Elidal Dhenin
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Elidal delivered the news that Spensor Caulfield had passed and his funeral would be at the edge of Wyrdeep along with Breshon Caulfield's coronation as Baron of Bourth in the late summer of 5122.
Later in 5122, he was announced to become the first Baron of the new Barony of Darkstone.
Description
You see Lord Elidal Dhenin. He appears to be a Human. He is tall and has a muscular build. He appears to be young and robust. He has sharp indigo blue eyes and tanned skin. He has short, silky strawberry blonde hair. He has an angular and chiseled face, a thin nose and a smattering of light stubble along his face. He is in good shape. He is wearing a lacquered fireleaf locket, a single-shoulder cape of cream wool lined with silk, a folded leather satchel, a sleeveless coffee leather jerkin secured up the front with gold buckles over an open-necked viridian linen shirt, a woven black and white ring, a tooled cognac leather scabbard, a small slashed leather pouch, some fitted beige buckskin pants, and a pair of knee-high bronze oiled leather boots.
Background
Elidal Dhenin is the noble who has been chosen by Earl Jovery to be invested as the Baron of the Barony of Darkstone. Elidal is the son of a wealthy river trade magnate named Ferwin Dhenin, as well his mother Wintora Dhenin, who grew up with the Baroness of Riverwood in Helt. Their business largely owned the river and were the transporters for most goods through the Barony, as well as importing and exporting to other imperial provinces. Elidal has a socially awkward identical twin brother, Magister Enisius Dhenin of the Hall of Mages. Elidal is the older brother by seconds. While the Dhenin family are from the Barony of Riverwood, Elidal and Enisius were split up when they were ten years old, after an expensive accident when Enisius catastrophically attempted to make their ships more buoyant with magic. Enisius was sent to Nydds, while Elidal was sent to Gallardshold.
Elidal is close childhood friends with Baron Breshon Caulfield of Bourth, who was for a time around 5118 the acting commander of the Hendoran Outpost near Wehnimer's Landing. His favorite season is spring, and he is fluent in Elven. He is also the subject of a crush by Breshon's younger sister Larsya Caulfield. Elidal instead has eyes for Aronia, a Green Sister from Talador, who he knows from his time in Bourth. Elidal spent around three years in the city of Lolle in North Hendor in he court of Earl Eddric Jovery. He is known to have had two romantic interests. One was brief and "made him a man", according to his father, and the other involved a woman called the "Weaver Widow". She was the widow of a very wealthy and powerful weaver merchant in South Hendor, and after his death, sold his business and lived in luxury in the courts of Lolle. Their relationship ended for unknown reasons, and Elidal returned to Riverwood. When the Prelate Chaston Griffin invaded Lolle in 5116, this woman is said to have perished.
Elidal is a young and inexperienced ruler, and has made some bad decisions. Where his brother Enisius has found a niche in magic, Elidal is restless in avoiding settling into one thing, and prone to trying to be all things to all people. His mother worries he will spend his whole life chasing the unobtainable while missing everything else along the way. Earl Jovery had advised him that he will be a leader, but people will want him to be savior, and that he cannot be both. Elidal does not truly believe it. The sylvan seer Iliyaas has said Elidal will be shaped for good or ill by tribulations that have not happened yet.
Barony of Darkstone
Earl Jovery chose Elidal around 5120 or 5121, and Elidal spent over a year studying the region, as the Barony of Darkstone was not announced until late 5122. Though Elidal himself is not entirely certain why the Earl nominated him out of everyone who could have been Baron. The Barony of Darkstone had been a partial goal for some years, but it was eased and enabled by various recent conditions, such as the loss of land in Talador and its refugees. Some of the settlers to the Barony of Darkstone are refugees are from Talador, which was at war with Wehnimer's Landing in 5114 after the assassination of Kuligar, as well as when Talador was under the control of Prelate Chaston Griffin in 5116. His brother Enisius provided the illusion of an imperial caravan while his brother and advisers arrived instead by river, which was a decoy for trolls but potentially also anti-imperial factions such as the Brotherhood of Rooks. There was a backlash soon after the announcement of the Barony from the monstrous races of the mountains, who formed a mountain alliance under Gnul the self-proclaimed stone giant "King of Thanatoph". Gnul would assault caravans of settlers. Aronia was nearly killed in a violent assault by Gnul's forces on imperial wagons, which made Elidal panic and become physically ill at the sight of it. Wagons were temporarily redirected for settlers to winter in Vornavis, having come from various directions such as Mestanir, Jantalar, Seareach, and the edges of Talador. There were outside benefactors behind Gnul who provided him with plinite through the Ulterlain Traders, which was eventually assumed to have been the Wraith, an anti-Turamzzyrian halfling named Theodulph Underhill who idolized the Kannalan Empire and was the string puller behind more violent phases of the Rooks.
Earl Jovery had offered Mayor Thadston Andrews of Wehnimer's Landing the role of Commander of the forces of the Barony of Darkstone. Thadston refused the offer. Consequently Earl Jovery appointed another Hendoran of the Mensyl's Marauders named Sablo Marsh, who has the nickname Monster, with a reputation for brutality against mountain monsters as well as the Blameless crusaders. Thadston and Sablo almost immediately had friction after Sablo used Landing pylons to fire on Thanatoph without permission and setting fires to bait griffins into attacking, for the purpose of destroying their nest with all of their eggs. Elidal at one point threatened to send Sablo off to labor in the mines of Kragsfell for exceeding his authority in his zeal for monster slaying, having been ordered to guard the camp settlement and then disobeying to raid Gnul's forges instead. Elidal had acquiesced to local humanitarian concerns about innocent orc and goblin families being massacred, and Sablo went in regardless to burn out their food supplies. Sablo was also apparently involved with Aronia later. There was in contrast a young squire who disobeyed, running off to confront the reivers on the other side of the river, with Elidal swearing to posthumously knight him when he becomes Baron and refused to be counseled otherwise on it.
Elidal delivered a letter on behalf of town councilor Vaemyr to Earl Jovery after questions of rescinding the protectorate, and writing himself in support on delineating its rules in specific detail with assurances of protection on its independence and freedom in terms of its local autonomy of government. Earl Jovery was hurt by this as he regards the amical protection of the Landing as friendship and that he has never taken oppressive actions against the town. Previous town councils had generally acquiesced to Earl Jovery in his decisions. In early 5123 the Earl listed out various criteria which all had existing precedent in past events, except that he removed Magister Cordarius Hodges as his unilateral appointment for the Regional Envoy office in the Landing government, with the Landing being permitted to elect two Regional Envoys for making arrangements for the town so long as they do not undermine the Empire or support its enemies. Elidal also spoke with the Blackthorn Resistance after their seeking a referendum to denounce the protectorate, which had been forcefully rejected by Mayor Thadston.
Elidal negotiated with the town council of Wehnimer's Landing to have people in the Landing provide settler caravan protection in exchange for the Barony of Darkstone buying 40% of its weapons from Landing smiths for one year. This was renegotiated to 25% for two years with the Barony aiding in providing stone and stoneworking supplies after the newly claimed mountains become safer, as the town councilors wish to upgrade the wooden palisade of the Landing to stone walls. He also refused to give blanket assurances on Rodnay, the Ithzir-human hybrid orphan residing in Melgorehn's Reach, as he is an unknowable potential threat in the future. He was given gifts for settlers including warm clothing from knitters and faewood seeds. Concerning the borders of the Barony of Darkstone, Elidal said those lands are not claimed by civilized creatures, which effectively includes such races as the minotaurs, giants, orcs, trolls, kobolds, goblins, and gnolls. He also warned Councilor Sorlu of Icemule Trace to not destructively meddle in the affairs between Wehnimer's Landing and the Barony of Darkstone. Elidal also interacted with the Obsidian Tower over its territorial claims on Sentoph, with Elidal willing to compromise if the Dhe'nar gave up slavery including voluntary forms, which was ultimately rejected two months later for not treating them as a sovereign power, and with the Obsidian Tower arguing the humans and Elidal himself are the beneficiaries of a history of racial oppression.
In late 5122 Elidal and his brother Enisius planned to research the abnormalities of Melgorehn's Reach, and a way to break the curse on Darkstone Castle and get rid of its mana storm so that the castle could be renovated for themselves. They would decide later in spring 5123 that this was not feasible, and the goal shifted to getting rid of the mana storm and destroying the castle. However, when the device for attempting to move the storm was countered by Grand Magister Octaven with the Talon of Toullaire artifact, a backlash happened and Darkstone Castle unexpectedly got shifted into the Bleaklands and left behind a huge crater.
In early 5123 they began building defense towers and walls with local assistance for their makeshift settlement in the Dragonsclaw. Gnul used gnolls to burrow under the Hendoran Outpost to steal a cache of plinite leftover from Grand Magister Dennet Kestrel, which acting Commander Larsya Caulfield did not know existed, as Grand Magister Octaven had falsely told her brother Breshon Caulfield the plinite was gone. Elidal said that as the Barony grows they may need to revisit the purpose of the Hendoran Outpost and the positions within it. Gnul's forces were also using feras weapons out of a forge under Sentoph, which adventurers destroyed after infiltrating it with kobold impersonators, and burrowing into it with a dwarving mining vessel called "The Badger" in the possession of Amos. Gnul used the plinite to experiment on the mountain allied races, trying to power them up with it and causing their deaths. The minotaurs withdrew because of it. Gnul eventually embedded plinite in himself to make himself a few hundred feet tall, and was destroyed by adventurers climbing up him and breaking his vulnerable points. Elidal allowed the settler caravans to resume after Gnul was defeated.
In the early spring of 5123 there was an attempt to kidnap Aronia by what seemed like Rooks, where Mother (Casiphia) had promised violence if the imperial settlers did not return south, but which turned out to be a "Remnants" faction controlled by the Wraith. A wounded Casiphia later explained that the civil war with the Knave two years earlier had weakened the Rooks and allowed the Wraith to return his influence, for the sake of undermining Amos, and under the threat of the Silver Kings coming in and replacing the Rooks. Around the same time the reivers of Luinne Bheinn divided with its own "old ways" faction, with sympathy for the dead Hagga, breaking off and forming the Ember Vale settlement. Luinne Bheinn follows its pastor Dikirk, and the Ember Vale nominally followed Haidan who wanted to drive out the imperials, but was really controlled by the shaman Tyeid. Elidal also hosted a feast to lure the rogue Captain Bodohal off his ship "The Shiver", which had an orb with an elemental trapped in it. Bodohal was captured but then later killed in vigilante justice when being released at trial by Judge Manard.