HIRAETH.

I’ve been away from here for a while now, but before I get asked the question, yes and no, I have mixed feelings about Taliyah finally getting a skin after like a million years, and that’s an issue we’ll unpack some other day.

‘ you’re breathing quite heavily. did our dance tire you out? ’ 

I.     Overview:                Taliyah of the Nasaaj tribe is an exceptionally rare instance of magical ability being naturally induced in a human, as opposed to other calculated and artificial methods of doing so (Twisted Fate, etc). Since discovering her powers at the age of six and letting her magic grow within her for the better part of a decade, Taliyah’s self - introduction of herself as a Stoneweaver is both a harmless sounding epithet and the understatement of the century.

II.     Reach of Ability:                Taliyah’s most prolific use of her gift is the art of geomancy, the ability to draw the earth beneath her feet to her and to command its movement in whichever direction or orientation that she so wishes. It is a primitive magic that is easier explained than execute and from the day Taliyah leaves Shurima for the first time, she spends another 7 to 8 years practicing and honing her powers to the point of controlled repetition and precision at her beck and call.

               And while Taliyah’s affinity for the earth and stone tends to be flashy at best, her magic allows her yet another outstanding gift:  the capability to touch nearby stones and see into the past witnessed by the stones. Taliyah can only see and hear as far back as the most intense memory that the stone has experienced, but what she sees and hears from the stones are transmitted both loudly and clearly to her, provided she continues to directly touch the said material.

III.     Application of Ability:                Manipulation of the earth is an activity the requires practice in order to arrive at the point of diminishing invested effort into the magic. After all, Taliyah finds her geomancy similar to dragging a wet cloth through the air on a windy day, though the years of experience have tremendously lessened the resistance that she feels upon using her magic.

               Compared to the strain of moving an unlimited amount of earth per her wishes, Taliyah finds the experience of reshaping and creation of earthen structures a much simpler task. As long as she carries a clear vision of the shape or direction she wishes to cast her magic in, or perhaps a previous structure that she wishes to recreate for an appropriate situation, the end result will feature attention to detail and broad, flat surfaces with wide edges. In contrast, magic utilized in a state of surprise will likely generate haphazard shapes of rocks and earth that are jagged to the touch and dangerous to use.

               Then again, it really is up to Taliyah to perceive exactly what does and doesn’t constitute the earth beneath her. The sands of Shurima she has known all her life lay atop a buried layer of sedimentary rocks that she taps into whenever she finds herself back at home, while the white landscapes of the Freljord are less than generous, and so Taliyah draws material from both the ice of the North, and the thin layer of brittle earth that quietly lays beneath the frozen surface, whenever she does manage to pull enough to reform into a substantial size of material.

IV.     Miscellaneous:                There is no rating or tier level to the power of Taliyah’s earth manipulation and reformation, as her ability’s restraint is largely within the steep learning curve that Taliyah struggles with over time. In the future, her stoneweaving has the potential to become an exponentially dangerous tool, but the direction her magic goes towards ultimately depends on Taliyah herself.

- In every universe, Taliyah’s pet name for @defyances‘s Irelia is Lia, and likewise her own from Irelia is Liyah. While it started as a mark of friendship between two completely different teenagers that bumped into each other for the first time at an Ionian festival, it is a memory so prominent that any overly friendly stranger that tries to use Taliyah’s pet name to act cutesy will make Taliyah think of Irelia, and get annoyed at them for using what isn’t theirs to use in the first place.

- As per a private 12 page essay conversation with @desertdivide, Taliyah does eventually succeed her father as the chieftess of the Nasaaj tribe when the time is right, but she does not earn a spot on Azir’s roster of generals or politicians until much later in life. However, her initial fear of the great Emperor Azir upon returning to Shurima has become a cautious and unbound curiosity that has made her a frequent visitor to the palace beneath the Sun Dial, where she pays visits to seek counsel with the Ascended Emperor when the need arises.

- Though she is not one of Azir’s military or policy experts, she nonetheless has a duty towards her tribe of weavers; to safeguard the old guard that had kept them safe and neutral through the years of chaos, and to lead her generation of up and coming peers to a more sustainable. Here, the key elements of her strategy revolve around stabilizing the trade routes and markets that are the lifeline for her tribe, and in addressing the major role of Void monster attacks on their caravans, Taliyah forms an unprecedented alliance with Kai’sa ( ring ring @voidhunting pick up the banana phone ) to learn more about the danger beneath the dunes, and to begin stirring up the war drums of her tribes and the other tribes allied with Taliyah’s kin.

- Just as Taliyah is both candid and outspoken when it matters most, so too does she deliver the same intensity to her storytelling antics to her fellow tribesmen and women, of how she spent a fulfilling and moving year with the great, the legendary, the esteemed Master Yasuo of Ionia that had surpassed every single sword wielder that humanity had dared to produce, and whose curiosity and appreciation for the moon was the only reason it wasn’t sliced in half during a solar eclipse. Not surprisingly, when @ronuo‘s Yasuo meets Taliyah after an unmentioned years have passed between them, he will also be subjected to the cult of Taliyah’s peers and tribesmen that have grown up on the tall tales that she has weaved about Yasuo and his adventures.

unprompted. \ @prodigall