Anybody managed to get any good uses out of my homegirl Nya'shish?

[John Constantine 949]

Hi. I was wondering if anybody managed to get any good uses out of Nya'shish and lived to tell the tale. I am horribly behind on packs at the moment and I don't think I'll be catching up any time soon, until I find a new job at the very least, so I haven't got the chance to use her at the moment, but I hope someone else did.

[farealh 12]

2 hours ago, John Constantine said:

Hi. I was wondering if anybody managed to get any good uses out of Nya'shish and lived to tell the tale. I am horribly behind on packs at the moment and I don't think I'll be catching up any time soon, until I find a new job at the very least, so I haven't got the chance to use her at the moment, but I hope someone else did.

I'd be interested in a nice (hopefully "thematic" if possible) decklist featuring her as well

[Authraw 563]

I used her in a thematic deck I built to beat Nightmare Peril in Pelargir for my blog:

http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/5761/have-you-tried-mercenary-work-it-might-suit-you-1.0

It's not really a general purpose deck; it would work as a combat deck or a battle-questing deck, though. 

Edited September 25, 2017 by Authraw

[PocketWraith 527]

Nope, but I've made some good use of Na'asiyah.

http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/5964/the-path-to-redemption-1.0
https://wardenofarnor.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/deck-the-path-to-redemption/

[donkler 199]

I'm really being honest here, calling one of the only POC characters in the game "homegirl" and continuing to willfully misspell this one particular character's name in a universe known for its weird names does not look great.

[John Constantine 949]

I wish I knew what POC is. I also give no worries about the way it looks.

 

Authraw and PocketWraith - good read, folks. Anything personal you might add from your experience past those articles you've linked?

Did you try her outside of the Battle quests, Authraw?

The deck you described, PocketWraith, felt like Nya'shish just fit in it but wasn't actually an essential part of it, and could be substituted by someone else, possibly even of another sphere.

[Rouxxor 250]

34 minutes ago, John Constantine said:

I also give no worries about the way it looks.

It is really not a behavior to be proud of. If you really don't care about hurting people you don't do the necessary for not doing this, so you don't mind if people suffer because of you.

In this particular case it is a sexist move to call her homegirl. You should realize that.

[Gizlivadi 1,065]

33 minutes ago, John Constantine said:

I wish I knew what POC is.

Use your imagination. Or Google, for that matter.

[Gizlivadi 1,065]

Just now, Rouxxor said:

sexist

Lol, actually not really (again). It's a whole other issue. But hey, people like to get angry at anything these days, so even if they don't really know what exactly is offensive about something, they still wanna feel offended.

Edited September 25, 2017 by Gizlivadi

[Rouxxor 250]

@John Constantine POC, according to my search is People of Color.

@GizlivadiWhat your point? You're taunting both of us and you're not even capable of giving your own opinion.

[Gizlivadi 1,065]

My point is perfectly inferable in both of my posts. As for John Constantine, I think this (calling her Nyashish) is pretty much just a joke he's only telling to himself because it's not funny. It's dumb and not even worth getting that worked up over IMO. As for your post, you specify that calling her "homegirl" is a sexism/gender issue. It's not. You said it yourself, by defining what POC means. I hope that's enough spelling out of my point.

[dalestephenson 1,147]

I had to Goggle POC, but I'm not sure how I would recognize Na'asiyah as a "Person of Color".  She appears fair-skinned to me for what it's worth, and I think it's worth exactly zero in the context of Middle Earth.  Aside from Khaliel, I think Nori and Ori have the darkest skin, for anyone who cares.

Whether it's disrespectful or humorous to intentionally misspell a character's name is a separate issue.  My tolerance for this is certainly higher for FFG-created characters, and her name is easily the most likely to be mangled of the FFG creations.

[Gizlivadi 1,065]

2 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

I had to Goggle POC, but I'm not sure how I would recognize Na'asiyah as a "Person of Color".  She appears fair-skinned to me for what it's worth, and I think it's worth exactly zero in the context of Middle Earth.  Aside from Khaliel, I think Nori and Ori have the darkest skin, for anyone who cares.

Whether it's disrespectful or humorous to intentionally misspell a character's name is a separate issue.  My tolerance for this is certainly higher for FFG-created characters, and her name is easily the most likely to be mangled of the FFG creations.

While I agree with your second paragraph, I actually do think whether they could be considered POC or not in the context of the game matters. That is one of the reasons they created Kahliel in the first place. It's because of the obvious parallels between cultures in fantasy series and cultures of the real world. Na'asiyah may not be fully Haradrim like Kahliel, but she's a corsair of Umbar, who are of a different culture and race from the European-like Rohirrim, Gondorians, etc, (that is, Southern-Eastern) . Considering the term "POC" is intentionally broader than others, yes, I actually do think for all intents and purposes, Na'asiyah could be considered to be a "POC".

[dalestephenson 1,147]

Umbar's a bit of a special case as points south goes in the lore.  It was long a Numenorean outpost before the island fell, and was a central location in the Gondorian civil war.  While the Royal line may be extinct in Umbar, Numenorean blood is certainly there.  In short, I don't think we can assume that someone from Umbar *is* a visibly differently race than the free men of the West, and Na'asiyah herself does not appear to be a different race to me.

Different culture I'll happily grant, and with Kahliel and Na'asiyah we certainly see heroes not drawn from the lore's men of the west; with this and the sympathetic portrayal of the Dunlendings we see that the game is finding enemies of Sauron among all of Iluvatur's children and I applaud that; I look forward to seeing Easterlings in the same role as well.  But distinctions between races of men really isn't much of a driver in Tolkien's world.  Tolkien's races (e.g. elves, dwarves, men, hobbits, ents) are actually biologically distinct, unlike the slight differences between "races" of men, and the tensions and interaction between them have a prominent role in the lore.

[Gizlivadi 1,065]

I personally think Na'asiyah has a definite eastern look which was intended by the art direction, and which I think is great, I mean, her coolness alone is the main reason to try this hero (haven't had much success myself).

As for Númenorean blood in Umbar, it's definitely there, but consider that it was mostly among the nobility, as well as that by the third millenium of the Third Age, Umbar was moslty populated by Haradrim. You can see that by looking at lots of the art depicting corsairs (Haradrim Pirate from FOTW and Serpent's Blade come to mind.) If Na'asiyah herself has any Númenorean blood, I think it's very faint.

[dalestephenson 1,147]

I can see the "eastern look" in the Haradrim Pirate art, but not really in Serpent's Blade.  While Umbar was founded by Numenoreans rather than just ruled by them, I'll accept the "Black Numenoreans" merged with the locals (as did the high men of Gondor) and it's reasonable to suggest that the proportion of Numenorean blood among any particular Umbar native may be quite small -- but that doesn't change the fact that both Na'asiyah and some other characters are (as far as I can tell) depicted as light-skinned, and cannot be distinguish from the other men in the game by skin color alone.

Haradrim just means Southron and any of the men south of Gondor would be called such no matter what that their skin color.  While the lore dictates that there be dark-skinned Haradrim, it also suggests variation in shade and nowhere rules out light-skinned Haradrim.  The Black Numenoreans were not called that for racial reasons; their appearance should be similar to their northern cousins.  But there's really no evidence from the lore that skin color variations among men had any significance whatsoever.  The High Men were portrayed as a special class of man with unusual gifts (like Aragorn's very extended life span), but that had zero to do with their looks.  I think using the term "person of color" when describing LOTR characters risk introducing a white/non-white distinction that I believe is neither justified by the lore nor useful in making the game more enjoyable to play.  YMMV.

[John Constantine 949]

9 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

It is really not a behavior to be proud of. If you really don't care about hurting people you don't do the necessary for not doing this, so you don't mind if people suffer because of you.

In this particular case it is a sexist move to call her homegirl. You should realize that.

I'm neither proud nor ashamed of it. It is just the way it is. If you're hurt just because I couldn't remember her name properly during the time she was spoiled, and then my substitute nickname for her stuck because it sounded kinda cool (to me, obviously) - then jokes on you. You are deliberately choosing to be hurt by something that has no intention to hurt you.

Also, sexist? What? I googled just in case I had the term "homegirl" wrong, but it turned out I had it right: "homegirl - a girl who is a friend to the end, no matter what goes down you know SHE GOT YOUR BACK". I can't even begin to imagine what exactly sexist about that. Please, save your SJW impulses for those cases where they are applicible at the very least. Also, oh the irony, being a SJW is really not a behavior to be proud of.

 

9 hours ago, Gizlivadi said:

Use your imagination. Or Google, for that matter.

I did at that time, google returned "proof of concept", which made no sense in the context.