+ Hedy Grímur +
Universe: DnD "Westglades" campaign
Age: 18
Pronouns: She/Her
Height: 3' 1"
Eyes: Bright hazel eyes
Skin: Pale, freckled
Hair: Curly dark red-brown hair, shoulder length, unruly and fluffy
Body mods: Pierced ears
+ DnD Stats +
Race: Halfling - Mycenian (my homebrew race)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (or, literally good+neutral+evil)
Class: Rogue (The Mycelian - my talented friend's homebrew, inspired by my character)
+ Appearance +
Small oval glasses, red felted hat in the colours of a mushroom. Large furry lambskin boots, and lambskin jacket. Black and white woolen waistcoat, stained and worn cotton dress. A multitude of amulets around her neck, some vials containing plants or flowers, one of them being a very large natural ruby set in hammered gold. A [normal human sized] large belt around her waist for clipping tools to. Large leather patched-up knapsack strapped across her chest. Thick blue socks over brown striped long-johns.
Grey ashen lips. Dark purple-grey circles making her eyes looking tired. Black scar running up her hand, deepest black at the palm, fading to a light but visible grey on the insides of the fingers.
No longer has colour vision or taste, can no longer eat anything without it turning to ash in her mouth. Missing the index fingernail on her right hand.
+ Portrait Gallery +
Her small intelligent monkey companion, named Berry:
+ Bio +
Above all, dedicates her life to seeking out the answer to eternal life, and wants to keep her way of life as an active and sharp minded person, never to have to go through the ‘Returnment’. Studies under the Elder, Pliny, who devoted his life to ancient Mycenian alchemical texts. Scientifically minded, experiments with alchemy and nature based medicines. Is very skilled with plants, herbs and mycology.
Uncharismatic and often antisocial. Has a soft [eastern European] Mycenian accent. Is generally happy go lucky when alone, but indignant when questioned, and can often be selfish. Will save her own hide over someone else’s. Is always too absorbed in her “work”. Is impulsive, and she often makes decisions quickly and pragmatically, sometimes too quickly. Is very independent, likes to spend time alone. Prefers to be in a dark, damp and warm environment. Can’t travel on a boat or teleport without being violently seasick.
Her body is in a constant state of flux from the effects of multitudes of toxins that she's ingested and the ways they interact with each other. This presents itself in various symptoms which include but are not limited to; vomiting most nights before she sleeps, near-constant hunger, sleeping unnaturally deeply and quickly, forgetfulness, brain-fog, and agitation.
She liked to taste or smell things for her own personal research, which is perpetually ongoing (think, an animal sniffing everything). Struggles to trust others.
She has spent a lot of time alone and so hasn't developed social skills, or politeness, and her behaviours can come across as animalistic. She smells very pungent most of the time, it could be anything from her normal damp earthy soil-like smell, to patchouli, which she considers to be a kind of comforting perfume, to a disgusting rotten smell that repulses people around her. She is slightly unhinged from her diet, although has never seen it as weird, as her People are similarly inclined.
She looks younger than she is to outsiders, and can be tetchy when people mistake her for someone younger because of her height. She sees the world as her sandbox, she’ll always take the opportunity to experiment and investigate flora, or biological matter she encounters. Is uninterested in magic. She considers it below her own physical alchemical “craft”, and is extremely sceptical of it.
She has a developed knowledge of poisons and uses a blowgun and small darts to fight with. She dislikes hand to hand combat.
From a life of hunting and clambering up and down the mountain terrain and climbing trees she has become extremely good at climbing, and it’s second nature to her. She’s faster at climbing than running.
Hedy was born and grew up in a village called Mycena, nestled in a valley in the the Crag Claw Peaks, deep in an oak forest where trees each live hundreds of years. She sometimes spends time living with her parents, but spends most of her days foraging in the forest and sleeping or working in her in her own home, built into a large mushroom.
Her parents are relatively typical mycenians, farmers on a small homestead, expert brewers of beer and fermented foods, and come from a long line of very old Mycenians who all went through the sacred process of Returning. They taught her what she knows, and they wanted her to take over their farm and continue their livelihood, but due to the long lifespan of Mycenians and her parents youth, they allow her to do as she pleases in her own pursuits (though, they do not allow her to leave the forest). She has learned a lot from being in the family she is, and uses her knowledge to do her own independent research. Their lineage name is Grímur, with lineage name being the Mycenian equivalent of a surname, but not necessarily tied to relatives only. That is the name they put on their fermented products as a kind of brand, and apprentices of them also take that surname. Hedy doesn’t like it, as she doesn’t want to be tied down to her parents lineage, so chooses only to be known by her first name casually.
+ The Returnment +
I've written a tonne about Hedy and about Mycenians, so much that it'll make this page way too big, so I'll just finish with the bit of my lore that's my favourite. This came to me in a very interesting acid trip.
“Returning” is the name the Mycenians give to their tradition of returning bodily into the forest and reabsorbing back into the mycelial network. It’s tied to their religion and beliefs, and generally is a natural process for them that doesn’t take much effort. Returning can only happen if a person lives a long enough natural life, and would not happen to anyone other than a Mycenian, who has genetic and environmental predisposition. Returning doesn’t happen to all mycenians, a percentage die of accidental causes and their bodies are disposed of in the other traditional way of putting them into the ‘The Garden’, an open grave. The process is gradual and ongoing through a Mycenians life, varies with each person, but always takes a very long time, at least 150 years to properly begin, and is somewhat inevitable for the Mycenian people. The diet the person favoured throughout their life will greatly affect the kind of Returnment they experience, changing the physical appearance of the process too.
First the body will slowly grow discoloured, keratinous and thick-skinned areas become discoloured and then more and more cultured with moss and fungi. The mycenians already have naturally occurring biospheres of fungi within their bodies, and these just flourish and grow as time goes on, physically changing the body but not yet affecting the brain.
In the next stage, the body becomes host to an array of increasingly large species of fungi with fruiting bodies, so the body may begin to sport mushrooms and fungus growths around areas of it. Joints will slow down, all areas of visible and internal skin may be discoloured. Function will begin to be greatly reduced, and the brain will also experience a slow move towards a calmer, more thoughtful disposition.
In the final stages, the person may stop communicating verbally, and cease to eat and have normal bodily functions. They may choose to go for extended and increasingly slow walks in the forest, adding to their internal biome, dropping spores and picking up spores from other fungus. Brain activity is greatly reduced, though much new wisdom may be found, and the person will be profoundly at one with nature.
In the last phase, one which Mycenians only truly know about when they experience it, they believe the brain reconnects with the mycelial network within the earth, with the thoughts and emotions ceasing to be confined to the brain, running from the person into the mycelial network, and responding to nature only. The person will stop moving, having found a place they personally like to sit somewhere in the forest. Some people may choose to join other members of their family during their Return, whether Returning at the same time as a sibling or partner, or going to join a familial patch of Returners, coming to a final rest beside them, and perhaps communicating with them in an unknown way. Many just choose to Return in a solitary area, seemingly at peace with their aloneness. The eyes will close, the heart will slow to a stop, and the body may eventually no longer have the general shape of a human, only appearing to be a growth in the forest floor. The person will not communicate through speech or move in any social way.
The body will eventually separate, but parts like closed eyes or a mouth may still be perceptible in the forest to a keen eye. This phase may last hundreds, possibly thousands of years, until total Returnment is achieved.
