Dîmeril Laeghartha, Heryn of Merilrond
Dîmeril Laeghartha is the acknowledged leader of Merilrond and one of the most respected figures among the folk of the Golden Woods. To most who know her now she is simply the Heryn, the Lady, a warm, wise and deeply maternal woman whose home has become a refuge for the unwanted and whose counsel is sought far beyond her own household. Yet there was a time when Dîmeril was known by very different titles. She was an adventurer, Unicorn Rider, mercenary captain and Border Lord, and beneath the kindly mistress of Rose Hall there remains a formidable warrior who has never entirely forgotten the harsher lessons of her youth.
Dîmeril is not native to Warlderia. Indeed, neither are the Golden Woods themselves. The Anwyn Woods and their inhabitants were transported to Warlderia by powerful magic less than a year ago, leaving Dîmeril in the peculiar position of being a stranger in a foreign land without ever having left her home. Dîmeril was born some seventy years ago, the daughter of a human ranger and a Wood Elf mother. Her childhood was divided between two peoples without quite belonging wholly to either. The death of her father while she was still young made that division considerably worse, leaving Dîmeril adrift at precisely the age when she most needed somewhere to belong. She left home young. What followed was a long and remarkably successful adventuring career. Dîmeril travelled widely and fought alongside heroes whose names were already famous when she first joined them. In time, her own name came to stand comfortably amongst theirs.
She became a Unicorn Rider, forming that extraordinarily rare bond between warrior and unicorn. She commanded warriors as a Captain of Horse, served as a Border Lord, and spent years as an adventurer and mercenary leader. She acquired followers of her own and earned considerable personal fame. There was little softness about that period of Dîmeril's life. She fought monsters and men, commanded others in battle and became very good at surviving circumstances in which hesitation could mean death. The older Dîmeril seldom boasts of these accomplishments, though neither does she pretend they did not happen. The woman who now settles disputes with patience and good humour was once accustomed to settling rather different disputes with sword and bow. Then her unicorn died.
Precisely what happened is something Dîmeril has never made widely known. Whatever the circumstances, the loss affected her profoundly. The appetite for adventure that had carried her through much of her adult life simply disappeared. Fame, glory and another expedition into danger no longer seemed sufficient reasons to continue. Dîmeril walked away. She did not do so alone. A small company of particularly loyal followers remained with her, and eventually Dîmeril and her companions came to the Anwyn Woods. The Anwyn of those days was no idyllic sanctuary. Monsters preyed upon its inhabitants, dangerous Fey troubled the region and the capricious fawns of the forest had an unfortunate enthusiasm for seducing its maidens. Dîmeril and her companions set about making the place safer. Monsters were hunted down. Malevolent Fey were driven away or killed. Dîmeril even survived the anger of the Fey Queen that followed their interference. Yet this was not simply another conquest. Dîmeril had no desire to become the ruler of the forest or impose order upon every creature within it. Where coexistence was possible, she preferred it. Most notably, she negotiated an uneasy accommodation with the fawns rather than simply destroying or expelling them.
This combination of strength and restraint won her considerable affection. Here was someone powerful enough to protect the people of the woods who apparently had no desire to dominate them. It was in Anwyn that the adventurer finally began putting down roots. Dîmeril built herself a substantial two-storey home of timber and stone. Roses were her favoured flowers, and she planted them liberally around the house. They flourished so abundantly that the place became known as Merilrond, Rose Hall. Her old companions settled nearby. Then others came. Over the years homes and workshops appeared amongst the surrounding trees until Merilrond became the heart of a dispersed woodland community numbering more than four hundred people. Its population is extraordinarily mixed. Elven and Fey ancestry is common, though by no means universal, and Wood Elven, Sylvan and Common can all be heard beneath its trees.
Merilrond has a temple dedicated to Ehlonna, a communal guest hall for travellers, and numerous craftsmen scattered amongst the surrounding homes, including bowyers, tanners and a smith. There is also an infirmary for the sick and injured and, at Dîmeril's insistence, a school for the community's children. Although Merilrond has become an important meeting place within the Golden Woods, it has little of the character of a market town. Trade is informal, hospitality is freely given, and much of everyday life depends upon barter, gifts and obligations between neighbours. Dîmeril herself became a cleric of the goddess while retaining the skills of the ranger she had learned from her father and perfected over decades. Two institutions are particularly characteristic of Dîmeril: the school and the infirmary.
Rose Hall itself also became home to Dîmeril's wards: orphaned, abandoned or unwanted half-Elven children whom she took into her household and raised. The choice was anything but accidental. Dîmeril remembered only too well what it was to grow up caught between two peoples and determined that other children should not endure the same loneliness. In caring for them, she discovered something that decades of adventure had failed to provide. She found contentment. Dîmeril sometimes jokes that she has proved twice the foster-mother she ever was a mercenary captain. There is more truth in the remark than she generally admits. Of all her achievements, the battles, adventures, commands and honours, it is her twenty years at Merilrond of which she is most openly proud.
Dîmeril never really set out to become the ruler of Merilrond. It simply happened that, when something needed doing, people tended to ask Dîmeril. When neighbours quarrelled, she could usually find a settlement. When danger threatened, she knew what to do. When someone needed help, Rose Hall's door tended to be open. Eventually Heryn, the Elven word for Lady, became the usual form of address. It is as much a term of affection and respect as a formal title. Her authority remains remarkably informal. Merilrond has few strict laws, and Dîmeril has little interest in regulating the ordinary lives of its inhabitants. She prefers custom, persuasion and common sense to decrees.
There is, however, one prohibition upon which she is uncompromising: "magic used to charm, compel or otherwise dominate another person's mind is forbidden in Merilrond."
For a community containing so many Fey and people of mixed ancestry, the rule is significant. Whatever else a person may be in Merilrond, their will is their own. Dîmeril now concentrates much of her religious activity upon the martial side of the local sect of Ehlonna, and she remains the person to whom many throughout the Golden Woods turn for advice. Her family has meanwhile expanded far beyond mere blood relationships. Old adventuring companions, retainers, wards, neighbours and followers have accumulated around her until the distinction between Dîmeril's household and Dîmeril's family has become decidedly uncertain. Among the closest is Luin, a devoted Wood Elf warrior and old follower who, unlike most of her retainers, still keeps his own chambers within Rose Hall.
Despite being courted on numerous occasions, Dîmeril has formed no known romantic attachment during her years at Merilrond. Whatever passions existed in the adventurer's earlier life, the great emotional commitment of her later years has unquestionably been to her wards, household and community. Kindness is probably the quality for which Dîmeril is now best known. She is particularly gentle with children, patient with people who have made mistakes and sympathetic toward those who do not quite fit anywhere else. There is usually food for a hungry traveller at Merilrond and somewhere for the unfortunate to sleep. She understands failure and loneliness well enough not to condemn either quickly.
She is not, however, harmless. There are still people who remember the woman Dîmeril once was. Age has made her difficult to provoke on her own behalf. Insults can be ignored. Challenges to her authority can be laughed away. Even enemies may receive considerably more patience than they deserve. Threatening those she loves is another matter entirely. The mother and the warrior are not really separate aspects of Dîmeril's character. They spring from the same fierce instinct to protect what she regards as hers. The young half-Elf who once lacked a secure place in the world eventually built one for herself and then opened it to hundreds of others. Anyone attempting to destroy that place, or harm the people within it, may discover why Dîmeril survived long enough to become an old adventurer. She does not become berserk or cruel. If anything, she becomes calmer. The kindly Heryn gives way to the old captain's cold decisiveness. She has commanded warriors, killed monsters, fought hostile Fey and faced things far worse than most inhabitants of Merilrond will ever encounter. She would very much prefer never to do so again. That should not be mistaken for inability.
At around seventy years old, Dîmeril has entered middle age by half-Elven standards. She still resembles a handsome human woman of middle years, though age is now visible in her features. She has long blonde hair and strikingly clear green eyes. She ordinarily dresses simply and carries a longsword. There is little about her everyday appearance to advertise the celebrated adventurer she once was. When the Heryn girds herself for war, the difference is considerable. Out comes the enchanted golden mail, together with her two-handed sword and composite shortbow. To the younger inhabitants of Merilrond, who know Dîmeril primarily as the woman who oversees their school, tends the roses and somehow knows everyone's troubles, the transformation can be startling. To her oldest companions, it is simply familiar.
The greatest upheaval of Dîmeril's later life has now come from something against which even she could do nothing. Through powerful and still extraordinary magic, the entire Anwyn Woods was transported into Warlderia. Trees, creatures, settlements, Merilrond and its people were all carried with it. Thus Dîmeril finds herself once again between worlds. There is an irony to it. As a young woman she wandered because she had no place that truly seemed her own. Eventually she stopped wandering and spent twenty years building precisely such a place. Then the world moved around her. But this time Dîmeril is not the lonely half-Elven girl she once was. Merilrond came with her. Her roses still grow around Rose Hall. Her old companions remain nearby. Her wards still have their home. Hundreds of people in the Golden Woods call her Heryn. Dîmeril finally knows where she belongs. Wherever her people are, she is already home.