Ysolde Kneel — Graveyard Beadswoman
“Stones remember the weight of those we loved. Ask gently, and they answer.”
Name: Ysolde Kneel
Race: Human
Role: Beadswoman, Graves-keeper
Appearance: Ysolde is wiry and weathered, late-forties, with a crown of ash-brown hair streaked white at the temples. She dresses in layered wool and a dark-green shawl, both stitched with beadwork of pale river stones. A leather satchel holds polished pebbles, a bone awl, beeswax, and thin cord; her palms are calloused from years of river-sifting. Around her wrist she wears a loop of mixed-size stones—each bead scratched with a single notch. Her gaze is steady and practical, like someone who has learned every path to and from a grave.
Backstory
Born to charcoal-burners on the edge of the Ardent Woods, Ysolde lost a younger brother in a spring fever. Afterward, she noticed certain stones felt heavier when held over his grave—a trick of grief, she thought… until the weight flickered in response to her yes-or-no questions. An old aunt taught her to string “measure-beads” from the same stream that carried stones past the village since before the Great Beech took root. Ysolde has served as the woods’ beadswoman ever since: matching stones to the dead by weight and water-wear, guiding families through rites, and laying the restless back down with patient hands and quiet truth. The elves of the nearby bough-settlements respect her craft and consult her before moving old cairns for new platforms.
