Yanje Brimnerbold

“Order without purity is no order at all.”  

Role and Station

Yanje Brimnerbold serves as the immediate superior to Solas, overseeing investigations, enforcement, and doctrinal purity among Helm’s clergy and lay agents in northern Cormyr. Stationed primarily at the Ready House of the Right Strong Hand in Berdusk, she commands respect—and fear—within the hierarchy of Helm’s church.   She is a staunch traditionalist and an advocate for hardline interpretation of Helm’s scriptures. She views divine favour as a thing to be earned through discipline and obedience—not granted through birth or blood. As such, she is particularly suspicious of aasimar and others “born marked by the gods,” seeing their celestial heritage as dangerous vanity.  

Appearance and Personality

Yanje is in her late 60s, though age has not softened her stern frame. She wears ceremonial grey and bronze robes that evoke the stylised plate of Helm's sacred iconography. Her silver hair is always tightly pinned beneath a circlet of office, and her cold, scrutinising gaze makes most initiates squirm under questioning.   Yanje is fastidious, sharp-tongued, and utterly convinced of her own moral clarity. She has a dry, rasping voice and a smile that never touches her eyes.  

“Helm watches ever... but he does not blink. Neither do I.”

 

Background

Yanje is the granddaughter of Borthan Brimnerbold, the famed Vigilant Godseye of Berdusk’s temple a century ago. Borthan was credited with exposing dozens of internal heresies and rooting out corruption within the church during the tumultuous years of the 1380s. Yanje often invokes her grandfather’s legacy, referring to herself as “Helm’s scalpel, not his sword.”   Raised within the walls of the Berdusk temple, Yanje never travelled far afield in her youth but rose quickly through ecclesiastical ranks due to her prodigious memory, administrative skill, and unwavering judgement.  

Calico the Tressym

Yanje is rarely seen without Calico, her prissy, orange-and-white tressym. The winged cat wears a tiny set of ceremonial pauldrons and sleeps beside the altar in her private office. Calico is known to hiss at aasimar, tieflings, and "unsanctioned mages," and Yanje believes this behaviour to be divinely inspired. She claims Calico has once detected a doppleganger among the clergy—though others recall the so-called shapeshifter was later exonerated.  

Relationship with Solas

Though Solas serves the Church loyally, Yanje finds his existence troubling. His aasimar blood, unwavering faith, and flashes of genuine divine insight all suggest he walks a path beyond her control. She distrusts charisma, especially when it inspires loyalty without discipline.   She frequently assigns Solas to dangerous or politically volatile cases.