[Background] Dragon Age - The Life of Lady Nimue

The Life of Lady Nimue, or:
The Tragic Life of a Fereldan's most Reknowned and Beautiful Daughter:
b: 9:53 (53rd year of the Ninth, or Dragon, Age) d 9:98

The Lady Nimue, already reknowned for her beauty at the tender age of seventeen, became the richest of Ferelden's great heiress upon the death of her first husband, Arl Loxly of Ironkeep. The death of this worthy soul, whose early death robbed him of issue or near-relative to carry on his line, was mourned throughout Ferelden. for truly was he among the wisest of men and the most famous of poets.

Alas, as a young widow and heiress, Nimue's fate was not her own. King Larian, son of the Hero King, Alistair the Warden, took her as his ward. For some years thereafter he kept her unmarried at court, adding the wealth of her lands to his own treasury. Yet in time, he married her to his drunken, aging crony, Bann Luthor of Restenford, a near-impotent old relic desperate to sire an heir and living in hope that so fine a beauty as bed partner could serve to wake his long slumbering member.

Yet he, too, died soon after– again leaving no heir or living relatives to carry on his line. It was in this manner that Nimue, thought cursed by some and blessed by others, became heiress of both Ironkeep and Restenford and, at twenty, had come to outlive not one but two husbands.

Twice widowed, Nimue became her own woman subject to no mans wishes, and could marry whom she pleased. Still a young lass, barely twenty, many a young man turned her fine head with whispers and empty promises. It was not long before she had been sufficiently bedded as to produce her first, natural child, a daughter. Thus giving lie to the cruel whispers of jeoulous wives and eager male paramours.

In time, the Prince himself caught Lady Nimue's eye, or rather, her eye was caught by him. Leobold, son of the King, cared not for her somewhat deserved slatternly reputation. He saw only her lands and her youthful beauty.

However, before they could be wed, the lady's marriage train was set upon and waylaid by the army of a powerful Bann, Ofric of Blackwood, who bore a name blacker than that of any robber lord there ever was. Forcibly raped by Osfric and married in the ruins of a broken Chantry by a corrupt priest, not even the Prince or the King, nor even the church itself, could dissolve this travesty of a marriage, for without evidence of consanguinity to rule the marriage void, their flesh (and lands) were one.

Adding Ironkeep and Restenford to Blackwood, Osfric became the most powerful noble in the Kingdom, his lands and armies rivalling even that of the King. Osfric arrogantly named himself Tairn Osfric, seizing for himself this powerful title that could be bestowed only by the King. Though the title was never rightfully his, he possessed lands enough, and power enough, to ensure that all, even the King himself, addressed him so in his presence. He made no secret of the fact his “wife” had born a royal bastard shortly after the “Shameful Wedding”. But, as was his right, he had the babe put to death as another mans child. Yet never could he find that other vexing child, Nimue's first-born, carried away to safety in secret, and concealed by loving hands long since.

In time, Nimue, in her torment, bore the foul knight Osfric a son, Maleguant, who at the tender age of eighteen would already rival his father in infamy. But by this gift of life, this, the darkest portion of Nimue's ordeal came to an end. No longer needed for the production of an heir, Nimue was banished to a tower atop a high peak in the Frostmounts, where Osfric ensured that even the King and his son must pay dearly in political favours to visit.

Poor, ill-used Nimue was not entirely friendless in this cold place. Grand Master Dolgan of the Grey Wardens was a visitor who could not be turned away, lest he carry out his threat to perform the Rite of Conscription on Osfric and Malegaunt both. Mother Thinistra of the Chantry, another frequent visitor, came often in the company of her bastard nephew Rolland Henli, to provide comfort and solace to a woman sorely in need of Andraste's blessing. As Rolland grew older, so too grew the the rumours that he was her lover. Yet if this were so, evidently Osfirc cared not. He had already taken steps to ensure that fair Nimue could never again concieve a child.

Finally, when Nimue had spent but a half-score years in her high prison, Osfric fell in battle with the King. Third time (and perhaps third time happily) widowed, Nimue took her hated teenage son as her ward. Vowing to do all she could to ensure this hateful child came to possess but a fraction of the power of his despised father, she made a gift of her sons ancestral lands, the Bann of Blackwood, in "perpetuity", to that young gallant, Rolland Henli. Rolland thereafter became Bann of Blackwood with the King himself named by Nimue as his Overlord. But alas, Nimue could not bear to kill any child as her husband had done, even a foul viper such as Malegaunt. And so would this mercy become her undoing.

Nimue thus retreated from public life, though continuing to rule from her castle of IronKeep (where she could keep an eye of her cruel and hateful son) visited Denerim often to consult with the king. She died there, soon after her son's majority, in her bed.

Seemingly, of poison.

Alas for Maleguant, he is not Nimue's only living heir. And though his half-sister be but a bastard and in hiding, there remains the right of the widows portion. Fully one third of Osrics lands rightfully passed to Nimue upon his death and these lands Nimue may dispose of as she may.

Somewhere out there, in the wild lands of Ferelden, lives a daughter who is about to inherit a throne - and an enemy.

[next] session one