Appearance: The picture I had in mind
The woman is bound hand and foot by thick, interwoven ropes, not chains like the other prisoners. It's easy to see why when a guard passes close and she reflexively starts to shoot off sparks and arcs of electricity. Nothing comes of it though. All it does is singe her prisoner's rags a bit more.
Despite a black eye, split lip, and the caked dirt that has covered her this entire trip, she still has the proud bearing of a good Norden woman. She's of middling height, about five and a half feet, with well formed features and none of the softness you'd find in Imperial women. She isn't all gristle either and would definitely be a catch in any other situation with her blue eyes, blonde hair, and simple ways.
Personality: Daerdryn is both responsible and matronly. It's unsurprising really considering that she is the mother of two and head of her own farm. Neither of those things allow for laziness if one wants to be successful at both. She looks after the other inmates, tends their wounds, breaks up fights, and pushes for cooperation amongst them.
She knows that this prison camp is a death sentence. She'll be burned on a pyre as a witch or have her head lopped like some of the others. Maybe something worse. She'll be damned if she's about to let it end like that. She's determined to find some way out of this place and reunite with her lost children.
Background: Daerdryn doesn't believe in fate. It's just a word people use to justify the things they do or the outcome of their actions. Was it fate that her family and home should be taken from her? If it was, then the gods are truly cruel. Although, she didn't always used to think so.
When she was fifteen she believed in fate. Mikael was handsome, tall, and told her that she was his world. "It was fate," he'd said when they ran off to Everwatch to begin a new life together. Was it fate too that they lived on the streets in squalor while he indulged in whatever vices came his way? According to the pithy comments directed at the now pregnant teenager such was the fate of such misspent youth.
When she met Haldor, that sentiment started to float around again. He was a fair bit older, but far more grounded than Mikael had ever been. People said such a well-off man was the god's reward for all the good work she'd done with the temples to help tend the wounded that came to them. Were the gods displeased then when he was taken from her three years ago leaving his boot, with the foot still inside, as his only remains?
Speaking of the gods, did they have a plan when they struck her with lightning out of a clear blue sky? Did they mean to give her power, honest mystic power, over lightning and the weather? The neighbors that turned on her? That accused her of witchcraft and of stealing their children?
No. Fate does not exist to Daerdryn. Just weird, strange, and often sad events that make up life in this harsh land. Just because she doesn't believe in fate doesn't mean she has nothing to believe in. She believes in people, small honest folk, that can make the world a better place and that she will see her family again or die trying.
Relations:
Mikael Thrift- Age 30. Still lives in Everwatch. Usually working on some scheme to get his various fixes in life, but the hard living has robbed him of his handsome features. He'd occasionally send threatening or pleading letters Daerdryn's way. Usually they were about money and occasionally about his daughter. Nothing ever came of them though.
Yolana Thrift- Age 13. Daerdryn's first child. Daerdryn can see the germ of Mikael's good looks growing in her, but she hopes other things from her father never take root. Yolana is a wonder with a skillet. She's also a very talented singer and hoped to become a bard one day. The last Daerdryn saw of her was when Yolana grabbed a pitchfork to defend her mother when Imperial archers brought Daerdryn down.
Haldor Ingdora- Deceased. He was ten years Daerdryn's senior when they met. After their courtship and marriage he brought her back to his family farm near the Iron Pines and the hamlet of Nettle. Died when a strange wolf creature attacked him one night.
Tobin Ingdora- Age 5. Haldor's son and only child. A sweet and soft-spoken boy. Loves animals and is practically attached at the hip to his dog Bael. He is a target for some of the older boys of Nettle. Daerdryn though she put them to rights, but that might have just fueled the rumors of her being a hag. She last saw him after she told him to hide in the house.
Della Lahsr- Age 24. Ringleader of the posse that showed up to deal with Daerdryn and her family. Has long had eyes on Haldor's rich land, but never the means to acquire it. "Witches own nothing but fire." It's a popular saying in Nettle, which has long suffered from the predation of hags. A little display to some local boys and a few rumors gave Della all the ammunition she needed to claim that, "Maybe the hags weren't the ones that stole their loved ones in the night. Maybe it was a far friendlier, far more sinister face." The rest is history.
Captain Cevalius Lomar- Age 35. Seasoned expeditionary commander of the Imperial March. He and his men were passing through Nettle when they witnessed the townsfolk's assault and Daerdryn's counter attack. In an effort to bring Imperial justice to the proceedings he ordered his men to fire on the most obvious threat, which happened to be Daerdryn. During their march to an interment camp Captain Lomar and his men repeatedly rebuffed her questions about her children. They told her to save her breath for her eventual trial. That trial, however, doesn't seem to be coming any time soon.
