#shamani lohmani

[bloodsworn-marshal]

Shamani

[gridanian-red-mage]

You know what? I think he's neat.

[plenary-indulgence]

added another npc alt to my stable since everyone else was doing it lol

[onwesterlywinds]

PROMPT #19: Taken

This is a special prompt: September 19, 2024 marks the tenth anniversary of Lights' Little Machines, an album that has been both formative to Ashelia Riot's character development (especially during 2.X) and also deeply influential to me at a difficult time in my life.

Up in the current and taken in whole I've been struggling, strangling, others in tow Have my eyes gone missing? Contains sexual themes.

Ashelia had just finished making Ludo a cup of tea in the way she knew he liked it - oversteeped by her standards, with only a dash of cream, never milk - when Ludo himself returned to the Sandsea in the coat he usually wore for his private ventures. Wherever he had gone, it was well beyond Thanalan: he was dripping wet with rain, but the drought in the Goblet continued unabated.

She had not even known he had left the manse after their argument the previous evening.

"Hey," he said, and sheepishly held up a bottle of Wineport red by its neck. "Got you a nightcap."

She stared at the label in a cursive script she still could not read, then at his eager face. "It's seven in the morning."

Ludo glanced to the clock on the wall, then winced. "In my defense, it seemed like a much better idea about… five bells ago."

He walked over to the bar, dripping all over the hardwoods, but she had none of the requisite energy to call him out for it. As he sank onto his preferred stool, she slid the cup of tea over to him - and the more he drank from it, the more his warmth slowly returned to his pale face.

"Where did you even get a Shamani Lohmani exclusive in the middle of the night?" she asked at length.

"Costa del Sol. Where else?"

"Dare I ask how much such a thing cost?"

"I'd rather you didn't raise your voice at me again, so, no."

"I wasn't-"

Whatever protest she'd been so certain of making abandoned her at the expression on his face.

"Fine," she conceded. "…Thank you for the wine."

"Thank you for the tea. And I'm sorry."

She leaned against the bar top, leaned in closer to him, but turned her head toward the eastern window to catch the first rays of dawn.

"When you first told me about Little Ala Mhigo, and the Corpse Brigade-"

"Stop."

To his credit, he did - but even she did not know what she meant to say instead. For a long while, longer even than she'd meant, she stared out the window, at the half-hearted little garden she'd begun on the lawn outside.

"I was fifteen years old," she said, "when Gundobald pulled me out of weapons training and ordered me to watch over a child sick with an infection in his lungs. There weren't enough hands or supplies to go around, and I was already a better fighter than most of his Resistance soldiers."

Ludo reacted to this claim without any trace of skepticism, or any overt emotion at all.

"At first I thought it a punishment, for… gods, I can't even remember what anymore. But he was so frail, and I…" She breathed in deep. "I'd go out into the desert to look for anything that could help him, even if it was only a cactus leaf. I even went north and stole from a potion merchant at swordpoint. Only he died all the same, and his ma blamed me for it, and I never-"

"Ashe-"

"Don't interrupt me, Ludo."

"Ashe," he said again, with enough gentleness to make her heart ache. "I understand."

She slammed her open palm onto the bar. "You don't! You don't understand!"

"I understand that you're a much better leader than you let on." The words stunned her into a silence heavy enough to grant Ludo his own opening. "And it's because you're grieved by the ones you couldn't save. Not in spite of it."

She had not come to the bar to fight; even so, the last bit of argument, of refusal, of denial fled from her. Ludo leaned over the counter, and the fingers that grazed her ear as he tucked back a bit of her hair were warm from holding his half-finished mug of tea.

"Can I say just one more thing?" he whispered. "Just one more, and then we put all this behind us."

It was, as ever, hard to refuse him with his mouth so close to hers. "Fine."

"I overstepped in inviting Wilred to the Riskbreakers. I get that. But I did it because I know you'd be a good influence for him. Despite what your people think about you, or what you think about yourself."

She sighed, and the exhalation became something far more intimate than she'd intended as he pressed his lips to hers. The sharp taste of tannins on his tongue served to invigorate her in turn.

Ludo broke apart from her solely to clamber over the bar and slide down at her side, to run his hand up her skirt as he planted open-mouthed kisses along her bared shoulders and neck. The rest of him, still wet from the rain, was not nearly as warm: he laid a hand along her upper back in what might have been a soothing gesture, only for him to lean her over the bar and hold her in place while he pulled her pantalettes down.

"Fuck," she breathed.

"What's that?" he murmured into her ear. His long, damp hair tickled as it fell against her skin. "You want me to fuck you? Right here, on the bar?"

Doubtless he'd been dreaming of this since well before their argument, if the press of his cock against her arse was any indication. She turned her head to the side, only barely enough for their faces to meet.

"…You'll never get me to say it," she declared, and kissed him with enough fervor to push all thoughts of apology - and of Little Ala Mhigo - from her mind.

[meowww-ffxiv]

#FFXIVWrites2024

Prompt 1: Steer

.

Private dining with the Admiral of Limsa Lominsa was a surprisingly utilitarian affair.

No one pulled the chair out for Mordred. The array of dishes, though prepared by the Bismarck, were seafood and wheat bread and fresh fruits sourced from around La Noscea. The wine was the only thing that drew the Warrior of Light's attention, for it came from the fields of Eastern La Noscea.

He smiled as he took his seat. "Shamani Lohmani had gotten his vineyard going, it seems."

Across from him, Merlwyb divested herself of her gloves, stowed them, and picked up her knife. Like most Lominsan sailors, she didn't bother with forks. The foods prepared were also made to be suitable for such a style, and the way she speared a fish and wrapped it around a piece of bread, then bit into it, made Mordred think she could exchange her gallant black coat for a billowing shirt and go right down to the docks with the lads any days.

Once she finished chewing, she tasted the wine -- poured into a wooden, if well-made cup -- and hummed. "As you said. When Bloodshore was first abandoned by farmers, I had thought much of Eastern La Noscea is likewise barren. It's heartening to see that wasn't the case."

Dinner thus officially commenced by the captain, Mordred picked up his own knife.

He knew Merlwyb watched him, though not with the intensity she would have scrutinized sea charts with. The entire affair could be called one giant curiosity, anyway. Mordred didn't know why the Admiral would see fit to ask him to dine with her, when being Warrior of Light aside, he had no involvement in the governance of Limsa Lominsa or Vylbrand.

He'd had half a mind to decline it, but Theodore -- his fellow Warrior of Light, who was not invited -- had gasped in horror at the thought of Mordred turning down a state leader for a meal.

So, here he was.

"I hear you prepared some of these dishes yourself," Merlwyb said.

"Kind of. I was in the kitchen, just in case--" taking a full bite of the herbs-crusted fish instead of taste-testing it was like putting paradise in your mouth, "--since, you know."

She smiled wryly. "I doubt anyone on this star would have the gall to accuse you of murdering me, for what it's worth."

"It doesn't matter who does the deed, Admiral," Mordred said. "Only that your life is lost."

Merlwyb closed her eyes. Her smile faded, expression falling somber. Then she rose from her seat and slowly strode to the nearby window, hands clasped behind her back.

For a long moment, she was silent, staring out to sea. The lighthouse blinked in the spreading dusk, the brightest man-made star to guide ships home beneath a sea of its greater kinds, made small and ornamental by their distance from Eitherys. The wind tasted of salt and of home, ruffling Merlwyb's pale hair, Mordred's sleeve.

"I considered the possibility that you would intervene, when I parlayed with the kobold patriarch with my life," Merlwyb said eventually. She turned to him. "You have my thanks, for holding your peace."

Mordred inclined his head.

Merlwyb studied him for a moment. Then, seemingly satisfied with whatever answer she divined of his silence, she returned to her seat. "I was told you grew up here, in Limsa Lominsa," she said. "Not the kindness childhood?"

"Not the easiest," Mordred replied. He took another bite of fish, then started on the escargot sautéed in white wine sauce. "But so what? Running with me mates on the streets while the sun bakes us, chasing dodos, harassing the Yellowjackets--"

Merlwyb chuckled.

"What was your plan, if the kobold patriarch killed you?" Mordred asked her. "You couldn't have expected this city to not go to war over it. The kobolds might well have been wiped out in a fit of opportunistic or heartfelt rage from your pirates."

"The story wouldn't have emerged as such," Merlwyb replied. "Another leader in waiting would have taken my place, and implemented plans in waiting. Even without me to steer it, this great ship of Vylbrand would not have run aground." She picked up her knife again, studying it. "Such is the lot of a leader, not just a captain. To build towards a future where you are no longer needed."

Mordred paused. "You're not about to tell me you're retiring, are you?"

Merlwyb barked laugh. "Hah! I would not have announced it to a stranger before my own crew. No offense, Warrior of Light."

She watched him heave a sigh of relief, amused, then took another bite. "Rest assured that I'm not going to make any requests of you today, outside of the one I already made of your presence here." Merlwyb glanced out the balcony again, at the sea and the port stretching into the far darkness. "The Rising is upon us. It puts an old woman in the mood of reminiscing."

Why, Mordred wanted to ask.

Yet the reasoning seemed obvious to him, at the same time.

So he poured more of Shamani Lohmani's wine into his cup, just a little, and said, "We should've ordered ale."

Merlwyb chuckled. She clapped her hands, and an officer stepped in, saluting. "You heard our guest," she jerked her chin at him. "Ale! Baderon's finest."

[before-calamity]

Shamani Lohmani

A quick one for tonight. In ARR, they had a habit of taking existing NPCs from 1.0 and reusing them for people in 2.0. Yuyuhase was one, as was Shamani Lohmani. Shamani Lohmani in 1.0 is just hanging out in the puglist's guild. I can't even remember what he said, but nothing that would lead you to believe he was gonna be a part of the Company of Heroes. And as anyone who played 2.0, Shamani Lohmani is a blind vinter who was blinded from fighting primals with the Company of Heroes. Here he is just a lalafell. Not even a special lalafell. Just a lalafell who happens to be a pugilisst.

[kaerran]

#22: Fulsome

[this year i'm struggling a lot this kinda sucks :( i do not recall the exact details of this quest, and gamerescape doesn't have the cutscene text soooo i uhhhh avoided the prompt again… something something insincerity something everything about the ivalice wine quests is insincere and gegeruju is doubly so. i did a SIMILAR prompt last year but it focused on something else so this isn't precisely a rehash]

Qahs'a was definitely dragging his feet on the way back to La Noscea.

Sure, they were right, he felt a little guilty over giving Gegeruju fake wine but…. Gegeruju not only hadn't noticed, but had pointedly been trying to scam him back.

Much like Hancock, actually. Were all merchants the same?

When Shamai Lohmani mentioned "if only" he'd stopped the entire thing, Qahs'a feels another flash of resentment. It's true. Why didn't he step in? Qahs'a thought Shamani had been kinder, back when the Company of Heroes had believed more in obstruction than action.

It was almost enough for Qahs'a to call the entire thing off. He really was doing it for his own conscience, which was nearly outweighed by his resentment by this point.

Qahs'a sucked in a breath and steeled himself for another conversation with a man he wasn't sure deserved the amount of consideration he was getting.

[sunny-jade]

Lili's Connections

I have decided my popoto will be well connected. Pipin's wife/girlfriend, therefore can get close to the Mandervilles. Julyan is a friend and mentor, as well as Godbert (CUL and GSM).

Lili has come across Nanamo on her trips out of the palace, so she likes to help her do that, keeping her safe while she's out. Cause it's fun to sneak Nanamo out under the noses of Papashan and whoever else.

Her cousin is Shamani Lohmani, she works with him to identify more potent plants (Cause his sense of smell and she's a botanist) for food and her alchemy.

And she's friends with Momodi, Miounne and Merlwyb because I can and I like them.

She's also connected to the tribes and is very well known and liked in Little Ala Mhigo because she took the time to earn their trust.

I'm sure there's more, but this is what's off the top of my head.

[travelling-hydaelyn]

Company of Heroes: Shamani Lohmani

[autumnslance]

I think the writers of this quest forgot one teensy, tiny, minor detail about our favorite vintner....

That, or Shamani’s found a miraculous cure for his combat-inflicted blindness.

[tarotbyte]

i keep falling in love with minor npcs in ffxiv. and like i think my lala has a thing for people involved in the making or selling of alcohol even though he himself does not drink. ive fallen for a bartender and a wine connoisseur

[windupnamazu]

would you sing it back to me?

ffxivwrite2021 #10: heady

⮞ lunya/g'raha with very loving mentions of «balefire». 872 words. ⮞ between 5.3 and endwalker. alcohol cw. ⮞ lunya would like to indulge herself tonight, as a treat. g'raha disagrees.

heady: tending to intoxicate or make giddy or elated.

The champagne glittered beneath the fairy lights strung between the rooftops of Revenant's Toll. Lunya's sigh was nearly a purr of content as she languidly tipped her tulip glass toward the light, admiring the colour. Alcohol was a rare, rare indulgence for her—she could count the number of glasses she'd drank since the Banquet on her hands and lacked the trust to allow strangers to serve her drinks most days. Today was different, and she happily took the moment to admire her liquor over the clamour of the Toll before taking a long sip. It was a sweet thing, with fruity notes she was eager to taste more of, and—

"That's enough for you, I think," a warm, euphorically familiar voice said as a hand reached out and plucked the glass from hers. G'raha slipped back into his seat beside her and placed the champagne by his own glass, out of her arm's reach. With his face flushed with the effort of dancing—getting flinged around, really, first by Rjoli's enthusiasm, then Zaya nearly pincering him with their horns, followed by Reese accidentally stepping on his feet, and finally Hanami taking a great deal of pleasure from deliberately doing so to the beat of the bards—and heat radiating off of him like the sun itself, he unclipped his cape, slipping it over her exposed shoulders before wrapping an arm around her.

"I've only had one glass," she sulked, greedily soaking in his warmth. Evenings in Mor Dhona grew chilly fast and while she could get a shawl from the Rising Stones she was more than pleased to be doted on.

"Champagne gets you drunk faster than wine. I won't let this be the night you finally trip off some scaffolding," he told her with stern fondness, just loud enough for her to hear over the raucous chatter of their guests. "And pray forgive my presumption, but I'm sure you want to be able to stand for the rest of the party."

Well, yeah. But this was a special occasion, and the spirits were a gift from the Company of Heroes—she'd done more than her fair share of playing Lady of the Fetch for Shamani Lohmani and his wine-guzzling clients over the years; damn in particular that couple on the Prima Vista and their stinking bacon breads. It was Lunya's time to drink.

Determined to say so and get her champagne back, she looked up and was immediately floored by the image of G'raha before her. For as long as she'd known him he'd favoured reds and blacks, with golds and whites as mere accents in the overall scheme. Tonight, he glowed in the white barong she wove by hand for him, floral embroidery cascading down his shoulders and thighs in shimmering gold. Little crystals tangled in his braid glinted in the fae-light, glowing softly like the Tower in the distance, tucked between the sprigs of hydrangeas that formed a crown in his hair. He was a prince straight from the pages of a fairytale, regal and beautiful, and ohhhh boy was she in love with him.

Overcome by a dizzying sense of glee, she seized him by the arm. "Raha," she said, mouth dry as she leaned toward him. Her hand didn't even wrap halfway around his wrist, and he slipped his arm back to twine their fingers together. Smooth bastard, making her heart do a Lominsan jig like this—"I have a crush on you."

G'raha blinked at her, his face a wonderful shade of pink and his confusion so endearingly evident. The tip of his tail twitched across her bare thigh. "We're married, Lu. Twice, as a matter of fact. And this is our wedding reception—I surely hope you do."

Lunya giggled and twirled a lock of hair around her finger and over her wedding and engagement rings. "Ehehe."

With a shake of his head, her husband lifted her chin. Wearing an impish grin he'd surely credit to learning from her, he said lowly, "The good news is that I happen to have a crush on you too."

Her face split in an identical grin. "Nooo, shut up," Lunya wailed with sparkling eyes, pounding her fist against his shoulder. It was the dumbest thing to get embarrassed about but she still found her face heating up anyway and that only served to fuel the fire.

"In fact, my inspiration, my moon, stars, and endless sea," G'raha continued heartily, holding her chin firmly so she couldn't break direct eye contact. As if she wanted to. "I must admit that my feelings go beyond a crush—I am deeply, madly in love with you—"

And then Lunya nearly shrieked as it hit her.

"No, wait, you're trying to change the subject!" she gasped, cupping her burning cheeks in her hands. "I love you too, give me back my champagne!"

"I'm the one changing the subject?!"

The party went on uninterrupted, none bothered by the hysterical laughter of the bride clambering onto her chuckling groom's lap to snag the glass of champagne he was holding far above her reach. To their friends, it was laughter well-earned—laughter they hoped would follow them both far into the uncertain future.

Above the Toll, the full moon shone bright.

[chrysalispen]

Prompt #10 - Avail

AO3 Link HERE

===

"Why is it," he murmured, "that we invariably end up on our backs over a bottle of wine?"

Tucked securely against his side, the Warrior of Light's laugh was a sweet and half-inebriated warble.

"Because you're using me for my worldly and well-traveled wine cellar. Remember?"

The Azim Steppe was so remote that there existed almost no light from any neighboring settlements, and the only sound for miles was the occasional faint whuffling noise of a nearby dzo herd left out to free graze. Nero preferred, largely, to surround himself with tools and steel and the other assorted trappings of industry - or, at least, some reasonable facsimile thereof. For example, the small room with his piles of books and drafting desk that he'd moved into her house long months past.

He'd spent his formative years in the middle of nowhere, had less than fond associations with his boyhood as a result (with one or two notable exceptions), and had estranged himself sufficiently from his former life that he thought he had little care to repeat the experience. That said: there was something to be said for the simplicity of a full stomach and a warm fire.

Perhaps the steppe folk had the right of it.

His hand wrapped about the glass neck and he squinted at the label, just barely legible. Lea Monde Valens, it read, 1532. "Still working your way through these, I see."

"Well, yes. I suppose I could sell them to Geguruju for a tidy profit, but I'd feel terribly dishonest."

Nero upended the bottle and savored the sourness and bracing tang upon his tongue before passing it to her. "You would also be terribly rich."

"No doubt I would, but-"

"But you're too bloody honest to swindle a man with more money than sense. That's all right, sweetling, it's what I love about you."

She tweaked his nose.

"It's not just that. I'll have you know that I have always dearly loved a good vintage."

"All this time I had assumed your one true love was tea."

"You're quite mistaken." She already had the bottle raised to her lips by the time he thought to reach for it again. A long and contented sigh followed the light popping sound of its mouth as the suction was lifted. "...Quite honestly, I would punch Ifrit ten times over for a barrel of Shamani Lohmani's finest La Noscean red."

Nero raised his brows.

"Truly, I stand in the presence of the very definition of a well-heeled dilettante. Puncher of eikons. Hobbyist engineer. Healer-"

"Chirurgeon," she reminded him, a trifle wryly. "Everyone forgets I went to school for that bit, as you'll recall."

"Mm. Chirurgeon, then." He kissed her temple. The scent of fermented grapes tickled his nostrils. "Last but by all means never least, amateur sommelier."

She allowed herself a chortle and set the bottle aside, then tilted her chin upwards just enough to return his kiss: a light and careful sensation of pressure against his jawline, rough with fresh stubble. Her lips were warm and slightly damp.

"Are the others going to miss you at the Wall?" she asked, nuzzling his neck, and Nero felt his heart skip- along with a warmth stealing through his limbs to pool in the base of his stomach, one very distinctly not caused by the wine.

In truth, he'd promised the deputy president of the Ironworks that he would fly out with a team to troubleshoot one of the malfunctioning perimeter pylons, had already pocketed the fee to do so, and he was in no wise fool enough to attempt to pull the wool over Jessie Jaye's eyes.

On the other hand, he knew a proposition when he heard one. "I think they can manage without me for the evening."

"Oh? Excellent." Aurelia drew herself upright and in a single fluid motion she had straddled his waist - settling her weight against him, softness angled in a way that he knew full well she could not fail to notice his interest - and braced her hands along his shoulders. "Because as it happens, I currently find myself in need of a skilled consultant."

"Do you?"

"I do," she smiled, all wide-eyed (devious) innocence. She ground firmly against the cradle of his hips in a slow sinuous roll that left him breathless. "Perhaps you might be so kind as to point me in the right direction."

His hands caught her thighs and stilled them with more exertion than he would have cared to admit.

"It seems to me you might already have a candidate in mind," he replied with studied nonchalance. "But I am nothing if not the very picture of grace and resourcefulness."

"And humility," she drawled.

"Quite. Should I come across this skilled consultant who so perfectly fits your bill, eikon-slayer, I suppose I could let him know you are in need of his services."

Beneath his grip, muscles flexed and shifted, and the curtain of her hair tumbled over one shoulder as she leaned into his touch. He was rewarded with a strangled little gasp when he repaid her teasing in kind: slim but powerful hips canting forward and up to thrust, and for a moment he found his train of thought utterly derailed by his own friction.

"Well, if you do find him, pray let him know that I am willing to pay in extraordinarily niche Ilsabardian wines," she whispered against his mouth, and Nero's answering laugh was consumed in a heated kiss.

[plenary-indulgence]

omg...did you guys know u could add letterbox doodads in gpose like it’s a lil movie lol wtf

[kebbige]

Unctuous [prompt #24]

Vanaar held the empty wine bottle closer to her chest as Hancock continued to speak, sharing a horrified look with Shamani Lohmani as the bespeckled hyur stared at them with a maniacal grin on his face. 

"Hancock, no." She couldn't help but grip the bottle tighter as means of protecting it from the man. "Gegeruju is insufferable at best, but to trick him like that is just abominable."

Hancock scoffed. "The man wouldn't know the difference between a Limsan red and a rosé from Gridania." At which point the man pulled another wine bottle from ...somewhere in his clothes? "I even have the perfect substitute right here, free of charge even!"

"Hancock no I-"

"Do it." X'kebhi, who had been uncharacteristically quiet the entire time they'd been in Wineport, spoke with enough force to cut off further protest from both Vanaar and the lala vinter. She looked to her partner, hand reaching out for the bottle Vanaar held close to her chest. Vanaar almost spoke again, but caught the look in X'kebhi's eyes. They looked empty, haunted, and a bit dangerous. She handed the bottle over without another word.

____

Back aboard the Prima Vista, Vanaar had to almost run as her partner flew through the ship to find the unfortunate dramaturge. She only caught up to her once X'kebhi had already found him. The other miqo'te had the man bracketed against the table he sat at, one hand holding the bottle of wine and in the other a knife which she had stabbed into the table. It was only a hair's breadth away from the man's elbow.

"You ever want to give me or my companions the run around like that again," X'kebhi's tone was low and dangerous, "and this knife won't be in the table." 

Message delivered, X'kebhi stood up and walked away, leaving both knife and bottle behind

Vanaar belongs to @belugabear

[livvyplaysfinalfantasy]

I also love that this quest gives us the chance to reconnect with Shamani Lohmani, one of my favorite Lalafell NPCs! He’s the former member of the Company of Heroes who was blinded during his party’s battle against Titan but later went on to become a vintner and helped you prepare for the Lord of Crags in 2.0.