>Otherwise, due to Celestial politics... I suppose I was at first
>surprised to see Gabriel as a woman. I know the angel of the trumpet
>is not shown in the Bible as either man or woman, but then again,
>angels are oftentimes shown as either masculine or genderless.

in the In Nomine canon, angel might be male, female or genderless in celestial form but their vessels are usually male or female because... well, most fo them are human vessels it's a bit of a binary set solution. An angel with more than one vessel (Archangels for example) might well have both male and female vessels. In the canon, Gabriel was primarily male up until storming out of the Seraphiom council about a millenia back and since then has prefered female vessels.

Since Gabriel is clearly part of the council again, the above might not be relevant but most In Nomine players default to thinking of Gabriel as female. (Of course, the demise of Moloch as Demon Prince of Fire might have done Gabriel a favour in terms of sanity since she wouldn't be sharing her Word anymore).

As a side note on Laurence, despite the broadword up his arse, there were fairly solid reasons for him to be in command of Heaven's armies. He is one of Heaven's most capable asskickers and he was a favored servitor of the previous commander. The main alternatives were Michael, David and (at least in his own mind) Khalid. Of the two archangels. Michael held a major grudge against Dominic, with whom he'd have to work closely and David while an old and mighty Malakim and a genuinely quite capable strategist isn't too good at making decisions in a hurry. Under the circumstances bringing in a little new blood probably seemed like a good idea.