Without any doubt the Ylfferhim elf Avennía "Wren" Asaiá (1504-), Styrásh Avennía Asaiá, lit. "Awakening Sky"), is one of the most famous contemporary elves of all of Santharia, known not only to elves themselves, but also appreciated by other races, especially men and halflings. Most people of the central kingdom, but also many from the northern regions have heard of this fabulous elf or even seen her themselves, and the word of her extraordinary character still spreads throughout the lands. This has various reasons, one of them being that Avennía Asaiá had been the ninth Ylfferhim Leias for more than 37 years, before she left her tribe in order to travel throughout the provinces as an elven messenger and healer, using her alchemistic skills as well as her excellent musical talents to bridge the gaps between the races. As for the latter: Interpreting a great variety of elven and human myths with her highly admirable voice, Avennía Asaiá soon received the cognomen "Wren" as she performed among humans, in remembrance to the singing bird. Like several other exceptional personalities like the great Nyermersysian artist Faugar and the Masterbard Judith of Bardavos, Wren recently joined the project of creating a massive Santharian encyclopedia, the already notorious Santharian Compendium. Not very surprisingly Wren assists the royal archivist Artimidor Federkiel now in accumulating as many details as possible concerning the elven race, its various tribes, myths, traditions and cultures, and in this regard Wren has also already earned a lot of credit among the scholars at the library of New-Santhala.

Picture description: Portrait of the former Ylfferhim Leias Avennía "Wren" Asaiá. Image drawn by Faugar.

Appearance. Wren is by all accounts a typical Ylfferhim elf, exceedingly tall (about 2.2. peds) and graceful, with large green eyes set in a "peaches and cream" complexion. Long wavy hair tumbles long past her waist, which is always worn down and open as is customary to her tribe. She does however, when away from her forest home, braid her hair (considered a rather masculine thing to do by the Ylfferhim) to keep the majority of her hair away from her face. Wren's hair are an undefinable mass of autumnal colours, though if one was forced to place a name upon it, you perhaps might call her blonde, or perhaps strawberry blonde, but her hair colour seems to vary with every movement of her head and every change of lighting.

Wren always wears natural colours when away from the Quallian, out of a need to blend in. When traveling she wears a cream dress, over which she has a long navy traveling cloak with deep pockets. The only clue to who she is can be found in a golden torc around her neck, beautifully worked by elven smiths and decorated in enammal work by Quaelhoirhim craftsmen. She is accustomed to going barefoot and can only occasionally be seen wearing leather boots outside of her beloved forests.

To age Wren is nearly impossible. She has the face and body of a young woman. But there is something about her... perhaps her demure, perhaps in her eyes; that betrays the great age she has reached. As most elves she has grown more graceful with age, and this seems to have been doubled in Wren. Perhaps, because of the time she has spent looking into the future as well as the past. Perhaps because she spent nearly twenty years alone in the Thaelon. Whatever, there is a light of comprehension that dances on her face that marks her apart from others. She has a passion for recognizing that same something in others, and when she does she will take time and effort to nurture that talent.

Personality. In her younger days Wren was quite the spirit, stubborn, free and careless, disliked being told what to do. But, time takes its toll on body, mind and spirit. Her actions are cautious and considered. Her clarity of thought, aquired by long years of Xeuá practice, is what gives her the strength to carry on. When faced with a problem, however large, she breaks it down into small steps, taking only one step at a time and is a natural optimist. She is still determined and strong minded. When she has considered the facts and decided she is right, then very little will persuade her otherwise.

She has been Leias of the Ylfferhim for a long time, and in the total saftey of the Quallian forest, Wren has been long accustomed to be treated like glass, and can be easily be made nervous, especially by other races. She had seen very rarely seen anything of other races during her reign, and has been wary of them for quite a while - especially of men, and often does not understand their mannerisms. However, she is, despite her years, somewhat naive. She is not used to liars or those who represent themselves contary to what they are. As a result her trust is quickly won and she is a poor judge of character.

She also has an overwhelming sense of duty, to her people, to her friends and to her sister. And she is terrified of letting them down. This may push her into impulsive actions that she would not otherwise consider. But duty may also restrict what she can do... in the end her actions must be in the best interests of her people, often to the detriment of her own interests. Wren has - as a result of this and her poor character judgement - spent much of her long life aloof from others, with only her sister for constant company. Life has been lonely and she is often quiet for extended periods, afraid of too much interaction with others.

Wren has lived a long life... and as a consequence knows much about the nature of Caelereth and those who live within it. She has learned much from her own mistakes in life, and from those of times past as her knowledge of Caelereth's past is detailed and full. She keeps her cards and her talents usually very closely guarded, and her opinions even quieter. She has an ordered disciplined mind, resulting from many years of training. She has a natural knack for magic, as she was born with the rare elven skill of sensing the Oh'mód'hál (the ability to sense magical aura; in the Ylfferhim tribe about one child in four of five human generations are born with the talent - this is quite high). Using the Ionmis Globe of her tribe, this ability can be channeled to give her limited predicative powers. Wren's trained mind allows her to retain a small amount of this ability when away from the globe, though it is often not much more than a few blurred scattered images.

Biography. Avennía "Wren" Asaiá was born in the year 1504 a.S. as the second daughter to Raugíl Lón (Styrásh Raugíl Lón, lit. "Pure Forest") and Veván'vái (Styrásh Veván'vái, lit. "Bird Seer") in the largest settlement of the Quallian, Aér'Ylferián. Wren's mother, Veván'vái, was part of the Ylffer council, where she had a reputation of a stern and strict, sometimes even rigorious person, while the accouts about her father are very rare. However, this is not really surprising, as unlike at human societies, women play a much more important role than men do among elves.

As meetings of the council were traditionally conducted in Old Ylffer, this ancient language was something Wren learned from her childhood through her mother. Like her sister Wren also was a very musical person from her early years on, and Salaen, the common Ylffer folk music, accompanied her in everything she did. Wren learned how to use the typical wind instruments of the Ylffer like the Shyratam, a seven holed instrument with a hole at the back, and the Theratam, a reed instrument, which is more common in the west of the Quallian, with six holes, and though not many know of her skills as a player of instruments (in this field her sister is often seen as the better known celebrity), Wren was a master as well in playing both, Shyratam and Theratam alike. - But music was only one of the many things Wren was interested in since her birth: The art of alchemism and the caring for wounded people, be it physically or in spirit, was something she was curious about first and which she later persued with dedication. Her rare ability for sensing the so-called Oh'mód'hál (the natural aura of things and persons) helped her a lot to learn the proper usage of natural elven Xeuá magic very quickly from the priests of Nehtor, and she soon gained a reputation as an excellent healer among the elven people of the Quallian. Wren indeed is well versed in chemicals, poisons and in herbs and healing in general. There are few who compare to her talents as a nurse. This is probably because years of practice have also made her an even more proficient user of Xeuá. Wren uses this kind of magic, however, only to aid and accelerate her treatment of patients.

As Wren grew older and her aptitude for using the Ionmis Globe, the legendary prophetic orb of the Ylfferhim, became known to the public, she finally was selected by the council after long consultation as the representative of her tribe, as the ninth Ylfferhim Leias (1595), at the age of 91.

Though honored by the position of Leias, Wren never felt like a person for the front row and kept in the background even when important political decisions had to be made. In fact there weren't too many important decisions to be made during her reign as the Ylfferhim Leias at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th after Santhros. Sometimes Wren's kind nature also made these decisions even more difficult for her, as the serenity her mother was known for definitely wasn't prevailing in Wren's life, where ideals and love of small and homely things were valued more than anything else. For all her years of life, Wren is said to have been a little naive sometimes, and she always wanted to think the best of people. It is even reported that she could easily be made nervous and uneasy at certain occasions of her reign, a fact, which didn't always prove advantageous to her. The isolated nature of her tribe meant that Wren was not always up on current affairs in the kingdom. All these things combined sometimes led her to occasional uncharacteristic bursts of impulsive behaviour.

After all these years, Wren was still perhaps searching for her place in life, when she decided to offer the position of Leias to her successor, leaving the Quallian completely behind after only a relatively short period of reign - for elves that is - of 37 cycles (until 1632). Many people who know her personally say that it isn't true that she thought not to be capable of fulfilling the task of Leias to everybody's satisfaction, but that - quite to the contrary - she was convinced to have fulfilled her part in life as Leias, and that there were still other tasks in store for her in life she wanted to face. And so she left for the north, heading towards the legendary vast greens of the Thaelon, where she is said to have disappeared for nearly twenty years.

Not much is known about this time of Wren's life, and she is reluctant to talk about it. But as Wren returned to the Santharian society later, she turned to a more adventurous person, wandering the lands to discover things she hasn't been aware of yet, and she also re-discovered her passion for music. From this point on Wren's career as singer was settled, as the talk about Wren's beautiful voice quickly spread in the United Kingdom, which also led to her easily remembered nickname.

In 1657 Wren - already very famous as a singer in central Santharia - finally joined the endeavours of the royal archivist Artimidor Federkiel and his team in order to accumulate information for the Santharian Compendium. Together with artists, writers and poets like Faugar, Quellion, Dalá'Valannía, Koldar Mondrakken, Bard Judith and many more, she still enjoys being part of such a greater cause, connecting the Santharians with wisdom and a racial cooperation never seen before. Maybe Wren, who has always been searching for her place in life, has found it eventually, in the heart of Santharia, in the dusty library of New-Santhala, where she has the opportunity to look back upon a long, long life, telling us many tales, which the Santharians still need to hear...

Importance. Wren's importance as a Santharian is manifold. Her versatile nature, dedication to ideas and ideals as well as her caring support for the weak did not only show in her reign as Ylfferhim Leias, but also in many aspects of her later, more adventurous life. Wren still visits many temples of Nethor, elven and human ones, where her knowledge and disciplined mind is always welcomed, and her presence alone, the simplicity of her nature and her convincing charme, have helped many to soothe their pains, which they may have suffered physically or in spirit.

Aside from her political importance and her healing skills Wren's reputation as a singer of traded Santharian tales as well as modern Santharian music, is unsurpassed by any other bard throughout the lands. Whether the babies of the south are humming the "Rahmat-Udzera" lullaby according to Wren's lovely interpretation, the elite of the Santharian poets of Bardavos listen to the "Blacksmith's Lament" in one of the rare concerts in Bardavos or visitors of Aeruillin come to see the most talked about voice behind the famous "Song of Waning"- Wren's songs indeed touch the soul and sure will still be remembered by many future generations, representing a piece of eternity she manages to lay in her melodies like no other.

Last but not least Wren's central role as part of the team working on the Santharian Compendium has to be emphasized here as well. You probably won't find any person in Santharia, who has that many knowledge of elves, their various tribes and cultures, along with the skill and patience to describe these things in detail as is required for such a massive compilation. Therefore the team of the Santharian Compendium as a whole would like to express its gratidude towards this remarkable elven woman through the lines of this entry: May the passion and wisdom of Wren's unforgetable voice echo in many future generations of the United Kingdom!