Ithelwyn

name | Ithelwyn Pronounced EH-th-uh-l-win, a common Losgaran name. sex | Female Cisgender. species | Human Well, human enough to not be put to the torch. age | Late twenties, perhaps early thirties. She does not know when she was born, but she can recall the passage of over twenty winters.

marital status | Single She will remain so, as her kind are not permitted to marry. sexuality | Demisexual The physicality of others rarely captures more than her professional interest. occupation | Dreoress A sister of the Order of Sawul-Dreor, one of the God of Man's most faithful. residence | Nihtgield Forhtian The oldest and most remote convent of the Order, tucked away in the taiga of northern Losgara.

appearance | A striking young woman, though perhaps not one readily called beautiful. She has large, downturned and hooded blue eyes set beneath delicately curving brows and a hooked nose over a narrow but full mouth. Thick auburn hair falls in waves to her waist though it is most often worn braided in the Losgaran style. Her complexion is pale and clear, though often tired with shadows beneath her eyes. Her long, slender neck leads into sloped shoulders speckled with freckles from a past spent laboring in the sun. She stands slightly taller than the average woman with soft curves and lean, wiry muscle from hard work and frequent travel.

She wears the typical garb of a Dreoress. A long white veil covers most of her hair, secured with a simple cloth circlet adorned with a few silver rings and trinkets. She favors simple ankle-length dresses in black, trimmed with intricate stitching or embroidery around the hem, the edges of her sleeves, and neckline. All of her garments have the left sleeve slashed, revealing the mess of scars and wounds beneath, allowing easy access for bloodletting and further marking her out as a sister of the Order.

distinguishing features | Like all Dreoresses, her eyes reflect light in the dark and her left arm is covered in scars and wounds at various stages of healing. Unlike most sisters, her nails are blackened claws like that of a wolf.

voice | Gentle and slightly tremulous.

scent | Incense and herbs with a metallic whiff of blood.



personality | Kind and compassionate, she desires nothing more than to ease as much of the world's suffering as she can. Although she is reserved, preferring not to speak unless she has something of value to say, it is rare for her to utter an unkind word. Despite her reticence, her calm and sweet nature, there is something undeniably steely about her-- A cold, calculating survivor's pragmatism, forged through countless horrors and hardships.

mannerisms | Only makes brief, fleeting eye contact. Clutches her veil about herself like a shawl. Often keeps her arms crossed.

likes | Illuminating manuscripts, dogs, early mornings, sheep, long soaks in the hot springs, needlework, storms, bread.

dislikes | Liars, confrontation, the smell of smoke, unnecessary violence, being interrupted in the middle of tasks, loud noises.

prized possessions | Her book of hours and a small poorly carved wooden sheep.

Heolfor Blood magic, the signature sorcery of the Order of Sawul-Dreor. Her blood thrums with the tainted power of the old gods and through shedding it, Ithelwyn is a capable magician. Though she prefers using it for healing, it has many other applications.

Medicine A Dreoress relies most on alchemical and surgical practices to fulfill her duties as a healer. Ithelwyn is no exception and her knowledge of physiology and botany prove sufficient to resolve most injuries and illnesses she is called upon to treat.

history | A ninth daughter delivered beneath the bleeding moon at its zenith is said to be claimed by the goddess Enan, tainted with witchcraft. Ithelwyn was born one such daughter to a humble peasant family in the eastern Losgaran lowlands and should have been brought to the Order of Sawul-Dreor without delay, or otherwise disposed of, but she was not. Instead, her mother said she was born closer to the break of day and kept her.

The times were difficult, the civil war had begun in the months prior to Ithelwyn's birth and her father had been conscripted into their lord's army along with the rest of the able-bodied men and boys of the village. There were scarcely enough hands left to bring in the harvest and tend the sheep, perhaps it would have been easier to say the girl was stillborn to save the trouble of another mouth to feed, one that might one day become a monster. Yet as the years passed, the child showed no indication of her curse beyond an eerie intelligence.

Still raging across the countryside and not satisfied to rob the villagers of their fathers, husbands, and sons, the war came to take its fill of what remained.

Soldiers descended on the settlement in the night. They seized their foodstores then set fire to the fields. They took their valuables then set fire to their homes. Those who were unable to flee were cut down. By the breaking of dawn, the village was a smoldering heap of ash and corpses, a faint flicker on the horizon. Bound and flung across a knight's horse, Ithelwyn stared after it until it was swallowed up by the rising sun.

It was not that knight, Ser Sidnell Valir, that would make the long journey to Nihtgield Forhtian with the young witchling child, but his murderer and a deserter by the name of Graegan. He claimed that he had killed Ser Valir when he could no longer stomach watching the so-called knight brutalize the girl and had taken her with the intent of getting her to safety. When questioned on how she came to have the night-glow in her eyes and the claws of a wolf, he refused to answer, insisting that it was he, not she, that murdered the knight, and that he did not know how she came to have them.

Even at the headsman's block he had insisted on her innocence, ensuring that she would be taken into the Order of Sawul-Dreor rather than executed alongside him.

Whether the sisters believed him or not, they welcomed Ithelwyn into the fold. Although she came to them older than most oblates, she quickly caught up to her peers in her studies and eventually distinguished herself with her natural aptitude for their magical art of heolfor. She became the protege of the renowned Sister Aelfrelia and accompanied her for a year and a day to complete her training.

As a fully ordained Dreoress, she has gained somewhat of a reputation. Rumors swirl about of her prowess; That she was able to attach a nobleman's severed head back onto his body and save his life and that she felled a revenant on her own by causing its blood to catch aflame. Other rumors are less kind. There are whispers that she is a secret heretic, loyal to the old gods and not the God of Man, and that she led a group of monster hunters to their deaths as a sacrifice to her dark masters.