Einherjar

The **einherjar** are the warriors of the Norse war god Odin.

According to Norse mythology, half of all warriors who die in battle become into einherjar. The valkyries harvest the einherjar from the battlefield to be brought to Valhalla, where they are trained to battle the jotnar giants at the end of the world.

## Appearance

Einherjar are commonly depicted wearing Norse armour. Like their Norse counterparts, they fight with swords, axes, spears, and shields.

## In the Rabydosverse

The einherjar existed ever since the first warriors were killed in battle. Anxious of a future threat to his existence, Odin collects half of all warriors in the Universe, resulting in the early einherjar derived from extraterrestrial races. The best example of this was the angel Raldoxai, an Almokin einherjur who slew the emperor Trisakoras before the latter was transformed into a mighty demon.

Many Celestials fought alongside the einherjar against various threats to their civilisation: Odin created some of them as his auxiliaries against the threats of the Void. But when Odin was displeased with the cruelty of the Eimaranda Empire, the einherjar vanished, abandoning the Eimares to their doom.

To some people in the Galaxy, including the Freyrgardians themselves, the rush to glory in death by battle became a subject of laughter, a punishing trick to their enemies. By dying in battle, their enemies might end up in Valhalla, but the prospect of having to fight and be killed in battle every day would eventually torment them. Valhalla was inverted from a place of glorious battle, into an ironic hell to torment their enemies to the end of time; whereas Helheim (supposedly an underworld for the peaceful dead) became a sort of paradise for good people.

The irony of the Nandegakkovians being an atheistic civilisation was that they were so dedicated to knowledge, that their obsession with information had made Odin smile upon them. The Galactic Norse believed that good Nandegakkovians will immediately become einherjar, a sign of Odin's happiness for their love of wisdom bringing them closer to him, even though they refused to acknowledge it. But many of them would not be forced to die repeatedly like other soldiers, for the same legends claim that Nandegakkovians who are brought to Valhalla instead go to its eternal library to study peacefully, so after aeons of training and evacuating the righteous from the fires of Surtr, they will be among the ones who will survive and rebuild after Ragnarok.

Some of these same souls, along with other strangers, would return to the mortal plane as strange "golden men", only moving to attack anyone who assaults Nandegakko's archives. It happened after Odin brought the best scientists to Asgard, where he offered them his help in their research. The scientists, frightened by the sheer size of the "Gods", worriedly accepted, and were brought back in an instant to their exact places. Some saw the golden men standing outside the doors of their vaults, only standing back to allow them to use the troves.

Thousands of years later, newer einherjar reappeared to guide the Celestials that fought against their tyrannical kin. For example, the kings and queens of Milavon, a civilisation of Celestials, were guided by an einherjur who was their royal advisor known as "The High King's Hand". In addition to the usual einherjar with their melee weapons, Odin has trained several einherjar to wield his magical powers as an elite guard. These elite warriors train other Celestials about Odin's magic when their king is absent.

### Notable Einherjar

* Raldoxai - an Almokin warrior who stopped the demonic emperor Trisakoras from completing his ruinous ritual. He afterwards governed the Eimaranda Empire on Odin's behalf to prevent it from descending into disorder.
	+ He was a reptilian humanoid, hence the scales on his arms and "the face of a dragon".
* Thelondris the Radiant - an einherjur who documented six types of demons to help holy people know how to defeat them.
* Harr, Jafonharr, and Thridi - three einherjar who were sent on various strange adventures. Not to be confused with one of Odin's manifestations as three hermits, although they might had been named after the threefold deity.
* Seven Stars - seven holy paladins, among the heavenly champions of Odin.
* Nine Guardians - nine mages among Odin's bodyguard who use his magic on his behalf. When Odin seeks to train someone to use his form of magic, and if was unable to meet his apprentice, he sends any of his Nine Guardians to instruct them how to wield his powers.
* Raoliröi - an einherjur of human descent. He was known in Celestial records as among the last of Odin's einherjar during the collapse of the Eimarin civilisation.
	+ His final words, before vanishing from the Galaxy, were: "In all my years, I have *never* seen them do that!"
	+ He was outraged and angered by the Celestials' bizarre and excruciating tortures of various mortal slaves.
* "Golden Men", Rjésagrifes - enigmatic warriors in strange golden armour that appeared near the Nandegakkovians' archives to defend them. They appeared after several scholars agreed to allow Odin to help their research. The "golden men" were as silent enough to be mistaken for statues.
	+ Some people even compared Nandegakkovians to einherjar because they protect the weak and are too obsessed with knowledge, and for their ferocity in battle. Their obsession with knowledge, sense of justice, and unusual courage in war caused the Norse to see them as very pleasing to Odin, the Lord of Knowledge and Battle. Some records even mentioned of shocked Nandegakkovian souls who found that they are in Valhalla, where the einherjar brought them to the best seats and granted them the finest weaponry, to celebrate their virtuous deeds in life!
	+ A few of those records also add that the Nandegakkovian einherjar thought that they would be doomed to die every day in the brutish fields along with the other einherjar. Odin reassured them that because their love of knowledge outshined their ferocity and fuelled it, they will not be trained there, but they enjoy all eternity in the endless libraries behind Valhalla. They were so amazed by the sheer beauty of the libraries, as they sprawled like an impossible city, a universe within a universe. They became star-like beings. Attracted by their wisdom being their radiance, some younger celestials asked the joyous saints to be their teachers - a happy ending for those who love knowledge.
* (not an einherjur) Banchje - although she is not an einherjur, this Kuelgon woman sometimes manifests herself with her own magic to appear like an einherjur, either to surprise her friends for a good laugh, or to frighten and even burn the undead by looking like something they fear the most - a servant of the Heavens, as she was with her kindness.

### Names in various languages

* Kuelgon: Amnerikkeo, Omnerik, Obnerik
* Novantirna: Anjeräd, Eijôräi
* Nandegakkovian: Tjósnačes (Swept Ones), Rjésagrifa (Golden Men)
* Rukthaneh: Qalraz (Loner)
* Tuxavin: Aenarjos

## In the Rinnarverse

Among the Vetarbroitar of the future Milky Way, the einherjar are venerated as demigods and angels. They even believed that they will return to join the Vetarbroitar in an extermination of the Galaxy. But with the defeat of the Farsiders, no einherjar were sighted slaughtering the Earth, and the Vetarbroitar descended into chaos as they fought each other in rage.

In Vetarbroitar art, einherjar are depicted as a diverse army of many races, instead of only as Nordic warriors as in older European art. The darker and brown-skinned saints among their ranks represented Mexico, Australia, the Native American nations, and India working together to stop the Four Powers from taking over the world, saving the declining independence and freedom of other nations. To this day, these heroic nations are known as the "Trisveld", the "great friends", and their people are welcomed instead of being hated like other Earthlings.

As the Rinnarit Republic and Bigton were influenced by Vetarbroitar immigrants, the term "einherjar" became synonymous with "guardian angel".

## See also

* Freyrgardians
* Angels