By Kayla Matt

Weaver of Destiny.  Lord of Hell.  Father of the Song Casters.  The Tri-God.  This guy has a lot of names that I haven’t even discovered yet.  Now, it is awkward doing an origin for Gabriel because he’s all me and he was never in the game.  I decided to have the gods of Windemere act similar to the influential Greek Gods, so I began making a pantheon of beings who would pull the strings of mortals.  Their powers tend to be absolute and I can go as wild as I want with their description, so the challenge is always their personalities.

The first to be designed and flushed out was Gabriel, the god of destiny.  Somewhere along the line he gained the last of the black unicorns, the ability to cast magic by singing, and rule over Hell.  This was before he ever stepped outside of his one-page character bio in my notebook.  By the time he appeared in Beginning of a Hero, he was a force to be feared and respected.  I loved him and despised him at the same time.  His personality came about without any influence from me besides the force of my fingers on the keyboard.  It took me some time to uncover the nuances of Gabriel and much of that time was from inner conversations with him.  These conversations tended to make me feel like I had something in my head that was waiting for a chance to take over, but I couldn’t tell if he was for good or evil.

It struck me that a weaver of destiny wouldn’t be responsible solely for the heroes of Windemere.  He’d have to be in charge of the villains too.  So, I got the idea that Gabriel was playing an eternal chess game with himself and he was essentially blindfolded.  He never knew which side would win because he had to make space in his plans for freewill.  If he prevented freewill then a backlash could occur, which is how he went from mortal to god in the first place.  This fine-tuned his personality because he was always arrogant, but there were occasional undertones of sorrow and frustration that would slip out when his defenses were down.  Making a god have human qualities in his personality is very difficult when you’re still trying to push the fact that he is an immortal, ultra-powerful deity.

Gabriel is the one character that will have a hand in every Windemere story that I write.  Whether he’s a major player in events or simply shows up once to talk to somebody, he is going to get the most mileage out of my characters.  It’s only fitting considering he is the Master of Adversaries (gotta remember that one).

2023 Thoughts– Sadly, I did forget that last nickname.  I’ll have to use it the next chance I get, which could be soon since Gabriel does have a minor role in Darwin’s stories.  Can’t say I would change any of his origin or usage.  He was a driving force in Legends of Windemere and that created my on-going theme of ‘destiny vs free will’.  I originally thought it wouldn’t get further than the one series, but then I kept playing with the concept.  Gabriel became a bigger and more complicated character as well.  The best part is that he’s still growing.  Every series that he operates in should add more to his personality, evolution, and mystery.