Hamverse Primer

Quick bullet points, no huge lore dumps, let's go

Aoibheann Filia-Dangoulain Rhansath

She/her
20
Intersex
Pictomancer (Briefly)

The 20-year-old daughter of Ubilwyda Rhansath ('Mother) and Yotsuyu Rhansath Née Brutus ('Mum') is, in spite of her illustrious/infamous parentage, scarcely known by the world at large.Her middle-name is derived from two of the most influential women her mother met: Minfilia Warde and Ysayle Dangoulain.Reclusive and isolated even prior to the death of her mother, a low-level aether allergy prevents her from using aetherytes, which led to a lonely childhood with a scant few but exceedingly loyal friends.
While she may have been conceived in the union between Warrior of Light and Witch of Doma, Aoibheann is by her own admission a relatively uninteresting person with banal hobbies - birdwatching, coin collecting, photography and painting.Aoibheann possesses keen emotional intelligence, a sharp wit, surprising charisma and a flair for the poetic, but her soul is eternally smothered by an isolative melancholy brought on by years of having her autism accepted by her peers and family, but never understood.Two years prior to the Third Promise landing in Sharlayan, Aoibheann's mother Ubi died of natural causes and sent her spiralling the seemingly endless path of grief. While she no longer self-isolates in her room 23 hours a day, everyone who comes into contact with her is keenly aware that her isolationist tendencies and perpetually glum expression have only intensified.Regardless of her antisocial qualities, Aoibheann is beloved by the few who know her on a personal level so fiercely that they would likely rescue her over their own family if the need arised. As her mothers told her that any close family friend was an aunt or uncle, her extended family is massive and they dote on Aoibheann whenever she visits. Her surviving mum especially would crush the moon underheel if it were bothering her.While she hasn't done the job in over two years as of Dawntrail's beginning, Aoibheann is one of the few adults members of the Postmoogle service and has a decorated service record - as well as two medals. She takes this very seriously, and jokes about it are an express ticket to her badside.Under any ordinary circumstances, Aoibheann would've refused the trip to Tural. She is a sedentary soul who finds new places overwhelming. Unfortuntely for her misery, Firhu's impassioned plea to 'just try it' and 'get some time away from your grief' worked. She boards the ship with Firhu, Gomi, Yinde, Nakhu, Wuk Lamat and Erenville.If it's not immediately obvious: Yes, she's a virgin.

Madam Gomi Fashonti

She/her
52
Cis
Geomagister

Of everyone involved in the defense of Etheirys leading up to and during The Final Days, few expected the now 52-year-old Gomi Fashonti to emerge as the most influential among them.Sold to a brothel as a teenager by a mother she would permanently rid herself of 15 years later, Gomi slew the owner and assumed ownership of 'The Crystal River' with said owner's brother. From her, the illustrious Madam Gomi Fashonti built herself up as one of Ul'dah's greatest businesswomen, combining her versatile business acumen, lightning-fast acerbic with and stunning good looks to trample over any who stood in the way of her, her girls, and her staff.A chance encounter with an injured Ubilwyda Rhansath and a slightly drunk Lilija Kisne led to her joining their mercenary party as a healer. Though her association with them strained both her sanity and her business-life, she ended a 25-year tenure as one of Etheirys' hero with Lilija as her wife, a seat on the Ul'dahn Syndicate, and the opportunity to expand beyond a singular brothel. Soon, her and Lilija - alongside Lilija's mother, Lerda - would found the Fashonti-Kisne company, specialized in tabletop publishing, international deliveries and book publishing.Regrettably, The Final Days was not the end of her hardship.Eternally afraid of change and hellbent on preserving her way of life, Gomi's ascension to the Syndicate led to many burnt bridges, the flames ignited by ex-friends who found her current position hypocritical given her former abolitionist stance. The arrival of The Twelve saw her take up the role of Etheirys' third Warrior of Light, wrangling a team to combat and eventually bind the Twelve to mortal whims. Gomi, as a natural-born Gridania and a Keeper of the Moon at that, bound Nophica to her soul.Tragedy, as it transpires, was not content to only strike when she had the hero's mantle.Repeated and sincere attempts to conceive a child with her wife led to two miscarriages, and while Firhu was born of the third, the experience altered Gomi on a fundamental level. Her acerbic wit turned acidic, and while her business skills and capacity to be a doting mother figure never wavered, it became just as valid a stance to fear Madam Gomi Fashonti as it was to adore her.Later in life, one of her dear friends and confidants Ninair Roda passed away from illness. While still dealing with that grief, her beloved sister Kamuh Fashonti died of an accidental overdose in an attempt to medicate her scattered mind. Too old to lash out, she pulled her extended family closer than ever, only for her best friend Ubi to pass away at the ripe age of 60. The mutual stress inflicted by this cruel conga line led to divorce: The other half of the Fashonti-Kisne company sold her shares and returned to Garlemald.Left alone with a daughter, a niece teetering on the edge of suicidal despair, a mountain of business responsibilities and an unwelcome awareness of her own mortality, Gomi meets Tural's Third Promise and immediately sees traces of her old friend Ubi in the jovial oversized tiger. While it is extremely obvious to any onlookers that her expedition to Tural is driven by a desire to heal more than her alleged business ventures, none are aware of the true reason: Fearing that Wuk Lamat will, like her deceased friend, go from being a jovial hero to a bitter and jaded soul, Gomi has taken up the responsibility of ensuring her soul remains intact.Also, her pronounced Viera fetish perked up upon hearing of Tural's population metrics.

Firhu Fashonti-Kisne

She/her
21
Transfemme
Machinist

A perplexing creature, the 21-year-old daughter of Lilija Kisne and Gomi Fashonti is considered a miracle by many people.A miracle by her mothers for being born after two miscarriages, a miracle by her machinist teachers for being an expert marksman despite having woefully unbalanced vision, and a miracle by everyone else for somehow never getting punched in the mouth for her crass language and demeanour.Firhu Fashonti-Kisne, named as such because her mothers agreed it was the most aurally pleasant combination of their names, is a beast of contrasts.Around Yinde and Aoibheann - both equally her little sister in her own eyes, though only Yinde has blood relation by way of being her half-sister - she is a precocious and doting older sister. To Gomi, she is a caring and dutiful daughter.None of these behaviours manifest kindly, or beautifully. Firhu is, at all times, a foul-mouthed and colourful character who has a soul-deep aversion to observing social norms she personally finds boring. Widely known for her ability to weave praise and insults from the same linguistic cloth, it can be said that attempting to understand whether Firhu loves or hates someone is a veritable field of study in its own right - worthy of archon marks.At her core, Firhu is primarily focused on food, family, fucking, fun and frolicking. She hasn't yet found a synonym for alcohol that starts with 'F'. While aware of her status as a 'miracle child', she has no desire to prove it. Utterly devoid of spirituality, Firhu only believes in the here and now, having a low opinion on both daydreamers and those stuck in the past. It hurts her, then, that her beloved little sister Aoibheann is both, and she is powerless against those forces.Beneath her exterior, and even beneath her interior, Firhu holds a particular flavour of cognitive dissonance: Survivor's guilt. She is keenly and acutely aware that the bombast of her birth and endless love was facilitated by two deaths, and as a creature given to alcoholism and drugs she's eternally upset that Kamuh died before she did. Not a soul alive knows of this at present, so closely is it guarded, but the three graves hidden within the Fashonti-Kisne estate's labyrinthine gardens are maintained even when the servants are on holiday.

Yinde Kisne

She/he/they
21
Nonbinary (AFAB)
Reaper

Rather uniquely for the Kisne family, Lilija's 22-year-old daughter is unique not because of her character, but her circumstances.Once an entirely normal child, a 5-year-old Yinde suffered a nasty fall down a gulch in Thanalan and was near death. She was found by a curious and imposing but ultimately benevolent voidsent bearing the name Lucrezia, who promised a pact to keep her alive. Somewhat uncharacteristically for voidsent, this pact was exactly what it said on the tin: A way to keep Yinde alive, and a way for Lucrezia to see the world.In spite of her unnatural powers, surprising strength and vaunted lineage, Yinde is a simple soul. Her innate urge is to wander, to see, and to know. Her bedroom and wardrobe are ascetic, focusing more on practicality than anything visual or aesthetic. While many older people resent that the world of Etheirys lost most of its mystery, Yinde disagrees: If there is something on this planet she has not seen in person, there is a mystery.That all said, Yinde is something of an oddball. Being conversational in several languages and dialects results in her using off-kilter similes, strange non-sequiturs and foreign words casually. Keeping up with her when she fixates on cheese or somesuch mundanity can be a chore, and her family have taken to calling many of the things she says 'Yindisms' for their sanity.Yinde's longest-standing relationship is with her voidsent Lucrezia, who has become both her eternal partner and confidant. Even after Lucrezia departed to restore the Thirteenth, their bond is so tight and intimate that a facisimile of her power rests with Yinde should she need it.This simplicity sometimes works against her, however. Yinde is so very unequipped to deal with Aoibheann's endless grief, so much so that she'd inadvertently starting avoiding her younger sister just so she wouldn't have to feel helpless. Such is Yinde's curse: Any problem she cannot solve, she will not see.

Nakhu Oronir

He/him
23
Cis
Samurai

A Xaela from the Azim Steppe, this preternaturally pretty 23-year-old Au Ra is Ubilwyda Rhansath's bastard son, conceived by accident during a drunken post-Nadaam tryst. He is profoundly lucky that he was conceived years before her marriage to Yotsuyu.Taciturn and morose, Nakhu is a polite young man who, while utterly lacking in any sense of humor whatsoever, nonetheless gets along well with the majority of people he meets and has a profound capacity for grasping new forms of etiquette well. As he suffers from a mild brand of dwarfism, he is closure in stature to Auri women than other men.Having been born in the Steppe, Nakhu's father bid him chase whatever horizon his heart desires. Sharing a similar wanderlust as Yinde, he travelled to Eorzea on foot upon turning 20, aiding people along the way and forming his own 'party' that was slowly disbanded as every member arrived at their destination. Tragically, he arrived at the Rhansath household only a few weeks after Ubi's death. While Yotsuyu welcomed him after confirming that she hadn't been cheated on, Aoibheann ignored him - as she did everyone.At his core, Nakhu has a strong yet unconscious charity impulse. While he'd intended to move on after confirming his mother's status, the endless needs of the Rhansath-Fashonti-Kisne family web provided him much opportunity to deliver aid unto those that need. In a sense, he is the last true chevalier in Ishgard. Furthering the comparison is his proficiency with the blade; Nakhu takes no explicit joy in combat, but does find it to be a relaxing sport that he is scarily good at. Were he to compete in professional fencing, he would be an interstellar hit.Nakhu ultimately defies any indepth exploration. His surface-level and his inner self are identical, and he chafes at attempts to justify his behaviour as anything more than 'I am simply like this'.That said, if he had a gil for every time he was mistaken for a beautiful woman, he would be richer than Gomi.

Lilija Kisne

She/her
85
Transfemme
Viper

The second Warrior of Light, the dour-faced and 85-year-old Lilija kisne spends her days driving taxi cabs in Garlemald, often sitting in silence as her clients yap away. Even around her brother Valde - her roommate - she rarely says a word.But she wasn't always like this.Born alongside her twin brother to Lerda and Avora Kisne - who would go on to revolutionize book publishing and naval privateering, Lilija was once a carefree and gregarious person for the better part of 20 years. Her parents' ambitions led them far from the Skatay Range, where tragedy and Hingan prejudice saw them stripped of their belongings and exiled. Here, the family split: Her parents went their separate ways, and Lilija went with Valde.After a decade of odd jobs, the Kisne siblings journeyed North to the suddenly-bustling nation of Garlemald. Initially brought on as foreign contractors working in kitchens and oil rigs respectively, Lilija caught the eye of a young Eula Darnus while Valde proved to be an experiment Frumentarium. Lilija and Eula were one another's first loves, which was quickly disrupted by Nael van Darnus' death and Eula's growing madness. While Lilija succeeded in escaping, Valde stayed, putting them on opposite sides of the future Eorzea-Garlemald conflict, though they would mercifully reconcile after Valde failed to recapture Yotsuyu.Wandering back to Eorzea, Lilija stumbled upon a boisterous and self-assured woman that the rest of the world would come to know as the 'Warrior of Light' - though to Lilija, she was always 'Ubi'. They were fast friends despite the endless bickering, and soon their lineup included one Gomi Fashonti, who would later go on to be Lilija's wife for a time.Unfortunately, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn took note of Ubi, and ruined Lilija's best friend. Endless bloodshed weighed heavy on her, and where she could once use rhetoric, jokes and motivational talks to assuage her comrade, she could only sit and watch as Ubi fell further and further into despair. In the aftermath of the Praetorium, where many of the men under their command were vaporized, Ubi disappeared for a year only to return as a bitter, taciturn husk that could barely speak a word without hissing it out.In the aftermath of Ala Mhigo's liberation and Yotsuyu goe Brutus avoiding her fate, Lilija took up the mantle of Warrior of Light unofficially. After the mutually disastrous war at Ghimlyt, this became official and Ubi retired.Time would mend some, but not all, of Ubi's wounds. The presence of Yotsuyu in fact accelerated most of them, only for fate to show her some mercy and allow her respite in a comfortable marriage. Lilija, too, came out of the Final Days as a wealthy woman with many daughters and a beautiful wife.Little did Lilija know, it was her turn to be subjected to fate's whims.Two miscarriages were a bad enough omen, but as Lilija went about her daily life, something snuck up on her: Discontentment.Here was a woman who was born into the world in its prime. Adventures, battles, treasure, primals, war, pirates, the world Lilija lived in was alive at every times. Now it had grown dormant in peace's comfortable embrace, and Lilija's life was that of a desk jockey. While the arrival of the Twelve provided a quick mood boost, it only revealed how hollow she felt in this new world.The double tragedy of Kamuh and Ubi's death broke her. Kamuh was one of her dearest friends, and her brother Valde's lover. Ubi was Lilija's best friend in the entirety of existence, a woman who seemed immortal even as her damaged body was giving out every other hour. Her death confirmed one of Lilija's greatest fears: Their age was over. It was time for the next generation.Having once sworn to never return to Garlemald, Lilija instead hung her swords up, sold her share of the company she founded, agreed to a mutual divorce and became a taxi driver far from prying eyes.Her daughters miss her very much, as does her ex-wife.