The Ikonen family, to Iinna’s memory, began around the forgotten countryside between Holm and Norland on Atlas where the trees smothered the hills and self-sufficiency was a requirement. Iinna was raised by her grandmother and father alongside her cousin for most of her family, including her mother and cousin’s family, had passed from disease because of their poverty. In their shack isolated in the deep woods Iinna and her cousin were taught to hunt, cook, and enjoy simple pleasures while they clung to their faith for hope and guidance through the struggles of destitution and seclusion. Her grandmother was the main font of learning, teaching her to always put family first and about the world more broadly, but most especially taught her their family’s lesser known take on the Red Faith with a focus on rituals, the principles of sacrifice, and the importance of seeking inner purity. Iinna’s father’s fancy for woodworking and archery inspired her to take them up herself and with her knack for carving figurines and toys she helped sustain their remote lifestyle by trading in Holm.
Despite her family’s devout beliefs Iinna found some comfort in the magical elements of the world they rejected; in her early teens she came upon a beautiful, towering hemlock tree while hunting and therein met a gentle dryad, a once wood elven woman with evergreen sprouts and wood-like skin who admired Iinna’s autumnal hair. Their friendship had to remain secret lest her family fell the tree and kill the dryad so Iinna kept her ventures private. It marred her understanding of friendship and family when one day that fate became true and her father had cut the tree down and split apart the dryad after coming upon it while hunting, something she bit her tongue at and didn’t reveal her ‘heresy’.
With her family having already been beyond middle-aged when she was born, Iinna was a fresh woman when her then shriveled grandmother passed of old age and her ailing father, already sick, died of heartbreak. Together with her cousin they ventured from Atlas into Arcas amidst the chaos and have gone their separate ways for now.
