Campaign: Fawn the Midwife of Barleytown

Character: Fawn, the Midwife of Barleytown
Game: Fall of Magic
Episodes: 1
Theme Song: Breath of Life by Florence and the Machine
Quote: "Human beings are not born once and for all the day their mothers give birth to them, but life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves."

Yes. I'm playing more Fall of Magic. Stop asking.

Two of my friends hadn't play FoM. So naturally I offered to facilitate a game for them. But I had played almost all the roles available. We had five players, a hefty group, and I let everyone else choose first. So that when Barleytown was the only option left, I had already played a Hero and a Swine-Herd (best one btw). So it was midwife.

But I didn't want Fawn to be a traditional maternal guiding midwife. I'm a doula, so in real life I deal with midwives a fair bit. Instead I wanted someone who was somewhat masculine and intimidating, even though the rest of the party are all men. I didn't want the only woman to be a waif who needed saving. I wanted her to be fierce but still somehow in a traditionally female role. So midwife it was.

Fawn is called to births by the scrying pool. Once or twice a year she wanders up to Ravenhall, sticks her feet in the water, and receives the knowledge of where she will be needed throughout the year. Once she has received this important and intimate knowledge, she returns home and sets to her task of arranging her year so she can be everywhere she needs to be. She wanders the land, delivering the infants of the kingdoms, being exactly where she needs to be when she needs to be.

She splits her time between Barleytown, Ravenhall, and the Summer Hills. This keeps her present in the lives of those giving birth while also allowing her some homelife in Barelytown. There, she has four children of her own and a husband she loves very much. Or well, she did.

When Fawn went to Ravenhall to receive the flowing knowledge, it gave her no births, except one. Deep in the heart of Umbra, where magic itself was born. Fawn sighed, packed her gear, and went to walk with the Magus, knowing she was meant to birth him, whatever that meant. It wasn't her place to question how things were done or what the knowledge wanted.

As they journeyed, they made their way to Barleytown, only to find the town consumed by a sepia miasma that caused the occupants to go mad with bloodlust. The giant in their group accidentally knocked part of the town down when the villagers attacked him, and fire caught to the town. Fawn watched as her town perished, helpless, and knew that her family had vanished with it. Her husband was a community leader, he would have been there, trying to get others out. Or had been killed already.

It hung in her heart, a constant pain she couldn't quite understand or figure out. Life was cruel, at times, but it was never this. It was never hollow meaning to the death of those closest to her. Utterly alone and with those who had lead to the death of her own town, Fawn continued on, feeling the weight of whatever she was destined to do hang on her. But death lingers in the back of her mind and she can't shake the feeling of it following her.

Midwives brought life. Now it felt like she was a herald for death.

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