasp, cone of cold, fist of the maker, unshakable, one foot in, hemorrhage, frost weapons, blizzard, pull of the abyss, telekinetic burst, gravitic ring

LIST OF SKILLS:
improved survival, improved vitality 

SPECIALIZATION:
blood mage - learned from a rogue circle mage who later died during broken circle.
force mage - a specialization that he picked up in his spare time. being an apostate on the run, he had plenty (opening bonus)