Nerys Kahina Gimbernard

Nerys Kahina Gimbernard
Race: Fayren

Culture: Ejheria

Gender: Female

Affiliations: Scholar's Guild (Publishing Wing, Diplomat), Courtesan's Guild (allegedly), Patrician's Guild (Socialite), Golden Script Caravan (family ties)

Name
While not herself a member of the Golden Script caravan, Nerys is affiliated through her father Faustus Fane Gimbernard. In accordance with tradition, her name indicates the trait her father hoped she would come to embody. Directly translated Nerys Kahina translates as "the noblewoman possessed of great good fortune", but Nerys herself prefers to style herself by its simpler meaning "Lady Luck".

Early Life
Nerys was born the second daughter of Faustus Fane Gimbernard, himself the son of famed Rhukichiin Lizuna Esperetta Auryona Gimbernard. While Faustus was an absent-minded father at best, he encouraged Nerys to pursue a passion for scholarship, involving her in his work for the Scholar's Guild as a historian and publisher. While she never showed the same enthusiasm as he for history or writing, she found her calling as a diplomat, soothing & manipulating others being something of a talent of hers. Her time spent organizing and editing her father's manuscripts served her well and led to her being offered a position with the publishing wing of the Scholar's Guild.

When her Rhukichiin cousin first came to stay with her father, Nerys was skeptical. Why flee all the way to Ejheria if nothing was wrong? However, in short order Esperetta had wormed her way into Nerys's heart. Given the mere 20 year age difference between them, Nerys soon came to view Retta as a younger sister, understandable given her own older sister, Fatimah Diantha Gimbernard, had long since left the nest to seek her fortune. She and her father sponsored Retta's admittance into the Scholar's Guild, and personally oversaw her instruction in the ways of the Diplomat. They remained close until an incident caused Esperetta to leave Ejheria for Maerisius.

Later Life
Nerys and Esperetta's paths would once again cross in Northern Amari'z. By this time Nerys had begun a publishing business on the side of her regular contract work for the Scholar's Guild, bringing the peoples of Othonia works of fiction in the form of dime-store novellas and adventure novels. When she encountered her beloved cousin living in Old Winthrop a mite strapped for cash but in possession of a long list of written works to recommend her, Nerys offered Esperetta a deal. Retta would write whatever novels of adventure and romance she liked, the more daring and raunchy the better, and Nerys would act as her agent, publishing them on her behalf so as to allow the more scholarly Retta to keep her professional reputation intact.

Everything was going well for the both of them. Esperetta had stable work and Nerys had a money tree for her publishing business. With a little extra push Nerys had even managed to play matchmaker for Retta, setting her up with handsome middle-aged Miu bookseller by the name of Louisoix Steward (Louis to friends). He had recently come into a small inheritance of his own and just adored Esperetta's books, both the scholarly and racy kinds. Then tragedy struck once more. Louisoix committed suicide (strange that) and Esperetta fled into Nava Opar. Unwilling to lose her cousin for another couple of decades, Nerys tracked her down, eventually finding her scratching out a living in Dry Gulch sending in news from the frontier.

Knowing Esperetta needed both a living and a method to keep herself busy (the grief of Louisoix's death still being relatively fresh) Nerys offered a new project. A group of warriors known as the Heroes of Skyfall had become increasingly popular and demand was high for literature starring them. While they couldn't use the actual people themselves, they could create characters heavily based of them (appearance-wise at least) and sell stories of these characters' adventures. The project took off and soon the stories became novels which in turn became series. These series usually contained at least one central character based off on of the Heroes, most notably the Lady Heat series based upon Tefira (which Nerys demanded more volumes off, partially due to their popularity, but mostly because of her cameo in the series as the Marvelous Madam Nim).

Now that Esperetta has begun adventuring with the Heroes of Skyfall, Nerys mostly functions as her faithful publisher, either publishing them herself or speeding her manuscripts through to the Scholar's Guild publishing house. She'd love to visit Esperetta whenever the opportunity arises for her to do so. After all, Nerys would love nothing more than to meet the people she's been reading about for the last few years...