Seris Goldweave - Diplomat & Market Speaker
“Every voice has a price—fear, pride, coin, hope. My job is to know which one to pay before the shouting starts.”
Name: Seris Goldweave
Race: Half-Elf
Role/Class: Diplomat & Market Speaker / Bard Level 9
Appearance: Seris Goldweave carries herself like the calm center of a busy market—composed, warm, and utterly unhurried. She is a graceful half-elf in her early middle years, with warm umber skin and soft, angular features that walk the line between elven refinement and human approachability. Her hair is a cascade of dark curls streaked with gold-blond threads, usually braided back on one side with delicate metal clasps shaped like leaves and coins. Her eyes are a striking amber, bright and attentive, quick to crinkle with amusement or sharpen with quiet disapproval.
Her clothing blends merchant practicality with diplomatic flair: a well-tailored longcoat of deep forest green trimmed in gold thread, worn over a soft cream blouse and fitted trousers. A sash of woven ribbons—each gifted from different caravans, guilds, or delegations—wraps her waist. Simple but elegant jewelry adorns her wrists and ears, mostly worked in brass and bronze rather than ostentatious gold. A finely crafted lute hangs at her back in a leather sling; at her belt rest a slim rapier, a small ledger, sealing wax, and a signet bearing the stylized emblem of Goldleaf Haven. There is always a faint scent of tea, parchment, and woodsmoke about her, like a council chamber that’s seen long use.
Backstory
Born to a minor elven family with trade ties and a human artisan from a bustling river town, Seris grew up watching deals being made from the shadow of her mother’s skirts and the back of her father’s stall. Where other children learned games, she learned to count the number of conversations happening in a room and to recognize when voices started to rise—not in volume, but in heat.
As a young woman, Seris traveled between the Ardent Woods and surrounding regions as a junior scribe and interpreter for merchant houses. She saw how often misunderstandings, unspoken grudges, or sheer stubbornness turned simple trade disputes into brawls—or worse, boycotts that left whole villages hungry. A near-riot over a bad grain shipment at a border fair became her crucible: when a thrown stone bloodied a warden’s brow, Seris stepped between the guards and the crowd, her voice cutting through the noise with a story, a song, and a simple promise of fairness. No one could later agree on exactly what she said, but the crowd cooled and the blades stayed sheathed.
That day, the elders of Goldleaf Haven took note. Over the years, Seris rose to become one of the settlement’s principal negotiators—part ambassador, part arbiter, part confessor to angry traders and anxious wardens. She has brokered ceasefires between feuding caravans, arranged reparations for damage done to sacred groves, and quietly steered predatory deals away from desperate villages. When nobles, guild envoys, or foreign dignitaries arrive, it is often Seris they meet first—a smiling voice of reason who knows exactly how much she can concede without letting anyone carve too deeply into the Woods.
She believes fiercely that commerce and community can coexist with the forest’s needs, but she knows how fragile that balance is. Her private fear is that one day she’ll misjudge a person or a moment and the resulting break will echo far beyond a single bad bargain—turning the Ardent Woods from cautious partner into barricaded enemy.
