Edna

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Edna

Player Name	Rachael Huxford
Affiliations	Owner of "The Edesian", a tavern in Cauldomo
Marital Status	Single
Place of Birth	Wistness, Amusa
Species	Eladrin

Physical Appearance

• Size: Medium, a humanoid
• Notable clothing:
  • Large, puffy, brimmed, and slightly pointy hat.
  • An ever present half-apron
  • Small Cauldron which she carries and treats as a large purse
  • Wide belt with many many tiny pouches as well as the sheath for her frying pan and wooden spoon
• Hair:
  • Varying shades and hues of brown based on her current season
  • e.g. redder in autumn, more blonde in summer, etc.
  • Falls halfway down her back, although is generally tied up (can't get it in the food!)

Notable Life Events

The "Cleric" and her Cookbook

It all started one misty Spring morning in Wistness. After sleeping through three alarms (as per usual), the young Edna is running very very late for her first day of spellcasting school. While she runs around panicked, shouting, and generally failing to get ready, her mother packs her lunch, gathers everything into her schoolbag for the day and hands it off to a very frazzled Edna on her way out the door.

Not soon enough, Edna arrives late to her first spellcasting class. All eyes on her, she proudly struts to the last empty seat in the back. She is quickly informed by the instructor that today's lesson will be on spellbooks: a witch's most important tool. For beginning witches and wizards, spellbooks are often started from scratch, as filled ones are generally in use by their creators. Rarely, a spellbook will be handed down through the generations as older family members pass, but more often than not, such spellbooks are lost when their previous owners are in dangerous adventures, or stolen by those who seek the power inside.

Luckily for Edna, her mother had bestowed upon her such a spellbook passed down through generations of family witches when she came of age. Female members of her family had been witches for as long as recorded history, so the family spellbook reflected such a genealogy. A great, thick, and a bit haphazard tome that practically (and sometimes actually) vibrated with the powerful words enclosed, Edna had been bragging about the family spellbook since it had been given to her. So, when the time came to pull out their books and begin copying over their first spell, Edna reached into her bag with confidence (and quite a few stares from her classmates).

However, the book she removed was not the wondrous, historical marvel at all, but instead her mother's ponderous cookbook! Too embarrassed (and proud) to admit her mistake, Edna stubbornly insisted that it was, in fact, the one and only family spellbook. Yes, all of the spells are named after food, it is family tradition! Yes, of course they're written like recipes, it's the only proper way of recording! Yes, of course there is a reason! They're...uh...we're...uh....We worship a food God of course! The name? Umm, Edesia, of course. The Goddess of Food and Cooking! So, obviously, all the spells her family has created over the centuries are centered on food. Duh.

Unfortunately, this put Edna in the precarious position of claiming to get her magic from the family Goddess, Edesia obviously making her a cleric! This slotted her by default to enroll in all of the clerical courses which she could, of course, not get out of without admitting to the fact that Edna and her family did NOT worship such a Goddess and were indeed witches.

The Incident

Fast forward twenty years. Edna has graduated from the academy and is out with her very first adventuring party. They were just supposed to escort a wagon full of cinnamon barrels to the next town over, but were ambushed by kobolds along the way. Soon, they found themselves three caverns into the kobold lair. There, five kobolds and a captain faced off against their meager and depleting party of three. Needless to say, her comrades were in need of a cleric.

A cleric she was not.

She may have trained under the guise of being a cleric, and she may have marketed herself as one, but she was what females in her family had always been: a witch. A witch with a few clerical spells, but a witch indeed. A witch who could only cast cure wounds twice a day and who had quickly burned through that power two caverns back. Now, her friends were in need of a cleric.

A cleric she was not.

A witch could not help them. Barely escaping with her life, she did not help them.

Autumn at the Edesian

After The Incident (see above), Edna moved away from home and the misty cliffs of Wistness to the rolling hills of Cauldomo and the small city of Nestle. There, she opened up The Edesian with the help of her rat familiar, Soux. Edna quickly took on the persona of a seemingly bombastic tavern owner who was well known for celebrating life with happy customers and offering sage advice or a deep mug of ale to others. Cooking has always been her refuge, however, and whenever duty calls, she would gladly make a dish to satisfy any craving (with input from Soux, of course) thereby winning her the local Shogun Showdown Cook-Off five years and running. The Edesian quickly became well-known in the area for serving the best food around, and always seemed to have exactly what you were craving on the menu of ever-rotating chef specials. The lively cook and sometimes barkeep treated her staff well, and was pleased with the turn her life had taken.

Overall, Edna had become well liked by most for her easygoing and generous personality, but many had wondered about her mostly unmentioned past. To those in town, she was simply a young elf who had fled the hustle and bustle of Galik for the small town life offered in Nestle. Which was, at least in spirit, true. Edna did settle in Nestle to escape the adventuring-centered life of Wistness and to enjoy the slow, seasonal life of the farming-based town. Mostly, she just wants to find a little peace after the events of her childhood.

Sometimes, old habits dies hard, however, and she got a little antsy and little bored by the repetitiveness of life in Nestle. These were the days when the spirit of Spring took over her and nothing smelled better than a fresh breeze on an open road to Galik. Galik was the only place for a witch/chef worth her salt (get it, salt?) to learn to recipes. In Galik, she could learn from the myriad of people coming and going every day through most magical city on the material plane. In Galik, she could dig up new spices for recipes of her own, or wander the winding roads in search of nothing in particular. In Galik, she could let her summer side go a little wild, get kicked out of a few bars and still have plenty more to try on for size. In Galik, she may just be able to open up a new location of her own and give the residents of Nestle a better excuse for her wanderlust filled travel than 'visiting friends.'

Eventually on those trips, however, the seasons would shift back to the binding cold of Winter on a dime. The smell of cinnamon may have blown by, she may have overheard someone say a curse or two in Koblold, or a horse may let out a spooked neigh as it toppled its cart. On such occasions, suddenly, she would remember. In Galik, she had met them. In Galik, she had accepted money and cart full of supplies. In Galik, she returned and could not bury them, so she offered their favorite foods to the sea.

It was only after these reminders that the crisp chill of a Fall breeze would lead her weary soul back out the gates and on the road to Nestle. It was the small jar of cinnamon with just a hint of nutmeg hidden under a creaking floorboard in The Edesian that called her back to her kitchen. It was the mug of cider that she brewed which would slowly thaw her Winter-frozen heart. Spring would come again, it always did, but for a moment it was the peace of Autumn that soothed her frayed nerves and opened her shop once more.

Life and Death with Ancients Alive

Little did she know that next Spring would land her exactly where she swore she would never return: in an adventuring party.

Edna joined a team of misfit adventures and participated in all events associated with the campaign Ancients Alive.

Notably, soon after her first arrival in Galik during the emergency which prevented any flame from burning in the city, Edna met Midnight. Midnight was a Kossuthian cleric receiving visions from her God about the Crown of Empyrosis, and was given a pendant which let the wearer wear the crown without being controlled by the being inside. Although mistrusting of the group, Edna slowly chipped away at Midnight's rough exterior and the two began a friendship which was never able to become more. Tragically, in a repeat of her troubled past, Edna was unable to save Midnight during an intense battle to capture the Staff of the Marsh, an artifact required to destroy the crown once and for all. What Edna didn't know was that another adventurer smuggled the crown with Midnight's body across the sea, thereby trapping Midnight's soul inside the crown to battle endlessly with the evil being within and tame the crown for a brief time.

Midnight's efforts would not succeed forever, however. During a particularly nasty battle to obtain another Tool of the Primordial Ancients, Yro, the demon inside the crown, overpowered Midnight making the crown once again an agent of destruction. The crown became a liability for the entire adventuring party of AFEW and battle was skewing against them. Haunted by visions of her first adventuring party, and more recent failure with Midnight, Edna chose to sacrifice herself and don the crown, thereby trapping her soul inside, in order to tame its demon for just long enough for AFEW to destroy it and the rest of the artifacts. For a brief moment, Edna was re-united with her one-time love Midnight and was able to finally do right for her by freeing Midnight's soul in exchange for trapping her own. Her life was not given in vain as the artifacts were indeed eventually rendered inert by AFEW.

Knowing her time was coming to an end, Edna left her last will and testimony with Blumenthal leaving the Galik location of The Edesian to him, Soux, Red, and Maverick. While Blumenthal took over the day to day running of the tavern, The Edesian would become a sometimes home for a variety of members of the original party, and the last resting place of the inert artifacts.

Folklore of Edna's Re-birth

On some particularly quiet nights at The Edesian, when fire is low and its Blumenthal's turn to babysit the army of Maverick's wards, Blumenthal tells the story of how the Ancients Alive team, including Soux, staged a rescue of Edna from the fiery pits of the plane of elemental fire itself. As the story goes, Soux, Blumenthal, Maverick, Red, and other members of the Ancient's Alive team snuck into a party of a wealthy patron who was rumored to have an artifact capable of transporting the entire group to the elemental plane of fire and who had contacts who knew where Edna's soul was being held there.

The entire group in true spy style manage to infiltrate the party under a variety of ruses. However, something tips off the owner of the manor and the whole plan begins to go sideways. That's when Soux uses their contacts within the rat mafia running the under city to gain access to the artifact, transporting them all to the plane of elemental fire. After a vicious battle against the demons holding Edna's soul captive, they manage to free Edna from her soul chains, and transport her back to the material plane and to her bar.

No one knows if this story is actually true, or just a tale told to please the children, as Edna has never been seen by anyone who could possibly recognize her again.

Edna's Cookbook

• Deep Fry (Fire Bolt)
• Fortune cookie (Fortune Cookie)
• Jalapeno Juice (Poison Spray)
• Fan Flames (Control Flames)
• Sage Armor (Mage Armor)
• Noodle Soup (Cure Wounds)
• Pie in the Face (Catapult)
• Laffy Taffy (Tasha's Hideous Laughter)
• Soux Chef (Summons familiar Soux)
• Cooking Smoke (Fog Cloud)
• Roast Chicken (Disguise Self)
• Jalapeno Poppers (Expeditious Retreat)
• Spoon of Wasabi (Dragon's Breath)
• Chili (Misty Step)
• Hot Cocoa (Catnap)
• Cooking with Fire (Fireball)

See Also

• Edna's Diary
  • All of Edna's recent adventures can read about in her diary.