Nyriad is a non-player character mentioned in Borderlands 3 and Borderlands 4. The Vault Hunters never meet Nyriad in person as she died long before, but they could discover her writings and recordings scattered across the Borderlands. She is a siren who lived and died centuries before humanity achieved spaceflight. Her Siren ability was Phaseleech, an ability that would eventually be inherited by Tyreen Calypso.

About

Nyriad was a Siren who lived with the Eridian people, who were destroyed; and she was the Siren responsible for both their destruction and the sealing of The Destroyer. Thirty-one stone slabs containing her writings make up the majority of what is known of the Eridians.^[1]

In an Eridian glyph found in the Tazendeer Ruins, she describes her self as "the last to learn the Eridian language from the Eridians", hence explaining why her voice permeates the glyphs when they are translated; this is likely related to the Siren ability to imprint objects with psychic records of traumatic moments or milestones of their lives (See Childhood's End), and judging from the large number of them scattered throughout Borderlands 3, Nyriad likely mastered this.

History

An Eridian glyph recording in The Pyre of Stars that Nyriad leaves behind has her declare that "it was here that [she] killed them. A billion lives to power a machine," which cements her identity as the Siren who powered the Pyre when the Destroyer was sealed away the first time. From her words, she is haunted by her actions, despite saving the universe temporarily from The Destroyer's wrath.

Nyriad also explains that after sealing The Destroyer, she traveled to Nekrotafeyo and sealed herself in the Vault, fearing that her power was too dangerous to be used. It's implied that when Typhon DeLeon and his wife Leda opened the Vault, Nyriad's power escaped and ultimately manifested in their children, the Calypso twins.

After the events described in her writings in Borderlands 3, she was pulled into Kairos through a Vault and imprisoned by The Timekeeper. In her time on Kairos, she discovers Ordonite and its ability to drain her in the same way that her Phaseleech ability can drain other beings. She uses Phaseleech on a tree and feels the presence of the siren who had Phaseleech before her, who died on Kairos. She also finds evidence of an ancient civilisation in the Terminus Range, which she doesn't recognise.

In her recordings in Borderlands 4, she repeatedly mentions a siren named Iris, who had the Phasewalk siren ability, and asks her for help. Iris is unable to hear or help her through the veil of Kairos.

References