OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on the Shadow Knights and sub someone to boss Kaida around.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Commander of the Caerith Tyari and their subunits. Daymana is a Force Master, a military officer and one of the leaders of the Shadow Knights. Moreover, she's Kaida's superior.
Links: Angelii, Eldorai.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age: 125.
Force Sensitivity: Master
Species: Eldorai.
Appearance: Daymana is a middle-aged Eldorai female with pale skin, pointed ears, and a tall and well-formed physique. She has been a soldier for most of her life and this is reflected in her build. She has sustained combat injuries that even bacta could not heal and thus is marked by her share of scars. Perhaps her most striking feature are her intense yellow eyes. She keeps her hair at a practical length to make sure it does not get in the way in combat. She is in a command role, but exercises regularly to stay sharp. Daymana tends to wear a suit of armour, which she cares for meticulously. She adds a scarlet cloak when off the battlefield.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name: Daymana Thael.
Loyalties: Naesala Faethyra, Shadow Knights,
Court of the Shadows,
Caerith Tyari,
Court of the Four Elements,
Yseult Faerin.
Wealth: Nothing remarkable. She used to be a Royal Guard, but that is long in the past. Being a rebel does not pay well and she has had to resort to raiding and looting. She has some loot stashed away and is now a high-ranking Shadow Knight officer. Within certain boundaries, she can requisition the resources she needs.
Notable Possessions:
Skills: Daymana is a Master of the Force and a strong duellist. Her people have a long life span, and she has taken advantage of it to hone her skills. Like many Eldorai Force-Sensitives, she has elemental Force abilities. In her case, this manifests in a specialisation for pyromancy. She has also minored terramancy, or Earth Shaping. Her command over earth and fire gives her potent offensive and defensive abilities.
She is also skilled in more classical Force abilities. She has a strong command over Telekinesis, Protection Bubble, Force Valour, Battlemind and can use the Force to enhance her physical characteristics. She has telepathic abilities, good mental shields. She can initiate and serve as the focal point of a Force Meld.
Like all Angelii, Daymana has been trained extensively in unarmed and melee combat. She often incorporates a battle shield in duelling. In addition to more traditional weapons such as a Sarix or a Sarzmigar, she is very proficient in the use of a lightsabre. Lightsabres are rare among Eldorai, but she is pragmatic enough to recognise the utility of these powerful weapons. Daymana is an inspiring presence on the battlefield, leading by example. She has a lot of experience in irregular warfare.
Personality: Daymana Thael is the commander of the Caerith Tyari, the Shadow Knight version of the Angelii. She is a former Angelii and a career insurgent. To Eldorai royalists she is a traitor, to the rebels she is a heroine. One man's terrorist is another one's freedom fighter. Daymana is a fierce opponent of the ancien régime, and feels strong hatred for the nobility and the clergy. She is very loyal to the Shadow Knight cause and their ideology, regarding them as more progressive than the old order. She does not consider the Matriarchy worth reforming.
The fact that the present Queen has carried out several liberal reforms has not changed her opinion. She has trouble separating the old Matriarchy from the new one, despite the many changes that have taken place. To her, its fundamental nature has not changed. Moreover, she views it as being too dependent on foreigners, to the point where she does not see it as an independent entity. Daymana is ready to work with outsiders, but wary of them.
She is a revolutionary veteran and what one could consider old guard among the Dashdae Eldorai, which gives her a lot of respect. However, she is also a 'confrontional' choice, as she is poorly disposed towards accommodation with the Eldorai Matriarchy. In short, not the type of person one would send as an emissary unless one wanted to make an assertive statement. She is suspicious of those who support a rapprochement. Daymana is a charismatic, impassioned revolutionary leader who can inspire her soldiers and leads by example. Though in a command role, she is not afraid to lead from the front and participate in the fury of combat. This is in keeping with her Angelii training.
Daymana is on the same broad trajectory as Kaida. However, she has handled her experiences in a different way. While Kaida soon began to doubt the ancien régime and then hold it in contempt, she served it loyally for a decades, believing it was her duty. For a long time she regarded 'Dashdae Eldorai' as traitors, despite sympathising with some of their beliefs. By contrast, Daymana rebelled against the old order decades ago and embraced the life of a Dashdae Eldorai insurgent. Daymana is respected among the Forsaken, but is less experienced in interacting with non-elves than Kaida.
She is passionate, determined and extremely loyal to the revolutionary cause. She has a formidable temper when provoked. Having lived in a tough setting, she is not very forgiving. Daymana feels strong revulsion for the ancien régime and does not mince words about her feelings on it. Eldorai who betray their people and throw in their lot with slaves or foreign powers earn her greatest scorn. She is a fiery presence on the battlefield - both literally and figuratively. Some Shadow Knights view her as a potential successor to Naesala Faethyra as Archon. Indeed, there are forces encouraging her to seek the highest office among the Shadow Knights. Time will tell whether this is a course of action she embarks on. Admittedly the next election is many years away. Others think she should take the reins without bothering with constitutional niceties.
Daymana is popular with her troops, but has trouble letting go of old grudges. This can give her a bit of tunnel vision and make her inflexible in certain circumstances. She respects Naesala, but also criticises her for her decision to go into exile after being arrested on false charges of treason during the reign of Tirathana VI. Many decades ago, Naesala was an aspiring Eldorai officer who acquired some spaceships from outsiders to strike back against slavers plaguing Kaeshana. She succeeded in rooting out a pirate base, but was then accused of collaborating with foreign devils and put under arrest. Naesala fled to escape what was a likely death sentence and went into exile. There she founded a paramilitary group dedicated to rescuing enslaved Eldorai and protecting the exiles, returning to Kaeshana to lead the rebels in the aftermath of the planet's destruction.
From Daymana's point of view, Naesala should have conspired to help bring down the ancien régime. By contrast, Naesala argues that the rebels were too fractious and just as likely to fight each other as the government. Ironically, the fact that Naesala was removed from the ideological squabbles of the resistance is one of the reasons she can stand above party politics as Archon. The same does not apply to Daymana. The stalwart soldier of the revolution has many who admire her, but has also made her share of rivals during her time in the underground. The Shadow Knights have a stratocratic society, which makes her position quite prestigious. She is not shy about turning this into political capital. But Daymana is stubborn and not the best diplomat.
Daymana's views have been shaped by the long time she spent in the revolutionary underground. She values discipline and obedience, but not to the point of being a martinet. Personal responsibility is important to her. She is a fierce advocate for her soldiers and many of her orders show special care for them, but she expectes them to give their all and has a well-earned reputation for pushing them hard. She views cowardice as a cardinal sin. Daymana obeys orders from above, but will not hesitate to question instructions she considers to ill-advised or foolish. Strategos Yseult Faerin, a close ally of Naesala, has said Daymana is 'difficult and loves her own voice. Political. Thinks she's the Keeper of the Sacred Grail of the Revolution. But knows her chit. Should stick to it.' Both commanders are quite willful, like having things their way and do not get on that well, which at times forces Naesala to mediate or to lay down the law.
COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Lightsaber | The Force | Melee Weapons | Sidearm
Combat Function: Daymana is a military commander and a Master of the Force who specialises in elemental Force abilities, protective and support powers. She is a capable battlefield commander and lethal in melee or close quarter combat. As an elementalist, she focuses on pyromancy, which gives her potent offensive abilities. She can burn or blast opponents, summon bright light to blind them, heat objects by thought or touch and conjure a thermic lance. She has also minored in terramancy or Earth shaping, which gives her strong defensive and offensive abilities. In combination with pyromancy, this allows her to manipulate magma and lava in the appropriate environment. Daymana is a good duellist and very proficient in the use of a lightsabre. She tends to use a battle shield in her off-hand. In addition to using the shield for protection, she also employs it offensively by bashing an opponent or carrying out rim strikes.
However, her primary combat function is as a military commander who leads her soldiers into battle and provides direction. But she is not afraid to participate in the fury of combat where required. Like the Angelii, the Caerith Tyari expect their officers to not be afraid to get their hands dirty. Daymana has outgrown youthful brashness and daredevil actions. She is very skilled in the conduct of irregular warfare campaigns.
She possesses some inspirational and defensive Force abilities that can boost her allies and shield them from danger. However, old war injuries have taken their toll. Her right knee has been injured and healed many times, and has a limp. This makes her less dexterous and forces her to rely more on the Force to compensate. This can be problematic if she is deprived of it or if her connection to the Force is significantly weakened. She only has limited skill as a pilot, especially a combat one.
Strengths:
- Experienced battle commander. Daymana is over a century old and has spent most of her life as a soldier and then in command roles. She is a tenacious, skilled leader and respected by her troops.
- Master of the Force and capable duellist. She has a good mix of offensive and support Force abilities, with a focus on pyromancy.
Weaknesses:
- Daymana walks with a limp in her right knee. At this point in time it may largely be psychosomatic, but this does not make it any less real. Running for any significant distance is difficult for her. Moreover, the limp also affects her mobility in some postures and combat situations. Sensitive hearing makes her good at picking up on noises others might miss or notice people sneaking up on her, but it also leaves her more vulnerable to high-pitch frequencies.
- She draws heavily upon the Force a lot to amplify her physical characteristics and utilise its preternatural powers to strike at her foes and enable her to prevail in combat. Exposure to Voidstone, Ysalamiri and the like would deprive her of her biggest advantage. This is also pertinent because on average Eldorai are physically weaker than humans and have a lower pain threshold. Depriving her of the Force means that Daymana cannot overcome this weakness by using her powers to boost her physical capabilities.
- Limited skill as a pilot.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
For millennia, the Angelii have been the foremost defenders of the Eldorai Matriarchy. They are a curious mix of Holy Order, Imperial Knight and Priestess. Formed many centuries before during the early days of the Eldorai Matriarchy as a bodyguard for the Star Queen, the Angelii have retained a vital place in Eldorai society to this day. The Queen who formed the Angelii is unknown, but it was definitely in place by Esterlea II (r. 1878-1714BBY) as she was sent off to them by her mother. Historical consensus places the creation in the hands of the very first Star Queen Tassaria I, who needed shocktroops to unite the Eldorai and defeat the Kar’zun.
Over time the Angelii moved from the informal retainers of the Star Queen to be the bodyguards, pre-eminent shock troops and prestige posting for all Eldorai. At times, especially during the Time of Troubles, their power became almost too strong when they crowned and dethroned Queens. The later dynasties until the present saw this and broke the power of the Angelii, distributing them in small groups so they could not use their combined strength to plot again. The Angelii are entirely Force users, or as the Eldorai call them, Sciians, who specialise in elemental powers. Due to religious dogma, all members of the order are female. When outsiders intruded upon Kaeshana and the Eldorai were forcibly opened up to the rest of the Galaxy, the Angelii faced a new menace.
An Angelii is supposed to believe in Ashira, be loyal to the Queen, obedient to her superiors, faithful to her battle sisters, be generous, brave and honourable. There was a time when Daymana wore the armour of an Angelii. She was raised to believe in Ashira, fight for Queen and Country. Once she was proud to be part of the corps. Now she is a renegade who commands the Caerith Tyari, the Shadow Knights' version of the Angelii. To her former battle sisters she is a traitor and an oathbreaker who spat on the proud traditions of the corps. From her point of view, she is a patriot who turned on a government that had broken its oath to its people. As so often, the truth probably lies somewhere in between. She has been a loyal soldier, a traitor and an insurgent. Her story starts a few decades before Kaeshana's long period of isolation came to an end.
Daymana was born into a family of minor Eldorai nobility. Her ancestors had made their mark during the wars against the Kar'zun centuries ago. They backed Ariane the Conqueror's crusade and were given land in former Kar'zun territory to administrate. Her mother Eirina Thael was a Countess. Naturally, House Thael practiced absolute enactic succession. However, Daymana was not the biological daughter of her mother. Instead she was product of the husband and a chosen broodmare called Vermina who had been specially selected for the right genetics.
This was by no means uncommon or considered strange in the Eldorai's matriarchal culture. In Eldorai high society females would often hire surrogates for their husbands to impregnate and then raise the children as their own. A child was yours if you acknowledged it as such, no matter who had given to birth to it. Daymana was the youngest daughter of five children, with three older sisters and an older brother. In other words, there were more than enough children to cover any contingencies. The Thaels had an heiress, more than enough spares and a son who could could contribute by being married off to a noblewoman from a good family.
This left young Daymana without a clearly defined role in the family. She was neither the heiress nor the spare. She was the type of child it was useful to have if things went ill, but who was best used for other purposes outside of the family, such as in the church or army. This was a way to siphon off population and make sure the child could still make a useful contribution to the family legacy without potentially disrupting the chain of succession.
As was typical, Daymana was raised by a governess, who oversaw her education, taught her courtly etiquette and the responsibilities of a woman of her station. A male servant taught her how to read and write. Her mother was a stern, strong-willed woman who demanded perfection, but was stinting on the praise. She was also very preoccupied with her duties as a noblewoman and with raising Daymana's older sisters. As a result, she was a distant figure for the little girl. One Daymana wanted to impress, but also felt resentment for. The mistress-at-arms trained her in the art of combat. Under her tutelage, young Daymana learned how to fire a Staser, use a sword and read a map. The woman was an old soldier and retainer of House Thael, who had been given the position as a reward for decades of loyal service.
However, young Daymana displayed little interest in soldierly pursuits, or in her duties in general. Perhaps it was an act of rebellion against what she perceived as an unfair lack of maternal attention. Or simply boredom, but she was a rather undisciplined child. She was an intellectual light-weight, more given to parties and excess than statecraft or swordplay. She kept a circle of friends that encouraged her irresponsible attitude. When she ran into trouble, she was quick to invoke her mother's name. Attempts to discipline her only made her more rebellious.
When she grew older she had several dalliances. Things came to head when a guard she had developd feelings for got her pregnant. Once she learned that a bastard was growing inside Daymana's belly, her mother the Countess decided that enough was enough. The father was punished and then never heard of again. Daymana's protests were dismissed. Since aborting the child of a royal was against the religious customs and laws of the Eldorai, the child was born but then taken away from her. In the eyes of her mother, Daymana had brought shame upon the family.
She decided to teach her troublesome daughter some sense by sending her to Angelii, for her Sciiac powers had begun to develop themselves. Daymana protested, rightly perceiving this as an exile. She was angered by the loss of her child and lover. The girl made a rather amateurish attempt to abscond. But it was all for naught. Left with no choice, she submitted and inducted into the Angelii. Once she arrived at their barracks, she got a rude awakening. Here, among the warrior angels of Ashira, her lineage, title and wealth counted for nothing. She was another recruit to be broken in and built back up. Like it or not, she would learn discipline. She had to share her bunk with several other girls. There was little privacy and there were no servants to wait on her. Instead she had to help cook, clean toilets, sweep the chambers and corridors.
At first she struggled with the harsh training. Rebellious aristocrats like her tended to get the harshest trainers, as that was the only way to knock some sense into them. She had to learn how to fight, forage, obey, endure forced marches and harsh weather conditions. At first she yearned for an escape. She was given a harsh NCO as a teacher. Her name was Solana Chaeren. She was a veteran of many campaigns. Solana refused to coddle Daymana or give her special treatment. The neophyte Angelii tended to leave their sparring sessions battered and bruised. But though harsh, her trainer was fair, and when Daymana got over her attitude she received praise. The comradeship of the battle sisters was something Daymana had never experienced before. It was then that she resolved to make something out of herself and succeed, partly to show herself and her family that she could do it.
When Daymana and some other junior Angelii along with Solana were assigned to escort a convoy, they came under attack from Illyrian insurgents. These rebels rejected Ashira and the Queen and worshipped Illyria, the Eldorai Goddess of the Underworld. They ambushes the convoy with improvised explosive devices and sniper fire. Daymana was in one of the trucks that got hit by a roadside bomb. The explosive detonated on the commander's die of the truck. The concussion of the blast blew off one of the windows and rattled the vehicle, causing all the doors to blow open.
It also bent the buckle on her seat belt, which unlatched, allowing Daymana to be thrown from the vehicle. She was ejected into the road and slid for several metres before coming to a halt. Miraculously, she was still alive. The only thing that crossed her mind was that she wanted a chance to kill whoever did this before her final breath. Adrenaline pumped through her body. Though her arm was injured, Daymana fought back against the insurgents who had closed in to seize the supplies in the convoy and helped rally her comrades together with Solana. She was able to use her powers to roast one of them and stab a second. When she was shot by Staser round and a rebel was about to cut her down, Solana intervened and slew the insurgent. Daymana's bravery was noticed and won her some recognition.
The Angelii's casualties were significant but they were able to take some prisoners. Eventually they happened upon the mountainous base the Illyrians were striking from. Daymana participated in the assault. She engaged Illyrians in close combat and worked with Solana to hit their defence guns with a wave of flame, roasting several rebels. The Angelii celebrated their victory over the 'demon worshippers'. However, tragedy struck during a church service. Daymana was attending a service in an Ashiran church, together with her battle sisters and many civilians.
It was part of an Ashiran festival to commemorate Ashira's ascension to heaven. Thus the service was well-attended. Unfortunately for the attendees, Illyrian rebels carried out a terrorist attack. Daymana perceived a warning through the Force, but it was too late. A bomb blast wrecked the church. Solana, being more experienced, had felt something and tried to save lives. Her Force shield kept Daymana and several others from being blown to bits. But the blast claimed her life. A number of Angelii and many innocent civilians perished. Daymana suffered nasty injuries from burns and shrapnel, but survived. The terrorist attack left her vengeful. She mourned the loss of her trainer and her friends and was outraged by the loss of innocent life. It left her fully committed to the Angelii. She put her carefree, self-centred attitude aside for good.
In the aftermath of the attack, the Eldorai army launched several retaliation campaigns against Illyrian insurgents. Daymana was part of these campaigns, participating in several search and destroy missions to root out terrorists. As it turned out the Illyrians had allied themselves with Kar'zun rebels. The silicon people had long been rivals of the Eldorai. The two species had warred for dominance, until Ariane not only defeated the Kar'zun in battle and conquered their lands, but launched a genocidal campaign that drove them to the brink of extinction. Confined to reservations, the few surviving Kar'zun were kept under the Eldorai's thumb. Most were resigned to their lot, fearful that resistance would mean the end of their species; others went into exile. Some defied their elders and rebelled.
For Daymana, things were simple. Like most Eldorai she had been raised to see the Kar'zun as demons, who had plotted to annihilate her people and would try to do it again if given the chance. Moreover, the rebels were allied with the terrorists who had killed her friends. Her zeal earned her a promotion to squad leader. Daymana took down a Kar'zun warrior together with one of her battle sisters. Fighting the stone warrior in melee resulted in her getting her arm broken. She forced herself to suppress the pain. Unable to beat the bigger and stronger warrior in melee, she evaded while her battle sister distracted him. Together, they brought a fall of boulders down on him. Then Daymana delivered a thermic lance to the head. The campaign was a brutal one. Civil wars are always the cruellest. No quarter was given or asked for. The Angelii were able to force the insurgents out of their sanctuary. Their heads were hung on pikes for all to see as a warning to others.
But the conflicts did not end. A cynical demagogue claimed to be Aspasia Evora, the 'rightful Queen'. Contrary to her propaganda, Tirathana VI had not been next in line for the throne when she took power after the previous Queen died. Instead she deposed the Evora family, sending them into exile. Her rival Aspasia was killed. In actual fact, the pretender who rose to contest her claim was not the true Aspasia or even of royal blood. Rather she was a commoner who had discovered her talents as a charlatan. She was most likely an army deserter. It helped that most Eldorai commoners had never seen a royal. The False Aspasia was able to tap into profound social and economic grievances. Some of the Illyrian rebels cynically joined her.
They called themselves the New Green Ribbons, after a radical egalitarian movement that had rebelled against the Crown during the Time of Troubles many centuries ago. Labelling the Star Queen an unjust tyrant, they declared that she must be overthrown in the name of the Goddess Ashira. The usurper promised an end to oppressive taxation, freedom from exploitative nobles and 'forgiveness for all previous crimes'. Peasants would no longer toil the land for a lady or pay tithes to a corrupt Church. Every woman would reap what she had sown, from the highest lady to the lowest gutter rat. She would scour Santaissa clean, starting with the Star Queen and her decadent court. Ariawyn could not help feel sympathetic to the goals the rebels claimed to espouse.
But the uprising was a brutal one. The pretender's make-believe utopia was played out against a backdrop of blood and terror. The faux royal decrees unleashed a frenzy of hatred. Peasants rose up and butchered the matriarchs, their families and the hated tax collectors. Some nobles were dragged from their burning mansions, flayed, burned alive, hanged from trees or executed in other grisly ways. Even children were murdered. Brigands, who claimed to be affiliated with whichever faction seemed ascendant at the moment, attacked merchants and raided settlements. The retaliation from the government troops was just as brutal. 'Examples' were made of those who defied the régime. Villages accused of collaborating with the rebels were decimated.
Daymana hardened herself to deal with the brutality. It was a dirty business, but she had a duty to her country and her battle sisters. If she faltered, she would be letting them down. It was no longer about making her family proud or proving that she could make something out of her life. She proved herself a capable, tenacious leader. When her commanding officer died in a battle, she rallied a rag-tag mix of Angelii and militia. Using elemental powers to mask their approach, they pulled off a clever flanking manoeuvre to take out enemy artillery, then turned the guns on the rebels.
The False Aspasia tried to flee when the tide turned on her. Daymana was one of the soldiers who captured the would-be Star Queen. Abandoned by her former subordinates, the pretender was placed in a metal cage and sent to Santaissa for public execution. Her fate was a grisly one, for she was drowned in ashes. Daymana received a medal and a promotion as a reward for her valour. The bloodletting had left her with mental and physical scars, but she was committed. Deep down she might have found certain aspects of the Matriarchy disagreeable. The loss of her child also still saddened her, though her mother claimed she was being looked after. But she had found a home among the Angelii and made friends there. She was defending her country and living a life of significance.
Her convictions were put to the test when the Star Queen ordered a mass deportation of heretics. The Investigators of Ashira's Truth, the secret police of the Matriarchy, had unmasked an entire community of Illyrians. Ostensibly these Illyria worshippers were loyal Ashirans, but they practiced their heresy in secret. Even some Ashiran clerics were among them. Religious orthodoxy was one of the pillars of Tirathana's reign. Moreover, all the past bloodletting was not conducive to mercy. So she decreed that the heretics would be banished from Kaeshana and join the 'foreign devils they so love'.
The army was mobilised to make it happen. Daymana's unit was one of them. By then she was a Captain and in charge of her own Great Company. At first she was fully on board with the order. The Illyrians were terrorists, traitors and demon worshippers. Frankly, simply exiling them was a mercy they probably did not deserve. But things changed when she actually met the people she was supposed to deport. The Illyrians she had fought had done great evil and murdered innocents, but many of these were ordinary people with families.
Now they were being uprooted and cruelly thrust into the stars with few possessions beyond some meagre supplies and the clothes they wore. Conditions in the 'transit camps' and aboard the primitive starships were very poor. Illyrians who tried to run and hide were beaten or shot. Some tried to hide their children with sympathisers. Families were broken up. It hit her particularly hard due to the loss of her child. Nonetheless, she carried out the order. She tried to make the process more 'humane' and, when possible, punished soldiers who stole from deportees or abused them. But this only amounted to bands-aid and did not change the nature of her work.
She told herself that it was necessary. Orders were orders, and her personal feelings did not matter. If she showed doubt, she would be letting her comrades down. Her High Captain gave a speech stating that the heretics' souls were diseased to the core. Even their children had been tainted, for evil could only beget evil. If they allowed them to remain in their midst, they would grow up to become traitors and terrorists. Ashira was the Heavenly Mother of the Eldorai, Illyria was the traitor who had spawned demons and attempted to murder her mother out of envy. Thus deporting her minions was a righteous mission.
When Daymana had a brief reunion with her mother, she was far more serious, broody and somber. The Countess, by contrast, seemed proud of her. Her daughter had wiped away the stain on the family's name and won recognition as an Angelii. Her mother encouraged her to pursue a career with the corps. Perhaps she hoped that one day Daymana would be one of the Captain-Generals or even Grand Seraph. She pointed out that her connections could help Daymana's advancement, but her daughter was standoffish. After having yearned for her mother's approval for so long, she did not want it.
Tirathana had triumped over her domestic foes. None of the rebels or pretenders could hope to unseat her. However, their focus on domestic squabbles and Kaeshana's isolation left the Eldorai at a disadvantage against foreign enemies. Foreign slavers and raiders, seeing the elves as enticing prey, attacked Kaeshana in increasing numbers. They came to loot, pillage and enslave. Stasers and Cusaeris armour were no match for blaster weapons. Sarixi and Sarzmigars were more effective, but to use them the Eldorai had to get close. Daymana fought the raiders in a skirmish.
The Eldorai prevailed, but at a heavy cost. When high command received word that pirates had been able to sack a minor town in the province of Apuliaea and abscond with slaves and plunder, the Court was outraged. Fearful of being undermined, Tirathana decreed that the local militia be decimated for cowardice. After all, cowardice and treason were the only ways the barbarians could have defeated the Eldorai. Daymana was ordered to carry out the decimation and dispatched to the town with a contingent of troops. She was under a lot of pressure to obey her orders. The carrot was the favour of the Court and a likely promotion. Moreover, the town was located in a province her mother had recently been appointed governor of.
However, when Daymana arrived on the scene, she stalled. Instead of having the soldiers 'draw the bones', she decided to investigate. Her superiors ordered her to do as she was told, using increasingly menacing language. But the Angelii officer
wanted to look into things and realises that the local militia had done their duty and that slaughtering them would be barbaric. They had defended their people to the best of their abilities and paid in blood, but been outgunned. Indeed, more of the town's inhabitants would have died or been abducted if not for them. She refused to carry out the order. Her High Captain relieved her of command. When given the order to punish her for her betrayal, some of her soldiers refused. They joined those militia members who were able to escape. Many of the renegades were shot by loyalists. But the rest escaped with Daymana.
Not so long ago she had been a decorated commissioned officer of the Crown with a bright future ahead of her. Now she was a wanted fugitive, a Dashdar Eldorai and a Dashdae Sciian. These were labels she had in the past attached to her enemies. But now the same was done to her. The group fled into the mountains. Now they were at a crossroads. Some argued that the wisest course of action would be to hide from the Matriarchy and acquire transport offworld. They could join the Eldorai exiles who had already fled from Kaeshana.
But this course did not appeal to Daymana. She also rejected the idea of seeking cover in the criminal underworld or hiding in the wilderness. She was a soldier and had sworn an oath to defend the Eldorai people. The Queen had proved herself to be unjust, so she was obligated to oppose her. Victory was, as she admitted, all but futile. Nonetheless, it had to be done. She would not hide or become a brigand. There was a debate, and she rallied the renegades with a stirring speech. Some decided to take their chances and leave. They were given some weapons and provisions. The rest remained with Daymana. They swore not to no longer submit to the Matriarchy or bow to the Queen.
One of those who stayed was Kythaela Faesalor, one of Daymana's Angelii comrades. While endowed with less raw power and charisma than her friend, Kythaela was a skilled organiser and logistician. The type of person who could keep the machinery running and who any flamboyant leader really needed. She also had a bit of a past and quickly made connections in the underworld, which was useful for a group that had to steal most of its toys. The rebels called themselves the Red Eagles. From their hideout, they began to wage an all-out irregular warfare campaign.
They could not hope to take on the army of the Matriarchy on an open battlefield. Daymana had learned from the mistakes the Fake Aspasia had made. So instead she led the group in hit and run attacks. They conducted assassinations, ambushed military convoys and patrols, robbed banks, bombed government offices and set the estates of nobles ablaze. Daymana tried to live up to her stated goal of being a defender of the people and stand up for the common folk. Her killings of oppressive tax collectors, corrupt prelates and local nobles made her something of a folk hero, causing small folk to help and hide her. She also shared some of her loot with poor peasants and fishers. These people were at the very bottom of the social pyramid and suffered under draconian taxes and an arbitrary nobility.
However, her actions also provoked the government into unleashing its wrath on the small folk, as they were the ones the rebels were using to hide and recruit from. Search and destroy missions, reprisals and door-to-door searches produced many civilian deaths. Moreover, as the campaign grew more and more violent, Daymana and her group used roadside bombs and conducted bombings in towns. She tried to avoid damage among the common folk by sending notifications and warnings of bombing locations and avoid persecution of innocents. This caused tension with subordinates who wanted to go into a more extreme location. Some split off to form their own group. Time in the underground and government crackdown radicalised her. It goes without saying that the blood of innocents was also on her hands.
The Church condemned her as a heretic, branding her in the same way as the Illyrians. Necessity and her own growing political radicalism made Daymana more pragmatic. So she started to allow Eldorai males into her group. She got more than a few recruits from the Eldorai Sciiac Reserve Battalions, the less glamorous, less exclusive counterpart of the Angelii. Daymana refused to treat with slavers though. Indeed, she continued to attack raiders who came from the sky to enslave and loot. When she discovered that one of her comrades had secret dealings with such enemies of the people, she executed her.
There was also a personal dimension to her struggle, for it pit her against her family. Countess Eirina Thael obviously supported the ancien régime. Her daughter's defection put her at risk, for suspicion fell upon her at the Byzantine court of the Star Queen. Some courtiers alleged that she might have been complicit in her daughter's betrayal and could have even had dealings with the foreign raiders. She was under pressure to find and crush the traitors. To Eirina, her daughter was a traitor not just to the Matriarchy, but also her family.
In response, the Countess decided to punish Daymana's biological mother Vermina for passing on 'defective genes' and a 'tainted soul' to her daughter. The woman was imprisoned and abused. When Daymana learned of this through a rebel contact, she was resolved to free her. However, in actual fact it was a trap. The Dashdae Eldorai groups were extremely divided and so the rebel who gave her the information was playing a double game. The rescue mission went poorly and Daymana was captured.
Her legal mother tried to get her to repent and denounce her traitorous friends. This failed and she was given to the Investigators, who tortured her. But before she could moved to a more secure prison, her older sister Shaytasa intervened. Both her and Daymana were the biological daughters of the same woman, as it made sense to stick with a good breeding mare once you had found one. Shaytasa had been a royalist and tried to make her mark in high society, until court intrigue pushed her out. She also chafed under Eirina. So she helped them escape. Vermina was injured during the rescue, but lived. Daymana fought and defeated her legal mother, a powerful Force-User.
With that her ties to her old life had been cut for good. Before her mother died, she forced her to divulge where her child had been taken. Her daughter was named Inira. The Countess had sent the bastard to a monastery to become an acolyte or indentured servant. She was kept under strict watch, but otherwise unmolested. Daymana was conflicted about what to do. Inira's birth had been a product of her lack of care, but she felt responsible for the child and did not want her to grow up as a servant of the Matriarchy. She also feared that something might happen to her now. At the same time, she was poorly equipped to raise a child and did not want to pull her into the kind of life she led. Shaytasa helped her arrange a covert meeting and to slip into the monastery. When she was able to reveal herself to the child, she offered her a choice. Using contacts Kythaela had made, she paid a smuggler to take her mother and daughter offworld to Eldorai expatriates.
Daymana devoted herself to the underground. The Dashdae Eldorai rebels were chronically divided. Some wanted a magocracy, others a republic, others a military junta or just a different dynasty. Across the stars, there was a pretender called Taenarys Evora. She considered herself the rightful monarch and had assembled a force of sellswords and Eldorai exiles in order to help her claim her 'birthright'. Agents were sent to Kaeshana to enlist support among rebel forces. Daymana was hesitant. After all, she had followed Tirathana and found her wanting.
But the pressure from royalist forces was increasing. The Red Eagles suffered from intense persecution. They could not gain ground. So she cautiously accepted, albeit with reservations. However, it turned out that Taenarys' army was far smaller than her propagandists had made it out to be. They were crushed by Tirathana's army. Daymana had only dispatched a small force and quickly withdrew them rather than going down. Taenerys' own sellswords betrayed her and turned her over to the Star Queen. The Queen pretended to pardon them, but then had them seized and executed. Taenerays was given a 'crown of gold', for the Angelii poured molten gold over her head.
The Red Eagles continued the struggle in the underground. To Daymana, Tirathana's death did not change things. The Queen passed away in her bed, which triggered a struggle for the succession. Her daugter Silaqui emerged victor. She was corrupt and more interested in parties and excess than swordplay, but more liberal than her mother. Under her reign Kaeshana joined the Omega Protectorate, which had helped her win the throne.
On the one hand, Kaeshana gained the protection of a great power and access to foreign know-how, but on the other it lost its sovereignty. Daymana considered this an act of subjugation, for they had kowtowed before foreigners. There were also lurid rumours about Silaqui's relationship to Colonel Siobhan Kerrigan, who killed her rival Princess Nalia, the candidate of the reactionary party.
The Red Eagles allied with other Dashdae Eldorai groups that opposed the struggle. Daymana even started working with the radical element of the Rationalists as well Ashiran radicals. Strange times bred strange - and unstable - alliances. She participated in an uprising against the Crown. Rebel forces rose up in Santaissa, seeking to topple the Queen. The palace came under attack. Daymana led a commando team into the battle, using her knowledge of the palace layout and security protocols. However, the attack was ultimately repulsed by a combined force of Eldorai royalists and Firemane mercenaries. Silaqui was murdered by traitorous bodyguards, but her sister Anya Venari took the reins of power.
Injured during the fighting, Daymana and her comrades had to retreat. Anya took the regnal name Tirathana VII, which harkened back to her mother. However, in stark contrast to her, Anya was resolved to be a liberal monarch and drag Kaeshana into the future. Theocratic persecution was abolished, many political prisoners were set free if they disavowed violence and she initiated several reform programmes. However, she faces strong institutional resistance in both the church and the nobility.
Some renegades took advantage of the amnesty and put down their guns. This also included some Red Eagles. Daymana was angered by this, and stuck to her guns. She led several raids, including the bombing of a Firemane-operated arms factory. However, the government crackdown after Silaqui's death gravely weakened the Dark Eldorai. Even in her own home province support was diminishing. With the government taking a more hard line against corruption, it was more difficult for the partisans to get local support. After a long time of bloodletting, many locals believed the rebels might just be making things worse. Increasingly desperate rebel attacks only seemed to strengthen this belief.
Daymana was betrayed by some rebels who hoped to curry favour with the government and earn themselves a place at the table, but managed to fight her way out. Some radicals chose exile, but she refused to join them. To her, those rebels who sat in Fondorian and Corellian cafés and held debates about how to 'liberate the people' were cowards. She hid in the most remote areas of Kaeshana. Ironically, this put her in contact with some renegade Kar'zun who had refused to accept the subjugation of their people. Relations were tense, but Daymana had moved past her racialist beliefs. For a while, the Venari Restoration seemed stable. The Matriarchy had the full backing of Firemane and was able to repulse an assault launched by the Legion of the Damned, a faction of vengeful Kar'zun who had gone into exile after the defeat of their people and now wanted to avenge themselves by dropping an asteroid on the planet.
Then came the Netherworld Event. Kaeshana was not left untouched. Many religious Eldorai saw the sudden mass raptures as a portent of the end times. The planet was hit by a wave of political violence, as rebel groups rose up. Santaissa itself became a battlefield, as the diminished government forces had to defend the royal palace. Like all Force-Users, Daymana had to deal with the fact that the Force was out of balance. But she led her followers on an offensive. They conducted bombings, took hostages from the families of luminaries to ensure cooperating, looted weapons' caches and fought skirmishes with Firemane and Eldorai forces. Daymana had learned from past follies and thus placed greater emphasis on seeding the land with rebel cells, getting supplies and equipment, instead of going all-out. This probably helped ensure the survival of her group.
However, their enemies also included rival rebel groups. The internecine strife helped the goverment regain lost terrain. The uprising was defeated, but there was no time to fully crush the insurgents. Moreover, the Eldorai faced a new challenge that could not be defeated through force of arms. The Matriarchy learned that Kaeshana was doomed to be destroyed by an enormous asteroid. Their only hope lay in evacuating as many natives as possible before the calamity. They were able to evacuate most Eldorai with the help of Firemane, but some had to be left behind. Those who had important skills that would be needed to rebuild or who possessed a lot of money and thus could help fund the exodus fleet received priority. Daymana regarded this policy as a betrayal of the common people.
When word of the coming doom was leaked, panic broke out on Kaeshana. The famed obedience of the Eldorai dissipated. Desperation made many willing to do anything to escape the doomed planet. Religious fanatics saw the asteroid as Ashira's punishment for the Matriarchy's abandonment of the old ways. They believed that they could prevent the calamity by purging the homeworld of human monkeighs and 'blood traitors'. This caused a lot of bloodletting.
Daymana's group tried to steal ships to help common folk escape, skirmishing with Eldorai and Firemane troops. She became affiliated with the Shadow Knights, a group of renegade Eldorai soldiers and renegades formed to aid the forsaken. When the asteroid hit Kaeshana, the destruction was cataclysmic. Daymana and her group survived by hiding in the mountains that had become their home for many areas in the underground.
When they emerged from their sanctuaries, they beheld a wasteland. The Eldorai Matriarchy had evacuated the planet, leaving the Forsaken. Santaissa lay in ruins. The survivors of the calamity now had to eke out an existence on a post-apocalyptic, broken world. Daymana was one of those who tried to wrest some order from the chaos. She became a warlord, protecting some Eldorai communities and refugee camps. It was a bitter winter. Hard choices had to be made to ensure survival. They had to fight and steal to survive.
She aligned herself with Naesala Faethyra, leader of the Shadow Knights. Her past deeds as well as her bravery in the field against Archangel, slavers and warlords won her recognition. She was a revolutionary veteran, so her joining the group increased the legitimacy of the Shadows, to whom she could have otherwise been a rival. The rebel coalition put her in charge of the Caerith Tyari, the Shadow Angelii. The surviving members of her former Angelii Company who had joined her when she defected to the underground formed the nucleus of the Tyari's leadership.
Daymana applied the lessons she had learned during her time in the Angelii and the underground. The Tyari were a rather diverse bunch, being drawn from the ranks of disillusioned Angelii, former members of the Sciiac Reserve Battalions as well as long-time insurgents and new recruits drawn from refugees. It was not an easy road, but she managed to forge them into a disciplined fighting force. Around this time her daughter Irina returned to help. Daymana was both touched and worried. But the menaces they faced were many. She managed to get her hands on some starships to launch raids, attacking convoys to get supplies and tech. She displayed bravery in battles with Archangel, battling the machine cult when its droids descended upon Kaeshana to abduct Eldorai for processing.
The Shadow Knights supported the Tygaran Alliance and the Galactic Alliance against the First Order during the Kaeshana Rebellion. Taking up arms alongside her estranged brethren, Daymana fought at the Citadel of Dawn. However, the Shadows had to retreat when the Galactic Alliance withdrew, though they would continue to support the war effort. Daymana fought at Skor. But the accord with the Matriarchy was a brittle one.
With Kaeshana lost for the time being, the Shadows formed a nomad fleet. Internecine strife caused some groups to splinter, but Daymana and her group remained. She had found a place as leader of the Shadow Angelii. The corps was reinforced by defectors from the Matriarchy as well as Tygaran natives. One defector was Kaida Taldir, a former Angelii officer. Not all of the defectors were welcomed with open arms though, as the old guard often felt suspicious of former royalists. As a consequence, the newcomers had to pass trials to prove themselves. The Tyari would soon see action against internal and external threats. Domestic unrest and insurrection among the Shadow Knights resulted in them being deployed to quell threats to the junta. Some encouraged her to challenge Naesala for the leadership, but Daymana did not do so. Nonetheless, she became a formidable and extremely vocal political force in the movement.
The Tyari were among the Shadow Knight forces dispatched to Kaeshana to investigate rumours that the planet had been moved through the Nether. As the Shadow Warriors discovered, these rumours were true. The planet was free from foreign occupation, but even more devastated. Nothing of the old grandeur and hubris of the old Eldorai Matriachy was left on the inhospitable tomb world. The Shadow Guards encountered bizarre Force phenomena on the tainted, haunted world and helped the last few survivors of the cataclysm escape. Then they quickly left the death world. Daymana filled an urn with soil from Kaeahana and bid her homeworld fare well. The Eldorai had to abandon any notion of reclaiming their home. Instead they had to find and build a new one. For good or ill, it meant a new beginning for their species. She was determined to see it through.
