Have I mentioned that I patterned the leads of The Trident War Chronicles after chess pieces? I only bring it up because it seems that, originally at least, the characterization of my “king” and “queen” characters were among the weakest. Just as I didn’t have much to work with in the case of Solon, so too was Xanthe a fairly shallow and incidental sort of character until the more recent version. However, because she had more to do anyway, I didn’t seem to have to work quite as hard to expand her role.

During production, I did some shuffling of the overall Tellus Arc timeline to make certain events fit in better with the overall chronology. In doing so, I made Xanthe a few hundred years younger than she once was. Being over 400 years old may sound like a lot, but for a Light Elf like Xanthe, that’s about the equivalent of being around 25. The fact that she became Queen of Goldleaf before she even turned 200 was quite unprecedented. Her relative youth made for a good combination with Solon’s idealism.

Just as Solon had to deal with significant opposition to his vision, so too did Xanthe and I play this up more with the Law-speaker Sidarazel emerging as her chief adversary. I don’t delve too deeply into Elven society, though, as a large part of Xanthe’s character is that she’s spent most of her time trying to integrate into human society, returning to El-Alar chiefly for important festivals and ceremonies and having little day-to-day involvement with her own domain. Even if Xanthe wasn’t a telepath of decent ability, she’d be all too aware of how she was regarded by the humans around her. Indeed, even the closest human to her besides Solon, Lord Aristides, serves her almost entirely out of his loyalty to her husband and doesn’t have any particularly warm sentiment for her. She loses touch with her identity as an Elf but can’t become human either. It’s a sad, lonely existence. Her one refuge was her children, but Carpos became distant in the years leading up to his betrayal, leaving Daphne alone as her only other support.

Xanthe at least has the strength to suffer for her part in making Solon’s dream a reality, even though she becomes more disillusioned as time goes on. Perhaps her being a touch more on the cynical side is how she developed the savvy to do pretty much whatever it took to give the Darklands campaign the fighting chance it needed. Using the illusionist Gulmengoel to impersonate Solon after his death was a new addition, as I realized there was no way they could just pretend to have him tucked away for two years. Underhanded, yes, but the venture would’ve broken apart otherwise.

It might’ve been interesting to see what would’ve happened if Xanthe survived the Darklands campaign. I don’t think she would’ve abdicated the throne as easily as Daphne, but she probably wouldn’t have been able to rally enough loyalty to put up much of a fight. Hard to say. Maybe there’s an If Arc story to be had.

Next up is Daphne. Stay tuned.

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