Characters:Dun Barethsol:Mina
Unlike Sulin Turvale, Mina venRhys Turvale is a native of Waste's Edge. Her father, Aladan venRhys, came to Waste's Edge from the farming villages around Cirdanth. He came at first as a young adventurer, tired of the static, staid life that dairy farming seemed to offer. He worked for some time as a dockhand, then realized that as Waste's Edge grew, it would come to need its own supply of food. Kine milk, he knew, did not keep well. It would have to be supplied by the village, since everyone, youngest babe to eldest sire, needed milk. He knew, moreover, that salted pork was not to the liking of landsmen, though it was fit enough for river-boat crews and seamen. The village would want fresh meat.
In that knowledge, he spent most all he had for a pair of milk kine, a milk pail, a stool, a good axe, and a bow. He lived from a tent while he cleared the land for his grazing plots. He milked his kine to raise money for food and the house and barn he would need. From the trees he cut he built a shelter of logs for himself and for his kine. A fellow adventurer, Roald venMora, and his wife, desiring to live in the wilderness and convinced of the profitability of venRhys' scheme, aided venRhys in the building of his farm, the hunting of game, and the milking of the kine.
The work quickened in its pace and the wealth of the three slowly grew. Whatever they did not use, they sold for coin - whether wood, or feather, or animal hide, they sought to get something for it. They needed money for more kine, for hogs, and for animal feed, though the hogs could be fed with table scraps.
The adventurer and his wife had several children. Mita venMora was pregnant with her last when Roald was mauled by a boar. He died a week after the birth of Mina venMora. Aladan venRhys and Mita venMora were wed soon after in a marriage of necessity blessed by years of prior friendship. The littlest was given her step-father's surname and for many years supposed herself the literal daughter of Aladan venRhys. Her love for her step-father only increased when she learned the truth.
In counterpoint to their own adventurous pasts, Mita and Aladan raised the children to a life of farming, desiring to give them the hard but stable life of farming and work as an alternative to the hard and uncertain life of adventuring. Mina, in particular, was strongly encouraged to respect but not emulate adventurers.
When Sulin Turvale came to Waste's Edge to trade with the Dwarves and learn from them, he recruited the sons of venRhys to help build his smithy, in return for the best tools he could make. venRhys soon discovered, however, that his daughter Mina was also aiding the project. At first she brought milk to her brothers and the newcomer, but soon she, too, was helping to build the smithy and adjoining house. When the forge was lit and the house complete, venRhys consented to marry his youngest to the blacksmith. The two were married over a sapling, planted for the occasion, in Turvale's front yard.
In co-operation, Turvale's smithy, the venRhys hog and dairy farm, and their common land-clearing and wood-cutting projects flourished. Turvale, venRhys, and Redwyne are now the richest families in Waste's Edge.
As result of the families' past associations with the docks, the Turvales, venRhys and Redwyne possess a particularly strong suspicion of Elgar Basil.