Gizelle Model Sheet

Gizelle is a tricky character to write for, but for different reasons than others. She's an amnesiac (which isn't a spoiler, since it is part of her character right up front), which leaves two levels to consider for her character: the one that both the audience and characters get to know right up front, and the one that she'll become after some inevitable revelations reshape her view of herself. 

It's a different kind of tightrope to walk because while you want the revelation to be personal, you don't want it to be too small (e.g. she ate some bad fish tacos and slipped and hit her head while running to the outhouse). However, as part of an ensemble cast, where it is sort of set up to give everyone a chance to shine and have some mystery in their history, you can't make those revelations too grandiose (e.g. she had her memory sealed away because she is secretly a 10,000-winged unstoppable archangel that can go "One Punch Man" on all the villains), because that kind of writing just leads to an obnoxious Deus-Ex-Machina-ass-pull ending for a story.

It always comes back to balance. For writers, "deepest lore" is fun to write and all, but you can also write yourself into a corner—or off a cliff—with that crap. 

I think I managed to come up with a good balance for the before and after that will be deeply personal, and have some effect on the world around her, without being either a blip or a brick on the storyline.... of course you won't get to see the "after" version for quite a while, so without further adieu, here is Gizelle, memory-version-1.0. 

Name: “Gizelle” 

Allegiance: The Sunken Meadow (formerly The Meadowlands)/Arcadian Knights

An enigma, even unto herself, Gizelle has spent her life searching for answers to questions she doesn’t know to ask. An amnesiac, Gizelle’s recollection began the day she awoke in the deeply decayed ruins of a royal palace in the far western territory known once as The Meadowlands Empire, now an abandoned and fallen kingdom called The Sunken Meadow, ruled by superstition, abandoned by hope, and populated only by the forgotten—or those who want to be forgotten.

As she slowly dug through the ruins, driven by a little voice inside her, she began to find clues—a music box that played a melody she could almost recall, a dress that fit as if it was tailored for her, and finally, a small locket, with a gorgeous crest on one side, the name “Gizelle” inscribed on the other, and a delicately carved relief inside, made of bone, and bearing her image.

Brash, hotheaded, filled with anger, and haunted by the echoes of emotions bore out of a life she has no memory of, Gizelle sank into desperation. Feeling the merger clues she was left with would never bring her answers, and still needing to survive, she turned to banditry, honing those skills, with a hand that her victims would swear was truly, seemingly impossibly, quicker than the eye—until one day she attempted to rob a young Gypsy seer, who had no eyes, but saw Gizelle’s every move before she made it. Sensing a strange destiny swirling about her, the seer offered to take Gizelle back to her troupe, promising that they could help find the answers Gizelle had desperately sought as far back as she could remember—which was not far at all.

Bitterly haunted by the unknown, Gizelle went with the seer, who tried to assuage the temper and anger that were now seemingly carved into Gizelle’s being. As time went on, and days and weeks stretched into months and years, Gizelle’s heart softened, and the seer and her troupe helped unlock talents and powers inside Gizelle that were beyond her wildest dreams, and which they believed must have been rooted in her forgotten past life.

Then one day a new member came to the troupe—an adventurer—an artificer, with an encyclopedic knowledge of ancient curios and relics. The seer felt a deep importance to Gizelle in this newcomer, and brought to him the three items Gizelle had closely guarded from the day she awoke. The music box and dress piqued his curiosity, but when Gizelle showed him the locket, he dropped to his knees, proclaiming that the signet on the locket was that of the long-lost royal lineage of The Meadowlands Empire, and the carved image inside was that of its heir, and bowing before Gizelle, declared her his Queen—The bandit queen of the lost empire.