Dafni of Gwynneth
(Art by @freckled-king & @mooreaux)
Dafni’s Playlist || Sunshine & Starlight (Dafni x Astarion) Playlist || Bg3 Ao3 series (EA Content) || Sunshine & Starlight Ao3 || D&D Beyond || Artwork of Dafni
With more people joining the fandom, I figured I'd reintroduce her. She's been around since EA and has gone through some changes here and there. Some have stuck, and others that ended up getting cut.
Hopefully, this will be her final big lore update. I am happy with where she is now and how she's fitting into my new drafts for Sunshine & Starlight. If you've been around for a bit, you might notice I landed on a version of her story that is close to my early drafts of her backstory in the end. So this is my PSA to writers to always hold on to your content, even stuff you cut because you never know what you might end up using.
Dafni Ríwen
Alignment: Chaotic good
Race: Eladrin
Class: Cleric of Corellon Larethina || Fey Wanderer Ranger
Background: Outlander
Age: 160
Birthday: Ches 19, 1332 DR
Sign: Pisces, ESFJ
Home: Peleira, Kingdom of Sarifal, Gwynneth’s feywild.
Nicknames/Other names: Daffodil (Astarion), Sprout (Her mother and older sisters), Kora (Childhood name), Despoena (True name)
Traits:
I was driven by wanderlust to travel far from home
I am tolerant of other faiths and respect the worship of other gods
I approach everything with enthusiasm, even the most mundane chore
I can’t stay still. I’m always picking things up, absently fiddling with them, and sometimes accidentally breaking them.
Ideals: Nature, Charity, Change, Creativity
Flaws:
I put the wellbeing of others before myself
I don’t fully grasp customs and niceties outside of the wilds
A pretty face infatuates me in an instant, but facies can fade just as fast.
There’s no room for caution in a life lived to the fullest.
Bounds:
I hold all varieties of elves in tender regard.
I protect those who cannot protect themselves.
I never leave a friend behind.
Appearance:
Dafni is a petite, chubby elf with curly hair and wide mossy-brown eyes. Like most Fey eladrin, Dafni’s appearance changes with her emotional state.
Spring/Light Form
Complexion: Light sage green skin with golden freckles
Hair: light, dusty pink
Faerie fire Illusory butterflies (Morpho aurora)
Flowers for Moods:
Snowdrops & Lily of the Vally: Happy
Foxgloves: Anger, feisty, protective
Ivy: Envy
Daffodil/Narcissus: Flirty, affectionate (Astarion only)
Wilted flowers: Sadness, low moods
No flowers: Trying to hide her fey nature
When she is particularly happy or using her cleric powers, she glows slightly
Winter/Shadow Form
Complexion: Pale pinkish gray
Hair: Light pinkish lavender
Faerie fire lunar moths
She radiates wisps of shadow when she is particularly sad, serious, or using her shadow-touched abilities.
Dafni was born on the spring equinox to Thesmia, a very old and powerful eladrin druidess and bladesinger. Her home, Peleira, is hidden deep within the feywild of the Lylarth Forest. It was built around an ancient oasis created by the first elves to come to the Feywild. It is a place shaped by sylvan and elvish magic, with spires and structures of flawless marble reflecting the breathtaking, everlasting sunset’s burnt oranges and vivid violets.
Hundreds of years of loving restoration returned the oasis to its former glory. Thesmia has made Peleira a paradise and refuge for elves, nymphs, and other fey. Peleria is a vassal of the Kingdom of Sarifal, part of the Court of High Lady Ordalf. The village is the island’s primary source of food and medicinal vegetation. It is also home to Thesmia’s Spire of Laural, one of the most vast collections of elven history and artifacts outside of Evermeet. Thesmia had taken in several wards over the centuries. These women help Thesmia run the village.
Dafni’s father is a shadar-kai knight and servant of the Raven Queen, whom Lady Ordalf has been in conflict with due to a shadow curse taking over one of Gwynneth’s forests.
When Thesmia grew tired of her life in the court’s capital, Caspian granted her the memory of Peleira in the form of an enchanted compass that would always point towards it. A gift Thesmia has since passed on to her daughter.
Due to her shadar-kai, linage Dafni’s seasonal affinities manifest differently than most eladrin. She only has two forms: Spring (Light) and Winter (Shadow). Dafni’s dubious paternity is an open secret at court and has led to some unkind treatment outside her village.
Thesmia is a loving but overprotective mother who sheltered Dafni for most of her life. Dafni was allowed much less freedom than her older sisters growing up, creating friction between herself and her mother.
Starting at age 17, Dafni began training as her mother’s apprentice. While Dafni excelled at druidcraft, she was somewhat inept with wizardry and complex magic. By age 30, her mother had released her from the apprenticeship. Despite never fully mastering the tradition, Dafni still incorporates many bladesinging techniques into her fighting style.
Cleric Calling:
Dafni’s soul holds an extra spark of the divine. She was among the few elves who chose not to take a fixed form and thus was not cast out from Arvandor. This is her first mortal lifetime.
The elves believe that to truly feel Corellon’s presence, they must seek to know themselves. Much of the work Corellon wants her to do as a mortal is centered on her learning to trust in herself more and to make her own choices for her own reasons, not because she thinks it is what is expected of her by external factors, even him.
Dafni has always tended to wander off when something catches her attention. As a small child, she followed a whips deep into the woods surrounding her village.
Unbeknownst to her, a drider exiled from the feydark had taken up residence in the forest. Perhaps sensing her dormant divine power, the creature planned to sacrifice her to win Lolth’s favor. As she was dragged into the heart drider’s den, an enchanted arrow buried itself into the creature’s skull.
A wandering Corellite had saved her. Dafni didn’t recognize him from the village, but he seemed incredibly familiar. He comforted her and headed her injuries.
He took her hand and guided her through the forest. Once they reached the border of Peleira, the man crouched down, placing his quarter moon amulet around her neck.
When she asked why, he smiled and told her it had always been hers and that he had only been holding onto it for her. He told her he had to leave but promised they would meet again.
Corellon has been known to wander the multiverse incognito, seeking new magic and ideas. Despite encouraging self-reliance among his followers, Corellon is a relatively involved deity. Dafni is entirely unaware of the true nature of this encounter. From her perspective, she was simply saved by a cleric.
After her mother released her from bladesinging apprenticeships, Dafni felt lost and directionless. She had never wanted to be a wizard, but she had seen it as her only path for the first 30 years of her life.
She had, at least, inherited her mother’s green thumb. Nature had always seemed to sing in her presence. Her inherent fey magic could coxing even the most wilted plant into bloom. But, her’s was the power of springtime, wild and unbound. She could manage a small garden well enough but was ill-suited to the organized work of yielding crops.
She became depressed and sulked around her mother’s tower in her shadow/winter form for a few months. She had to sit with herself and figure out what she wanted out of her life. Dafni had always had an affinity for the divine. Still, she never pursued it beyond a hobby out of fear of disappointing her mother.
She thought of the cleric who saved her from the drider as a girl. How brave and kind he had been. She realized that that was her calling. To nurture and protect her people.
Although she never received formal training through a temple, her mother’s library was fast and contained many resources on elven theology. Additionally, she still had some access to her primal memories. Allowing her to tap into her knowledge from her first lifetime as a priestess in Arvandor.
BG3 Set Up:
Dafni lived alongside the wood elves of Lylarth Forest in the material plane for a few decades. During those years, she began to come into herself.
She began to feel a pull toward Bauldr’s Gate following a brief adventure with a group of shipwrecked adventurers. She has taken up residence in the Twin Songs neighborhood of the outer city. She rents a townhouse out of which she runs a small clinic, providing both traditional and magical healing.
The Ancunín family owns the townhouse she lives in. After the death of their son, they moved to their country estate full-time but retained their properties and assets in the city. Dafni has never met the people who rent to her. Minimrie Virra, an elf from a lower noble family, manages the building.
Dafni was on her way to the Cloak Wood Forest on the city’s outskirts to treat an outbreak of fever in one of the local wood elf clans when the mind flayers took her. She planned to stay with the wood elves for at least a tenday. She was relatively well packed for her adventure, having her medicine chest, adventuring supplies, etc. on hand when abducted.
The feywild seeps into the material plane on Gwynneth significantly, with some locations existing both planes at once. Her only knowledge of the world beyond the island came from a group of adventurers she had aided following a shipwreck and courtly gossip. She often struggles with the customs and decorum of the material plane.
Gear & Notable Items: Long sword, Oathbow, A golden compass that points towards the nearest portal to the feywilds within 10 miles, A holy amulet of Corellon, lyre, Feywilds & Shadowfell shards, moon sickle, Medical chest & herbalist tools.
Fun facts:
Her favorite treat is lemon bars and honey cake.
She likes romance novels.
She has kept a diary most of her life. She has a century of filled journals in her room.
She loves tea and has a collection of teacups at home.
She plays the lyre & harp.
She’s an Arachnophobe
She can spin and weave.
She is vulnerable to cold iron because of her fey ancestry.
In addition to her cleric abilities, Dafni has studied nonmagical medicine and is a talented surgeon and healer.
Despite being a faerie, she can technically lie. However, the lies taste like soot and bile in her mouth. The taste is more pungent the more significant the lie, so she tries to avoid it.
She thinks she can bake, but it always turns downright awful.
Past life:
Warning: this section has spoilers for a few story elements for Sunshine & Starlight.
Despoena served as a priestess of Elyadia. The acolytes of the temple were sworn to Corellon, Creator of the Elves. The priests were healers and warriors who served as liberators to those stripped of their freedoms. Elyadia offered refuge to elves who had experienced trauma and needed rehabilitation of both physical and emotional wounds.
Reincarnation:
After the war, all but the few elves who didn’t take fixed-physical forms were cast out of Arvandor. Despoena, ever loyal to her god, chose to remain in Arvandor.
She grew restless without a purpose, wandering the empty halls of Elyadia until the temple became overrun by nature. Tired of watching her talents go to waste, Corellon began sending elven souls afflicted by malevolent magics or wounds of the heart and mind to Elyadia, along with elven clerics who accomplished great acts of healing and magic in their mortal lives who wanted to continue to serve their people during their time in the afterlife.
When she first came into being, she had felt limitless and free. She had lost herself in her grief and out of a misguided desire to please Corellon. It became apparent to her that self-discovery would likely need to happen outside of Arvandor. She implored Lord Corellon to allow her at least one mortal experience. Much to her surprise, Corellon was in favor of her request.
Corellon hopes for her to discover that while her kindness and love for her people are great strengths, self-sacrifice to the point of living for other people’s happiness hinders her potential. She’s finding balance and learning that being your person doesn’t have to be at the cost of compassion and community.
Thiramin:
“Like most other important things in their lives, elves describe this mystically. They believe that a person’s spiritual progress is unknowingly intertwined with that of another. This soulmate is called a thiramin.”
Dafni and Astarion are fated mates. They were friends and lovers in their original lifetimes. Free will and self-determination are central to the elven existence. The souls bound simply pulled them together. They have to choose what to do with it.
For Aidon (Astarion), it was love at first sight; he saw her gathering flowers near the temple. She still burned bright with magic lost to the majority of their people. Being near her felt like the wild, endless possibility of spring had taken root in his soul.
Knowing he would not be permitted to approach the temple grounds, he watched her from the shadows for a time. Aidon had a clever mind and a talent for creating loopholes in any rule between himself and his desires.
Despoena was curious by nature. When a strange trail of snow-white daffodils appeared at the edge of the temple grounds, she could not resist the urge to see where they might lead. At the end of the trial, she found a shaded meadow and a masculine elf with a pleased grin.
He was irreverent, flirtatious, and unlike anyone she had known before. He was fiercely independent and sure of his desires. His sharp wit and easy charm had taken Despoena.
Over the centuries, they often wandered back into each other’s lives. They are echoes of each other in many ways, creatures of opposing but complementary nature. This was the source of the occasional falling out, though they always reconciled.
Despoena never stopped mourning the loss of his company following the events of the war of the Seldarine. She thought of him often and even occasionally, looking into his mortal lives.
