Angela
“They say birds always find their way back home
but home is a nowhere - a memory; a never was.”
but home is a nowhere - a memory; a never was.”
--Richard Georges, Dead Reckoning
Angela, known as Angel Girl all her life, is an escaped slave of Molthal. As an Avariel, she was born with two pairs of snow white wings, but is unable to fly due to neglect. She is a devout worshipper of the Annunaki goddess of harvest and health, Maskat. This allows her to heal wounds with divine magic. She travels with a white dog and a black horse, both belonging to the late Templar who freed her.
Biography & Lore
Angel Girl has no memories before the black walls. A child of Irontown, malnourished and bedraggled; another orphaned child made a slave. She never met her family; never knew her parents. She was an oddity in Molthal, what with her four feathered wings and filthy white hair. She learned early on that she should keep her wings hidden and bound up, for the threat of her feathers being plucked, or people trying to manhandle and break her wings.
As a child she would work in shops and run packages between sections of the city. She had no guardian watching over her; she could only do her best to survive. She did not age as fast as the other slave children. But as one of the Winged Folk, it was expected for her to have a long lifespan. As malnourished as she was, her stature is much less than one would expect from a sub-race of Elves. She is very small for her race, and wraith-thin. Her already delicate bones are even more easily broken due to her poor nutrition.
She was once brutalized by an Orc wielding a club. The severe head injury healed over time, but took with it many memories and years past. She only has snippets of her past, and no clue about her actual age.
Angel Girl was nursed back to health by a human woman named Charmain. The woman worshipped the Annunaki deity, Maskat. Charmain swore that only her prayers to the life goddess saved Angel Girl’s life. Since then, Angel Girl has prayed to Maskat every day, thanking the goddess for saving her life, and begging she heal others around Angel Girl. Unfortunately, this was not enough to save Charmain, who died at the age of 53 after a lifetime of slavery.
When Angel Girl was a young teen, she was attacked by a new slave the orcs had brought in. Unknowingly, the human they had brought in had had lycanthropy. The human had transformed in the night and run into the small Avariel, and mauled her face before tearing off into the city. Angel Girl lost the vision in her right eye and sustained vicious gashes that turned to scars. She became even more reclusive and skittish after the incident.
One day, not very long ago at all, found Angel Girl trying to stretch out her handicapped wings. She could rarely exercise them, and it was difficult for her to even hold them up. She could never remember a time where she had been able to use them to fly.
She had snuck a small distance away from the black walls, hiding in the underbrush to extend her wings as far as she could. It was then that she was noticed by a member of the Templar Order. A Knight by the name of Malik Agarwal was hunting a brood of vampires in the mountains nearby. Several Molthal’s slaves had been taken as victims by the vampire fledglings, and Ser Agarwal was hunting them nearby, but skirting the Orc city.
Fascinated and dazzled, the elder Templar spoke to the slave. He learnt that she had no name, and had been enslaved all her life. She was fearful and handshy, but whispered fervent questions about the outside world. He offered his protection should she wish to flee Molthal, and told her he could take her to Kor Gorum, where she would be safe.
Angel Girl had seen many slaves try to run. They were always retrieved, one way or another. The Blight Orcs sometimes hung pieces of them around the outer edges of the city to dissuade slaves from attempting to escape.
But Ser Agarwal was strong, she was sure. He had lived to middle age, grizzled and battlescarred. He could protect her, surely. She slipped back into the city, and gathered her meager earthly belongings, including a pendant honouring Maskat which had belonged to Charmain.
She joined him in the dead of night, stealing away from Molthal under the cover of darkness. For several days, they rarely stopped moving. They traveled by horseback, putting more and more distance between the two of them and Molthal.
Angel Girl slowly began to trust another living being in Ser Agarwal. She had kept waiting for the other boot to drop, for him to finally reveal his true nature, or what he actually wanted from her. But Ser Agarwal was a good man, and fed her from his own rations until she was full to bursting. She even learnt to not fear dogs, as Ser Agarwal kept a dog with him as well. The massive white shepherd was a fierce guard dog, but a gentle companion. He called her Angela and she felt safe, even happy.
T’was no more than a week that everything went to hell. Since they had left Molthal, they had been followed by a vampire from the brood Ser Agarwal had slain. The young fledgling finally caught up to the Templar and his ward, and fell upon the Knight in a haze of bloodlust and need for vengeance. The scuffle was short, both parties getting in fatal blows before everything stopped.
The Templar was bleeding out, throat bitten and torn, the dead vampire not moving, face down beside him. Angel Girl rushed to her guardian, and began to pray that Maskat save him. Through her cries and pleas, Ser Agarwal told her to go on. As he died, he told her to take his sword, made of pure silver, and to save herself, whatever it took.
Maskat heard her servant’s cries and responded, but it wasn’t enough for Angel Girl to save Agarwal. The Templar died that cold night in the Spine, his ward’s sobs and his faithful dog’s howls echoing in the night.
