Templar and Mage Training 101

[nofury]

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.

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!]]

Comments

Maria Hill OTA

[nofury]

When not training her own assigned students, Maria is deeply interested in seeing both how others are doing and what kind of spectators they had gained. She had deep hopes for this little group, that is could help facilitate the kind of unity that they sorely needed to succeed. Any blow ups in this initial session could have further reaching ramifications than simply complicating Templar and Mage relations within the Inquisition. So any heckling, any overly aggressive training, anything that demonstrated this exercise was not being done in good faith was something she would attend to immediately.

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.

Maria + Benevenuta + Simon

[nofury]

When it is time to begin training, Maria takes her students one at a time. The other is welcome to watch while they wait, or find another Templar to train with or watch. But the trick of fighting alongside another mage is a lesson for another day. Today was for building some kind of base skill and familiarity.

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?”

Nerva OTA

[keeperofmagi]

Nerva is here primarily out of respect for Maria, and secondarily out of a deep desire to kill the Red Templars, and tertiarily because she felt like she owed it, to the rest of the new templar order, to make up for what grief her mouth had caused them. So. Here she was.

When not dealing with her own students, she ran drills for herself, mostly to occupy her mind.

Nerva + Sabriel + Vivienne

[keeperofmagi]

"We'll be focusing on magic-free fighting techniques," She told her students, though why she had been given these two in particular, she had no idea. Vivienne, she was sure, could hold her own, and though she didn't know Sabriel, she did know that she was a warden...

"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."

James Norrington|| Unassigned and OTA

[judgemewhole]

Norrington had of course, been fully approving of this particular practice session. As Maria had asked only for support at this time, he came with his troop of seven to encourage and of course, add advice when asked.

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.

[liberalum]

"If you've never felt it before, it would do you well to become accustomed when no one's trying to kill you."

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.

[liberalum]

The group splits off into pairs and threesomes, Dorian leading his own partners away to a wide circle, where a glimmering circle of light magic marks its boundaries. An introduction of names is mainly necessary to ensure the other mage and their Templar know one another, but Dorian, for all his social graces and chattery way of speaking, doesn't delay with further smalltalk.

"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?"