a resident of [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5606039]In Secret We Lie[/url] || currently at: [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5610489]Palace of the Gods - Garden[/url]

[hider=Nieve || Selkie || Purity and Trust, Keeper of Contracts][center][h1]Niamh Croía Mortimer[/h1]
[h2]Goddess of Purity and Trust, Keeper of Contracts[/h2]
[img]https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a8/81/bc/a881bceb53101f3072e646433c83f856.jpg[/img]
[url=https://www.instagram.com/p/C6ZL5RPvBbm/]Source[/url]
[/center]
[color=#FFB7C5][b]Name:[/b][/color] Niamh Croía Mortimer aka Nieve (in common tongue)
[color=#FFB7C5][b]Title:[/b][/color] Goddess of Purity and Trust, Keeper of Contracts
[color=#FFB7C5][b]Gender/Sex:[/b][/color] Female
[color=#FFB7C5][b]Age:[/b][/color] Approximately 3100+ years old
[color=#FFB7C5][b]Species:[/b][/color] Selkie
[color=#FFB7C5][b]Information:[/b][/color] The dogs of the sea, selkies, or seal folk, see the ocean as their playground and the land as a temporary retreat. They are playful by nature and are receptive to kindness. As such, they lived in pods, tight-knit communities of selkies who share deep ancestral history. 

[b]"An té a dhéanann fiacha, íocfaidh sé iad."[/b] He who makes debts will pay them, a core ideology of the selkies. It was one of their abilities, using the moon as their witness, they locked parties into contracts known as the 'tidebinding'. When someone broke the tidebinding, they were called 'saltforsaken', which is said that the sea will always remain your enemy as long as you lived, and the waves would chase you to the ends of the world to drown you in your broken promises.

Perhaps due to their deep sense of kinship and compassion, selkies were the ocean's diplomat, able to interpret multiple languages of the deep. Of course, they can't speak other languages naturally. In fact, early depictions of the selkie showed them using wild hand gestures to get the point across. Luckily, they're more sophisticated nowadays, with their school curriculum allowing them to study a wide array of tongues.

Selkies are masterful shapeshifters and were often confused for a mermaid, due to similar shape shifting abilities. How they shape shift is key - selkies possess a unique layer of fur, called seal-skin, which once taken off, allows them to assume a full human form - bare as the day they were born though. To don the seal-skin is to transform back into seal form. It is also the seal-skin that lets them live for eons, they say that their longevity is threaded into every piece of fur, which is why if they were stolen or dried out under the sun, a selkie ceased to be.  

[color=#FFB7C5][b]Appearance:[/b][/color] Standing at a height of 5'6''/170cm, Nieve could pass for normal human, if it weren't for her looks. A blinding beauty, with honey flowing from her head, and dazzling blossom gems that spoke of a deep kindness. True to her selkie nature, her enchanting beauty is enough to steal your air in one glance. Nieve prefers to wear light fitting clothing with bright or neutral colours while in human form. She enjoys her jewellery, so you'll often see her don exquisite accessories, most brought to the surface from her pod. 

During her official duties, she wears a specific [url=https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d5/e0/9e/d5e09ec7b612ff42caf2c367e14d2890.jpg]ceremonial outfit[/url] [sup][url=https://ru.pinterest.com/pin/44473115064995256/]source[/url][/sup], clad in white and covered eyes to represent purity. She doesn't really talk or show her seal form. In her own words, she looks like a drenched white dog.

[color=#FFB7C5][b]Personality:[/b][/color] If you were to pluck the brightest star from space, Nieve would be the manifestation of that star. Around her, the world is dazzling, which is why she took the risk of rising to the land after generations of staying hidden. She can get a little narcissistic about her looks; after all, who wouldn't? In fact, she was sharing her brightness with the world, so she believes. She still carries the personality of a selkie, although her good intentions can end up being a little misguided. 

More than just a pretty face, Nieve's cunning match her looks. In fact, if you laid a contract riddled with loopholes, Nieve would just pitifully stare at it. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't out-haggle her. Her street smarts were carefully crafted from the centuries she spent wandering markets before she became a 'goddess'. 

Having a little bit of a rebellious streak in her, she tends to move at her own pace, whether it's her empty mind wandering or a strategic device, no one really knows. What she despises the most though, is tidebindings (oaths) being broken, especially by the most unscrupulous and ugly people. "An té a dhéanann fiacha, íocfaidh sé iad." She remembers her people's sworn oath. If she ever catches wind of saltforsaken (oath breakers), you best believe your end won't be pretty.

[color=#FFB7C5][b]History:[/b][/color] Born as one of many to selkie parents, as plentiful reproduction was encouraged to replenish the species, Nieve arrived in the world many centuries after the great war. Murdock, her maternal uncle, had disappeared, leaving the monsters to lose against the humans. The selkies split into numerous pods to increase their chances of survival, since they were still being hunted. 

Many years passed, the sea being relatively quiet, and Nieve had fully grown. The selkies settlements weren't as numerous as they once were, but they were still abundant. Selkies come and go like the tide, eventually their seal-skin being ceremoniously dried out under the sun to grant them eternal peace. Their greatest secret to their long lives, and also their greatest weakness. There were many unsavoury things humans did to the selkies during the war. Things that Nieve would rather forget ever knowing.

Despite that, her curiousity got to the better of her. How were they afraid of powerless humans? Besides the witches, they were basically teethless. In the end, over a course of many, many years, Nieve would sneak out, much to the dismay of her family. Those dark stories of the war still kept her guarded, her seal-skin either kept on her person, or tucked away in a moist environment. She travelled to human markets and cities with a cloak. To most, she's just a slightly tall human woman. She cleverly crafted personalities each time she surfaced. Maybe went on a few adventures. Regardless of her kin's hatred of the humans, Nieve found them endearing.

Nieve would sometimes run a business with her power of tidebindings. After all, they were effective, and people rarely broke them. Maybe through the many centuries she spent amongst them, Nieve let her guard down a little. So, in a fit of rage, when a saltforsaken past by her, she let her hood fall free. Only after she punished them did she realise her mistake. A goddess among us, they praised her beauty, she was testing us all along. Now she's fairly stuck, tending to the humans as one would to sheep. Sometimes, you'll find a glimpse of her in markets. Other times, staring out into sea, longing for a visit to her pod. Instead, she ended picking up a lost looking and particularly drowned shadhavar.

[color=#FFB7C5][b]Mythical Significance:[/b][/color] Humans honour Nieve's soul binding contract, and while they don't have the same power as her (or a selkie, as a matter of fact), they do something similar in accordance with human laws, where punishment is severe and contracts are not taken lightly. To sever or alter the terms, all parties of the contract must agree, or at least acquiesce.

In tribute of her pure looks and tidebindings, humans take it a step further and connect together in matrimony - which is called 'moonrite'. Moonrites are conducted in the coldest and darkest times of the year, either near the ocean or a large body of water. They work essentially the same as tidebindings, however they can be broken by only one party. This is called 'skinparting', in accordance to Nieve's religion, and has its own ritual that's done in the brightest time of the day.

Nieve's religion is called [b]Nivenor[/b], her followers called nivenari. Currently, no singular congregation exists, but nivenari, particularly the high ranking ones, are the humans who create tidebindings as a neutral third party. More honestly, a merchant's religion is commonly Nivenor, for obvious reasons, so more often than not, if you walk into a merchant's place, chances are they are nivenari and can tidebind or moonrite you. 

[color=#FFB7C5][b]Relationships:[/b][/color] 
[b]Murdock[/b]
Nieve's uncle from her mother's side. Due to her being born after the war and his disapperance, she doesn't really know how he is. Just that he was the best of the best, the bravest selkie who wanted victory for his kin. However, the stories of Murdock that she heard growing up is what eventually led her to walk on land.

[b]Roshan[/b]
A conspirator in arms, Nieve came across an almost drowned shadhavar during one of her brief trips to the sea's edge. She taught him most of what she knew of how to be a 'god' and live among the humans. Since people already had immense trust in Nieve, they eventually came to recognise Roshan as another god. They purely have a business-only relationship, but sometimes Nieve finds it funny to rile him up in one way or another.

[color=#FFB7C5][b]Color:[/b][/color] #FFB7C5

[color=#FFB7C5][b]Other:[/b][/color] Contrary to popular belief, selkies can't sing as well as sirens or banshees. Nieve does have a lovely voice, but she tends to hum instead. She'll usually do it near the ocean edge. 

Her seal-skin is hidden very well in a safe place, so it's very unlikely for a human to come across it. 

Nieve herself will conduct moonrites between high-ranking humans (like royalty), as her powers guarantee peace and safety - mostly.[/hider]

[hider=Nieve || Selkie || Purity and Trust, Keeper of Contracts - FINAL RENDITION][sup][h1][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/0mi57EJ.jpeg[/img][/center]
[b][center][color=black] Niamh Croía Mortimer[/color][/center]
[center][color=FFB7C5]Niamh Croía Mortimer[/color][/center]
[/b][/h1]
[center][h3]Goddess of Purity and Trust, Keeper of Contracts[/h3][/center][/sup][table][row]
[sup][h3][b]
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[right]▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅[/right][/color]
[/b][/h3][/sup]
[/row][row][cell]
[center][color=#FFB7C5][b]Niamh Croía Mortimer[/b]
commonly known as [b]Nieve[/b][/color] 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Female [color=#FFB7C5][b]𓆝[/b][/color] Selkie
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
#FFB7C5
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[url=https://www.instagram.com/p/C6ZL5RPvBbm/]header img source[/url] 
[url=https://ru.pinterest.com/pin/44473115064995256/]ceremonial img source[/url]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][CENTER][color=#FFB7C5][b]Species Physiology[/b][/color]
[/center][hider=Ocean's Beloved Children][sub]The dogs of the sea, selkies, or seal folk, see the ocean as their playground and the land as a temporary retreat. They are playful by nature and are receptive to kindness. As such, they lived in pods, tight-knit communities of selkies who share deep ancestral history. 

[b]"An té a dhéanann fiacha, íocfaidh sé iad."[/b] He who makes debts will pay them, the pride of the selkies. Their ability, based on the core value and using the moon as their witness, selkies locked parties into contracts known as the 'tidebinding'. When someone broke the tidebinding, they were called 'saltforsaken', which is said that the sea will always remain your enemy as long as you lived, and the waves would chase you to the ends of the world to drown you in your broken promises.

Perhaps due to their deep sense of kinship and compassion, selkies were the ocean's diplomat, able to interpret multiple languages of the deep. Of course, they can't speak other languages naturally. In fact, early depictions of the selkie showed them using wild hand gestures to get the point across. Luckily, they're more sophisticated nowadays, with their school curriculum allowing them to study a wide array of tongues.

Selkies are masterful shapeshifters and were often confused for a mermaid, due to similar shape shifting abilities. How they shape shift is key - selkies possess a unique layer of fur, called seal-skin, which once taken off, allows them to assume a full human form - bare as the day they were born though. To don the seal-skin is to transform back into seal form. It is also the seal-skin that lets them live for eons, they say that their longevity is threaded into every piece of fur, which is why if they were stolen or dried out under the sun, a selkie ceased to be.[/sub][/hider]
[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][CENTER][color=#FFB7C5][b]Mythical Significance[/b][/color]
[/center][sub]Humans honour Nieve's soul binding contract, and while they don't have the same power as her (or a selkie, as a matter of fact), they do something similar in accordance with human laws, where punishment is severe and contracts are not taken lightly. To sever or alter the terms, all parties of the contract must agree, or at least acquiesce.

In tribute of her pure looks and tidebindings, humans take it a step further and connect together in matrimony - which is called 'moonrite'. Moonrites are conducted in the coldest and darkest times of the year, either near the ocean or a large body of water. They work essentially the same as tidebindings, however they can be broken by only one party. This is called 'skinparting', in accordance to Nieve's religion, and has its own ritual that's done in the brightest time of the day.

Nieve's religion is called [b]Nivenor[/b], her followers called nivenari. Currently, no singular congregation exists, but nivenari, particularly the high ranking ones, are the humans who create tidebindings as a neutral third party. More honestly, a merchant's religion is commonly Nivenor, for obvious reasons, so more often than not, if you walk into a merchant's place, chances are they are nivenari and can tidebind or moonrite you.[/sub]
[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][CENTER][color=#FFB7C5][b]Relationships[/b][/color]
[/center][hider=Murdock the Selkie Great Commander][sub][b]Murdock[/b]
Nieve's uncle from her mother's side. Due to her being born after the war and his disapperance, she doesn't really know how he is. Just that he was the best of the best, the bravest selkie who wanted victory for his kin. However, the stories of Murdock that she heard growing up is what eventually led her to walk on land.[/sub][/hider]
[hider=Morrígan || Mór-ríoghan][sub][color=7F00FF]Morrígan 𖤍[/color]
They integrated with humans around the same time, give or take a few decades. Nieve tends to be irritated with Morrígan as they're both stubborn as each other when it comes to their job and [s]stupid[/s] humans trading their souls via tidebindings. Morrígan doesn't seem to linger around Nieve, which Nieve is more than happy to oblige.[/sub][/hider]
[hider=Aelia || Aeliana Elidi][sub][color=EB5406]Aelia ☼[/color]
Being one of the oldest and someone who fought alongside her uncle, Nieve naturally looks up to Aelia. Whenever Aelia does a rare visit, Nieve gets ridiculously excited and starts yapping Aelia's ears off. Nieve pretty much idolises Aelia, even if she does a lot of funny things.[/sub][/hider]
[hider=Roshan || Roshan Naveed][sub][color=848B79]Roshan[/color]
A conspirator in arms, Nieve came across an almost drowned shadhavar during one of her brief trips to the sea's edge. She taught him most of what she knew of how to be a 'god' and live among the humans. Since people already had immense trust in Nieve, they eventually came to recognise Roshan as another god. They purely have a business-only relationship, but sometimes Nieve finds it funny to rile him up in one way or another.[/sub][/hider]
[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][CENTER][color=#FFB7C5][b]Other information[/b][/color]
[/center][sub]• Contrary to popular belief, selkies can't sing as well as sirens or banshees. Nieve does have a lovely voice, but she tends to hum instead. She'll usually do it near the ocean edge. 
• Her seal-skin is hidden very well in a safe place, so it's very unlikely for a human to come across it. 
• Nieve herself will conduct moonrites between high-ranking humans (like royalty), as her powers guarantee peace and safety - mostly.[/sub][/cell][cell][CENTER][color=#FFB7C5][b]Appearance[/b][/color]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[/center][sub]Standing at a height of 5'6''/170cm, Nieve could pass for normal human, if it weren't for her looks. A blinding beauty, with honey flowing from her head, and dazzling blossom gems that spoke of a deep kindness. True to her selkie nature, her enchanting beauty is enough to steal your air in one glance. Nieve prefers to wear light fitting clothing with bright or neutral colours while in human form. She enjoys her jewellery, so you'll often see her don exquisite accessories, most brought to the surface from her pod. 

During her official duties, she wears a specific [url=https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d5/e0/9e/d5e09ec7b612ff42caf2c367e14d2890.jpg]ceremonial outfit[/url], clad in white and covered eyes to represent purity. She doesn't really talk or show her seal form. In her own words, she looks like a drenched white dog.[/sub]

[CENTER][color=#FFB7C5][b]Personality[/b][/color]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[/center][sub]If you were to pluck the brightest star from space, Nieve would be the manifestation of that star. Around her, the world is dazzling, which is why she took the risk of rising to the land after generations of staying hidden. She can get a little narcissistic about her looks; after all, who wouldn't? In fact, she was sharing her brightness with the world, so she believes. She still carries the personality of a selkie, although her good intentions can end up being a little misguided. 

More than just a pretty face, Nieve's cunning match her looks. If you laid a contract riddled with loopholes, Nieve would just pitifully stare at it. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't out-haggle her. Her street smarts were carefully crafted from the centuries she spent wandering markets before she became a 'goddess'. 

Having a little bit of a rebellious streak in her, she tends to move at her own pace, whether it's her empty mind wandering or a strategic device, no one really knows. What she despises the most though, is tidebindings (oaths) being broken, especially by the most unscrupulous and ugly people. "An té a dhéanann fiacha, íocfaidh sé iad." She remembers her people's sworn oath. If she ever catches wind of saltforsaken (oath breakers), you best believe your end won't be pretty.[/sub]

[CENTER][color=#FFB7C5][b]History[/b][/color]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[/center][sub]Born as one of many to selkie parents, as plentiful reproduction was encouraged to replenish the species, Nieve arrived in the world many centuries after the great war. Murdock, her maternal uncle, had disappeared, leaving the monsters to lose against the humans. The selkies split into numerous pods to increase their chances of survival, since they were still being hunted. 

Many years passed, the sea being relatively quiet, and Nieve had fully grown. The selkies settlements weren't as numerous as they once were, but they were still abundant. Selkies come and go like the tide, eventually their seal-skin being ceremoniously dried out under the sun to grant them eternal peace. Their greatest secret to their long lives, and also their greatest weakness. There were many unsavoury things humans did to the selkies during the war. Things that Nieve would rather forget ever knowing.

Despite that, her curiousity got to the better of her. How were they afraid of powerless humans? Besides the witches, they were basically teethless. In the end, over a course of many, many years, Nieve would sneak out, much to the dismay of her family. Those dark stories of the war still kept her guarded, her seal-skin either kept on her person, or tucked away in a moist environment. She travelled to human markets and cities with a cloak. To most, she's just a slightly tall human woman. She cleverly crafted personalities each time she surfaced. Maybe went on a few adventures. Regardless of her kin's hatred of the humans, Nieve found them endearing.

Nieve would sometimes run a business with her power of tidebindings. After all, they were effective, and people rarely broke them. Maybe through the many centuries she spent amongst them, Nieve let her guard down a little. So, in a fit of rage, when a saltforsaken past by her, she let her hood fall free. Only after she punished them did she realise her mistake. A goddess among us, they praised her beauty, she was testing us all along. Now she's fairly stuck, tending to the humans as one would to sheep. Sometimes, you'll find a glimpse of her in markets. Other times, staring out into sea, longing for a visit to her pod. Instead, she ended picking up a lost looking and particularly drowned shadhavar.[/sub]
[/cell][/row][/table][/hider]