Arwydd Quivergrass

There is a legend common to those who live near the seas of grass in the steppes of Yakai. Whenever one must wander through overgrowth, unable to see the ground amid the shifting, wavy strands, one must beware. Movements in the tall grass must be judged carefully, for they may be made by the harmless scurrying of prey or the stalking creep of dangerous predators. And if one spots amid the moving grass a glimpse of an impish face with lips curled into a devious, expectant smile, then doom is upon them: for they are the target of Arwydd Quivergrass, Fae warrior of the wild and untamed grassland. Arwydd wields a bow grown fully bent from the limbs of an enchanted mahogany tree, perfectly shaped and supple. She uses a battleax in close quarters, likewise made of enchanted hardwood as strong as iron. She appears and disappears among the quaking stalks, her own body’s movements undulating and quavering to match the rippling grasses. When Arwydd wishes to entertain herself, she takes her time to terrify her prey, leaping with unnatural speed and slashing them again and again so they bleed out in bewildered horror. If a quick dispatch is called for, she fires her bow with precision while darting from place to place amid the cover of waving vegetation, such that the target is struck by multiple arrows from different directions in such swift succession that no defense is possible. Often she lures victims at the edge of the grass to venture deeper in by mimicking voices and sounds. To the frightened villagers at the edges of the grasslands, the reapers and threshers who nervously eye their fields of wheat, millet, and barley, Arwydd Quivergrass is like an unpredictable wild beast, dwelling anywhere and everywhere the grass touches and killing seemingly at random. But this is a carefully maintained illusion, for Arwydd’s attacks are not malicious Fae trickery. They are the dedicated work of an agent of a greater cause, an even more powerful Fae. The Lady of Summer Grass is a great player of the Fae Court with many powerful vassals, and Arwydd is one of the Lady’s valued assets – or, to hear certain other Fae lords tell it, a mere rabid attack dog. Those who earn the Lady’s ire and become Arwydd’s victims rarely realize why they are being targeted – perhaps they once did business with a merchant who was himself an unknowing asset of a rival Fae lord, or decades prior they had casually kicked an overgrown clump of grass while frustrated. Arwydd would just as soon make sport of mortals across the rolling hills and fields for no cause but her own. In this sense, the fears of villagers and criticisms of rival Fae are valid. Arwydd, left to her own devices, would act as a wild predator and revel solely in the joy of hunting and fighting. It is fortunate then for many that the Lady of Summer Grass enforced her suzerainty, and some measure of discipline, upon the grinning, cunning predator of a Fae. But the Lady’s own causes are far from passive, for she is a militant expansionist of Sylvan power. Her agents, some Fae and some Sylvan Elves, sow new grass-seed in the wake of fires or die-backs of forested land. According to the Lady of Summer Grass and Arwydd alike, growth is their birthright.