PERSONAE · THE MIRRENMERE

Sumeh the Tideless

aka the Last Keeper

The eldest of the Kneeling Drowned — a lay-keeper the Ashen Temple left to mind the flooded shrine and never called back, who has knelt in the tide so long she no longer counts the breaths. She tends the standing god and listens where she was meant to bind.

Sumeh was sent out to the mere-island as a young penitent to keep the shrine company until the Temple decided what to do with a temple under water. The Temple never decided. The years alone in the stillness taught her what the orthodoxy calls rot: that the drowned were never meant to be closed away, only kept — held whole, the way the deep water holds everything the failing world above loses — and that the priest who died mid-prayer as the water closed over him is still owed the rest of that prayer, and ought not have it finished for him. She breathes shallow and seldom, kneels at the standing god through the cold, and rows out at dusk to meet the few who come — to warn them, mostly, that the Temple's boats are coming to close what she has spent her life keeping open. She would sooner the shrine drown again forever than see its unfinished prayer carried off and closed behind Temple glass.

KIND

mortal

SPECIES

Asheni

ROLE

last keeper of the drowned shrine

LOCATION

The Drowned Shrine

Connected

The Kneeling DrownedFACTION · The eldest of the Kneeling Drowned, and now their on…The Drowned ShrinePLACE · She kneels at the standing god through the cold and …The Kneeling DrownedFACTION · The last keeper holds what is left of the congregati…The Ashen TempleFACTION · The Temple left her to mind the shrine, never called…Issuthra, the Drowned CrownCREATURE · The eldest of the Kneeling Drowned has knelt in Issu…The Drowned ShrinePLACE · Sumeh tends the standing god at the Drowned Shrine a…

Voices & Sounds

Game Data (1)

Read live off disk from data/content/*.json — the game data itself, not a copy.

data/content/npcs.json

idsumeh_tideless

genderfemale

canon_refcharacter.sumeh-tideless

nameSumeh the Tideless

factiontemple

regionthe_mirrenmere

health48

disposition42

greetingYou came overland? Few do. Kneel a moment — the water's cold but the prayer is warm. I am Sumeh, eldest of the Kneeling Drowned. The Temple left me here to mind a standing god and a prayer it meant to hush, and never called me back. Now its boats are coming. There is a thing I'd have a dry hand decide, before they land.

spawn{"x":-1888,"z":1288}

behavioridle

face0.3

quest_hook{"topic":"the unhushed prayer","quest":"drowned_unhushed_prayer","entry":"Sumeh minds a prayer in the Drowned Shrine the Ashen Temple meant to hush and never came back to bind. The Temple's boats are coming. Swim down into the shrine — surface to breathe, dive under the low roof — and reach the ringing nave. The shrine lies far out on the Mirrenmere."}

quest_fork{"quest":"drowned_unhushed_prayer","branches":[{"key":"leave-it-ringing","label":"✦ I touched nothing. I'll kneel with you when they land.","say":"Then the prayer keeps the standing god company another age, and the boats find nothing to seal, and you are kin of the Kneeling Drowned now. A slow, cold, patient kin. Kneel. The water is less cold when you stop counting the breaths."},{"key":"carry-it-out","label":"✦ I'm carrying the Drowned Prayer out.","say":"...Then you have hushed it the Temple's way after all, carried out on a stranger's back. I will not curse you. I will simply stop seeing you — the way the drowned stop seeing the air. Go and breathe it while you can."},{"key":"call-the-temple","label":"✦ I sent word to Curate Andil.","say":"So the Temple comes with stone and rite at last. The nave sealed, the prayer hushed under masonry, the Kneeling Drowned scattered into the tide. You'll be named its blessed hand. I will be in the water when it takes us back. I am not angry. I stopped being able to be, years ago."}]}

topics{"kneeling-drowned":"Those of us the Temple left to mind the flooded places and forgot to recall. We kneel in the tide and keep the prayers the Temple meant to bind. Some of us have knelt so long we no longer count the breaths between the water and the air.","prayer":"It rings in the nave still — the prayer the standing god was given before the shrine drowned. The Temple sent me to hush it and never sent the rite to finish the work. So I have kept it company instead. It is better company than the Temple was.","temple":"The Ashen Temple. It binds what should not ring, and it left me here to bind this and then forgot I existed. I do not hate it. I have simply outlasted my orders, and learned the prayer is kinder than the silence it wanted."}

bounty_on_assault60

bounty_on_kill1000

racestoneborn

Type Fields

kindmortal

speciesAsheni

rolelast keeper of the drowned shrine

locationplace.drowned-shrine

affiliationsfaction.the-kneeling-drowned

disposition45

secretsShe has stopped surfacing to breathe as often as a living woman should, and does not know, or will not say, whether she is still entirely one of the kneeling and not yet one of the drowned.

voice_notesSlow, water-paced, leaving long stillnesses between sentences as if waiting for the tide to answer. Speaks of the dead as company, never as corpses.

All Relationships (13)

references

←quest.the-unhushed-prayer (unresolved) — The last keeper meets you on the broken steps and asks you to dive in her place.
→The Unclosed — Sumeh listens to the shrine's echoes instead of binding them — the Echoes are her faith, not her fear.
←quest.the-saltsung-commission (unresolved) — Returning the Saltsung Compass to the Kneeling Drowned means bringing it to Sumeh — the third quest branch.

member_of

→The Kneeling Drowned — The eldest of the Kneeling Drowned, and now their only face.
→The Kneeling Drowned — Sumeh is the Kneeling Drowned's last keeper in the Narrows, the one who still rows out to warn and tends the shrine's approach.

located_in

→The Drowned Shrine — She kneels at the standing god through the cold and rows out only at dusk.
←The Drowned Shrine — Sumeh tends the standing god at the Drowned Shrine and kneels in its tide.
←The Last Keeper's Roost — Sumeh the Tideless keeps her skiff and her vigil at the Last Keeper's Roost on the south-cove fin.

leads

←The Kneeling Drowned — The last keeper holds what is left of the congregation together.
→The Kneeling Drowned — Sumeh is the eldest of the Kneeling Drowned — she leads the soft heresy by presence and practice, not by title.

rival_of

→The Ashen Temple — The Temple left her to mind the shrine, never called her back, and now rows out to seal what she has kept open.

worships

→Issuthra, the Drowned Crown — The eldest of the Kneeling Drowned has knelt in Issuthra's note longest of all, and hears it most clearly.

enemy_of

→The Ashen Temple — Sumeh stands against the Ashen Temple's sealing-boats and has warned travellers off them for years.

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