The Hand of Veils

Biological Information

Full Name:
The Hand of Veils
Titles, Positions, and Aliases:
Mikhail Rasputin; The Ghost; Gisela, Priestess of Deciphae
Race:
Faceless
Date of Birth:
Before Advenai's fall, exact date unknown
Date of Death:
Subject up for debate

Biography

In game stats: Mikhail

Early Life

Gisela was an alfen girl living near the edge of an island near the capitol of the Alfen kingdom. She and her parents were servants of Enhesh. She lived a normal child's life with many friends, playing in the fields and orchards, not a care in the world. When she was an early teen, the Alfen changed. A darkness had Fallen and the world fell with it. People started to become sick. Animals fled. The land slowly started to die. The Alfen themselves grew dark, elitist. Even Enhesh, the benevolent goddess, lost her influence, slowly dying while she watched her people fall into the service of Deciphae.

Being part of the embodiment of evolution, masters of adaptation, Gisela's parents were able to resist the corruption. Gisela herself, although physically unchanged, quickly fell into their ranks.

A new servant

Her parents begged her not to join. They sensed the evil and deception behind this new Diva. They begged their daughter to flee with them. She refused, not believing that her new lady was anything but benevolent. In reward for her new dedication, the priestesses of Deciphae allowed her parents to leave and even gave them an escort to the edge of the kingdom.

Gisela was quickly put to work. It was her job to travel all over the kingdom, converting the heretics that still believed that Enhesh would save them. Some did so willingly, some responded with violence. After being ambushed outside of a farming town, all of Gisela's fellow clerics were killed. Gisela herself was only able to escape by assuming the form of one of the farmers and fleeing into the woodlands nearby. After fleeing back to the capitol, she spent the next few months with the Queen's army, learning to be a warrior in their camps. Upon graduation, she was given a bodyguard, an Alfen warrior by the name of Vilgraf.

Fall from grace

Over the next few years, heretics fell by the hundreds to Gisela and her bodyguard. Mercy was a thing of the past, convert or die. Show resistance and die. Obedience or die. Not all was grim however. Vilgraf and Gisela had become close. They had begun to rely on one another, in both battle and council. In time they even became lovers.

The Lady of Lies

The new empire was coming into it's own at last. News of expansion was on the winds. Rumors of a great battle with the heretical Dourlings to the east. It was said that Deciphae herself came down to smite the puny god of the Dourlings. As soon as the rest of the Alfen were brought under heel, it was time to go up. The mannish tribes of the Keng Xiun were thought to be easily swayed. One last town and Gisela would use her talents abroad. The whole world would soon know the glory that was her lady.

As the last building burned to the ground, Gisela looked at her lover with concern. Vilgraf seemed troubled. He had been different ever since he had almost died at one of Enhesh's temples a few months ago. He would not talk to her as he usually did. He seemed to pity those they had slain. Perhaps they just needed a break before their travels to lands of Xiun. She made a note to request one from her superiors when next they met.

Upon return to the capitol, they were both summoned to the high temple. Deciphae had taken note of their loyalty and deeds. Gisela was to be blessed with a tattoo in the language of her Diva.

As they made their way to the ritual room, Gisela noticed how nervous Vilgraf looked. In fact, he looked downright terrified. Doubt began to creep into her mind as they reached the chamber. They were greeted by the High Priest, the Hand of the Queen herself. Gisela's doubt was swept aside and she could feel nothing but pride for this honor.

The High Priest ordered her to disrobe and lay on the ritual slab. The last thing she saw before the ritual began was a contingent of guards spilling into the room.

The visions started as the ink mixed with her blood. She saw men in chains, tentacled beasts forcing them to build large arches covered in runes. She saw her old goddess slowly dying as the corruption spread across the Alfen lands. She saw herself killing men, women, and children in the name of Deciphae. She saw her parents being executed by the priestesses she had called friends. She saw inside the ritual chamber, a dark tattoo being carved into her body. Beside the ritual slab she watched in horror as Vilgraf fell, the swords of the guards piercing his flesh. Rage flared inside her. The realization of what she had become began to come forth as the final vision of Advenai being cast from the heavens, falling into darkness and becoming the one now known as Deciphae.

Redemption

Gisela's eyes snapped open. The high priest was just finishing. She could hear him saying how she was not worthy and how she should be killed before the ritual was at an end. To his surprise she leaped from the stone slab and drew a dagger. Gisela looked around and saw the body of her lover Vilgraf, a necklace depicting the symbol of a raven was clutched in his hand. As she charged the high priest, she tried to invoke the name of Deciphae to smite her enemies as she had so many times before. As her call went unheeded, the priest laughed and knocked her to the ground. The remaining guards closed in for the kill. In a last act of defiance, Gisela stood up and screamed. This time someone did answer her call. A new Diva had touched down across the world and had granted her the power she craved. Black smoke rose from her dagger, red flames sparked to life in her eyes. Ash was drawn to her from nearby torches, clinging to her naked flesh, healing her wounds and turning to armor. The guards, taken aback, fell one by one to her fury and to the black smoke and fire of The Lady of Veils.

As the body of the High Priest disintegrated into soot, Gisela bid Vilgraf one last goodbye. Donning his necklace, she shifted her form into one of the fallen guards and made her escape out of city. After finding a cave that should keep her hidden for the time being, she took the form of the Faceless for the first time in many years and silently said a prayer to her new Diva. Thoughts of what comes now reeled in her mind as she fell into a deep sleep. Gisela was dead. A failed foolish child who had helped bring ruin to the Alfen nation. Now there was only the Ghost.

The Assassin

The Ghost sat in its cave at the outskirts of the capitol. It looked down at a necklace of a raven and thought of times long past. Its fingers absentmindedly rubbed the wound on its chest, a cursed tattoo that would never heal. Almost three hundred years had past since that night. The war was long over, thank Aresai, the Alfen had lost. The corrupting influence of Deciphae, however, had remained. How does one fight corruption? Not by killing the devout and leaders apparently, thousands of those had fallen. Destroying temples and disrupting rituals? Tons of rubble and burned corpses seems to suggest not that either. That is what troubled the Ghost, it had worked when Gisela had done it to Enhesh. Yet despite the gratuitous body count, Deciphae's power wasn't waning. The Alfen Queen, despite being over 400 years old, was still alive. There had to be another force behind it besides the Fallen Goddess. Alas the mystery had to wait, it was sunset and duty called. A new priest had been chosen earlier today, and he certainly wasn't going to kill himself.

The priest was laughing, an odd thing to do when a dagger was sticking out of your heart. The chambers darkened. The Ghost started to get nervous, the others had just died like one is supposed to do when assassinated. Whispers came from the shadows. The priest pulled the dagger from his chest and started chanting. The pool of blood at his feet began to move. Frozen in fear, the dark words spewing from the priests mouth stained the Ghost's very being and it could do nothing but stare as a monster slowly rose from the blood. Tentacles where a mouth should be, black eyes, the monster was a nightmare made flesh. The Ghost hoped its death would be quick as the illithid moved towards it.

A window shattered. Four heavily armed Alfen poured into the room. Steel flashed, cryptomantic runes pierced the darkness. In a moment, the monster and the priest were dead. The Ghost could just stare at them, stunned at what had just transpired. The Alfen then promptly knocked the Faceless out and carried it away. It wore the necklace of the Two Hundred Ravens. It had seen an aberration and lived, perhaps it could be a valuable ally against the Black Storm…

Destiny calls, a Raven Answers.

My name is Mikhail Rasputin. I am a Faceless, a being that can change it's appearance at will. I have been fighting the Alfen nation and the darkness behind it for over 400 years. Nearly 100 years ago I was recruited into a rebel faction of Alfen known as the Fifth Column. Now I serve the Detrachtmorai (sp???), a secret society in charge of keeping the aberrant tide at bay and destroy it. This is my duty and as Aresai as my witness I will stop at nothing to fulfill this oath. My journey, finally, is righteous. My destiny is written. Death is my mistress and I am her Hand. Heed to those that stand in my way.

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