man I was wracking my brain about this for a while and then suddenly it all just clicked and I typed it out to my discord buddies but I wanna put Nimhe on tumblr more (supremely envious of some of y’all’s OC post organization!!) so here you go!!
(Author’s Note: stuff in brackets will be details I’m still fleshing out as I learn more about Drow lore.)
Nimhe and her Mother lived in relative comfort [somewhere in Drow society], where Nimhe’s mother [did important work]. Nimhe was extremely well taken care of as a child, treated like a little doll, well dressed and fed and adored by her mother. They lived there until Nimhe was 7 years old. However, [something] happened to make her mother [turn from lolth [willingly??]]and flee with Nimhe in the middle of the night, running away into the underdark.
They sheltered in a large round mostly-hollowed mushroom that they hollowed further into a large dome structure and survived for two years in the wilderness by either being extremely lucky, Nimhe’s mother [being very clever], or Nimhe being a very brave, but very strange, little girl.
You see, now that she’s out on her own, she feels a little freer from expectation. No other children staring at her makes her frustrated at the lack of attention (and she LOVES attention), but it frees up space in her mind to do…. Other things. She picks up very basic alchemy by studying what plants do what when you eat a little bit of them (or feed them to another animal. For research!). She makes her first basic poison and antidote and learns to hunt prey with them. She even learns how the large cave spiders behave so she can avoid them and even tries to communicate with them, developing her own independent fascination for spiders.
This all has the unfortunate added side effect of *creeping her mom the fuck out*. They are nowhere near the city and yet her daughter has learned to make poisons on her own. She is 7 years old killing large prey. She found a displacer beast kitten in the wild and rigged a trap to kill the mother. All so she could have her own “pet”. She is trying to TALK to the SPIDERS. All of this, to many Drow, would seem normal. But fear and hatred of Lolth aside, there is something more sinister happening, she can feel it.
There is something *deeply wrong* with this child. She just can’t figure out what it is.
Nimhe, meanwhile, continues to be a couragous, clever, and curious child. After picking up alchemy and then some tricks with traps and snares, she also quickly picks up on the fact that… mama doesn’t like spiders or lolth anymore. Seems like the idea of other Drow scares her too. So that’s why she uses her alchemy to dye her hair black. Mama’s always terrified of flashes of white in the dark, because it could be another Drow. If I change my hair color….. maybe mama won’t be scared of me anymore.
But it doesn’t work. Mama sees her daughter’s new look and hates how now she’s so strange, she doesn’t even want to look like her mother anymore.
Maybe, just a little, but maybe it was Nimhe’s building frustration at being just a little girl and being so misunderstood and so feared and so *hated* by her own mother, the only one she has left. Maybe that was why she had her little. Accident.
Or maybe it was being born a Bhaalspawn.
“either way, mama kinda had it coming to her, right?”
Been playing bg3 basically any time I have free time
Nimhe has (act 3 spoilers ahead!):
- helped shadowheart free herself from the sharrans, and she gave her space to make her own decisions regarding the fate of her loved ones. Had a really touching moment where Nimhe let Shadowheart cry in her arms.
- failed to stop Astarion from performing the ritual. She simply couldnt bring herself to talk him out of it, not after spending so much time unintentionally egging him on. It was the desperate, pleading look in his eyes. She was still figuring out her feelings about revenge and power. She regrets not stepping in very, very deeply (mainly because so many of her other companions were very vocally against it, not because she felt terribly bad for any dead spawn. Except Sebastian, maybe) but still thinks she can fix him. That she can keep his megalomania in check. She’s ready to put him down like a dog if he goes too far, of course.
- saved Minsc! Nimhe rather enjoys Jahiera’s strength, wisdom, and snark. She’s the closest thing to a mother figure she has (and all in all is doing a better job than most), and hearing how passionate Jahiera was about saving Minsc it makes sense that Nimhe would try to save him - and ESPECIALLY so after the Emperor told her not to do it. She does everything he tells her not to. Nimhe has the same opinion of Minsc as Minthara does: powerfully useful, and amusingly simple. She also does NOT disrespect Boo. She is fascinated by wonderous creatures, and she’s SEEN that miniature space hamster actually take out someone’s eyes. He can really do that. Miniature space hamsters are not stupid, they’re real and they’re super fucking cool. She’s sad she can’t hear his voice like Minsc can. Shes still trying to figure out how that works.
- went to Candulhallow to look for info on the temple for the Nimhe v. Orin Throwdown Showdown and to show her old fam she’s back in town and ✨different✨, met Sarevok and the Tribunal. Told him to fuck off, we have our own plans. Murdered the lot. “Ok cool, time to go save Halsin and kill someone who I’m pretty sure is my sister before she kills everything and everyone about this world that I like, along with everything and everyone else too for that matter.” Discovered the fucking soap opera twist backstory on Orin’s family. “Shit. She really is just like me, but worse. I still have to confront her. Man, this is ass.” Went to the temple. Confrontation time. Orin goes off about how Nimhe isn’t worthy of being Chosen. Nimhe has a little Heated Moment where she impulsively dumps the spicy news on her that she’s an incest baby. Oops. Orin breaks down a bit, refuses to believe it, tells Nimhe she’s a liar. Nimhe tells her no, girl you’ve been abused. Sarevok abused you, and your mom. Nimhe is sensitive to that shit, and actually feels real empathy for Orin for the first time probably ever. Unfortunately, it was short lived, cus Bhaal himself decided to crash the party and go all You’ve Done Well Lord Vader and says Orin has performed well enough that she gets to stop being Orin now and become the Slayer!! Great!! Nimhe got the closest she ever could possibly get to having a semblance of a connection or bond with her sister, and her father ruined it!!!!!!! Ah well, I guess it’s easier to get revenge on someone for kidnapping your comrades, enslaving your wife, and stabbing you in the brain when they don’t have the face of your abused sister anymore, huh.
- so once that was done, of course Bhaal was like “ok so I was expecting your sister to win this, so I just lost like 50 bucks to Bane, thanks a lot for that asshole. But this is fine, like, I did make you myself and all, so you’re kinda special to me. Anyway. Go on. Sit on the throne and become Chosen” and Nimhe was all “yeah actually about that? See, after Orin, Yknow, stabbed me in the BRAIN…I realized that um. if you kill literally everyone in the world, there won’t be anyone left to do things for you. Or fight. Or fight alongside! Or fuck. No one to make wine, or to drink wine with. No one to complain to or about. Everyone will be dead. And everything will be so fucking boring. So, I talked with my comrades, and they all said you can go eat a dick! I don’t wanna be Chosen, I wanna be alive and free, so YOU can shove it.” And Bhaal said “ayo what the fuck? Die” and so Nimhe died. But of course if you’re still reading this, you know she didn’t actually, and Withers brings you back cus he’s secretly goated with the sauce. Hilariously tho, I had forgotten I’d installed the Withers Big Naturals mod and the laughter that erupted from me was loud and sudden xD
- so Yknow how Nimhe didn’t save the Moonrise Towers prisoners because she forgot the prison existed? (Uhhh brain damage did that not me) so not only were neither Barcus nor Wulbren around to lead her to save the Gondians, but when Nimhe broke in to the foundry and fought the watchers and the Fist, she didn’t get to the little remote control thingy in time, and everyone’s collars exploded. Oopsies. Eh, it’s fine, saves me playthrough time. lol.
- we also I guesss?? Long rested one too many times and everyone in the submersible drowned too?? It’s ok though, we didn’t care about the gnomes already, and Wyll had already given up on saving his father due to Mizora’s ultimatum anyway so he wasn’t too busted up over it. Alls well that ends not as badly as it could have, as they say. (If Nimhe knew her buddy Omeluum was on that sub, things may have been different 🤔 hopefully no one tells her)
-found the Wyrmway and brought Wyll to find Ansur. It’s cute how both of them are history geeks ^^. Nimhe was N O T pleased to hear that the Emperor keeps fucking lying to her. Honestly - let me go on a tangent real quick - I just had a crazy idea to make Nimhe’s tadpole overconsumption a drug allegory. The emperor lied about his identity and his motives, kept pushing her to consume tadpoles for power, knowing - feeling - that her mind was weak. As she consumed, she craved more and more, developing an addiction to the way they made her feel. By the time the Emperors mask fell away, and he offered her the Astral Tadpole, she was already far too gone. He betrayed her trust using someone else’s face to get her hooked, he used her brain damage, her stress, and her desire for strength against her, and he continually bosses her around without asking for her say on anything whatsoever. When she finally stood up to Bhaal, died, and was revived, what did the Emperor say? “Ah, you’re better. Good. Now let’s focus on fighting the Elder Brain” like you slimy purple BITCH?!? And NOW Nimhe finds out she’s not the FIRST he has betrayed, not surprising that there’s a pattern. And he was a badass dragon. And that dragon was probably in love with him. That’s not fucking okay, man. Wyll was torn up to find out one of his idols was a total dick who doesn’t care about others. It really sucked that Ansur attacked us. Had no choice. Very very glad we brought Gale down here with us and that we taught him every spell under the sun and then some lmao.
Coming soon (tbd): ENVER GORTASH: THE FINAL REUNION
