Deorwynn

Deorwynn Fletcher was a powerful sorceress. Prior to that time, she achieved notoriety as the Chamberlain of Torlynn Castle and a presiding member of the Royal Council.

Born in unctual year 3862, she was part of the sixth generation of her family to serve Torlynn's royal family. As a child, she watched as her mother and father served the royal family as horsemaster and chef, respectively, to the King and Queen, and longed to become royalty herself. By her teenage years, she was working as a handmaiden at the castle. Following the death of her parents at age 14, the royal family took her under their proverbial wing. She was entrusted with more and more responsibilities, including acting as the royal treasurer. By age 16, she had been made chamberlain.

When Queen Papillon fell ill, Deorwynn was entrusted with her care. Following the death of the Queen, Deorwynn watched as the King descended into madness. Deorwynn sought the guidance of a soothsayer, who predicted a new ruler would soon come to Torlynn—and that the one he loved most would eventually take his place. Deorwynn intended to be that someone.

Deorwynn was accomplished at fencing and cartography.

Deorwynn spoke in a distinctive aristocratic tone. She was tall and gaunt, with an alluring physique, dark hair, and once had stunning green eyes. She had also been adorned with a disproportionately large nose, arguably her most distinctive feature until she lost her face completely.

Special Power[]

Like all humans, Deorwynn possessed a natural, innate power. Hers was the ability to persuade others to do as she wished them to, inspiring in people a strong sense of loyalty and devotion. She would later learn to enhance this natural ability through magical means.

The Lost Treasure of Torlynn[]

In 3887, a young man named "Four" Wheeler arrived at Torlynn Castle, claiming to have captured one of the flying warriors and seeking to claim the bounty offered by King Papillon. Deorwynn, now age 25, recognized him as the newcomer that the soothsayer had foretold, and presented them both before the King. After Papillon ordered Deorwynn to provide Four with a meal and a bath, Deorwynn was only too eager to comply, particularly with the bathing part. Deorwynn was apparently so impressed with Four's impromptu participation in the tournament arena that, following the unexpected death of King Papillon, she suggested Four as his replacement.

Following Four's ascention to the throne, Deorwynn continued to serve as his advisor, always with the intention of making him fall in love with her. Some time later, when Mariposa agreed to live in the castle as well, Deorwynn was the first to vocally support the notion of a butterfly on the throne. She helped fashion dresses and headpieces for Mariposa that were specifically designed to hide her wings and antennae, allowing her to masquerade as a human Queen. What was not apparent at the time was that Deorwynn only did this so she could later expose Mariposa as a fraud.

During Christabel's final days in the castle as Minister of Science, Deorwynn tended to her, offering her remedies made from the imported Panax notoginseng plant. It had been Deorwynn's intent to poison Christabel, but in fact the exotic plant may have accelerated Christabel's transformation into a terragon.

The Quest for the World-Breaker[]

Deorwynn's role was to oversee day-to-day activities in the castle so that Four would only be bothered, or so she told him, when the time came to make particularly important decisions. She often met with Four to discuss official castle business, though she was vocal about her feeling that Mariposa didn't belong in the castle and should return to the Darklands. In truth, she placed no faith in Four's ability to run the country, and she often forged his name on important documents.

In 3889, Deorwynn arranged for the royal council to decree that since Mariposa was not human, her marriage to the King was null and void. Deorwynn alerted Mariposa to the findings of the council, explaining that she would no longer be serving as Queen and that she would be required to leave the castle. After her departure, Deorwynn instructed knight captain Brian Devonhyre to travel with Mariposa and to keep her apart from Four, if possible. Deorwynn then presented the same council findings to Four, this time informing him that Mariposa had returned to her forest home and that she no longer wished to see him again. At first, Deorwynn offered herself as a replacement Queen. When Four rebuffed the notion, Deorwynn presented Four with an ultimatum: She would effectively rule the castle from behind the scenes, with Four serving as a puppet King, or else Deorwynn would expose Four as a common thief. To her surprise, Four refused to be coerced and abdicated the throne immediately.

Deorwynn had some trouble controlling the subsequent unrest from the unwashed masses as a result of King Wheeler's departure. She promised the public that he had stepped down willingly and that he had done so because a true blood heir to the throne had been discovered. It was Deorwynn's intention to "discover" that she, herself, had distant blood ties to Papillon so that she would be crowned in his place. After Four had been locked in the castle dungeon on suspicion of murdering an innkeeper in Darkholm, Deorwynn piad him a visit, urging him to sign documentation to corroborate Deorwynn's blood relation to Papillon. Her attempts to manipulate Four were interrupted when Christabel arrived in her reborn dragon form, freeing Four and prompting Deorwynn to flee.

Some time later, Deorwynn was awakened by the sounds of Xanthippe's assault on the castle. She confronted the goblin crew at the drawbridge, and one of them accosted her, biting off her nose. In shock, Deorwynn retreated to the depths of the castle. Four encountered her while searching for the final piece of the World-Breaker; disoriented from the loss of blood, she could do little but claw at him and make unintelligible noises. Four left her in the sub-basement; the castle was destroyed when Xanthippe collided into it.

The Curse of the Fate Shifter[]

Unbeknowst to Deorwynn, Castle Torlynn had been protected by an enchantment that had been designed as a magical defense. The spell had not gone into effect until after the castle's destruction, however, and had had the unintended effect of granting immortality to anyone alive within the castle walls. Deorwynn, not understanding why she was still alive, and nearly driven insane, had clawed away at the remains of her own face. She had decided in her madness that only by removing the last vestiges of her old face could her new one emerge. The dark sorcery that continued to keep her alive allowed her to see without eyes and articulate without a tongue or lips.

Deorwynn had discovered that she was able to control some of the moth people, who had been leaderless and disoriented in the wake of the death of their High Priestess. She became an amateur student of the dark arts, enhancing her natural influence with magic. She amassed a large group of moth people to do her bidding. She even taught some of them how to use sorcery without killing themselves. She began sending them to small towns like Guttersworth, instructing them to capture the weak and elderly and bring them back to her. She also recruited a group of female mosquito people, using them to transfer the lifeblood from those she kidnapped into her own body, granting her additional blood-fuel for her sorcery. Retreating to the Forgotten Basin, Deorwynn sought to seek revenge against Four, whom she blamed for losing the castle, her social standing, and her face.

Embarrassment of Riches[]

Deorwynn's scheme to destroy Four involved magically corrupting the minds of some of his closest companions. She arranged a World's Strongest Man competition for the upcoming Torlynn Fair in order to draw out Brian Devonhyre, coercing him with her dark magic and transforming him into her obedient servant. She did the same thing with one-time pirate Mirabel Miller.

Deorwynn also discovered the existence of Jenna Saiquois, a beloved childhood friend of Four's. She not only enlisted Jenna to do her bidding, but Deorwynn erected magical barriers within Jenna's subconscious mind so that her true allegiance could not be discovered, even if Mariposa attempted to explore Jenna's mind using her butterfly telepathy.

Now fueled by a nearly limitless supply of lifeblood, the power of Deorwynn's magic grew to the point that she learned how to manipulate the very fabric of existence. Channeling her power through a magic scepter, she learned how to open portals that crossed the boundaries of both time and space. She was learning spells that had yet to be given names. Borrowing technology from the Old Age, she began to experiment on creatures, discovering the most effective means by which to remove their body parts and connect them to other creatures. It was not only her hope to repair her damaged face, but to rebuild herself and imbue herself with the best attributes of each of the Greater Races—the wisdom of an Elf, the strength of a Dwarf, and the beautiful wings of the butterflies.

Deorwynn instructed Jenna to "accidentally" bump into Four at the Torlynn Fair, reuniting with him. She was to reveal that both Brian and Four's own sister, Fliegen, were Deorwynn's captives and being held at the Forgotten Basin. Four somehow gained access to a magic-nullifying sphere that he attempted to use on Jenna, but it lacked sufficient strength to undo Deorwynn's enchantment over Jenna.

After Four gathered together a team of followers, attempting to invade the Forgotten Basin, Deorwynn's moths and mosquitoes repelled them, capturing Four. She revealed her plan to have the mosquitoes drain his blood slowly, keeping him alive as he continued to fuel her magic. In his stupidity, Four grasped the scepter, thinking it a weapon, and activated its power. He opened a portal to the Old Age through which he and some of his friends were pulled.

Deorwynn designated Brian and Mirabel as her bounty hunters, sending them after Four and providing them with another scepter that they could activate when they were ready to return.

The Veil of Souls[]

After Four and Mariposa disappeared through the portal, Deorwynn attacked their remaining friends, who fled the volcano. She did not give chase because she lacked the necessary blood, and wished to focus on her other goals. Despite this, she sensed Four and Mariposa's continued existence through the ethereal boundaries. A fantasy version of Deorwynn continued to taunt Four and Mariposa while they remained within the dreamsphere.

Deorwynn prepared to raise an army of thousands who would be stronger than the moths or mosquitoes. Using her newfound magic powers, she learned how to raise the dead. After Four and Mariposa were recovered and their group once again confronted Deorwynn at the volcano, Deorwynn summoned thousands of cadavers that had been buried beneath the ground, including those whose blood she had drained.

The Endeavor crew battled cadavers while Deorwynn retreated into the volcano. When the group fought their way through the undead and followed her, Deorwynn easily repelled their attacks. When Four boasted how his visit to the Old Age had resulted in his becoming smarter than ever before, Deorwynn made it a moot point when she forcibly removed his neurosphere, which caused him to collapse to the ground.

Mariposa implored with Deorwynn to come to some sort of peaceful resolution, even offering Deorwynn the completed keystone scepter. Deorwynn accepted the gift, responding by firing a close-range magical burst into Mariposa's abdomen, killing her unborn child.

In response, Mariposa used her telekinesis to lift Deorwynn from the ground, separating her body into two pieces, then four, then eight. She continued to do this until Deorwynn had been disassembled into the elementary particles that comprised her body, effectively destroying her.

Trivia[]

Deorwynn's age and birth date are inferred from The Quest for the World-Breaker, which states that she had served as chamberlain since age 16 and had been doing so for nearly ten years. Deorwynn's last name, Fletcher, literally means "arrow maker."

Behind the Scenes[]

The story never comes right out and states this, but it seems clear that Deorwynn was responsible for poisoning both her parents as well as Queen Papillon, as she would later attempt to do with Christabel. Deorwynn first appeared in A Butterfly's Tale, though her last name (and a great deal of her back story) was not provided until The Quest for the World-Breaker. The author loosely modeled the appearance of the character after a former manager. Shh, don't tell her.

Deorwynn's decidedly lascivious behavior towards Four was heavily altered for the junior novel adaptation of A Butterfly's Tale, resulting in Deorwynn being determined to give Four a bubble bath, calling him her "little ducky."