Briefly describe your character’s physical appearance. Are they able-bodied or disabled? Are they comfortable with their looks/body, or did they wish their body was different? Do they have any significant scars? How fit are they?
Fit and lean are the words I’d use. Taerel is far from a physical power house, but he works out to stay in shape. He feels like it’s his responsibility to be on his best at all times, and it’s rare when he skips out on his flexibility exercises, done every morning and every evening before bed.
Other than his vallaslin, his two most noticeable features are his long, deep red hair, and his eyes. His hair is usually worn loose, but after Trespasser he starts wearing it in a ponytail.
His natural eye color is amber, with darker brown flecks around the pupil, but the Anchor causes a very noticeable ring of bright poisonous green in his irises, nearly drowning out their original color.
Taerel is comfortable in his body; he already has enough to worry about and fussing over his looks won’t get him anywhere - having said that, he is on the vain side and he does like to preen when there’s time!
As for scars, most of them are gotten from fights he fought as part of the Inquisition, thanks to his tendency to fight at the front line combined with his reckless nature (you’d think he would have learned by now). The most noticeable scar he has though, is the one gained at the end of Trespasser…
For the Inquisitor: What is their experience with the Anchor? If/when they lose their hand, how does that go? How do they handle it afterwards?
Taerel’s experience with the Anchor isn’t a good one. It’s something he’s hated from day one, something that was always there, like a distant burn throbbing in his hand, even when he wasn’t actively using it. Even as a mage, it felt unnatural to him, like a magical parasite, trying to take him over from within.
Solas made it manageable, but actively using it was never a pleasant experience, and on particularly bad days it was a literal pain even when it wasn’t being used.
In the two years following Corypheus’ defeat, the Anchor was slowly getting worse, now that Solas was no longer present to help keep it at bay. The Anchor is not just in his hand, it’s in his veins and even the very marrow of his bones, and by the time Trespasser rolls around it accelerates at such a rapid pace that by the time he finally reaches Solas, the Anchor has devoured his entire arm up to his shoulder. Solas takes it away to save his life, but doesn’t realize that at this point the Anchor was also the only thing holding his arm together, and it literally starts to fall apart.
Amputating it from the shoulder is the only thing they can do, as no amount of magic could heal the damage that was done. It leaves him with a large burn scar covering the entire area, and the skin surrounding it still shows signs of where the Anchor was trying to spread further through his veins. The recovery wasn’t easy either, as he’s plagued by a bad fever following the amputation, blood loss and shock doing their job, but he does make a full recovery eventually.
Taerel has mixed feelings about what happened; while he does mourn the loss of his arm it was a sacrifice he’d gladly make again if it meant getting rid of the Anchor, and he learns to cope living with only one arm remaining. But what does bother him greatly is that his Knight Enchanter days are now over, and that is something he still has great difficulty accepting.
Mastering the Way of the Knight Enchanter was something he took great pride in.
