Ferdinand Genitivi

"As it is the duty of all true sons of the Chantry to make the Chant of Light heard from every corner of the world, I made it my mission to find as many corners of the world as possible. The Maker can hardly expect us to do one without the other."
--Excerpt from In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar by Ferdinand Genitivi

Brother Ferdinand Genitivi was a Chantry scholar who authored a prolific body of published academic chronicles. He's one of the most well-known intellects of the modern world, even though many of his adversaries dismiss his works as fanciful. His travels supposedly took him to places all across Thedas and to interact with all sorts of people.
He has since passed away after being assaulted by a city elf. With his death, the academic community has lost one of its most prominent members and will be reeling for the foreseeable future.

Commonly Known Works

• In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar
• The History of the Wardens in Ferelden
• Thedas: Myths and Legends
• Tales of the Destruction of Thedas
• Fade and Spirits Mysterious
• Kirkwall: the City of Chains
• The Stone and Her Children

Mental characteristics

Personal history

During his lifetime, Brother Genitivi published over a dozen novels and served as a household name amongst the denizens of larger cities across Thedas. Some of his works have been translated into 4 other languages!
He sought to educate the common folk of Thedas so as to make them understand that not everything that seemed foreign or strange was evil and meant to be destroyed. His journeys took him all over Thedas, and he saw the beautiful and the ugly, the uplifted and the downtrodden . He documented many of these encounters while keeping an air of non-bias. Some of the more surprising accounts of his involve meeting one of the wielders of a dragon tooth,
His travels, and rather too-curious nature, eventually led to his demise not longer after the Wardens fell at the Battle of Dur Themriel. He saw despair plaguing Ferelden's countryside and so he began to dig into folklore. Eventually, he came to the notion that he could track down one of the most heavily debated artifacts of all time: the Urn of Sacred Ashes, or more commonly known as the ashes of Andraste.
Before he could begin his voyage, he was murdered by a city elf who had been prowling outside Denerim's alienage.
Genitivi's rumors about the ashes of Andraste eventually caught public attention half a year after his death when Arl Eamon Vuerrin of Redcliffe claimed that he had been saved from a near death experience by their miracle powers. The arl pointed towards a small village named Haven up in the Frostback Mountains. Pilgrims who followed this thread encountered a temple high up in those mountains, perhaps one that was once dedicated to the resting place of Andraste's ashes, but no such artifact was present once they arrived. Some argue that it was a fool's ramblings, others believe that the ashes were stolen, and some even believe that the Maker took them away knowing that such a powerful artifact would be tainted by greed.
Spoiler: Campaign 1

The rumors that stated that Genitivi had died in Denerim were incorrect. Genitivi had hired a man who looked identical to himself to stay at the house while the Brother went after the Sacred Ashes. This doppleganger was killed, not Genitivi himself. The Warden high command traveled up into the Frostback Mountains to a town known as Haven in pursuit of the real Genitivi. While there, they found a strange group of people who believed similar ideas to the Chantry but with odd modifications to the belief system. For instance, they believed that the Maker was a man and not a woman. They also found Brother Genitivi's dead body who had been used as a sacrifice. Unfortunately, word never spread of his actual death and to this day city elves are still blamed for his death. It was true, however, that the Urn of Sacred Ashes was found in the temple at towards the top of Haven. Some of the Wardens were even able to acquire a pinch of ashes.

Morality & Philosophy

Genitivi was a man of great faith, but not in a way that he let his faith control his entire vision of the world. As a scholar, he believed that the Chantry exaggerated at times when talking about certain events or knowledge whose exact details had been lost to time. In many ways, he served as the ultimate idealist: a man who trusted in the goodness of humanity and knew that religion could be twisted by those who sought power, but never let this embitter him nor his faith.

Ethnicity

Alamarri

Aligned Organization

The Chantry