Pern Character Concepts

name.

Deegie.

age.

Early-fifties.

breeding.

Hold-bred [Ruathan].

position.

Headwoman of Quartz Village Hold && Southern Isles Weyrhold

location.

Moves between Quartz Village Hold and Southern Isles Weyrhold [when dragonmen are present].

p.b.

Elizabeth McGovern.

pets.

Bronze firelizards Robby [age 20], Dodgy [age 10] && Green Molly [age 10].

personality.

"Do not mistake my good nature for a spineless back, dear man."

traits.

• The sweetest-natured person you will probably ever meet, she generally see's the good in people, and is always the first to champion the cause of another where it's deserved [and sometimes, not entirely deserved in the eyes of others].
  
  
• Not to be mistaken for spinelessness; she can, will and has always stood up firmly for what she believes in, and is fiercely protective of those who have come under her wing [whether they realise so or not]. She became, more or less, the leader of the new village following Risolom's death for a very good reason, and she did choose to follow her first spouse to Western when he was charged for stealing goods over divorcing him and returning to her more luxurious life as a daughter in Ruatha Hold.
  
  
• Can be a little too oblivious to the true dark side of others.
  
  
• Tolerant of everything bar dishonesty, distrust and greed without cause, indicating that while she is a champion of the good in people and that little bit oblivious, she's equally unforgiving when she realises she or something of importance has been swindled.
  
  
• Deals well with change, but not with being pressured. She's at an age where she won't be bullied or harassed, and considers herself quite forward and thus any pressure unneccessary and rude.
  
  
• Does tend to blame herself a little too readily even for things that weren't really her fault. She feels that accepting the role she has, she should be bordering on the super-human at times, the silly creature. Making her, in a manner of speaking, a more gentle, well-meaning kind of control freak, though most of it is directed at herself.
  

strengths.

• Kind.
  
  
• Tolerant.
  
  
• Maternal/Loving.
  
  
• Sharp memory.
  
  
• Rolls well with change.
  
  
• Resilient.
  
  
• Elegant.
  
  
• Outspoken.
  

weaknesses.

• Oblivious to the ill in others.
  
  
• Self-blaming.
  
  
• Critical [mostly of herself, but sometimes others].
  
  
• Fearless [it does border on reckless at times, as she'd be willing to stare down an infuriated dragon if it meant keeping her integrity].
  
  
• Indulgent.
  
  
• Emotional [she can be ruled by both her temper and her affections all in one, or separately].
  
  
• Melancholic at times [tends to indulge in nostalgia].
  
  
• Her Hold-bred morals do occasionally come back to bite her, though mostly with hilarious after effects these days.
  

family.

Robnie, first husband, deceased [age 32]

**************** Rossie, eldest daughter [and only child to Robnie], age 35.

N'tien [Ned] of brown Reoth, weyrmate, age mid-fifties.

***************** Neela, daughter [to Ned], age 17.
***************** Sanerys, eldest son, age 17.
***************** Serenio, daughter [to Ned], age 15.

***************** Akinyi, adopted daughter/assistant, age 13.

Risolom, cousin/best friend, deceased.

***************** Riza of gold Maurynneth, his daughter, age 29.

basically half that side of the Western continent

history.

• Born at Ruatha Hold in the summer season, forty or so Turns before the Pass began, the first daughter and second child of the Lord. She was a twin, but her sister was miscarried during their sixth month in the womb. Deegie, through sheer perseverance it seems, survived.
  
  
• Was raised as a typical daughter of a prominent Hold Lord, if taught to be a little more free-spoken than most. She was fostered to Keroon when she was ten, where she gained the grounding of her organisational skills through time spent at the Beasthold there.
  
  
• Met N'tien, then Neltien, at age 16, when travelling through the High Reaches on her way back to Ruatha Hold. She ended up staying for some time at High Reaches Hold when a blizzard snowed her group in, and it is here that she experienced her first love, despite him being but the eldest boy of the Runner Master of the Hold.
  
  
• Leaves High Reaches Hold two months later, with the promise that she will speak for him to her father. The result, unfortunately, is as reality would expect -- even her more progressive father can't accept the prospect, and though she tries her hardest [even planning to run away before her younger sister speaks sense to her], there is no way for Deegie to return to High Reaches Hold, though she gets a message sent there at least.
  
  
• Deegie later learns that Neltien was Searched by Benden Weyr, and has Impressed, and so assumes her message never reached him. Heartbroken but learning resilience the hard way, she gives in to her parent's desire to see her married, and accepts an arrangement with one of their old fosterlings, Robnie, also in charge of one of Ruatha's smaller Holds.
  
  
• Surprisingly for such an arrangement, their marriage is a genuinely loving one after a Turn and a half, most likely due to Robnie's gentle persistence and her inability to be made for despair. Deegie falls pregnant with Rossie, giving birth at the age of ninteen to the healthy little girl.
  
  
• Deegie's father dies and the Hold passes to his eldest son, Deyon. But then Deyon dies before his first Turn is up, somewhat suspiciously, and the second and far less likable brother [and the one Deegie never got on with, as he was a relentless bully] takes up the Hold Lordship. Deegie refuses to go to his coronation, though she ultimately has good reason to, as she sadly miscarries she and Robnie's second child. Her brother takes it as a slight nonetheless.
  
  
• With her second brother's ascension comes a refusal from Ruatha to pay its tithes to the Weyrs, despite signs pointing to Thread beginning to crop up as predictably as they can possibly be. When it's discovered that two of the minor Holders have been sending what they can of their shares to Fort Weyr, one of them Robnie, they are found quickly guilty and exiled for defrauding Ruatha Hold. Deegie takes her stand by refusing her brother's attempt at an olive branch, and follows Robnie to the tougher, and admittedly frightening, landscape of Western Weyr.
  
  
• Here, they somehow set up something of a life once they find Victual Harbour. Though she won't admit it, this is likely due to Deegie's own innovative stance towards change, as Robnie struggles significantly more with the concept than she. She eventually succeeds with him though and they build something of a dry-goods business through goods Robnie manages to have smuggled over through old contacts, and in time, become a respectable pair [if with a few steep learning curves, though finding a cousin there, if an estranged one, is a surprising, mixed kind of delight for Deegie] among the people there.
  
  
• In their early to mid thirties, Robnie begins to complain of odd aches in his abdomen. When he begins to pass blood in his urine, Deegie finally succeeds in getting him to see the Healer found at Western Hold. Tragically, the pronouncement is cancer of the bowel, and Robnie is given only months to live. It is during this time that Deegie Impresses Robby, which is a small comfort in such a time for her.
  
  
• Robnie passes away eleven Turns before the 5th Pass, and Deegie is left a widow. How she rallies together is something even she can never tell you, but somehow, she does, though there is absolutely no doubt of the sparseness that the grief leaves to her beauty. She may not have loved him first, after all, but she did love her husband dearly, and the pain of a prospective life cut short is perhaps the worst of all. Ultimately, she seems to turn a great deal of her attention to anything possible: helping keep their business alive for Rossie to take over, raising the then young Robby, and furthermore, the surprising but not unwelcome addition of helping her cousin, the Headman Risolom, with the care of his possible-but-possibly-not daughter abandoned by her mother, little Riza.
  
  
• When dragon riders not of Western [though that place is fairly ignored by the non-riders anyway, keeping to themselves as they do] start turning up around the South Isles three Turns before the pass, Deegie is one of the few at the time to believe in the good of having them about, and her disposition and standing with Risolom and among the non-riders being as it is, it is entirely likely she had a hand in establishing diplomatic relations between the faction.
  
  
• It is through the riders that Deegie is reunited with Ned, now N'tien of Reoth, who has become a voluntary messenger/bringer of news to the Western riders, now stationed at the somewhat more friendly Ista as he is. To cut a long story short, their initial reunion ends with a display of Deegie-temper nobody in sight has ever seen [save Risolom] and Ned is left with a very painful set of scratch-slap marks across a cheek, and certainly isn't the magical reunion of first lovers from the Harper stories.
  
  
• Any real thoughts of Ned are driven away for the time being, with the combination of Riza leaving with some of the other teenagers to brave the North, and Risolom's failing health. As the latter slowly declines, Deegie promises the girl that is still as good as her little girl that she will care for him as best as she can, though there is little that can be done with a wasting disease. Over time, Deegie slowly begins to take over the roles the man once undertook, seeing it as the most sensible course, though she is genuinely surprised at the lack of real opposition she faces from the others for doing so. The only opposition she does face is some animosity from those at Western Hold and the then Weyrleader of Western Weyr, as they wish for the lot of them at the South Isles to come over and perceive Risolom's impending death as a good a chance as any to have this happen.
  
  
• Deegie and her people, of course, send them off with a flea in their ear. Don't mistake a lady's gentle nature for spinelessness, indeed.
  
  
• When Risolom dies, Deegie is genuinely heartbroken again, though it is almost a relief after the suffering of his final days. She is more saddened at her inability to locate Riza and get a message to her, but the most she can do is rally together the Village Hold and pull through, without losing to the main Hold and the Weyr. Relations with both are tepid, but for the time being, they are left to themselves.
  
  
• Thread falls in Turn 1 of the 5th Pass, 500 Turns after Landing. Ned is not able to get to them in time to warn them, and so the approach of Thread is a shock to those who live on the Western Continent. The South end is hit the hardest, living closest to the sea and thus first hit despite the ocean swallowing a portion of the Thread, and though a good number of the members of Victual Village make it to the caves and some to the Weyrhold, many also do not. In the end, the village loses just under half of their members.
  
  
• Though it takes a couple of Turns to do so, Deegie decides, if with a shaky trust, to put some trust in the newly appointed leader of Western Hold, and allows him to send help with the rebuilding of a new home for the sea-faring people. The condition is that their wares are opened to be traded with the main Hold, a condition Deegie agrees to, and so within those Turns, Quartz Village Hold is built a little further inland towards the river, but still close to the sea.
  
  
• It is during this time that Deegie Impresses Dodgy and Molly, presents from the holder of Western [gently spurned by her, mind, as potential marriage gifts] and in a fit of life only lived once possibly brought on by the appearance of Thread, finally forgives poor Ned. Sanerys and Neela are born about a Turn and a half later, with Serenio following a couple of Turns after.
  
  
• Deegie also begins to take on more of a role in domestic affairs for the dragon riders in the area during this time, as the appearance of Thread takes up an obvious amount of their time, and though always friendly with them, the devastation of their holdings and villages is a devastation obviously shared.
  
  .:. Present .:.
  
  *** will add more as it goes along/becomes clearer.
  
  
• The arrival of the young queen from Western is something initially greeted enthusiastically by the Headwoman of Quartz Village several Turns later, but it turns quickly to unforgiving hostility [for her, certainly quick] when she learns that the girl has used the authority of her gold dragon to force their dragon riders to Western. It is as good as leaving the villages to fend for themselves, a mark of their value to the Weyr, and it isn't likely to be forgiven any time soon by the non-riders. The blow is softened, though only a very little bit, when she learns the transferred gold rider that arrives around the same time is none other than Riza -- a hope that there is hope yet for them, if the girl hasn't forgotten her roots.
  

name.

Rossie.

age.

Thirty-five.

breeding.

Hold-bred [Western].

position.

Logistics/Goods Master at Pearl Harbour[/strike]

location.

Pearl Harbour.

p.b.

Michelle Dockery.

pets.

Blue firelizard Mittens.

personality.

traits.

strengths.

weaknesses.

family.

history.