Maren Morrowlight - Kindling Celebrant of Emberveil
Everyone who reaches Emberveil wants to stop being who they were. Maren Morrowlight is the changeling celebrant who stands with them beneath the Veilstone Arch at the moment they decide who comes next, and who refuses, always, to answer that question for them.
Introduction
Everyone who finds their way to Emberveil is looking for the same thing, whether or not they can say it out loud. They want to stop being who they have been. The settlement is built around that wanting — four hundred people in the mist behind the hills, most of them living under names they chose rather than names they were given — and once in a while, beneath a crescent of black stone at the centre of town, somebody kneels down in grey linen and does it on purpose. That rite is The Kindling. It is the most serious thing that happens in Emberveil, and it does not happen without Maren Morrowlight, who prepares the ash, rings the chime, and asks the only question the rite actually consists of: what are you keeping, and what are you setting down?
Profile
Name: Maren Morrowlight
Race: Changeling
Gender: Female (by choice, and not always)
Alignment: Neutral Good
Role/Class: Kindling Celebrant of Emberveil
Challenge Rating: 2
"I am not going to tell you who to be next. I am going to stand here until you do."
Appearance: Maren keeps a plain face on purpose. Her default is smooth and unremarkable — pale grey-white skin like cooled ash, short, colorless hair, features soft enough that people describe her afterward in three different ways and all of them are wrong. The one thing she does not change is her eyes, which are a warm amber-brown she picked out for herself a long time ago and has kept ever since. She wears an undyed linen over-wrap with a wide border dyed ember-orange, sleeves rolled and pinned above the elbow, and her forearms are grey to the crease from handling warm ash — she does not wash it off between rites, because the next one is always coming. A shallow fired-clay bowl rides on a hip-cord. She goes barefoot on the terrace under the Arch, in every season, and she has the calm, unhurried physical stillness of somebody who has spent a great many hours kneeling opposite frightened strangers and waiting for them to be ready.
