Generic Fae Profile
Autumn
(insert pic here)
General Info
Name --
Aliases/Nicknames (if any) -- Autumn
Gender -- Female
Age -- Young for a dryad, but has observed generations of mankind
Profession -- Observer of humans and guardian of nature.
Because of her nature magic she has often been welcomed as a gardener/groundskeeper among humans
Currently Lives -- A nomadic lifestyle
Physical Attributes
Body Size/Features -- Tall and slender, in a stick-like fashion. She is curvy enough to be definitively female, but not obviously so.
Head/Facial Features -- Her long hair changes with the season just as her leaves do. In the spring a yellowed green, in the summer a vibrant green, in the fall a bright orangish pink. In the winter her hair is brown matching the bark of her tree form. Just as her leaves do not all turn at once neither do the strands of her hair. In the autumn as it shifts towards pink there are often yellows, and oranges mixed in with the greens and pinks.
Her eyes are a vivid green that match the shade of her hair in the summer. Her skin is a pale fleshy pink.
Typical Clothing/Dress -- Her preference is to wear none, but most of her time is spent around people and she has accepted that as inappropriate in human culture. She prefers clothing with a loose fit. She likes dresses and skirts that drape in soft (and when appropriate sheer) fabrics. I most easily picture her in gypsy style clothing; an off the shoulder shirt (though not in a style gathered with elastic) and a loose skirt with a triangular sash at her waist. She loves the look of ball gowns and sometimes daydreams about dancing in them, but the thought of wearing so many layers of fabric induce feelings of suffocation. Most of her clothes are in creams and browns, with accents of green. Though she adores the bright colors of autumn she is not comfortable in such vibrant colors.
Even in the winter her clothing is minimal, and regardless of season she is loath to wear shoes.
Weaponry -- Quarter Staff— a remnant of her mother’s tree. (See her beginning section for more info.)
Notable Proficiencies/Talents -- Speaking with plants, communicating with some wild animals (she does not have the ability to communicate with domestic animals). Nature magic. Given the opportunity to revert to her tree form some self-healing abilities. Can turn her skin to bark.
Other Physical Notes -- She can sleep as humans do and she can eat human food (vegan diet— she cannot digest meat), but she does not need to eat and sleep the way that humans do. Instead she needs to rest and gain nourishment in her tree form. She prefers to rest on a cycle much like a human’s sleep cycle, but she can push herself for potentially weeks without resting in her tree form as long as the equivalent rest is gained prior to or immediately following that time period.
Her tree form is that of a maple. To some she may smell woodsy even when in human form.
Personality
Strengths -- Going unnoticed, not in a stealthy sneaky way, but in an unobtrusive way. Putting people at ease.
Weaknesses -- Does not like the feel of metal it doesn’t harm her, but it makes her uncomfortable.
Likes -- Humans, despite her shyness around them she is fascinated with them and can literally sit and watch them for hours.
Dislikes -- Crimes against nature.
Dreams/Life Goals -- To fly. Companionship—that she does not realize it as such does not make her yearning for it any less real (it's kind of a foreign concept for a dryad).
Hobbies -- People watching, learning
Take on Dragons -- Dragons are both fascinating and frightening creatures; she longs to be bound and able to fly (literally leaving behind her roots) but at the same time she is fearful that she will not be strong enough to bind a dragon against his/her will. She knows of other dryads who have done it, but she is doubtful of her own abilities. Secretly she wishes not to merely be bound, but to discover something just short of a rebirth. She does not want to literally become one with a dragon, but there is a draw to her for that level of compatibility.
Overall Personality -- Terribly shy. She is soft-spoken and gentle, unless her wrath is kindled (most likely for some crime against nature). If she feels at ease she can become quite playful. She tends more towards thoughtful and serious though. Deeply compassionate. She has a general feel of innocence about her and may even seem naïve, but she has both seen and experienced much in her life time.
Background/History
My Beginning Was In -- A man stood at the foot of an aged maple tree and buried his young wife and newborn daughter. Something had gone wrong in the birthing and he had lost them both. Maple, the dryad who resided in the tree felt an ache in her heart as day after day the man returned to water her tree’s soil with his tears. As the months passed the man’s tears lessened but his sorrow did not.
One day as the man sat with his back pressed against the trunk of her tree and cried Maple revealed herself to the human. “Your tears have watered my roots, and I grow sad,” she told him, “I wish you to shed no more sorrow here.”
The man apologized and promised not to return, but in his absence Maple found that she missed him. She left the safety of her tree to look for the man, but was unable to find him. Each day her search grew more desperate as she journeyed father and father from her tree until at last she found him but her journey had taken her too far from the sustenance of her tree and she died before reaching him, but not before she had caught his attention.
The man recognized her and brought her back to bury her as he had his young wife and newborn child. Maple’s sisters looked on in horror as the man dug a grave until one was finally brave enough to step forward and explain his error to him. The man kindly relinquished her to her sisters’ care and turned to leave.
Before the man got far another sister stepped forward. “It is a rare thing indeed for a mortal to capture the heart of a dryad so that she is willing to leave her tree for him,” she offered “please…” The man watched as Maple was reunited with her tree. The same dryad who returned Maple to rest inside her tree brought forth a staff. “From her heart,” was all that she said as she offered the man the staff.
The man wept and his tears once again watered the earth at Maple’s feet. This time he wept not for his loss, but for hers and for the kindness her sisters had shown him Though he knew the fae well enough to know that the gesture was not so kind as it seemed. He would now have to care for and protect this gift.
As is the order of nature loss begets life and a new tree grew where the man’s tears had fallen. That her mother’s heart had been given to a mortal who had carried it beyond the realm of the fae bestowed her with wanderlust and a desire for true companionship not understood by her sister dryads.
((Still working out the part that means she's both a tree and a human.))
The Fae Court I Belong To -- By her choice she left her grove and the protection of her kind to wander the lands of humans.
General History -- She sought out her mother’s heart and found it in the possession of an old gray-haired man. He was glad to know that the dryad had a daughter, who not only lived, but who was not bound to the same fate as her mother; she had found a way to merge herself with her tree. He handed over the staff glad to be rid of the burden that protecting it had caused him to bear. She had come to him in the autumn when her hair had been streaked with the colors of fall and her “father” named her Autumn.
Due to her wanderlust and yearning for companionship Autumn found herself more at home amongst humans than she did her own kind and did not return to her forest, but instead wanders the world of men. She has been shown both cruelty and compassion in her travels. She has never stayed anywhere longer than a season, as the colors in her leaves and hair shift so does her path.
