Miriam Bakhtavar

Full Name: Miriam Bakhtavar
Species: Vampire - Psi (former un-Cursed human (Psi), Sonngefilder)
Allegiance: True Allegiance Psi Collective, Forced Allegiance Vampire Syndicate (broken after the death of Braddock)
Religion: Theist (Church of the Great Mother)
Social Status: 4

Age: Born in ~1820 CR
Eyes: Dark Gray
Hair: Long, straight, black
Height: unknown

Physical Notes: Dusky skin; appears to be in her early 20s. Miriam's egoist abilities allow her to mimic the bodily functions of a living person, including heartbeat and perspiration, when she has a need to do so.

Behavioral Notes: Obsessive-Compulsive (after becoming a vampire)

Supernatural Abilities: Skilled psi- high level egoist, strong telepathy; standard vampire abilities, including domination gaze and shape-shifting into mist form. Due to her strong egoist abilities, she effectively stopped aging decades before Making the Cut.


Introduction

Miriam was one of the mysterious Elders of the Psi Collective. She was the Head Mistress of Westfall Academy, one of the Psi Collective's crèches, and she seemed to have a motherly attitude with the students, especially Abbey Preston. She assisted the Sommers Cell multiple times, and was the contact through which they got a number of missions for the Collective.

She also crossed the wrong vampire.

Background

Miriam was one of the founding Elders of the Psi Collective, which formed in the early 1900s. Before that, though, she lived and worked in the mundane world, where she put her "mentalist" abilities to good use. From about 1845 to 1885 she served as an intelligence operative for the nation of Sondeshara.

Miriam worked a number of missions alongside Liam ard'Taxis, later known as Artax, who was a spy for the Empire of Metamor in their elite Brightleaf Division. Miriam distinguished herself during this time with her keen intellect, uncanny senses and extreme athletic ability. The existence of psionics as something separate from magic was just beginning to be understood in those days, and egoists were completely unheard of. Miriam eventually confessed to Liam about her mentalist abilities, who promised to keep them a secret in order to keep her government from forcing her to use them in ways she hated.

Miriam and Liam became very close, but their relationship never turned romantic: Miriam knew that mentalists who slept with non-mentalists often had trouble removing them from their minds afterwards. The fact that they were never able to take their relationship further was a source of some dismay for both of them, but they comforted themselves in the knowledge that it was probably better to keep things professional anyway. The fact that Liam was forty years older than she was, interestingly, never a factor in the relationship.

Making the Cut

During Making the Cut, Miriam gave the ill-fated Matthias Skyport raid mission to the Sommers cell, based on Victor hin'Kavos's recommendations. Miriam also attempt to help the cell several times after this, partially in recognition that the mission was a bad job to begin with (which wsa particularly evident after Victor runs off with Abbey).

This help to the team that stole from Viscount Security and made Malcolm ard'Valos lose face, and her abilities as a psi, lead Malcolm to order his scion Braddock to capture then turn Miriam into a vampire.

Upon waking from her first sleep as a vampire, she is immediately given a thrall by Malcolm, then is given some of his blood. Later, when alone with her thrall, Miriam almost has to pull the name from the young woman's mind, because the thrall had been so broken by Malcolm. Miriam helps this thrall, Leena, rebuild a new sense of self over time.

By the end of Making the Cut, Miriam has taken in six more thralls, including a telepath and a mundie who end up having sex with each other and are locked into a gestalt, and another telepath (a senior from Westfall Academy named Erin Parker). Most of these thralls she took in to cover her secret double life.

She is ordered by Malcolm to bring in Brian and Fiona for their part in the raid on Viscount. During the trap she is forced to lay for them, she ends up fighting Brian, Fiona, and Daniel (who she didn't know was going to be there when planning things) in the commuter tunnel between the Connelly and Hutchins Towers. Miriam is staked by Daniel during this fight.

Miriam's body goes missing, and no one else knows that she's in a coma of sorts under Artax and Leena's care.

Sire

Braddock

Known Childer

None

Thralls

  • Seralina (Leena) Grayhaven
  • Peter/Sarah (the psi and mundane, respectively, mentioned above who locked into a gestalt by having sex)
  • Erin Parker, psi, senior at Westfall
  • three others, unnamed

Known Allies

Known Enemies

  • none at the time: she is in stake-induced stasis
  • When she wakes up, Malcolm ard'Valos is in trouble…

Story Appearances

Making the Cut

Sources

Making the Cut, Artax

Author's Notes

Voice Actor

Miriam Bakhtavar is initially voiced by Martha Puskas, then by Paulette Jaxton.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License