Art © somerdrop. Used with permission.

Niri Beaumonte is a Shadewalker with ties to all manner of underground trade networks and black markets. She is looking to become a stakeholder in the uprising Knillium and Knillius markets.

Appearance

Niri has developed her own fashion style, managing to keep up to date with fashion trends across Vanquera. Sarinda, the Culicarti, Invardia, and Equavir have all influenced her fashion sense to some degree.

Some of those under her have encouraged her to start her own fashion line. She has yet to follow through with these demands, claiming the logistics to be too much of a headache. This being especially the case considering her origin.

Personality

Conniving

Niri is manipulative and conniving, capable of swaying the opinions of entire peoples. Having lived long enough to see the end of Days of Red Sun, she has learned much over the centuries. It's unknown exactly how far her reach extends.

Shrewd

Knowing all too well not to directly associate herself with who she employs, she maintains a distant relationship. She is involved with a variety of practices, legal or otherwise, such as the trade of animythi, the hunting of mechanima, and even a few slave trades. She is by no means innocent, knowing exactly who she is working with at all times. Every interaction with each operation she funds is entirely anonymous, so as not to tie her funding back to her. She has come close to being caught a few times, formulating stronger defenses in response to each close call.

Pragmatic

Niri operates her life thinking hundreds of years into the future. She thinks in a consequentialist mindset, pondering the outcome of every single little action, taking notes about even the most minute of changes that she finds even the littlest bit concerning. Niri is extremely picky with who she associates with. She takes into consideration the long-term, fearing the effects of entropy over an extended period of time. Her greatest fear is the unpredictability of people, as while they may be more predictable over a greater period of time, they are not robots and may make choices Niri had never considered. She works hard to mitigate the negative effects their unpredictability can cause, but she cannot see into the future. Niri has failed before, and she will likely fail again.

Thinking on such a grand scale often has the effect of separating an individual from the present. Morality is judged against a completely different set of rules than those of whom focus on where their feet are landing next. The individual branches of a tree become inconsequential when pruning, as is the mindset of someone thinking beyond the limitations of mortality.

Wise

Having lived long enough to pick up on the patterns of history, she has become keen at picking up on the subtle shifts and changes that mark the eventual outcome of an event. She can sense the beginnings of war from miles away, often placing bets on what is to come next. Despite her choice to remain a recluse for much of her life, she still can't help but find herself getting involved in mortal affairs.

Hobbies

One of Niri's favorite pastimes is collecting mechanima parts. She, along with some close associates, regularly venture out into the world in search of specific mechanima. She has amassed a considerable array of chunks, ranging in sizes of mere pebbles up to entire grand pianos.

This hobby was spurred on by Garin Bestumit. Garin did not collect mechanima himself, but his fascination and love for the things infected Niri. He kept a journal that he would use to write of his many interactions with mechanima, which Niri would come to possess. She reads it from time to time, usually to help ease herself to sleep. She looks back on her time with Garin fondly, though it's likely she wears some thick nostalgia glasses as her time with him was not nearly as pristine as she recalls. They fought relatively often, as they both stressed about their relationship becoming public knowledge, potentially staining Garin's reputation. Instead, she ruminates about the good days, the days they spent laughing about worldly events, the days they shared wandering the world.

As a means of remembering and honoring one of her best lovers, she seeks to collect a portion of every mechanima Garin expressed interest in with his journal entries. She works to disturb the creatures as little as possible, as she doesn't want to upset any sort of delicate balance the mechanima might be contributing to. That's not to say in the past she was as careful as she is today, no. As a matter of fact, she was rather careless with her earlier finds. When she thoughtlessly killed an important mechanima, she permanently affected a longstanding cycle of nature which had lasting effects on the local ecosystem.

Illudin

The one mechanima Garin expressed the most interested in - one he constantly found excuses to bring into conversation - was the mechanima Bestius Illudin, or Illudine. Garin claims that when he was a young boy, he encountered Illudine face-to-face one night in the woods. He describes it in his journal as follows:

"I had been out gathering sticks for a fire, when in the faint light of the moons I saw it; A pair of antlers and a set of glowing eyes. I could hear a faint whirring, then it let out a sound that shook me to my bones. It made a step toward me, it looked off to the right, then it ran away. In the light, I could make out a portion of its form. It was no ordinary deer, as it possessed a great, long tail that was lined with crystals."

Considering how much later after the event the entry was written, Niri isn't certain his account can be trusted. But she searches for this creature regardless, taking it upon herself to carry on his white whale project so as to preserve his legacy. She has tried to make sense of his extensive ramblings about Illudine, piecing together accounts he managed to get his hands on with accounts Niri has added to the growing list of potential leads. She has yet to come even remotely close to any sort of satisfying answer, and at times she had even considered giving up, believing it to be a lost cause. And yet she kept going back, each time refreshed with some new ideas for how to tackle it.

One of Niri's greatest grievances with the case is actually with Garin's notes themselves, as they are not only difficult to make sense of for those not in his head, but they also contradict in places, making discernment all the more difficult. Niri pushes forward regardless. She keeps her own separate journal to parallel his original where she keeps notes that she tries to match up with his own. She chooses not to write in the original journal so as to preserve it in its entirety. He also kept anima blooms and slabs recounting his experience with the creature, which Niri will regularly come back to so she can keep the recounting fresh in her memory. The most notable Manabloom is one Garin credits as the first one he made about the creature, which he made a few years after so he can remember the encounter as long as possible. Both Garin and Niri look back on this with frustration, as they both wished he had made a Manabloom sooner so as to better preserve and possibly more accurately depict the encounter. Niri worries time may have tainted his memory of the event, as is evident by his journal entries.

Romance

Despite Niri's meticulous demeanor, she is not immune to the whims of mortal urges. She fancies men - and the occasional woman - just as any other woman might.

Niri has had many romantic involvements over the course of her life, each ending tragically in their own ways. She has come to accept that she will always out-live her loves, and so she has ceased pursuing romance entirely. She has also become disinterested in sexual relations, having experimented with all manner of different dynamics. She feels she has seen them all. She still has desires, like any other woman, but has come to accept that her urges may no longer be satisfied. Love has lost its luster, but she remains open to the possibilities. Perhaps one day someone may enter her life that knows exactly what it takes to bring back that shine love once had for Niri.

One of her partners was Garin Bestumit, an animancer of some renown. Their involvement with each other remained under wraps for many years, and it started eating away at their relationship. At some point, they became exhausted with having to work so hard keeping their relationship secret that they felt it best to end things entirely. Garin was horrifically and brutally murdered by one of his rivals shortly thereafter.

Though she has since walled herself off from such involvements these days, Niri does yearn to experience them once more.

History

Having lived as long as Niri has, she has come to learn much about the nature of people, on top of honing her many crafts. She does not possess a Swaybrand, as she has no desire to associate with the Brotherhood.

Niri had once been close friends with Lithica Embrin, a fellow Shadewalker. They shared a past of persecution and discrimination, being barred from living normal lives due to circumstances out of their control. Their need to consume Mana made them into pariahs, forcing them into the outskirts of society where they would feast upon vagrants and hobos. When lucky, they could consume the Mana of a stray animal. When they weren't as lucky, they'd consume the Mana from infused items or mechanima where they could. The latter occurred more often than they would have liked. The consumption of Mana from people was saved as a lost resort, for when they got truly desperate.

Eventually, Lithica had enough and went on a rampage, slaughtering several households of those who had wronged her. Upon learning what her once friend had done, Niri could no longer stomach the idea of associating with Lithica and so Niri abandoned Lithica.

All this time later, Lithica has become one of the most wanted individuals in all of Vanquera. Her infamy has become stuff of legend, with all manner of individuals being tasked with hunting her down and ending her reign once and for all. Niri secretly harbors good will for her old friend, but also realizes that Lithica's death would be for the best. Niri knows she cannot bring herself to kill her friend herself, and so she awaits the opportunity to have someone do it on her behalf. Niri does not know how she will take the news of her old friend's eventual death.

Queen of Flame

Niri has gone by many names throughout her long life, but her most notorious was her tenure as the Queen of Flame.

For a period of about 20 years, Niri made good use of the healing factor her nature as a Shadewalker afforded her. Niri would set herself alight, rampaging through towns and burning down the buildings. Initially it started as a form of vengeance, a means of her repaying all those who benefitted from her misery. But it eventually became a sort of vigilantism, something she did on the behalf of others. When demand became unmanageable, she introduced a fee. In certain circles, she was revered as a hero, but to most she was seen as a heartless monster. She had contributed to the extinction of species and downfall of nations. She caused immeasurable suffering as the Queen of Flame, all the while foregoing all feeling and emotion.

After enough time, Niri could no longer stand how being the Queen of Flame made her feel. She came to detest the name, looking back on this period of her life with great shame. On occasion, Niri has considered making use of her former alter ego, only for her to be reminded of the chaos she wrought across Vanquera. The identity has long since been retired, and she has no serious plans to return to that state of mind.

Regression

In fleeing from her past life, Niri fell into a deep depression. She greatly despised the life she had chosen to live. It felt like a weight, a heavy burden she would never be rid of, one she had to bear each and every moment of her waking existence. She couldn't bring herself to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, like love, food, and drinking. Niri starved herself, only acting on her hunger when it forced her to. She did not bathe or practice cleanliness whatsoever, becoming a wretch that aimlessly wandered from place to place in search of anything that might fill the void inside her. Alcohol, sex, even some of the strongest drugs there were at the time were all hollow, meaningless, empty. Even extreme bouts of self-harm weren't off the table. She knew that no matter what she did, she would come out the other side still herself, occupying the same mind and body. The truth of the curse never seemed more evident than those pivotal years of despair.

As the saying goes, with time comes healing. Nearly a decade was more than enough time for Niri to reflect on what it was that she did. She knew she had been a monster, but no longer desired to pursue that path. She feared, deep down, that it may very well resurface. But with enough deliberation, she concluded that, if she was to forgive herself, she had to start working toward fixing things. She had the power to make things right.

Ascent to Aristocracy

In her climb to where she now resides, Niri made use of her knowledge in underground trades to start making things right.