V'Shaat al-Avra
Founder of the Sagasingers, Chief Tactician of the Insurgent Gods
V'Shaat al-Avra is the full birth name of the Material God of fire, bravery, ingenuity and freedom, V'Shaat. She is the founder and joint commander of the Dreadnoughts (and before them the Sagasingers), alongside the dwarven demigod Galadnock mac-Kenzie.
Prior to ascension to demigodhood, V'Shaat was a spellsword, pyromancer and arcane trickster of considerable prowess. Mentored by mac-Kenzie in her later years, she would also become a Master Flamespeaker of Tong Deum, modifying its techniques into an art known as Senjutsu.
al-Avra and mac-Kenzie would eventually join forces with the traveling heroes Emeliat Reis and Merlinkainen, becoming the four founding members of the Insurgent Gods on Waking Materia: arch-nemeses of the Colonial Gods.
As with her ascendant incarnation, the Insurgent Goddess was likely Chaotic Good in alignment.Appearance & Heraldry
See also: V'Shaat & The Dreadnoughts Image Gallery (External)al-Avra is mostly portrayed as she looked in life: with dark Tassalin skin & hair and bright amber eyes. She was famously short in stature but lithe and wiry strong. It was said her gaze could burn a hole through a baobab tree, figuratively and perhaps literally.
Origins
The Radiant's is a long and storied history.Tassalit
al-Avra was born on the (relative to Waking Materia) distant plane of Tassalit. A street urchin turned criminal mastermind, V'Shaat's band of merry thieves wreaked havoc on the orderliness of her home nation of Aroane's Gift, without even an inkling of their multiplanar destiny.
Forced to deal with the band's disruptions but too old for emotions like annoyance or vengeance, the nation's sovereign, a sphinx by the name of Annan the Attentive, decided it more convenient to employ the band than to eliminate them. By then a powerful self-taught spellsword, V'Shaat learned the secrets of Voidwalking from the ancient sphinx, and her group was tasked with two missions: observation of the enlightened but sinister Rozsan Commonwealth on neighboring planes, and stealing any knowledge the advanced Rozsans possessed around agriculture or silviculture (a dire limiting factor for arid Tassalit's health). As these goals benefitted her homeland as a whole, particularly the poor, V'Shaat agreed.
Most of the original members of the Tassalin Sagasingers have been lost to history, though two of V'Shaat's closest partners are still attested in the church's oldest texts: B'Non il-Anrau, said to be a swordsman of great ferocity, and R'Ani il-Duat, said to be a spy-inquisitor assigned to V'Shaat by Annan the Attentive. Initially feigned, il-Duat's loyalty to the mage-thief grew more real than the densest iron over the following decades.The Sagasingers
Eventually, V'Shaat discovered the stakes were higher than her tiny and relatively well-run home plane, and she broke from Annan the Attentive's government. Her merry band became an infamous organization of planar guides, vigilantes, archaeologists, anthropologists and liberators. An allegiance of convenience with a rival gang run by the dwarven skald Galadnock mac-Kenzie would evolve into a deep friendship between the two, and their bands would merge, becoming The Sagasingers. V'Shaat studied under mac-Kenzie in arts of the Flamespeakers of Tong Deum, eventually becoming a Master herself. The Sagasingers would operate for a nearly a century before V'Shaat met the Lorgainite heroes Emeliat Reis and Merlinkainen, who were bent on pursuing the Lichlord Inum'indiron'aravaut through Voidspace, but lacked the knowledge. V'Shaat, joined by Galadnock mac-Kenzie, agreed only to help them track the Lichlord, but by the time they arrived at their destination, Reis and Merlinkainen had won them to the cause. Thus, the four became the Insurgent Heroes of First Age Waking Materia, and eventually the Insurgent Gods.
Materia: The First Age
Materia's Upper First Age was a series of wars between the Insurgent Gods and Lichlord Ina'ut. Alongside Merlinkainen and his student, the archabjurer Tekchinyulot Ch'tosé of Locrian Hall, she was the major tactition of the Insurgent Gods, a skill honed by years of guerilla warfare against some of the smartest creatures in the Known Universe.
The ancient Sagasingers would branch and evolve over the coming millennia, leaving its mark on dozens of modern organizations. The first, most famously, was the Dreadnoughts, who remain the church's mosy important martial order to this day. Another early example are the Anzu Riders of Tel, which formed from a specialized unit sent to infiltrate the Devastators of the Colonial God Indu'una, renouned for their use of trained megafauna in battle.
Of all the Sagasingers' spiritual successors, the most widespread and recognized are the Dreadnoughts: fierce paladins of freedom, bravery and, of course, fire. Both the Sagasingers and the Dreadnoughts have been unfailing allies with the Flamespeakers of Tong Deum, a sort of monastic coven of skald-monks whose beliefs Galadnock mac-Kenzie continued to teach and practice on Materia.
V'Shaat al-Avra
Race
Meranthic human
Born
Aroane's Gift, Tassalit
Birthdate
Unknown; Pre-First Age
Roles
Commander-in-Chief of the Sagasingers
Master Flamespeaker of Tong Deum
Insurgent God of Waking Materia
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