Ginevra Malatesta
Ginevra Malatesta is a human woman and the master cook of Merilrond, a position she has held for nearly twenty years. Dark-haired, olive-skinned and increasingly streaked with grey, she came originally from one of the warmer southern human lands of the Other Place and was already an accomplished professional cook before finding her way to the Golden Woods. What was initially intended to be another position in a long career became something rather more permanent. Ginevra liked Merilrond, liked its people and, perhaps most importantly, discovered an extraordinary variety of unfamiliar ingredients growing in the surrounding Woods. She stayed. Ginevra brought with her a culinary tradition rich in herbs, garlic, oils, vegetables, cheeses, wine and strongly flavoured sauces, which she gradually combined with the game, mushrooms, fruits, honey and woodland herbs of Anwyn. Over the years the kitchens of Merilrond have consequently developed a distinctive cuisine drawing upon both traditions. Ginevra is equally capable of preparing an elaborate feast for important visitors or turning yesterday's roast, a handful of onions and whatever happens to remain in the pantry into an excellent supper. She considers the latter a considerably better test of a cook.
Personality
Ginevra is warm, generous, opinionated and supremely confident in her own abilities. She enjoys feeding people and takes considerable satisfaction in seeing an empty plate returned to her kitchen, but she has little patience for fussiness, waste or anyone attempting to explain cooking to her while she is doing it. Rank provides no protection. Dîmeril herself learned long ago that Ginevra's kitchen is Ginevra's domain, and Sisters arriving with urgent requests are quite capable of being told that whatever Dîmeril wants will be ready when it is ready. Her formidable manner conceals considerable kindness. Ginevra notices who has returned tired from patrol, which ward has lost their appetite after a difficult day and who has quietly missed two meals because they were too busy to stop. She rarely makes a fuss about such things. Food simply appears. Anyone thanking her too extravagantly is likely to be told to eat it before it gets cold.
The Kitchens of Merilrond
Ginevra does not cook every meal herself. Merilrond is far too large for that, and she supervises a small kitchen staff drawn from retainers and older wards while teaching anyone genuinely interested in learning. What distinguishes her is an extraordinary understanding of ingredients, flavour and timing. She can taste a sauce once and identify what has gone wrong, judge the quality of unfamiliar produce almost immediately and improvise when supplies do not arrive as expected. The Translation to Warlderia therefore presented Ginevra with an unexpected consolation.
While everyone else was attempting to understand how an entire forest had arrived in another world, Ginevra discovered that the new world contained vegetables, spices, cheeses, fish and other ingredients she had never encountered. Her reaction was immediate curiosity. Warlderian traders visiting Merilrond have since become accustomed to the master cook examining unfamiliar produce and demanding to know what it is, where it grows and how the locals usually prepare it. She then frequently ignores the final answer and cooks it her own way. Ginevra's food has become one of the quieter pleasures of visiting Merilrond. Important guests may remember its roses, the Sisters or even meeting Dîmeril herself, but many also remember what they were served for dinner. Ginevra regards compliments about her genius with much the same scepticism that Hettie Barrow applies to praise of her weaving. “I'm a cook. It's supposed to taste good.”
Theren Copperkettle
Theren Copperkettle is an elderly Gnome and the steward of Elenrond, the Star Hall, where visitors to Merilrond are offered food, a bath and a bed for the night. Short, broad and comfortably stout, Theren has thick grey-white hair, a neatly kept beard and the deeply lined face of someone who has spent considerably more of his life smiling than frowning. He has served the household of Merilrond for many years and Dîmeril trusts him sufficiently that the everyday running of Elenrond is left almost entirely in his hands. Theren assigns the Hall's thirty beds, issues keys for the lockable chests, keeps the guest register and oversees the stores, linen, baths, laundry and kitchens. He also supervises the wards and retainers who work in Elenrond and sees that three good meals appear every day. He has an irritating ability to know precisely how many beds are occupied without consulting his register, which chest has developed a troublesome lock, how much flour remains in the kitchen and which guest has quietly returned for a fourth helping of breakfast. Theren regards this as nothing remarkable. It is simply what a steward is supposed to know.
Personality
Theren is warm, cheerful and remarkably difficult to offend. A mud-covered pilgrim receives much the same welcome as a wealthy merchant and titles count for very little when someone is standing at his desk looking tired and asking whether there is a bed available. Those arriving frightened, exhausted or penniless are not made to feel embarrassed about it. If Theren has an empty bed he gives them one, and if they are hungry he points them towards the kitchen. Payment is neither demanded nor expected for the ordinary hospitality of Elenrond, although those wishing to leave coin, provisions or offer some useful service are welcome to do so. His usual rule is simple: “Under this roof, you're a guest until you give me reason to call you something else.”
Theren's good humour should not be mistaken for foolishness. He travelled widely when younger and has met enough merchants, adventurers, mercenaries, pilgrims, thieves, nobles, refugees, priests and charlatans to have developed a very good eye for people. He notices muddy boots when the roads have been dry, travellers supposedly unknown to one another carrying equipment from the same armourer, people who spend more time watching doors than conversations and guests who ask rather too casually about Merilrond. He seldom confronts such people immediately. Usually he simply keeps smiling and watches a little more closely. Minor trouble earns a quiet word from Theren. Serious trouble generally discovers that the amiable old Gnome has already sent for someone considerably better equipped to deal with it.
Dîmeril and Elenrond
Dîmeril seldom interferes with the running of the Star Hall. Elenrond is Theren's responsibility and if he says that the Hall needs something repaired, replaced or purchased, the matter is usually settled without much discussion. Theren is nevertheless very clear about the distinction between Elenrond and Merilrond. He may offer almost anyone food, shelter and one of his beds, but he does not grant strangers entrance to Dîmeril's home. An invitation across the threshold of Merilrond is another matter entirely. Their long acquaintance has also left Theren notably unimpressed by Dîmeril's position when domestic matters are concerned. He is one of the relatively few people prepared to interrupt her, put a plate of food in front of her and inform her that she has missed supper again. Dîmeril generally eats it.
Hettie Barrow
Hettie Barrow is an elderly Half-Elven weaver of the Golden Woods and one of its most accomplished textile workers. Short, comfortably stout and thoroughly unimpressed by pretension, Hettie has spent the greater part of her long life working with wool, linen and the far more troublesome Golden Woods spidersilk. Hettie learned her trade when young and has practised it for decades. She can spin, dye and weave most common fibres, but her reputation rests upon her extraordinary skill with spidersilk. Raw spidersilk is notoriously difficult to work. Its fibres must be carefully cleaned, separated and spun, while weaving requires precise control of the tension. In inexperienced hands the threads catch, bind and produce an uneven cloth. Hettie makes it look easy. It isn't. When once asked how she produced such an exceptionally even spidersilk weave, Hettie answered: “Practice.” When asked how much practice was required, she considered the question. “About sixty years.” Hettie produces everything from lightweight tunics and translucent spidersilk gauze to magnificent formal gowns and the heavier material she matter-of-factly calls double-weave. Her work is particularly renowned for its durability and extraordinarily fine finish.
Personality
Hettie is warm, practical and generally good-humoured. She enjoys conversation while she works and possesses an extensive knowledge of local families, births, marriages, romances and arguments accumulated over a very long lifetime. She is not particularly interested in status. Ranger Lords, Sisters, merchants and children all receive much the same Hettie. She is proud of her craft, however, and has little patience for people who mistake textile work for some pleasant pastime undertaken by elderly women. Weaving is her trade, spidersilk is difficult material, and Hettie is exceptionally good at it. She also dislikes waste. Watching someone mistreat a fine spidersilk garment is one of the relatively few reliable ways of genuinely irritating her.
Hettie has known Seraphine Valecourt, Poppy Fenwick to those who knew her as a child, for most of Poppy's life. This means Hettie is largely immune to Seraphine. Poppy owns several fine spidersilk garments, including pieces suitable for her performances, and has been pestering Hettie about beautiful fabrics since adolescence. Hettie likes her enormously. She simply refuses to be impressed by her. Seraphine's glamorous performances have nevertheless done Hettie's trade considerable good. Travellers see the bard dressed in Golden Woods spidersilk, admire the unusual material and begin asking where it came from. Hettie therefore benefits considerably from Poppy's vanity. She has been tactful enough never to phrase it quite that way.
Reputation
The growing value of Golden Woods spidersilk has inevitably encouraged imitation. Cloth containing only a little spidersilk, or sometimes none at all, is occasionally sold elsewhere under impressive claims of Anywyn manufacture. Hettie's work is consequently identifiable by a tiny barrow-shaped knot woven directly into the inside hem. Originally this was simply her maker's mark. It has since become something approaching a guarantee of quality. Merchants familiar with Golden Woods textiles will actively look for the little barrow, and a garment bearing it can command a substantial premium outside the Woods. Hettie finds this mildly ridiculous. Within the Golden Woods, Hettie is not treated as some celebrated artist. She is simply Hettie Barrow, the weaver. That understatement disguises the considerable reputation her work has acquired beyond Anwyn. A wealthy outsider might pay hundreds of gold pieces for one of her finest gowns. Merchants recognise her mark. Nobles may wait months for a commission, and particularly elaborate double-weave garments can require several months of work. Hettie's response to such enthusiasm remains characteristically grounded. A merchant once remarked that one of her finished spidersilk tunics could fetch an extraordinary price in a distant city. Hettie nodded. “Could do. But it's still a shirt.” That is perhaps Hettie Barrow in miniature: an extraordinary craftswoman who sees nothing extraordinary about doing her job properly.
Tobin Barley
Tobin Barley is a middle-aged Halfling beekeeper who tends numerous hives around Merilrond and in carefully chosen clearings throughout the surrounding Golden Woods. He came originally from the Other Place and had already been keeping bees for many years before settling near Merilrond, where the extraordinary variety of woodland flowers offered possibilities he found impossible to resist. Tobin is not formally employed by Dîmeril and considers the bees very much his own concern, although Merilrond provides a ready market for his honey and wax while his colonies perform the invaluable task of pollinating its orchards, herb gardens and roses. He lives in a small cottage close to his principal apiary and is a familiar sight around Merilrond carrying frames, baskets and his battered old smoker, usually accompanied by several bees which appear to regard him as part of the furniture.
The Bees and Their Honey
Tobin produces several distinctive honeys according to where his hives are placed and which plants are flowering. Goldenwood Honey, a rich amber honey gathered from the mixed flowers of the Woods, is the most common and is used extensively in Ginevra Malatesta's kitchens. Rose Honey is much paler and delicately fragrant, produced from hives positioned near the great rose gardens, while his darker Heather Honey has a stronger, slightly bitter flavour particularly prized with cheese and in preserves. During the Flowering, a handful of colonies may also produce tiny quantities of exceptionally rare Flowering Honey. Its unusual fragrance and flavour have led to persistent claims that it possesses magical or aphrodisiac properties. Tobin refuses to encourage such stories and becomes mildly irritated by merchants willing to pay absurd prices for it. As far as he is concerned, “It's honey.”
Honey is only part of Tobin's trade. He supplies beeswax for candles, furniture and bowstring wax, waterproofing, sealing wax and numerous other uses around Merilrond. His colonies are also deliberately moved between orchards and gardens when particular plants require pollination, making Tobin considerably more important to local food production than his modest occupation initially suggests.
Anwyn Healing Honey
Among Tobin's charges are several unusual colonies descended from the giant bees of Anwyn. These creatures require larger hives and considerably more careful handling than ordinary woodland bees, and Tobin is fiercely protective of them. They feed upon the wildflowers, herbs and sacred groves of the Golden Woods and produce a thick, richly fragrant golden honey. Most of this honey is mundane, although exceptionally good. A small quantity, however, is given to the Sisters of Anwyn, who prepare and bless it in honour of Ehlonna to create Anwyn Healing Honey. Each dose is sealed in a small ceramic pot bearing the mark of the White Unicorn. A single spoonful, either eaten or spread directly upon a wound, restores 2d4 hit points. Each pot contains enough prepared honey for one effective dose and has a market value of approximately 75 gp.
The healing properties are not inherent to every jar produced by the giant bees. Tobin supplies the honey; the Sisters provide the blessing and preparation which transforms it into a magical healing substance. This distinction is frequently lost on visiting merchants, who occasionally assume that acquiring a hive would allow them to produce healing honey themselves. Tobin will not overwork the colonies simply to increase production, regardless of the prices outsiders might offer. The Sisters respect this, and Merilrond consequently produces only a limited quantity of Anwyn Healing Honey each year. Much of it is retained for Sisters, rangers, travellers and emergencies, with only the surplus entering wider trade.
Personality
Tobin is cheerful, patient and almost impossible to hurry. He possesses the quiet confidence of someone who routinely opens boxes containing tens of thousands of armed insects and sees no particular reason to become excited about anything less troublesome. He knows his colonies intimately, recognising their temperaments, the health of their queens and subtle changes in behaviour which would be meaningless to almost anyone else. He also talks constantly to his bees. There is nothing magical about this and Tobin freely admits that they cannot understand him. He simply considers conversation part of keeping them. “Morning, girls. Let's see what you've been up to.” When someone once asked whether the bees really understood what he was saying, Tobin looked surprised. “Course not”. He then turned back towards the hive. “Don't listen to him. He's an idiot.”
Ginevra Malatesta
Tobin and Ginevra Malatesta have developed a friendship based upon considerable mutual respect and regular arguments concerning the proper use of honey. Ginevra is one of Tobin's largest customers and uses Goldenwood Honey extensively in Merilrond's kitchens, but she has an unfortunate habit of wanting his rarer varieties for cooking. Tobin considers using his finest Rose Honey in a sauce to be an appalling waste, while Ginevra considers being told which ingredients she may use in her own kitchen equally unacceptable. Neither has managed to convince the other. Their disagreements can therefore become surprisingly intense for two people arguing about honey.
Kelda Ironhand (Vargrimist Dwarf, Smith of Merilrond)
Kelda Ironhand is a Vargrimist Dwarf and the principal smith of Merilrond, working from the settlement's three-forge smithy. She produces little in the way of celebrated magical weaponry, but a great deal of what actually keeps the community functioning: tools, horseshoes, nails, hinges, fittings, weapons, armour and repairs to almost anything made from iron. Kelda came to Merilrond after a considerably harsher life. Like many of the Vargrimist, she had once lived under the domination of other Dwarves, where she was treated less as a person than as property. Her experiences left her intensely self-reliant and with a profound distrust of male Dwarves in particular. Merilrond suits her.
Nobody there demands that Kelda forgive those who harmed her, explain herself to strangers or demonstrate that she has somehow put the past behind her. Dîmeril has never shown much interest in prying into matters Kelda does not wish to discuss, while the predominantly female community allows her to live and work with a degree of security she had rarely experienced before. Most importantly, they gave her a forge and useful work to do. Kelda takes considerable pride in her craft. She has little patience for the romantic notion that a Dwarven smith must spend her life producing legendary axes and enchanted armour. A well-made hinge which remains straight for fifty years is, in Kelda's opinion, evidence of perfectly respectable craftsmanship. The younger inhabitants of Merilrond are fascinated by the smithy, although Kelda maintains a formidable collection of rules concerning precisely where children may stand while the forges are lit. She initially found their interest bewildering. Having spent much of her earlier life being valued principally for what others could take from her, she was quite unprepared for children staring at something she had made and asking: “Can you teach me?”
She discovered, somewhat to her own surprise, that she could. Kelda is still guarded, sometimes abrasive and particularly uncomfortable around unfamiliar male Dwarves. Merilrond has not magically erased what happened to her, nor does anyone expect it to. It has simply given her something she had previously possessed very little of: a place where her skills are valued, her boundaries are respected and the life she builds belongs to her.