Olimpia Niadh

Olimpia was born in Shaaloani, to a rancher mother and a noble father.

Her father, Ignatius de Montagne, was a duskwight elezen from Ishgard. A fourth son, he settled into his life of not inheriting the head of the house by moving away from the Holy See, though him and Olimpia's mother kept faith in the Fury.

Olimpia's mother, conversely, is a hyur from a long line of highlanders and midlanders. Meredith Niadh was a Wood Wailer Archer before crossing the sea and settling in Shaaloani.

The plains of Shaaloani were a dangerous place when Olimpia and her brother, Oliver, were children. As such, when Olimpia was ten and Oliver thirteen, Olimpia's parents sent them to live with her uncle in Gridania. There, Olimpia would learn to hunt and track prey. As she grew, she would take a liking to music, learning all she could from those few archers who went on to become true bards of the Twelveswood.

Olimpia's uncle, before the calamity, had assisted with the evacuation of the Sharlayan colony in Dravania. He regaled Olimpia with the stories of the scholars, and this made Olimpia plan.

When she was sixteen, Olimpia wrote her father, begging him to submit an application for her to the Saint Endalim Scholasticate in Ishgard. He did this for her and she was accepted without issue.

Olimpia was a dilligent study; she dedicated herself to her schooling with the fervor of one searching to be on the Trinity. However, this was not Olimpia's goal. She, instead, past her seminarian test, becoming a priestess and, eventually, paladin of Halone.

After 4 years and graduation from the Scholasticate, Olimpia called upon her uncle's connection to the Sharlayan scholars, beseeching her admittance to the Studium. There was some debate, but it was ultimately decided that her uncle's contribution to the nation was great enough to warrant her an audience with the Forum. Here, Olimpia laid her goals out plainly: she wished to study the minutia and magic of music, the properties of which she heard whispers of from those bards so long ago. She was accepted into the Studium after days of debate by the Forum. Olimpia began again what she had started at the scholasticate: studying upon studying. Every minute of every day, her nose was shoved into a book on music, the mind, magical frequencies, et cetera.

After four more years of grueling study, Olimpia once again sought an audience with the Forum, one day before her graduation exam. At this meeting, Olimpia expressed a desire that intrigued the members of the Forum: she wanted to undertake the Archon exam. The Forum members agreed after less debate than her entrance, and gave Olimpia a deadline of one year.

For the first half of the year, Olimpia adventured, seeking inspiration. It was during this adventuring she would have her brush with death. Olimpia took a contract from the Adventurer's Guild of Gridania. It was a routine leve: a small settlement reported something going bump in the night. Unbeknownst to Olimpia, these bumps were caused by a voidsent, one that she had no business fighting. Olimpia lost this fight horribly, the demon stabbing its blade straight through her right eye, out the back of her head. Her world went black and she knew she was going to die. In this blackness, Olimpia saw worlds, entire lives. Her time in the void felt like warm eons that ended all too soon as the cold grip of reality shocked her awake. Olimpia couldn't speak, and her head was pounding. She saw a man dressed all in black walking away from her. She tried to call out to him, but couldn't. She stumbled, following the man back to Gridania before falling on the steps of the Carline Canopy.

Olimpia was given a bed and awoke to the man standing over her. He revealed that he was a Garlean reaper, chasing the voidsent that had nearly killed her. He had to force a voidsent contract upon her; it was the only way that she would have survived the damage that his prey had caused. Luckily, there was a voidsent nearby that the reaper had weakened. The reaper assured Olimpia that the voidsent would be quiet and out of the way; he had walloped the bastard good, after all, but Olimpia wasn't so sure. Still, those eternities that the voice, what she now knows was that same voidsent, whispered to her inspired her. Olimpia thanked the reaper, and left for Ishgard.

For the second half of the year, Olimpia locked herself in a tower in Saint Reymaud's Cathedral, writing page upon page of meaningless gibberish: equations, magical circuits, hand-drawn staves of music, the works. On the eve of the last day of that year, Olimpia gathered her papers and set off for Old Sharlayan.

The members of the Forum gathered in the auditorium, muttering amongst themselves until Olimpia stepped onto the conductor's podium, raised her arms, and began to lead the orchestra. Before the concert began, she had handed to each Forum member a sheaf of notes to be read alongside the music. What the Forum members slowly realized was that their bundle of notes described not only what they were hearing, but what they were feeling. Every note, every chord, resonated, and Olimpia had predicted their reactions, all. After the performance, the Forum deliberated. It was in this deliberation that, when they set to look back over the sheafs of notes they were given, every page of every bundle was blank. This is how Olimpia Niadh was granted the rank and title of Archon of Music.

These days, Olimpia, now twenty-five years old, wanders the land. She uses the guise of adventuring to collect stories. This allows Olimpia to be a rather flexible character. Her motivations are to do good and collect the stories of those she meets to put to song, as well as seeking revenge on the voidsent that gave her her red eye in the first place. If you need something lost to be found, a story told, a beast slain, or just an ear to rest your heavy heart upon, Olimpia will be there for you.