![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Templar and Mage Training 101
WHO: Mage and Templar combat training participants and onlookers
WHAT: The first of weekly training sessions.
WHEN: Backdated to Wintermarch 4
WHERE: Outside Skyhold.
NOTES: Currently closed to volunteers for the first session. Will open up participants pending a successful session. There will be weekly training drills from here on out, with volunteers filling in for Dorian or Maria if and when they leave for missions.
WHAT: The first of weekly training sessions.
WHEN: Backdated to Wintermarch 4
WHERE: Outside Skyhold.
NOTES: Currently closed to volunteers for the first session. Will open up participants pending a successful session. There will be weekly training drills from here on out, with volunteers filling in for Dorian or Maria if and when they leave for missions.
The clearing is not far from Skyhold’s walls, but enough to ensure no passing merchants or courtiers will be endangered or gain too much gossip to bring abroad before the training program had hit its stride. Flat rock with sparse patches of grass struggling through makes for a space more open and less crowded than the courtyards within Skyhold, and whatever ice or snow has built up has been long since scraped and melted away. A number of dueling circles had been marked out by stone or magic to keep pairs from accidentally tumbling into one another’s battles. To one side of these rings sits a box of lyrium potions, to the other a cask of water and some hardtack. Clearly, this is a bring your own drinks events for any Inquisition spectators (despite any jokes that may have been heard, participants will not be drinking while Maria is around).
Maria Hill and Dorian Pavus pair up mages and templars then take turns participating in the pairs themselves or strolling along the outside of the dueling circles to offer constructive commentary. Or, if worse comes to worse, separate pairs that have taken the friendly nature out of this training session.
Only a small audience has formed, of Templar and mage both. They remain out of the way and mostly separate, watching as if equally curious to see success as much as failure.
[[OOC: Assigned training pairings are as follows:
Nerva with Sabriel and Vivienne
Elian with Dorian and Alfsigr
Maria with Benevenuta and Simon
Feel free to tag into the open posts of non-assigned characters, as well as tag around in general. Spectators are welcome to tag in, just remember anyone causing disruptions will be swiftly asked to leave!]]
Maria Hill OTA
Beyond that, she was curious what kind of thoughts people had so far. She will stop and chat with mages and Templars in between their training, as well as mingle in any gathered crowd.
no subject
no subject
"Harimann."
no subject
"Knight-Captain Hill," he greets, keeping things formal. He hasn't seen her since they were children, and he's been hoping she didn't remember him.
no subject
She'd had mixed feelings ever since receiving it, and after the actual Templar meeting that had only intensified. The Inquisition really wasn't the proper place to figure it out.
"What do you think of our experiment?"
no subject
"I'm not sure," he said quietly, and ultimately decided, "it's worth investigating."
no subject
If there were no, there would be no uncertainty, after all.
no subject
no subject
"I don't remember hearing your voice at the meeting."
no subject
"..I, um..." he stammers uselessly.
Maria + Benevenuta + Simon
Both lessons begin the same way. Maria gives a visual examination of the mage’s staff, taking what information she can based on that selection alone. Then she takes her place on her side of the dueling circle.
“Have you fought Templars before?”
no subject
Keeping herself quiet and small; dropping a horror on someone and running in the other direction, on more than one memorable occasion. Benevenuta is many things, but 'an experienced battlemage' is not one of them, at least not yet, and she had erred on the side of 'surviving long enough to actually join the damned Inquisition' over feeling it particularly necessary to entertain everyone who saw fit to attack her on the way.
no subject
"Intelligence is one the greatest weapons you can have. But have you experienced any of the magic nullifying abilities?"
no subject
A brief shake of her head - "Half the journey, I traveled with an entourage. The latter stages, I rarely saw anyone so close."
If she could avoid it. More to the point, she rarely let anyone see her.
Unless they looked useful. She'd been alone, by the time she made her last ascent, and she'd been resourceful on the way there.
no subject
"We'll start with those. If you need a moment or want me to stop, just say. But staying on your feet after such a strike is the first step."
So long as the other woman agreed, of course. Maria pauses for agreement before deciding which ability in particular to call on.
Nerva OTA
When not dealing with her own students, she ran drills for herself, mostly to occupy her mind.
Nerva + Sabriel + Vivienne
"When facing templars, if you open with magic they will focus on combatting against that, which will give you an opening for more conventional weapons."
no subject
She has her sword in her hands at her side, unsheathed, the enchantments lazily swimming across the surface, dulled from age. "What ways are best to approach, in such an instance? A mage's strength would never match that of a templar."
James Norrington|| Unassigned and OTA
Beyond that, they were all curious to see if a mage and a Templar could work together smoothly. It could open up much for them in the future, if such a partnership came to pass.
dorian pavus. ota.
He isn't holding one of the practice staves he uses for usual training sessions within Skyhold's walls, but his own, black wood and serpentstone that seems to brim with magical energy without effort. It crosses with the other mage's staff in paused combat as he speaks. "Hit me with an offensive, and I'll cast an absorbing barrier -- and then," he tips his head to the waiting Templar, "we'll try it in that moment. It's one thing to experience a Templar's nullification while you're just standing there, and another when it's mid-fight."
That sudden deafness and blindness to the Fade. He isn't well-acquainted to it himself, but has gone through these moves with Maria, felt it when Alistair was being Hilarious that one time, and knows what it's like -- like tripping suddenly over one's feet, hitting the limits of your own mana well before you expect to. Disorienting at best, and deadly at worst.
A tap, staff to staff, begins the fight anew. Electricity crackles up and down his staff, more flash than fire, more defensive than offensive, his steps ceding territory to give the illusion of the other mage's victory.
[ ooc ; feel free to use the above prompt as the mage or the templar. he will also be roaming around, correcting technique, if you want to grab him otherwise. ]
dorian + elian + alfsigr.
"Have you ever fought a Templar?" he asks, of Alfsigr. He rests the blunt end of his mage staff against the granite flat. "You know, formally, while on the business end of his or hers sword and shield?"
He turns his sharp, grey eyed stare to Elian. "Same question, reversed. Have you ever fought a mage, one that's attempting to kill you?"
no subject
Alfsigr's shoulders stiffen at the question and her eyes widen not unlike a frightened snow hare. She's reluctant to answer until Dorian turns the question back on the Templar. She eyes him nervously a long moment before she turns her attention squarely back to Dorian and nods. "Yes. One of the renegades in the Hinterlands."