masterghandalf

Len was one of the very first characters I imagined when the early ideas for Game of the Ancients came to me. As captain of the Wandering Blades mercenary company, she is one of the two characters I consider the main protagonists of the overall series, and one of the two main heroic POV characters in the first fic (more are added as the series goes on). In general, she’s my take on a common Eberron archetype, the soldier of the Last War looking for a new purpose in life now that the war is over, though I hope I’ve managed to give her more depth beyond just her archetype. On the surface she’s wry, snarky and jaded, but beneath it she has a strong sense of justice and is deeply protective of anyone under her command.

Len doesn’t much talk about her past before joining the Brelish army, and if pressed will make it clear that it’s a touch subject. During the war she was a successful and decorated soldier, but like a lot of people in her position, she ended up discharged following the Mourning and the Treaty of Thronehold; shortly afterwards, she started the Wandering Blades together with her best friend Ghazaan and her lover Yhani. The team recruited some new members over the years, and were moderately successful in various odd jobs, but still tended to be strapped for cash… until a girl named Thyra Entarro came into their lives with a high-risk job that nonetheless seemed too good to be true…

Mild spoilers for Game of the Ancients: Volume I follow:

Though she pretends to be human, in truth Len is a changeling, a member of a race of shapeshifting humanoids in the Eberron setting. Though this detail isn’t revealed to the reader partway through Volume I, it was something I knew about the character back from when I first imagined her, and it informs every aspect of her characterization (down to her monosyllabic, gender-neutral name and lack of surname, both of which fit changeling naming conventions). An outsider all her life, she doesn’t view her human form as a means of disguise so much as a deep expression of the person she wishes she was, and only shows her changeling face rarely and then only to those she trusts implicitly (which basically means Yhani and Ghazaan, and then only in moments of great vulnerability). In truth, some part of Len fears that her entire persona is artifice, and that everything she is amounts to layer on layer of lies and that deep down there is no “real” Len. These sorts of struggles with identity are part of what attracted me to making a changeling MC in the first place, aside from the fact that I just think changelings are cool. Len’s character portrait, of course, depicts her human appearance.

Profile

Note: Game of the Ancients is not based on an actual D&D game, but since it is based on a D&D setting I keep some (rough) stats for the characters to let me keep their abilities straight. Especially important for spellcasters! Some of these will be included below:

Name: Len

Race: Changeling (presents as human)

Gender: Female (technically, female-leaning nonbinary, using she/her pronouns most often but also cool with they/them; changelings make gender kinda complicated)

Sexuality: Bisexual (Len herself might say that she’s attracted to people, not genders, or just that she’s flexible)

Significant Other: Yhani Eshenali

Alignment: Neutral Good

Class: Magus (based on the Pathfinder class of the same name; the Pathfinder magus is a sort of mix of fighter and wizard that I thought suited both the “wide magic” nature of Eberron and the way I envisioned Len as a sort of jack-of-all-trades. If I was making D&D 5E stats for her, she’d probably be a fighter with the eldritch knight archetype.)

Level: As of the beginning of Volume I, 6.

Age: Approx. 32; Len herself isn’t quite sure.

Nationality: Breland

Religion: Sovereign Host. Like most followers of the Sovereigns, she’ll pray to any of the gods (including the Dark Six) as needed, but considers her particular patron deities to be Dol Arrah and the Traveler. Which is kind of an eclectic pair of gods, but then, Len is kind of an eclectic person.

Hair Color: Black (human form), white (changeling form)

Eye Color: Brown (human form), blank white without pupils (changeling form)

Fun Fact: Len loves mystery novels, and is currently following several serials in the Korranberg Chronicle and other papers. She can get testy if she doesn’t get her fix regularly.

I sometimes fancast actors (or, more often, voice actors) as my characters while writing them. In my head, Len is voiced by Jennifer Hale.