Yanvir Malik

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There is an October 2016 version of this page from the original BHH Wiki available at (2016) Yanvir Malik

Yanvir Malik was a Ravensgate agent responsible for tracking and intelligence in a specific arc of the Oburron and Jenner paracosm, and a derata in Kavanah, a BHH story written in 2019. Along with other lore from Oburron and Jenner, a version of Malik was also mentioned in the background lore of the Acteriendian BHH roleplays. In the Oburron and Jenner paracosm, Malik was an autonomous agent (it was ambiguous whether he was renegade or senior) focused on tracking down Maya Evon, who was hiding in the disconnected plant-rich wastes of the parallel world Jenner, and he was associated with a division of Ravensgate called Travelforce.

The character was revived and adapted in November 2019 for Kavanah, a story based on Ciarraí Teagwyn Kavanah's backstory in BHH. In Kavanah, Malik was a derata who employed Ciarraí and Elaine Redena Starling to use backroom manipulations to stop his illegal shipments of weapons to the Tawnylea being attacked by other deratas without creating any open conflict. The subtext was that Malik was one of Ciarraí's main employers while he was working as a freelance Dark Network fixer.

The name "Yanvir Malik" is a corrupted form of "Yanvar Malik", a minor character from Railhead, an October 2015 novel by Phillip Reeve.

2016 locational arc[edit | edit source]

Malik was the protagonist in a locational arc that took place at Mincinglake, probably in May 2016. The approximate date is based on the fact that one defining afternoon in the locational arc took place on a polling day between October 2015 and February 2017, which was almost certainly 5 May 2016. There was a Woodcraft session that day, but the Venturer Hut was being used as a polling station and Kerry took a wrong turning when looking for Great Hill View Park, which was where the group had assembled instead. He ended up cycling around in Mincinglake and created or fleshed out the locational arc around Yanvir Malik.

As in the dream on which the Evonian Cycle was based (see Mission Cycle), Jenner was a low-tech wasteland where the Ravensgate had little definite authority. Malik was a "tracking officer", which essentially meant he was a jungle explorer, and he was searching for Maya Evon. She was considered dead in Oburron and by most of the Ravesgate. Malik believed she was alive and that he had come close to finding her on previous occasions, and he was determined to track her down and find out why she had faked her death.

Legacy of the paracosm character in Acteriendian BHH roleplays[edit | edit source]

In order to fit Malik into the lore of BHH once the paracosm's distinctive arcs were abandoned, Kerry upgraded him to head of intelligence. However, this was not consistent with Robert's (later controversial) conception of the Ravensgate and Malik simply sat in the background without ever being brought up.

However, it is arguable that the character's legacy endured through Raven Olympia. There are clear parallels between Malik and Raven. Both were ill-tempered, rough and ambiguously renegade-or-senior autonomous Ravensgate officers who aimed to track down Mala. It is possible that Raven aiming to kill Mala as part of the Fourth Army genesis was influenced by the Malik and Maya arc in the Oburron and Jenner paracosm, but there is no direct evidence for this.

Kavanah[edit | edit source]

In Kavanah, Malik was a derata who employed Ciarraí and Elaine Redena Starling—a team known as the Silver Knife—to stop his illegal shipments of weapons to the Tawnylea being attacked by pirates, whom Ciarraí worked out were working for a dark corporation called Waltsvahn.

Unlike Ciarraí even at the height of his career in derareti, Malik had access to a private militia. This was revealed after Mala had tricked Ciarraí into thinking that she had paid another derata, Sedell Redzka, to trick him into thinking Malik was in league with Waltsvahn, as to try and avoid facing Mala, Ciarraí briefly tried to persuade Malik to let him attack Waltsvahn with his militia rather than using backroom manipulations. This suggests that Malik was imagined as a senior member of a dark corporation rather than a more agile operator like Ciarraí. In the story, he refused to use the militia, pointing out that he came to the Silver Knife precisely because it was a quieter option.