[b]Commander Zoya Kiriyev[/b]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/J32WogE.jpg[/img]

[b]Age:[/b] 45
[b]Race:[/b] Muraadan (assimilated Varyan)

Zoya Kiriyev is a commander in the Varyan military. Twenty years ago, she served with distinction in the Lanostran War and was granted leave to return to civilian life at the war's conclusion. However, as the empire readies itself for another invasion, Zoya has been summoned to rejoin the military forces and resume her post as a commander within Lord Varya's armada. Leaving behind her family and the comfortable civilian life she won for herself through her heroism in the war, Zoya has been tasked by the Church with leading the military forces supporting the First Elurian Inquisition during their journey through the eastern continent. 

Many Varyan soldiers lost their lives during the attrition campaign against Lanostre-- so costly was the struggle for the empire that for every Lanostran killed in that conflict, three Varyans perished. Though the empire held a clear advantage in numbers, the soldiers of Lanostre were far and beyond the more potent fighters. Thus the narrative of the war was written-- the young soldiers sent out to the warfront rarely returned, and so their loved ones waiting back home congregated in their churches, and prayed for miracles.

For many of the soldiers who served alongside Commander Zoya Kiriyev, she was that miracle. 

Having joined the empire's youth corps at the young age of eleven, Zoya has had a long and brutal career as a frontline soldier and commander-- one that she was all too eager to leave behind at the war's conclusion. Celebrated for her bravery and brilliant tactical mind, she quickly rose through the ranks of the Varyan secular army and upon the completion of her officer's training, was immediately shipped off to the Lanostran subcontinent. Once there, she was given command of a small company and went on to distinguish herself by leading her band of soldiers to victory after victory. More impressive than her successes on the battlefield was Kiriyev's obsessive MO to not allow anyone in her brigade to fall in the line of duty. She was a supremely cautious and defensive-minded leader, with a craft for subterfuge and guerilla warfare that many of her fellow officers did not share. During her first year in Lanostre, Kiriyev's company lost only seventeen soldiers-- most of the casualties falling to Lanostran inquisitors. 

Zoya Kiriyev's reputation as a leader who would fight tooth and nail for the survival of those under her command, sometimes to the ire of her commanding officers, spread throughout the ranks of the conscripted men and women of the military, and thus she began to be hailed as a "hero" among the lower ranks of the invasion force. This did not sit well with the inquisitors who led the invasion, as most of the Church's warriors believed the conscripts to be little more than cannon fodder, only there to distract the secular Lanostran armies while Lord Varya's true work was being done-- the capturing of the goddess Lanostre herself.

As the war continued and the battles grew ever more fierce, Kiriyev's determination to lead her soldiers home never wavered. Four years later, when the Goddess Lanostre surrendered to Lord Varya personally, her greatest wish was finally answered and she and the rest of the men and women who had long served under her were allowed to return home. Most of the soldiers who served in Lanostre now occupy high-ranking posts within the secular army-- Kiriyev however, asked to be discharged from her office, and after her superiors failed to convince her to stay, they granted the commander her freedom. She went on to marry a T'saeren engineer and started a family. 

For the past nineteen years since the war's end, Zoya has not so even as touched a rifle, nor has she stayed in contact with her old comrades in the military. She has lived a placid life with her husband and young boy, far away from the public eye. Her idyllic peace came to a sudden end when Father Valentin, a high-ranking priest within the Church, called for her to return to her post in order to serve a newly ordained class of Inquisitors as they journey throughout El. 

Though she fears the very real possibility that she might not return from this journey, Zoya has not wilted in her years as a civilian. She has resigned herself to the task given to her. Commander Kiriyev will serve these priests as faithfully as she served the men and women under her command, she will guide them safely through the frozen wastes, and Varya help her, she will fight for them until the day she returns home.