Work Text:
Codex Entry:
On Confessors, Part One: Origins
I am the Mother Confessor. More than that I dare not say, for fear of exposing what distant family might still remain. Until now, it has been my charge to retain the history of our people, and to bestow that knowledge on my successor. Now the one who was to take my place—my precious daughter—is dead, and I am sure to follow. The templars have only grown stronger, while our numbers have dwindled. Only I and a handful of others are left of what was once a thriving sisterhood, and it is only a matter of time before they find us.
We have vigilantly guarded the knowledge of our existence for centuries. Now our vigilance must come to an end, for if I do not share our history now, it will be lost forever.
The confessors were created during the chaos of the first Blight. The darkspawn were gaining power, tearing apart what the Tevinters had built on the backs of millions of slaves. The magisters were constantly seeking ways to fight back, and many directed their research toward creating the perfect soldier—one who would obey without question, and would do whatever it took to come out victorious.
One magister, Merias, took a different approach. Legend tells that Merias was punishing a disobedient slave when the slave’s lover intervened, offering to take the punishment in her place. Merias had never witnessed such an unselfish deed, and he set his mind to discovering the reasons behind it.
The slave and her lover were interrogated extensively. Eventually Merias came to realize that the only force strong enough to inspire such a sacrifice was love. From then on, he became single-mindedly focused on harnessing that power for his own purposes.
The details of his experiments are unknown, but what is certain is that he was successful. He called his creation a confessor, due to her unexpected ability to unfailingly determine the truth of a person’s words. Her primary purpose, however, was the power she possessed to bend another to her will with a single touch.
This is the power of a confessor: with one touch, she can make a person fall so deeply and completely in love with her that they will do anything she asks. They will fight to the death to protect her. It is an incredible power, and an irreversible one. As long as a confessor lives, the only escape from her power is death.
Once the other magisters learned of Merias’ triumph, they clamored to learn his secrets, but he guarded them jealously. He refused to share his methods with a single soul, but he was also as subject to greed as any man. Magisters paid him handsomely to create more, and for a time confessors were in high demand.
Greed made Merias shortsighted, however; with the darkspawn ever closing in, the unrest in Tevinter grew more volatile by the day. It only took one confessor realizing the implications of the power she possessed, and the magister’s once-thriving household fell to a slave revolt.
It was thought then that the confessors would be no more. Only a dozen or so had been created, and a thorough search of Merias’ estate yielded nothing in the way of research notes. One slave managed to escape with his private journal—the only reason I know as much as I do—but even there, he carefully avoided any details. Most of the magisters considered this a blessing; it had been a confessor that began the revolt, after all. Some went so far as to execute the confessors they had purchased, for fear that they, too, would turn disobedient.
Precious few confessors remained, but it was enough. As time passed, and the Blight raged on, it was eventually discovered that the power of a confessor is carried in the blood. This began a new era of popularity for confessors; the magisters bred them like cattle with other slaves, and the numbers swelled. Not all of the magisters were afraid, you see. Some still believed that confessors could be utilized as weapons in their ill-fated war.
When Andraste led her Exalted March, slaves everywhere began to revolt. Confessors turned on their masters, bending them to their will and wreaking havoc on the gilded cages that had held them for so long. The magisters that remained had their confessors killed, out of fear and self-preservation, and set their sights on eradicating the entire confessor line. Outside, the Grey Wardens waged war on the darkspawn. In Tevinter, a quiet war was waged on confessors.
We almost perished then. Some managed to escape, but those who did found themselves unwelcome in even Andraste’s ranks. They were not human, though that is what they appeared to be; the magisters seldom bred elf confessors, thinking it too grand a power to bestow on such a lowly creature, and verging on blasphemy to interbreed the races. To the people of Thedas, confessors were worse than golems—creations, things borne of blood magic and dark rituals. Many confessors agreed, and willingly offered themselves up for execution. For those that thought differently, and wanted to escape, there was a harder path ahead.
The only way to survive was to hide our power. For years the remaining confessors managed to endure this way. Gradually, we began to find one another, and a sisterhood was forged. Together we learned the limits of our power, of our restraint, and worked to create a purpose for our existence. We took lovers only when necessary to continue the line, and appointed a Mother Confessor to keep the knowledge of our origins alive.
As generations passed, we came to know our power not as a great crime that was inflicted upon us, but as something intrinsic to our identities. There is value in who we are, and what we do, although the world is not yet ready to know of it.
How the Chantry came to learn of our existence, I do not honestly know. We had gone into hiding long before Andraste’s execution, but some small knowledge must have persisted. They have hunted us through the years, whittling away at our numbers, and now there are little more than a handful of us left. We have been branded maleficar, even though few of us are born with any magical talent other than the power which defines us.
We came to Kirkwall for answers. It was once the center of the Tevinter slave trade, and we hoped to find some clue, something to fill the gaps in what we know. All we found was templars.
We have found temporary refuge here in the sewers, but there is nowhere left to run, and we cannot hope to face their numbers and live. I have to believe that we are not the only ones—that more like us exist, scattered throughout Thedas. I can only hope that these words outlive me, and are not destroyed by the templars when they find us.
Ours is a history that must not be forgotten.