Marydryn: An epic tale of a woman scorned

[EvfretFeaulx]

So, I've had this character for about 15 years now who has traveled with me across MANY different games. Her story is long. Very long. But never before have I compiled all the footnotes, short stories, and timelines into one tale. For some reason I am now compelled to bring the majority of what is left over, lying around after all these years and form one descriptive story. This story holds a very dear place in my heart so I ask, please, no-one take this and reproduce as their own. I understand the inspirations are quite obvious part of many other great legendary myths and stories but still, this one becomes unique on it's own. Please understand it makes me nervous to publish openly my stories but I hate not being able to share. Humorously, much like this alpha phase game, any progression may at any point and even without warning, may be completely erased.

To put this character into perspective, inspirations for her story draw heavily upon (you guessed it, but for no real reason) characters beginning with M in their name. Morgan LaFey, Maleficent, Mad Madam Mim (who is also a Disney character, and intertwined with the story of Merlin), and Grendel's Mother. So, enjoy the updates as I post them and feel free to post questions if you come up with them.

*ahem* Now, to begin

Marydryn is a beautiful woman of shorter than average stature with fair skin and slender build. She starts with light blonde hair, and bright blue eyes but her curse’s grip on her mind and body turn them into dark, jet black hair and purple, then eventually similarly black, soulless eyes. Born into a politically powerful house, her noble bloodline stems far into the past. Her family’s influence stretches across many lands and territories and so, is frequently intertwined with major movements, decisions, and even scandals. As a persona, she begins innocent, loving, pure, and happy. Unfortunately, the events throughout her life corrupt and jade her into a malicious, hateful, powerful force of evil. The powerful curse she unwittingly accepts as a gift dramatically slows her aging allowing her story to span over 6,300 years. For the sake of adaptation to RoR, I play her approaching her 3rd era (millenia). Her exact age is unimportant for this game but it is between 2500 and 2900 years.

[EvfretFeaulx]

Childhood:

Her childhood was as perfect as imaginable; with loving parents, graceful innocence, and a compelling sense of wondrous adventure. She befriends a colony of fairies as a young girl and for years they play together, grow together, and live together.

One evening she wanders into a dark and thorny thicket, where a magical witch charms her into following deeper into the forest. Her fairy companion is powerless to stop the spell so she follows at a distance. The witch shows Marydryn what life could be like with the powers of magic and Marydryn eagerly accepts the gift of Dark Magic without fully understanding the possible, horrific consequences. The Witch conjures a showy, glittering mass of smoke while chanting the captivating spell then lunges for Marydryn and grabs her by the arms, stunning her body into a frightened and helpless lock. The Witches’ eyes glow with a haunting, violet flame and with a final, sharp word, she thrusts her lips onto Mary’s, sealing the curse with a kiss. The glittering smoke flashes, bangs, pops and crackles, then the witch slinks off into the shadows and an almost direct and immediate path back home to the verdant green lawns of Marydryn’s family castle are opened up through the trees. However, just before the Witch escapes through the smoke, the Fairy friend catches a glimpse of her face and with a horrifying glare the witch mutters a sharp curse and flicks her wrist, silencing the fairy for eternity. Marydryn, almost completely shocked with the sudden event yet still standing, blinks herself into consciousness. She walks forward to the path home through the trees almost unaware of what just happened, and doesn’t even notice her fairy friend dancing and fluttering about, desperately trying to catch Marydryn’s attention. And so her tale begins, with her fate sealed from an early age, Marydryn moves onward, unaware of the long life and struggle ahead.

The next few years of Marydryn’s are mostly uneventful as she continues her childhood with little effect of the Witch’s Curse. She empathetically bonds closely with her unfortunately silenced fairy friend, not knowing the true cause for her plight all the while the fairy stays by her side frightened but vigilant, ever watching for the return of the witch. The fairy sees herself as a protector.

Adolescence:

Marydryn’s parents are uprooted through national and civil unrest and so, for the safety of their estate, their heritage, their nobility and most importantly, their daughter, they relocate closer to the heavily guarded academy where Marydryn is enrolled into studying through what she suspects as an effort to distract her from the outside world. She becomes enticed with history and tales of daemons, dark magic, unforgiving gods of foreign cultures, and war. She officially takes the path of historian, but her professors, instructors, and counsels all take notice of her growing aura and insist she be placed into the schools of the gifted where she may be taught to harness her “magic”. Her parents oblige and soon she is redirected to the performing arts. Throughout her studies, her curse steers her away from the lighter, more helpful magics until almost completely losing interest. Her enthusiasm, or lack thereof, for her masters’ teachings does not go unnoticed and they suspect she is turning towards darker influences after hours. Their fears eventually prove true and she is caught one night in the library with many books on dark sorcery, alchemy, and even necromancy. She is put into isolation while awaiting contact from her parents. It is there she finally acknowledges and learns of her inner drive toward Dark Magic. Her parents take her out of the college and send her onto a Purification Pilgrimage, hoping to cure their only daughter of this infection.

Naturally, Marydryn fakes setting off into the right direction and soon forges her own path, wandering the lands in search of more dark magika, tomes, and lore. On her travels she meets a wizard of immense power but almost no influence. She studies both light and dark magic behind the cover of the forests and mountains surrounding the wizards cabin and tower.

Adulthood:

Many, many years have passed, centuries even, but her time in the woods felt as if only a season. Marydryn has fallen in love with the wizard who proves to be a magnificent teacher, but a poor judge of character and is of immoral alignment. The wizard doesn’t quite understand Marydryn’s intentions, and sometimes neither does she, but he doesn’t care, either. He is content with her company; so much that they even share a child together. This child, unfortunately, is not of pure health, and after some years of unstable patience on the wizard’s part, he finally cannot handle the extra care the child and her now troublesome mother are now demanding of him, and the wizard leaves after a night’s argument over the baby’s future. Desperate and alone, Marydryn uses her dark magics to protect her handicapped son. The magic enhances the baby’s ability to walk and talk on his own, and after more nursing, practice on not only his part by performing basic tasks, but also Marydryn’s practice in the dark magics, the child grows into a strong, capable boy, developing primitive speech and communication skills.

Decades go by and Marydryn’s use of her magic to augment her son’s abilities and health consume a noticeable amount of life from the surrounding forest. The nearby trees have all but withered away, and just stand tall with grey, dried bark and without a single leaf or blossom. The brush, and grass have all browned into what would appear a wintry frost-induced hibernation. Even the earth and rocks have taken on a dark, soot-stained appearance. Marydryn’s son has grown into a gigantic, tall, troll of a human. Corrupted by the dark magic used to keep him alive, his already deformed structure - which left him with a hump, a limp, bowlegged, cross-eyed, and just horrifically deformed - now is wrapped by awfully greusome, porous, leathery skin, riddled with lesions and discoloration. The very touch of light on his skin and eyes brings him pain, and so he is only let out at night to find his food, which by these days has become the livestock of farmers and vollages from across the mountain ranges.

Marydryn’s troll son has built improvements on the old wizards tower near the cabin, making it taller and more stable and allowing Marydryn to see farther into the lands, and keep an eye on her son while he ventures for food and supplies for the two of them. Through her dark powers she manages to gain influence over an entire colony of ravens and blackbirds who in turn become her eyes beyond the mountains to watch over her son. Marydryn’s body remains thin and her skin remains pail, but mot through lack in nutrition, for her son is able to bring home entire sheep, goats, and even cows for them to feed on. However, like the land around her, her hair also has turned black, and her eyes, now a dark purple, see better in the night than in the day, although she does not feel pain or discomfort from the sunlight, like her son.

Marydryn’s separation from her family throughout the years went largely unnoticed by her part, but not at all through her family.Her father places a reward for the first brave adventurer to bring him information leading to the recovery of his only daughter and the centuries she spent in the dying woods brought the uncovered territory of the scouts and bounty hunters closer to her home. One night, while Marydryn’s son is out searching for food, a solo adventurer looking for the reward money makes his way into one of the villages plagues by the unexplained missing livestock being used to feed Marydryn and her son. The barkeep explains a massive swarm of ravens and blackbirds are always seen just after the sun sets on the eve before another animal goes missing. The townspeople thought for ages it was just these carnivorous birds causing the loss of cattle but the adventurer suspects otherwise. It is on the following night when the adventurer spots Marydryn’s son in the woods outside a ranch, accompanied by thousands of ravens and blackbirds. He promptly sends an arrow flying into the back shoulder of the gigantic creature, but it only frightens him and he runs off into the woods, disappearing quickly. Upon returning home, Marydryn’s son stumbles into the door sobbing with pain and dripping blood all over the floor. Marydryn is quick to remove the shunt of the arrow, but the head is lodged deep into her son’s flesh and she dare not remove it. She lays her son down to rest promising a more bountiful hunt on the next day, then climbs the stairs to the top of her tower to speak with her birds where she learns of the source of the arrow and the clothes of the adventurer hinting of a more prosperous region. She suddenly remembers how long she has been from her family and collapses to the floor in shock. She hurries down the towers’ 600 steps to her cabin and bursts through the door to her study room. She frantically throws books, papers, sketches, and instruments aside desperately searching for a calendar, or dated note, or something to tell her how much time had passed. Among the mess, she finds a graph with lunar paths drawn, depicting the cycles of time. She rushes outside to the front of her cabin and holds the paper at arm’s length to the sky, measuring the alignment of the stars to the position of the now high moon. She stops breathing, and her eyes dart frantically from the paper to the stars and the moon. Her eyes grow wide and her jaw drops as she clutches her heart. She lets loose of the paper and drops to the ground gasping for air. Panic overcomes her and her body is frozen. She lies paralyzed on her back staring wide-eyed into the stars panting heavily with short, sharp breathes. The paper floats down against a twig beside her and she can only follow it with her eyes. In disbelief, she reads the graph again, the lines and shapes of the moon burning an image into her mind and suddenly she realizes... Somehow, over 800 years had passed and she lost all touch with the world outside her valley and was consumed by her desire to learn more of the dark magics.