fire mage | First of Clan Illyria | romanced Dorian
23 — 5’10 — 160
Valus is of slight build, though remains toned from general clan duties. He can either be seen with a smile or staring off into space, rubbing his worry stone. If his twin sister is the night, he is the day: the room lights up when he walks in. And though he mostly keeps to himself, he has the unique ability to make everyone feel as if he's known them for years. Like his sister, his skin is a bronzed olive from their northern descent. Valus wears a clay-colored, simplified version of vallaslin honoring Dirthamen, keeper of secrets and knowledge; this god resonated with Valus for his belief in strong family ties and loyalty. He smells like freshly burned wood and crushed autumn leaves.
Nickname(s): Val, amatus (Dorian of course) Sexual orientation: Pansexual
Clothing style: He dresses simply, with little ornamentation. In his clan the materials are usually simple cloth and whatever furs are available/weather appropriate. When he joins the Inquisition, Josie outfits him in finer materials...though he still tends to keep to a minimal design, to her dismay.
Eye color: Bright green rimmed with gold, slightly desaturated
Hair color and style: Dark brown, almost black but red tints in the sun; worn in a half ponytail usually (he may sometimes do a few little braids on the sides)
Other distinguishing physical traits: Has shorter ears with broader points like his sister. Not many scars since he’s been sheltered and hasn’t learned to fight hand-to-hand, though he does have a few scars from playing as a child.
Verbal tags: Has an accent between Tevinter/Ander; I headcanon that it sounds like a light Dutch accent. (video for reference) Speaks Tevene first, then trade tongue. Like Lyv, he sometimes slips up with the trade language--usually he just rolls with it and speaks Tevene. He knows a large amount of Elven and continues to learn as much as he can whenever the opportunity arises, which is often since he is his clan’s First. His speech is gentle and he always, always listens. No roaming eyes or even fidgeting when he's listening--sometimes it even makes people a little uncomfortable because he’s looking at them the whole time. Because he was the only one that was there for his sister, he’s kind of learned his whole life that it’s always better to just let the other person speak until he needs to say something. This also leads to him being relatively quiet unless someone is directly asking him something.
Characteristic tags: Unlike Lyv, Valus is very touchy. He’s quick to put his hand on a person’s shoulder, touch their hand, clap their back, arm around their neck, etc. If it’s appropriate he’ll hug them whenever he can (he gives really good hugs tbh). He gets very personal with people and prefers to walk among the common folk than stand on a pedestal--this carries over to his duties as First, where he doesn’t even feel like his position is any more important than anyone else’s (much to the exasperation of his Keeper).
Skills, Abilities, or Talents: Fire magic (also other things I haven't fleshed out)
Admirable personality traits: Always willing to listen and help, genuinely cares, articulate and tactful, patient to a fault, has so much love to give ugh how does he exist Negative personality traits: Has a huge tendency to bottle up his emotions/worries because he doesn’t want other people to worry too, hhhhh that’s all like he’s a cinnamon roll who has no faults tbh
Things that make angry & how they deal with anger: People being dramatic for the sake of drama, gossiping, people taking advantage of him and thinking that just because he’s nice means he’s stupid and naive--he’ll tell it to you straight, like he doesn’t care who you are. At the same time he knows when telling someone off is pointless, so he’ll just rant to a friend or throw some fireballs when he’s alone.
Fears & how they deal with fear: Something happening to his sister (he’s just constantly worried for her), really hates thunder, people yelling at him, not being able to help people he cares about--well...except for thunder, these all just turn into anxiety because a lot of it is out of his control. When someone is yelling at him he either starts tearing up or gets angry and yells back, which is super abnormal but it usually surprises the person enough that they shut up and listen. If there’s thunder, he either barricades himself somewhere with lots of blankets or he plays with his worry stone.
Bad habits or vices: He has a tendency to get anxiety about wanting to fix the world's problems, so he wears a worry-stone necklace pretty much always. It’s not a bad habit but he’s always messing with it. He also has a fidget of bouncing his leg, which drives Lyv nuts.
Sense of Humor: As much as he doesn’t care for attention, the more uncomfortable he is the funnier he gets...which leads to him being the center of the room. He’s got a pretty dry sense of humor but also likes making deliberately stupid jokes just to get people rolling their eyes and laughing at how lame it was. (dad joke king tbh)
Item(s) special to character: His sister’s axe wrap that he keeps around his stave along with a few charms she’d found for him, an engraved metal arm cuff from his grandfather that helps when focusing magic (helps him with powerful spells), a worry stone he wears on a leather cord around his neck Person/friend close to character: HIS SISTER, first and foremost. Then of course Dorian, whom he romanced. He’s quite fond of Cassandra, Varric, and Cole too.
Brief family history: (will fill in) Most painful experiences in character’s past: Having to leave his mom and sister behind when he was transferred back to his home clan, his mom’s suicide, his toxic home environment (though it was never directed at him, he had a close bond with Lyvhenari and it pained him to see her treated like that--one of the reasons why he distanced himself from their mother and came to not like her)