C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
Ynga Nordavind is a scion of House Nordavind and the granddaughter of Ienarich's current High Chieftain, Yngvar Nordavind. Despite her sweet, unassuming nature, she is the most promising sorcerer to rise from her lineage in the last century, something her grandsire hopes to exploit to carve greater in-roads with the nations of Lacorron by way of entry into the Order of the Glade.
Age: 15
Race: Human
Nationality: Ienarich
Weapon of Choice: Sword
Elemental Affinity: Wind
Spiritual Affinity: Light | C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y
C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y
“I can still remember the first time I ever left the hold. I had just turned seven years old, and grandfather finally agreed to take me out to see our lands.”
Ynga came into the world as many of her family did—amidst the crackling of logs and the howling of the winter winds. A daughter of the Nordavind family, who had served as the wardens of untamed Ienarich since the passing of Ienar himself. A sweet and bashful child from the outset, she was not as steely as the elder brother who came before her, neither as willful and wild as the younger to follow. Though hers were a harsh and proud people, born from the struggles of life in Ienarich's dense wilderness and across its rolling tundra, her earliest memories were ones of warmth and love.
It was often that she would toddle behind her mother's skirts as she made her rounds around the hold and down into Ienarhald itself, wide-eyed and full of wonder at the sights and sounds, or sat at her grandfather's foot in his solar above the great hall, listening to the old, grizzled lord of all that was the north regale her with stories of their ancestors and their heroics, for Ienarich could not prosper without heroes, both great and small, such were the burdens of life upon its frontier.
“We walked for what must have been an hour before we were far enough from home to be by our lonesome. Just us and the fir trees and the big, blue sky. I loved it. It was so... beautiful.”
A life that her family, for all that they loved and doted upon her, saw her unfit for. She was a sweet girl, of that much all could agree, and kind, and earnest, always looking to help buoy the spirits of the other children whenever they'd fall into tantrums of doldrums. But she never had a stomach for the harsher things in life, wailing whenever it'd come time to cull the herds in preparation for the winters to come, or else wise dispatch those animals no longer fit for service. The time would eventually come that she would be a girl no longer, and she would need to face the world beyond the great palisades of their familial hold. Once her grandfather and father passed, Ienarich would fall into the good, sensible hands of her elder brother, and she would need to be sent to wed a man of good standing who'd keep her in comfort until she could start a family of her own, and nurture them as they knew she would well.
“Then, very suddenly, grandfather drew me so close I could smell the woodsmoke on his furs. Then he gestured with one of his huge hands. ‘Look, little dove,’ he said, so quiet I could hardly hear him, ‘But don't make a sound.’
Along the bank of the creek was something I'd only heard of in stories and songs; a big, burly brown bear, with three little cubs at her heels.”
But that did not satisfy young Ynga. She had been told from her earliest days that she was the blood of Ienar the North Wind, who brought law to the lands at the crown of the world when there was none. Letting her brothers take over the hold, and lead their people, was all well and good for her, yes. Andri seemed to have an answer for everything, and everyone seemed to think Magnus would grow to be a warrior even the greater of their grandsire. But to sit idly by, tending little more than a hearth and her children? It felt wrong. Ienarich was a place of great hardship, the songs assured her, where everyone needed do their part. How could she rest in comfort at her husband's side while so many struggled and fought to eke out a living in the hills and amidst the fjords?
“It didn't seem to notice us, too focused on the rushing water. Then, with a paw that made even grandfather's hands look small, it swiped into the stream and brought up a big, fat fish. I watched it drag the fish, flopping and thrashing, to the shore. When it bit into the fish, bright, gooey red marbles started to squirt out of it—Andri told me earlier that year that those are what fish babies looked like before they could swim. The mother and her cubs made a meal of it all.”
But there was nothing she could do to convince them otherwise. What was she to do? Become some great shield-maiden, and sail down the river Breein with her brothers and uncles when the seasons turned and the fields became too crusted in hoarfrost to yield grain? She could hardly stand the sight of lambs going to slaughter. How would she fare when made to hunt along the river's shores on campaign? Or when the men needed to tend to the grim work of sending southerners to the same place the lambs had gone? The warriors of Ienarich may have been valiant heroes in her songs and her stories, but in the lands beyond her grandfather's kingdom, they were known to bring with them only death and destruction in return for that which filled Itenaian or Giellnalian coffers.
“I remember being terribly upset. Once we had gotten well away from the bear, I asked grandfather, ‘How can the bear do that to the poor fish? Doesn't she know it was a mother too? Those were her babies!’
It wasn't often you could make out much on grandfather's face. He had seen enough winters that nothing seemed to upset him anymore. But to this day, I can still see the sadness that crept into the corner of his eyes when he spoke.
‘Because that's the way of the world, little dove,’ He told me, more sad that I needed it explained than for the poor fish, ‘Best you learn it now, while you're still young.’”
The songs and stories had done enough to teach her the way of it, though. If words couldn't win the day, then the only thing for it was action. In the rugged north, those young folks who meant to claim themselves adults were expected to prove it to their community before it could be so. As autumn came to a close and winter loomed ahead, when a boy or girl thought themselves ready to be called a man or woman, they would head off into the wilderness for a time. Often it was a single day, sometimes longer, but rarely more than a week. They'd use what their mothers and fathers taught them to make it through the long, cold night, prove they were more than capable of handling themselves, and return triumphant, sometimes with trophies of beasts or monsters slain during their journey. Some would even return with something more precious than hides or fangs: some returned with magic, awakened through the hardship of the experience. Those who claimed such a prize typically rose to positions of prominence.
Most Ienarians set out on such a journey after having seen fifteen, perhaps sixteen winters. Ynga was a girl of eleven when she packed her sack with salt beef and tinder and set out from the hold one chilly evening with one of the armory's swords tucked under her furs.
“That was the way of the world. Mother and child devouring mother and child. I think that was the first time I realized it—realized the world was a truly wicked place. The big ate the small. The strong beat the weak. The natural order of things was one of cruelty. I didn't like that.”
By the time her family's huskarls realized she had vanished from her chambers, it was too late. She was already well off into the wilds to the north of Ienarhald. She would prove herself to them all. Prove that she was just as capable of helping their people survive, no, thrive in their homeland. She would make Ienarich just a little brighter than it had been when she found it, just as she made the halls of her grandfather's hold just that little bit brighter with her wide smiles and laughter. It would simply take a different sort of work to make it so. The search parties dispatched in her wake followed her tracks into the treeline by the time the sun dipped down low beyond the horizon, but had little hope of continuing by the light of the moon. There was nothing to do but wait.
“I wanted the world to be gentler. I wanted the world to be... kinder. But what was I to do? I was just a silly little girl sniffling over a fish and its roe, and the world had little patience for silly little girls with such silly woes.”
When morning came, they continued, searching high and low for the lost lamb of Nordavind. By the time the sunset on the second day, the grim reality of what likely happened set in. Even still, Yngvar Nordavind was not a man to so easily give in. They would continue to search for his little dove until they found her, or whatever might well have been left of her. The search went on for three days, then four, and then five. Her father returned to Ienarich to console his wife, but still, the huskarls continued their thankless work, looking for tracks along an expanse of trees and rocks that seemed to continue without end. By the time dusk fell upon the seventh day of searching, even the resolve of the High Chieftain had begun to falter. Even more seasoned members of the kingdom would be hard-pressed to survive for so long, so far from civilization, with such little preparation. The weather would soon enough turn on them. It was unlikely Ynga was to return.
Until, by the light of the retinue's cookfires, later that night, a pink-faced child with dark curls and big, bright eyes came upon them from the brush, and on her heels, two others.
“When I got a little older, I realized there was only one thing to be done about it. If the world was such a cruel place, ruled by the strong, for the strong, then there was only one way for me to bring about the change I wanted to see.”
Two other boys who had gotten lost on their own trial, little Ynga explained as if nothing in the world was wrong. She had found them a few days into her trek, and followed them further into the wilds, hoping to find friendly faces. When she instead met with another party fast on their trail—a pair of dire-wolves eager to fill their bellies in advance of the cold to come—she did as she had been told that great heroes were meant to do when monsters skulked in the dark and preyed upon innocent folk. She slew them both and carried on to try and bring the boys back to Ienarhald before something even bigger tracked them down. The uproar that followed her incredulous tale might have done a better job drawing such beasts than the plodding of a few beardless youths. Anger, disbelief, relief, and more.
Ygna caught quite the scolding for her foolishness, for the tall tale she had so proudly declared, but when the boys echoed her sentiment, and her bloodied blade bore the scars of their claws and fangs, it became clear that the little dove of the Nordavind family had become more akin to some great eagle in absence of their notice. Answering her call in the face of such overwhelming odds, sorcery had coated the girl's blade as it had in the case of their honored ancestor, and carried by the north winds which now poured from the tempest of her soul, Ynga's future quickly shifted from one of inglorious kindness to one of true consequence.
“Like Itena, and Haur, and Antes and Ienar all, I'd make the world a better place with my own two hands. I'd make up a sweeter, gentler story for the people of Lacorron, writ in the only language the world understands.”
The years that followed were difficult, but satisfying all the same. Rather than spend her time by the fire, sewing and simmering, Ynga joined her brothers outside in the training yard. She learned from the huskarls how to wield weapons of war, how to track great beasts, and how to wield her gift against those who would harm her vision of what the world could be. Of what it should be. When it became clear her aptitude for sorcery exceeded even the more experienced of her Grandfather's warriors, it was decided the Ienarich was an unsuitable place to hone her further. If she meant to become a great hero, her grandsire reasoned, then it would only be suitable that she go to the place where the heroes of old were made: the Order of the Glade.
It was a few months after her fifteenth year that correspondence from Atutania came, inviting the young Nordavind to test her mettle and see whether she was truly cut from the cloth of greatness so claimed. She set out only days later, with little more than talent and dreams of a better world to her name.
C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N
C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N
Astute ⬗ Brave ⬗ Cheerful ⬗ Compassionate ⬗ Idealistic ⬗ Stalwart
A B I L I T I E S
A B I L I T I E S
For someone of her age, Ynga is a rather accomplished young woman. A true scion of the north, she is a skilled survivalist, capable of making camp, foraging food and supplies, following tracks, and leaving little of her own in turn. She knows how to sew both cloth and wound, which plants are good for eating and which for fever and sickness, and how to break a path for those of her friends who are not so accomplished outdoors.
Her skills as a fighter are no less honed. While her sweet, caring demeanor might lead one to believe she is a merciful combatant, nothing could be further from the truth. She has been trained by the finest warriors of Ienarich, a kingdom renowned for the skill and ferocity of its soldiers of fortune. Ynga has learned how to wield axe and knife and spear and shield, as any of her grandfather's huskarls might do, though she holds a special, child-like reverence for the sword above all else—for the sword was the warrior of Itena and the many greats who followed in her example, a weapon of a hero before a warrior. The similarities between her and Itena begin and end there, however, as Ynga's way of fighting is one steeped far deeper in pragmatism than honor. She fights with sword and knife as much as tooth and claw in the heat of the moment, throwing elbows and kicks and dirt and whatever else might bring her to a swifter, more efficient victory, reasoning that all battle is inherently cruel, and it is all the better to bring it to the quickest end possible, when it must be had.
Though she has only studied it for a short time, Ynga is accomplished enough in the usage of sorcery. Her application is one familiar to those warriors of the Ienarich, known to bedeck themselves in the elements that dominate their souls. The wind produced by Ynga's magic acts as a cloak about her, buoying her steps such that she might walk upon freshly fallen snow without sinking. It carries her limbs as she dashes about and slashes this way and that, lending inordinate speed and strength to the swings of her blade and the impact of her boot upon those who oppose her. She's even managed to grow adept at wrapping it around the length of her blade, the shearing force of her mana lending strength to the cutting edge of her weapon. She's even begun to experiment with surging this razor-thin aura at the peak of her swings, extending her reach for the half-heartbeat it takes to cut her enemy, before shrinking back down to preserve her strength. One can only theorize how her mastery might grow under the watchful eye of the Order. |
