Madame Lillain Bortan
Madame Lillian Zorina Bortan- Varosdottir
Lillain Bortan is a name spoken with a mix of reverence and careful distance in the crooked alleys of Ostenvik. A former sea-witch and sorceress of uncommon power, Lillain once walked distant shores, whispered with Elementals, and bartered spells from corsairs and tide spirits alike. She was wild in her youth—sharp-tongued, salt-skinned, and known for sailing into storms rather than around them.
But all storms end somewhere.
She settled in Ostenvik when she met Tholen Bortan, the town’s kindhearted herbalist whose quiet presence had a gravity she hadn’t expected. They married, and while she never shed the sorceress in her bones, she softened in his shadow. For a time, her magic quieted. Her travels ceased. She put her boots by the hearth and learned to label jars.
When Tholen passed, Lillain didn’t weep where anyone could see—but she never left the shop again. She buried him beneath the yarrow bush out back and took over Bortan’s Blends herself. The shop changed under her hand. Less alchemy, more raw spellcraft. Charms slipped into cough syrup. Potions that hum when uncorked. People still come for healing—but they come with respect.
Now in her twilight years, Lillain is as much a part of Ostenvik as its tides. Her long silver hair is usually tied back in a thick braid, and she wears a sea-worn cloak fastened with a piece of drift-amber. Her eyes still gleam with stormlight when she's angered, and some say she still whispers to the sea on windless nights. Children leave sea glass on her doorstep for good dreams. Grown men won’t meet her gaze when they lie.
Whatever she was, and whatever power still coils in her blood, Lillain Bortan is not a woman to underestimate. She's the kind of witch you thank twice.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Lillain was born in 425 HE, the daughter of Varos the Wind-Hewer, a Skölnan shipwright known more for his tempers than his craft. Her mother, Maelin, died giving birth to her, and Lillain grew up in a coastal village where storms outnumbered calm days and a child’s worth was measured in silence and survival. She was not silent. Nor particularly obedient.
By the age of ten, Lillain could read the wind better than any sailor in her father’s dockyard. By fifteen, she’d stolen her father’s charm-stone and used it to summon a sea-wight, just to see if the old stories were true. They were. Her father never forgave her for it—nor for the scar it left on his leg.
She left home early and took to the sea aboard a spell-runner bound for the Klo’karr Islands. What followed were decades of strange jobs, magical bargains, and half-whispered tales. She served briefly as a storm-reader aboard a privateer vessel, apprenticed to a marsh-witch in southern Necai, and disappeared entirely for three years—rumors placing her as far as Zalhara’s forgotten coast. Her name became a warning in some ports, a whispered hope in others.
Everything changed in 469 HE, when she stopped in Ostenvik to replace a cracked wand core and met Tholen Bortan. He wasn’t a mage, or a sailor, or even terribly brave—but he was kind, with hands that grew healing instead of havoc. She married him a year later, shocking everyone, including herself.
For twenty years they built a quiet life in Ostenvik. Tholen ran the herbalist’s shop, and Lillain helped in small ways—infusing poultices with calming cantrips, keeping the wind off the shutters, reading storms before they rolled in. She never called herself retired, just “between storms.”
In 499 HE, Tholen passed away in his sleep. Lillain buried him under the yarrow bush and took over the shop entirely. It changed with her. Stronger potions, stranger clients. The townsfolk still come, because they know her remedies work—and they know better than to ask too many questions.
These days, she rarely leaves the shop. But the sea still listens when she speaks.
Current Location
Species
Date of Birth
Velnir 22
Year of Birth
425 HE
77 Years old
Children
Sex
Female
Eyes
Pale grey, like storm-churned seafoam
Hair
Long and silver-white, often worn in a thick braid or loose under a hood. A few streaks of the original dark chestnut remain at the nape
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Weathered and sun-marked, the kind of skin that salt and wind don’t apologize to. Tanned from years at sea, now creased with age and wisdom.
Height
5'7" (170 cm)
Weight
145 lbs (66 kg)
Ruled Locations
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