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Post by Admin on Jul 20, 2020 15:46:42 GMT
Background
Leliana was born in Orlais, and though she is culturally Orlesian, her mother was Fereldan and so she considers herself as such. Leliana's mother, Oisine, was a servant of Lady Cecilie Vasseur, an Orlesian noble. One of Leliana's earliest memories is the scent of her mother's linen dress as they held hands on the terrace of an Orlesian villa with a view of the Waking Sea and gardens of sweet orange and lavender. Though Leliana is uncertain if this powerful memory is real or not, she cherishes the image of her Fereldan mother. Following the Fereldan victory in the Rebellion, Oisine followed Lady Cecilie back to Orlais. When Leliana's mother died, shortly after her fourth birthday, she was raised by Cecilie (though she did not likely legally adopt her), and in her care Leliana learned much about the royal court and Orlesian culture. Oisine's death cast a pall over Leliana's normally sunny disposition, however, and in an effort to cheer the girl her new guardian gave her whatever she asked for; Leliana only ever wanted books. As a result, she quickly developed an obsessive interest in Orlesian and Fereldan stories, ballads and songs, as well as any tales she could learn from Cecilie's elven servants. Tutors were soon called for by Lady Cecilie to foster Leliana's passion. Leliana often practiced her dancing on the stone terrace of Cecilie's villa on the Waking Sea, as well. At sixteen, Leliana made her first trip to Val Royeaux, to attend a soiree with Lady Cecilie. There she met and was impressed by Marjolaine, a wealthy widow and patroness of the arts. Marjolaine began calling upon the aging Lady Cecilie shortly after the soiree, who often left Leliana to entertain the dazzling visitor. Leliana was fascinated by Marjolaine's worldliness and daring, and the two became close friends. On a hunting trip, Marjolaine gave Leliana her first bow. In teaching her how to use it during that trip, Leliana wounded (but did not kill) a hart the hunters were tracking. Too upset to end its suffering, Leliana watched in amazement as Marjolaine efficiently killed the animal. That same summer, Leliana visited Marjolaine at her Val Royeaux estate, and the widow began to teach her way of the bard: manipulation, subterfuge and combat. Always her teaching was subtle and disguised, easily assumed to be merely a lady's idle amusements. Ultimately, Leliana ended up in the village of Lothering. To atone for her sins and to hide from Marjolaine, who survived the original encounter, Leliana joined the chantry there as a lay sister, becoming intensely religious. There, her confession of a vision from the Maker, and discovery of an impossible white rose on a dead bush in Lothering, both made her an outcast and spurred Leliana's passion to aid the Warden in the Fifth Blight. No one could shake her determination to stop this evil and bring hope to the world. After the Blight, Leliana answered a summons from Divine Justinia V, her old friend Dorothea who had now become the head of the Andrastian Chantry. Returning to Val Royeaux, Leliana agreed to become her Left Hand and spymaster. Leliana assumed mastery over a coterie of her own agents, and once again reinvented herself and resumed the role of bard that Marjolaine had trained her for. In this role, Leliana investigated rumors of mage rebellion in Kirkwall and suspicions of Qunari activity at Chateau Haine. Furthermore, Leliana served Dorothea's will in attempting to quell the Mage-Templar War as well as brewing elven uprising. To this day, even despite the love of her mother Oisine, the nurturing presence of Lady Cecilie and the salvation of Dorothea, Leliana understands that Marjolaine shaped her deeply, in both speech and action. As with Marjolaine, Leliana's enemies continue to move against her, seeking out weaknesses to exploit.
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Post by Admin on Jul 20, 2020 15:51:52 GMT
Origins
Leliana first encounters the Warden at the Dane's Refuge tavern in Lothering. When the Warden is set upon by soldiers loyal to Loghain Mac Tir, Leliana assists the Warden in the skirmish. Following the fight, she explains that the Maker had sent her a vision which meant that she must aid the Warden in their quest to end the Blight. Despite the Chantry's claim that the Maker does not communicate directly with individuals, Leliana is firm in her belief. This causes Alistair to suspect she was mentally unstable, while Morrigan also doubted her sanity. To her great delight, Leliana is accepted into the Warden's party and sets out with them from Lothering, having previously obtained permission from her Revered Mother to do so. During the quest to recover the fabled Sacred Ashes of Andraste, the Guardian of the Ashes states that the Maker only ever spoke to one mortal, Andraste, and accuses Leliana of inventing her vision. He proposes that she fabricated the tale for attention as she feared her life would become dull in the Chantry when compared to the thrill of a bard's life. Affronted, Leliana makes a flustered denial of the Guardian's accusation. Following much discussion with the Warden of her life as a bard, Marjolaine sends assassins to murder Leliana. Upon defeat, the assassins reveal that Marjolaine is in Denerim. Leliana and the Warden thus set out to find her former mentor.
If Marjolaine dies: After breaking into her house and killing her guards, Leliana confronts Marjolaine. Knowing that if she was spared, Marjolaine would continue to pursue her for the rest of her days, Leliana kills her old lover, encouraged by the Warden to do so. After this event, Leliana has a discussion with the Warden back in camp to discuss her crisis of faith. Leliana begins to question if her new virtuous self was just an attempt to run away from her previous life after her mentor's betrayal, and that the real Leliana is a worldly bard who loves all of the danger, intrigue, and at times even the killing that goes along with that lifestyle. Depending on dialogue choices, the Warden can encourage Leliana to embrace her ruthless Bard lifestyle and Leliana's personality can become much more pragmatic, no longer objecting as vocally to the more morally grey choices her companions make. Or the Warden can reaffirm her faith in the Maker and her new, more virtuous path. The result of which is that she remains unhardened. Leliana is present at the coronation of the new monarch of Ferelden following the death of Urthemiel and the end of the Blight.
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Post by Admin on Jul 20, 2020 15:58:46 GMT
Dragon Age 2 & Beyond Leliana was appointed Left Hand of the Divine by Revered Mother Dorothea, who had been elected Divine Justinia V. The Divine dispatches Leliana to Kirkwall under the pseudonym of "Sister Nightingale", in order to assess whether an Exalted March against the city would be necessary to suppress the conflict between templars and mages. While tracking down a shadowy apostate group known as "Resolutionists", she encounters Hawke and Prince Sebastian Vael in the Viscount's Keep, and asks them to convince Grand Cleric Elthina to flee Kirkwall and seek shelter in the Grand Cathedral of Val Royeaux at the Divine's invitation. Leliana attends a party at Chateau Haine as a guest of Duke Prosper de Montfort. During the event, she encounters Tallis, a Qunari agent of the Ben-Hassrath and former associate of Leliana's. Following Cassandra Pentaghast's interrogation of Varric Tethras, she rendezvouses with the Seeker outside the Hawke Estate. After confirming that Cassandra was unable to locate Hawke, the two agree to return to their other plan. Dragon Age: Asunder Leliana continued to serve Divine Justinia V in seeking a solution to the ongoing conflict following the Kirkwall Rebellion. She encounters Knight Captain Evangeline at a ball held for the Divine and is also present when Rhys, Wynne, Pharamond and Adrian are granted an audience with Justinia upon their return from Adamant Fortress. She restrains Lord Seeker Lambert, preventing him from attacking Rhys. Leliana participates in the raid on the White Spire in order to free the captured mages, and it is her presence that reveals to Lord Seeker Lambert that Divine Justinia is conspiring against the Templar Order. She later sings at the funeral of Wynne.Dragon Age: The Masked Empire
Leliana, in the capacity of the Divine's representative, meets with Empress Celene I at the University of Orlais to discuss the continued mage-templar tensions. Although she attempts to maintain anonymity, Celene reveals her knowledge of both Leliana and Justinia's identities and past exploits. The empress goes on to demand that the Divine make an official statement on the mage-templar conflict within three weeks, or she will be unable to restrain the overeager nobles at her court from interfering. Leliana agrees to take this proposal to Justinia. Leliana later delivers to Celene the Divine's price for helping to quell conflict between mages and templars: the empress must end the elven revolt in Halamshiral. By doing so Celene would demonstrate the same control over her own affairs that she had demanded of the Divine. Given her adventures alongside elves in the past, Leliana regrets the repressive tactics employed against the elven population, but bids Celene good luck before leaving.
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Post by Admin on Jul 20, 2020 16:57:34 GMT
Inquisition
Leliana joins the Inquisition as its spymaster, and leads the clandestine division responsible for espionage and assassination. She provides an effective alternative when diplomacy or blunt force fail, collecting information, dispatching agents and scouts, and signing her letters with an ominous nightingale sigil that leaves no question of its author. Given all she has gone through chronologically since Leliana's Song, the carefree Bard has changed, and with the responsibilities of the Inquisition, even if Leliana wished to show her softer side she cannot. Leliana's focus in the Inquisition's War Table is "Secrets." She brings her old friend, the Antivan noblewoman Lady Josephine Montilyet, into the Inquisition. Grieving for the loss of her dear friend, Divine Justinia V, Leliana struggles with a crisis of faith following the tragedy of the Breach. Leliana is perplexed by the Maker's plan and also disillusioned if it required so much of the innocent faithful to be murdered. Leliana and Cassandra Pentaghast interrogated the captured Herald of Andraste in the aftermath of the Breach. Leliana urged Cassandra to calm her temper when dealing with their prisoner since they need the Herald to seal the Fade rifts. Due to the Herald of Andraste's actions in aiding the reborn Inquisition, they were chosen to lead them as their new Inquisitor. In the wake of the Breach and the death of Divine Justinia V, Leliana had begun investigating all of the late Divine's known enemies. She was scrutinizing Lady Cybile Maronn of Baisne, a minor but exceedingly wealthy noble. Evidence of plots against the Divine led her to socially and politically destroy Lady Cybile despite not being involved with events at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Lady Cybile's only son, seeking to appease the Inquisition, handed over a significant portion of his mother's assets including the Assassin Argent's contract in order to avoid following his mother's fate. As the war council assembles, Cassandra and Leliana suggest approaching the rebel mages for help with the Breach. Cullen disagrees, suggesting recruiting the templars instead, fearing that pouring too much magic into the Inquisitor's mark may destroy them all. When asked why she's so invested in the rebel mages, Leliana will reveal she supported the Divine's plan to use the Inquisition to challenge the tenets of the Chantry so that the mages would be treated more fairly. She believes that mages deserve their freedom, in inspiring good rather than dictating it, redemption of past sins, and in radical reform for the Chantry to stamp out inequality for all races and to promote charity. Inquisitor recruits the Mages: Leliana and her group are sent alongside Dorian to eliminate the Venatori and their leader, Gereon Alexius, at Redcliffe Castle, where the mages have made their base of operations, functioning under the guise of the Herald negotiating with the Magister. However, when the Inquisitor and Dorian are accidentally sent one year in the future, where the former's absence had allowed the Elder One to conquer southern Thedas, Leliana is captured and tortured for information on how the Herald received the mark. By 9:42 Dragon, she has also been subjected to experiments on Blight sickness and Blight resistance, presumably in order to cure Alexius's son, Felix. As the Inquisitor finds her in the torture room, Leliana takes advantage of her interrogator's distraction to snap his neck with her legs. These experiences leave her traumatized and cold towards Dorian and the Inquisitor. When the party confronts Alexius, Leliana murders Felix and helps to delay approaching Venatori and demon reinforcements to buy the Inquisitor and Dorian time to get through the time rift and stop this future from occurring. Just as Dorian manages to reopen the rift, Leliana is overpowered by her attackers and killed. Should the Inquisitor, upon returning to 9:41 Dragon, tell Leliana of her future self's sacrifice, she states that she would do so again. When the Inquisitor takes control of the fortress of Skyhold, Leliana will spend her free time in the rookery, making it a new home. Leliana is more hardened and is willing to respond to betrayal with vicious reprisal. After the attack on Haven, she also berates herself for the sentimentality she has for her agents, believing they lost Haven because she pulled her agents back when her first lookouts went missing. The Inquisitor can encourage or discourage her sentiments on both accounts. At any rate, she apologizes to the Inquisitor for letting her emotions get the better of her during their first conversation. A spirit posing as Divine Justinia V aids the Inquisitor when they come back to the Fade to recover their missing memories. The spirit aids the Inquisitor in finding the truth of how they obtained their mark and also escaping the Fade once again from the Nightmare demon that serves Corypheus. The spirit once again sacrifices itself to weaken the Nightmare but not before asking the Inquisitor to relay a message to Leliana: "I'm sorry. I failed you, too." After Leliana inquires about the spirit and has its message relayed to her, she responds with a solemn "oh" before composing herself and focusing on her duties. In a later conversation with the Inquisitor, she tries to make sense of Justinia's message and the events that led to her death. She believes that it wasn't Justinia who failed her, but she who failed Justinia. Leliana, along with Josephine and Cullen and their chosen party, will accompany the Inquisitor to the Winter Palace for the quest Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts. There she will advise them to search for the identity of Celene I's arcane advisor. Late in the game, Leliana receives a posthumous letter from Justinia, directing her to the chantry in Valence, the place where she met Justinia before she was Divine, so she asks the Inquisitor to accompany her. Arriving at the chantry, they are greeted by Sister Natalie. As the Inquisitor finds three hidden mechanisms that unveil a hidden box, Leliana grows suspicious of Natalie, who makes a slip of the tongue, prompting Leliana to put a knife to her throat. She deduces that Natalie was sent by Grand Cleric Victoire, who had secretly disparaged Justinia and is anti-Inquisition, to see what secret Justinia kept hidden. The Inquisitor can either tell Leliana to spare Natalie (if she was told to spare her traitorous spy Butler and that she was right in pulling back her sentries at Haven) or execute her. Remaining silent during the conversation in Haven between Leliana and the Inquisition soldier counts the same as ordering Butler's death. Leliana then opens the box, only to find it empty, with an inscription reading, "The Left Hand should lay down her burden." Justinia was releasing her from her service because she feared she was using Leliana. Back at Skyhold, Leliana has reflected on Justinia's belief that Justinia had corrupted Leliana by employing her as her Left Hand. If Leliana's personality remains hardened, she embraces the ruthless pragmatist she's become and believes it will benefit the Inquisition. If her personality is softened, Leliana remains true to her compassionate nature and believes she is more than what Justinia made her. Leliana's pet nug Schmooples appears to have died in the intervening years, and Leliana's new pet nugs Schmooples II and Boulette are being cared for by one of her agents, Sparrow. They also helped to repel an attempt by a rival at her home, intended to discover the Nightingale's secrets. It is possible to have Leliana elected as the new Divine, after Justinia V. If chosen, she will be known as Divine Victoria. She will disband the Circle of Magi and allow mages to rule their own lives, admit non-humans into the Chantry priesthood, ally with the Inquisition and adhere to the principle of service to others. Divine Victoria is controversial from the start, several new sects arise, resisting her reforms and declaring her rule a threat to the faith.
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