Summary (50 words)

Helena is the sole daughter and representative of a long convalescent Flemish wool merchant. Acting as his deputy, she advises and finances the Castellan. A minor patron of the arts, her reputation is nonetheless tainted by rumours of links to owlers and smugglers, and her seeming disinterest in finding a husband. A constant at court, she subtly weaves a web of contacts among the castellan's subjects.



Traits

Representative of a long convalescent Flemish wool merchant +2
Advises and finances the Castellan. +2
Minor patron of the arts +1
Rumours of links to owlers and smugglers +2
Subtly weaves a web of contacts + 1

Dice Pool - 5

Physical Description

Despite her father's assurances to the contrary, Helena does not consider herself to be among the great beauties of the medieval world, nor, to be fair, does she wish to be. In her eyes, her hair is too akin to the colour of straw, her eyes too grey, her cheekbones too harsh, her forehead too lined, and her shoulders are too narrow to let her dressmaker show off her bosom.

Such a view is not, it should be noted, universally held, and the point has often been argued (by none other than her own mother) that she possesses great beauty if she bothered to show it off, but that there's little that can be done if she refuses to do more than tie back her hair, wear colour to bring out her eye colour and soften her cheeks, grimace and frown a bit less, and be willing to sit with a dressmaker for more than five minutes at a time before storming out.

Both by choice and aforementioned deliberate difficulty, Helena tends to dress modestly to the point of being almost deliberately unfashionable. Her clothes are tailored to a body which is slim but somewhat toned from a fair bit of riding (bordering, to her mother's horror, on being positively wirey), and are good quality, but usually  in darker tones with a minimum of ostentation. She rarely if ever wears more a few rings and a rosary, and prefers silver to gold in any jewelry that she does wear.

Nonetheless, she can, when pushed, accept the need to put on a show, and can brush up nicely, to the point where she can even look like she's not hating every minute of it.