[b]Historian Biographies[/b] If a player posts three IC posts, they will be accredited as an 'Elder' and be honored with the permission to submit a biography of any length and style to this post of a historian they have written as, allowing us to better understand their point of view and life story, as well as their emotional investment to the characters. Players may submit another such biography after reaching six posts, then nine, and so forth, and be accredited with more honors in the member listing as they do so. [hider=Lord Governor Darius Brighteye Sunwalker, Sultan of Paradise] [@Bluetommy] [center][h3]Lord Governor Darius Brighteye Sunwalker of Paledune, Sultan of Paradise and General of Aedria[/h3][/center] [hr] [b][u]Early Life[/u][/b] Brighteye Sunwalker was born in Aedria to nobles Darius and Circe Sunwalker, fifteen years after the birth of Aedrius Irenaeus. House Sunwalker was already rather large by this point, as one of the pre-eminent noble families of the country, Brighteye's cousin Dalleio's friendship with heir apparent Sephil Irenaeus also adding to their prosperity. Though Dalleio's parents heaped adoration and love upon to their child, Brighteye received love only from his mother, his father giving him only the necessities and relentlessly training him in combat, stating that it was the only way to create a warrior comparable to Prince (Later King) Sephil. His father's failure in battle and maiming as a result of a spear to the knee always haunted him, and he attempted to relive his life through his son. Five years after Brighteye's birth, his cousin once-removed Starseer was born. The two would develop a friendship, when Brighteye wasn't busy attempting to avoid getting his throat slit by his father during his many outbursts, he would meet with Starseer and father Dalleio whenever they could visit their relatives back in Aedria and weren't busy in Paledune. Brighteye began to develop a relationship with Dalleio, who began to feel for the young Brighteye himself. Disaster struck soon later, when Darius died in battle against King Amadel of the Greenfall, his first battle after he received his injury, he hadn't even joined the battle, sitting in the back (unable to fight due to his maiming) and receiving an unfortunate arrow. His father gone, Brighteye turned all his sadness and anger into determination, and continued what his father started, training alongside other Aedrian nobles and even Dalleio whenever he had the chance. Brighteye came of age in the year 27, and took the name Darius, after his father. [b][u]Aedrian Army Career[/u][/b] Darius volunteered to become a general for the Aedrian army soon after coming of age. His personal combat skill was exceptional, though the emperor still surpassed him, but his leadership skills were untested and tutored by the mentally unstable Darius the elder. Despite the nobility's doubts, recommendations by the Lord Governor Dalleio ensured him a place in the General corps. Darius didn't see a single battle until he was twenty-one years old, Emperor Aedrius was convinced by other generals that Darius was nothing more than a talented duelist with no potential as a general. Darius was finally given his chance when he was given command of the Aedrian detachment to the Bronzespear-Horselord conflict, to which he brought a journal, which he wrote in from the first day of the battle to his first day in Paradise. He formally resigned a few days before the Battle at Paella river, frustrated with his seeming lack of worth to the Empire, but before he could be recalled, the battle had started. [b][u]Bronzespear General[/u][/b] Darius lead the Aedrian detachment at the Battle of Paella. The Aedrian hoplite division was deployed later, kept in reserve for when the Bronzespear forces faltered. When they did falter, Darius had them calmly walk towards the bridge, the enemy had just about crossed when the phalanx approached. Fighting on solid ground, the phalanx proved far more able to fight than the Horselord soldiers, who were forced to fight on the shaky bridge. Eventually Chief Ulden Horselord himself charged the phalanx, managing to carve a path towards Darius before being cut down. The enemy force was routed soon after, and Darius had yet to engage personally. Impressed, Chief Bronzespear asked Darius if he would permanently serve as a general in his army, to which Darius agreed, practically deserting from the Aedrian army. However, hearing of this success, the Aedrian leadership didn't mind at all that Darius had remained with the Bronzespears, with an Aedrian general leading the horde, it would be far easier for the Aedrian-aligned Bronzespears to gain hegemony over the Great Steppes. Darius continued leading the Bronzespears through their conflict with the now rejuvenated Horselords, lead by excellent tactician Jannum Horselord. The long series of battles all saw Darius excel in commanding pikemen and heavy infantry, as well as getting personally involved once or twice, including a duel with Jannum himself which ended when the Bronzespears treacherously charged Jannum in the middle of their duel. This, and a number of other incidents lead to Darius becoming disillusioned with the Bronzespear chief, Gultuk. After a long talk with Gultuk, he managed to receive a promise that Gultuk would do no action directly involving Darius without consulting him first. In the last battle of his career as a steppe general, Darius commanded alongside Gultuk, proving able to challenge Jannum in battle without resorting to treachery. Gultuk did not survive the battle, and after his death, the Bronzespear lines faltered. With all that was left being his personal hoplite guard, Darius retreated from the battlefield, taking off his helmet and placing it on the ground in honor of the fallen chief. [b][u]Arrival in Paradise[/u][/b] Darius received a message from a noble in Paradise soon after his defeat, stating that his old childhood friend Starseer, now known as Aedius, had proved to be a poor ruler, with a disastrous infrastructure project that caused the Kingdom to exhaust its treasury, the builders resorting to cannibalizing multiple other constructions in an attempt to finish the project. Darius, his hoplites loyal only to him, began the long march to Paledune. Darius joined with the majority of the Paledune army, who were displeased with their new Sultan. Darius arrived in Paradise in the year 56, at the age of 41. The heavily scarred man dressed in barbarian garb and escorted with at least one or two half-steppe nomad hoplites must have caused a massive uproar among the people of Paradise. Despite this, Darius was granted whatever the nobles had left, including their levies and mercenaries, in preparation for his confrontation with the loyalist forces. The loyalist forces were utterly pitiful, with perhaps only half of them being trained soldiers. Darius commanded his troops to surround the enemy without attacking unless attacked first, and the vast majority surrendered due to poor discipline. Both sides lost very few due to this show of mercy. Darius personally entered the Sultan's castle, with very few of his trusted troops with him. Separated from most of his troops by an ambush in the dark hallways of the keep, Darius, armed with spear and shield, killed four and wounded thirteen, his troops joining him before he could suffer more than a superficial wound. Darius met with his former friend, the sultan, and after a solemn conversation, he forced the man into exile, claiming the throne of Paledune and Paradise. [b][u]Lord Governor of Paledune and Sultan of Paradise.[/u][/b] Darius began his reign by rolling back his predecessor's infrastructural projects and reforms, reconstructing all cannibalized buildings with the aid of a trade agreement with Chief Argell Tollscythe of the Deadlands. He followed this by instituting a military alliance with new Bronzespear Chief Redrider, and riding out to help him with the gathering Horselord host. Darius' final battle was to be his first commanding the Paledune host, it was also the last time he would write a journal entry, in which he complained about the stupidity of Paledune's generals and the new generation of Bronzespear generals as well. The battle was wrought with poor decisions on both the Paledune part and the Bronzespear part, with Darius himself making some uncharacteristic mistakes. The battle ended with the allied forces decimated and the Horselord host only mostly damaged. A mention of Chief Jannum's nickname "the Avenger" in the heat of combat made Darius enter a state of almost comatose silence, and soon after he commanded what remained of his troops to retreat. After the battle he met with a furious Redrider, who he asked what the fight was about. Redrider admitted it was to avenge his father. Darius furiously struck Redrider and told him how pointless it all was in a rage, Darius refused to play a part in another person's revenge after having seen it kill both Chief Ulden and Gultuk. Furious, he took his armies and left that night, giving one last betrayed look to Redrider before leaving for Paradise. Darius would never end up on a battlefield again. In his last years, Darius focused on more domestic reforms and raising his daughter to inherit, despite the complaints of other nobles. Darius grew bitter and cynical with age, refusing to rely on advisers and assaulting then on more than one occasion. Darius grew ill in the year 83, and by the next year he was bedridden, suffering from an illness that filled his lungs with blood. The next year he was on his deathbed. He was constantly coughing up blood and barely lucid. He was constantly demanding to see Dalleio, who had died many years prior. He didn't even recognize his daughter half the time. His last words before losing consciousness were in response to her asking if he remembered her. "Always." [hr] Darius Brighteye Sunwalker died that year in 85 of Tuberculosis and infection, having lived a long and by his own admission rather exciting life. [/hider] [hider=Swami Heavendawn Gallerio] [@BingTheWing] [center][h1][b]Swami [/b][/h1] [/center] [b]Swami Heavendawn Gallerio[/b] (110-140), more commonly known as [b]Swami[/b], was a Paledune poet and royal courtier that lived during the reigns of the Lord Governors Illerio Morningstar and Saero Duskguard Sunwalker. Despite having lived in a turbulent era of Paledune history, having witnessed the assassination of Ilerio Morningstar and the War of the Hammer and the Snake, Swami is remembered in Paledune for his simple odes, sonnets, and ballads to the wonderful world around him. In 120, Swami was born the youngest son of five to a carpet merchant and a housewife in Paradise. As the youngest, Swami was not always given priority as a son, having to compete with his siblings for his parents’ approval. When given the choice to either learn his father’s trade or go to a grammar school, Swami at first opted for the former, but was forced to take up the latter after a supposed disastrous mishap when the ten-year-old Swami allegedly accidentally sold the Gallerio household’s own carpet. At school, Swami learnt Pallum (the native Paledune tongue), Aedrian, and Dorathian (which was an esoteric, if not altogether dead language at the time). It was here he was first exposed to the possibilities of language. Swami found Aedrian too simple, and Dorathian beautiful but also too difficult. Therefore, he started writing his first poems in Pallum. Swami owed part of his early poetic growth to his teacher, Nalori Khan*. He is not mentioned in any other text or source besides Swami’s own memoirs, but his impact on the young poet was apparently profound. Khan mentored Swami in his grasp of language, and was a poet himself, often letting his young student stay behind after classes to write with him. But starting from Swami’s sixteenth birthday, Khan was suddenly and abruptly omitted from Swami’s writings. No mention of him is made past said point. Two theories have been posed: either Nalori Khan died, and Swami simply refused to note it, or they had a falling out. Either way, it is unknown why Swami still retained his prior experiences with Khan - perhaps to preserve memories of happier times. When Swami was eighteen, he graduated from school and became an apprentice to a port scribe, recording the cargoes of trade caravans to and from the gates of Paradise. It was an incredibly dull and boring job, and Swami regularly kept finding himself regretting the day he had refused the path of his father. But it did come with its upsides, among which was plenty of free time. Swami spent most of his time at work coming up with new ideas for poems, inspired by the mysterious wares the traders brought with them and the wide, empty expanse of desert he had a great view of from outside his office window. When Swami was twenty, he published [i]Odes[/i], his first book of poems. He gained almost immediate national acclaim, being noted in several chronicles of the time and even had fans from as far as Bylleseus. His then-considered magnum opus was [i]To Paradise[/i], an ode dedicated to the beauty of his home city of the same name. In the same poem, Swami made his first mention of Paledune’s military might - probably inspired by recent tensions with the Bronzespear Clan. For his poetic gifts, Lord Governor Ilerio Morningstar granted Swami a minor position in his royal court in 131. For the next two years, Swami found himself writing on silk pillows, walking in the Lord Governor’s personal gardens, and conversing with some of the most powerful generals, ministers, and chamberlains in Paledune. His poetry flourished, and he published compilation after compilation (the most noteworthy of these being [i]Marigold[/i] (132) and [i]Diamond Ballads[/i] (133). Swami had also unfortunately entered the royal court in a time of great discord, intrigue, and deadly politics. The court was divided into two factions, namely those supporting Illerio Morningstar and those who supported his more radical son, Saero Duskguard. Saero accused Morningstar of corruption, power playing and graft, while the latter in turn accused the former of wanting the throne for himself and even colluding with the Bronzespears of the Ancient Steppe. Paradise was slowly being ripped apart by the secret war. However, Swami was somehow immune to it all, talking of roses and silver while his compatriots plotted assassinations or gossiped about politics. Most of those within the royal court remember Swami for his innocence, his inspired, unassuming personality, his unwillingness to get involved in actual politics, and his ability to provide a neutral, untainted haven between the two factions. As one courtier described it, Swami was the kind of man that, when a stabbing was being discussed, would instead remark on the beautiful blood red petals of a nearby flower. Swami was also very open about his personal life, the writings of those who had heard his biographical anecdotes used as cross-references for Swami’s own autobiographies. Swami also reportedly had a lover, a handmaiden called Azuka. Swami, surprisingly, did not write a lot about her, but in his memoirs said that being with her was 'a sea of calm, of grace, of a happiness that was simply content.' Azuka is not mentioned anywhere in Swami's writings dated after 133. Then in 133, Illerio Morningstar was assassinated in front of Swami’s eyes at a royal dinner. The official account was bad food, but Swami and everyone else in the court knew the truth. Swami remembered Illerio’s ‘hacking cough, the slow reddening of his bulging eyes, and his scarlet cape billowing over his limp body’. A few weeks later, Saero Duskguard Sunwalker was crowned Sultan of Paradise. Swami was politically unharmed by the chaotic turn of events, but his witnessing of the depravity and the greed of mankind somehow affected him - scholars note his decreasing lyrical quality from that time onward. Saero’s first action as Sultan was, in a surprising turn of events, to declare war on the Bronzespears. By chance, Swami happened to be accompanying the invading forces and wrote firsthand accounts of the Battles of Garyekon and the Toryu. In a last, divine moment of inspiration, Swami wrote his true magnum opus: [i]Heavenswrath[/i]. In the thirty-stanza long work, Swami described the serene petals of a newly blossomed chrysanthemum beside the bleeding body of a wounded Paledune soldier. It has been hailed by scholars worldwide as the ultimate symbol of the loss of innocence, of the awakening of the soul to a dark reality it had for years dreamed about but never experienced. Little is known about Swami’s later life. He published [i]Skyborn[/i], his own personal memoir, of which most of his biographical information was obtained. He died in 140 from pneumonia without any known family, and was given a modest burial in the Lord Governor’s gardens in which he loved to wander so much. On his gravestone, it simply reads: [hr] [center] [i]'I have lived, and laughed, and lost' - Swami Heavendawn Gallerio, 140[/i][/center] [hr] [sub]*It is unknown why his name does not follow normal Paledunian naming conventions.[/sub] [/hider] [b]Elders[/b] [@Bluetommy] [@BingTheWing]