Aelwen Crossroot – Marsh Crossing Warden
“Some places are meant to be crossed once—and never lightly.”
Name: Aelwen Crossroot
Race: Half-Elf
Role/Class: Marsh Crossing Warden
Appearance: Aelwen Crossroot is tall and spare, her half-elven features weathered into something more austere than graceful. Her skin bears faint green-brown staining from years spent knee-deep in wetland water, and thin scars trace her calves and forearms where roots, reeds, and claws have claimed their toll. Her hair, dark auburn threaded with gray, is kept braided tight and pinned high to avoid snagging.
She wears layered leathers reinforced with bark plates and woven root-fiber cords. Moss and small charms hang from her cloak, each tied to a specific warning or ward. Her eyes are steady and penetrating, often fixed not on faces but on feet, waterlines, and the subtle shifts of ground beneath them. A gnarled root-staff—still faintly alive—rests constantly in her grip.
Backstory
The crossing Aelwen guards predates written memory: a narrow stretch of firmer ground where marsh, estuary, and old forest intersect. Trade routes formed around it. Settlements rose because of it. And countless lives were lost when it was misused.
Aelwen was raised nearby, taught early that the crossing was not owned—but kept. When a rival faction attempted to widen and fortify it for permanent control, the marsh reacted violently. Flooding, sinkholes, and disease followed. Aelwen survived where others did not.
She bound herself to the crossing in ritual and oath, becoming its living boundary. Passage is not forbidden—but it is never free. Those who cross must do so with intent, respect, and consequence.
