Aveline
"Protect what matters with everything you have. Or you’ll have nothing. And deserve it."
Aveline Vallen is a soldier, a master of sword and shield, and a tireless guardian... to a point. The daughter of an exiled chevalier, Aveline is not the knight her father wished her to be. Although fully trained in chivalrous combat, she was raised in the shadow of a lost life and will not lose another for the sake of honor. Protecting her adopted home of Kirkwall becomes a chosen duty, not a privileged calling. The people she stands for will not be wasted on lost causes or protecting the foolish from themselves. Pride can be bandaged like any other wound—when threats are dead and everyone is safely home.
Gallows
Statues of tortured slaves fill the Gallows courtyard, a ghastly memento of Kirkwall's history. The statues are not monuments to the suffering of slaves. Every inch and angle of the courtyard was designed by magisters bent on breaking the spirit of newcomers. Executions here took place daily, sometimes hourly, and corpses were hung from gibbets throughout the yard. New slaves trudging in from the docks saw what awaited them.
