> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Marcelle the Broken > [![[Codex/Assets/Characters/Marcelle_the_Broken_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Codex/Assets/Characters/Marcelle_the_Broken.webp) > ###### Basic Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Character | > ###### Character Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Creature Type | Humanoid | > Species | Elf | > Gender | Female | > Pronouns | She/Her | > Age | ~80 | > Place | [[Val Noren]] | > Connections | [[Dread General Gerard Blackmarsh]]<br>[[Valtorran Empire]]<br>[[Hand of The Empire]]<br>[[General Korvas]] | > Profession | Imperial Mage<br>Voice of the Empire | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Deceased | **Marcelle the Broken** was a young elven mage serving as a personal subordinate to [[Dread General Gerard Blackmarsh]] during the [[Valtorran Empire|Imperial]] siege of [[Val Noren]]. Taken by the Empire as a child and trained as a Voice — a class of magic-wielding propagandists and battlefield casters — she had long since been reduced to an instrument of pure compliance, her will ground away until nothing remained but loyalty and craft. Her epithet was not a wound she bore reluctantly; it was a designation the Empire considered an achievement. ## Biography Marcelle was seized by [[Valtorran Empire|the Empire]] in childhood and inducted into the Voice of the Empire programme — a cadre of elven and human mages trained to project Imperial authority through both arcane power and coercive presence. Somewhere in those years of conditioning her identity was methodically dismantled. By the time she emerged, she was capable, dangerous, and entirely hollow — a mage of considerable skill who asked no questions and required no persuasion. She was assigned to Blackmarsh's command and operated as both battlefield asset and personal aide, acting in lockstep with [[General Korvas]] when the Dread General required subordinates he could trust without supervision. She carried herself with the particular stillness of someone who had learned that personality was a liability. Her bald head and elven ears were distinctive, but her expression rarely was — blank, forward-facing, doing precisely what was asked and nothing else. ### [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 36 - General Korvas]] When [[Dread General Gerard Blackmarsh]] confronted the party in the occupied streets of [[Val Noren]] and used a crushed purple jewel to restore [[General Korvas|Korvas's]] suppressed loyalties, he departed immediately — leaving Korvas and Marcelle to destroy the party. She proved a capable and aggressive combatant, using *Arcane Burst* and teleportation to harry the group from multiple angles. When [[Barak Stormrider]] of [[The Mawbreakers]] interrupted the battle, Marcelle seized the tactical opening: she grabbed Korvas and opened a spatial rift, pulling them both clear before the rebels could consolidate. #### [[Session 40 - General Blackmarsh]] At [[The Stoneheart]], Marcelle stood alongside Blackmarsh in the cathedral chamber as the party burst from the crypts below. She climbed to the upper balcony to rain arcane bursts down onto the party from above, but [[Ryo]] put a critical arrow through the gap between the pillars — she fell back against the railing and did not rise. Her death preceded Blackmarsh's by minutes.