Angel Ivaenodel

Raegel Thym'killenddare (husband, deceased)

Jesper Ivaenodel (half-brother, deceased)

December 2nd, 196

A child, decked in a fitted half-plate and wielding only a gnarled black walking stick steps to the front of the skirmish. Her knowledge of arcane protections and her dedication to the Shadow, along with centuries of experience, keeps Angel confident that she, and not her enemies, will stand victorious when the battle is through.

## Appearance

Angel is small, though about average for a half-elf of her maturity. Her mother was tan skinned with dark eyes and brown hair, while her father, a moon elf, is very pale with black hair and blue eyes. Angel inherited her mother's eyes and facial features, but her elven heritage is apparent on a casual examination.

When combat is expected, Angel will don an adamantine breastplate and a sturdy shield (years ago she had stronger magic armor, but it was lost in a fight against a nagpa). She makes both ranged and melee attacks using a black, shadowy staff, and relies on multiple magical wards and a magical amulet to survive melee skirmishes.

When out of combat, Angel most often wears a black trench coat fitted with a shoulder cape over a gray buttoned shirt (not pictured). Though she's much more likely to feel cold than hot (even on Flouna), if the weather calls for it she may switch to a simple sundress or more traditional peasant garb. Only upon close examination can it be seen that there's a dark, translucent aura around her in the shape of a suit of armor, and those attuned to magic may notice that it's always accompanied by a large figure with a vaguely humanoid shape.

## Backstory

### Angel's Father

Myrddin Ivaenodel is a name long forgotten by men, but the elves know better than to forget such a powerful wizard. In millennia gone by, Myrddin was well renowned as a great and powerful mage, revered for his many accomplishments. But his obsession with life struck the other elves as off-putting. Elves, as a culture, embrace their gift of long lives and reincarnation, but Myrddin vocally opposed the great loss of knowledge that came with rebirth. Instead, Myrddin sought to extend his life through the use of powerful necromancy. Using his wealth to hoard magical books, Myrddin came across an ancient tome written by the great mage Dethed, a man of a civilization which itself was destroyed by an over-reliance on magic. Though the magic contained in the tome merely created a younger clone of the caster to transfer his mind to, this magic lost Myrddin favor with his peers in the arcane arts and, subsequently, with the others of his race.

Myrddin lived for over a millennium reclusive in his studies and in his acquisition of magical artifacts. Perhaps as a result of being shunned by his fellow elves, or perhaps due to the aging of his mind for entire lifetimes longer than the others of his kind, Myrddin eventually took a strange fascination to the short, carefree lives of the other races. He ventured from his reclusive libraries in order to form bonds with human men and women, marrying them and living out their lives with them. He outlived each of them, one at a time, and after their passing would move onto another. Any children born of these unions he raised together with the human parent and taught them magic, expecting each child to master the arcane arts.

When his firstborn son, Jesper, died of old age, Myrddin was at a loss. He knew that his child, far more mortal being a half-human than an elf, would pass on early, yet still the loss of his son stung. His child was gone, something he had fought so long to keep from happening to himself. Perhaps if he had created a clone of Jesper his son would still be alive. After a decade of indecision on the matter, Myrddin made the choice to clone all his children so that they would never truly die.

On each child's 10th birthday Myrddin cut out a small chunk of flesh from each of his children to use as a material component for his clone spell. This way, if his offspring were to die they would come back to life immediately, whether they perished of old age or died unnaturally. He continued to form unions with the mortal races, keeping his eternal life a secret from them, and keeping it a secret from the children they had together that he was cloning them. Over the course of the 2300 years following Jesper's death Myrddin married 29 times and had 21 children before Angel was born.

### Early Life

Angel, Myrddin's 23rd child, showed an aptitude for magic at an early age, and was gifted in the arcane arts as well as in her study of history. Like the children before her, Myrddin cut a chunk of flesh out from her thigh on her 10th birthday, and, unbeknownst to her, used it to grow a clone of her deep in the dungeons of his manor. Angel remained ignorant of his necromancy for much of her adult life. When Angel was 54 (a young adult by half-elf standards) her mother, Elizabeth (in her mid 70's), passed, leaving Myrddin has Angel's living parent. After her mother's passing, Angel focused on learning the arcane arts as her elven father would have her do, but also was drawn to exploration and self-discovery by her mixed blood. She spent much of her adult life wandering the world and learning more about the cultures that dotted its landscape.

While traveling abroad Angel met and fell in love with a half-elven man named Raegel, and with their commonalities they formed a relationship and were eventually married. Because life as a half-elf was so hard (aging so much slower than humans but so much faster than elves, and being unable to bond well with either) they decided against having children, but still they enjoyed a long and happy life together. In her 17th decade Angel felt her health deteriorating and knew her life was coming to a close. To her regret, her magical knowledge was nowhere near that of her father, but she accepted that that wasn't to be, came to grips with her mortality and died peacefully in her sleep, aided by elvish medicine, and leaving Raegel. Angel lived to the age of 168.

### Reborn

But she wasn't dead. Nor had she reincarnated. Immediately and without warning her mind and spirit were transferred to the body of a much, much younger self, suspended in a salt-brine tube, and a body that was perhaps only matured to 10 years in age. Several minutes of confusion passed with her remaining in this salt brine passed before her father entered the dungeon, informed of her arrival through an alarm spell, and unsealed the vat of brine bringing her release. Confused and unsure of how to feel, Angel listened as her father marveled at what he had done to retain her life. His words fell on deaf ears. Only a few hours ago she had been with her husband, at peace with leaving this life behind, and now here she was, a child, laying wet on a dungeon floor with only a wool blanket and the embrace of her strange father to bring her comfort. And now she was to live out another life, just like that. Again, as he had done 158 years ago, he procured a scalpel and, with her tentative consent, cut out a chunk of flesh from her thigh and began work on growing another clone for her.

Angel lived and matured to adulthood once again, though now with her life experiences still in tact she more or less found it impossible to feel like she was growing up. Though it was difficult to unexpectedly live out a new life, Angel found herself grateful for what her father had done and in her new life took her studies very seriously so that she could one day understand how such a magic was made. She wasn't as smart as her father, certainly, but her interest in the dark and unknown was intense, and her human half longed to dive into learning the dark secrets of the outer realms.

10 years later, when her body was 20, she decided to go out and adventure in order to gain a more hands-on experience, and on her journey stumbled across Raegel, the man she had fallen in love with, now venerable and almost at the end of his mortality. Somehow, it felt wrong that she should continue a new mortal life while her husband passed on, but it struck her that it didn't matter how she felt. That wasn't her decision. This was never for her to decide.

### The Shadow

(this section needs more development and possibly some DM guidance, since I don't know that it's fair to play my own patron).

Angel didn't appreciate the strictness of Arcane studies, and though she was gifted in wizardry she wasn't too keen on becoming just like her father. One of her older sisters, Nayu, shared her sentiment, but seemed to be able to cast without carrying around a spellbook. Nayu spent a good deal of time learning about the creation of arcane items, just like her father, but because she had little focus on wizardry her father largely ignored her work. Angel took it upon herself to learn what her half-sister was up to, but tried to keep her interest a secret: it was obvious Nayu had her secrets.

There came a day when Angel had her chance. Nayu had make a breakthrough on the creation of a magical rod and had fallen asleep in her lab. Angel snuck into her sister's room to snoop around and was surprised to find a number of black and red stone talismans written in Infernal.

I'm leaving this here, but it needs fleshing out. Sorry, as long as this paragraph is here just ignore this whole section!

Through her exploration, study, and adventuring she came across wild tomes that referred to a great entity simply called the Shadow. It emanated from the shadowfell, and claimed to know the secret intricacies of how a soul and a body separate and become tied together. Fascinated, Angel sought out and performed a ritual to form a pact with the being. When the ritual was complete, a shadowy silhouette stood in the summoning circle, though the being standing before her made no attempt to frighten Angel. Instead the Shadow as he called himself stood by and listened intently to her deal, briefly lamenting his lack of choice in the matter, and made a pact with her. She would help it explore the material plane (bonded to a material item, in this case her staff) and in exchange (since his knowledge was much deeper than she could understand yet) he would provide riddles as hints to its great knowledge, and would continue to provide its powers and information for as long as Angel's soul made the material plane its home.

At the age of 84 (94), while following one of Shadow's leads, Angel came upon the lair of a Nagpa. This creature, cursed by an unknown god and banished to never congregate with its own kind, was living as a hermit deep in a shadowy wood and practicing dark magic. In order to learn its secrets, Angel attempted to do battle and subdue it, but as it turned out luring her here was a trap laid by the Shadow to gain release from his pact, and Angel was slain. Again, Angel woke up in a sealed vat of brine, and once again Myrddin took her out and cut out a chunk of flesh to renew the spell.

To the Shadow's dismay, his pact had not been fulfilled, and once she was in a secluded place Angel called forth her black staff and reprimanded her patron. She wouldn't heed its advice and instructions until she was sure they were once again working together. Rather than go back to fight the Nagpa, Angel decided to search the world for a safer way to learn more of the arcane. She stumbled across a woman named Cassandra who told her of a magic school her friend Artemis was setting up. Seizing the opportunity, Angel traveled with Cassandra through a newly opened teleportation circle and visited Flouna with the aim of becoming a teacher and exploring the new world.

## Trivia

* Angel's first name is a human name. It's typical for half-elves to be given names of the parent whose culture they are not made a part of to show their distinction from others of that culture. Though her mother raised her, her father intended to raise her every lifetime, so she was given a human name.
* Ivaenodel means moonlight in elvish. When traveling among elves, Angel translates her name into common to avoid association with Myrddin
* Raegel's surname, Thym'killenddare, is an elvish name meaning 'hardships of the wind people.' He was raised by his human mother, being named after the elves to show his heritage as contrasted by the other humans
* Angel's body, as of the year 199, has only matured approximately 12 years. However, her birthdate (when she was released from the vat) is less than 3 years ago, and the body had completely grown 86 years ago.
* Because of the above point, Angel's age could be considered 12 (her body's maturity), 86 (how old her body is), 3 (the years since "birth" when her body ended its incubation), or 254 (the number of years she's been alive)
* Angel is starting with the same number of hit points that Kinetto had when she died (94).
* Angel's patron was going to be based off of lore regarding the Raven Queen, thus his ties to the Shadowfell and Nagpa. However, after giving him his generic name, the Shadow, his identity and antics were re-imagined to resemble the protagonist from the 1930s radio show of the same name.