l'Mina Feuerwald

[l'Mina Feuerwald]

(( General Information ))

Character Name: l'Mina Feuerwald

Age: How old is this forest, and who is so impertinent as to ask? Can we not find more interesting discourse? Truthfully though, Feuerwald is old, primeval like the forest she dwells in.

Identified Court: Solitary

Fey Blood: Primarily Earth, though with a strong streak of Fire, unusual among dryads, even given their fairly liberal views on promiscuity and fertility.

Appearance: l'Mina's appearance varies somewhat based on the kind of tree she last melded with (see below); however, since the time of the Fissure, when fully a third of the Feuerwald was consumed by the Fissure of Woe, her manifestation always includes a jagged, blackened scar that slowly weeps amber tears, each with a tiny speck of shadow in their core. Though once as beautiful as the unspoiled nature of her woods, the conflict of the war and its ultimate aftermath have weathered furrows, etched beauty with tragedy and diminishment. When she bothers with coverings, they are nearly always formed of living plants; whether these garments are simply decorative, laced with thorns, or impregnated with mildly toxic or halluncinogenic chemicals depends greatly on her mood and the company she keeps. She bears no Wings, nor Tail or Horns, a fact that gives some others of the Fae cause to judge her poorly. She does, however, possess an odd collection of Scars; when viewed wholly nude, they seem to form a pattern, but the ends never quite meet up correctly. (See history).

Inner Court: None (I've not enough time for -that- level of commitment, my apologies.)

Level: Level 2

Powers:
Plant-meld - l'Mina can, over a process that takes about ten minutes, slowly merge with a tree (live or dead) or any sufficiently large amount of other living plants. This ability is required for her to use most of her other powers without suffering backlash from the flaw introduced in her by the Fissure. When she departs - a far faster process - her features will be altered in a manner suitable to the nature of the tree she inhabited if it is a different kind than the one she melded with previously.

Know the Wood - While melded, l'Mina can further subsume herself into the consciousness of the forest. This takes an hour, but once achieved, gives her knowledge of what transpires within the breadth of the woods as she experiences the sensations as part of a greater whole. This carries risks - if the forest is imperiled, she feels that peril; if a fire began to burn the trees and creatures of the wood, she feels the echo-pain as a real sensation.

Greenway Travel - Once melded, l'Mina can travel to any other tree or sufficently large quantity of plants within the same contiguous forest. This travel is not instantaneous, but it is far faster than walking or flying the distance involved. If she is currently using "Know the Wood", her control is perfect - she emerges exactly at the point desired, in whatever pose suits her fancy. Otherwise she emerges from the given tree or plants at ground level, in a walking or crawling pose. If she uses this power unmelded, then her arrival is semi-randomized and she will be severely disoriented, wracked with pain, her wound weeping profusely.

Immune to plant-based toxins. She may permit herself to 'suffer' euphoric effects at her discretion.

Magical Knowledge:
Spells that would qualify as of a 'druidic' bent; her magical knowledge compliments her powers; giving her influence over plants, animals, and mystical creatures 'of the Wood'. She can coax, coddle and persuade, but unless she draws on the death taint, she cannot outright compel.

(( Personality ))

l'Mina is a neutral party in the sense she does not support any of the three sides. Light and Dark created a war whose end result was the Fissure - they and the Death Fey are all to blame - there are precious few whose hands are not covered with the essence of the Forest's life. Before the war, l'Mina, while not having everythng, had more than enough to be happy; she was the Forest and It was she. But her forest has been struck a deadly wound - one that she knows is spreading despite her efforts to hold it back.

She, too, has been diminished, forced to embrace her lesser role; and to find what pleasure she can in it. Indeed, it is the search for pleasures that allows her to shunt off the weight of what has happened for a time, and as a result, she indulges heavily given the opportunity, whether it be in fine foods, exotic drink, carnality or, when the weight of the wound is particularly heavy, even darker passions.

An ultimate goal, though she does not truly believe it possible, would be the reversal of the Fissure - or barring that, some means of restoring the portion of the Forest that was destroyed in the Fissure's creation.

(( History ))

There was the Forest. The Forest was, the Forest is. The Forest must still be. It is wild, it was fecund, and full of red and black undercurrents to the green, brown and blue that the mortal eye can see.

Before l'Mina was l'Mina, she was of the Forest and the Forest was of her; where one began and the other ended was meaningless. All that lived in the forest were her children. Outside the Forest were Others, like yet unlike her, siblings perhaps, rivals certainly, lovers occasionally - and their progeny gave waters and hills to the Forest; and Wosen to the Others.

But as with any rivalry, there were those who lost sight of the goal for the rules, and those who lost sight of the rules for the goal; and bitter difference began to drive wedges between the Others; and new Hunts began in the Forest; she who would be l'Mina was thrilled to see the Others do this, to see Fire stir in their veins as they shed one another, and their fluids fed the Forest.

But the Hunt turned into something else, something new to the Forest - the very idea of Hunt, swollen and engorged and turned in on itself - and Forest learned of axes and fire, marchers and monsters that served a new Word, and it was War.

Forest adapted as best it could - but the Others and their servants always slipped through Forest's borders.

And then the cataclysm. Forest was sundered, broken, infected. It became forest, and it became dryads and satyr, and a hundred greater and lesser spirits. And l'Mina; l'Mina Feuerwald, she who contains the wound. Limited, lost l'Mina, who wandered among humans for a time until she remembered more of herself. She has travelled and seen many woods, has made a point of melding into each one; taking its scar into herself, making her Fey flesh a map of discordant notes that was once the unbroken song of Forest.

Now, one hundred and thirteen years later, barely an eyeblink's time among the fey, the madness is growing once more. l'Mina searches for answers and wonders if there are any left for her and for Forest; and her Wound grows.