Relique's primary powers stem from Moswengaea's ancient magic (which centers around the manipulation of stone) fed through her body from the topaz amulet housing Moswengaea's soul.  Relique's two primary spell powers are her ability to cast a ray of magical energy at her intended victim-- turning them entirely to stone-- and her ability to "entomb" her opponents in nearby walls. Her entombment works by either pushing her victim into a wall or by having a part of the wall reach out and pull the victim in, after which the wall "flows" over them and leaves them as a new relief sculpture.

Either way, Relique must be in possession of her amulet (which is ordinarily snugly around her neck), and then gesture and speak words of power in an ancient tongue known only to Moswengaea.  In the case of her petrification, her gesture tends to be more of a vague sort of pointing gesture; with the spell of entombment, she often clenches a fist. 

It should also be noted that if the amulet is removed from Relique, she'll revert in personality to Maya, but anyone holding the amulet-- and especially, wearing it-- stands the risk of being overcome and possessed by Moswengaea's soul if their mind isn't strong enough to fight back.  And even if the necklace is taken from her, Maya has more recently learned to be able to 'call' the amulet to her with limited effect, to allow her to return to her Relique persona.  Whether this is a spell that Moswengaea insisted she learn, or something Maya asked to learn because she has embraced her new personality, is a matter best left for debate.
 

The story of Relique begins with the Kyrenian Empire, a little-known culture in the eastern Mediterranean that reached its height somewhere between the period of the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediary Period of ancient Egypt and was wiped out some time before the beginnings of what we know as Classical Greece. 

During its later lifetime, however, there was a sorceress named Moswengaea, a trusted advisor to one of the later emperors to the Kyrenian throne, Alcate.  Alcate was considered by some to be a pliable ruler, although he had the best interests of the Empire at heart.  When he ascended to the throne, the best years of Kyrenia were behind it.  Phoenician traders were now who the port cities received their goods from.  Kyrenian outposts were attacked and beseiged almost monthly.  Alcate resolved to have the Empire bloom again.  He took pains throughout his rulership to ensure that the Empire was prosperous and stable in order to pass it along to his only son.  One of the pains he'd taken was to make Moswengaea, a woman, an imperial advisor.

While it was uncommon in the patriarchal system of Kyrenian culture for a woman to have a position of power and prestige, the move was an uncommonly shrewd one for Alcate.  Moswengaea was more than just a wisewoman, after all; she was known to almost all as a wizard-- a woman of great mystical power that never seemed to age-- and therefore few would openly oppose her... or by extension, the emperor.  And for the better part of the duration of Alcate's rule, Moswengaea proved a useful ally, advisor, and even protector.  She could do amazing things such as foretelling the future on command, and calling forth the best weather to yield good crops.  All of her acts were not so benign, however; she often ridded the emperor of outspoken enemies, leaving them among grand vistas of sculptures, monuments and relief works, making his enemies in effect symbols of the Emperor's might.

It seemed apparent that the Kyrenian Empire under Alcate-- and Moswengaea-- would not only bloom, but expand.  And if all had been left alone, people would likely now remember the Kyrenians alongside the Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians in the Ancient World, rather than them being a footnote. But it was not to be.  As time wore on, the men in positions of authority became jealous of a woman's position above them, and started bending Alcate's ear that Moswengaea was a threat... that she was ageless, that she coveted the throne for herself. 

At first, Alcate would hear none of it.  After all, Moswengaea had made no attempt to take the throne, and in fact had taken all those who had displeased him and made them into sculptures and relief works, which made his kingdom all the more likely to remember him after his death.  But the more his other advisors and counselors needled him about her, the more the little things they said started making sense.  Moswengaea apparently didn't like men, and had no designs toward obtaining one.  She had a yen for power, herself.  And by ridding him of his enemies, she was also ridding herself of contestants for the throne, should something happen to him and his heir. 

The breaking straw came when Alcate's only son contracted typhus.  Although Moswengaea worked tirelessly, she couldn't cure the sickness, and Alcate's son died, leaving the Emperor without an heir.  Alcate decided that the men were right... it seemed obvious now to him that she was making a play for the throne.  On Alcate's order, Moswengaea was to be killed.  Under cover of night, a group of twelve soldiers entered the temple in which she was overseeing the offerings and hacked her to death, even beheading her after the deed was done.  Not one of those soldiers was alive two weeks later; stories suggested that some of them even died without a mark on their bodies.  But if Moswengaea was in some way responsible from beyond the grave, Alcate himself did not appear to suffer any ill effects, and lived on for thirty more years, possibly thinking he had somehow cheated her ghost.

What he couldn't have known was that Moswengaea had already outsmarted him... she had foreseen her own death, and had prepared for it, casting a spell upon a bejeweled necklace to allow it to house her soul in the event of her death.  Her plan was that she would return in the body of another, when the emperor was dust, to bring about the rebirth of Kyrenian Empire... but this time the Empire would be in her name.  That very well would have happened if anyone had picked up the necklace that lay in her bedchambers in the Emperor's Palace.  But the problem was that her own people were superstitious, moreso after the stories of her assassins' deaths circulated.  Her bedchambers were sealed with heavy stones by Imperial order, and the necklace remained undisturbed for nearly three millennia...

Enter Maya Constantine.  Maya had an interest in ancient cultures for as long as she could remember.  Ever since she was a child, she would wander the museum of which her father was the curator, marveling at the various relics of long-dead civilizations.  The beauty and splendor of the Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek cultures interested her the most.  Especially the intricate sculptures of the two cultures.

As she grew, her thirst for knowledge of the two cultures increased at a similar rate.  Her thirst inevitably lead her to the path of archaeology; though she liked being in a museum, constantly surrounded by artifacts, the idea of going out and uncovering such precious items was irresistible.  With the support of her father and his museum, her various expeditions were well-financed, though often only mildly successful, until one expedition to a rocky region on Turkey's coastline facing the Mediterranean Sea.  Maya and her crew happened upon what appeared to be a palace of sorts, though the architecture was unfamiliar, yet familiar all at once.  From what Maya could tell, it had features that were certainly Egyptian, while others appeared to be very early Greek.  Could it have been that Maya had discovered a lost civilization, a link between the two cultures?

Maya and her team set up camp and began to excavate and then search the ancient palace.  Somehow, some of its treasures had been left unravaged by time and tomb robbers, the most amazing pieces being the various works of statuary that dotted the palace.  Male and female, young and old, nude and clothed... there was a seemingly endless variety.  Some were full, free-standing statues while others were relief sculptures partially encased in the walls.  Most striking was a statue of a woman surrounding by a circle of men in various forms of prostration.  Around the neck of the woman statue was a jeweled necklace, made of wrought gold bearing a large topaz in its center.  Despite her best instincts, Maya took the necklace and put it around her neck.  It fit perfectly, and then there was a sound like the fiercest wind in her ears, and she found herself speaking gibberish without any control of her vocal chords.  Then all was black.

When Maya awoke, she found herself in her camp... and next to her was one of her female assistants, naked, asleep, and looking quite content.  Unable to recall how she even arrived at camp again, or how much time had passed, she got up and began to look around.  What she saw shocked her.  A few of the other female assistants, and all of the men, were petrified.  Some had apparently been changed into statues, but others were "encased", some in the walls, some in the floor.  As she tried to make sense of things, a honeyed voice spoke at the back of her mind, telling her that she had become the avatar of a long-dead woman named Moswengaea.  The voice told her it could see into her heart, and was pleased with what it saw.  And together, they would return a long dead culture to glory.  And possibly to her own surprise, Maya found herself smiling at the thought. 

So the gestalt known as Relique was born, and as Maya packed up to head back to civilization, Moswengaea left her former palace to find a place to begin restoring the Kyrenian Empire in her own image...

Being two people in one, literally, makes Relique's personality quite mixed.  Moswengaea, during her life, was an ambitious, self-serving feminist whose views of men were hardly flattering.  She considered men to be weak and inferior, easily swayed by a pretty face and an offer of the flesh.  As such, she was known to often take female captives for herself to use as lovers then "converting" to become her servants and followers.  Some of the other advisors to the emperor during Moswengaea's time noticed her extreme satisfaction in turning the enemies of the empire into works of art; sometimes even pleasuring herself on her fallen foes.

Maya is a devout lover of all things of antiquity: if it comes from an ancient culture, she would possibly put herself in physical danger to preserve the artifacts of the past.  A fairly quiet girl, she'd rather spend hours upon hours poring over dusty tomes containing detailed information and accounts of cultures lost in time.  She'd had a few boyfriends along the way, though few of them shared her interest in ancient cultures, and up until now all her attempts at a relationship have ended in failure.

The combination of these two personalities is the being that refers to itself as Relique; a being that is essentially a combination of Moswengaea and Maya, though her rather evil tendencies and dislike of men would lead one to believe that Moswengaea is the stronger of the two personalities.  She sees men as being useful only for manual labor and little else.  Those who stand in her way often find themselves falling victim to her magic, either frozen in place or halfway entombed in a nearby wall.  News of great heroines has brought her to Hub City in the hopes that she might find followers to join her in reforming the world into a vision of her former home, with her at the top of the chain, of course.