Gwendoline Laurent



Born 2413 I.C, Gwendoline was the third daughter of King Charlen and a Princess of Bretonnia. From a young age, strange events seemed to occur around the girl. It is said that people had seen her wandering the ramparts at night while she had been asleep in her bed, others whispered that footsteps not belonging to any could be heard in her presence. These oddities were kept as quiet as possible by the royal family, but when Gwendoline was seven years of age, the Fey Enchantress came to Couronne and met with the King in the dead of night. Before morning came, the young princess was whisked away from the capital, and taken to the fey realm of Athel Loren.

She would emerge some eighty years later, bearing the appearance of a woman in her twenties. Time is a fickle thing in the Otherworld, and it seemed that Gwendoline had taken some of that place's timelessness with her. Despite her returning to her homeland, none remembered the princess she was, for all those that had known her were long dead. She learned of her brave, but impetuous Father's foolish crusade and his bloody defeat in Death Pass. The lives of her mother, sisters and brothers were all accounted in the libraries in Couronne and where they were footnotes in the annals of time, Gwendoline had been forgotten entirely - there was no mention that she had been born. Despite all this, it did not upset the woman nor bring her despair. Her time in Athel Loren had long disconnected her from such things. She was one of the mystic Damsels of Bretonnia now, and her duty was to The Lady and to the realm - not to the faces washed away by time, even if her own were among them. She had learned her arts in ways that few humans ever do, within the confines of the Otherworld, and even among the magic-users of Bretonnia, Gwendoline's powers were considerable. Her connection to the land and to the elements was nearly unrivaled in its depth. Her strengths lay not in a wizard dueling ring like those of the Empire, but to confront Gwendoline in the groves, plains or rivers of her homeland was an encounter few survived.

Soon after her return to Bretonnia from the paths of Athel Loren, she would find herself on the road to the duchy of L'Anguille where she had been told a great Lord was soon to return from the Quest. Gwendoline would be there to aid to him when he did. When she encountered the newly ascended Grail Knight, Cyris deLonse, she pledged herself to him, and would go on to become one of his most trusted advisers. The woman's life would eventually steer from the typical experience of one of the Lady's chosen Damsels, for she would find love in the heart of a young, loyal knight named Leon deLonse. Later, Cyris would eventually abandon his lordship, and leave to fight the evils of Bretonnia wherever he found them. Gwendoline was not favoured among the court for her relationship with Leon, and there were those that looked upon her seeming agelessness as unholy. Cyris' absence meant that life in court became much more difficult for Gwendoline.

Events would come to pass that saw the Prophetess accused of dabbling in the darker side of the arcane arts, casting her as some kind of villain in the knights' games of politics - there are some who whisper that Gwendoline did eventually embrace these forbidden magics, driven nearly mad by the accusations it is said she chose to become the villain they all believed her to be.

Lady Gwendoline eventually was forced to flee L'Anguille after rescuing her lover, Leon, from his cruel older brother and his ambitious machinations. They knew they would be hunted tirelessly, deciding to leave Bretonnia behind them for good.

And so it was a second time, that the forgotten Princess of Bretonnia would disappear from history.