#lostfrozenwhispers

“To tell the truth, I’ve never been partial   to winter spells.”

          Ice is hard and sharp. It grinds and cracks like teeth on teeth, swallowing prey in gaping gulps. Cold rime buries deep into flesh, into veins and into bone-lappings until all movement is lost. Crystalline blooms shine like the reflection of the sun in the lake – fractured into thousands of pieces, weeping sparks of sunlight. 

          But fire – fire is smooth and fluid. It growls and roars, tearing into meat with molten claws, loping greedily from one foe to the next. It sputters and spits, spilling forth savage and raw, leaving hot char and black smoke in place of footprints.

          And – it’s flashy.

This is a really interesting question, actually. Given how much of Tevinter upper-class society revolves around jockeying for personal power, I’d think that there is unlikely to be a formalized, very distinct and discrete specialty, really, as we see in some other societies. Oh, some might still specialize to a degree simply because that’s where their talents or interests lie, like Dorian specialized in necromancy, but it’s not quite so separate as it would be in the south in which only a select group are taught those particular skills. 

But that’s not because magic is never used as a weapon in Tevinter, but because it often is. Basically, everyone would be taught offensive and defensive magic as a matter of course, and also how to use the staff itself as a weapon at need, and likely knives and smaller weapons also. 

We know from the canon that Minrathous boasts a dwarven-built and dwarven-inspired Proving Ground arena. Tevinter being Tevinter, there are gladiatorial contests fought there for entertainment -- mostly by slaves and prisoners, of course. 

However, we also know that mages fairly commonly fight duels (Dorian himself fought his first, and won, thank you very much, when he was only nine years old, according to WoT2!) And since the origin of the Provings in dwarven culture was in fact as a way to settle disputes, matters of honor, etc, I’d think that some not insignificant number of the Provings in Minrathous are actually official, legally-binding duels between mages. (And that there are also quite a lot of unofficial, unsanctioned duels going on in rather more private venues, also.)