Ninevekhti "Neve" Khamutep's page

Ninevekhti has always appreciated beauty; but it's easy to do that when you are born into one of Osirion's oldest noble families. The Khamutep bloodline goes back to the earliest Pharaohs, although the money - alas - did not travel nearly so well.

Six generations ago, the Khamutep family took an audacious move, thanks to an enterprising patriarch who could see the diminishing returns in selling off the ancestral lands and antiquities. Would it not be better, reasoned Ptarepdor, to sell off other people's lands and antiquities? And thus the family graduated from nobility to criminality.

It has worked extremely well: in the absence of actual proof, which somehow never materialises, few indeed are willing to point fingers at a family of such distinguished pedigree (with close ties to the Ruby Prince himself). And if bad luck seems to stalk their business partners, well, who can say indeed where the truth lies? After all, the distinguished and (by now) wealthy Khamuteps are generous to their friends, and everyone needs a friend sooner or later, right? Best to be their friends.

Such was Ninevekhti's world: rich, happy, pampered, wanting for nothing - and it all came crashing down on her 18th birthday. Every adult Khamutep for the last six generations has been given "The Talk" - in which they are told in no uncertain terms how their comfort has been earned and what their obligations now are. The delivery and content of The Talk has been polished and perfected over the years; it almost never fails to produce compliant, obedient, apprentice crime-lords.

In Ninevekhti's case, the failure was spectacular. Unlike most noble dilettantes, who are merely dabbling in the arts until they come of age, Ninevekhti has genuine artistic talent; unfortunately, she has the temperament to match (the sort that will endlessly practice the same bar of music over and over and over again until it is just so) - the discovery that everything in her beautiful world was not, and never had been, as it seemed, shattered her mind as surely as a dwarf hammer might shatter a mirror.

She managed to cling to a facade of sanity long enough to survive The Talk and convince her parents that all was well - but the knowledge and experiences that accompanied her apprenticeship were traumatic. It is perhaps no surprise that she turned to narcotics (part of the family business for the last three generations) as a survival aid: to help her sleep, to help with her moods, to help manage the other narcotics she was taking... It all got a bit out of hand.

Her salvation came when her father's chief lieutenant discovered her habit and blackmailed her. Eventually, after a number of unpleasant experiences, he pushed his demands too far: Ninevekhti was to provide him with the ledgers which he would then use to usurp the entire family. Faced with this prospect, Ninevekhti took a sleeping draught that she hoped would prove fatal, but it did not. Instead, during her drug-induced ecstacies, she saw the face of Beauty and Love: the goddess Shelyn.
On waking, she found a holy symbol of Shelyn on her bedside table; when she put it on, she knew two things. First, she was done with drugs, forever. Second, she was done with her lifestyle, forever. Leaving her parents a note confessing everything, Ninevekhti bribed a serving girl to swap clothes with her and walked away without a second thought.

In the years since, Neve (as she now calls herself) has been many things: artist, sculptor, singer, adventurer. She strives to bring beauty and peace where she goes, but she knows too that such values occasionally need to be defended from those who see only profit. The knowledge that the tombs of Wati are being opened offers hope (of seeing how the ancients valued beauty and love) and trepidation (that matchless art will be melted down to its components for ease of sale).

Neve earnestly hopes one day to redeem her family, but knows that this is as much a pipe dream as any of her old addictions. Her more realistic hope is to somehow atone for their actions; but six generations of greed and misery is a lot of weight for her shoulders to bear.

In the shorter term, she hopes to bring peace and beauty and art; to be slow to anger, and wise in counsel. Oh, and unicorns for everyone while she's at it. Frankly, most days she'd just settle for not being the spoiled, selfish brat that she one was. Most days, this, at least, is a manageable ambition.

In the more immediate term, she would like to explore the tombs of Wati, to see art that hasn’t been seen since the city was closed and also to ensure that any relics are protected rather than being broken apart for their valuable components.

Neve tells very, very, few her full name - and tells nobody the full truth. To those who recognise the name Khamutep, she presents herself as a poor, distant cousin; and her garments and lifestyle would seem to back this up. The idea that a true daughter of that house would be found dressed as she is, living as she does would be unthinkable to most, and Neve encourages that way of thinking.

What she does not know is that her family know exactly where she is - she may change her name and her habits, but enough coin will find you anywhere.

Ptarepdor Khamutep (6th of that name: every head of the family has adopted it) & Mephkaleeba Khamutep: Neve's parents. Although angry and humiliated, her parents still love their daughter - they have decided to give her time to "come to her senses" and have gone so far as to withdraw their operations from wherever she happens to be staying, to ensure she remains "hidden." If Neve were to ever work against them, or try to expose them, they would rethink this; but so far, Neve has shown no signs of doing so.

"Oily" Fezzim - real name Olivettar: former chief lieutenant (read: enforcer) for the Khamutep family. He gained his nickname from his greasy manners and his habit of grooming his hair and beard with sandalwood oil. He very much appreciated the prestige and perks his position brought him; he very much appreciated the perks of blackmailing the fairest flower of house Khamutep (Neve still flinches occasionally at the memory); he very much did NOT appreciate Neve's confessions, nor the assassins sent after him as a result of said confessions. He survived, unfortunately; as long as he lives, Neve will never truly feel safe.

Father Reptahar: priest of Shelyn and Neve's guide/mentor. Possesses the finest countertenor voice in Garund, and is a genius at calligraphy. Unequivocally good, he is everything you would hope and imagine a priest of Shelyn to be. He has repeatedly turned down Neve's applications to join the priesthood, and she has no idea why.

Arrish Grulph: a sun-withered and near toothless gnomish vagabond, and (Neve suspects) a pickpocket, although she has never stolen anything from Neve. They first met when Arrish was being given a beating for something or other; Neve drove off the attacker (she's stronger than she looks) and an unlikely friendship was formed. Each is privately convinced that the other will be found dead in an alley one day soon (Neve thinks that Arrish will eventually steal from the wrong person; Arrish thinks that Neve is "too purty for her own good and so addled wit' talkin' of trooth an' booty that she ain't got the hossense she was born with"), but they keep crossing one another's paths, despite their wanderings. It has happened too often now to be coincidence, but Neve isn't sure what to make of it. She treated Arrish's arrival on the caravan to Wati with nothing more than a raised eyebrow, and a mental note to keep one hand on her coin purse.

All artists fear failure, none more so than musicians, whose bodies betray them long before mortality claims them; Neve is fully aware that one day (please Shelyn let it not be today) her voice will crack when it hits the high notes.

More than that, though, she fears the loss of sanity: that sense she has already experienced of the world that she thought she understood suddenly not existing any more. Neve has enough self awareness to know that she is high-strung, but noticing which of her many little rituals and superstitions is slowly taking over her life is a constant struggle.
Since her initial "conversion" she has never again felt Shelyn's presence, and she wonders occasionally in the dark of night whether it was all just a fever-dream.

There is little of the noblewoman left in Neve's appearance, beyond the ramrod-straight posture and the well-spoken voice. She dresses in soft, homespun clothing and her hair is worn loose, never in the elaborate, beaded braids of the nobility. The kohl and dye markings on her face change frequently: you can't change your looks, Neve reasons, but if you change the bit that people remember then that's the next best thing.
A khopesh sword hangs at her waist and she carries it now with the air of one who knows how to use it, however reluctantly. Her wiry frame is surprisingly strong: spending months dedicating yourself to learning how to sculpt marble and stone, and hauling sacks of wet clay will do that to you.

Neve is deeply ambivalent about her own looks: she traded on them shamelessly as a Khamutep, but she knows now what real beauty is; as well as the difference between that and love. She smiled indulgently when a recent would-be suitor praised her looks - and took to wearing a hooded cowl for the rest of the week (she claimed sunstroke).

Neve's great joy is in music, and she will often catch herself in the middle of humming a tune, having not realised she was doing so; this bothers her, as does her occasional realisation that she's been trying to sketch impossible things, like the shape of the wind. She covers for these by reaching for and clutching onto the holy symbol of Shelyn at her throat; it seems that she is doing so more often these days, and that bothers her too. If your mind has shattered once, you're always cautious of it happening again.

1. The Talk. The slow, dawning realisation that no, this wasn't a joke; the sick horror of being given, on her birthday, the reality of who and what her family were; the abrupt revelation that showed everyone who supposedly loved and cared for her - her parents, the servants, even the fawning Oily - in a monstrous new light; the feeling of her mind slowly splintering and fragmenting into madness...

2. The End. The decision that death was preferable to the humiliation of blackmail; the calm that accompanied the fatal draught; the joy and peace that she felt in her vision of Shelyn; the resolve that she felt on waking and putting on the goddess' holy symbol; the unshakeable certainty that walking away was the right thing to do.

3. The Call. The effort and agony of learning new forms of art; the sheer physical exhaustion of being a sculptor; the pleasure of creating art and learning new forms of expression; the confusion on being turned down for admission to the priesthood of Shelyn; Father Reptahar's one-word answer to her plaintive question about what she should do now: "Live."