Maeve Tabris

Maeve at her "wedding"

"You killed them, didn't you? You killed them all?"

*"Like dogs, Shianni."*

## Overview

### **Physical Appearance**

Maeve's outward appearance embodies her greatly: she seems almost alien with her very pale skin and tired overtones of yellow and gray. A wavy mess of dark red hair, usually with two small braids in the mix, tangles around the piercing yellow eyes above her dark, puffy bags. A low brow, strong bone structure, and slight underbite add to her guarded appearance. Her ears are also a bit different than those of most elves; they are long and slant downward instead of upward.

She is very tall for an elf; 6'1 to be exact, which makes her tower even among a fair number of humans. She is as skinny as any, however, with most of her musculature gathered around the arms due to her practice with a bow.

She dresses in various unwashed leathers, whichever ones she manages to find, and almost never changes out of them. She also wears Adaia's boots every single day and has repaired them herself countless times over the course of a decade. Leliana makes sure to tell her she dresses dreadfully and insists on being her personal stylist.

### **Personality**

Maeve is hardly the easiest leader to follow. Her mood swings, jaded attitude, and questionably gray values mean that she is often in need of consoling herself rather than a beacon of strong morale. Nonetheless, her strategic thinking is a savior, and her extreme drive and obligation to succeed pulls through even in time of doubt.

Impulsive decisions, headstrong assurance, and sour nights spent isolated from the rest of camp are common to Maeve, regardless of her roughly expressed care for her companions, mostly in the latter half of the Blight, where fights grew more grueling and hopeless.

When she was first conscripted, she was taken from an elven alienage, which had a culture of treating the unmarried as children regardless of age. This drilled an air of playful immaturity into Maeve which diminished as Wardenhood deadened her spirit but never completely left her. Mildly depraved jokes are plentiful.

Her moral compass is self-admittedly underdeveloped, but, after spending years exploited by humans in the Denerim Alienage, she has developed a strong distaste for tyranny and will jump in to fight it at any chance. Despite her seeming apathy, Maeve is much more passionate and emotional than she would ever let on; for certain people and causes, she would work until she was nothing but bone.

### **Talents and Skills**

Maeve, due to a lack of resources, is exceptionally crafty and gifted at making due what she has. She is able to build traps, brew poisons, and mix poultices. Even some of her first bows were self-carved; she continues to improve on weaponry as a hobby.

She has a natural quality of intimidation, partially due to her status as a Grey Warden, so some opponents she faces can be threatened or persuaded away.

Her mother, Adaia, taught her to fight with both daggers and bows from a young age, but Maeve, due to a lack of strength, opts to fight as an archer more often than with knives.

She specializes as a bard and assassin, learned from her companions Leliana and Zevran respectively.

Maeve also learned to fight as a shadow by her time at Amaranthine; it was not a learned art per se but instead was naturally developed out of a need for stealth over the course of years of fighting.

## Biography

### **History**

Maeve had only lived eighteen years in a fairly isolated life within Denerim's alienage before she was conscripted by the Grey Wardens.

Her fighting talents were developed by her late mother Adaia, another wild and lively rogue who was considered shady and somewhat of a burden. To Maeve, Mother always seemed stern, but it took a few years after her passing to realize it was only an act to strengthen her; she feels deep regret that humans murdered her before she ever even knew her for the warm and dynamic woman she was. For Adaia's reputation, Maeve was also considered untrustworthy or even dangerous by some; envy of her father's relative wealth did little good for her cause. Many did hold her in high regard due to her resourcefulness, but, indeed, the last words said to her before leaving with Duncan were, "Good riddance. You always were a trouble-maker".

Maeve spent much time away from her more more somber father Cyrion, making both of her parents somewhat out of reach throughout her childhood. In skips between her training, she actually spent much time wandering unsupervised with her older and younger cousins, Soris and Shianni respectively.

When she *did* grow close to her father, just within the last two years before her conscription, he brought some closure through stories of her mother and helped to mellow her with philosophy and a moral background. Sadly, she left the Alienage on a bitter note when he never tried to aid her after her own near-rape and kidnapping by Vaughan. She was only able to partially tie the end and forgive him later when she saved him from slavers.

### **In-game**

##### **Joining the Grey Wardens**

Maeve, largely oblivious to the world's events due to her surroundings, figured slipping away from the Grey Wardens would be a small task. Her hopes were to reach protection, pack some resources, and make a break for the woods to live like the Dalish and bring her family to a better life. After actually making it to Ostagar, however, she realized how true and Dire the Blight was, and she put forth her genuine effort to extinguish it. Even if she had stayed determined to follow through on her plans, she would find herself without a choice due to the vast number of well-trained guards surrounding her and the intense retaliation she would face upon being caught.

She met with King Cailan and, without care for human conventions, openly called him a fool for his blinding optimism. She also spent some time speaking with Loghain outside of his tent, during which she decided on a distaste for him.

In this time, she also had her first experience meeting a Tranquil. Such an encounter made her first mental steps toward siding with mage rights over the Chantry.

##### **Tainted Blood**

Maeve's first encounters with Darkspawn were more dreadful than expected; they were so much more beastly than humans, yet they seemed to have some glimmer of intelligence.

##### **The Grey Wardens' Cache**

Morrigan. The Chasind carried some exotic mystique-- perhaps characteristic to all of her people? Either way, she seemed to hold great power, yet she became so much less imposing-- like a little girl-- when compared to her mother.

The Witch of the Wilds was... a suspicious character, no doubt. The Hag *did* have what Maeve wanted, however, and supposedly specifically to aid her. One thing offputting, though, was how *knowing* she seemed, like she had a grander role in whatever may be next. Time would tell.

##### **After the Joining**

The Joining itself took as much of a toll on Maeve as it would any person, and then some. Her youth (and thus lack of exposure) made her particularly unstable and unable to cope with the experience and upcoming nightmares. She spent weeks without opening up about them before spilling out via breakdown to Alistair.

##### **The Tower of Ishal**

The Battle of Ostagar was Maeve's first experience with traditional warfare, though she was not on the battlefield herself. Duncan's death, besides its political ramifications, did not touch her personally after their short amount of time together, but her immediate attachment to Alistair made her feel compelled to comfort him.

Morrigan and Flemeth would be in for the long run, as expected. One thing of note was the idea that seemingly unintelligent darkspawn were dragging survivors underground. Intriguing if true.

### **Post-game**

Here's what happened after the events of said game, brosef.

## **Relationships**

#### **Dog**

Maeve's beloved Marbari hound is called Meatball, the same name of a stray childhood dog who was killed by city guards for being a "threat". He also responds to the name Sidney due to the fact that she calls him that when no other companions are within earshot.

## **Miscellaneous**

#### **Quirks**

* Maeve absolutely *detests* alcohol of any kind to the point that she'll gag and spit at the slightest taste of it. When a move of hers has been particularly badly received, it's a go-to prank to swap her drinks or sneak some into a marinade.

* As a teenager, she would often sneak away from the alienage just to take Shianni (and, on a few occasions, Soris) on walks. She was only caught a single time \*(the only one with malicious intent), and this is how she met Sidney who offered to look out and keep her from being caught in the future.

#### **Tarot Cards**

*Maeve's tarot cards notably all belong to the suit of swords, manifestations of action, change, force, power, oppression, ambition, courage and conflict.*

##### **Knight of Swords**

   The Knight of Swords is described as opinionated, hasty (more specifically, impulsive in Maeve's case), and action-oriented, which perfectly describes Maeve when she first embarked, full of life, on her war on the Blight.

She was, for the first time, embarking out into the real world on an important quest. She was at her full motivation, determined, strong, and unstoppable. She had an incredibly weighty ambition that meant she would fight until she was nothing, going into any dangerous territory she may need without halting until her job was done.

Her ridiculous bursts of energy, however, had some downsides. She was impulsive and inspired to the point that she was reckless and blind, looking past consequences and ignoring the needs of others. These are what led, eventually, to her pitfall and flip to the Nine of Swords.

##### **Nine of Swords**

The Nine of Swords shows Maeve's burnout after the Knight of Swords into depression, lack of motivation, anxiety, and despair.

As the Blight grew stronger, Maeve fought harder, but she felt it could never be enough to warrant victory. Her entire reality became a warped nightmare as she lost hope for the future, so constant that it was numbing.

Objectivity was lost. The more she kicked, the more she felt wrapped by her worries until she regained power at the Landsmeet.

##### **Queen of Swords**

Maeve confidently holds her sword, her power, stern and self-assured. The Queen of Swords must set her emotions aside, clear-minded, to masterly judge and strategize her victories. She draws in data from the air itself, storing it to good use and gracefully weaponizes it against all that opposes her. She is blunt, quick, and intuitive, and so she remains for years as the Warden Commander searching for a cure.

#### **Age** **Timeline (Writer's resource)**

* 9:12 Dragon: Birth.
* 9:13 Dragon: 1.
* 9:14 Dragon: 2.
* 9:15 Dragon: 3.
* 9:16 Dragon: 4.
* 9:17 Dragon: 5.
* 9:18 Dragon: 6.
* 9:19 Dragon: 7.
* 9:20 Dragon: 8.
* 9:21 Dragon: 9.
* 9:22 Dragon: 10.
* 9:23 Dragon: 11.
* 9:24 Dragon: 12.
* 9:25 Dragon: 13.
* 9:26 Dragon: 14.
* 9:27 Dragon: 15.
* 9:28 Dragon: 16.
* 9:29 Dragon: 17.
* 9:30 Dragon: 18. *Origins!*
* 9:31 Dragon: 19.
* 9:32 Dragon: 20.
* 9:33 Dragon: 21.
* 9:34 Dragon: 22.
* 9:35 Dragon: 23.
* 9:36 Dragon: 24.
* 9:37 Dragon: 25.
* 9:38 Dragon: 26.
* 9:39 Dragon: 27.
* 9:40 Dragon: 28. *Inquisition!*
* 9:41 Dragon: 29.
* 9:42 Dragon: 30.
* 9:43 Dragon: 31.
* 9:44 Dragon: 32. *Trespasser!*

## **Links**

### Reddit Headcanon Threads:

1. Alistair, her ride-or-die friend to the end
2. The woo-less elf tries to flirt with Zevran

### Reddit Writing prompt Threads:

1. The life she wanted
2. Making her first kill (& deaths she's regretted)
3. Jagged cuts, shattered glass, a theif in the night
4. Cyrion gives "the talk" (followup to #3)

## **Gallery**

* she seems... unimpressed by their choice of spouse
* better lighting <3
* Fullbody in DLC
* the original party
1/4