D'Vaal

First Appearance

D'Vaal is a Cleric of Ezra who first appears in the Chibiloft comics of Quoth the Raven Issue 28. From Rock's Timeline, it can be inferred that she first met the Chibiloft Crewmembers Aubert, Wick and Slap in Sithicus in the autumn of 765 BC. At the time, D'Vaal seemed to wish to join the 'Crew, only for her offer to be rebuffed; Aubert was confident that he could provide the group with healing, Wick was confident that he could provide the offensive magic they needed, and Slap humorously misinterpreted D'Vaal's cursing the situation by pointing she had the task of 'damning it' covered.

Return

D'Vaal next appears in the run of Chibiloft comics of Quoth the Raven Issue 30, where she presents herself to Aubert and Wick as the ship's chaplain of the vessel Dead Reckoning. She is incensed when the two adventurers do not even appear to remember having met her before and just walk on by. Near the end of this volume of Quoth the Raven, it turns out that D'Vaal has allied herself with Arcael, the Levkarest Lycanthrope, the Toothless Nosferatu and Urtica, who were all present aboard the ship. While she does not state her intentions outright, the fact that D'Vaal is part of the lineup of hostile characters suggests that she has tracked down the Chibiloft Crew for the purpose of revenge for having been snubbed.

Background

D'Vaal is a member of a heretical splinter sect of the Church of Ezra known as the Silver Blade of Ezra, first discussed on the Fraternity of Shadows forums here: https://fraternityofshadows.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8239.

D'Vaal first entered the Church of Ezra as a member of the the Home Faith. Her intention in doing so was to get away from the hard labour and starvation she faced in a Levkarest orphanage where she spent her earliest childhood. Surprisingly - to herself, at least - D'Vaal found comfort and solace in the church for a time, and grew to be quite devout. She became dissatisfied seeing how often the clergy bent over backwards to accommodate the Borcan aristocracy. As she wished to focus on her goddess and her faith, she decided to leave Borca and join the the Dementlieuse sect in Dementlieu.

Initially, life as a Dementlieuse Anchorite of Ezra suited D'Vaal very well. She spent her days in contemplation and study, and her nights in prayer and meditation. She had a fine hand at scribing and illumination, which led her superiors to assign her responsible tasks, such as compiling life accounts of various Anchorites for the church's historical record. Unfortunately, this decision would prove to be in error. For years, D'Vaal dutifully compiled the accounts of Ezra's travelling priests, her saints. But rather than see the good done in the name of the goddess, what D'Vaal saw was the way the world turned against Ezra's grace. This priest had been stoned to death for witchcraft; that priestess had been denied access to the sick by heathen clergy... everywhere, petty fools and servants of evil were hard at work to prevent the good works of the church or even undo them, sheltered by wealth, authority or both.

D'Vaal started to reconsider the condition of the Church as it existed in the Core, and she came to the conclusion that the institution she had grown to love was teetering on the edge of the abyss. The Borcan Sect was kowtowing to secular authority, which she believed to be the result of a long-standing, dedicated campaign of subversion. The Dementlieuse sect, for all its peace and contentment, was lurking in a decayed ruin and lost in thought. The Mordentish sect was passionate, but stuck in a tiny little country and lacking resources. The Darkonese sect had at least as much fire as the Mordentish, but it was lashing out only at obvious monsters and seemed oblivious to the threat posed by mundane humanity.

D'Vaal became one of the founding members of the Silver Blade, a qabal of Clerics who believe that those who oppose the goddess's mission deserve to be destroyed by the very Legions of the Night Ezra guards people from -- even if those forces need to be conjured and controlled by the Silver Blade. She has become a travelling Anchorite, not for the purposes of saving victims, but to destroy those she considers to be enemies of the faith...