Eyes of brightest blue, set in a triangular, sharp-featured face of pale skin. Longer, night-black hair with a wave in it, tumbling below her shoulders. Full lips, blushed a very pale rose. It looks like a young face, until the viewer looks at the eyes: lines of temper, sadness, and strain mark the corners of her eyes, and the eyes themselves look back at a viewer with a sense of age and cruel experience. It is not a young face, it is a face that has not aged over the years, but that has been marked by life.Darthene, in her portrait, wears stark black plate and mail armor, accented with with a bright silver belt of metal links. In her right gauntlet is a heavy battle-axe, while on her left arm is a round shield, emblazoned with a silver crescent moon on a black field. Her blue eyes look back at the viewer, her expression one of muted challenge. The background of her portrait is the sandy floor and yellowish stone blocks of the practice ring of Castle Amber.
She has one known son (Mordred/Jack Morgan) and one known daughter (Andelia). Both were born during her reign over Avalon, before the war with Corwin began. She seems to have inherited from her mother the habit of shortening others names to a shorter form: her mother called her `Dar' and her sister `Dear', while she calls her daughter `Andi' and her son `Mor'.
| PSYCHE | 40 |
| STRENGTH | 20 |
| ENDURANCE | 20 |
| WARFARE | 100 |
The good mother: Darthene, to a child, could be a great mother. She will protect them from her relatives, not allowing her children to be manipulated by her brothers and sisters, perhaps keeping her children's very existence a secret. She would raise them in an environment where they were protected from the world outside her Shadow, where she would rule as Queen. She will teach her children what she can of what they want and need to know, and she can call on her family friends (particularly Clarissa) to cover those areas that she doesn't know, being careful not to allow any additional mentors to twist her children or to broadcast their existence until the children are adult enough to stand on their own two feet.
The bad mother: cool and controlled, Darthene never shows a child they are loved. She seems around only when it's time to criticize the child, otherwise apparently ignoring them. A child may well turn to another parent or relative or friend, to fill their need for emotional support. Raised in isolation, they may turn to a new-found relative in a heartbeat.
Her great enemy in the family is her brother Corwin. Their enmity dates from her childhood, and it hasn't dimmed over the years. Her relationship with her twin Deirdre is problematic as well. It can be warm, but Deirdre's thoughtlessness and her position as favored daughter has often driven wedges between them, as has Deirdre's closeness with Corwin and, in later years, Darthene's friendship with Clarissa who Deirdre wrongly blamed for Faiella's murder.