Yvet
Steel
briar
Once a salve-maker from a remote and inhospitable part of the Golmore Jungle interior, Yvet and her warder Gunnar left behind the Green Word more than three decades ago. Now something of a world-traveler, Yvet has developed a lifestyle she'd like to maintain, and the lack of morals one needs to keep it. Recovering purloined valuables or plundering ruins for "lost" artifacts - the new Word this Viera adheres to is Gil.
Hooks
Yvet (and her village) are from deep within the jungle, and don't see much traffic with other Viera, as the territory they've chosen is generally unpleasantly poisonous and infested with morbols and other venomous vilekin. Culturally they're hillbillies, swamp witches and wood-warders, and often have some shocking habits, especially regarding what's commonly considered to be "safe to eat".
Like most Viera Yvet has a racial sensitivity to places of high aetheric concentration, though hers manifests as the worst nausea and vomiting any food poisoning could produce. She never enters a place like Limsa Lominsa or Mor Dhona without a brace of special silencing potions she's made for herself.
Multilingual by dint of her travels, she now speaks with a soft drawl to her words. To some with different mother tongues, this can be a syrupy-slow affect, and thoroughly bewildering given her tendency towards short, direct (and often declarative) sentences. It's easy to determine that this is a woman who has expectations that don't require her asking.
While generally unopposed to do-goodery, Yvet has come to realize that the lifestyle she's most fond of doesn't pair well with the life of a benevolent adventurer - good will and deeds don't fill a hungry belly. As such, she's taken to, ... well, the polite term is probably "tomb raiding".
When there are no historical artifacts to filch and sell back to their owners, Yvet isn't beyond selling her martial expertise to anyone with something needing retrieving. Provided gil is of the right amount, any moral compunctions about what it is, exactly, will be drowned out by the clink of coin.
Straying even further from upright moral certitude, Yvet has turned what were once her village's ritual brews into habitual intoxicants. Not only is she a frequent user of them, but she's developed a taste for the mind-altering delights of the wider world - she can hear the bubble of a Hingan water pipe from malms away.
Those unique (and sometimes dangerous) elixirs she crafts that were once for special visions are on offer for any who ask - though never for gil - not even she would go that far. Maybe you have something she would fancy? Or maybe ... perhaps a favor in exchange, later?
Wind-Wander Enclave
Wind-Wander Enclave (as it's translated into the common tongue) is located in the deep interior of the Golmore Jungle, east of the River Zeirchele. There, one of the river's tributaries forms a humid swamp, popular with morbols and other vilekin of venomous inclination. Nestled amongst the snarls of vine-strung boughs above the mangroves and their spreading roots is a minuscule Viera village. No more than a double handful of buildings, the small water-aspected crystals that light the bridges and walkways appear as ghostly lights above the clinging mist.The original Viera who settled there long ago were few, too few to support the traditional gender segregation of a larger village while also gathering the required supplies needed to survive. Forced to adapt by splitting into duos or trios, they were more mobile and defensible, able to range further afield for resources. A remote waystop above the swamps served as a place to reconnoiter and resupply.After long years of work, the waystop grew into the tiniest of villages, finally able to support a matriarch and her charges, with Wood-Warders to protect them. However, many still find some comfort in the unconventional and often inconvenient intimacy of the war-pair, especially for Viera who never felt they fit the "normal" traditions ascribed by their culture and gender.
Despite its own internal success, Wind-Wander is still far removed from other Viera settlements, and the unpleasant terrain keeps even the most curious of Wood-Warders at bay.Viera from Wind-Wander Enclave might be stereotyped as rural, even for their species. The swamps below harbor a wide variety of toxic flora and fauna, and local salve-makers have developed a niche within their own culture's alchemical practices to make use of these reagents. Culinarians are a half-step behind, with dishes containing ingredients typically thought to be toxic or unappetizing. (Some techniques involve precise excision of undesirable bits, others are alchemical treatments to reduce the poison to a flavor component similar to extreme spice. ... the very last group simply feature the antidote as a chaser.) Morbols feature frequently as base components, and any Wind-Warder craftsmen worth their salt can find a use for eye stalk, bile, root, and all. Jacks of Wind-Wander might be alchemists more than their mainstream counterparts, using the mind-altering substances produced as part of their Wood-Warder training (or simply recreationally).The war-pair is a feature unique to the Viera of Wind-Wander, usually a witch-warrior and her warder, though three and four Viera of various gender combinations is not unheard of. While younger Viera have the luxury of making the choice in partners (angling towards someone with which they have a friendship or romantic inclination), staunch traditionalists do not, noting that the need for a war-pair came out of survivability, not likability. Thus, synergy of combat is prioritized, not necessarily the jack or doe one would like to spend an uncomfortable amount of time alone with.
drugs
Salve-makers are a unique tradition, Viera alchemists removed from both the Ul'dahn and Hannish schools. Yvet was one such salve-maker, devoting nearly four decades of her life to the manufacture of potions, anti-toxins and venoms, and elixirs for the health and safety of Wind-Wander Enclave (and that of her warder, Gunnar). Now that she's left the Golmore Jungle however, she's turned that talent outwards, dispensing her favorite mind-altering phials alongside potent antidotes for Ul'dah's most paranoid Monetarists. Also on the offer is a unique potion meant to combat a Viera's aetheric sensitivity, if one can get past the effects (and the taste) ...
Golden Silence is a muddy brown fluid with pearlescent threads of gold that appear when swirled in its glass, but a Viera with an unfortunate sensitivity to high concentrations of aether couldn't ask for a better friend. ... provided one doesn't object to being able to feel (or manipulate) aether at all. Synthesized from the silencing component of a morbol's breath, it's a bit like drinking lemon juice and silty river water. Other than the silence, the effect is a world wrapped in cotton wool, all of the sharp corners and hard edges rounded off for 4 to 7 hours.
Morbol bezoars are fist-sized stone-like objects retrieved from the bowels of morbols and their smaller kin. Made of compressed digested food matter and their own toxic bile, it's an old matron's tale that a bezoar will nullify any ingested poison, especially if dropped into a suspicious cup beforehand. And while a morbol bezoar might help with clearing a morning-after head - unweildy as they are to use, it's useless for anything stronger (or actually deadly).
"The brew", as it's referred to by her well-meaning warder (its Viera name is never spoken to outsiders), is a drink that begins with "processed" morbol seedlings, and that's before fermentation and magick get involved. Meant to trigger vision quests, most folk who lack the tolerance of a Wind-Wander Viera are in for a perfect storm of intoxication, perhaps even to an unsafe or unwanted level. Temporary blindness is a common side-effect.
Blue Glass is a decoction made from the sap of a jungle flower, heated until the mixture forms a sheet of opalescent "blue glass" when left to cool. This is shattered into small shards and smoked, often with the help of magical fire, as a candle flame is often not hot enough. The resulting high is a swirling braindance of pretty colors, especially if the user was anxious or otherwise stressed before partaking.
Black Lace is also smoked, though with traditional pipes or rolling papers. A species of hanging moss, it's so named for its appearance when dried, but before being ground for consumption. Black Lace has an overall numbing effect on both physical feeling and the mental or emotional responses to danger or fear, including an invulnerability to pain that can be extremely dangerous if the user is left unsupervised. Black Lace is also extremely addictive, moreso than anything else Yvet has to offer, and is dispensed with a healthy warning and a dose of concern.
Curaga was originally designed to bolster a Viera's natural healing when recovering from a severe injury. Without a wound to treat, however, what it is is an 8 hour psychedelic that will have the user tripping on the lifestream and the precious interconnectedness all life on the staaaaar, maaaaaan~ to the absolute irritation of anyone forced to stay within earshot. Certainly the prettiest, it glows a soft, charming, faerie-light green in whatever container holds it. (A glass phial of 1 full dose will, in fact, give off as much light as a good candle.) It tastes like medicine designed for children, almost offensively sweet, and perhaps like it should be packaged with glitter.