Val

Val
black-and-white illustration of Val walking through an abandoned town. She wears boots, military pants and a jacket, and has a short, swept-back haircut. She looks back at the viewer. Geometric patterns in the background indicate buildings. Art by smolderingtides
Aliases	Val Valuable
Character Information
Pronouns	She/Her
Kin	Unnamed Mother
Connections	Press Secretary Carson Charles
Status	Deceased
Saint Information
God Served	The Last Word
Physical Appearance	Prayer marks that spread and shift when she lies
Behaviour/ Abilities	Remakes reality by lying to people around her
Content Information
Voice Actor	Marta da Silva
First Appearance	Chapter 31: Its Gaze Shall Fall O'er Trembling Plains

After all, there are so many new gods these days and so many different ways the story can be spun.

Chapter 31: Its Gaze Shall Fall O'er Trembling Plains

Val is a war-saint for the Peninsula. She uses the Last Word to change reality, much like the outlawed rhetorical gods from the last war.

ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD! Beyond this point, major plot spoilers are expected. Continue at your own risk.

Val is covered with scarred over branded prayer-marks from the Peninsulan armies failures before her hallowing. She also has prayer-marks that spread and shift across her skin with every lie that she tells.

Personality

Val is off-putting, seeming cold, callous, cruel and vengeful. She has retained some of her humanity after her hallowing, and remembers some of her life. However, she is aware she is dead and that she has been turned into something awful. She is assertive, even towards those in higher up positions, and resourceful. The perfect weapon and yet seemingly easily provoked, making her unreliable at best and potentially uncontrollable at worst. Press Secretary Carson says that she is loyal to the Peninsula, which she herself confirms.

Gallery

A black-and-white illustration of Val walking through an abandoned town. She wears boots, military pants and a jacket, and has a short, swept-back haircut. She looks back at the viewer. Geometric patterns in the background indicate buildings. Art by smolderingtides

Val sits at the foot of a ruined statue in the midst of a bombed-out town square It is night and purple-hued, but fires burn in the rubble, casting a yellow glow. Val wears boots, military pants, a tan shirt, and close-cropped hair. She stares pensively at the ground. A quote reads, "People should be kinder than the gods that eat them." Art by pinkelotje

Val glances towards the viewer. She has a halo of teeth around her head, long white hair, hazel eyes and we can see the prayer marks on her forearms and neck. She wears a shirt and dungarees. Art by catwyk

Background

Val volunteered to help the Peninsula with war effort against the Linger Straits. When she leaves her mother, Val smiles and laughs.

She is hallowed by the military in order to create a weapon. Her hallowing took 64 days. The hallowing process included branding her with different prayer-marks, feeding her lies with a loud speaker, and forcing her to lie and try and convince the doctors and nurses. When she couldn't convince them, they would hurt her. When she finally died she didn't even realise it. She was awake throughout the process.

Part of her privileges for volunteering is that her mother can visit her at any time. Her mother only visits her twice, once on the third day and again o the fourteenth day. Val feels like her mother abandoned her. She can remember her face clearly, although she does not remember her own name. She volunteered to make her mother proud. She carries around her hatred for her and wishes for revenge against those who hurt her.

Episode Appearances

Chapters	Synopsis
Chapter 31: Its Gaze Shall Fall O'er Trembling Plains	Val is introduced to the Peninsulan Legislatures. She wipes out an entire coastal town in the Linger Straits as an example of her power and use as a weapon.
Chapter 33: And Where Once Its Howling Forebears Walked	Val tortures and kills an elderly woman in the Linger Straits. She acts on Carson's orders, although goes too far with it.
Chapter 37: And Even The Kings In Their Bowers Of Steel	Val travels through the Linger Straits. She has been turning civilians into her mother to enact her revenge. She comes across a woodsman who is kind to her, and she is kind in return. Eventually she arrives at a town called Sutler's Weald. It has been destroyed in the war. She wishes she could bring the people of the town back.
Chapter 40: This Hateful Hymn Shall Cease	Val successfully defeats three battalions at Mal-Retour. She meets Chuck Harm and asks him to accompany her to Nesh. The battle has put a lot of strain on her and she is in intense pain.
Chapter 42: I’ll Wheeze Through Splintered Teeth	Val wanders through Nesh with Charles. She wants to announce herself as a god and undo all of the horrible things she's done. She wins the war and gives Charles what he has always wanted, a quiet life with a pack of dogs. She informs Carson before cutting contact and refusing to speak to her mother.
Chapter 43: One Last Song Of Revelations	Val is somewhere in the woods. She hears Adjudicator Shrue's radio broadcast endorsing the Woundtree and gives her approval of it.
Chapter 45: Of Love, And Gods' Defeat (Part One)	Val plays Shrue's final broadcast in Carson's office, confronting him. She says that she is not a god, and accepts that she is not going to get better. She has come here to kill him. She asks him what he wanted to be growing up. She says that she wanted to be a ballerina. She would retire young and spend the rest of her life in a wooden cabin reading. She grants the life Carson always wanted and sits with him as he dies.
Chapter 45: Of Love, And Gods' Defeat (Part Two)	Val is still in Carson's home. She calls the Glottage Meteorological Society and tells them that the winds are blowing from west to east. She turns the gas in his house on, with the music from her childhood still playing. She tells her final lie, that she remembered who she was before she died. Then she lights a match and Carson's house explodes.

Connections

• Her Mother does not seem to value Val. She is immensely cruel towards her daughter, only visiting her twice as she is hallowed for the war effort. Val projects these issues with her mother onto civilians in the Linger Straits.

• Press Secretary Carson believes that he can control Val. She finds this idea funny, saying that the only reason that she has not killed him yet is because he is her one link to finding her mother. After winning the war from the Peninsula, she appears at his house with the intention to kill him. She does so kindly.

• Chuck Harm accompanies Val after the Battle of Mal-Retour. He fears her but is subservient to power. Val wonders why he has not tried to leave or kill her and he doesn't have an answer. She gives him the happy, quiet life he desires.

Trivia

• Her name, Val, stands for 'valuable'.

• As a child, Val wanted to be a ballerina.

• Val thanks Carson after he dies.

• Val never remembers who she is.

• Val's final words are, "And before she died... she remembered who she was."