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Duatheryn Galadhir
Race
He is considered a Silvan Elf, though he is of mixed lineage. He is part Sindar (Grey-elf) and part Silvan (Wood-elf), with roots tracing back to the Teleri. His father is a Sindarin Elf - a lesser noble in the court of the House of Oropher - whose ancestors came from Doriath, and his mother is Silvan, a common Wood-elf representing the ancient, indigenous population of the forest.
Age
Duatheryn is 902 years old as of T.A. 3018, when the War of the Ring begun. Born in T.A. 2116 within the midst of the Watchful Peace, when the "Necromancer's" fortress sat empty and silent. Duatheryn witnessed the Return of the Shadow to Dol Guldur.
Birthplace
The Woodland Realm of Greenwood the Great, Eryn Lasgalen. Born within Felegoth, and raised in the surrounding woodland.
Residence
A small house on the Eastway in the Homesteads of Falathlorn in Ered Luin. 5 Haven Way, Amon Brethil, Falathlorn Homesteads, Grond. Duatheryn travels far and wide, and spends many moons away from his dwelling, yet always finds his way back to his doorstep.
Etymology
Father Name (Ataressë)
Galadhir: Sindarin. Galadh ("tree") + ir (masculine suffix - "man" or "lord")
As a Grey Elf of Doriath living in Mirkwood, Duatheryn's father Galathor belongs to the ruling elite (a lesser noble in the court of King Thranduil). He gave his son the formal, public name Galadhir at birth during the Essecarmë ceremony. It is a noble, traditional Sindarin name that honors their family’s high status and their adoption of the great woodland realm as their home.
Mother Name (Amilessë)
Duatheyrn: Sindarin. Duath ("dark shadow" or "night-shadow") + eryn ("woods" or "forest")
Silvan Elves possess a deep, prophetic intuition about the nature of the forest. Duatheryn's mother Nethrilwen gave him this name years after his birth. In her foresight (apacenyë), she looked at her son and saw his destiny tied to the encroaching darkness of Mirkwood (which was originally called Eryn Galen, the Greenwoods, before Dol Guldur corrupted it into Taur-nu-Fuin / Mirkwood).
Chosen Name (Kilmessë)
Galenor: Sindarin. Galu ("blessing" or "good fortune") + Nór ("land" or "realm") / Aur ("day" or "light")
Meaning: "The Bringing of Blessings" or "Dawn of Fortune." By choosing a name that can mean "Blessed Light," Duatheyrn vows to be the dawn that breaks the shadows of Mirkwood. He chose this name when he became a March-warden.
Backstory
In the twilight of the Third Age, in November of the year 2116, the tale of this warden began, woven from two threads of the Eldar; the high, ancient lineage of his Sindarin father Galathor, a lesser noble in the underground courts of King Thranduil of the House of Oropher, and the deep, rustic root of his mother Nethrilwen, a maiden of the Silvan folk whose songs were as old as the great trees of Greenwood the Great.
Of His Youth and the Scholar's Longing
He was born during that golden respite known to chroniclers as the Watchful Peace. In those halcyon days, the Shadow had fled from Dol Guldur, and the forest breathed
While his peers learned the flight of the grey-feathered arrow, he spent long hours by the hearths of Thranduil's halls, tracing ancient scripts upon crumbling parchment. It was this thirst for the histories of old that eventually turned his feet outward, away from the familiar eaves of his home. Yet, where there was time for books, there was indeed as much time spent drawing bow and lifting blade - for Duatheryn had the Wood in his heart also, and from his mother he learned the hunt. The lay of the land. The Woodland Warrior's tenacity. He studied and he ran, and he wrote and he trained.
The Journeys Outward: Edhelion and Imladris
As a young scholar, learning his father's craft, his path led him over the misty heights of the mountains to the glorious Edhelion of Ered Luin, where he walked among archives and pondered the fates of those who had gone before, studying often under the great Talagan Silvertongue. But it was in Imladris, the Last Homely House east of the Sea, that his mind found its true quickening.
In the valley of Elrond, where the air was ever sweet with song and the waters of the Loudwater murmured of ancient things, he sat among the High Elves. There, the light of Valinor shone in the eyes of his hosts, and he became a scribe alongside others, transcribing the deeds of the First and Second Ages, and the sorrows of the Noldor. For a time, it seemed his life would be one of quiet study, a keeper of memory in a fading world. Yet his heart ever brought him home to the Wood, where the hunt overtook him, and he danced the shadows beneath the high boughs.
a long, clean sigh. The boy, choosing to live beneath the canopy with his mother, grew tall under sunlit leaves, yet he was not as his wild woodland kin, who contentedly lived in the passing moment. From his father, he inherited a hunger for the deep lore of the elder days, for the lost tales of Beleriand and the music and marches of Ennor.
The Warden's Oath
Yet, no Elf could remain sheltered forever from the rising storm, as surely as it would come. In the year 2460, the Watchful Peace was broken. The Necromancer returned to his dark hill in the south, and a creeping rot began to choke the Greenwood. The Great Spiders, spawn of Ungoliant, spun their foul webs, and the forest earned its darker name: Mirkwood.
Hearing the call of his king and the cries of his mother's people, having returned from pilgrimage of the mind in
Imladris, the scholar found his heart wanting. He laid aside the quill for the yew-bow, and the soft robes of Imladris for the mottled grey and green of the border guard. Because of his keen mind and noble blood, he was made a novice March-warden, based in Caras Tilion and guarding the southern marches of Eryn Lasgalen, tasked with holding the slender line of the Elf-path against the encroaching dark. Not yet earning the right to cross beyond Emyn-nu-Fuin, to face the true Shadow, he carved his way and honed his skills.
Yet he did not abandon his first calling. In his pack, beside his whetstone and spare bowstrings, he carried a journal of calfskin. He recorded the desperate skirmishes beneath the heavy canopy, the names of the fallen scouts, and the shifting borders of Thranduil's kingdom. He was the eye that watched the shadow, and the hand that wrote its history.
The Warden Postings
As time pressed onward, March-warden Duatheryn of the Woodland Realm faced greater dangers, and indeed crossed Emyn-nu-Fuin into the Narrows. As his experience grew, and his connection to the Wood deepened, he was also commissioned outward to postings attached to the Company of Elladan of Imladris. Thus, good Duatheryn watched not only the Wood, but the areas surrounding the Bridge of Mitheithel of Imladris, and the snowcapped peaks of the Vale of Thrain, wherein lay the Great Edhelion. On rest days in both Imladris and Edhelion, he turned to his studies of times long past. While in Imladris on such days he would sit with fair Lindariel and discuss - or rather, debate - details of yore, and while in Edhelion with Elladan's Company he could be found under Talagan's mastery.
The Fall of Edhelion
It was on that dreadful day in 2418 of the Third Age that the Great Edhelion fell to the drums of one Skorgrím Dourhand, the leader of the covetous Dourhand clan. Duatheryn was posted in Edhelion, and on rest day from duties, studying under his master, good Talagan, when the Dourhands struck. Duatheryn witnessed the great hub raized and routed, and fought alongside none other than Lord Elrond in an attempt to harry Skorgrím's wretched host. Duatheryn witnessed Talagan's selfless sacrifice, which also took the rebellious Skorgrím, before he himself managed to escape with the hunted Elladan's Company. And so it was that the heart-broken Duatheryn bid fairwell to his beloved Edhelion, and returned to his home of Shadow, where he spent the next six centuries in the depth of darkness, keeping the Shadow at bay.
The Mustering of Dol GuldurIn the noon of 3018 of the Third Age, in the wake of Barad Dulgur's assault on the Elven King's Realm, Duatheryn alongside his fellow warden, good Feonir, witnessed the departure of Khamûl from the fell fortress of Southern Mirkwood. It was then that Thranduil sent Duatheryn to Imladris once again, to bring tidings to Lord Elrond, who told Duatheryn of his troubling dream involving Edhelion. Duatheryn went to Elladan's Company again, now watching from the ruin of Edhelion over the Vale of Thrain, where he witnessed the resurrection of the fell Skorgrím at the hands of Ivar the Gaunt-Lord of
Angmar. The Lady of Lothlórien, fair Galadriel, spoke to Duatheryn in a dream one fitful night, and told the mere March-warden of his greater destiny.
A Protector of the Free Peoples
Now, as the year 3018 ushers in the final, Great War of our age, the boundaries of his duty have expanded. He is no longer merely a defender of Thranduil’s hidden doors, but a true protector of the Free Peoples. He has looked upon the wider world; he understands that if the Great Tree of the north falls, the valleys of Rivendell and the kingdoms of Men will surely follow.
With a heart hardened by centuries of forest warfare, yet enlightened by the deep wisdom of the west, he stands upon the threshold of doom. His bow is bent against the Orcs of Dol Guldur, and the allies of Angmar, his blade is sharp for the defense of the innocent, and his pen remains ready to write the final chapter of the Third Age - whether it be an epitaph of defeat or a chronicle of victory.