Amabel of Oldtown

## Avatar of the Stranger

Of the seven High Incarnates who lead the Divisionist sect of the Faith, the Avatar of the Stranger is the most mysterious, and the most unnerving. She is a comforting presence to the dying and the grieving, and blesses all the dead, regardless of their beliefs or wealth. She is quiet and calm, yet unflinching from scenes of death and gore. Most seek to avoid her, but everyone has to meet her eventually.

## Appearance

Her appearance is welcoming, for the fearsomeness of the deity she represents. She wears mourning black, a veil shielding her eyes and masking much of her appearance from view, but beneath the rim of black lace is a small, sad, and genuine smile. Beneath her cloak, she’s pale and lovely, with green eyes and caramel hair, but for the inactive greyscale that has frozen her left arm, her neck, and the side of her skull.

## History

Amabel was never meant to have a significant life. She was born to a smallfolk couple in Oldtown, just another pretty young girl who would grow up and get married and bear her own children and do nothing else, and she was fine with that.

Then, when she was seven, she fell ill. She fell badly, desperately ill, numb gray scales covering her left arm and stealing the feeling away, climbing her neck, the side of her head. She felt like she was dying, piece by piece, and in a way she was. She spent a full year bedridden and sequestered away for fear of her sickness spreading, and one night as she lay in bed she saw someone at the door, a hood hiding their face, walking towards her. The figure brushed her hair back from her forehead and kissed the creeping greyscale, right where it was beginning to edge onto her face.

Perhaps it was a dream, perhaps not, but Amabel has always been sure that she met the Stranger that night.

The next morning, her fever broke, and she began to recover. Her parents, though, felt that they had never really gotten back the cheerful girl who had gotten sick. Amabel was no longer dying, but the marks of her brush with death remained, in the stony gray scales that coated her arm, her shoulder, the side of her neck and face, and in her demeanor as well. Where once she had been happy and lively, the girl was now much more subdued, her words quiet, rare and sometimes unnerving. While before she had gone to religious services only reluctantly, she now began attending the sept religiously. She heard whispers of Divisionism and grew fascinated by the tales of the seven as seven, though she kept this interest to herself. The changes in her appearance and behavior only served to further ostracize her from her peers, driving her to spend most of her time either alone or with her gods.

Her near-death experience had given her a much deeper appreciation for both life and death, and at fourteen she begged to apprentice for a local healer so she could learn how to save lives. The woman, flattered, agreed, and Amabel spent her next few years studying poultices and bandages. During this apprenticeship she also began to learn about poisons and antidotes, a topic which fascinated her. Concocting poisons and medicines alike was an art which she took to with ease, until there was no more she could learn, at which point she bid the healer goodbye.

At sixteen, she became a septa. She had grown to be a lovely young woman, though her visage was permanently marred by the mottled grey scarring. She performed her duties with a quiet but complete dedication, never socializing much with her sisters in the faith, and though she prayed to all of the gods she always lit a candle for the Stranger.

Then, in 291 AA, when Amabel was seventeen, Ironborn reavers attacked her birth city of Oldtown. The High Septon fled with the Warrior’s Sons and the streets ran red with blood as bodies were piled in the streets. Many of the septas fled, or else were raped and killed. For Amabel, though, who had already felt the kiss of the Stranger once, that fate held no fear. She walked the streets of Oldtown as it burned, and closed the eyes of the dead, one by one, praying for their souls to have peace. Perhaps it was luck, perhaps the raiders wanted nothing to do with a woman covered in greyscale, or perhaps someone was protecting her. Whatever the reason, the fighting escaped her, and by the time the raiders were gone and the survivors had begun to creep back into the sunlight they found her, unhurt among the wreckage, her white septa’s garb stained with the blood of the dead, whispering blessings.

Septon Kennet declared her the Avatar of the Stranger, and she traded her white cloak for one of black.

Several months after the sack of Oldtown, as the city was rebuilding and the High Incarnates establishing themselves in the Starry Sept, a woman came to Amabel and pled for death. She had been blinded during the raids, she said, and all she could see in the darkness was the Ironborn and the blood. She wanted peace, and Amabel gave it, a gentle poison that let the woman fall asleep and never wake.

The Council at Gulltown failed, the High Septon remained in the Eyrie, and the Faith fractured. In 294 AA, Septon Zachary was stoned to death before the eyes of the High Incarnates for preaching Unionist doctrine. After he was dead, Amabel stood from her chair, walked to his beaten body, and quietly closed his eyes.

The Bloody Year came and went, septons and septas were murdered brutally for their faiths, and through it all Amabel walked in silence, blessing the dead and comforting the grieving, granting peace to those rare few that craved it. She sat in council with the other High Incarnates though she was not the most outspoken of them, and when she did speak, she did so with a quiet but firm authority.

Now, a storm approaches that might well swallow Westeros whole. If it does, Amabel will be there to meet it, as she always is. These are busy days, for a god of death.