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 chosen 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. 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. 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. Elidal at one point threatened to imprison Sablo and sent off to mining labor for exceeding his authority this way. 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 had previously met various Wehnimer's Landing residents, such as at the funeral of Baron Spensor Caulfield of Bourth. He chose to arrive with settlers at the beginning of winter, and brought no army with him to avoid seeming like a hostile takeover, both of which had rough consequences. He also briefly had antagonism with the Dhe'nar of the Obsidian Tower, who claim territory around Sentoph, warning him to stay away from it. Elidal offered to leave them be if they stop their practice of slavery, with the Obsidian Tower ultimately deciding it would not agree until the humans end their own forms of slavery. Elidal also spent time answering questions directly from the Black Thorn Resistance, around the time they were calling for a referendum on revoking the protectorate status of Wehnimer's Landing. This was denied in early 5123 by Mayor Thadston who has a close history with Earl Jovery and was the imperial knight who built the Hendoran Outpost in 5115 to enforce the protectorate status. This is partly due to the point that the protectorate is the very thing that prevents a Baron such as Elidal from simply annexing Wehnimer's Landing as unclaimed territory. It was also resisted by the Darkstone Bay Consortium, who banned people wearing thorns from their shops.
Elidal delivered a letter from town councilor Vaemyr to Earl Jovery inquiring about rescinding the protectorate or else delineating its rules in specific detail. 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.