Portrait of a Villain: The Sleepless Drift, Neirave

Written by Dennis N. Santana Illustrated by James Keegan

The Winter brings forth the new year by freezing and smothering the wrongs of the past year. But Winter has ceased to have meaning, because people have ceased to change. Now they fear winter’s judgment. What they deserve is an endless winter, to reflect their frozen hearts.

Background

The Sleepless Drift, Neirave is an odd-looking woman, with a sterile beauty that seems mournfully frozen in time, wearing a long robe covered with crystals and flecks of ice. Those who enter her domain greatly fear discovering her or the creatures she commands, as no heart seems warm or pure enough for her to spare the wrath of her wintry domain.

Neirave Eda was born in an isolated forest village during a grave winter. She was a normal child for the longest time, but each winter she seemed to go through a change. As the land whitened, so did her hair turn pale, her eyes turn ice blue, her skin become grayed and her lips darkened. Things she touched would quickly become cold. Sculptures she made from ice or snow would move of their own volition if she commanded them to.

Her sorcerous power attracted negative attention. The villagers believed she would become dangerous to them. The village had no other with such powers, nobody who could control Neirave should she anger. But then winter would pass and she would return to normal. The village would forget, until next year. The winter would transform them, reveal their true colors and torment Neirave with the apparition.

Each winter her change would become more pronounced and her powers stronger. And each winter, the spring would take longer and longer to come, exposing Neirave to more and more of the village’s wrath.

Eventually, Neirave Eda was driven to suicide. She sliced her throat open over a mound of snow that hid her body forever. But she did not know what she did, for the girl had little control over her powers. All the dread and sorrow she felt, the fear of her persecution and the stress caused by the villager’s intolerance, was imparted upon that mound of snow, and perhaps into the forest itself.

A different Neirave was created there. An animate of ice with her exact appearance and power, but none of her earthly limitations upon her power. Encasing her old body in the ice, to be able to rest undisturbed, the new Neirave brought to the region their greatest fear – a winter that would never end and the untold destruction that comes with it. The place became known soon for its unending winter. Deep within the forest, Neirave made allies of the wintry animals, and made servants of the cold wind and the endless snow.

Motivation & Goals

Neirave’s endless winter is confined only to the forest from which she hails, but expands ever so slightly with each passing day.

To Neirave, the winter is a transitional period. The year is encased in ice and destroyed so the world can begin anew. Each winter, she would transform to show the worst in humanity – their fear and prejudice and anger towards a helpless girl. Now she has turned the winter upon her old tormentors. Unless they themselves transform into beings fit to live, the winter will drain them of all life, burdening them with the cold of their own sin.

Most of Neirave’s weaknesses remain trapped in her corpse, somewhere in the forest. But her emotions have not been entirely drained from her. Within her cold body still beats a warm heart. As long as it does, she cannot truly become the winter she wishes to. Her current goal is to master all of her powers, to overcome her false flesh and inherited emotions. To drive the winter past the forest and out into the waiting world.

Organization

Though she has all the memories of her old self, Neirave is a sheltered creature nonetheless. She knows little of what lies outside her own forest. Neirave’s grand retinues are composed of wolves and bears, and other animals of the cold forest, along with automata of snow and ice given a partial life by Neirave’s winter. These beasts have but one mission, which is to kill any remnants of the Neirave’s forest home that oppose her.

Neirave resides deep within the forest, randomly traversing it from day to day, never once staying in the same place. Despite her restlessness and randomness, she does have some followers. People who’ve encountered her and have been turned into ice effigies, they themselves embodying only a hatred for their own worst sins. They do not travel with her, but wander through her domain nonetheless. It is said that Neirave has one particular area of the forest from which her winter hails, that it is there where she can be stopped.

Combat Tactics

Neirave does not actively engage in combat, or at least, she has never had to. Upon witnessing her and receiving her kiss most people immediately die, becoming ice effigies. She commands violent blasts of cold wind that can uproot small buildings or blow away a group of strong men with mere breaths. Some never even see her, turned away by the violent winter in an instant. But her powers fluctuate, and only one major display of them has ever been witnessed. It is unknown if she can perform with such strength at all times.

Within the endless winter, she controls the ground, the wind, the sky. She is like a God in her own playing field, but a God that has never bested anyone but thugs and hunters, fighting without finesse. She knows not what would happen should a warm enough heart seek her in combat, nor what would happen if her old self would be brought back to life.

Adventure Hooks

• A surviving villager braves snow, monsters and her own fatigue and escapes into the outside world, warning a nearby village of the endless winter.
• The PCs must travel across a somewhat ordinary-seeming forest, but only within do they discover something sinister.
• Winters in the region begin to last longer, and the ground loses some fertility. An encroaching mantle of ice, seemingly alive, could be to blame.

The Sleepless Drift, Neirave by Nevermet Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.nevermetpress.com/contact.