A love letter to my first ever and canon Warden Vesanine Aeducan (please call her Ves) because I was playing DAI and all it was making me do was miss her, perfect blend of ruthless pragmatism and stoney dedication, Duncan couldn’t have wished for a better successor if he tried
I just think that the dynamic between the Aeducan family is insanely complex and I can’t stop thinking about it. Your oldest brother Trian, likely practically raised you because of your mother’s death and your father being too busy (and neglectful) to parent you or your brothers. Trian is set up to be king, you are set up to be the Commander to the armies. Both are widely important figures in Orzammar as the leader and the defender. Bhelen is shoved into the background as the “backup” child so you and Trian often forget he is as important as either of you. He’s the “kinder” one of your brothers, but your education and focus on preparing for Trian’s coronation and your eventual full-time role has isolated you from him. He’s friendly but distant, and your relationship is unclear.
Clearly your father favors you, being more temperate than Trian and more important than Bhelen’s third son status. You are conscious of your father’s favor and how that affects how both of your brothers see you: as competition. Because even though all of you have been raised together to carry on the house and lineage, you still all seek your fathers approval. The Kings and the assembly, and by extension your peoples’. Your father speaks to you not as his child, but as an extension of his power.
Trian is cruel, either by progression and nerves over time or he simply has always been that way. It has strained your relationship as you have gotten older and maybe you have gotten lost in your ability to trust him. Maybe you have overlooked it to protect him as he protected you when you were little and motherless. Bhelen comes to you as the less important brother and tells you the most unspeakable accusation that your older brother, with his cruelty and his narcissism, is plotting to kill you.
Maybe you believe him because of how lost Trian has become to you and it is a painful realization that it isn’t unlikely for your brother to want you dead for his envy for your father’s approval. Maybe you don’t because you know that your history is stronger than your status. Trian loves you even if he is cruel to everyone else. Even if he doesn’t love Bhelen the same way, you know he loves you and he wouldn’t do that to *you.* Or you simply wish to protect Bhelen and you trust him over Trian’s unpredictability. Bhelen is known for being docile, well-read and intelligent. The opposite to Trian’s hot-headedness.
Either way, your suspicions are on edge towards either Trian or Bhelen and now Trian’s quest to reclaim a family relic seems more and more reckless and odd. Bhelen’s accusation grows more and more daunting. Then there’s the matter of Trian’s death. Trian believes in the end that you betrayed him or failed him, either ending up dead before you can reach him or worse, you have to kill him yourself. You have lost everything instantly, the loyalty and love of your men and your oldest brother. I can’t imagine no matter how strained your relationship may have grown, that his death was anything less than traumatic.
Bhelen, your little brother who seemed so unimportant has been revealed as a true traitor. Now you are left with three tragedies. Trian’s death, Bhelen’s betrayal, and Orzammar’s betrayal by banishing you. Your brother believed you betrayed him when he died, or perhaps you followed Bhelen’s plan and killed him. Trian dies confused and disgraced and it sticks heavily to your guilt after you are banished. He is the one who appears when you go to the temple of sacred ashes. He tells you that he knows you are haunted with guilt and shame and to let the past go.
You learn throughout your journey as a warden that your father has died from the grief of losing you. That could easily be another one of Bhelen’s lies while he assassinated another one of your family and you would be none the wiser.
Whether or not Aeducan decides to make Bhelen king is almost inconsequential. Simply put, there is no real closure for either of you no matter what you do. You can come back and take him down out of a quest for revenge and be on your way. Your family is still completely destroyed. Maybe both of your brothers have been killed by you now after accusing their fate’s to be done in by your hand.
If you do make him king, you fundamentally give him what he wants but you can also expose him for his betrayals as you do. You can place him on the throne while Orzammar knows of his lies and leave it at that. You have exposed him and let him rule Orzammar with an iron fist that shows the price of having your entire kingdom betray you. Or maybe a part of you is still too damn loyal to let the Aeducan name die even if it is shrouded in corruption. No matter what, there is nothing you can do to feel as though you have done the right thing. There is no conversation where you can rightfuly confront Bhelen on the damage he’s done, as he seems to hold no real remorse or regret in having yours, Trian’s, and Endrin’s deaths placed on him. If anything he seems more and more power hungry and violent than ever before.
If you make Bhelen King, he makes you a Paragon. Does that mean he cares for you in some way or that he regrets anything he did? Is he haunted by the blood on his hands the way you are? Or maybe he’s glad you simply came to your senses in the end. In a way, he was betrayed too by Orzammar and being shoved away from any recognition within his family pushed him to resort to such profound betrayal. It might make you wonder if you could have stopped his path of violence if you had been kinder to him, or had encouraged Trian or Endrin to be. The guilt and anger at yourself and at your younger brother for never ever really knowing who he was or what he truly thought of you beyond using you in his climb for power.
No matter what you choose, your family is lost but it isn’t just as simple as death. You are left wondering if love or kinship between you ever meant anything at all. I can imagine for Aeducan, it has left them with a difficult amount of emotional backlash and ability to trust or love anyone to the fullest without a certain amount of caution.
magna brosca was recruited first but then the wardens found igraine aeducan in the deep roads and recruited her too. magna stays in charge and keeps igraine from doing all the evil shit she does in her canon timeline so things work out also they kiss
My dwarf Warden Naja Aeducan. I haven’t totally fleshed out her character yet, but here’s the basics: She’s a very proud dwarf, and wears a decorative headpiece so other’s will see her for who she is–dwarven royalty. To stick it to her treacherous brother, she supported Harrowmont to rule Orzammar.
![wardensofcolor: Dwarf Appreciation Week–July 27th Dwarf Warden [X] My dwarf Warden Naja Aeducan. I h](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c0520ac0921780f3914abf08688d642a/tumblr_ns5x5aasvn1r9mho5o1_500.jpg "wardensofcolor: Dwarf Appreciation Week–July 27th Dwarf Warden [X] My dwarf Warden Naja Aeducan. I h")
