"Don't worry. Helping people and killing people are what I'm best at."
Danielle "Dani" Hawke is a Ferelden native who, by fleeing the darkspawn to her ancestral homeland, would go on to become the champion of Kirkwall.
Overview[]
Physical Appearance[]
Dani has an average Ferelden farmer's build, standing at around 5'8 with a muscular physique. Her biceps in particular are quite defined, gained from frequent drawing of her bow.
Dani takes more after Malcolm in appearance than Leandra, though she did inherit blue eyes from her mother's side of the family. From her father she gained her strong features, distinctive laugh, and warm brown hair.
Personality[]
A holdover from her mercenary days, Dani prefers being paid for her work up front. So long as someone isn't in dire need of help she is also more than happy to squeeze a few extra coins out of them.
Her sense of humor can be quite dark, exacerbated by her difficult life and time in various unseemly professions. In reality her jokes land about half the time, but she always finds them funny.
Talents and Skills[]
Dani is a crack shot with a bow, which has led to a great many "friendly" shooting competitions with Varric.
Dani is naturally left-handed, and uses this to her advantage in combat whenever possible. Outside the battlefield it has made her handwriting nearly illegible.
Biography[]
History[]
Born on the 19th of Justinan in 9:06 Dragon, Dani was the result of an unexpected tryst between an apostate and an aristocrat. The circumstances of her birth guaranteed that she would never had a normal life. The pair named their daughter after Malcolm's closest friend from his circle days.
Thus began the trend that would continue through the rest of Dani's childhood. Find a village or a town, settle in for a few weeks or months, then rise and repeat. Because of this Dani dosen't consider herself to have grown up anywhere, though first Lothering and then Kirkwall would grow to become her homes.
When Dani was fourteen and the twins were nine the Hawkes finally settled down for good in a house on the outskirts of Lothering. Just far enough from the eyes of the templars to live comfortably, the next few years were good ones. At the cusp of adolescence, Dani was especially prone to making bad decisions, and by the Maker did she make many.
At seventeen, per her father's suggestion, Dani left for a time with the mercenary friends she'd met at the crossroads to travel Ferelden. It was during this time she met her first real girlfriend, a [] woman named [].
Both Carver and Dani enlisted in King Cailan's army when the call for soldiers reached Lothering. Together they said their goodbyes and made the journey along with several other locals to Ostagar.
In-game[]
Prologue
Dani slept with the smuggler off and on over the next year, though this curried no favor with the type of work she and Bethany had to do.
Act I
Act II
Act III
Legacy
Post-game[]
Inquisition
Relationships[]
Companions[]
Cornbread
Brought home for the children by Malcolm in the year before his death, Cornbread was the sixth, beloved member of the Hawke family.
As the dog's partner, Dani was the one to name him, choosing Cornbread to match the color of his fur. This enraged Carver to no end but the name was all the mabari would respond to. Cornbread certainly helped Dani feel less bored in Lothering, acting often as her companion when her other friends or siblings were away. He was however left at home when Dani and Carver enlisted to keep Leandra and Bethany safe in the fighting sibling's absence.
Aveline
The two had many disagreements over the years, particularly over the types of things Dani did both for work and fun, but in the end were always on the same side.
Dani and Isabela teased Aveline endlessly over her relationship with guardsman Donnic, but Dani made no secret of how happy she was her friend had found love again. The marriage ceremony held in the Hawke manor was far more elaborate than Aveline wanted, a point utterly ignored by Dani.
Varric
Varric is unquestionably Dani's best friend. Even as an outsider, it's easy to spot the similarities between the pair of sarcastic rogues wielding long-range weapons- which has prompted more than one "oh Maker, there's two of them."
Dani never minded being a source of inspiration for Varric's novels, and has a personally signed copy of The Tale of the Champion which she numbers among her most prized possessions.
Going against her better judgment, Dani's love for her friend wore out and she let Varric keep the lyrium idol, something she would go on to deeply regret in the following years. Well, something else she would deeply regret.
Anders
Isabela
Merril
Fenris
Sebastian
Tallis
Family[]
Malcolm
Malcolm was both relieved and a little disappointed that his firstborn did not wind up being a mage.
When Dani was thirteen everything changed- Bethany was revealed to have magic. From that point onwards Malcolm spent significantly less time with his oldest child, focusing so single-mindedly on keeping his mage child safe he neglected the other two. The lack of a strong paternal figure in her life, with Leandra largely occupied with the twins, pushed Dani to be even more reckless and rebellious.
Leandra
Dani was always a bit too wild for Leandra's aristocratic heart. Though she loved her greatly, Leandra more often than not found herself wishing her oldest child was different in nearly every regard. Dani inherited her father's smart mouth and while it was charming on her lover, Leandra found it less appealing on her daughter. The endless string of women Dani always seemed to be involved with didn't help matters either.
Bethany
The sisters always held a great love for each other, maintaining a close bond since childhood. Dani was a protective older sister, this trait only amplifying once Bethany's magic was discovered.
In the end Bethany was grateful for Leandra guilting Dani into leaving her behind, as she grew to enjoy her life in the circle. Bethany brought a good deal of hope, a sought-after commodity, to the Kirkwall circle, especially in her stories of her time as an apostate. Her twenty years on the outside showed younger mages that life beyond the confines of the circle walls was possible.
Bethany continued to liberate and assist freed mages beyond
As the mage-templar conflict began to die down the youngest Hawke elected to ?. The sisters still keep in touch by letter whenever possible, though it's been many years since the two have met up face-to-face. Both take solace in the fact that the other is ?.
Carver
Tragically, the two were truly getting along for the first time in their lives at Ostagar, a shining moment which ended all too quickly. They were able to joke over the punishing hours, terrible food and less-than-optimal tent living conditions.
Carver managed to find her and the two hightailed back to Lothering.
Though Leandra later rescinded her blame on Dani for Carver's death, the damage was already done, and in Dani's mind, was her fault. Years later his death remained a sore spot for Dani. Eventually her friends stopped bringing it up. Privately she still mourns her brother.
Gamlen
Gamlen furthered Dani's distaste for him by making a number of comments about her father being a jester.
Eventually their relationship smoothed into something approaching cordial after Leandra's death, aided especially by Gamlen telling Bethany of her mother's passing. The uncle and niece would never be close, but had a grudging appreciation of one another as virtually the only family each had left. Dani would later reunite Gamlen with the daughter he never even knew he had, another positive footnote in their kinship.
Miscellaneous[]
Equipment[]
In the years following the explosion of the chantry Dani is nearly always seen in her champion's armor, sometimes with a streak of red warpaint across her nose. Her favorite and primary weapon is the bow
Trivia[]
- Dani's personality type is sarcastic
- Her signature color is red
- Danielle was named after Malcolm's childhood best friend