Maeve (Lycanthrope)

One of the main characters from the Tapestry of Dark Souls novel, Maeve is responsible, directly or indirectly, for many of the events in that book, at times functioning as a villain and at times functioning as an antihero. Although she is a lycanthrope and afflicted with a curse to serve the Three Hags, she is also a resident of the Tepestani hamlet of Linde and a frequent goblin hunter, thereby protecting the community. She infected Leith with lycanthropy and then became her close friend and lover. She served the evil Morgoth for a time, but then helped to cause his undoing.

Background

Early Life

Though Maeve resides in Linde, she originally hailed from Kartakass. The child of a natural werewolf and an afflicted werefox, Maeve was born both a werewolf and werefox in 676 BC. According to Maeve's account, her mother tried to suppress her afflicted lycanthropy and hide the feelings she had for the werefox that infected her. But this did little except to drive her mad and subsequently cause Maeve's parents to become alienated from each other. To get revenge on the werefox who infected his wife, Maeve's father hunted and killed whatever silver-haired woman he could find. The Kartakans trapped and burned him at the stake. Maeve grew up abused and hated for her werefox blood in her veins. When Maeve attained sufficient age, she wreaked her vengeance upon those whom transgressed her father and then fled Kartakass.

In Tempest

Sometime after coming to Tepest, Maeve encountered the Three Hags. Leticia cursed Maeve to become a hag should she ever betray or refuse to obey them.

Years later, after having settled in Linde, Maeve heard of Vhar theft of the Tapestry of Dark Souls. Maeve desired to claim the Tapestry's dangerous power and use it to destroy her enemies still in Kartakass. Maeve took on her wolf form to chase down the missing artifact. In the ensuing chaos, she killed one of the Order of the Guardians and attacked Leith. However, Leith fended her off with a silver knife, pushing her over the edge of a cliff.

With Leith

Later, after the Leith returned with the Tapestry to Monastery in Markovia and joined the Guardians, the first manifestation of her lycanthropy caused her to flee the monastery and flee to Tepest. However, she was intercepted in Markovia by some broken ones. Unexpectedly, she was saved by Maeve. Maeve helped Leith become accumstomed to her lycanthropy. Unaware that Maeve had infected her, Leith formed a bond with Maeve, and they became lovers. Revealing she was a werefox, Maeve helped Leith become accustomed to her lycanthropy.

Eventually, Maeve's past came back to haunt her. Her husband, Fian, a werewolf she had been forced to marry back in Kartakass, came hunting for her. She lured him into a trap set by the Three Hags. Leith witnessed all of it and also witnessed Maeve transform into the same black wolf that had infected her so long ago. With horror and dread, Leith abandoned Maeve and fled back to the Order of the Guardians. There, Leith eventually gave birth to Jonathan and then surrendered herself to the Tapestry.

Jonathan's Arrival

Seventeen years following Leith's departure, Maeve encountered Jonathan, her son, for the first time, though he did not realize it. Maeve was in wolf form with some of her wolf pack at her side. They followed him to encounter some goblins attacking Sondra. Maeve and her pack massacred the goblins, allowing Jon and Sondra to escape. The act happened to make it seem that Jon was responsible for the wolf attack.

Her first encounter with Jon in her human form was at Linde's Harvest's End celebration, where she elicited him to perform a song. She performed a dance for the goblin sacrifice. Later that night, she saved him from Josef and Alden, striking the former dead and allowing Jon to ambush and incinerate the other. Over th course of this encounter, Jon discovered that Maeve was a lycanthrope and what she had done to his mother

Service to Morgoth and then Betrayal

Later, Maeve discovered Mishya attempting to rob her cottage. She tracked him down and struck him down. Morgoth made his entrance and partook of Mishya's life force as Mishya ate his flesh. Maeve fell under Morgoth's sway, doing his bidding, but she hoped to seduce and charm him in the future.

Maeve's allegiance to Morgoth broke when he took control of her wolfpack away and refused to remove the Three Hags' curse. As she began transforming into a hag, Maeve rushed to Linde and said Jon was responsible for the curse, turning the townspeople's wrath on him. She hoped, with Jon's death, it would prove her loyal to the Hags.

As Jon was about to become sacrificed, Morgoth outed Maeve as a werebeast and stopped the sacrifice. She subsequently escaped Morgoth, due to the latter's selfish conservation of drained life energy. It was a mistake that cost him dearly, as she was the tipping point that ended the defeat by knocking him into the Tapestry of Dark Souls as Ivar and Jon sent a lightning bolt rebounding through it. i In the end, Maeve seemed to have received a matter of redemption. Her beauty was restored. With Ivar deceased, Maeve eventually took to playing her lute at the Nocturne once more.

Maeve is not mentioned in Ravenloft Gazetteer V, which dates some 23 years after the events of the Tapestry of Dark Souls novel, thus leaving her fate unknown. Still, given her unaging nature, she may still be alive during that time.