Introducing the Inquisition

Have you ever had people bow to you? Well, let me tell you, it’s a very odd experience. Especially considering that the last time I had seen these particular humans they had seemed to want my head on a spike. Which, being both a mage and an elf, is something I’m much more used to feeling. Well, I wandered around my waking spot, the village of Haven in the Frostback Mountains, and made a few discoveries. The first was that, apparently, they had moved me around several times in my sleep, because there were notes about me and my condition scattered throughout the village. So, either I moved around, or whoever wrote the notes distributed them to the people after writing them. I also found that there were some lovely new clothes waiting for me. That fit perfectly. Meaning, in between sessions of medical care, somebody had bothered to take my measurements while I was unconscious. Both of these discoveries ranged from quirkily odd to mildly disturbing, so I decided it was best to focus on the positives and move forward amicably. After I was done exploring, I made my way up to the local Chantry. Cassandra and Leliana were up there, along with Roderick, who still wanted to blame me for everything. Fortunately, he was the only one, and despite his blustering, my name was cleared and Cassandra pulled out a really big book and said we were re-forming the Inquisition. Which I would have found far more exciting had I known what exactly the Inquisition was. And look, before you make a judgment about my intelligence, let me clarify something: I knew what an inquisition was, what the word meant, but that is the everyday, lower-case version of the word. With the way they were talking about it, this was a fully-capitalized Inquisition with a “the” in front of it. Not your average official investigation or harsh questioning.

I pushed extremely hard for our symbol to be some form of glowing hand, but apparently they had a bunch of banners already laying around with the eye-sun-sword motif.

After seeing the back of Cassandra’s head in the previous picture, I realized I’d forgotten to show what she actually looks like. Oh, and me in my shiny new outfit! And someone else, I never caught their name.

I had been wondering why everybody kept calling me “Harold.” I thought it was some bizarre local slur against elves at first, but the bowing indicated a level of respect that contradicted that. It took me a while to sort out my homonyms and realize it was actually “Herald.” As in, of Andraste. As in, the Bride of the Maker. As in, one of, if not the most, important figures, religious or otherwise, in the history of Thedas. Apparently, when I said “glowy woman” while describing my sojourn to the Fade, everybody heard “Our Lady Redeemer.” The general populace had taken me falling out of the Fade with the assistance of said glowy woman and being gifted the ability to close Fade rifts to mean that I was some sort of messianic figure chosen by the Maker himself. Which is funny, since I don’t really believe in that kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m open to the idea that the Maker and Andraste could be out there, somewhere. But I think they, and the elven gods worshipped by my people, are more important historical figures whose legends have grown in the centuries or millennia since they walked our world than actual all-powerful beings. I don’t really know, and I’ve never put much stock into prayer and worship. I’ve always preferred to believe in myself and actually do things. But, I also think that it’s not my business to tell others what to believe, just as it’s no one else’s to tell me what to believe or not. Anyways, after the establishment of the Inquisition (and me learning what it actually did, which, in addition to its primary purpose of inquisiting, is to kill evil things and keep order in Thedas), we got down to business. Our goal was clear: shut down the Breach for good. While I had failed to completely close it, my glowy-handed attempt had stabilized it to the point that we could contain the demons spilling out of it, but that wasn’t a permanent solution. The Inquisition needed to find one. To that end, we also needed more people, despite already having several seasoned leaders on board. Apparently the hands of the Divine had been busy. Leliana had taken on the post of spymaster, and was almost preternaturally adept at the job. There was also Cullen, the leader of our armed forces, and Josephine Montilyet, our ambassador. Cullen came off as a bit serious, but not a bad person by any means. Very skilled at what he did, just not somebody you’d invite to a card game or anything. Josephine, meanwhile, was good at talking to people. Dangerously good at talking. After introductions had been made all around, it was time to get to work.

The brain trust. On the left, Leliana, whom you’ve already met. Cullen in the middle, and Josephine and her simultaneously ridiculous and fabulous candle-equipped paper-holding board thing on the right.