ALYA KARIMI, warrior

[attr="class","qty"]"i remember the way that it ended today"

[attr="class","bxy"][attr="class","bb"]

born to a dalish tribe in the brecilian woods, alya was generally likable among her peers, but she was also more than capable of answering back with fists. she had spent a lot of time on time-outs, back then. it was punishment enough for a dalish elf when sitting in the tent meant missing out on some truly spectacular hunts. in time, she learned to control her temper for the sake of supporting the clan, a purpose that she was willing to get behind. 

the darkspawn came, they saw, and they conquered. she would not have called her clan complacent, but the wardens' victory at the battle of denerim had secured a hopeful period in which the fifth blight seemed to be a nightmare of the past. alya's younger brother had pushed her down an extremely tall cliff just in time before he was slaughtered by the darkspawn. she survived the fall, but barely. a warden mage and his apprentice had been headed in the direction of the horde to conduct a bit of reconnaissance when he had stumbled upon her body. melchior had been the one to save her and his assistant nursed her back to health.

she had always known that she would  be back to the forests to take her anger out on the darkspawn there. the difference to joining the wardens was that she wouldn't get herself pointlessly killed in a fruitless endeavor. she had not known the exact consequences at the time, and she seized the goblet of darkspawn and downed it before she could finish listening to the warden's description of what her fate entailed. 

she survived, though. she survived, and that's all that really matters in the end, doesn't it?

she ran all the way back to where her clan was situated, except the battle had long been over and the bodies have since dried out. her superior gave her a good hard lecture, but she wasn't listening. she does not want to listen to anyone ever again. 

one day, she's going to have to look back into the abyss and heed the call of the taint. that day does not have to be today. (it will - it will one day, and she will have to admit that this is the choice that she made despite her beliefs, despite everything.)

would she have chosen anything else, had she known? maybe, and that is the most bothersome part about it all. alya hates decieving people the most, but it was hard to fault her recruiter after the first month of being a warden herself. she hates that - she hates that because these things weren't supposed to be subjective, not at all.  

despite her misgivings, she had bonded quickly with the wardens who share her fate. although she had lived within her clan all her life, alya found it difficult to slight even a human who had protected her from a hurlock's axe. she made friends with people from all classes and castes with ease; some would argue that this is the true reason that she rose through the ranks so quickly. others might say that it was due to her integrity and willingness to doubt, just as her opponents will claim that these are her worst weaknesses. 

one of the other wardens taught her templar abilities; another taught her how to tie cherry knots with her tongue. she laughs with them and she learns from them and she fights for them. people, she decides, are a continent's real treasures.

alya wields a two-handed sword, and her primary fighting style is based on the warmonger talent branch 

LIST OF TALENTS:

templar: holy smite, cleanse, righteous strike, silence, annulment 
warmonger: pommel strike, tremor
two handed: sunder, giant's reach 

LIST OF SKILLS: improved survival, improved runecrafting

SPECIALIZATION: templar