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Annelys n’ha Beltrana

• a.k.a. Ann
• Age: 43
• Marital Status: Single (partner of 13 years killed 2 years ago)
• Occupation: Acting guild mother of Redil Guildhouse
• Former Occupations: Mountain guide, armed defence fighter, trail cook, assistant guildmother
• Residence: Redil Guildhouse
• Laran gift and laran training: Unknown
• Politics: Convinced renunciate
• Personality: Stern character, very responsible, caring, but in a distanced way. Needs to relax more, really.
• Strengths: Reliable, a good friend, good manager, knows a lot about renunciate’s history
• Weaknesses: Too hard against herself. Sometimes a lack of humor. Needs to learn most things the hard way. Drinks a glass or two, preferably dry red wine.
• Combat training: Very well, armed and unarmed, as is fitting for a renunciate
• Horseback riding: Reasonable.
• Appearance: 5 feet 2 inches, 11 stone 7 pounds, redbrown hair with a natural wave and first grey streaks, green eyes, a squarish face and some dimples.
• Romantic relationships: None
• Friends: Acquilara n'ha Devra, aka 'Lara'; Ruanna n'ha Miralys, aka 'Ru'
• Pets: Small dog
• Hobbies: Astrology, knitting
• Other Information: Annylis grew up in the Hellers, as the eldest of five children of a small sheep farmer and a weaver. She had a happy childhood, although the family was not rich, her fathers sheep farming and her mother’s wool working kept them warm and well fed. As a child, she was allowed to roam free – when there was nothing to do in terms of watching over siblings, spinning wool or watching sheep. She learned to work hard early and grew physically strong. Also, her mother taught her to read, write and calculate, along with her two sisters. The teaching of the boys was left to the father (and resulted in two other analphabetic family members, who were very good at raising sheep, though). When the first signs of womanhood showed at the age of ten, education became stricter. Her mother started to tell her about female cycles and about having children and so on. She also explained that the family would be starting to look for a husband, but – as in her own case – she would have three choices. Ann appreciated that this was rather progressive. The next years were dedicated to become more knowledgeable about housekeeping and working with wool. Somehow, Ann could not master weaving as well as her mother, but was quite good at knitting and dying. At the age of eleven, she had her first cycle, and at thirteen, she was considered old enough for marriage. Her father had a distant cousin of then 18, who was her first choice. When she declined this one because she was still too afraid of marriage, the next candidate was produced three months later. Phil was a very handsome young man of only 16 years, the eldest son of a widow named Lauria whose husband had also been a sheep farmer and who was also a weaver. Ann had the feeling that moving into this family of a weaver, a 16 year old and two twin girls of 12 would really feel like home. In addition she knew that the family with only three children, could afford a nice bride price which would come in handy with her family’s need. So, everything was agreed very fast, and there was a rough country wedding within six months. As was usual in the Hellers, the bride was made drunk and bedded by as many men as possible, to assure a quick pregnancy. Ann did not remember anything the next morning. Her mother, however, considering that her daughter was too young for pregnancy, had made sure that she drank an abortive before going to bed, and the morning after the marriage she began bleeding, which also secured her some days without the attention of her husband. At first, Ann was happy with her new family. She got along well with her mother in law and her sisters-in-law, and her husband was handsome, after all. He also had a very healthy sexual drive, and although Ann was afraid at first and hurt for the first few times, she got used to having intercourse every night and also liked the caressing that went along with it. Her mother-in-law kept administering abortive drinks until her fourteenth birthday, as she did not want her daughter-in-law to wither with a premature pregnancy. Two months before her fifteenth birthday, Ann gave birth to a healthy boy with the help of her mother-in-law and a renunciate midwife. She was encouraged to nurse as long as possible, and only gave birth to her next son at the age of 17. Inbetween, her sisters-in-law were married off to two twin brothers, fishermen living near Dalereuth. Her mother-in-law was heart broken to lose both her daughters at once and to a far away place, but she did agree that it was best for the girls not to be separated. Having her mother-in-law helping with the children and also for advice in the wool business, Ann started to become a capable house wife. She began a successful trade in knitwear, her skills in dying wools and inventing patterns becoming better and better. Her third pregnancy ended in a miscarriage when she was riding too hard, as did the fourth one. She almost started considering this as a method of contraception, when her husband began watching over the fifth pregnancy more carefully. As soon as any signs showed, he prohibited any exercise, and made the renunciate midwife visit regularly and administer advice on how to prevent miscarriage. Ann was 20 by then and thought it would be nice having another baby, which made her keep going although the pregnancy was harder than she remembered about the first two. Unfortunately, her sisters-in-law delivered twins both, and asked their mother to help with four babies in one household, which she did. For the first time in her life, Ann had to head her own household without any help. Her husband being anxious about another miscarriage, got a girl from the next village to help Ann with the heavy household things and also to keep her spirits up when he was away. Two weeks before her 21st birthday, Ann delivered twin girls in a birth she did not want to remember for a long time. With the house full of four children, a thriving wool shop, a caring husband and some household help, she could have been the happiest wife in the Hellers. However, as things go, she started to notice the indifference with which her husband treated her daughters. His sons at the age of 7 and five started to help him in farming, and he considered his women house a strange place. The couple grew apart. Ann started having women friends, among her customers, and Phil started meeting some of them. Ann tried not to notice. After all, these were her friends; and his adventures did not make Phil less attentive towards her. This went for a few years. However, it seemed that her luck had left her. Her little girls started having one illness after the other. She sent for the renunciate midwife, who always found a cure and also managed to cheer Ann up. One night in October, a few weeks before the girls’ fourth birthday, she called for the healer again, because the children’s fever from a cold grew higher and higher. The healer arrived at the same time as her husband, and happened to meet him with one of his girls. Phil grew angry and asked her not to enter his house. The healer disagreed, mentioning that his daughters were very ill. That night, Ann and Phil had a very hefty row, and Phil hit Ann for the first time during their marriage. Ann had never experienced serious violence and was terrified. She could not stand her ground and felt vulnerable ever after. She tried to acquiesce her husband in any way. When the girls were not cured after a tenday, Phil considered that the renunciate healers arts were not helping his daughters, but eating his money. Ann’s pleading did not help, and he forbade any further cures. Within five days, the girls were dead. Waking the other morning next to the dead bodies of the girls, the boys and Phil sleeping in the stables to avoid infection, something in Ann clicked. She seemed to see her future self from above: An intimidated young woman, not able stand up to a husband who turned more and more violent, and bearing one child after the other, becoming worn and hard. The same night, she packed as much wool as she could carry, her spindle and some dyestuff into tough canvas. She hid the package behind the storage container for flour. When her husband and sons went on a daytrip to buy some fencing materials, she saddled a pony, which she had bought with the earnings of her woolshop, and headed off to the next guildhouse and asked to take the oath.
  
  She left her sons, now 11 and 9, with their father, because she knew that he would be good to them. At this time, she was ready to become very traditional. She dedicated herself to learning to fight, and never touched any knitting during her housebound time. Only later, when she was able to earn her living while fighting or leading travel groups, she took up her former trade as a hobby. She also worked on her writing and calculating skills. Becoming older she started to realise that it might be more important to try to adapt to the individual soul in each of the women. She is still convinced that a women only community needs to be strict in some issues, but she does believe that each woman needs to befriend her female side as well as her male one to become a real asset to the community . On a personal level, she is kind of widowed: She fell in love with a renunciate 5 years older than herself when she was 28, but lost her partner in a fight against dry towners who wanted to retrieve one of "their" women from the guild two years ago. To distract herself from her sadness, she took on all kinds of difficult missions for the guild, the last one being Redil Guildhouse.
• Family Tree: Unknown – she is not a Comyn, after all
• E-mail: Dagmar_ida at yahoo.co.uk
• ICQ #
• AOL IM:
• Darkover website:
• Non-Darkover website:
• Old character sheet: Original character sheet