Lasciel, She Who Mars the Skin of Gods

Mierin's father, Theryn Tomanelle, was the chief of the Whiteface Icewalkers, a small tribe of a few dozens who worshipped the Mammoth as their Totem and Animal Master, following the herds of the giant animals across the frigid wastelands of the north to make their living off of them. Theryn was a true hero and leader of his people, as should be all chiefs of the Icewalker tribes; he wore around himself a cloak made of the fur of several Varajtul barbarians, a result of three rebuked invasions and two personal incursions into their territory, both succesful in culling the creatures' numbers and in highly increasing his prestige and honour among his peers. Around the time Mierin grew to womanhood, her father had already been chief for more than thirty years.

Mierin's mother, Snow Drifting Through Ice, was the tribe's shaman, making a rare and curious situation where the chief and shaman were actually married. This was significant in the years of Mierin's childhood, as she was exposed to the precepts and obligations of both the chief and the shaman, coming to understand the duties and necessities of both positions, as well as their difficulties. Snow was a great shaman - one of the best, in fact, able to easily commune and deal with lesser spirits and ghosts, and seemingly always able to placate the anger of their Animal Totem.

Like all Icewalker children, Mierin grew learning the arts and crafts of the tribe, how to properly and respectfully hunt their sacred herd, how to deal with loss and tragedy - death is always right around the corner in the frigid North, and there was seldom a month were there were no deaths in the tribe; all learned how to cope with the reality of death and how to move on, eventually. Mierin reached womanhood as one of the tribe's best hunters, and also one of its best warriors, always present in raids and skirmishes against the tribe's enemies; some even wondered if she would be the one to succeed her father as chief, even being a woman, due to the amount of prestige and honour she had already attained at such an young age.

But alas, Mierin's destiny was not one of greatness, but one of despair...

For all of Snow Drifting Through Ice's prowess as a shaman, sometimes the pleas of mortals simply do not reach into the ears of gods and spirits, or factors unfathomable to mortal minds conspire in a way to tie such a being's actions and powers. Whatever the case, on a fateful day like any other, as the tribe was preparing to head out and organize a hunt to replenish its food stocks, Snow felt a strange prickling sensation, a chill at the base of her spine, and she chose to ignore it, spelling the doom of herself and her tribe in her moment of hesitation.

As the hunting party reached the grazing field where the sacred herd of the tribe lay resting, instead of finding their sacred animals as they always had been, they were met with the scene of a slaughter. A Dragon-Blooded Exalted, drunk with power and uncaring for the lives of others, lay slaughtering the majestic beasts one by one for sport, the greatest and most heinous crime. As one, the hunting party advanced against the Dragon-Blooded, but they were no match for one of the Exalted. One by one, the warriors of the tribe fell to enemy, until only Mierin and half a dozen others remained.

It was not honourable, but the remaining warriors quickly reached a decision to ensure the tribe's survival; while the remaining warriors would try to divert the Dragon-Blooded's attention, Mierin was to return to the tribe and warn them of his presence, escaping the slaughter and allowing a second chance somewhere else. However, the Exalted was much too powerful; he quickly murdered the warriors and set upon pursuing Mierin, laughing all the time.

So it was that he followed her into the tribe, and proceeded to slaughter every last living being, human or animal, adult or child, right in front of Mierin's eyes, as she lay in the snow, broken and dying, unable to raise a hand in protest. As the tears froze on her cheeks and her eyes, as she felt the last breath of life coursing through her body, Mierin raised her eyes to the heavens above and cried out a curse against the merciless gods and spirits of the world, who should have protected and safeguarded their faithful children.

Such was the power of her grief, such the magnitude of her despair, that her death curse quivered through the very pillars of Creation, pulling the attention of the Deathlord Eye and Seven Despairs, who roused of his inactivity to offer Mierin a second chance, the chance of revenge and reckoning.

She gladly accepted.

In the depths of the Underworld, Mierin was exposed to the Five Understandings of the Abyss, or rather, had them hammered down into her very soul. Afterwards, she was taken to the very border of the Abyss, to the tomb of Abhorrence of Life, the Neverborn master of Eye and Seven Despairs, and there the dead Primordial whispered into her head, crushing her soul and mind with unspeakable terror and complete bliss, unravelling the mysteries of Creation itself with each word, soon forgotten by the crushing despair of the Neverborn's presence in her very self. There, at the edge of Oblivion, all which was Mierin Tomanelle was cast into the void, and the deathknight that bent the knee to the power of the Neverborn was given a new name: She Who Mars the Skin of Gods.

In truth, Eye and Seven Despairs is a fickle master, as the Deathlord is usually more concerned with his own petty revenges than with any over-arching plans, leading into a great degree of freedom to his Deathknights. Of course, Lasciel - as she has taken to calling herself in Creation - gets plenty of missions from her Liege Lord, and she must hurry to obey or face the consequences, but for the most part she can act independently towards her own goals without reprisal.