Nashenirén

Nashenirén Nen-Krshtynas'a was a commander of the Azure Army, the military of the Vht'shjenjé state. He rose to prominence after leading the successful defence of Varvardnársh and became a living legend when the Thousand-Year War finally came to an end under his command. By the end of the war he slipped away from the public eye to live an ascetic life and eventually disappeared without a trace, believed to have wandered off into the desert alone. For his tactical brilliance, his humility and his philosophy he is venerated by his people as an Ancestor-Saint. 
==Background==
The parents taking the lineage name of Krshtynas'a were originally desert nomads from the frontier region that once separated the Vht'shjenjé and the Mósharenja . The increasingly brutal war had decimated their tribe and it is said that they once had a dozen children, all of them save for one was captured by Mósharenja troops and sacrificed to their insect-deities. This child was named Arehtsí, and to ensure the bloodline's survival his parents moved north to the outskirts of Varvardnársh. Arehtsí was adopted into the official state education program and was hand-picked for the higher tier of education, learning how to read and write the Essjentíri script, mathematics, geology and sacral music. The boy never became a courtier, however, as he won the favour of an unknown high officer who adopted him into the Azure Army, renaming him Nashenirén.  
==Early career==
In most cases the students recruited by the army are done so because they've shown cunning, ruthlessness and aggressiveness during their early years. Nashenirén, however, had a completely different personality and was a quiet, unassuming and introspective individual. Having an education he rose immediately to the rank of officer but he was initially unpopular among many officers of similar and higher rank, as he disdained the martial elite culture of the army and refused to participate in festivities. He was gifted with expensive crystal jewellery by his patron but donated it to a poor woman orphaned by the war. 
In a time where the entire Vht'shjenjé nation was saturated with hatred for their southern neighbours, he stood out as a man with clear and rational conscience, making decisions for his troops without pursuit of personal glory or revenge against the black-bloods. Some of his colleagues even accused him of cowardice but he would prove again and again that he was more than a capable warrior. His coolheadedness and strategic expertise won him many victories in the field, including a skirmish where a dozen of his men encircled and destroyed a Mósharenja bastion of 200 troops. 
However, his disdain for the hatred and bloodthirst within the ranks of the Azure Army led him to resign his position within the army and instead he became a poet in Shjevtyrín's court, living a life of meditative recitation of the ancient poems, and he also began to elaborate on his own philosophical system.
==Rise to prominence==
As Arthyrín became the supreme commander of the Mósharenja army, the city of Varvardnársh had been torn apart by several coups and counter-coups from rivaling factions fighting for dominance over the weakened state. Both the poet and warrior castes had kept fighting each other and several key figures within both factions had either been murdered on the streets or assassinated in their sleep, leaving the ranks of the Azure Army leadership alarmingly empty. As Arthyrín proudly proclaimed her intention to march on Varvardnársh and destroy the Shjevtyrín's state with a mighty army of ten thousand, the troops of the Azure Army pleaded Nashenirén to abandon his frugal life. He accepted and was appointed supreme commander of the armed forced defending the capital. Under his command, the last fledgling governments and separatist factions were finally wiped out and the Vht'shjenjé could unify before their foe.
The defence of Varvardnársh proved immensely bitter and most of the city's population was slaughtered by the invading army, yet Nashenirén's resourcefulness effectively stopped the black-bloods time and time again, and upon the eve of the siege he killed Arthyrín herself in single combat. It is said that he fell on his knees and wept bitterly over her death, maintaining that she was the most brilliant and beautiful creature he had seen in his life. He even awarded her with an honourable funeral, lighting her funerary pyre herself and kept her suit of armour which still can be found on display in Varvardnársh.
After the victory at Varvardnársh he quickly turned his remaining forces south to march on the enemy capital, which successfully fell after several weeks of bitter warfare. By now, Nashenirén had become a living legend and was viewed as an incarnation of ancestral glory that has arisen in a time of peril to save the blood and the traditions.
==Nashenirén's legacy==
Nashenirén practically disappeared from the public eye after the end of the Thousand-Year War, preferring to live a solitary ascetic life. He never returned to his former life in the perfumed halls of the sacred court or the commander's caves, but lived a life on the road with no more possessions than he could carry.
He sought to unify the disparity between the poet and warrior class by fusing the two together into a single class of gentleman-warriors who encompassed the virtues of both classes and unified the polarised Vht'shjenjé society.
These distinguished souls became the vanguard of Násheniren’s new army, an ascetic type of warrior which he called the Varjenzhír or “of no colour”, to signify their allegiance to no faction. This new class of warrior would be the epitome of all the virtues and skills of the different Shadowborn classes. He told them that because of their loss, by giving up everything for their duty, they had become invincible and not even Arthyrín’s mighty army could stop them. Thus, he told them to dress in simple robes and to eschew jewellery that did not serve a practical purpose. He instructed them in his philosophy of humility and dedication, that the true ultimate goal of a warrior is to defeat the self, that once your fear, doubt, ignorance and desire was eliminated there was no greater foe. He praised the discipline and fighting skills of the Ihtsikhá but maintained that the art of killing without being tempered by mercy, justice and respect was no better than the ferocious tantrum of a wild beast. Násheniren instructed his soldiers in self-refinement by bathing and combing their hair, to listen to chanting poets and to meditate. But above all, he told them to practice archery.
The weapon that Nasheniren praised above all others was the bow. Not only was already the powerful composite bow used by the Azure army famous in the desert, he also maintained that it was the essential weapon of the warrior-ascetic. The Vht’shjenjé bow was a complex device made from various components, which he considered symbolic for the state as a whole; “when all parts of society work as one, it will shoot straight and true towards its goal”, the idea that no matter how humble one’s origins were, there was vital role to be played in the great machinery that was society. Furthermore, it was a demanding weapon that was much more difficult to utilise than the spear or the obsidian sickle-sword. It required a pure technique and strength to utilise, which to him illustrated the need for the leaders of a society to harness the accumulated power of a unified society. She too needs to practice her strength and form to perfection or even the most orderly of society will be dysfunctional.
The true warrior needed to understand all the aspects of the bow; manufacturing the bow symbolised the virtue of wisdom, understanding how all parts work together to a union. The labour-intensive technique of stringing a bow cultivated diligence, patience and strength.  Firing the bow was the crucial moment which all preparation lead to, the ultimate moment when all things came together and the slightest hesitation would result in unsteadiness and bring one’s aim to a ruin. Thus, the art of firing a bow was in essence the virtue of focusing one’s mind to a single purpose, letting go of all distraction to pursue perfection. Each arrow represented one chance; unlike a sword where one offensive technique could be a series of attacks and ripostes, each discharge of an arrow was a single action. The bow thus was a symbol of a great warrior and virtuous leader in his mind, and he advocated that all should learn to understand the bow. He also pointed out that the weapon given to the ancestor Tsyshnejá in the first generation was indeed also the bow, fashioned from primordial wood to slay the enemies of the red-blooded.
In the centuries that followed the end of the Thousand-Year War, the pioneers that were the  Varjenzhír ceased to use that name but their philosophy had forever been so ingrained into the Azure Army one could argue that his mission was eventually successful. The Ihtsikhá remains the only warrior-society among the Vht'shjenjé who did not embrace Nashenirenite philosophy, and is almost regarded as its antithesis by some.
Not only has his philosophy utterly changed the Shadowborn society, he is also venerated as an Ancestral saint by the Ancestral veneration cult. A massive statue of him stands on the grand plaza of Varvardnársh where he defeated Arthyrín, and warriors of the Azure Army all recite his spiritual poetry as part of their training.
Category:Vht'shjenjé people
Category:Military leaders
Category:Heroes
Category:Philosophers
Category:Ancestor-saints
Category:People
Category:Warriors
Category:Scorched people