Seline "Sel" Fairbrook
Seline "Sel" Fairbrook presides over Driftwood Hollow's central gathering place with commanding presence and razor-sharp wit. Her mixed heritage manifests in subtle points to her ears and unusually vibrant green eyes that seem to shift hue like the lake's waters. Sel wears her chestnut hair in elaborate braids interwoven with small trinkets—polished stones, carved wooden beads, and occasionally what appear to be ancient coins of unknown origin.
As proprietor of The Gull & Lantern, Sel occupies a position of significant influence—her establishment serves as the village's unofficial town hall, marketplace, and information exchange. She is a friendly yet sharp-tongued woman who knows every bit of gossip in town, capable of recalling specific details about events and conversations from decades past. Nothing of consequence occurs in Driftwood Hollow without eventually reaching her ears, making her simultaneously the village's most valuable resource and potential liability.
The tavern itself reflects its owner's eclectic nature. Weathered timbers salvaged from shipwrecks form the structural bones, while the interior features curiosities collected over generations—peculiar taxidermy specimens, weapons of unusual design, and fragments of stone bearing partial inscriptions in forgotten languages. Most notably, Sel keeps an old, enchanted map behind the bar that changes subtly over time, with landmasses shifting position and mysterious markers appearing without apparent pattern or purpose.
When questioned about the map's origins, Sel offers different explanations to different inquirers—claiming alternatively that it was inherited from a seafaring ancestor, won in a game of chance from a mysterious stranger, or discovered in a sealed chest that washed ashore after a particularly violent storm. The truth remains elusive, though careful observers note she often consults it before significant decisions or during unusual astronomical alignments.
For Oathwatch Academy students, Sel represents a complex resource. Her establishment welcomes their business and she readily shares mundane information, yet she carefully evaluates each visitor before revealing anything of substance. Those who demonstrate arrogance or condescension receive deliberately misleading gossip, while those who approach with respect and genuine curiosity might eventually gain access to knowledge absent from academy libraries—though often delivered through seemingly innocuous anecdotes and tavern tales rather than direct instruction.
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