Meredith was raised in a small village in the Cursed Wastes a frozen desert south of the Relentless Mountains, it was a wind swept frozen land where little could survive above the surface so the Iri peoples built their villages and other settlements underground, dug into permafrost and maintained by magics and sheer determination.
The Iri were believed to have been crafted from star steel by the Goddess Irisi in the age of gods, she had eight heads and twice as many arms and legs and battled with the ruthless god Entar and Surran and many others of the ancient Pantheon before having all her limbs and heads severed in defeat plunging the young Iri into despair and dooming them to existence beyond the Relentless Mountains and underground.
The Iri were short and in the frozen wastelands that were their home they would put on extra fat that helped keep them warm on their long hunts for the various monstrous prey animals that roamed the surface. Dire Alboth a large four-legged white-furred beast that could happily bite an Iri in two. The Deeguin a vicious long creature covered in white armour plating with a mouth full of poison fangs and the ability to spray poison at its prey, it slithered along the ice at fighting speed and when it slept it did so coiled around a rock or crystal tree. There were Zemsuta that burrowed through the earth, a thousand small legs and the ability to burn through the frost.
Meredith’s parents were typical of the small Iri villages they were hunter gatherers and roamed the frozen wastes hunting the Keepeon a kind of grazzing animal that travelled for long stretches to find rare turf that had been cleared by some seasonal change. Or fishing by breaking the ice of the lakes. The children were taken care of communally under the stern but loving guidance of the elders. They helped cultivate the herbs, mosses and funguses that suplemented the villages diet and provided provisions for medicines and wounds. They also kept a small number of goats from the Relentless Mountains fed on various mosses and other things that grew in the light of the Elders spells.
Meredith herself was small even for the Iri and she was always trouble, always sneaking into places and playing tricks with spells that the other children didn’t understand. She was quick witted and the elders both found her a terror and a joy breaking up the quiet toil of the village with here relentless merth making.