Nihaar

Face-up artist(s):

Onionbulb Boutique

Date of acquisition:

Dec. 2013?

Provenance:

DoA marketplace (head and body purchased separately)

Best Points:

Gorgeous profile and cheekbones, beautiful face sculpt overall. Body is a solid stander and sitter, fairly poseable

Worst Points:

That elegant profile can look very derp with the wrong wig. Guess that's on me, though, not him.

Eyes:

Aimerai small pupil black glass

Wig:

red or burgundy (various)

Favourite colours:

gray, blood red, black, white

Fashion style(s):

A habitually conservative dresser; tends to wear dark colors; hopes to appear dignified but unobtrusive. Inhabits a fantasy setting reminiscent of 1800s colonized South Asia, and both the European-esque colonizers and his native culture's influences are seen in what he wears.

Key fashion accessory:

black, peaked hat with embroidery (it is unfinished)

His appearance/clothing is calculated to emphasize dignity and grace, mostly because he seems himself as lacking in both of these things and inherently disgusting. :c

Name story:

alternative spelling of a common irl North Indian name meaning 'mist' (also sounds like a word meaning 'to behold' when you spell it weird like i have...vry thematic for the character, a longtime observer of his nation's history)

Character age:

~120

Character gender:

nonbinary (he/him pronouns)

Offsite roleplay:

This doll's character is not available for offsite roleplay.

There are rumors of an unholy, undying creature that serves the Stormlord, watching always from the shadows - raising corpse armies with profane magics; enabling the conquest of kingdoms and the fall of dynasties. Various heroes and heroines claim to have tracked down and slain this mysterious figure, but always their guiding hand reappears in the history of the nation.

It's not a pleasant way to be regarded, but maybe that's the price of the path Nihaar walks.

Formerly a tree-dwelling riddle-teller, Nihaar is a vetala (possessed corpse) who was befriended and loved by a kindhearted king long ago, and pledged to help him improve their war-torn country for the better. Soft-spoken, chronically smirky, politic to the end, only meagerly skilled in hand-to-hand combat, Nihaar's abilities are mainly tactical and diplomatic, his magic best applied in the directing and support of armies as well as bolstering them with undead forces. Decades of painful decisions and being murdered a bunch of time have worn thin his benevolence, but concern for the humans and nonhumans around him remains his primary motive. Selfishly, he now wishes to die, but this is proving difficult, as the successor of his dead beloved has taken his 'soul' and locked it away.

Nihaar has recently made the acquaintance of elven general Aryung, a former enemy (the highland elves being the allies of those who conquered this nation); for decades her clever machinations on and off the battlefield have been able to parallel and counter his, and he considers her a respected equal. Her superiors have betrayed and dishonored her, and she now serves new masters and chiefly her own conscience. In return for her help she has promised to seek out his soul and help him die, and be his informal protector in the meantime. But history is far from done with these two yet...

Notes: One of my longtime writing protagonists, and very near and dear to my heart. Nihaar's character is influenced by the "benevolent king's advisor" figure in Indian folklore (for example, Birbal and Akbar stories, and the story of King Vikram and the vetala) and the "Big Bad's right-hand man" archetype in genre writing (and how bad I always felt for them as a young reader...they rarely seem to receive respect from the narrative, even though their oft-unexplained reasons for serving the 'bad guy' seem like they'd make for compelling storytelling). Meanwhile, his "species" is kind of a mashup of vetalas and Western fantasy liches.