Solona Amell (UniverseIsAHologram)

## Solona Amell

“*It's funny, isn't it? That the Blight saved me?*”
– Solona discussing her escape

**Solona Jessmina Amell** is a former Circle mage from Kinloch Hold and a friend of Alim Surana.

## Overview

### Physical Appearance

Solona bears a striking resemblance to her second-cousin, Lyra Hawke, having dark red hair and ice blue eyes. The two have even been mistaken for one another, much to Solona's chagrin, given Lyra's status as the Champion of Kirkwall. Solona wears very light makeup, just some grey eye shadow and light red lipstick.

### Personality

Solona has always had an inquisitive mind, enjoying her studies in the Circle and her independent alchemical research. She is a very kind and caring woman who feels compelled to help those in need. Both these things led her to selling potions to those in need for low prices.

Solona's personality only really differs when dealing with those she dislikes, namely templars nowadays.

## Biography

### **History**

Solona was the youngest child of Revka Amell. She had several siblings who she barely remembered, as all were found to have magical abilities at young ages and taken away to Circles as a result. At the age of twelve, it was discovered that Solona, too, possessed magical abilities. She was taken to Kinloch Hold, where she met Jowan and Alim Surana , the latter of which had arrived at the Circle only shortly before. Despite their differences, the three became the best of friends and thought of each other as family.

### **In-game**

Shortly after Alim Surana had his Harrowing, Solona had hers. While Solona was asleep, Alim helped Jowan escape the Circle, getting recruited into the Grey Wardens after. When Solona woke up, she was debriefed by Anders, who had been intrigued by the situation.

A few months later, Solona was praised by Irving and told that she had been one of the mages he would have recommended become a Warden, had she completed her Harrowing in time. Mara, a longtime rival of Solona's, was furious. To get revenge, Mara planted false evidence that Solona had been studying blood magic. With the testimony of a templar in addition to the evidence, Solona was found guilty. As she had already been Harrowed and was therefore not allowed to be made Tranquil, Solona was sent to Aeonar.

On the way to Aeonar, Solona was abused by the templars both mentally and physically, with one of them occasionally doing even worse to her when his comrade was away. The three were cornered by darkspawn, and the two templars managed to kill, the one she hated the most dying, and the other one who had been unaware of what was happening to her managing to survive. The wounded templar asked her to heal him, removing her binding so that she could use her magic. While she initially intended to heal him, he called her a maleficar, breaking what little sympathy and patience she had for templars was left in her, and killed him without even thinking. She then used her magic to freeze and shatter the shackles on her feet, grabbed a dead darkspawn emissary's staff in order to defend herself in the wild, and fled the scene. As a result of what she went through at the hands of the two templars, as well as the fact that none of the templars in Kinloch Hold had stood up for her when she was falsely accused, Solona developed a deep hatred for templars.

Solona ultimately survived the Blight. As her phylactery had been sent to Denerim, it had been destroyed during the Battle of Denerim, meaning that Solona was free to run from the Circle without them having a way to track her down. Solona settled down in a cabin in the woods on the outskirts of a small village on the Orlesian-Ferelden border. There she sold potions to people in a nearby village to earn her keep and experimented on potions in her own time.
She occasionally wrote down ideas for new potions and elixirs and sent them to the Circle under a pseudonym to try and get funding, but the "controversial nature" of her formulas were met with rejection.

The Inquisition's potion master, Adan, had read Solona's theses and was fascinated. With the help of their spymaster, the Inquisition was able to track her down, and she agreed to join them as the Inquisition's alchemical researcher.

After a month in Skyhold, she ran into Cullen, whom she partially blamed for her suffering, and confronted him, sharing how she'd suffered at the hands of the two templars who had been responsible for taking her to Aeonar and the hatred she developed as result.

During her time as potions master, she also met Lyra Hawke, whose legs were broken beyond repair. With one of her experimental potions, Solona managed to heal her.

## Relationships

**Alim Surana:** To this day, Solona considers Alim one of her closest friends and an extremely important person to her. She enjoys hearing news about him go around, but since she knows he'd always dreamed of freedom and must be happy with his new life—as well as the newfound revelation that he has a wife and child—she does not wish to jeopardize his happiness. For this reason, she has made no attempts to contact him and has refused Leliana's offers to help her get in touch with him.

**Anders:** Solona is grateful for Anders having taken the time to explain what happened with Alim and Jowan when she woke up for her Harrowing. She respects Anders and feels that she owes him both for filling her in on Alim and Jowan and for his role in helping spark the rebellion which lead to the Mage–Templar War.

**Cullen Rutherford:** Solona always thought Cullen was a good man, and she remained oblivious of his feelings for as long as she knew him. She lost faith in him and all other templars after being sent to Aeonar, as none of them spoke up on her behalf when she was wrongly accused of using blood magic. When she ran into him at Skyhold, she initially planned on ignoring him, but felt the need to confront them. After that, she ignored him for the majority of her time with the Inquisition. While her hatred of Cullen lessened due to his attempts to distance himself from the Order, she has never been able to truly forgive him.

**Dagna:** The concept of a dwarven arcanist immediately fascinated Solona. Solona and Dagna were both very passionate and innovative when it came to their respective fields, so this connected them. The two enjoy their chats in the Undercroft and get along very well.

**Harritt:** Harritt is wary of mages, so he and Solona generally avoided one another. However, after being stuck in the Undercroft long enough with Dagna, the two of them ended up getting along and developing a mutual respect.

**Lyra Hawke:** Solona and Lyra briefly met when Solona and another healer were assigned to care for her. Despite Lyra's immediate fascination and curiosity about Solona when she saw the nearly identical woman who she learned she was related to, Solona was fairly uninterested, having heard all about Lyra from stories and rumors. Lyra was simply a stranger to whom Solona felt little to no attachment. Despite that, Solona is grateful for Lyra's role in mage liberation.

## Links

**Reddit Headcanon and Writing Prompt Threads:**

* Just another day in Kinloch Hold
* Solona's epiphany
* Anders remembers Solona (mentioned)
* A discussion about Solona's arrival at Skyhold (mentioned)
* Solona runs into Cullen
* Dagna faces judgment