Nish'a Tibariah

Name: Nish'a Tibariah

Age: 28

Nameday: 27th Sun, 5th Umbral Moon (October 27)

Height: 5 fulms, 2 ilms (157 cm)

Race: Keeper Miqo'te

Origin: Nova Ojtaq, Aerslaent

Location: Lives in coastal Urqopacha, Yok Tural. Travels the star for his work.

Profession: Naturalist with a specialty in aquatic mollusks.

Religion: Issiq gnostic beliefs (including veneration of Sophia the Goddess & the Twelve, particularly Menphina & Llymlaen).

Gender: Male/It's Complicated

Orientation: Pansexual

Family: Mother, three sisters (Khari, Sahja, and Amyr), and a brother (Nish'to). Father presumed deceased, missing at sea. Numerous cousins, aunts, and uncles.

The Subject — A renowned scholar in the Faculty of Anthropology, one Archon Rillemont, has spent his career writing about a unique Miqo’te community on a remote isle in the Aerslaent archipelago. He’s written many treatises on the Issiq’s remarkable adaptation to a permanent settlement that relies on the sea, after countless generations spent as a nomadic mountain-dwelling people in northern Ilsabard. Until recently, Nish’a was still amenable to ongoing interviews, but he rarely, if ever, speaks of the research now.

The Student — Nearly his entire adult life, and the latter half of his teenage years, were spent in Old Sharlayan. Some might recall the shy young man from Aerslaent who never quite fit in, spending only two short years at the Studium before dropping out and accepting permanent work in Labyrinthos. He was a brilliant student who couldn’t sit long in a classroom, whose distinctive accent faded and was locked away. His studies & residence were sponsored by a member in the Faculty of Aetherology.

The Druid — The world’s such a strange place that his ability to speak with beastkin isn’t terribly outlandish, is it? That ability is bound to reading the land, so as he learns the flora & fauna & climate of any given ecoregion like a foreign dialect, so too will his communication improve. His deep knowledge of elemental magic and powerful innate aetherpool could be a boon to those in need of a conjurer, but he’s hesitant to practice much more than the most basic spellcraft; divination, charms, glamours, and wards.

The Researcher — So few notice the shelled wavekin that dwell in the benthos, but Nish’a’s spent a lifetime beneath the water’s surface. At first there was the seeding and tending and harvesting of his family’s shellfish gardens. Now there’s the collection of aetheric data, seeking new waters both fresh and salt, identifying and counting aquatic molluscan species, once as charged by Labyrinthos’ scholars, and now by the Wing of Reflection. Where does knowledge gained by watching the seasons turn meet the knowledge gleaned from the pages of tomes?

The Familiar — The hedgehog is a noble and bizarre creature, the spines repulsing some and the whiskered snout drawing adoration from others. Of all the hedgehogs in the world, Pepper may be a singular soul; a familiar granted sentience with the same magics used in the Sharlayan colony to create the poro roggo. Rarely, if ever, is Pepper far from Nish’a’s side, whether napping in his ward’s coat pocket or knapsack, or trotting faithfully alongside him on the trail, snuffling away for grubs and seeds.

The Oracle — There was a gift, or something disguised as a gift, perhaps, and it’s all but entirely lost now. Those with aethersight and those who’ve experienced the effect of a primal themselves, or are learned in such signs, might be able to glimpse the traces left behind. Glimmering gold threads of eikonic aether, not quite his own, but fundamentally inseparable from his very being. There was a past where he could glimpse the future, but now he’s bound to the present. Who would give that up? A better question; who would want to go back?