Gabriel
Gabriel
Also known as The Reluctant Leader Pronouns he/him Race Children Affiliation Gilded Requiem (leader) Status Alive
Gabriel is the current leader of the mercenary company Gilded Requiem - a rational, considerate man of honor who never wanted the role, and who carries a dangerous secret: he is, himself, a Horror.
Biography
Gabriel was five when bandits destroyed his Clairnian village of Verràvin, leaving him orphaned in the ash. He was found by Dalil, leader of the mercenary band Gilded Requiem, who took him in; the company became his family and the open road his home. Under Dalil’s tutelage he grew into a natural mediator and leader, and became Dalil’s right hand.
In his nineteenth year, restless and proud, Gabriel left to find his own way. Two years later he was ambushed on the outskirts of Athens and taken by apostate cultists who sought to forge a living weapon to win the War of Horrors. Over months of agony his essence was fused with something dark and hungry - he was made into a Horror. Salvation came when Dalil and Gilded Requiem, tracking rumors of apostates making new Horrors, stormed the cultists’ hideout; it was Dalil himself who broke Gabriel’s chains. With Dalil’s patient help Gabriel slowly learned to master his new nature, and the company kept his condition hidden - for in a world at war, Horrors were synonymous with the enemy. Only Gilded Requiem’s reputation, Dalil’s sway with the four nations, and Gabriel’s own proven loyalty kept him tolerated.
A year ago - in 1537 - a routine mission went wrong, and Gabriel watched Dalil fall to an enemy’s claw. The surviving members voted unanimously to make him their leader. Now, at twenty-nine, he grapples daily with grief, with doubt in his own command, and with the ever-present fear that the Horror within might one day overwhelm him - yet he perseveres, to protect his chosen family and honor Dalil’s memory.