Marcellus a trébuché de derrière un des arbres sombres et secs, philtre caché dans la paume d'une main gantée et lyrique ternissant tout, de la croûte interne dans sa poitrine au tremblement qui courait de haut en bas de sa main. Remerciez le Créateur pour les nains, pour les contrebandiers et tous ceux qui en ont créé et maintenu le commerce illégal.
Et remerciez le Créateur pour ses propres approvisionnements durables!
Il s'était réveillé dans les premières heures du matin (non pas qu'il dormait vraiment) et avait agité le reste de la nuit en essayant d'éviter de prendre son tirant d'eau – si seulement ce qu'il avait duré tout le voyage à travers les routes profondes – mais c'était inévitable. Ah, eh bien... il ne pouvait pas et ne voulait pas que ça le dérange.
Marcellus a épargné un coup d'œil à sa roulotte, déjà roulée et prête à bouger, et s'est agenouillée près du feu de camp pour lacer ses bottes, ignorant le reste de son apparence nettement déshabillée. Il ne pouvait pas monter les sacs sous ses yeux ou sa chemise dédoublée, c'était sûr. L'odeur de la cuisson du petit déjeuner a tourné son estomac plus que les vagues de la mer jamais eu.
Nous disons au revoir à la côte aujourd'hui, n'est-ce pas? Je ne peux pas dormir avec tous les – whoosh de l'océan," Marcellus a demandé. Bien sûr, il y aurait toujours quelque chose pour le voler loin du repos – pas seulement l'eau. Ce seraient les animaux, les plantes, la brise, la respiration de son groupe ou une autre excuse.
Vocula
MagebaneBasic Information
Species: Human (Half-Dwarf)
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Class: Templar Hunter (Warrior-Rogue)
Appearance:



Short, stocky but surprisingly swift on his feet, Marcellus seems to have inherited few characteristics of either his father's or his mother's side. While only 5'6" (from a maternal line of relative giants!) and with none of the mad, maniacal evil expected of Tevinter magi, he seems... average. Unusually friendly, for a 'Vint, with a near-permanent smile.
Marcellus is conventionally handsome, more so as he ages. Brown (prematurely greying) hair, tan skin, a carefully cultivated beard and more than a few swoon-worthy scars – if the one running from nose to ear wasn't so eyecatching, or disfiguring. He is usually seen in more casual armor, expensive leathers with chainmail only on rare occasions.
Curriculum Vitae
Specialisations:
 Templar
 Assassin
 Shadow

Notable Traits:
Magic Resistance – Marcellus has the thick skin of his Dwarven father's side, albeit not to the same degree. He can shrug off weak bolts of magic from staves (at least when it comes to the Arcane... fire's a different story) and is far more resistant than a normal human and even a normal Templar when it comes to hypnotism or mind control. His mind is near-unbreakable, some might say. It might not be true.
Light-Footed – Well, when he's not talking and is entirely focused on a fight. No matter what armor Marcellus is wearing, it's hard not to notice that he moves silently whether purposefully trying to be stealthy or not. Since he is, by nature, a cheeky bugger, he likes to use it to startle friends and allies.
Flaws:
Insomniac – Perhaps it's due to paranoia, a natural sort born from looking over one's shoulder all the time. Or, more likely, it's the lyrium. Marcellus allows himself to sleep rarely and when he does it's marked by terrible nightmares.
Weak-willed – At least, when it comes to demons of Desire. Marcellus is a simple man of various wants, and he's made deals with both spirits and demons in the past, though none that have transformed him into an abomination. He thinks himself "careful".
Lyrium Addiction – So it turns out that, like alcohol, it takes a lot of lyrium to give a half-dwarf a buzz of power. Despite the scarcity of the resource for the Templars in Tevinter, Marcellus sought it out himself... a contributing reason as to why he made it to his thirtieth year when so many other recruits didn't. He might not be having the memory loss and confusion yet but the pent-up aggression and withdrawal symptoms always loom over the horizon for when he runs out. And he runs out a lot.

Skills:
Cleanse
Silence
Wrath of Heaven


Assassinate
Inconspicuous
Stealth
Twin Fangs

Backstory
Biography:
Not a sad story, but certainly not a happy one. The current head of the Vocula family is a woman by the name of Diantha, the mother of both Marcellus and an older son – the heir. While her lineage is preserved in Caius Vocula, Marcellus was nothing more than a mistake, though a passionate one. Requiring vast shipments of lyrium, most of which was delivered by the Carta, she dealt with one dwarf in particular so often that she had a short-lived and doomed affair with him... and she got a discount to boot. While Diantha Vocula is a woman of strange tastes and notorious promiscuity (not even mentioning the blood magic), it was probably not worth the social suicide that was carrying a half-dwarf child to term.
(Her reputation eventually bounced back, mostly to do with the quality of her magical studies and raw power itself, but that doesn't matter much.)
Marcellus was, of course, born without magic and only a slight connection to the Fade. It was a miracle he didn't take after his father more and was actually able to dream in the first place. While of course his Dwarven heritage was covered up, it was more of an open secret. Protection runes and barriers didn't stick to him as well as they did others, particularly when they were cast by his weak older brother to test him. Diantha did love her son, though, a strange woman no doubt, and wanted only the best for him. Naturally, she used her political sway to have him trained by the Imperial Chantry as one of the few templars they had there. Marcellus was not the only nobleman born without magic, after all.
Lyrium was a commodity for mage-use only, of course, and so his Order did not rely on it as those in Fereldan or Orlesian orders did. That is likely a contributing reason to the absurdly high death toll of the Imperial Templars – just bodies to throw at an abomination until it gives up. Propaganda dictated that the Andrastian Chantry gave their Templars lyrium as a leash, but as someone with connections on the "outside", Marcellus found at least part of the truth: it made them more powerful. By securing himself to several different magisters (not a slave, but a faithful servant, no less useful than an Antivan Crow) he managed to acquire a supply of lyrium...
Having no knowledge of the dangers of the substance, nor that the Templar abilities required training, Marcellus did nothing but acquire his fatal flaw: his addiction. By his early twenties, Marcellus was under the thumb of it with no recognisable rewards and mages were getting more dangerous by the day (or perhaps he was getting weaker) so he of course sought someone out to train him up. One of the Vocula slaves had been one, once, traded over from Fereldan during the blight though the man was now useless with withdrawal.
He managed to teach Marcellus the very basics – how to call upon the lyrium in his blood, how to cleanse an area and how to stop spellcasting – in exchange for his freedom. Of course, once he was given it, he turned around and tried to assassinate Diantha, so he was forced to kill him. Unfortunate, but probably a relief to his suffering.
Spooked by the knowledge that if he ran out of lyrium like the slave then he'd end up a wreck, Marcellus started to take more under the guise of "training his newfound abilities". Word started to spread of a templar with the ability to take away magic. A dangerous rumour in Tevinter, but undoubtedly profitable. Magisters asked the Imperial Chantry for the Vocula heir's services to quell an uprising or coup, and he did so, striking from the shadows and taking out those squishy little mages; the ones without good tuition and too much experimentation.
This lasted up until his mid-twenties, when Marcellus met his "love" Sulpicia – the wife of a new magister with a lot of lyrium on hand. She had him as a guard for a year (since new magisters were notoriously prone to unexpected death) and if anything only made his lyrium problem worse. But she was beautiful, yes. Still, when the Vocula family started a feud of sorts with her husband, Marcellus picked a side – arguably the wrong one.
His family. He murdered her husband using all those stealthy, sneaky mage-killing abilities for no real reward, cutting off his supply of lyrium. At the very least he was given fair warning to flee from Minrathous and Tevinter as a whole, so he did, full of self-righteousness and thinking he did what was best. Not his proudest moment, though not a move he regrets taking. It didn't take long for him to find out that life outside the Imperial Chantry was a lot more difficult – at least when it came to finding lyrium to take. For all his pride, Marcellus ended up a mercenary. It wasn't that much different to life before. Back then it was the Black Chantry taking on the jobs from the magisters and directing them out like loyal lapdogs.
Sometimes, people just wanted mages dead, and he could help with that.
So long as the pay was good.
Motivation:
When it comes to the short-term, Marcellus is painfully self-aware and honest with even himself. He seeks only drink and debauchery, with a few fights in between to satiate his appetite for battle. Coin isn't the true motivator behind his mercenary work; it's what he can buy with it – lyrium.
Long-term? He's not so sure. He's not a mage, so living in Tevinter for the rest of his life is near-impossible, if only because there's no purpose for him there. Protecting the innocents is fun and all but in other lines of work it doesn't pay the bills. His pride is non-existent now, so life as a mercenary is for him, no matter how distasteful it can be at times. If a small part of him wants to settle down, find a partner... Well. There's always something more pressing, like an addiction, to cover first.
Goals:Beat a Qunari in a drinking contest;
Become Knight-Captain;
Become filthy rich off adventuring like the Champion of Kirkwall;
Buy enough lyrium to dose up into old age or senility, which ever comes first;
And perhaps kill a dragon. That sounds interesting.
Relations:
The Imperial Chantry – Left of his own accord four years ago... Without telling anyone where he was going or why. Whether they are upset with him or not for leaving as he did during the dead of night, Marcellus doesn't particularly want to find out.
House Vocula – His esteemed mother's family of Altus magi, of which he is the only non-mage (due to his status as a bastard and his unfortunate Dwarven blood). His mother is still alive, the head of the female-dominated family and flighty, though undoubtedly soft on her youngest son.
House Caecina – Sulpicia's house, or at least the one she married into. To say that Marcellus is not on good terms with them would be putting it lightly.
The Carta – Sure, it's a bit amoral name-dropping his father who he's never met in his life, but the man (if he's even still alive) seems to have no problem with it... if he knows. Marcellus deals with the Carta for his lyrium fix and has in the past gotten decent side-jobs from them, few of them legal.

Secrets:
His lyrium addiction itself.
Probably the large numbers of dissenting mages in Tevinter he executed – the unsavoury sort, of course. Depending on who his allies are, it might be best not to have unwanted fireballs sent his way.
As vehemently as he denies taking part in any sort of politics, he is aware of The Grand Game of Orlais as Tevinter has something... similar. Just with more slaves and necromancy and abominations.