[b]Name:[/b] Mother Albina ‘Alya’

[b]Age:[/b] Twenty

[b]Height/Weight:[/b] 5’8” (173cm) / 145lbs (66kg)

[b]Race:[/b] Varyan

[hider=Appearance]
Alya’s face sports golden blond hair, bright clear-blue and curious eyes, and almost always a proud, extroverted smile. Her hair is worn almost impractically long for a warrior, falling straight well past her shoulders; Alya only occasionally nods to the practicality of keeping her hair out of the way with a black ribbon tying her hair back. Strong cheekbones and a narrow chin complete the look of a well-off ethnic Varyan. 

Alya keeps her body muscular and well-toned, her black coat form-fitting and tight, and her armor light and nimble, with reinforcing plate or chainmail only covering the most vital areas. She usually presents a well-groomed image, bearing a few visible scars from training as nearly all Inquisitors do. Under her unnecessarily-luxurious coat, though, is a different story - her torso and especially her back sport dozens of marks and scars from lashing, all results of her confrontational energy, sharp tongue, and rules-flouting tendencies.

Disdaining heavy armor and shields, she focuses on powerful two-handed offensive weapons, keeping a pump-action shotgun on a sling over her shoulder and a large halberd tipped with a twelve-gauge powerhead in lieu of a spearpoint. The halberd’s axe-head sports a unique identifying feature - forged of a blood-red metal, its blade spreads wide in the shape of a phoenix’s wings, the symbol of Lord Varya.[/hider]
[hider=Image]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/j0LYyT9.jpg[/img]
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[hider=Personality]
Emotional and boisterous, Alya is hard to miss, for better or worse. Alya is playful, domineering, forward, brash, proud, outspoken, and opinionated. A high-energy woman, it’s rare to see her act completely serious or calm if she can possibly help it, and her willpower is seemingly inexhaustible. However, she is no socially-inept goofball - quite the contrary, spending her formative teenaged years constantly toeing the line has left her with a painfully-earned ability to read exactly how far to push the limit, and Alya can frequently resort to manipulation and social pressure to ensure things go her way. In the field, though, her loud and aggressive style often serves her well, able to rally men with a fearless charge where more cautious individuals would likely retreat.

Somewhat surprisingly given her indifferent attitude to rules of conduct, Alya displays a high degree of Varyan ethnic and religious pride, which can often put her at odds with Inquisitors and clergy of other races, especially Omestrians, a race she both looks down upon and yet seems to take peculiar personal interest in. Never lacking in self-confidence, Alya can be domineering and occasionally offensive in conversations, especially towards social inferiors or the subordinate ranks of the SA. This behavior is more due to brashness than racism, though, and her quick and sharp tongue usually lacks a favored target beyond “whoever reacts to it the most.” This isn't out of a pure social viciousness, however; Alya easily gets emotionally attached to those she gets along with, and considers herself highly loyal to her warsiblings in particular.

Her impulsiveness, aggression, and self-pride are, however, also weaknesses. In either a fight or an argument, she isn’t always difficult to bait into a hard situation. She is only of average intelligence by the high standards of Inquisitors, and lacks specialized training or knowledge in many fields outside of battle, though she does have some knowledge of summoning and demons from her time in the Summoner’s Circle. When worked up or emotional, she has a propensity to talk herself into trouble, as well, be it agreeing to an unwise bet or volunteering for a dangerous assignment out of bravado. Her impulsiveness is a consistent habit - she often pursues a goal or takes an action without entirely understanding why, simply because it felt like a good idea at the time.

She also behaves in ways others may consider not befitting of an Inquisitor. She can be frivolous and petty, enjoying luxury and impatient with hardship she considers unnecessary. This leads her to be wasteful, willing to spend money or supplies on unnecessary comforts. Outside of the field, she often engages in unbecoming conduct - smoking, drinking, gambling, sexual promiscuity, and risky behaviors aren’t uncommon for Alya. Nor is it uncommon for her to invite her fellow Inquisitors into these pursuits, leaving her somewhat of a "bad influence" on her friends.
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[hider=Background]
With an older sister, Elisheva, in the Inquisition already, Albina was certain to be evaluated at a young age, and she was taken into the halls of the Red Seminary at the tender age of seven. Her family is a minor Varyan noble family, one with history but unexceptional by the standards of their peers. With two daughters in the Inquisition, however, their fortunes have been on a rapid upswing - a pressure the young Albina was always acutely aware of.

In the Red Seminary, Albina distinguished herself as a precocious, serious, and devoted acolyte, spending nearly every waking minute in training, study, or prayer. Even under the harsh tutelage of Father Gregoroth, Albina typically thrived in the face of challenge, taking every beating, failure, and harsh lesson in stride as best a child could.

All but one failure, that is. Albina, distinguished by her serious nature, academic achievement, and ethereal control, was accepted into Mother Indira’s Summoning Circle for many years. However, she was dismissed from the Circle shortly after her fourteenth birthday, after failing the final Third Test. Mother Indira’s strict, exacting standards sensed danger in, as the older Inquisitor put it, “a War Priest that is both good and not as good as she thinks,” and the older Inquisitor decided to take Tatiana and Dara under her wing instead. Raised under Father Gregoroth’s harsh tutelage, Albina comes from a world where failure wasn’t only emotionally painful, but physically excruciating, and Mother Indira’s rejection was a turning point in Albina’s development.
[i]
“I’ll show her…”[/i] Quietly stealing an old, forgotten, and dusty tome from the Circle, Albina didn’t give up. If she couldn’t learn the ways of fighting and controlling demons under Mother Indira, she’d just have to teach herself. Unfortunately, the tome she'd selected contained more than text...

After leaving the Circle, Albina seemed to loosen up, her personality beginning to improve over time. However, the reason for this was not appreciated by anyone. After her illicit experiments, Albina was possessed by an intelligent being - one she identified as a demon. An emotional and active creature, "Alya" as she came to call herself gradually exercised increasing control over the real Albina, eventually banishing her into a dark corner of her own mind, apparently permanently. With no convenient means of escaping the Red Seminary and fearful of being discovered as a foreign being, "Alya" continued her development as an Inquisitor, secretly disdaining any religious loyalty to Varya, church, or family, or anyone or anything she wasn't personally attached to.

Under this influence, Alya gradually lightened up emotionally. She finally began opening up to some of her warsiblings, with whom she’d spent an entire childhood refusing to play or bond emotionally. She even began to allow, and then encourage, calling her by the diminutive Alya, an informality that had previously been staunchly denied them. Gradually, she grew from a humorless and dour child to the wild one of Warband Goliath, fun-loving and adventurous, always the one to push boundaries with those around her for better or for ill. Though her studies suffered - she dropped from one of the leading acolytes academically to a decidedly middling student - and though she suffered many lashings and other punishments for misbehavior, Alya seems content with the tradeoffs of this personal path.

Culmination is an emotional event for all Inquisitors, but Aspect I-XV’s vision seems to have had a particularly profound impact on Alya in spite of her true nature. Having always been unenthusiastic towards religious duty, Alya quickly became one of the more fervent and outspokenly faithful Inquisitors of Warband Goliath. Today, despite her propensity for wild and inappropriate behavior, Inquisitor Alya is seen to be deeply religious and is quite loyal to the Inquisition as a whole.
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[hider=Talents/Ethereal Abilities]
With a heavy emphasis on front-line combat, Alya isn’t the greatest spellcaster in the Inquisition by any means. While lacking in a versatile array of spells, Alya is an exceptionally talented and well-armed hand-to-hand fighter adept at manipulating the flow of ether to give herself an edge in combat. She typically carries two primary weapons and two backup weapons. The first is her signature halberd - with a crimson-red metal blade in the shape of a phoenix in flight, with a secondary spike atop one wing, topped with a single-shot smoothbore gun in lieu of a spear-point. In battle, she focuses on swinging the heavy axe with powerful, heavy blows, bludgeoning as much as cutting.

Her other main weapon is a pump-action large-bore shotgun. In contrast to her distinctive and flamboyant halberd, this gun is standard SA issue, her only personal modification being removal of the stock in favor of a pistol grip. Carried on a sling over a shoulder, she can quickly switch to it in battle. She carries two more weapons - a small handgun, also SA issue, and a field knife, as much a practical tool as a weapon.

While not a significant caster, Alya does have a few ethereal abilities beyond the norm. She focuses primarily on self-enhancement with ether, finding value in swinging her heavy halberd as though it had little weight at all, and especially in maintaining rapid motion to avoid the blows of the enemy. She is, however, supernaturally socially savvy, able to pick up on even extremely subtle emotional cues and read well how far to push people in order to get what she wants out of them. With the use of ether, lies stand out to her as much as actions do, though she must hold eye contact to read truth or lies unerringly.

Possessed by a demon, Alya has a powerful additional ethereal capacity as well. It is not known what Alya could do with the abilities of a demon, and even she doesn’t actually know what she could do - as any such ability is immediately recognizable as demonic ether, with no realistic way of hiding its nature from anyone with ethereal talents of their own. As such, she would have to be extremely pressed to attempt it.

Alya doesn’t have many talents outside of battle, not having devoted much time to extra studies. Machines are only of interest to her insofar as whether they work for their intended purpose or not, and if they don’t, that’s work for mechanics as far as she’s concerned. Philosophy and other high-minded academic subjects are an obscure mystery to her, and while she has a solid command of tactics, she rarely pays much mind to broad strategy in a military context.

She also considers herself an amateur gourmet, teaching herself to cook in a land where most people are content with bland nutrient intake.[/hider]
[hider=Personal Seal]
WIP.[/hider]
[hider=Character Relationships]
[hider=Warband Goliath Members]
[b]Mother Faina[/b]
Alya and Faina have a friendly and trusting relationship as warsiblings. Both of them encourage a strong sense of loyalty to the warband in one another, and both exude strong confidence in their faith even in the face of hard trials like months spent on the ice. However, despite her best efforts, years of Alya's trying has generally failed to encourage the reserved Faina to cut loose; instead she has frequently been the one to guide Alya back to the safety of the Goliath compound after a night spent in pursuit of vice. This history has instilled a deep trust in Faina, who Alya feels she can turn to at times of emotional vulnerability or plain old intoxication. In return, Alya pushes Faina to express her feelings more, something the Inquisitor often struggles with on her own.

[b]Father Tàerlach[/b]
Alya and Tàerlach have a somewhat stormy relationship as warsiblings. Though they are both outspokenly devout - a facet that, in the months since Culmination, have begun to bring them closer together - Alya's frequent antics and emotional behavior is at odds with Tàerlach's reserved and serious personality. The rest of the warband has seen this clash of personalities butt heads time and time again. Alya frequently finds his seriousness annoying, and Tàerlach frequently finds her antics and behavior baffling. However, in the field they get along much better - Alya has visible respect for his tactics and his strategic ability, while Alya's courage and unshakable morale in a fight quickly distinguished herself in turn.

[b]Father Solim[/b]
WIP[/hider]
[hider=Summoner's Circle]
[b]Mother Indira[/b]
WIP

[b]Tatiana[/b]
At the time they shared in the Summoner's Circle, Albina was quite aloof towards Tatiana, rebuffing attempts at friendship in favor of long hours alone spent studying. After being cut at the Third Test and leaving the Circle, however, Albina steadily begin to relax and open up towards others emotionally, and ironically Tatiana and Alya became better friends [i]after[/i] she left the Circle than when they were classmates.[/hider]
[hider=Others]
[b]Father Hassan[/b]
An old friend from the Seminary days, fellow cut-ups Hassan and Alya frequently got each other into trouble with their mutual antics. Finding in him a kindred spirit in Hassan amongst the many serious-minded students of the Inquisition's ways, Alya and Hassan were good friends and, it was rumored in hushed whispers, briefly lovers.

[b]Zviera[/b]
Her personal servant, Zviera is a young Omestrian man Alya purchased shortly after hearing word that she was to join an expedition to Eluria. He is a quiet and meek man, too unnerved to meet any Inquisitor’s eyes. He lacks any apparent talent or trained skills other than the work of servants - preparing food, cleaning, tending to Alya’s things, delivering messages, and the like. He frequently works for other members of Warband Goliath as well, though he considers Alya his owner and first priority. Alya doesn’t treat Zviera harshly, in fact being seen to enjoy his company and casually talk things over with him.

[b]Animals[/b]
Odd as it may seem, Alya tends to have strained relations with just about any wild animal. Animals seem to instinctively dislike her on sight, often becoming uncharacteristically defensive, aggressive, or scared. Alya can overcome this first-impression reaction, with effort, but she generally avoids interacting closely with animals and can generally expect bites and scratches to be an inevitable part of any introduction.[/hider]
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