Braids

Template:Character Braids was a powerful -- and very mad -- Dementia Caster for the Cabal. Unlike most dementia casters Braids maintained a fair degree of lucidity, making her much more useful to the Cabal beyond simply being a pit-fighter. The name "Braids" was a nickname due to her hairstyle, as her actual cabalist name was Fulla, while her secret name was Garra.

She was placed in charge of the cabalists that were sent to the Mer Empire capital to catalogue the valuable artifacts held in the vaults. While there, she made a deal with Laquatus to find the Mirari for him in exchange for being able to keep any interesting artifacts she found. However, her team did not find the Mirari as it instead was first found by Emperor Aboshan, who used it to sink a third of Otaria and also accidentally killed himself in the process. Afterwards, the Mirari fell into Braids' hands, but she was immune to its lures as her mind was already occupied with her dementia visions. Instead of using the orb, she merely pocketed it and made her way back to Cabal City to give it back to the First.

Upon Braids' return to the city, she soon found herself back in the pits fighting alongside Skellum in a rigged fight against an Order squad. She put on a decent show for the audiences but was laid unconscious by an Order Justicar. However, unlike Skellum she escaped the fight with her life intact. Afterwards, she presumably recovered and carried on fighting until the Patriarch was exiled by Chainer. Following this, she began seeing visions of Kuberr that told her to go south to Aphetto, which she did just to make him be quiet. Along the way she ran into the Patriarch, who told her to go ahead of him and prepare Aphetto for his arrival. This she did and was rewarded by becoming his second-in-command.

While in Aphetto, Braids again met with Ambassador Laquatus, who tried to make an alliance with the Cabal to help recover the Mirari from Kamahl. She passed the request onto the Patriarch, who agreed and dispatched Braids to hunt Kamahl down with five serpent assassins that Chainer had originally created to keep guard on the Patriarch. The death squad made swift progress tracing Kamahl, slaughtering several Order patrols, a small mountain village and Kamahl's three former pupils along the way. However, she was unable to claim the Mirari as the barbarians put up significant resistance and killed all five of her snakemen. Defeated, she then met up with Cabal reinforcements and convinced them that they lacked the power to take the Mirari and were better off fighting the Order army that had also come to claim Kamahl and the Mirari.

Following a stalemate battle between the Order and Cabal forces, both sides broke off and gave chase after Kamahl and Balthor as they fled to Krosa. Both armies reached the edge of the forest at the same time and fought another indecisive battle in which they both lost significant portions of their forces, while Laquatus tried to ambush Kamahl with his commandos and with Burke, but ended up losing both. Laquatus then intervened and proposed a temporary alliance between the two forces. Braids then zombified Balthor in revenge for him killing Leer and then set him loose to hunt Laquatus before teleporting away, leaving the dementia caster Traybor in charge of the Cabal army. Braids did not reappear until much later when she, Traybor and Commander Eesha revealed Laquatus's treachery and teleported their forces away from Krosa, leaving the merman alone in the forest. Along the way, Braids somehow happened upon Seton's dwelling, where the centaur was caring for Jeska. She then killed the centaur and kidnapped Jeska to take her before the Patriarch.

After Jeska was turned into Phage, Braids was charged with taking care of her. Later on, when Kamahl and The First made a truce against Ixidor, she was charged as commander of the cabal forces. During the fight she became injured and wasn't able to return to Aphetto. Akroma found her and decided to use her to gain access to the Cabal's secrets, but she eventually recovered and managed to escape.

As she came back, she helped Phage and the recently born Kuberr survive the First's assasination attempt, and she killed him instead. In the following events, she stayed along-side Kuberr in the Grand Coliseum.

In the end, like many other Otarians, she fell in a state of fanatism for Karona, and ended up trapped in her own dementia space. Whether she is still trapped there or has died in it hasn't been revealed yet.

The idea for her character came from a piece of art for Odyssey that was innapropriate for its original card, and her ability was taken from a card that wasn't used in Invasion.

Alternate reality

In the Planar Chaos set, the card Braids, Conjurer Adept depicts an alternate version of Braids if she had become a magical researcher (possibly eventually joining the Riptide Project) instead of joining the Cabal.