Gaea’s Background
From Changeling Venue
This is a work in progress.
1986: Gaea was born to a small family in Washington State, true name unknown. Mother’s name is Belinda, father’s name unknown but he was a professor at a local college. Life relatively normal up onto being stolen at age 5.
1991-1997: At age 5 Gaea is coaxed through a hedge portal by Vestigere and given to his mistress, "The Lady Choir" who specialized in taking children and training them for entertainment purposes for other gentry. The Choir is rather cruel and a hard taskmaster, but insures that all who make it out her door are beautiful, talented, and most of all subservient. Those that don’t make it are sent to work to death in her gold mines, or worse.
Gaea is given her name when she is sold to Gentry Marcus Julius Draconis at age 12 for singing, dancing, and harp playing.
Was given “The Crassus Curse” by Draconis for refusing him at age 15. If one angered him he gave them the Curse and poured molten precious metals down their throat till their insides were filled. He then would peel the flesh of the newly created work of art and set it about the houses for his masterpieces to be placed on. A reminder that while failure is not an option, loyalty is rewarded, and disloyalty is worth humiliation and waste. However Draconis had second thoughts at the last moment and was able stop her from dying, but she was severely injured from it.
This resulted in the scarring of her vocal cords and gold plating of her lips and teeth. Hands were also damaged badly by accident during punishment. After much work by a Chirgeon, Audra Rene Liudvikas, her vocal cords were repaired enough for speech and the like (though she would never be able to sing as she used to) and hands were replaced with gold crafted hands that worked as normal ones. Punishment is to live as slave and reminder of what happens when one refuses Draconis.
Five wizened and Gaea attempt to escape one night after Gaea has healed from punishment. Gaea does not originally go willingly, however as she travels further through the hedge and more of her soul comes back to her, she becomes more willing, realizing that once Draconis catches them they’re dead. She never wants to face the anger of Draconis on the hunt.
As far as Gaea can remember,(which is probably not correctly) during the hunt Draconis captures all wizened but one, who leads Draconis away from Gaea so she can get away (currently looking for player characters to have escaped with).
1997: Gaea almost looses the path but is found by a Beast, Anthony Faelis who helps her escape the hedge into St. Louis, MO.
1997: Gaea does not understand the English language from her time in Arcadia. Anthony lets Gaea stay at his safe house for the first two years of her life in the mortal world as she reacclimatizes to society. At one point Stephen Daedalus wanders through town and after hearing her speak to herself a few times realizes that she speaks Classical Latin to everyone’s surprise.
1997: Gaea wanders into the hedge twice in her first six months back before Anthony finally gets through to her that going back is not an option unless she wants to die. (Which she certainly would).
1998: Gaea slowly begins to understand English with the help of Clockwork tutoring her in English. She joins the Summer court as she finds martial skills channel her frustration and anger over what happened to her in Arcadia. She realizes while she can’t change what happened to her she wants more than anything to stop it from happening to others and to help people as she’s been helped.
1999: Due to this Gaea moves to Austin, thinking that there aren’t enough safe houses of the Innkeeper’s Guild in the south U.S. She starts her own safe house called “The Harp’s Hostel” in a small hollow she makes for herself with a machete and her own resolve as little more than a bolt hole. She joins the Innkeepers (a pc group of people keeping safe houses around the U.S.) as a full member.
1999- 2001: Over time she makes it larger, but always keeps the hollow warded better than Fort Knox. If travelers wish to stay, they pay 1 glamour a week or make help make the hostel better in some ways (for those who are handy with a wrench, etc.) She pays Clara, a wizened oracle, to protect her Hostel by giving her notice when she “sees” that it is in danger.
2003: She saves her money till the day when she can open her own business, a coffee shop in the Village & Burnett area called “Ino’s Coffee Bean Co.” It leads easily to her Hostel and is the place she allows visiting changelings to meet her.
Gaea has an irrational fear of Ogres due to Draconis, but she sees it as weakness she must overcome, something the summer court in her cannot tolerate to fear. Clara has a bodyguard named Tim who is an Ogre. After discussing the problem with Clara she sets Tim and Gaea up to hang out, in a sort of therapy session about once a week. Their first meeting is filled with mistakes and accidents. Over time however, Tim and Gaea become very close, almost like siblings. Tim is one of the few people that Gaea truly trusts. Though she’s never completely gotten over her fear, she has learned to control it and use it.
1999-2006 She does not trust nor like Leland. Early in her arrival to Austin he gets on her nerves and she never really forgets it. As the years move on and he becomes more powerful she feels his actions are improper and sometimes reckless, and she stubbornly refuses to work with him at every turn, never allowing him or his lackeys near her hollow. This makes her vastly unpopular locally in the early 2000s and she stays away for extended periods of time (at least in the summer) playing in the Summer Games at various places, slowly becoming better at her spear skills while winning various competitions. During her times away she leaves the hostel in the hands of the only people she trusts, her motley mates.
2007 When Gaea was around she refused to attend court sessions, and in early January she was lucky enough not to be at the freehold when the Gentry attacked. She did however hear of it as an injured and scared changeling came to her home, not knowing where else to go. With the careful wards she had put into place she was able to hide the changeling that came inside her hostel, while she went out to fight the gentry that had appeared.
Unfortunately by the time she got to 6th street, Leland and the others were gone, and the Gentry had disappeared. Gaea swore vengeance, and to find out the truth of what happened. Gaea also found Zachariah where the others had disappeared at.
Early 2007- Present Over the last year of vindication she’s done what she can to help build the local court back, but there is little she can do now that the numbers are so low. For the most part she has simply tried to find those that are left.
2007- Present Won the Summer Tournament held by the Magistrates of the Wax Masque.
