Nightshade

## Summary

The leader of The Æschere, the woman who started the revolution against the Omnics and will stop at nothing until they are destroyed.

## History

Nightshade had a happy life before the crisis, she built a strong community within the north east and was seen as an idol but she never let her ego go to her head. She always saw herself as no different from the public and gained and gave a tremendous amount of respect towards anyone she met. These values of humanity were shared with her husband, daughter and son. But tragedy struck when her family was slaughtered by a bastion unit at the beginning of the crisis and Nightshade was forced to flee and leave the corpses of her family.

This changed Nightshade forever, she became ruthless and brutal towards the Omics, none were spared. Nightshade was the first to contact Overwatch for help but they couldn't help and in retaliation, Nightshade formed The Æschere in order to reclaim their homeland and avenge her family. When she found out that her home had been abandoned by the government, she destroyed a statue of the prime minister as both a statement and a warning.

She hates the omnics and secretly created a revenge plan to drive out the omnic menace. She gathered an army of men and women to join her in her war for the north east. After the crisis, the government neglected the north east and left the region to rot. Middlesbrough itself devolved into poverty and drug use, with the north east's legacy of greatness now being overshadowed by a high crime rate.

To Nightshade, The Æschere had to restore order by any means necessary and they did so by using extreme methods to achieve prosperity. Nightshade would capture omnic sympathisers, enslave them, and put them to work rebuilding the north east so it would return to its roots as an industrial powerhouse and so it would provide a home for the survivors of the omnic crisis. It wasn't just the sympathisers who were put to work, everyone in the north east who's unemployed, caught looting, or has commited either-way offenses (theft, burglary and drug offences) or summary offenses (low level motoring offences, disorderly behaviour, and minor assaults) were punished through manual labor for the restoration efforts. More serious crimes were punished by the death penalty.

In private, Nightshade does reveal to Cestrum that she's fully aware of the issues of running a region of a country because The Æschere are ill-equiped to run a government; their healthcare is underequiped to help everyone because they don't have the resources to maintain a region, they can't print their own currency so their economy has crashed, they can't have stable imports and exports because they've isolated themselves from the rest of the UK and aren't recognised as an official government, and their reliance on slavery to run the country forced them to impose martial law to prevent any further rebellions. Nightshade even admits they are severely outmatched against the British army if they ever decided to reclaim the north east.

## Appearance

Nightshade has a soft mullet shag with a fringe that's shouler length and greying red in color. She is the tallest woman in The Æschere, her voice is harsh, and she has fierce, piercing blue eyes. She is muscular, broad-shouldered, and is described by her people as being physically imposing. Nightshade wears her gold wedding ring as a necklace, which has the inscription "Only you" on it. Nightshade wears a long fur collar purple coat over a grey henley shirt. black pants and brown combat boots.

## Personality

Nightshade is a goal orientated and self-driven woman who's always concerned with doing what's necessary over what is ethical. She's an efficient take-charge leader who is able to make decisions in a confident way and then act on them, she hyperorganised and has a no-nonesense attitude towards those under her command so it can boost productivity and implement an effective routine that could restore Middlesbrough into a self-sustaining part of the country. She values efficiency, practicality, and results over everything else when it comes to restoring her home.

She's very meticulous when it comes to solving problems and she always speaks in a controlled manner, appearing calm despite feeling anger, fear, or being upset. She gathers as much information as she can so she further her goals in the most effective way possible, even if that information has to be gathered by underhanded means. She doesn't care for credentials, degrees, seniority, or social status as long as they meet her standards and surpass her expectations. As long as someone proves that they are useful and productive, she will respect them. This attitude of hers does cause some conflict from her subordinates as they expect to respected despite useless and unproductive, which often displays how ruthlessly pragmatic Nightshade can be.

She's hyperfocused on building and understanding a self-sustaining system that could greatly benefit her goal in restoring Middlesbrough to it's former glory and get it out of its status as a backwater town. She hates it when people try to make emotional arguments and sentiments about her and her faction, she's ashamed and disappointed by Datura's drinking habits because he often becomes emotional and oversensitive under the influence. Nightshade needs results and thinks that emotions can get in the way of progress and the plan. However, she insists that she would listen to Datura's concerns if he presented his argument with reason and objective information.

Nightshade believes knowledge is power and will often gather information through spying and esponiage, treating every bit of knowledge and information with all seriousness, allowing to come up with solutions for outside the box problems. Nightshade wants to control Middlesbrough and restore its glory because she genuinely believes that she's the only one who truly cares about it, as it was destroyed by the omnics, the inhabitants had their lives ruined through collateral damage, and the north east was left to rot by the British government.

Nightshade has a direct style of speech, often getting straight to the point and frequently states her opinion in an open, honest, and direct way. She prefers not to sugarcoat her words as she believes that it misdirects people and causes misunderstandings, which will result in the halt of progress. This has caused issues with her children, Datura and Hemlock, because she often ignores their emotions by expressing affection rationally. Under Cestrum's influence, she has been trying to overcome this despite initially appearing as if she is play-acting with her childrens desire for validation and approval.

Despite her love of knowledge, she only seeks what's useful to her and only seeks knowledge for an ulterior motive. She doesn't actually have a deep knowledge on how to rebuild a society. A majority of her successes came from stubbornness, willpower, and her own work ethic. Despite her reserved appearance, she deeply values the opinions of her people and is worried that she's no longer the hero her country needs. She flaunts her achievements to Overwatch so she can belittle them, despite them firmly believing that she's one of many villains they have to deal with.

Nightshade genuinely wishes to help her people and is sincere in her altruistic beliefs, she just presents her arguments in a rational way so it can be done efficiently and minimise human suffering in the future. Despite her citicism of her children, she sees a lot of potential in both of them and roots for them whenever they are confronted with a problem, even though itoften results in a lengthy monologue about what they are doing wrong and how they could improve themselves for the better. At best she is seen as overbearing and self-righteous because she invested a lot of time, resources, wealth and effort in raising them to be effective members of The Æschere.

When exchanging dialogue with other members of The Æschere, she displays an awkward sense of humor, often making dark or surreal jokes that ranges from silly to pushing boundaries that would garantee a shocked reaction that she could laugh at. She exchanges dry wit, sarcasm, insults, and mocking jokes with Ceestrum so they can playfully one-up each other and build a rapport. Cestrum is her closest friend and confidant, and is the only one she is willing to make these kind of jokes with.

Nightshade is apathetic to the world's problems and is resentful towards Overwatch and the British Government, often speaking to them with a "my way or the highway" attitude. She often sees her people as just a statistic and a means to an end once they get in her way or lose their value. When she's angry at her children, she voices her disappointment in them and shows that she has impossibly high expectations of them, often believeing that they owe her and should exceed those expectations of hers out of gratitude. She's infuriated by ineffiency and becomes increasingly infuriated when she finds a problem she cannot solve.

Nightshade's flaw is that she cannot look weak to anyone, she will kill anyone she deems a weak link in her plans and will make decisions that boost productivity, despite it being to the detriment of her longterm plans and mental health because of their lack of practicality. She's inconsiderate of others and doesn't consider how people might feel about being forced to work and fight for a facist hate group. She wants to bolster her image as the savior of Middlesbrough despite it festering resentment and bitterness from her people.

Like many members of The Æschere, she has her criticism of Overwatch as she believes the organisation spread itself too thin by trying to police the entire globe rather than just watching their own country and dealing with their own problems. To Nightshade, Overwatch was spread so thin that they didn't realize it was collapsing under its own weight. Nightshade also critises Reinhardt's inclusion in the organisation because he was never officially invited to join, Balderich was and Reinhardt simply took his place once he was killed in battle. Rather than go through due process and look into Balderich's death for any foul play, they just let Reinhardt join Overwatch.

## Weapons

Nightshade has a Colt AR-15 assault rifle, it has 30 rounds and does 15 points of damage per shot.

## Playstyle

Nightshade has to be played as part of a pack. She's able to strengthen her allies and boost their endurance. If she dies within their radius then they are healed by 150 points.

## Passive Ability: Martyr

When Nightshade dies with nearby teammates. They are healed by 150 points, alternatively, if they are at full health or reach full health with points remaining, they are placed as a temporary shield. Teammates must be within 15m to gain this effect and ability will not activate if Nightshade isn't killed by an enemy player or when she falls off a platform.

## Abilities

Nightshade is the second support hero to be unfocused on healing based offensive abilities but Nightshade offers boosts to attack and damage resistance which acts similarly to Lucio's abilities. The first is Symmetra.

* **Dinner Bell!:** Nightshade boosts to the attack power of her teammates by 35% when they are within her 10-meter radius. This acts continuously and has no cooldown.
* **Hold Back!:** Nightshade boosts to the damage resistance of her teammates by 35% when they are within her 10-meter radius. This acts continuously and has no cooldown.
* **Embargo:** Nightshade prevents targets from healing and they can't use abilities either. This takes 14 seconds to recharge and last 6 seconds.

## Ultimate

*"Get your teeth into it!"*

**Vox Populi:** Nightshade increases the attack power of her allies by 50% and makes them immune to damage. She moves twice as fast, automatically restores her allies to full health when they are in her radius, and she deals 250 damage with her weapon. The ultimate lasts for 7 seconds.

## Reference

* Her voice-line "We're the shepherds, not the savages" is from the Far Cry 3 trailer for Vaas and Buck.
* Doomfist's interaction "Have you been tending to your hounds?" is a reference to Skyrim.
* Her voice-line "Release the hounds" is a reference to The Simpsons.
* Her interaction with Zenyatta "Do you also know that the human eye can see more shades of green than any other colour?". This is a reference to Lorne Malvo from season 1 of Fargo.

## Trivia

* Susan Silo was chosen as Nightshade's voice actress because of her role as Vallory from Tales From the Borderlands.
* In the development of her lore, Bastion was intended to be the killer of Nightshade's family but it didn't make sense in how Bastion ended up in Germany and how she would recognise it. The lore was redesigned for Bastion to be Nightshade's everlasting reminder of her family's death.
* Nightshade is a type of poisonous plant that has unpredictable effects.
* Winston regards Nightshade and The Æschere as a splinter faction of Talon due to their power and cooperation.
* Nightshade's personality type is the ENTJ