Anari Warden

[img style="max-width:100%;" src="http://thumb1.shutterstock.com/thumb_large/309385/309385,1232908862,2/stock-vector-letter-a-script-23861926.jpg"]

(The picture that inspired the Character. NOT MINE! I wish I could draw this good!)


Full name: Anari Warden
Age: 23
Race: Human
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 123lbs
Hair: Ebony Black
Eyes: So dark blue they appear black except at close distance and strong light.
Complexion: slight tan
Other Characteristics: Has a few scars. Suffers from periodic, occasionally severe nightmares. Has a permanent limp in her right leg from endured torture (see backstory)

Personality: While to those who don't know her Anari can seem distant and stoic, to her friends she's warm, loyal, and protective, a trait hammered into her from her time as a watch lieutenant, and some say even before that. Many times when she and a unit of her fellows were in conflict, she would lunge in the way of blows meant for another, taking their hits. It was the joked-about reason that the watch captain upgraded her chainmail armor to a breastplate, against the traditional armor worn by his second-in-command. She has a sense of an agape desire to watch out for others, even if she doesn't know them personally, if they so much as live in the town or place she has sworn to protect. While this has saved many lives, more often than not it puts hers on the line, and she's been scolded frequently by temple healers for how many times they have to stitch her up again.

Backstory:
The world Anari comes from would be one that some people might consider near-ideal. The overall crime rate of the nation is low. there are no wars by one region or other group of people against others for territory, money, or gold, and when they do come into disagreement it is generally settled quickly and quietly, without involving soldiers. While there is a difference in the rich and poor classes, it is no real different from what could be considered 'normal' anywhere else.

But this 'peace' is deceptive, for it comes not from enlightenment, or technological advancement.

No, it comes through tyrrany and fear. And that tyrrany has one name: Dragon Highlords!

As far back as anyone can remember (because they've carefully made it that way) the mighty dragons have ruled everyone and everything with an iron claw. They act upon their 'people' through their soldiers, half-dragon, half-man beings possessing all the cunning and cruelty of their larger masters. To disobey, is likely to either be locked in their dread prisons, where conditions are brutal and uncaring for anything relating to law, or simply death.

These are the conditions that Anari was born into and grew up in. Her hometown was a small, unimportant town that had nothing really of note to set it apart from any other town in the area. She was born in the local temple, where her mother took sanctuary after it was discovered she was carrying a babe out of wedlock, and refused to name the father. Her mother remained there, raising her daughter rather than return to the family that kicked her out, and died there of sickness after watching her only child grow up into a beautiful woman.

Anari eventually joined the local watch, advancing through merit alone to rank of lieutenant, quite a honor for a female. She had the respect of her town, the trust of her Captain, and felt quite content with her life.

Then came the day she destroyed it all, with a well-placed swing of her flail.

A DHS (Dragon Highlord Soldier) came into her town while she was left in charge by her vacationing Captain, accompanied by a small dragon about the size of an eagle. These small ones often acted as the eyes and ears of their elders, and possessed terrible magics. Well trained how to behave, Anari was subservient to the DHS, allowing him whatever goods he desired, letting him pretty much take over her investigation, not trying to stop him from doing and saying what he pleased, no matter how much it upset or angered her as he insulted her Captain, herself, and her town. It was their respective places in the world, and nothing more.

Then he made as if to exert (abuse!) his authority, at the expense of a merchant's daughter. Anari knew the family well; they'd always been very kind to her, even when she was a child. She didn't know what caused it - perhaps her frustrations finally came to a boil, perhaps it was the muffled whimpers of the girl, perhaps the silent helpless rage in her father's eyes - but something snapped! It was as if a voice shouted at her, commanding her to Strike! Out came her iron flail, and she whirled it and clipped the DHS' shoulder hard enough to force him to let go, and his dragon to take to the air in shock! Even as they turned to her, Anari whirled it again, having only seconds to act. The little dragons, while magically mighty, always traveled with a powerful DHS for a reason.

They were rather squishy.

The blow snapped its back clean, and it was dead before it hit the cobblestones.

The DHS turned on her with a furious roar, and as people scattered they battled. It was a hard-won fight, but in the end Anari was victorious, if badly wounded. And the first second she had a chance, she left her hometown, with as many witnesses as she could, so that any of those who might come after her would hopefully leave the town alone.

Anari fell for a time in the company of Rebels who fought against the Dragon Highlords. But she soon found that their 'anything for the cause' methods, sometimes which turned them into the very thing they battled against, sickened her and she parted their company. Not that they were sad to see her go; she had stopped them from interrogating a captured DHS female as they pleased, and at the time it was only because the captain of the group, who had a fatherly fondness for Anari, held his men from retaliation. She traveled alone for about a year, doing what she could to help those who suffered under the Highlords' reign and keeping a low profile as there was a high bounty on her head, until the Rebel Captain found her again, asking for aid. The Highlords had found a new weapon, a magic orb that would be devastating against the rebels and any innocents in their way. The rebels had stolen the orb while it was being transported, but he firmly believed that this was a power that NONE should wield! It was too deadly for either side to control. They met in secret, and when they parted, Anari had the weapon in her keeping.

Less than four months later, Anari was finally captured by the Dragon Highlords and the DHS. They falsely believed her to be a rebel herself, of high rank, and interrogated her brutally for several days, both about the rebel hierarchy and the stolen orb. She resisted as long as she was able, until finally they broke her will and she surrendered part of what they wanted. She told them that she'd found a druid (a forbidden art) that owed her a favor, and got her to give the orb to a fish, with instructions to take it and drop it into a deep, dark fissure in the ocean where it would never see the light of day again.

They left her alone some time after that, until finally she was brought to a strange chamber, where she saw a runic circle on the ground. The DHS sorcerer present said that they were going to give her a chance to redeem herself in their eyes. She was going to test out this rune that they had discovered. It had something to do with teleportation, but they knew not what or where. Roughly they armed her in studded leather, rather than the breastplate she'd worn until then, and mockingly tosses her flail to her, saying the battered thing wasn't worth the metal it was made of, and flung her into the middle of the rune.

As the sorcerer began chanting, Anari began to feel faint. As the room swam before her eyes, she saw bright flashes of lightning striking out, lashing at all in the room even as the magic took her, and she blacked out, vanishing from their dying eyes and reappearing in a cave in a new place, unconscious and with a hand holding to her 'worthless' flail which for a moment glowed with a powerful arcane mark...