Ah, yes, the Baroness Fairwind, beleaguered spouse of the tepid Baron Grellus; what do we know about her? From the "castle" roster: she is 42 years old, 5'8" tall and 110 lbs wide--which is not very wide at all--(that's like 1.7 liters and 8 stone for you metric folks out there) and has long brown hair and brown eyes. Though she's a 3rd level cleric--4.8th level in the metric system--and her spells du jour are Detect Evil, Detect Magic, and Chant. We don't get her full stats so we don't know how Strong, Intelligent, Wise, etc., she is. Actually, she has 2 first level spells "memorized"--standard for a 3rd level cleric--so we can assume that her Wis is no higher than 12; otherwise she'd have at least 1 bonus spell. She has a ring of protection and a wand of magic missiles; can clerics use a wand of magic missiles? [Consults DMG... any class can use 'em; how come I never knew that?]
She's a lawful good cleric living in a chaotic town and rumor has it that the populace find her to be a bit haughty. She occasionally goes into town accompanied by her daughter Andrella, a couple of bodyguards, and/or the Baron. She and Andrella tend the gardens at the castle so she has a hobby, which is nice. She also spends at least some of her time down in the dungeons of the castle.
Her only mention in the rumor table is that she is lawful good; do people really talk about alignments as if they're ethnicities or congenital diseases? I guess it makes sense in a world where alignment languages are a thing.
Yalta, Spiritual Advisor |
From the village write up (#31 Priest's Home) we learn that this is the home of her "spiritual advisor." His name is Yalta, a priest (C3) with a charisma of 17. So, the noblewoman has a highly charismatic spiritual advisor with a Russian name. This raises some questions for the book club:
- Has Lakofka taken an awfully circuitous route to inform us that the young baronette Andrella is a hemophiliac?
- Does this not confirm what we've all pretty much assumed by now: that Baron Grellus is not only a figurative cuckold but a literal one as well?
- Why did Lakofka fail to mention Yalta's resistance to poison?
What other info is there on the baroness? She is the only person besides Grellus who ventures down to the dungeon level of the "castle." We know that the secret door in the East corridor that provides access to the dungeon proper--where the Baron stashes the treasury--is trapped, but once you've figured it out, you can automatically bypass the trap henceforth. According to the text:
"The Baron has passed the opening test, though Fairwind has not."
Baron Grellus clearly has not passed his knowledge on to the Baroness which more than indicates that there is not a spirit of nuptial cooperation in their relationship.
In conclusion, Fairwind is a slender, middle aged woman married to a wealthy nobleman--not bad so far. Unfortunately, he is an incompetent and stingy baron who has lost the respect of his subjects and his wife, who has turned to adultery. She spends her free time tending the gardens with her daughter and sneaks off for "spiritual advice" from Yalta, a seductive priest who lives in town for apparently no other reason than to be near to her. She also sneaks down to the basement at night in order to get past the trapped door to the dungeon proper where she hopes to locate the treasure. Perhaps once it's found she will lead a coup against her husband, using the treasury as her own leverage to ensure her position in the new order. Or perhaps she just wants to steal enough of it to run off with Yalta and live a better life anywhere that is not this backwater burg on a remote island.
4 comments:
I think more was planned for Fairwind and Andrella since L1 mentions their stats would be published in L2. That never happened. I think you have made a good connection with her spiritual advisor Yalta.
Interesting observations. My biggest inconsistency would be Pelltar as a LN Mage/Magic user having skeleton guards-seems a strange combination/misuse of alignment.
Pelltar doesn't surprise me considering the Suel (main demographic of the Isle.) revere Wee Jas, A LN deity of magic and death that doesn't mind if raise dead is used "as long as they are not reanimated against their will, and their remains are procured in a lawful manner."
Just imagine Pelltar going around Restenford getting farmers to sign consent forms to donate their skeleton after death. All for very important magical research of course!
It sounds an awful lot like Wee Jas was created for the sole purpose of justifying Pelltar's necromantic tendencies. Nicely done Lakofka.
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