Aphyllia

**Aphyllia** is a Dryad Druid hired by Nelenet to explore the continent of Ahlus. She is the long-time companion of the enigmatic Eladrin Aenarion Quelenneth Velenthir, and a prominent member of The Fairy Club.

## Appearance

With rose coloured hair and bark-like skin, Aphyllia is a beautiful women with soft features and a shapely figure. Naturally hidden behind the fringe of her long hair is a blackened scar that has long since claimed her left eye and rotted a portion of her face down to the reddened interior, and she makes every effort to hide such.

Her clothes are simple dresses of furs and foliage that she has crafted herself with druidic magics, and she is not one to wear jewellery or anything unnatural for that matter.

Unlike many Dryads, she does not change her appearance depending on the season. A quirk derived either from her unusual origin tree or the strange circumstances surrounding her survival from it's death.

## Personality

Where Aenarion is the raging tempest, ever wild and unpredictable, Aphyllia is his opposite. She embraces the chaotic energy of her companion and is always happy to aid in any of his schemes, from the grandiose to the benign, but remains an anchor on reality and can often be found tidying up after his messes.

She is soft-spoken and shy, never seeking out the company of others and spending much of her free time tending to the groves around the Velenthir Estate, but will offer her aid and counsel to any that seek her out. There is a great deal of wisdom behind her eyes, and no small modicum of intellect, so it is not uncommon for the many members of the Fairy Club to seek her out in lieu of the great leader.

What defines Aphyllia more than anything else is her dedication to Aenarion, whom she reveres as both her saviour and adoptive father. She has a great deal of respect for the errant Eladrin, quickly growing defensive when he is hurt in her presence, and explicitly trusts in him to deliver upon his promises and guide her truly. Though such blind faith is far from the marker of a healthy relationship, Aenarion has shown time and again that he is mutually invested in this union and takes every care to ensure that she is cared for and well looked after even when he is not around.

## Backstory

In the depths of the Feywild, where every good story begins, lived a secluded group of Dryads that had bonded to a great tree with bark the shade of a vibrant pink and rose-petals for leaves. Such a magnificent heart tree was a treasure, a delicacy perhaps, to some of the more malign denizens of the Feywild and long had a particular coven of hags coveted it's wooden flesh for their dark machinations. Young Aphyllia was the latest of this brood of Dryads, and she was still little more than a sapling when the sundering came.

A pack of creatures, vile and corrupted all, came to the grove at the whim of those hags and overwhelmed the poor dryads with force. Her kin were wiped out, overpowered by these foul fey, and she would have been too were it not for the intervention of a Shiere Knight. Sweeping in from the underbrush, clad in shimmering armour of leather and steel, her saviour slew many of the attackers and drove the rest to rout but alas it was in vain. The bond tree had been destroyed, it's heart ripped out during the fighting, and so Aphyllia would wither and die.

But the knight was not one to falter in the face of this loss, strong of arm and sharp of mind as he was, and so he took the young Dryad back to his home for treatment. The Court he served was a powerful one, and the Archfey capable of many a boon, so a deal was struck and magics were cast and Aphyllia was given a life free of her bonds. But she was still a child and this world beyond her grove was an unfamiliar one, so the Eladrin that had saved her offered to take her into his home and under his protection.

She was raised at Hollyhock Crest, learned of her magics and how to use them from the hand of Lyomri herself and a dozen other druids of twilight, and eventually came to join her adopted father on his missions across the Feywild. When he left to travel the material planes, it was only natural that she walked at his side.