“Stay while I spin a tale for our children and then I will tell you of the forest, if you desire.”
Sarel is a dalish elf sitting at the campfire near Zathrian's aravel in the Dalish Camp.
Involvement
Sarel is suspicious of any Warden who is not of Dalish origin. He will tell them a tale of humankind's mistreatment of the Dalish. If the Warden is Dalish he will instead ask if the Warden was recruited to ensure that the Dalish would live up to the treaty. Regardless of what the Warden replies he will be angered by it. It is then revealed that his anger and suspicions towards outsiders is caused by the recent loss of his wife to the werewolf's curse. Beyond that, Sarel tells tales about the Dalish, the werewolves and spirits in the forest. Listening to his tales will unlock the Codex entry: The Dales.
Sarel is an instrumental character in the companion quest Wynne's Regret. He and his fellow Dalish at the campfire can tell the Warden about Wynne's former apprentice Aneirin, a city elf who escaped the Circle Tower, the templars declared a maleficar and ostensibly killed. Nonetheless, Anerein managed to reach the Dalish and can be found in the Brecilian Forest. If you find Anerein before talking to Sarel at the Dalish Camp, Sarel will still have a questmarker on return to the camp.
Quests
Quotes
- Sarel: "Oh, I am certain we played a part in our downfall. We believed that the shemlen would not revoke their prophet's gift so lightly. We were wrong. They took our lands, forcing us to abandon our gods and live as beggars in shemlen cities."
- Sten: "You should have fought. You should have fought to the last of you. Better that than to submit."
- Sarel: "Oh? Is it not the qunari way to force others to submit? Surely that would not be your advice to my people were they attacked by the mighty qunari."
- Sten: "That would be different. The qunari would improve your people. The humans have improved nothing."
- Sarel: "Perhaps. Even so, many of us did fight. We fought and we lost."
Trivia
- Sarel may talk about Keeper Lanaya even if Zathrian is still alive.
- Sarel will not speak with you if you fail any stealing attempts made in the camp. However, if you complete one of the side quests (such as Cammen's Lament), it will open up dialogue options to ask about the forest and the werewolves.
- Sarel must be killed alongside the other Dalish if the player agrees to help the werewolves take revenge on the Dalish during Nature of the Beast.
- Sarel is the only Elf in Dragon Age: Origins that has facial hair.
Bugs
The Codex entry: Arlathan: Part Two, Codex entry: The Brecilian Forest, and Codex entry: The Dalish Elves were supposed to be available for non-Dalish origins after listening to Sarel's story about the Dalish. Unfortunately, Sarel's plot script is not attached properly to him, so none of the codexes were given after his tale except Codex entry: The Dales, which is set directly in the conversation script, rather than the broken plot script. The result of this bug is that non-Dalish origins cannot access the three aforementioned codex entries anywhere in the game.
- This can be fixed with the toolset. Set the script property in ntb100pt_sarel.plo to ntb100pt_sarel, and the codex events will trigger as intended.
- You can also use a third party mod.