Moira O'Brien

Moira and Lovette share a tender moment.

**Moira O’Brien** is a Major NPC in the World of Aedron, and a key figure in the life of Lovette Ziniris McKinney-Bodwin, the Player Character of Grem in *Check Please!* season one and season two.

## Status

Moira has appeared in *Check Please!* as a necromantic reconstruction and a mechanical simulacrum; her flesh-and-blood incarnation was comatose when introduced in season one, and eventually succumbed to her longterm illness. The extent to which the reconstruction and simulacrum represent "true" versions of Moira, and whether she can still be considered "alive", remain topics of debate between characters and players alike.

For the purposes of this wiki and simplicity's sake, the original incarnation, the reconstruction, and the simulacrum will all be referred to as Moira, with the specific entity in question identified by the context of the reference to her.

## Biography

### Early Life

Moira was the daughter of Conan O'Brien and Sasha O'Brien, a moderately successful merchant family in the Steam Isle. Although she was born with a debilitating heart condition that made it difficult for her to function on a daily basis, she dreamed of travelling the world, meeting new people and visiting wonderful places. For most of her early life, she was confined to her home, where she was educated by babysitters and personal tutors. When she came of age to enter the gnomish primary schooling system, she convinced her family to admit her to a private school, where her personal doctor would be on call in case anything happened.

School was challenging and lonely for Moira. Having grown up in isolation, she lacked crucial social skills and experiences that alienated her from her peers, and her heart condition made it impossible for her to connect with other students through most activities. She naturally gravitated towards the first group that would accept her, and at the bottom rung of this group she found an unnaturally tall, socially awkward, half-elf named Lovette. Lovette saw past her disability immediately, and when Moira saw how other people treated Lovette, she was quick to protect her and to give her a rare vote of confidence. Moira was fascinated with Lovette’s determination, her refusal to think inside the traditional bounds and her underlying desire to make life better for others. By the time they reached the age of their school’s boarding program, the two were inseparable, spending their free time pouring through books and fantasizing wild adventures.

This continued until Lovette’s thesis project, where she attempted to build a clockwork device that would draw tiny amounts of life force from the environment to magically assist Moira’s heart. For the months leading up to the final date, where she would give a live demonstration of her project, Lovette was obsessive about her work and very reclusive. Moira’s last memories before *The Gray™* are of Lovette’s demonstration in front of a council of judges. Lovette activated the machine, and then Moira felt the life get sucked out of her until she was on the edge of death, in a gray nothingness for several years.

### *Check Please!* Campaign One (Season One)

Moira's condition motivated Lovette to attempt to repair the machine and restore Moira to health. Unfortunately, her best efforts backfired, and the additional untimely and unintended influence of Markus Cupshigh resulted in the gnome's death.

A subsequent combined effort by Hildie and Karis to remove the part of Moira's soul devoured by Markus and reintegrate it into a reanimated body appeared successful for a short time, but had dire consequences.

### *Check Please!* Campaign One (Season Two)

A second recreated version of Moira was introduced in season two, as a mechanical simulacrum built in secret by Lovette. She has since begun to travel with the Party, and most recently expressed concerns about the nature of her existence while dabbling in recreational substances, causing considerable alarm to her creator.

## Anecdotes and offhand traits

* For a few years, Colm and Daria would pull a recurring prank on Lovette where they would pass her fake love letters telling her to wait for someone that wasn’t coming. After a while though, Moira figured out where they were sending her and started meeting Lovette at those places. She’d generally play dumb about knowing the letter was a fake and would usually say something along the lines of, “I wasn’t the one who wrote that letter, but I love you all the same!”

* Moira had a dream of a world where all cultures accepted one another and no one felt alienated because of their birth. Whether or not she actually expected to live long enough to see that dream out… is not something Lovette would know.

* Moira and Lovette have met each other’s families on a few occasions. Moira’s family mostly liked Lovette (before the incident) even if they found her a bit odd, and Moira got along very well with Lovette’s mother, who has travelled the world and also deeply values accepting people of different origins.

* Moira and Lovette would often find themselves in trouble for sleeping in the academy library after a long night of binge-reading together

* Moira was one of two people to consistently say “Lovette” with its traditional pronunciation (which is to say, with the soft “t”s).

* Moira was about as knowledgeable and passionate about world history and cultures as Lovette is about clockwork

* Moira had a list of beautiful or interesting places she wants to see in her lifetime (the Red Plains and the Deadlands were on this list).

* People would often tell Moira she has her dad’s sense of humor. They usually meant it as a compliment, but it generally seemed to irritate her.

* Moira’s fascination with other cultures extended to the races that birthed them, and how their differences affected their beliefs and ideas.

* Moira was generally optimistic, though not naively so. She was notably non-confrontational, and would generally turn the other cheek to most of the bullying she received, saying that making other people feel worse wasn’t going to make her feel any better.

* Colm and Daria would pick on Moira from time to time, but they mostly forgot about her entirely. She generally treated them as friends while quietly doing what she could to protect or separate Lovette from them.

* Moira really liked cute things, especially docile animals. Lovette once tried to sneak a rabbit onto campus for the two of them to keep as a pet… school staff found out about it when Moira got so excited she had another attack and had to be sent to the infirmary.

* Whenever Lovette got down on herself, Moira was almost always there to help her get back on her feet and moving forward. She would often say/imply that Lovette’s future had the potential hers couldn’t.

## Source Citations

1. ↑ *Check Please!* – "A Call to Eden" (C1 S1 E50)
2. ↑ *Check Please!* – "Tilting at Windmills" (C1 S2 E25)