WARNING! Spoilers below!
Myrgjol the Dokkrsdottir
Born in 820, in the village of Dyrhagi, in what is now known as Norway
Her father is Ander. He is a North African who settled in Ibera with his Moorish farming colony. A Germanic tribe attacked and slaughtered them all, except for Ander. A Norse exploration expedition found him months later barely alive and took him with them. Upon arriving in Dyrhagi, Ander is sold to a farming family. After Ander reaches his sixteenth birthday and his adoptive parents die, he is given his freedom and his family farm by Jarl Harald Stone-Splitter.
Her mother is Brigga, a girl from the neighboring farm and daughter of Thorda, a distant cousin of the Stone-Splitters, and Eirkin, a village official. Together, Brigga and Ander have Myrgjol, their only child.
When Myrgjol turns sixteen and becomes a citizen of Dyrhagi at her first Thing, she drunkenly volunteers to go on the summer raids in the Baltic with her father, family friend Ulf, and the blacksmith Gromm, who all were conscripted by Jarl Halvar.
While in the Baltic, Myrgjol’s warrior skills amaze her comrades, but her Darkness is witnessed by Ulf and causes great concern amongst Ulf, Ander, and Myrgjol herself. As the raid comes to a close with heavy losses by the Norse, to include Ander and Ulf, rumors and speculation about Myrgjol’s supernatural side begin to generate.
Ultimately, through bouts of severe depression and failed negotiations with Jarl Halvar, Myrgjol decides to leave her home of Dyrhagi to join a new settlement in Saxon lands to the south of Scandinavia, forever.
On the trip and shortly after arriving, Myrgjol makes friends with other Norse settlers in Saxon lands. The one she becomes steadfast friends with is Ingrid Stone-Splitter, the only child of the late legendary Jarl Harald Stone-Splitter, the leader of Dyrhagi prior to his own murder and the rise of Halvar to Jarl.
Ingrid Stone-Splitter is about twenty years older than Myrgjol, witnessed the freeing of Ander at her first Thing when she turned sixteen, and watched distantly as Myrgjol grew up in Dyrhagi. Ingrid left Dyrhagi in her young to travel the world for four or five years with an exploration team to find new trading partners on behalf of her father, Jarl Harald. When she returned, Harald had been murdered, her uncle Orin Stone-Splitter had been maimed and disfigured in a murder attempt. Ingrid cannot find information about the assassins or any help to seek justice, so she decides to lie low, take care of Orin, and make some money to live on by battling in the fighting pits of Dyrhagi. After Orin dies of old age, Ingrid decides to leave Dyrhagi with nothing left for her there and suspicions that Jarl Halvar is a dark and evil player and may be responsible for targeting the Stone-Splitters. She joins the same settlement expedition as Myrgjol, and they become instant friends on the voyage to Saxon lands.
Ingrid is enormous, the same as her Stone-Splitter lineage; all very tall and stout. She is six and a half feet tall, very muscular, and quite masculine to the eyes with a thick strong jawline and fierce-looking face. She has ice blue eyes and bright red hair in shieldmaiden braids.