Over all, a well-crafted tale of desire v. reality. The backdrop of a medieval naval warship was detailed and lent an air of serious history. The characters were brought to life well and the personal story arc of Justine was visceral. The hollowness of her achievement rang true on a personal and level as well as a societal level. The inclusion of the historical perspective on the events of the narrative were an absolutely brilliant inclusion and particularly effective in highlighting the main theme.

Another very well done story.

-Alex

I suspect, sir, that you are trying to educate me or to impel me to educate myself. Under normal circumstances I would rebuff your attempts and continue on through my life in blissful ignorance. However, the manner in which you present this educational material is entertaining on a very satisfying level. This allows me to partake of the information and increase my meager knowledge base while pretending I am merely along for a well concieved, well executed, amusingly diverting fantasy.

-Alex

Well done! Given that this story focuses on original characters, is technically AU and is in any case set several centuries before the primary storyline of the game, I realize that it is a bit of a hard sell to the wider readership, but now that this is finished I can definitely say that any prospective reader who’s even remotely curious about this story should give it a chance, because this is a quality piece of writing that stands well on its own. While the codex entries in the last chapter clearly situate this story within a truly AU version of Thedas, I think the main story could fit reasonably well within the canon timeline as glimpse into the deeper history of the Templar Order and its relationship to the Chantry and the Circles. But as I already praised the world building and the obvious effort you’ve put into historical research in my first review, I thought I should simply add that the story itself did not disappoint. This is just a damn good yarn, brimming with personal and political intrigue, building a nice sense of looming menace as the conflicts between different notions of duty, faith and honor slowly come to a head among the crew, all culminating in a cracking good battle scene. Justine is a fascinating protagonist, if not an entirely sympathetic one, and far more nuanced that most Templar OCs in this fandom tend to be—just the fact that you’ve created a Templar who doesn’t even care that much about mages (as a sidebar, I appreciate your clever in-story explanation as to why the mages of this era are seen as less dangerous than those of the canon setting/timeline, the more so for being skillfully integrated into the narrative without drawing attention to itself) but who is still very much a captain of the Order is worthy of note. I will definitely be checking out more of your stories in the future.

This is very well written so far, but I confess it's the Caroline Bynum namecheck in your footnotes that's won this story a spot on my favorites list. I look forward to seeing how this intriguing plot develops in an already richly detailed version of Thedas.