“I said I won't risk losing you. But I'm supposed to protect everyone in this palace, Rezaren. Please don't make me protect you from yourself.”
Tassia is a Knight-Commander of the Imperial Templar Order.
Background[]
Tassia is a skillful warrior wielding a war hammer-mace and shield, and also a seasoned leader of the Imperial Templar Order. Tassia takes her job as Knight-Commander seriously and thus prioritizes being an enforcer of the law and a dutiful guardian of the Tevinter people.
Tassia is also in a private, romantic relationship with Magister Rezaren Ammosine.
After coaxing the Imperial Divine, Rezaren traveled to Nessum to study the artifact known as the Circulum Infinitus. Rezaren contends that if he can understand how the Circulum was made, he can modify it to be powered by an alternative means other than blood magic. His lover Tassia is concerned that his obsession with the Circulum may tempt Rezaren to do wrongs to achieve his goals. Rezaren remains determined to harness the Circulum's capability of resurrecting the dead back to life and convinces Tassia that it will be a boon to Tevinter.
Involvement[]
Dragon Age: Absolution[]
In spite of her misgivings about Rezaren's research, Tassia refuses to let Rezaren face the dangers of his experiments alone. In the vault under the Summer Palace in Nessum, Rezaren summons a spirit of Wisdom named Memory who he believes has knowledge of how to use the Circulum Infinitus without taking several lives. However, Memory tells him that the artifact is incredibly dangerous, and that if it is acquired by a certain person, all of Tevinter will burn. This concerns Tassia and she asks Memory who else wants the Circulum, but Memory expresses its discomfort at being asked the question and only states that revealing that information would be unwise. Rezaren tries to force the spirit to tell him who wants the artifact, but this forces Memory to transform into a Pride demon. Despite being held in the magic circle where he was summoned, Memory is able to call several shades into existence. Tassia helps Rezaren destroy most of the shades except one, who manages to disrupt the circle and free the demon. With Tassia's help, Rezaren is able to restrain and banish the demon before it can seize the artifact. After the battle, Tassia states that if the Circulum is a threat to Tevinter, then they need to destroy it—but Rezaren insists that he has to keep trying. Rezaren tries to assuage her concerns by telling her that it's the person who wants the Circulum that is the true danger and not the artifact itself. Before he begins to go into a rant about how he won't let anything hinder his efforts; Tassia interrupts him, tells him she doesn't want to lose him, and pleads with him to not force her to protect him from himself or endanger the people she is meant to protect. Rezaren reassures her that he will have to return to Minrathous soon and one way or another, his study with the Circulum will end. Hearing the call for the evening Chant, Rezaren resets the wards around the Circulum, and the two of them head up into the cathedral.
While on guard duty, Tassia approaches Neb and tries to get him to tell her if Rezaren has been up to anything suspicious. Neb however, remains unemotional and silent to any form of conversation. Rezaren leaves the Chantry sermon early and tells Tassia that he would like to stroll around, and she decides to accompany him. Though he tries to shake her off later, Tassia can tell that he wants to return to the vault and continue his experiments on the Circulum. She threatens to report his actions to the Divine, as she is worried that he has become obsessed. Seeing that his goal of reviving the dead is hurting the living, he asks Tassia to guide him, and they kiss. Their romantic moment is interrupted when the Summer Palace's security system is activated. This consequently unleashes hordes of undead and demons to rampage throughout the Palace.
Tassia, Neb, and the Tevinter guards escort Rezaren to the Divine's apartments. After hearing that other soldiers were deliberately trapped in the cathedral with glyphs, Tassia decides to rescue them so their combined forces can regroup and sweep the rest of Summer Palace, while a portion of her forces are assigned to create a perimeter surrounding the Palace. Since Rezaren is the highest ranking Magister in the Palace, she tells him to stay in the Divine's apartments as it is the safest part of the Palace; a decision he is not happy about. He eventually relents so she can do her job, but asks her to secure the vault and be careful. Rezaren eventually follows protocol and Tassia orders Neb to not allow anyone in or out of the apartments. In spite of Tassia assuring Rezaren that she will prioritize securing the vault, Tassia elects to ignore Rezaren's request and focus on regrouping with the Tevinter forces at the cathedral since she is unwilling to put an artifact above people's lives, and also because she believes that the vault has enough security measures to defend itself. After accomplishing her objectives, Tassia tasks some of her men to search for the perpetrators and bring them to her.
Tassia and her men later interrupt a fight between Rezaren and Miriam's group, and presses Miriam's group to retreat. Although Miriam herself was wounded, Miriam and her friends escape. After securing Rezaren, he and Tassia gets into an argument about him leaving the apartment. The guards then tell them that they have one of the thieves, Hira, in their custody and also that the vault's dragon is awake but so far remains bound. Rezaren declares that he can deal with the dragon, and Tassia agrees. Once the guards leave to contain the rest of the undead, Tassia demands to know who Miriam is and (noticing Rezaren's name tattooed to her face) what's her relation to him. He confesses that she was a slave owned by his mother, trained to be his bodyguard and assassin if necessary, but they were raised as siblings. Tassia reminds him there are laws about runaway slaves, but he claims she didn't run away. Seeing her blood on a wall, Rezaren collects it so he can perform a blood magic ritual to contact Miriam and convince her to return the Circulum. Tassia is not happy about him using blood magic, but she decides to leave him to his own devices and indirectly states that she will look the other way if he uses blood magic.
Tevinter guards later sent a restrained Hira to a prison cell to be interrogated by Knight-Commander Tassia. Tassia tells Hira that they seek to utilize the Circulum to restore people from the dead, and if Hira's friends will return it, then she can negotiate leniency for her and her group. Hira however, says that their goal is self-serving as they will only revive dead Tevinters. Tassia points out that Hira herself is a Tevinter since she noticed the Tevinter crest on her necklace. Hira then reveals the history of how the Venatori punished her family for helping downtrodden slaves and that no one in Tevinter defended them. That trauma made her determined to see all of Tevinter burn and the Circulum is the one thing required for her allies to see her revenge realized. Tassia argues that there are some in Tevinter who oppose the Venatori and wish to see the Imperium redeemed. Hira however, doesn't care as she hates all Tevinters and wants to annihilate them all—the good and the bad. Tassia is then interrupted by Rezaren who dismisses Tassia so he can privately interrogate Hira himself.
Tassia and her men were joined by Neb, who were all waiting to apprehend Miriam. As they waited, Tassia told Neb that she worries that the Circulum changed Rezaren and that she hopes she isn't the only one. When Miriam entered the Summer Palace's front gates, Tassia noticed that she came alone. An explosion on another side of the palace informed Tassia that Miriam's friends were breaching the palace from a further side and would force Tassia to leave with a portion of her forces to confront them. While Neb's forces were ordered to apprehend Miriam, Tassia led her forces in fighting Lacklon, Roland, and Qwydion. Ultimately, Tassia proved to be too formidable a foe, as she managed to hold Roland hostage and coerced Lacklon to surrender. However, Qwydion managed to sneak into the palace's throne room during the fighting, and casted a spell that destroyed the vault's pedestal, which un-petrified the vault's dragon. The vault's dragon broke free from its retraints and its subsequent rampaging consequently caused intense damage to the palace's structure and preoccupied Tassia as she and her men struggled to contain it. Tassia then went in search of Rezaren but was horrified to see him sacrifice a Tevinter mage and use the blood of dead Tevinters to fuel his open use of blood magic. Rezaren was able to mind-control the rampaging dragon, but his horrific abuses distraught Tassia. Nevertheless, one of Tassia's soldiers reminded her that they need her to organize rescue efforts of their wounded, which forced Tassia to compose herself. Tassia later finds Rezaren dead at Miriam's safe house and she mourns his death.