Character Analysis

I'm currently going through the rather laborious process of making the characters for Immortal Lands actually work, and because something more than a name and physical description on a page. Some characters do this more easily than others for me. One character I made years ago I still occasionally write story snippets about, or mix into other settings (what exactly is it called when you write crossovers for your own characters?) While several characters I need for this story just refuse to come alive.

The three 'main' characters I have so far in the story are Dalia, Ilthia, and Marrick


Dalia 'the Queen of Tears' is the first character introduced. She is a very young elf--which is to say perhaps 40 years old--and became the Queen of Elvenhome when the entire kingdom was basically annihilated. She is now Queen in exile over a people that are entirely refugees, cast out of their homeland. Through the rather unknown powers given to her by her crown--a deific magical artifact--she has basically subsumed the sorrow of her entire people into her own soul. This has allowed the elves to survive the destruction of their home without succumbing to the wrenching pain of it, but it also leaves Dalia in a state of perpetual weeping. She is possessed of an iron will, and manages to force herself to function anyway, but it is a losing struggle, and all she can do is find her people a home before her grief inevitably consumes her. For the Elves of this world, emotions--especially negative ones like rage and sorrow--color their souls, and if they are steeped too strongly in one emotion for too long, they will succumb to it and fade, their soul weakens and they lose their immortality, and shortly thereafter, their life. For the entire surviving Elven race to have been driven from their home is unimaginable torment, many of them have lived in the same region for centuries, and they know that the armies that drove them out have destroyed whatever was left of their civilization. For the race to survive, Queen Dalia must find a way to save them all from the sorrow, and that before it does to her what it would do to all others. She is helped in this by her young age, her soul is yet strong, and can withstand the sorrow for much longer than most. Sustained by her own will and the magic of the royal crown, she might even last a century, but that is about the best that can be hoped. Her subjects in turn know exactly what their queen has done, and so they follow her without doubt or question, knowing that she represents their only real hope of survival. There is a descending spiral in effect here though. As the queen grows inevitably weaker, her people's sorrow for her grows, which only increases her burden.
There is only one elf who refused to allow this burden on her sovereign, her most loyal knight, Ilthia.
Ilthia 'the Queen's Knight' is the only guard that Dalia keeps with her at all times, and is the only elf not encompassed by the Queen's enchantment. Her sorrow is her own, but she lives and breathes to protect her charge, and it is said of her that she would fight her way back from the final darkness to stand beside Dalia once again. Ilthia is proud, courageous to the point of complete fearlessness when it comes to her sovereign, and the as-yet undisputed master of the sword. She has served the royal family for most of her five centuries, and guarded Dalia's mother before her. She had always been more than typically loyal to the young Princess, and the King gladly acceded to her request to be part of Dalia's personal retinue. For Dalia's part, she has enjoyed Ilthia's company, as the knight was one of the first to submit to Dalia's desire not to be called by her title endlessly. She is also one of the only individuals to call Dalia by her name outside of the royal family. Ilthia is sardonic and somewhat hostile towards humans--her reaction to Elvenhome's fall was more rage than sorrow--but her loyalty to the Queen is absolute, and she will perform any action requested of her without hesitation, except any order to leave Dalia or endanger her, those orders she will entirely refuse.

Landmaster Marrick is a prominent man of the Kingdom of Morien, East of Elvenhome. Thrasia--the same country to successfully assault Elvenhome--has begun sending ambassadors and cult priests into his country. One such priest has recently arrived in his town, where he has immediately begun disturbing the peace. Marrick is proud, physically imposing, and although slow to anger, positively terrifying once provoked. Oft likened to a bear, Marrick is big and slow to speak, but those who assume his mind runs as slowly as his tongue are in for a rude awakening when they try to outsmart the man that seems to be a country simpleton. In his youth, Marrick resided at the King's court as an adviser on matters related to the outer lands of the kingdom. Mostly farmlands, they fed most of the kingdom, and the King was interested to hear the opinion of a man who was born and raised there. It was by Marrick's influence that the people of the 'outer kingdom' as it is called, were exempted from much of the taxation of the inner kingdom, and as they were able to keep more of their profits, more and more the farms flourished and grew. Seeing the young man's advice proving so beneficial to his kingdom, the King sought to make him a member of the nobility, but Marrick would have none of it. Already in his short stay he had made enemies at court, and he wished to return to his simple life at the farm. While the King acknowledged his desire to remain untitled, he cleverly devised a plan to reward Merrick anyway. Upon returning to his village, he learned that most of the royal land surrounding it had been given to him, and he had been named Landmaster, a minor title that conferred considerable local power, but without nobility. A letter too awaited him from the King, for Marrick to seek out good men, true to the crown, and they would likewise be made Landmasters of their own regions. Mostly operating without influence from the crown, the Landmasters of the outer kingdom formed their own rough nobility, equally as disdainful of the painted fools at the capitol as the 'true nobility' were of them.
Now Thrasia's agents move through their lands, and Marrick--and the rest of the Landmasters--must act to survive the storm coming upon the kingdom.

That's what I have now, which is actually considerably more than I started with. Doing write-ups of characters like this always helps me to hammer out more of their personalities and history. And in this case, more of their surroundings as well.