Can we talk about how extraordinary Fiedra Marrow is?
She lost her parents young. She grew up on the streets learning to be ruthless and cunning to survive. To move in shadows and to prioritize herself over all others.
And yet, when she’s likely scarcely more than a child herself she finds an egg, and instead of cooking it or selling it or doing anything else, Fiedra—who does not need to do this, who cannot afford to do this, who has every reason in the world to turn her back—decides for whatever reason to take this egg into her care. And it hatches into a little baby dragonborn with some birth anomalies, including a complete inability to use his breath weapon.
And Fiedra, who has been taught by the world to be ruthless and selfish, who is a survivor, who can barely care for herself, who is barely into adulthood herself, chooses to care. She chooses to raise this dragonborn because who else would? Crueler people who would use him and turn him into what she’s become, that’s who.
So she raises him, and leads her gang, and then they all get arrested and sent to Rybad Kol where they make their way into running the kitchens rather than being trapped in the laboring pits. Likely because Fiedra is a fast-talker, is ruthless and cunning.
And because she knows what will happen to Crokas if he’s in the pits. Let’s be clear. If the gang were in Rybad Kol for around 5 years, and Crokas is just entering adulthood as a dragonborn when the campaign starts, then he was probably around 10 when he went to prison. He became an adult in prison, and his mother—to protect them both from people looking to stamp out hope—only ever referred to him as her bodyguard. So he became a bodyguard: a massive creature fully capable of incredible violence. But Fiedra still emphasizes his other qualities. She has to use his strength for violence sometimes, but she clearly never wants that to be all he is. They have to survive, but she is most proud when he carries children and the weak. When he uses his strength for kindness. And she did raise a fundamentally kind man, who sits down and cries after performing overwhelming violence. She always looks carefully to see if he has enough before she steals. She always makes sure she takes care of him, and he learned to take care of her in return. He learned that taking care of people IS LOVE and IS FAMILY.
And when she’s finally given the opportunity to be kinder, to make Torm’s Hill a better and kinder community than any she’s ever been a part of, she speaks out. She uses her words to inspire the other commoners around her. She starts to step up and become a leader, just as much as Garen did.
And when someone threatens that new community, who proposes that he simply recreate the old hell with him in charge, she cuts out his tongue. Because Fiedra Marrow understands that the world can be harsh and cruel. And when she is able she will choose kindness, but much as Nia now understands, when a person decides to make themselves an obstacle to a kinder world, that obstacle needs to be pushed aside.
God I love her, and this party, and I wish we could spend an entire long-form campaign with them, seeing them continue to grow and become the leaders of a new and perhaps kinder world.
