Vella

## Velouria Beastender Tartine

### Nicknames

Vella, Shay, Non-maiden, Specimen, Crazy Brat, Murderer, Axe-wielding psychopath, the last one, Vel

### Family

Brommel (maternal grandfather)
Morelia (mother)
Husker (father)
Rocky (sister)

## Casting Information

### Voice Actor

Masasa Moyo

**Vella** is one of the two main protagonists in Broken Age. She is chosen to be sacrificed to the monster Mog Chothra in order to save her village of Sugar Bunting. However, she fights against this fate and is set to destroy the monster once and for all.

## Biography

Vella is the daughter of Morelia and Husker, the sister to Rocky and the granddaughter to Brommel. She is independent, loyal and forward-thinking with a streak of hotheadedness.

## Story

***Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.***

Vella is a young woman in a world ravaged by Mog Chothra—a giant creature that is subdued in each town with sacrificial offerings during the Maidens Feast. Chosen by her village to be sacrificed, Vella believes that they could end these rituals if they could kill Mog Chothra. The idea is met with resistance by her own family, who cite the tradition—however morbid—as the only way of maintaining their peaceful way of life.

### Act 1

During the Maidens Feast, she pleads with the four other maidens of Sugar Bunting to help her fight back. However, they're set on appealing to Mog Chothra, leaving Vella to use her own cunning and bravery to find a way to escape. As each maiden around her gets taken, she's able to wrangle a bird and cut herself loose.

She flies to the distant town of Meriloft, whose citizens live amongst the clouds as bird caretakers, and meets Twyla, a maiden who was left behind during her own Maidens Feast.Twyla isn't interested in helping her defeat Mog Chothra, nor are the other villagers, and she sets on finding a way to the forest below and to the nearby town of Shellmound.

In the seaside village of Shellmound, she finds the townspeople making preparations for their impending Maidens Feast. In the process of gaining entry, she discovers the Dead Eye God 's temple, which turns out to be an ancient spaceship half-buried by the sand. She's able to wake the pilot from stasis, Alex, and he helps her rig the ship's scanning system as a weapon to attack Mog Chothra. Vella's plan works, and she is able to bring down Mog Chothra, only to discover that it is a giant mechanical creature housing a young man inside.

Angered, she charges at Shay and tries to punch him but misses and falls into the mouth of the broken machine. The mouth closes behind her, leaving her trapped inside while Shay is stuck outside.

### Act 2

Vella quickly realizes that Mog Chothra is a robot disguised on the outside as a monster and on the inside as a spaceship. With the help of Dutch, she manages to get out of the "space" part of the machine and into the ship. She then meets Marek, who convinces her that the ship's computer is controlling Mog Chothra.

To get into the computer's room, Vella fakes being Shay by enlarging her head using the Teleporters and memorizing facts about his childhood. After breaking into the room, Vella discovers that the computer is really Shay's mother, a woman named Hope. Marek locks the two in the room and reveals himself as a Thrush. He then sets the ship to fly back to Loruna. Vella works with Hope to escape the control room using Hope's computer interface to guide a Hexigal to unlock their door.

By the time Vella escapes, the ship has landed in Loruna, specifically the Mog factory. Vella makes a plan to bomb the factory by putting the fusion orb in the ice cream from one of Shay's missions and throwing it out the trash shoot. Along the way, she meets the Yarn Pals, the Teleporters, and Lorraine the Fork. She then has to program the Space Weaver to fly back to their previous destination. First, she gets thread by unraveling one of the Yarn Pals in the train quest. Then she has Lorraine spin the yarn into a spool. Next, she speaks with the captured maidens in their cell and trips off an alarm which distracts Marek from his control room. She goes into the control room and gets a navigation pattern but accidentally contacts the Thrushmaster. By interacting with the Thrushmaster, she learns that the Thrush have been using maidens to "true the bloodline" as years of genetic experiments have caused the Thrush to be weak. If the maidens are taken in by the Thrush, the Thrush will deconstruct them for their genetic material. She also learns that Levina was really a Thrush that was sent to pacify her town. Vella then gives the Space Weaver the nav sheet and alters it using her telepathic connection with Shay. Marek then leaves the ship, and Hope guides the ship out of the factory right before it explodes.

After getting to the outside of Loruna's gates, the Bassinostra, Shay's ship, collides with the Maloruna, Alex's ship. Vella must use her telepathic connection with Shay to distract Hope long enough for Shay to use Grabbin' Gary to grab the Maloruna and for Vella to melt down both ships. While the ships are melting, Marek, who has somehow survived the explosion, attempts to capture Vella, but she beats him up instead and escapes to one side of the newly formed bridge. Vella then crosses the bridge, waving at Shay, and reunites with her family.

## Quotes

(While cutting her dress to escape Mog Chothra) "Hey! How-bout we split this cupcake, you can have the bottom half!"

(While kicking the collapsable ladder into Mog Chothra's mouth) "Short things can surprise you!"

(While Vella beats up Marek) Marek: "I thought you were a baker!"

Vella: "Yeah, I can do that too."

## Trivia

* The name Velouria may come from the French word meaning "velvet" or the Latin word meaning "be strong"
	+ Both meanings make sense, as she comes from a village of bakers (thus red velvet cake) yet is also part of a strong warrior ancestry.
* Vella lost her first few teeth by licking a moving beater
* Before the game began, the largest thing Vella blew up was her family's oven
* In the End Credits, Vella is shown hugging her family, celebrating with her family and Dutch, and sitting with Shay