Erin Righ (ER-in ree | / ˈɛr ɪn ri /)

Erin has always been slightly overweight with it becoming more pronounced as he got older, but is in good physical condition otherwise.

Erin has magical prosthetics for his left arm and right leg that will transform with him.

Erin wears his hair long, and his face, bearded. There are laugh lines around his eyes and face that imply that he smiles frequently.

Erin can be identified by numerous tattoos and, most ostentatiously, his silver prosthetic left arm and leg, which he keeps highly polished and bare when not on a mission.

Erin is generally equipped like a middle aged tourist. He has numerous IDs and passports, and is as visible or invisible as he chooses to be. He is also usually equipped to look like a local wherever he is.

Early Life

Erin was born in the Badger's Den in 1971. Recruited by the Canadian Government in 1984, the then 13 year old, newly totemised Werewolverine was gullibly initiated into a black ops program to kill Russian dignitaries, while disguised as exchange students. Erin was taught numerous languages spoken in the Soviet Union, and schooled in Jujutsu, Karate, Judo Tantojutsu, and Kenjutsu, and various nerve techniques. The Canadian government also encouraged him in his family-driven study of Literomancy. Erin served the Canadian government directly through the end of the Cold War, and indirectly for a few years thereafter.

In 1991, Erin became a father with his first wife Cathy, a Molluscan commoner. PTSD caused endless problems with Erin's home life and Cathy sought divorce and custody of their son in 1992.

Erin met Sable Aradia Lapin in the spring of '93 and found her to be a soothing balm to his troubled mind. They married in '99. Erin worked a series of labour jobs, never quite fitting into a work environment, and tried to make ends meet. His wife worked as a reporter for the ASC News Network. Early in the 2000s Sable and Erin adopted Jean, a young jackalope boy from the Valley, and named him Prince Heir to the Carrot Throne.

Sometime in late 2002 or early 2003, Erin's brother, the Bardger Realm of Music and his husband Nikolas approached Sable with a proposition to strengthen ties between their houses and secure the line of Meles. In '04, the future heir to the Willow Throne, Lord Galakrond, was born. Sable, as Mother of Bunnies is also The Mother of Badgers and responsible for all the Forgelings.   Erin settled in to being uncle to Gala, and as time went on, the Forgelings as well.

The Company

It was during this downtime that Erin was called back to active service of Canada and the Queen.  

The Badger is Dead... Long Live the Great Badger

Erin hated the old ██████████. He was cruel to Nik, bad-mouthed Realm of Music, and barely tolerated the badgerling, a then 7-year-old Galakrond. He was obstinate and pig-headed, and slow to change opinions. He was also an anti-immigrant racist and homophobe. Suffice to say, no one was sad to see him go, but Erin could see it hurt Nik to be so estranged from his father before he died. As the paramedics tried to restart his heart, to no avail, Erin said, in all seriousness, "The Badger is dead! Long live the Great Badger! Peace and goodwill to Nikolas!"

It had the desired effect of bringing the court out of its stupor and seeing to the needs of their new King.

The Iron Tome

The Nite Qing

On November 1, 2020 Erin became the Night Monarch. Like a dissociative personality, he felt like he was simply along for the ride. With no control, he was overcome with hate. Hate for his captors, hate for those he felt left him here, hate for all living things. And words -- he had an all consuming desire to devour the words of the living and turn them into raw power.   This was Dark Literomancy at its worst. He began a crusade against the living that would lead the Six Major Houses into warring with each other in a bid to claim the Iron Tome and stop him. One by one, the Great Houses fell until finally, Erin claimed House Lapin.

Although his wife would escape him, his son Prince Jean fell to the undead and was borne up as DeathAscending, Undead General. Jean proved a reluctant undead, but didn't shirk in the war, and inwardly Erin was tormented by the undeath of his son. It may have been this that finally saved him.

In the final battle for the living, the remnants of House Lapin and the survivors of the world, with the remaining, now coined "Tome Knights ", stood with The Cosmic Kraken and House Mollusca and ultimately defeated The Nite Qing.

Erin, the Nite Qing knelt in defeat before The Cosmic Kraken and his wife, The Mother of Bunnies. Thinking he was about to die, he handed Coffee Quills the Iron Tome and turned to his wife. "save Jean," was all he could say.

Aftermath of the First Word War

There are fates worse than death, as Erin found out, such as being forced to remember all the hurt while the world forgives you and moves on. No harm, no foul, right? Well, Jean still had a prosthetic foot, and whose fault was that?

Erin couldn't face The Warren or Jean, and so in the privacy of his cell, Erin said goodbye to Sable, picked up his sword and rifle, and headed out on his own.

In the spring he found himself with the Bats of House Chiroptera, trying to make it up to Siobhan the Writer, who had been vampirized in the War. He was about to leave when Siobhan suddenly made him Captain of her Guard, just before the Tourney of Tales of April 2021.

The governments of the world fell apart in the wake of the first Tome War, and people turned to the Great Houses and Literomancers to save them. Literomancy, which was once seen as a novel (pun intended) curiosity, was now seen as life-saving magic. It was in the interests of the Houses to have a tourney and display their word power. Erin fought for Chiroptera, but the truth is he had no heart for literomancy anymore. When the summer Tourney came in July, Erin sat out.

This moping and self-pity was probably what allowed the Tome to seep into his consciousness once again.

Prelude to the Second Word War

Late in 2021, Erin, not in control of himself, blathered his way past the Inkies and into Coffee Quills' vault at the bottom of The Zafforza Trench. He picked up the Tome and once again became the The Nite Qing. He then used the power of literomancy and the Tome to rewrite the present so that the Inkies would forget anyone had been there during that time, and left a replica of the Tome in its place. Then he set "zombie callers", magical trinkets that smell of words to Tome Zombies near each of the Major Houses' traditional seats of power, implicating each of the houses to each other, and went into hiding.

Using his knowledge of literomancy and the power of the Tome, Erin looked into the possible future of the world and learned who the undead saw as their leader, and then brought the Tome to her. Late in October, the Zombie Callers were discovered; the duping of the Inkies was also discovered when Coffee Quills went to consult the Tome to identify the betrayer of their House.

The Second Word War

On November 1, 2021, the Second War for the Tome began. Erin, once again powerless in his "demonic" form once again began to kill Tome Knights and raise them as undead servitors of the Nite Monarq, the Living Dead Girl. November 5th saw the Sauropods fall, and their survivors fled to hidden Tiki Island. Five days later, the Undead swarmed and burned Tiki Island. Kahuna the Elder, the Great Tiki, would turn out to be the only house leader to fall to the undead in this war.

The Living Dead Girl then gave Erin a test of loyalty: destroy House Meles and bring the house leader to her. On the 15th of November, Erin besieged Windy Willows, a.k.a. "The Den" and swarmed it with undead. The Great Badger and the Bardger escaped with the Forgelings, but Lord Galakrond fell to Zombie Lords who used combat literomancy to appear as the Forgelings to get close to him. The Nite Monarq accused him of being lenient on the Den, and allowing his brother in law to escape, but was placated by the recruitment of Lord GalaWight.

Erin began instructing Lord GalaWight in the secrets of Dark Literomancy, and Gala proved an apt pupil. Erin believed that Nik and Realm would avoid fleeing to The Warren, but thought they might take refuge with the bats in The Cavern, so he and Lord Gala attacked there.

House Chiroptera put up a hell of a fight with their allies among the Minor Houses, but in the end, the combined might of The Nite Qing and Lord GalaWight overwhelmed the Bat Queen's's forces, and the Living Dead Girl revealed herself as AuthorGoddess, prompting a full scale retreat. Erin estimates a third of all those on the battlefield were raised as undead.

Siobhan made an impassioned plea to her housecarls and bannerpeople to seek out and support the Warren and the Mother of Bunnies. They all followed her to the Warren.

The scions of House Meles had initially sought refuge in the The Zafforza Trench, but now also joined the Grand Alliance. Erin figured the Horde needed reinforcements, and instead attacked the now weakened Kraken and their allies among the House of the Sandwich on November 25th. They, too, proved no match for the Horde.

The Kraken escaped him, but many others rose to join the Horde and the remaining forces headed for The Warren. Erin left the Hammerheads in the Trench to assure that the Molluscans wouldn't return, but that meant he was without them for the final battle -- possibly his undoing.

Battle of the Warren

When the undead finally assaulted The Warren, Erin led them head on, while Gala flanked to the secret exits with an equal force, in a pincer maneuver. Erin had Sable defeated, the living were flagging, and the undead were growing stronger and stronger. As Erin lifted his Literomantic weapon to crush the yielding Bunny Mom, Gala burst in. With Sable's last burst of energy she blasted Gala with poetic love magic -- and he returned to life.

The renewed Gala turned all his new and old literomantic knowledge to defeating Erin, and Erin, who had reached into his reserves to beat Sable, had nothing left to fight him. Gala schooled his former master in the literomantic arts and left the Nite Qing staggered and beaten. As Gala's rage subsided, he took hold of himself and stayed the final blow that would have finished Erin once and for all.

"Kill me, boy," the Nite Qing gasped.

"No," he replied.

"Why not? Surely you must hate me by now?"

"Absolutely." He nodded. "I hate you with a passion, but I love my uncle, who is more like a third dad to me, and we're going to save him."

Erin noticed that in the exchange, Sable had regained her footing and keyboard, and turned to renew his efforts on her. As he reached into the final well of dark literomancy and began to type, Sable responded with two powerful letters that stopped him in his tracks.

"NO!" she typed, and he stopped.

I don't give you permission to include my family in this narrative!

— What Sable Aradia typed to stop the Nite Qing

And all at once, Erin was Erin again. The Tome released him.

"This is impossible!" screamed AuthorGoddess. Gala summoned a wind elemental of such force that it snatched the Iron Tome from her hands and delivered it to Sable.

"AuthorGoddess, stop!" she yelled, and the power of the Tome compelled her.

Aftermath of the Second Word War

Just like that it was over. Once again, the living had conquered the dead with the power of their words. The Great Houses had triumphed.

Erin felt he had nowhere to go. Who in the Great Houses could trust him now? So Erin slipped away quietly during the celebration, with his pack and his copy of Wind in the Willows. He left his weapons behind, determined that words had gotten him here and literomancy would save him. The former Nite Qing left a note for Sable;

My beautiful wife. I am leaving a note because I feel I cannot look any of you in the face. I will find a way to make this right, and when I do I will come home to you all. Until then, please know that I love you all, I promise to find a way to make it home. All my love, Erin

 

Prelude to the Spring Tourney of Tales

Sable begged Erin to return to the Warren after the end of the Second Word War, but he felt that after being the Nite Qing twice, he needed to do something to redeem himself. He sought out The Lemon Company to join their charitable works. However, in mid-January, there was a near-successful assassination attempt on his wife. Though initially he kept away for fear that the Nite Qing would try to take the Iron Tome from her, when she failed to recover after considerable time on life support, he came to her side and summoned Colin Walsh, a Gunslinger (paladin) Litwalker from their shared Wyrd West world, to heal her. The healing was still not complete, however, and Sable began the long process of recovery.   Erin still left as quickly as he could, since he still didn't trust himself.  

Tourney of Tales, April 2022

By the start of the Spring Tourney in 2022, Erin re-emerged as one of the faculty at the School of Worldcraft and Wordmancy, hosting a Study Hall on his Twitch channel and teaching the art of literomancy to the next generation. His presence at the school created some controversy. People wondered what effect this would have on the school and its students. But they needn't have worried. Erin's Study Halls turned out to be very popular, and he managed to raise a considerable amount of money for Kids Need to Read, a children's literacy charity.   From time to time during the Tourney, Erin and Sable came in contact with one another, and Sable begged Erin to come home; but he still didn't feel he was ready.   Then disaster struck. There was a second assassination attempt; this time a poisoning. The dose was lethal, and Sable Aradia went home to the Warren to die.   When he heard the news, Erin went back to the Warren to be with his wife in her final hours. Though it seemed too late, Erin begged Sable to let other people help her guard the Iron Tome; and Sable begged Erin to let her help him find his way to redemption.   But Aydan Nightshade had realized an important fact -- the Mother of Bunnies' abilities were powered by love, and her enemies had worked hard to isolate her by sowing distrust. A worldwide literomantic ritual was organized by the Kitty General and the Queen of Bats, in the hopes that the power of love would allow Sable to heal herself.   The ritual worked. Bolstered by the ritual, Sable recovered magically from her fatal poisoning when Erin took her hand.  

Tourney of Tales, July 2022

In the aftermath of the Tourney, Erin became one of a handful of Sable's most trusted companions and friends who took shifts in guarding the Iron Tome. He returned to the Warren and resumed his duties as the Royal Consort of House Lapin. He and WriterGreg built a campus of the School of Worldcraft and Wordmancy at the Warren and began teaching and running fundraisers for the school there.   Otherwise, Erin somehow managed to keep mostly out of the public eye, despite the very public lawsuit and scandal that his wife was involved in. However, when WriterGreg quit the GOT News Network live on air, he helped Greg to establish the SWW News Network and began broadcasting as a co-anchor with him from the Warren.  

Aftermath of the July 2022 Tourney

In September of 2022, the Carrot Throne publicly announced that Mykola Void, Archon of House Ailurus, and Aydan Nightshade, recently-appointed Panda Polemarche, were the daughters of Sable Aradia and Erin Righ. The former Kitty General took the name Senna Nightshade in honour of the newly-acknowledged relationship. No one is sure why this was never announced previously.   A few days later, Queen Siobhan was killed and Prince Jean injured in a car accident. Erin Righ and Queen Sable were both in attendance at the royal funeral, and the private wake after; as well as the Coronation of Queen TaraFaeBelle.   During this time, "the Lendri" engaged the services of two bodyguards; DragonMagpie and AttorraRu, who became known as the Night Watch. Rumour has it that they were seen chaining down or locking up the Prince Consort at night. █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████   Just before the start of The Third Word War, WriterGreg contracted MancerMumps and was unable to continue broadcasting. Erin temporarily engaged Buddha Kwake, Prinx Tempest's husband, who was newly arrived from the 1337 Sp34k Reality, as his co-anchor.  

The Third Word War

Erin took a more active role in the combined Lapin/Meles/Ailurus forces, which eventually became known collectively as the Woodlanders. He still hired out his trainees as mercenaries, but their services were routinely engaged by the Lapins. It is generally believed that guilt over his nephew Lord Galakrond becoming one of the two Night Monarchs was an excellent motivator.   Erin helped to guard the Lapin-Meles Portal when Windy Willows fell. In The Battle of Kin Beach Erin led the evacuation of the Warren, and therefore was not present for the death of Monkey Meles or the famous Turn Undead effect that landed his wife in the hospital with Critical Magic Drain.   After the Woodlanders fled to the Sauropoda Protectorate, Erin turned all his remaining resources to the support of House Sauropoda, including the SWW trainees. He and Buddha continued to broadcast SWW News from Mount Mitchell.   During the Battle of Mount Mitchell, Erin guarded the surviving Forgelings, determined to allow no more of the Meles-Lapin children to fall to the Undead Horde. The Undead were once more defeated.     Since WW3, Erin returned to the Warren with the rest of House Lapin, and summoned another Litwalker healer -- this time, Selene Wintermist Sunfall from the Toy Soldier Saga universe, to speed up the Mother of Bunnies' recovery time after more Critical Magic Drain. Since then, he has been quiet and seemingly happier than he has been in a long time. Staff at the Warren have reported to gossip magazines that Erin played Santa Claws at Tomesmas.

Cisgendered male

Erin is bisexual, and may be pansexual

Erin was privately educated in a secret program and holds the equivalent of a Master's degree in Linguistics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Nuclear Physics, Political Science and Psychology.

Most of his life, Erin has been involved in wetwork for the Canadian Government.

Erin is an accomplished literomancer, and considers it his greatest gift

Twice, Erin has been seduced by the "Dark Side of the Tome." He has been the cause of countless suffering and feels the weight of the world for it.

Twice, Erin has become the Nite Qing and remembers all the evil he inflicted with crystal clarity.

Erin is a genius, and knows it. Unfortunately this sometimes leads him to sound arrogant.

As Erin, he is a morally upright, progressive conservative who cares deeply for all the children in his life. As the Nite Qing, Erin was an amoral ███████ who sought only to further his own power, and didn't care who he hurt along the way.

Erin has a taboo against hurting innocent people. The Nite Qing is an amoral ███████ whose only taboo is self-harm.

Erin's current motivation is to redeem himself in his own eyes. Everyone ostensibly forgives him, but he holds a great deal of guilt and self-loathing, and hopes someday to be able to look at himself in the mirror without hesitation.

The Nite Qing is outgoing and often dupes others into thinking he is harmless and friendly. (In case this actually has to be said, he is not!)

Lately, Erin seems a lot happier. While his smile is still not quick to appear, when it does, it is warm and open. Some of his previous gregariousness has returned, and once again, he seems to be able to make friends and win loyalties easily.