Rufus Hawke

Rufus Hawke, Boyscout of Kirkwall, is the living embodiment of silliness. He's a goofball, a weirdo, a silly goose, a joker, a clown, etc. He's prone to overly dramatic bursts of shock, indignation, and disappointment. He frequently comes up with clever ideas that are never actually clever, like putting red ribbons on his underwear to evoke feelings of the "banners of war." He's got a voracious appetite, and he eats anything he can get his hands on. Aside from the silliness, Rufus is deeply loving and a family man at heart. He views himself first and foremost as the protector of his friends and will go to almost any length to keep them safe.

## Overview

### **Physical Appearance**

Rufus is gorgeous. There's no way around it. Like a cross between Hugh Jackman and Jesus, his rugged profile and sharp, chiseled features make him an instant hit with the ladies (until they hear him talk, that is), though he is usually blind to their advances. He has shoulder length chestnut hair which he keeps half-tied behind his head. Adorning his manly and well-sculpted face is a beard truly worthy of envy and adulation. His inquisitive and mysterious hazel eyes sit pensively above his stunningly carved nose, giving him a look of distinguished intrigue few in Thedas can resist, let alone match. His brow is marked by a rich blue tattoo that intimidates his enemies and captivates his allies.

His build is strong, stately and dignifying. Standing at 6'2" or 188 cm, his stature is imposing but not unwelcoming, and his rippling muscles conform to just the right ratios for achieving maximum attractiveness. Let's just say there's a reason the first thing Isabela did upon meeting him was sleep with him.

### **Personality**

If there is more silliness to be found in Thedas, I don't know where to look for it. Rufus is a child at heart, ever the optimist, and can always be relied upon to supply a nice helping of bright-eyed cheeriness to any given situation. His incredible capacity for innocent and sincere excitement can at times give way to melodrama the likes of which has never before been seen. Rufus is a *classic* overreactor, given to sudden displays of indignity and horror that stand in stark contrast to his usual mischievous good nature.

Aside from the silliness, Rufus is a family man through and through. In fact, his half-joking fantasy in life is to become a cheesemaker and raise thirteen children with a loving wife by his side. He places the utmost importance on maintaining a healthy bond with friends and family, and sees himself as a protector above all else. He suffers no small amount of guilt over Carver and Leandra's deaths. Rufus takes care of his own as often and as thoroughly as he can and is always happy to lend a helping hand be it through moral support, financial assistance, or physical defense.

The boyscout designation comes from his gentle good nature and aversion to violence. He can't exactly avoid killing people throughout his time in Kirkwall, but prefers to avoid it whenever possible. He's a total goody two shoes and a stickler for the rules. If a sign says to keep off the grass, you'd better believe he'll keep off the grass. If Kirkwall wants him to pay taxes, he'll be paying those taxes.

### **Talents and Skills**

Rufus is a peerless warrior, adeptly wielding two handed weapons in combat with equal parts grace and ferocity. A devastating tempest to his enemies and a bulwark against evil for his allies, Rufus is a sight to behold on the battlefield. So advanced is his skill as a warrior that, even while attempting to keep from soiling his drawers, he is a formidable adversary capable of taking on multiple opponents at once.

If perseverance and good humor can be called skills, Rufus has them in spades. Always quick with a joke or a witty one liner, Rufus enjoys making others laugh. The true essence of his resilient nature is in his creative spirit, however. Rufus fancies himself a Jack of all trades despite having little technical skill in anything other than fighting. What is most impressive about this is that Rufus will take on any challenge--usually a self imposed one--without hesitation, throwing himself fully into the task at hand until he sees it done. Good examples of this are his various crafts and creative compositions. Rufus is a silly idea machine who, among other things, has applied himself to develop the following talents:

* For someone who never practices, Rufus is a surprisingly talented singer, having improvised a cover of The Great Gig in the Sky to express his feelings to Isabela and written a tavern song about her ample posterior.
* Rufus enjoys all things artistic and often creates collages, paintings, and sculptures in spur-of-the-moment decisions despite a considerable *lack* of talent in the visual arts.
* Rufus briefly dedicated himself to opening orphanages for giant spider babies, whose parents he routinely found himself slaughtering.
* At one point, he designed a line of high end fashion with the intent of selling clothing to wealthy Orlesians. His fashion choices were invariably terrible, though his luxurious fingernail protectors sold extremely well in Orlais; Bethany and Isabela still receive payments from the royalties.
* Rufus is a connoisseur of all things related to pie and has judged a baking competition in Kirkwall that unfortunately ended in disaster, as things in Kirkwall are wont to do.

## Biography

### **History**

As a young boy, Rufus was spirited and goofy, often seen making trouble around Lothering. On one such occasion, he'd stolen pastries and other sweets from a local baker and run off into a nearby meadow to eat them. Rufus is a very messy eater, however, meaning that a large number of crumbs and other sugary particulates were scattered about his person once he finished eating. Butterflies from the meadow began to take notice of this, and several landed on his body to partake in the feast. At first intrigued, Rufus' curiousity quickly turned into horror as more and more butterflies swarmed him in an attempt to get at the sugary crumbs on his shirt. Terrified, he ran all the way home screaming his little lungs out and crying. This incident had two long lasting impacts on Rufus: his deathly fear of butterflies and his studious respect for the rules.

Many years later, when Rufus was 22 and Bethany 15, he went on a brief camping trip with his sister. The two were collecting firewood (or more accurately, *Rufus* was collecting firewood as Bethany distracted herself with magic) when a runaway criminal from Highever happened upon her in the woods. Having insisted that gathering firewood was a useless task because she could simply conjure a flame whenever necessary, Bethany fell behind and played with her magic. Upon seeing this, the criminal snuck up behind her, afraid that she was a dangerous apostate. Rufus heard the struggle from further ahead and raced back, drawing his greatsword. When the criminal saw Rufus, he brought a hunting knife up to Bethany's throat and warned him to drop the sword, which he did. Bethany then threw a bit of fire behind her to distract the criminal and run away. The criminal started after her, yelling at her to "come back here, you bitch!" but Rufus charged in the same instant, drawing his hunting knife and tackling the man. After a brief struggle, Rufus stabbed the man in the ribs. He was so shaken by what he'd done that he could not even bring himself to remove the knife, instead leaving it--and the man with it--to the wilds.

Stress from this encounter caused Rufus to stop shaving for a while, which first opened his eyes to how good he looked with a beard. This led to a few tensions at home between the three siblings. Bethany didn't approve of the beard, telling Rufus that "Lothering isn't a paradise, brother, but have some dignity!" Carver festered with jealousy; try as he might, he could only manage a few whiskers.

### **In-game**

Owing to his gigantic soft spot for Bethany, who was made a Circle mage, Rufus generally sided with mages. Off the top of my head, a few choices from each Act are as follows. Act 1: he returned Martin's cargo, brought Saemus back from the Qunari, sent Feynriel to the Dalish, and got Keran reinstated with the Templars. Act 2: he didn't kill Javaris or Gascard, didn't side with Petrice, sent Feynriel to Tevinter, and killed the Arishok in a duel to save Isabela from the Qunari. This duel was very hard fought and luckily one, as Rufus struggled to hold his own against the hulking Arishok for the entirety of the fight. Just when all hope seemed lost, as the Arishok held Rufus aloft in his left hand while preparing to deliver a fatal strike with his right, Rufus sneezed a mighty sneeze, the concentrated glob of mucus hitting the Arishok in the eye and the thunderous boom of his sneeze echoing off the cavernous hall to disorient the Qunari. Finally having gained the upper hand, Rufus was quick about killing him, lest the Arishok recover. Act 3: he rescued Nathaniel, reunited Charade and Gamlen, let Keran go, killed the dragon, returned Emile to the circle, and of course, sided with the mages. Rufus greatly disapproved of Anders' actions in the closing sequence of the game, but could not bear to kill his friend (especially considering that friend was his only healer).

### **Post-game**

After the Chantry explosion, Rufus cut all ties with Anders and fled the city, choosing to go into hiding. Using this as his opportunity to break up with Isabela by encouraging her to be the pirate queen she always dreamed of being, he spent the time between the Kirkwall rebellion and the events of Inquisition scouring Thedas for the best pie ever made. After helping Stroud and the Inquisitor get to the bottom of the false calling, Rufus sacrificed himself in the Fade to cover their escape. The real reason for his sacrifice, not that it was an unwilling one, was that his bowels had betrayed him yet again and he was barely keeping it together by the time they reached the Nightmare. Had he not been on the verge of shitting his pants, he would likely have won the fight and escaped with the rest of them.

## **Relationships**

Rufus, as stated above, views himself as the ultimate protector of his friends and family, though this venture is not always successful, as Carver and Leandra's deaths should plainly show.

#### Family

Rufus' strongest familial bond is the one he has with Bethany, his younger sister. Growing up, Rufus treated himself as though he were an impenetrable barrier surrounding his sister. He has a soft spot like no other for her, and he treats her like it. Their bond grew much stronger as a result of Rufus protecting her from the criminal in her teens, and she accompanied him to the Grey Wardens' prison after the events in Kirkwall.

Carver was a rather bristly sibling to Rufus, but no less loved and only slightly less protected. Rufus missed him dearly and sorely regretted not being able to give him a proper funeral.

Leandra and Gamlen were somewhat periphery to Rufus' life in Kirkwall, though he still cared greatly for them both. Only Leandra was given a room at the estate when Rufus reclaimed it, but Gamlen was always welcome to visitations and financial assistance thanks to Rufus' generous nature.

#### Friends and Companions

The companions who most often accompanied Rufus on his missions were Isabela, Anders, and Sebastian.

Isabela and Rufus slept together upon first meeting, owing to a few convenient circumstances that led her to clean pie filling off of his face. Rufus loved Isabela dearly, but never planned on being with her in the long term. When the chantry exploded and Rufus fled the city, he encouraged her to be a pirate queen without him. Though he never explicitly said anything about it for fear of hurting her feelings, this was his way of breaking up with her. News of his death devastated Isabela when it finally reached her.

Varric was great friends with Hawke, and often accompanied him on his pie-related adventures. He was the one to introduce Rufus to his favorite pie shop in the city, Gerran's Pie Emporium, Swords Sharpened Also.

Every other companion was on more or less equal footing with Rufus, save for Fenris, whom he never met. Each of them were great friends to Rufus, and he extended his particular brand of protection and genuine caring to each of them.

Gerran is the owner of Rufus' favorite pie shop and a frequent witness to his pie-related mishaps. Gerran calls Rufus his favorite customer, and will kick out other patrons in his shop in order to make way for him.

## **Miscellaneous**

Rufus features as a side character in Loser Shaves.

Rufus is uncommonly easy to give gifts to. He can find a use for almost anything, and will gladly accept any gift with genuine thankfulness, even if it appears to be useless junk. However, he mistakenly attributes this trait to all of his friends, which means he is an unfortunately terrible giver of gifts.

Rufus' tattoo is fake. He paints it on with woad each morning in order to "look more intimidating," as he puts it, though the effect of this is debatable. Very few people know about this, and fewer still know because Rufus wanted them to. He only told Bethany and Isabela about his fake tattoo. Aveline and Varric walked in on him one morning before he was able to put it on, and Merrill found out because Varric told her.

Rufus has a neurotic obsession with keeping his fingernails in perfect condition and will wear expensive gloves in order to keep them clean while out in the field. When collecting sela petrae for Anders, Rufus faked an allergy and made Sebastian do it.

Rufus' sneezes are not natural. They are extremely loud, for one, and unlike the fine mist that most people produce when hey sneeze, all of his mucus comes out in a concentrated glob. This peculiarity is the subject of multiple rumors. Two among them are actually true: that he once blinded one man and deafened another with a single sneeze, and that he gained the upper hand in his duel with the Arishok by sneezing in his face.

Rufus' chaotic personality is matched only by his chaotic digestive tract. He is entirely irregular. Sometimes he'll shit rocks, other times his diarrhea is so bad there's basically no solid chunks. His schedule is totally out of whack. He can shit multiple times in one day (record being 6) or not shit for an entire week. He is entirely at the mercy of his bowels' whims, and every shit is an emergency.

He has a slight allergy to ginger, but rather than avoid foods that contain it, he takes them as a challenge. Sometimes, he'll even go out of his way to eat food with ginger in it, just to prove that he can.

Rufus' modern counterpart is a boosted Mercy main in Overwatch currently struggling to maintain his rank in low Diamond. He's struggling to get accustomed to the recent changes to Mercy's kit and keeps getting flamed in chat for wasting his Valkyrie ult as he still reflexively uses it to resurrect his teammates.

## **Links**

### Reddit Headcanon Threads:

Rufus' epic gift tendencies - includes a series of hypothetical gifts and his responses to them courtesy of zenith931

Rufus' sneezes

Rufus' digestive tract

## **Gallery**

* Rufus' amazing Witch Mercy costume by /u/criticalmode!
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