Iona Dahl

Iona Volsungar was born into the Eastern Norse tradition, in the Toten district of the Upplond region, in North-Eastern Norway. Roughly a day’s journey from Oslo, the area is renowned for its rich hunting grounds, where Iona learned her trade at an early age. Her father is the chief of ätt Volsung, a storied but declining clan which was sworn to Olav Ugjæva, a pretender to the throne who was defeated in the civil war of Norway. At the age of 16, Iona Volsung was promised to the son of an Icelandic Viking clan. She protested strongly, but swore an oath to her father to sail to Iceland and form the needed alliance. 

Midway through the journey, however, Iona sabotaged the boat’s rigging, trying to force the shipmen to turn back for Oslo. Off the coast of Luachmhar a sudden storm overtook and capsized the ship, casting all aboard into the sea. After days adrift in the ocean, clinging to the finely carved chest that contained her bridal dowry, Iona saw the faint glimmer of a lighthouse and used the last of her strength to swim toward the light. Succumbing to exposure and exhaustion, however, she found herself being guided to the afterlife by Therin, the guardian of the dead of Luachmhar. Iona, however, had fought too hard for her independence to die, and so she resisted death. She awoke on the shoreline beneath the lighthouse with Therin standing over her, and from that day began her life in Luachmhar.

For ten years, Iona has slowly established a new life for herself, using her skills as a trapper and hunter to build a relatively isolated cabin at the edges of Leaning Rock. She still keeps her bridal chest containing her clan’s regalia hidden away and, over the years, she’s been able to glean that her ship was assumed sunk by a witch-storm which killed everyone aboard. For the last ten years she has assumed the common surname Dahl, and never speaks of her youth in Norway or how she arrived on the island. 

Still, every year on the anniversary of her arrival to Luachmhar, Iona walks to the lighthouse and looks out over the sea. She contemplates the cost of her freedom; the shipmen cast into the sea and her isolation from her clan. For Iona, the only way to honor that cost is to fiercely guard her hard-fought freedom, and her independent life on Luachmhar. 

It had been a long and difficult winter, and Iona found herself venturing further into the forest than she'd normally range. Her snares kept coming up empty, or worse, snapped and shredded like a predator had torn out her catch. The shortened days made matters worse, with less light to work in, and the ever approaching night. On one particular evening, as the sun was beginning to cast long, thin shadows through the forest twilight, Iona ranged too far and too deep. In the dim light, she could see a figure curled up under an overturned tree - dressed like a hunter, though apparently one with worse luck than she. Though the figure seemed to be sleeping, she approached with caution, feeling the night creeping over her shoulder as the suns warmth retreated over the horizon.

When she came upon the man, her worry over his condition overtook her better sense. What hunter hadn't heard the stories of the ones who were found in the spring, defrosting in a bank where they took their final nap, overcome by frigid winter. It was a common code amongst all who worked in the forest to always provide aide to another hunter. But, this man seemed immediately different, as he woke and looked to her, his skin beyond pale and his eyes full of hunger. He barely responded to her questions, seemed startled rather than relieved, and when she tried to come closer, he sprang at her. They wrestled briefly in the forest, and perhaps only due to his weakness, Iona was able to break away and run back to her cabin. Whether she was pursued, she never knew, and for the rest of that winter Iona did not work outside the borders of the forest, only beginning to range further once the days began to stretch with the coming of summer.