Aubergine

Aubergine is not the oldest of the twelve, although she is the founder of the Potluck and the dyemistress. Tall and strong, her features are striking: mesmerizing blue eyes, high cheekbones and long grey hair streaked with white. Her weathered skin looks tanned, her cheeks chapped. She is beautiful and terrible to behold.

Aubergine married young and raised animals on a fiber farm filled with sheep, goats and alpaca, but never the children she longed for. She explored natural dyeing and taught herself how to shade fleeces and roving from the crystal dyed waters that flowed south from the Northland Glacier. Quietly, she discovered the magical powers of the dye crystals hidden within the Glacier itself and their effect on fiber, fleece, and finished garments. By the time the Northland Guard learned to fear the magical power of the crystals and forbid the use of magic in all the lands, Aubergine had amassed a cache of crystal shards freed by flood waters from the Crystal Caves.

When the Lowlanders began to invade the Middlelands, trekking north in search of water, Aubergine learned how to protect herself by channeling natural forces in small ways as the First Folk had done with crystals dug from the riverbanks in Ancient times. She dyed fiber in the crystalline waters and spun yarn that when knit into a cloak allowed her to pass unseen as a spotted deer in Spring. When her husband was killed in a Northlands skirmish, Aubergine sought the safety of Bordertown, a thriving gateway of commerce, divining the Middlelands from the Northlands under the shadow of the Glacier. She founded a co-operative fiber group that became known as Potluck Yarn and attracted a network of fiber artists and apprentices from all the lands Through the magic of the crystals and the luck of the dyepot, she created a circle of 12 women who wielded the powers of the crystals in balance with nature. On a silver filament they strung a circlet of 12 Amethyst dye crystals which Aubergine wore around her neck as a talisman of natural power and for a time there was peace.

As the war between the Lowlands and the Northlands brewed, Aubergine discovered that their fight was not for water but to rule the natural world by seeking out the ancient crystals rumored to lie deep within the Northland Glacier, sealed in a series of caverns called the Crystal Caves. Aubergine had always been careful with her crystals, never misusing their natural forces, which could be stronger than a gale force hurricane or terrible tsunami.

With her cache mostly depleted, she turned to the circle of twelve for direction, not knowing that one had turned traitor. In league with the Lowlanders, her most gifted apprentice Tasman sundered the Amethyst necklace and stole away with the crystals in the night, forever breaking the circle of twelve. Over the years, her power has grown and she is now the Dark Queen of the Lowlands. Middleland and Northlander folk are no match for her power, but she still does not have the crystals she seeks to rule the natural world, nor the complete necklace.

As long as the circle remains broken and the crystals scattered, Aubergine has little power, but now must call all of the remaining Potluckers to herself once more as the Lowlanders invade the Middlelands and nature falls into the same chaos that ended the rule of the First Folk in Ancient times. When the First Folk tried to rule nature, their world ended in ice. Last time the world ended in ice. This time all fear the world will end in fire as the Lowlanders burn out the belly of the Glacier in search of the crystals that can bring ruin to all.