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The Angels...newcomers to Invaria, and the inhabitants of one of the most inhospitable regions of the world -- the mountains around the Tower at Spire.

History
    The Angels, in addition to being very real and very dangerous denizens of the Arcas Mountains, have a very pronounced place in Invaria's mythology.  Long, long ago, when the world was still young and when men and elves had barely begun to settle rather than wander, the Demons of Light fought the Black Angels in the skies above Invaria, eventually bringing their fight to the planet's surface.  Somehow, at some point during the fighting, the angels and the demons fundamentally altered the world, creating the Balance.  Since those times, the angels and the demons have been used to frighten small children into behaving and in curses.

Officers of the Andes

Mynrei, Captain Ikara, XO Justen, Chief Engineer Layne, Communications Wendil, Security/Tactical Maret, Helm Zachariah, Logistics Ophelia, Marine CO

    Thirty years before the reign of Sean Jistani, the angels returned to Invaria when the Andes crashed in the Arcas Mountains, stranding a crew of eighty angels near the highest peak in the mountains, Hibernia.  This was the Fall.   There, on a plateau overlooking one of the few roadways through the mountains, the angels built Tower Black, the first building in what would become the city of Spire, designed by Justen, the famed engineer-smith of the angels.  The city that followed, also of Justen's design, and the society created through blood and toil in the Arcas Mountains is ruled to this day by the Marshal of Spire, Mynrei.
    Throughout the first six years of their lives on Invaria, the angels faced many attacks by the White Armies and rampant distrust, which made their survival difficult.  The majority of individuals at Spire are, in fact, either half-angel or bear no angel blood at all.  From the first eighty angels came twenty-nine full angel children.  As those first few years passed and humans came to live at Spire, angels and humans began to interbreed, begetting a thriving population of half-angel youth to populate Spire.
    The fighting prowess the angels demonstrated during those first few turbulent years drew the attention of many Black mages and followers of Order, but only the young Sean Jistani dared to request their aid in fighting against the White Armies twenty years after the Fall.  The angels fought side-by-side with Jistani's armies, helping him to forge the nation of Myst and confine the White Armies to Nanu and Portus.  Jistani granted the Arcas Mountains to the angels, leaving the area under their control, despite its location within the borders of Myst.
    Since Jistani's war against the White Armies, Spire has grown from a few black stone buildings into a thriving city of several thousand residents, all ruled by Mynrei and the Code she set down in those earliest days after the Andes fell.

Social Structure, Observations, and Notes
    While angels can now be found across Invaria, the heart of all Invarian angels is inevitably at Spire, from where all angels on Invaria came.  Angel society is matriarchal and follows the Code as set down by Mynrei in the first years after the Fall.  Spire is ruled by the Marshal, Mynrei.  Her second and heir apparent is the Marshalle, Katrine, her daughter by Justen.  
    Despite the matriarchal nature of angel society, many angels, whether publicly or secretly, look up to Justen, the former chief engineer of the Andes and now one of the most powerful engineer-smiths in the world.  All angels owe to Justen the creation of the black steel short swords they wield, for it was he who found a way to create them.  He was also the first of the surviving men of the Andes to take a human wife.
    Dayala, the full angel daughter of Ophelia and Zachariah, is the nominal liaison between Spire and the rulers of Myst.  She married the younger brother of Sean Jistani, Rowan, and has since become a respected figure at Castle Mirdreth, capital of Myst, both for her tactical expertise and her prowess in combat.

Notable Angels

• Mynrei - former commander of the Andes, now Marshal of Spire.  Mynrei is known for being cold, hard, and relatively unforgiving.  She is the mother of two children, a daughter, Katrine, by Justen and a son, Alexander, by artificial insemination (she will not reveal who the donor was, but most speculate that Alexander is Zachariah's son).  She is well-versed in combat and wields the angels favored twin short swords with deadly prowess.  It is speculated that she has the gift of prophecy, although she will neither confirm nor deny this fact.  During Jistani's war, she led angel forces against the White Armies in several daring strikes and fought side-by-side with Sean Jistani in the Battle of Revale, thus helping close the borders between the White nations and the Black nations.  Mynrei resides at Spire, still actively participating in the training of new troopers who come to Spire.  Recently, she has had a falling-out with her only son, Alexander, who now resides at Castle Mirdreth.
• Justen - former chief engineer of the Andes, now a powerful engineer-smith.  Justen gave up the blade just five years after the Fall after almost being rendered blind almost permanently during one of the larger attacks launched against Spire.  Prior to the Fall, Justen had been Mynrei's lover, and shortly after their arrival on Invaria, they conceived a child, Katrine.  Justen, however, broke it off with Mynrei shortly after their daughter's birth and poured himself into his work.  While visiting a human settlement on the road between Spire and Nylan's capital of Myrdinn, Justen met a young refugee woman, Selene, who returned with him to Spire.  He married her not long after and from the union came Trinity.  During Sean Jistani's war against the White Armies, Justen briefly took up the sword again to defend the Black armies' fall-back point, the ancient Castle Mirdreth, from a surprise attack while the bulk of Jistani's forces were elsewhere.  Justen's Stand has since become a legendary battle, and one that once again, almost cost the engineer-smith his sight permanently.  Since then, Justen has completely given up the sword except to train others, including his daughter, Trinity.  He is better known now as a smith and resides at Castle Mirdreth.
• Dayala - daughter of Ophelia and Zachariah, wife of Sean Jistani's beloved brother, Rowan.  Dayala is a skilled fighter who met Rowan Jistani during the war against the White Armies.  She lead the angel garrison stationed at Castle Mirdreth after the war and within a year married Rowan Jistani.  She has since given birth to a half angel daughter, Kadara, who shows promise as a Storm wizard and bears the gift of prophecy.  Dayala is a liaison between Spire and Mirdreth, although she is not the formal one nor is she the only one.
• Trinity Fletcher (created by Kristie Good) - daughter of Justen and Selene and member of the original Guard as formed by Sean Jistani.  Trinity, an engineer-smith like her father before her, was selected as a member of Sean Jistani's elite Guard, which was utilized heavily for various tasks before and during the Balance War.  She has since retired her blades and married her childhood sweetheart, Alexander, and borne two children.  She and her husband are now the Master Smiths for the Black Armies and resides at Castle Mirdreth. 
• Alexander Fletcher (created by Kristie Good and Erin Klitzke) - son of Mynrei and an unknown male angel (presumed Zachariah) and former soldier of Spire.  Alexander was identified as a potential engineer-smith at a young age and as such was sent to learn the craft, despite his mother's reluctance, at the knee of Justen.  It was while he was apprenticed to Justen that he met Trinity, a half-angel his own age.  The pair fell in love despite Mynrei's attempts to destroy the relationship, but Alexander was lost in a raid on Spire.  He reappeared working on a road crew near the border of Caelum and Portus and was liberated from his enslavement by the Guard.  Since then, he has had a major falling-out with his mother, Mynrei, and left Spire, seemingly for good.  He married Trinity following the Balance War and had two children with her.  He is now a Master Smith for the Black Armies, working side by side with his wife, and resides at Castle Mirdreth.

Game Mechanics
    Angel characters are quite powerful and should only be played by trusted gamers.  The major disadvantage to the race is that they have distinctive characteristics (including strange hair and eye color) and are relative newcomers to Invaria, and their deadly reputation proceeds them.  Another major disadvantage is the prevalence of order-based powers that the Angels are gifted with, which often, eventually, makes them give up the blade.

Personality: The angels, as relative newcomers to the world, have trouble trusting most people.  The rigorous training each angel receives at Spire teaches them to by and large hide what they really feel from everyone except those closest to them; in extreme cases, they hide their emotions from everyone.  Showing feeling to an enemy, they believe, is a liability and is quite possibly the most dangerous mistake one can make.  Among friends in relaxed settings, angels tend to be passionate, affectionate, and expressive.  The angels appreciate music, skill, and craftsmanship.  They are undyingly loyal once given to a cause they truly believe in. 
Physical Description:  The angels have a roughly human-like build, ranging in height from about 5 to 6 feet on average and weighing 100 to 200 pounds on average.  All are a little more wiry than humans, but are more easily identified as angels or as individuals descended from angel stock by the unusual color of their hair, and, less commonly, their eyes.  Angels have been known to have hair the color of quicksilver, molten metal, and black as night, for example.  Angel children reach majority at about eighteen years old, although they are often found among the ranks of Spire's martial forces around the age of fifteen or sixteen, and live to be over 100 years old, barring accident, injury, and illness.
Relations:  The angels are something of an outcast race.  Having crashed on the world rather than evolved there, they are held somewhat apart from the other aces.  However, they have come to trust the elves almost unconditionally, and bear no malice toward the gnomes and dragons.  They have never encountered the dwarves.  The humans are another sort altogether -- the angels tend to look at the status and nation of humans rather than the race as a whole.  The angels react negatively to chaos and positively to order and readily accept refugees of all races at Spire that are willing to fight for order and Spire.
Alignment:  The angels, by and large, live by Mynrei's Code, set down in the early days after the Fall.  Many of the angels serving away from Spire, however, or who embrace the ideology of Justen over the Code, tend toward neutrality rather than law.  They tend to embrace good -- there have been no evil angels reported on Invaria since the Fall.  They are regarded as just individuals.
Angel Holdings:  The angels hold the Arcas Range of mountains in northern Myst.  Their stronghold is Spire, with the Tower Black as the seat of the Marshal, the head angel.  The angels keep herds of sheep and goats and some maintain farms growing mostly potatoes and exotic trade items such as frostspice and iceroot.  Their metal goods, in many cases, are highly in demand, as is the black wool produced by some of their sheep.
    Outside of Spire, many angels are found serving in garrisons or city guards sanctioned by the government of Myst.  Some civilian angels and those retired from combat roles can be found throughout Myst, Caelum, and Nylan and in more limited numbers in Trinvale and Litus, plying various trades.
Religion:  The angels nominally follow the Balance, but their allegiance is to order above all.
Language:  The angels speak what appears to be a root language of common called Temple.  Their primary language, however, is common.  The two languages share the same alphabet, plus or minus a few letters either way.
Names:  In most cases, angels have no surname.  Sometimes, they will adopt one, sometimes that of their consort or a non-angel parent and other times one that is meaningful to them.
Adventurers:  Most angels who leave Spire originally left as part of a squad of troopers.  Some end up falling in with adventuring parties after their tour is over, if their squad is somehow destroyed, or if they are separated from their squad.

Angel Racial Traits

• +1 Strength, +2 Dexterity, -1 Wisdom, -2 Charisma.  Angels are trained from an early age as warriors.  As such, they do not have much time to learn the proper social graces or about the new world that they reside on.
• +1 Reflex and Will saves.  Angels are naturally strong-willed and their reflexes are naturally superb.
• +3 save vs cold.  The angels are originally from a very cold climate and reside in the high mountains where it is cold most of the year.
• Medium-size: As Medium-size creatures, angels get no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Angel base speed is 30 feet.
• Automatic weapon proficiency: Angel Shortsword.  The favored weapon of the angels is a set of black alloy shortswords in the style first crafted on Invaria by Justen.  The shortswords are a matched pair, usually carried one at the hip and one across the back or both across the back; one may be thrown and the angel will not be left defenseless without it.  They are trained from childhood to wield these weapons with precision accuracy.
• Low-light vision: Angels see twice as far as humans in starlight, moonlight, torchlight and other forms of dim illumination.  They retain the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions as well.
• Automatic languages: Temple and common.  Bonus languages:  Elven, draconic, and regional dialects.
• Armor restriction: Angels usually do not wear armor, when they do it is always leather armor consisting of boots, leather pants, a leather vest with or without shoulder coverings, bracers, and sometimes gauntlets
• 75% change of possessing order/chaos senses.  Roll percentile dice.  With a result of 1-75, roll on the following table to determine type of order powers.