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{{Infobox Character | {{Infobox Character | ||
| full_name = Eleanor Ashburne | | full_name = Eleanor Ashburne | ||
| affiliation = Order of the Hemlock (founder) | | affiliation = [[Order of the Hemlock]] (founding steward); [[Visit Verdant|Verdant, Connecticut]] (founder) | ||
| status = Deceased | | status = Deceased (d. June 21, 1710) | ||
| occupation = | | occupation = Founder of Verdant; spiritual matriarch; practitioner of white magic | ||
| first_appearance = | | first_appearance = Referenced throughout SSU | ||
| canon_status = Confirmed | | canon_status = Confirmed | ||
}} | }} | ||
== About == | == About == | ||
'''Eleanor Ashburne''' is the founder of [[Visit Verdant|Verdant, Connecticut]] and the spiritual matriarch of the entire [[Subconium Shared Universe]]. Every supernatural thread in the SSU traces back to Eleanor | '''Eleanor Ashburne''' (b. c. 1635, d. June 21, 1710) is the founder of [[Visit Verdant|Verdant, Connecticut]] and the spiritual matriarch of the entire [[Subconium Shared Universe]]. Every supernatural thread in the SSU traces back to Eleanor: the [[The Hemlock Veil]], [[House Subconium]], the [[Delacroix Family|Delacroix line]], the [[Order of the Hemlock]], the [[Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove]]. She is known primarily through her personal diaries, now held by [[House Subconium]], which serve as the primary source for Verdant's true history. | ||
She died on June 21, 1710, uncertain whether the great love of her life had ever genuinely loved her, or whether her feelings had been magically manufactured. That question is the ghost at the center of Verdant's founding. | |||
== Description == | |||
No physical description has been established in canon beyond what her diaries reveal through their emotional and practical register. She was a woman of considerable intelligence, spiritual authority, and emotional complexity. She was past childbearing age by 1691, placing her in her mid to late fifties at that point, consistent with an estimated birth year of around 1635. | |||
== | == Background == | ||
Eleanor was accused of practicing witchcraft during the Connecticut Witch Trials. She fled the colonial settlements of New England with her husband [[William Ashburne]] the night before her planned arrest on October 1, 1662. They traveled north into the forested lands of Connecticut and arrived at an existing cluster of ramshackle huts on October 11. Two days later Eleanor convened the gathered group and named the settlement Verdant. | |||
The community was predominantly female from its earliest days, roughly four women for every man, because most of those fleeing persecution were young women sent away by frightened families. This imbalance shaped Verdant's earliest social norms profoundly. Eleanor led the settlement as its spiritual and practical authority from the beginning, practicing what she termed white magic: healing, fertility, and protection. | |||
== | == Personality and traits == | ||
Eleanor | Eleanor was principled, pragmatic, and deeply feeling. She accepted into Verdant everyone who needed sanctuary regardless of what they practiced, because that was what Verdant was for. She was capable of jealousy, longing, and profound uncertainty. Her diaries record a woman who built something extraordinary and spent her final years unable to be certain whether the person she loved most had ever loved her back. | ||
She was also a woman who made a decision in 1667 whose consequences are still unfolding three and a half centuries later, and who understood within months that the spell had exceeded its design. She documented that with unease and accepted it because the community needed what it had produced. | |||
== | == Role in the SSU == | ||
House Subconium regards | === Founding Verdant (1662) === | ||
Eleanor founded Verdant on October 13, 1662. She was the settlement's spiritual leader, its practical organizer, and the person whose vision of a sanctuary for the persecuted shaped everything that followed. [[House Subconium]] regards her as the organization's spiritual ancestor even though the organization came into being centuries after her death. | |||
=== The Hemlock Veil (1667) === | |||
On May 1, 1667, Eleanor cast the spell that would define Verdant for centuries. She gathered the women of the settlement at the site of what is now the [[Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove]] and cast a fertility enchantment on Beltane. The [[The Hemlock Veil|Hemlock Veil]] worked but not only as intended. Within months Eleanor recorded unexpected side effects: a current of desire and romance sweeping through the community, dissolving the boundaries of traditional relationships. She documented her unease. She also established the renewal requirement, every ten years from the original casting, and began organizing the informal stewardship that would eventually formalize into the [[Order of the Hemlock]]. | |||
=== Marguerite Delacroix (1668-1710) === | |||
[[Marguerite Delacroix (Gen 0)|Marguerite Delacroix]] arrived from Quebec on July 6, 1668. Eleanor's diary records immediate suspicion: Marguerite's possessions were too pristine, her knowledge of Verdant's location too specific. Eleanor let her in because that was what Verdant was for. Over the following twenty years Marguerite became indispensable and eventually Eleanor's lover. Eleanor grappled with jealousy when Marguerite became William's lover as well. She accepted the arrangement because she loved both of them and because Verdant had always operated by different rules. | |||
Marguerite's two disappearances, the Verdant Fire, the founding of the Order of the Hemlock, the 1706 Veil modification, and Eleanor's deepening uncertainty about whether Marguerite's love was genuine or manufactured through magic are all documented across the diaries' later entries. Eleanor died on June 21, 1710 not knowing the answer. | |||
=== The diaries === | |||
Eleanor's personal diaries are the most important primary source document in the SSU. They contain the true account of Verdant's founding, the casting of the Hemlock Veil, and Eleanor's observations of Marguerite across four decades. The diaries contain a 21-year gap between July 6, 1668 and March 18, 1689 whose contents and significance remain unknown. | |||
The diaries passed into the Delacroix family vault at Eleanor's death in 1710 and remained there until [[Margot Delacroix]] discovered them at approximately age 16 in 1992. Margot gave Eleanor's original diaries to House Subconium around 2007 as one of her first acts as seat-holder. | |||
== Key relationships == | |||
=== William Ashburne === | |||
[[William Ashburne]] was Eleanor's husband and co-founder of Verdant. He died in the illness of winter 1693-94. His death left Eleanor and [[Marguerite Delacroix (Gen 0)|Marguerite]] to raise the first Margot between them. | |||
=== Marguerite Delacroix (Gen 0) === | |||
[[Marguerite Delacroix (Gen 0)|Marguerite Delacroix]] was the great love of Eleanor's life and the source of the question she could not answer at her death. Whether Marguerite's love was genuine or manufactured through magic was never resolved. Eleanor heard her whispering incantations in the dark in her final years and died not knowing. | |||
=== The first Margot Delacroix === | |||
[[Margot Delacroix (Gen 1)|The first Margot]] was William's biological daughter, raised by Eleanor after Marguerite vanished the morning after her birth. Eleanor named her in January 1692 as an act of tribute to her vanished mother. Eleanor's final diary entry records the first Margot at 18, pregnant and in a relationship with two partners, and finds peace in seeing the community continuing through her. | |||
== Affiliations == | |||
Founder, [[Visit Verdant|Verdant, Connecticut]]. Founding steward, [[The Hemlock Veil]]. Spiritual ancestor, [[House Subconium]]. | |||
== Canon notes == | == Canon notes == | ||
* | * Estimated birth year c. 1635 based on diary evidence | ||
* The 21-year gap in her diaries has not been explained | * Died June 21, 1710 | ||
* The 21-year gap in her diaries between 1668 and 1689 has not been explained | |||
* Whether Eleanor understood the full implications of what she had cast before she died is an open question | * Whether Eleanor understood the full implications of what she had cast before she died is an open question | ||
* The relationship between Eleanor's descendants and the early Order of the Hemlock has not been fully mapped | * The relationship between Eleanor's descendants and the early Order of the Hemlock has not been fully mapped | ||
* The First Witch Statue depicts Sarah Osgood, not Eleanor, despite Eleanor being Verdant's true founder | |||
== Related articles == | == Related articles == | ||
| Line 41: | Line 70: | ||
* [[The Hemlock Veil]] | * [[The Hemlock Veil]] | ||
* [[House Subconium]] | * [[House Subconium]] | ||
* [[Margot Delacroix]] | * [[Marguerite Delacroix (Gen 0)]] | ||
* [[ | * [[William Ashburne]] | ||
* [[Margot Delacroix (Gen 1)]] | |||
* [[Order of the Hemlock]] | |||
* [[Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove]] | * [[Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove]] | ||
* [[ | * [[History of Verdant]] | ||
* [[Delacroix Family]] | |||
[[Category:Characters]] | [[Category:Characters]] | ||
Latest revision as of 06:56, 23 April 2026
| Eleanor Ashburne | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Eleanor Ashburne |
| Affiliation | Order of the Hemlock (founding steward); Verdant, Connecticut (founder) |
| Status | Deceased (d. June 21, 1710) |
| Occupation | Founder of Verdant; spiritual matriarch; practitioner of white magic |
| First appearance | Referenced throughout SSU |
| Canon status | Confirmed |
About
Eleanor Ashburne (b. c. 1635, d. June 21, 1710) is the founder of Verdant, Connecticut and the spiritual matriarch of the entire Subconium Shared Universe. Every supernatural thread in the SSU traces back to Eleanor: the The Hemlock Veil, House Subconium, the Delacroix line, the Order of the Hemlock, the Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove. She is known primarily through her personal diaries, now held by House Subconium, which serve as the primary source for Verdant's true history.
She died on June 21, 1710, uncertain whether the great love of her life had ever genuinely loved her, or whether her feelings had been magically manufactured. That question is the ghost at the center of Verdant's founding.
Description
No physical description has been established in canon beyond what her diaries reveal through their emotional and practical register. She was a woman of considerable intelligence, spiritual authority, and emotional complexity. She was past childbearing age by 1691, placing her in her mid to late fifties at that point, consistent with an estimated birth year of around 1635.
Background
Eleanor was accused of practicing witchcraft during the Connecticut Witch Trials. She fled the colonial settlements of New England with her husband William Ashburne the night before her planned arrest on October 1, 1662. They traveled north into the forested lands of Connecticut and arrived at an existing cluster of ramshackle huts on October 11. Two days later Eleanor convened the gathered group and named the settlement Verdant.
The community was predominantly female from its earliest days, roughly four women for every man, because most of those fleeing persecution were young women sent away by frightened families. This imbalance shaped Verdant's earliest social norms profoundly. Eleanor led the settlement as its spiritual and practical authority from the beginning, practicing what she termed white magic: healing, fertility, and protection.
Personality and traits
Eleanor was principled, pragmatic, and deeply feeling. She accepted into Verdant everyone who needed sanctuary regardless of what they practiced, because that was what Verdant was for. She was capable of jealousy, longing, and profound uncertainty. Her diaries record a woman who built something extraordinary and spent her final years unable to be certain whether the person she loved most had ever loved her back.
She was also a woman who made a decision in 1667 whose consequences are still unfolding three and a half centuries later, and who understood within months that the spell had exceeded its design. She documented that with unease and accepted it because the community needed what it had produced.
Role in the SSU
Founding Verdant (1662)
Eleanor founded Verdant on October 13, 1662. She was the settlement's spiritual leader, its practical organizer, and the person whose vision of a sanctuary for the persecuted shaped everything that followed. House Subconium regards her as the organization's spiritual ancestor even though the organization came into being centuries after her death.
The Hemlock Veil (1667)
On May 1, 1667, Eleanor cast the spell that would define Verdant for centuries. She gathered the women of the settlement at the site of what is now the Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove and cast a fertility enchantment on Beltane. The Hemlock Veil worked but not only as intended. Within months Eleanor recorded unexpected side effects: a current of desire and romance sweeping through the community, dissolving the boundaries of traditional relationships. She documented her unease. She also established the renewal requirement, every ten years from the original casting, and began organizing the informal stewardship that would eventually formalize into the Order of the Hemlock.
Marguerite Delacroix (1668-1710)
Marguerite Delacroix arrived from Quebec on July 6, 1668. Eleanor's diary records immediate suspicion: Marguerite's possessions were too pristine, her knowledge of Verdant's location too specific. Eleanor let her in because that was what Verdant was for. Over the following twenty years Marguerite became indispensable and eventually Eleanor's lover. Eleanor grappled with jealousy when Marguerite became William's lover as well. She accepted the arrangement because she loved both of them and because Verdant had always operated by different rules.
Marguerite's two disappearances, the Verdant Fire, the founding of the Order of the Hemlock, the 1706 Veil modification, and Eleanor's deepening uncertainty about whether Marguerite's love was genuine or manufactured through magic are all documented across the diaries' later entries. Eleanor died on June 21, 1710 not knowing the answer.
The diaries
Eleanor's personal diaries are the most important primary source document in the SSU. They contain the true account of Verdant's founding, the casting of the Hemlock Veil, and Eleanor's observations of Marguerite across four decades. The diaries contain a 21-year gap between July 6, 1668 and March 18, 1689 whose contents and significance remain unknown.
The diaries passed into the Delacroix family vault at Eleanor's death in 1710 and remained there until Margot Delacroix discovered them at approximately age 16 in 1992. Margot gave Eleanor's original diaries to House Subconium around 2007 as one of her first acts as seat-holder.
Key relationships
William Ashburne
William Ashburne was Eleanor's husband and co-founder of Verdant. He died in the illness of winter 1693-94. His death left Eleanor and Marguerite to raise the first Margot between them.
Marguerite Delacroix (Gen 0)
Marguerite Delacroix was the great love of Eleanor's life and the source of the question she could not answer at her death. Whether Marguerite's love was genuine or manufactured through magic was never resolved. Eleanor heard her whispering incantations in the dark in her final years and died not knowing.
The first Margot Delacroix
The first Margot was William's biological daughter, raised by Eleanor after Marguerite vanished the morning after her birth. Eleanor named her in January 1692 as an act of tribute to her vanished mother. Eleanor's final diary entry records the first Margot at 18, pregnant and in a relationship with two partners, and finds peace in seeing the community continuing through her.
Affiliations
Founder, Verdant, Connecticut. Founding steward, The Hemlock Veil. Spiritual ancestor, House Subconium.
Canon notes
- Estimated birth year c. 1635 based on diary evidence
- Died June 21, 1710
- The 21-year gap in her diaries between 1668 and 1689 has not been explained
- Whether Eleanor understood the full implications of what she had cast before she died is an open question
- The relationship between Eleanor's descendants and the early Order of the Hemlock has not been fully mapped
- The First Witch Statue depicts Sarah Osgood, not Eleanor, despite Eleanor being Verdant's true founder