Maela Pinewhisper — Herbalist & Winter Remedies Brewer
“Winter tests the seams—of coats, of hearts. I mend both with patience.”
Name: Maela Pinewhisper
Race: Firbolg
Role: : Herbalist & Winter Remedies Brewer
Appearance: Maela is tall and broad-shouldered with soft, moss-green skin and freckles like pine dust across her cheeks. Long auburn hair—threaded with birch bark charms and sprigs of dried heather—falls in a thick braid. Her eyes are cool hazel, attentive and kind. She wears layered seal-wool and bark-lined leathers stitched in practical patterns, a green felt shawl pinned with a pinecone brooch, and a belt crowded with corked vials, poultice tins, and folded muslin. Her hands carry the stains of tannins and sap; a gnarled quarterstaff—polished smooth at the grip—doubles as walking stick and herb-harvest pole.
Backstory
Raised in the tree-sheltered glens west of the Verdant Weald, Maela learned winter craft under a wandering circle of firbolg healers. Years later, a failed batch of “warmth wine” in Frosthold cost three sledders their fingers; she traveled north, opened Pinewhisper Remedies off the quay road, and began walking Thrain’s ice routes to stash “way cures” in marked caches—honey-moss tea, seal-fat salve, spruce-tip lozenges. She trades with Odel for treated leathers, supplies Vedra’s watch with glare balm, and keeps Borik’s crews in antifrost paste for lines and hands. Where others see a hard, white world, Maela sees living systems—lichen, wind, and will—and she brews accordingly: slow, steady, reliable.
