Background: 

Growing up the fourth of eight children in an Antivan alienage, Túlio often found himself not only overwhelmed by constantly being surrounded by people, but struggling to stand out among them. Though he could never have called himself wanting for love and attention from his parents and siblings, he clung tightly to the idea that he was simply too ordinary.  He did not become the first of his siblings to manifest magic, he was not secretly the son of Dalish elves or pirates who would one day come to reclaim him, he was not overly intelligent to be invited to attend university, he hadn’t the constitution for battle or the assertiveness to demand the attention he desired, and became frightened at tales of the Antivan Crows.  Believing his options within reality exhausted, Túlio retreated into imagination; if he couldn’t be special for real, he could at least pretend.  

This solution led to some trouble, of course, as he often found his pretend worlds preferable to real life and began to allow the lines between them to blur.  He lied, often, made up anything and everything anyone would listen to in order to avoid telling them just how painfully boring he was.  In an effort to help him find an outlet and a purpose in life, his older brother suggested he speak to a local group of stage actors who told their stories through dance.  Despite their initial reluctance to take on an elf, Túlio found he had natural talent not only for dance, but for the storytelling aspect as well.  He lost himself in his performance, ignoring the audience to quell his shyness and simply existing on stage as his character.  Shortly, they became something of local celebrities, and for a time, being the elf who danced so beautifully was enough to placate his fear of mediocrity.

Having grown in popularity, the group embarked on a tour outside of Antiva in the summer of 9:39 Dragon.  After a successful leg of performances across the Free Marches, they crossed into Nevarra and were promptly ambushed by what appeared to be bandits but were, in fact, Tevinter slavers.  His friends and colleagues were killed, and Túlio was taken captive.  He was sold to a minor noble named Callimachus, who was secretly part of the fledgling Venatori.  Callimachus sent him, under the name Tullius servus Callimachus, through rigorous training in stealth combat, and offered him to the Venatori’s growing military effort.  Túlio, sickened by the idea of killing and miserable with the loss of his autonomy but desiring above all to survive, allowed himself to fall into that role, as well.  After all, this, too, was only pretend.

In 9:41 Dragon, Túlio was assigned with some other soldiers to harass an Inquisition supply line through the Western Approach.  While initially successful, the Inquisition soon sent agents of their own to dispatch the Venatori.  After a short but fierce battle, Túlio was once again the only one left alive.  Still filling his role as a Stalker, he attempted to attack the agents and was easily subdued.  Certain he would be killed, Túlio finally fell out of character and begged for his life.  Luckily, one of those agents was Lux, a former slave himself who recognized the collars on the dead Venatori and refused to allow his partner, Emma, to kill him.  They agreed instead to bring him to Skyhold under the guise of having taken him prisoner, where he was questioned by Sister Nightingale and deemed more of an asset than a liability.  Freedom, however, meant losing his role, his character, the only identity he’d known or been allowed to know for the last two years, and he became desperate to reconcile what had happened to him and find uniqueness and significance for himself again.  Unwilling for his family to see him in such a state, he chose instead to remain with the Inquisition, and took up arms against his former captors alongside the agents who spared him.

Mods used:

Shantia’s eyebrows  

Undercut ponytail by @koric 

HD Eye textures by Zachillios