Depiction of Makaela in The Sims 4
| Born | Late summer 234 |
| Current City | Grandpyre Hall - Mica, KL |
| Height | 7'6" |
| Alignment |  Authority Selfless |
| Affiliations | The Torchlight Society Curse Recovery Association |
| Occupation | Director of Human Resources |
Makaela Hagen is a recurring character in the New Era adventure series.
She is an animate, sapient marble statue containing the living soul of Alexander Duvall, a rogue necromancer from the 3rd century NE. She is one of the oldest living beings known to the Torchlight Society, at the confirmed age of 132 as of the year 366.
Makaela is the founder and president of the Curse Recovery Association, a Torchlight group that helps rehabilitate agents who have suffered injuries or trauma due to magic.
Makaela's body is a pure white marble statue of a woman with long, flowing hair and a white dress, towering at 2.3 meters (7'6") in height and weighing over 450 kilograms. Her immense height and weight make it difficult for her to enter most structures safely. When she speaks, her voice seems to resonate and echo with no apparent cause, and her hair and dress appear to constantly flutter in a nonexistent breeze.
Makaela has a very strong intellect, because unlike most other objects animated by magic, she possesses a real human soul. She also has incredible physical strength due to her size, has learned and mastered multiple schools of magic, and tried her hand at many different crafts and trades during her long life. She seems to have an immunity to most Psionic magic due to not having a human body or senses. Despite her strength, she is good-natured and selfless and generally wishes to use magic to improve people's lives. She does not need to sleep due to not having a human body, and spends most of her time at night reading.
The statue that would become Makaela was created by Alexander Duvall sometime prior to the start of the Second Transantarctic War. Duvall, a sculptor by trade, was a powerful rogue, a mage with no connection to the Torchlight Society, and knew he was being closely followed. In an attempt to evade Torchlight, he went off the grid and moved to a remote cottage in the woodlands of central Iniond, where he continued his experiments with necromancy in secret. While there, he completed several marble sculpture projects, including the unnamed statue.
Duvall remained in hiding for many years, through the start of the Second Transantarctic War. During this time he apparently became infatuated with the statue, obsessed by the beauty he had created, and sought to bring the statue to life. In the summer of 234 he attempted to use the Soul Transfer spell to infuse the statue with life. Unfortunately, this spell worked by extracting his own soul from his body, causing his death. Whether this was intentional on Duvall's part, or if he simply did not fully understand the effect the spell would have, remains unclear.
The statue came to life with none of Duvall's past memories and no knowledge of language. She attempted to communicate with groups of people she came across, but quickly realized that everyone seemed frightened of her and believed they were hallucinating. Over the years she listened in on conversations of passersby and developed a rudimentary understanding of English while living in her creator's cottage.
Eventually, the repeated sightings of a pure white woman living in the woods of Iniond reached Torchlight investigators, and she was apprehended and taken to Base 11 on 19 Pax 238. It took the investigators several months to work out what had happened to result in her existence, and to determine that she did not seem to be dangerous. She could not be released due to her frightening nature, and was detained in Base 11's sentient creature wing for many years.
While living in the underground base, she worked with Joshua Hagen, a researcher and social worker. She fully learned to read and write, but was not initially allowed to learn magic. She decided to call herself Makaela, a name she learned from one of the first books she read, and took the last name of her mentor and best friend.
Makaela continued to work with Dr. Hagen for many years, and met with other living beings who were being detained in the underground site, many of whom were there due to conditions beyond their control, such as permanent residual effects from failed magical experiments that had rendered them unable to be seen in public without exposing the Society's secrets. The group quickly bonded with each other, and in 269 the Curse Recovery Association was founded, with Dr. Hagen as its official sponsor. The group reached 25 members in its first year of existence.
As Makaela continued to live in Base 11, it became clear to the researchers there that she did not appear to age. She lived to see a number of her friends in CRA die in captivity. Dr. Hagen retired as a researcher in 271 and passed away five years later, leaving Makaela heartbroken.
Shortly after her mentor's passing, Makaela was visited by Archmage Meredith Chambers who also spoke to a number of CRA residents at the site. After discovering that none of them posed any serious threat to the rest of the society, Chambers vowed to have them moved to a location where they could be closer to the rest of the Society, despite opposition from the research teams there. Later that year, Makaela and fifteen other members of CRA were allowed out of Base 11 and moved to a sequestered on-site housing location on the grounds of Base 10 in nearby Ravenood. It was the first time in over four decades that Makaela had seen sunlight.
After moving, Makaela was finally allowed to learn magic. It wasn't clear whether she would even be able to given her lack of a human body, but to everyone's surprise she was seemingly able to cast spells without being taught, and began learning more advanced spells at a rapid rate, almost as though she were an Æther blood. This led to speculation that Alexander Duvall himself may have been one, but it is also possible that Makaela's magical sense was already unlocked by the transferrence of Duvall's soul into her.
Over the next few decades, Makaela continued honing her magical skills and became an active member of Torchlight, at first studying Abjuration and eventually transitioning to the Human Resources department to work as a career counselor. She rose through the ranks of the society and was allowed to officially become the head of CRA in 292. She gained significant respect among the organization, despite the council still wishing to keep the rest of CRA hidden away from the society at large.
Makaela was offered the position of HR department head in 312 but declined the offer, citing her own reservations about taking a high-ranking position for what was likely to be a very long time. It would have also required her to move to the society's headquarters in Highgate, and the rest of the CRA could not accompany her as the crowded Base 16 building in the heart of the Aetherian capital did not have sufficient space to accommodate them. However, after the headquarters was moved to Grandpyre Hall, she arranged to have a dedicated on-site residence for all of the CRA set up there. The position of HR department head became open again in 334, and this time Makaela decided to accept it.
As of Sol 366, Makaela is the oldest living being known to Torchlight, Her exact age is not known but is assumed to be between 132 and 135 years. She is not immortal, as the spell binding Duvall's soul to her body will not last forever, though researchers agree she will likely live to age 300 or more. She has no desire to extend her life using magic beyond that point. She has been nominated for the Torchlight Council and even suggested for the Archmage position twice, but has refused both times.
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