Until she passed away from natural causes just a few months ago, Madame Niska Mvashti was the oldest person in Sandpoint. No one quite knows exactly how old the Varisian seer actually was when she died (she was already old when Sandpoint was founded over 40 years ago)—but the fact that her only daughter Koya is herself an old woman is a telling fact. Koya has spent a fair amount of her life traveling Varisia with a number of caravans, serving as a healer when she was younger and more recently as a fortune-teller.
For the past several years, she has been in the company of her adopted son Sandru Vhiski as they travelled on a regular caravan route between Riddleport, Magnimar, and Korvosa two or three times a year. Their caravan spends most of its time relatively close to Sandpoint, though, and that has suited Koya fine, since it gave her more time to care for her aged mother.
Now that old Niska has finally died, though, Koya’s mourning has transitioned into a sort of morose melancholy. A life-long worshiper of Desna, she’s come to realize that while she’s traveled extensively throughout the Varisian lowlands, she’s never been beyond the region’s borders. Tales of other Desnan explorers have long delighted Koya’s sense of wonder—even her own mother reputedly took part in several extensive caravans that traveled as far as the Lands of the Linnorm Kings and even down to Qadira.
Koya has had something of a latelife crisis as a result—a growing sense of disappointment
that she’s never made a long caravan trek. With her mother dead, Koya has little reason to stay in Varisia, and she’s been pressuring Sandru to take a long journey soon: “The sooner the better, ’cause I won’t be around for long!”
Koya is in remarkably good shape, physically, for a woman well over 60 years in age—obviously, longevity runs in her family—but with each year that passes, the chance of her getting to experience a truly epic journey like the ones in her favorite stories grows narrower.
GROUP LINKS:
Rasha (Foster Child): Koya Mvashti has been the nearest thing Rasha has known to a mother: he was found as a wandering waif after the early death of his human (true)mother, and Koya, for reasons Rasha has never quite understood, made considerable efforts to look out for him where possible- teaching him to read and write, and giving him a home when he would accept it. Realising his aptitudes she apprenticed him under the tuition of Faldo, a Scarzarni Hunter, who has improved his woodcraft and bowmanship considerably. Although they have perhaps drifted apart slightly over the last few years, Rasha still holds Koya in high regard, and he is reasonably friendly with her other ‘adopted’ son Sandru Vhiski.
Dinald, Reynald (Friends of Family): the Flambeau’s have been close friends with the Mvashtis for as long as you’ve been alive. Old Niska Mvashti’s death wasn’t all that unexpected— she must have been over a hundred years old, as far as the Twin’s know—but it was a sobering moment nonetheless. What no one else in your family knows, though, is that in the weeks before her death, Niska must have known that her days were numbered, because she called both Twins to her house one day and had them make a promise: If her daughter Koya ever went on a long trip, they would go with her to ensure her safety. Although the chances of Koya going on a long trip seemed remote (she must be at least 60 years old, after all), the Twins made the promise to Niska to accompany her daughter if such an event came to pass. Ever since both Twins have felt a strange sense of destiny looming in their futures—even sometimes thinking that Niska is now watching over their shoulder, just as she asked them to watch over her daughter.
