Nierae Valkyrion

> "Ice does not forgive. Stone does not forget."
>
>

> ~ Khaldian Proverb
>
>

A giant walks among you, and her face is death. Born to the last chief of the Khald, Nierae Valkyrion was never meant for a quiet life. But rather than becoming a mere warlord as she was meant to, fate had other plans.

## The Khald

The Khald were a race of death worshipping frost giants who inhabited the White Mountains of what was then on the far eastern edge of the Aenean Empire. The area now lies in the mountains east of Vendilyr. They believed that the mortal plane was a proving ground for their place in the everlasting halls of their Dread Father. Families were organized into clans, all of whom answered to one chief. The manipulation of ice and the necromantic arts were their innate talents, but they were also skilled stone carvers and metalsmiths. They both hunted and domesticated wolves and bears. Ravens were kept and revered as the messengers of their god.

## The Betrayal

Khaldian chiefs were chosen through combat. Upon the death of a chief, the heads of each clan would gather, debating among themselves who is fit to contend for the role. Each family would clan would lend its support to one or another of two contestants based on their merit in leadership, strategy, and of course, martial prowess.

It came to pass that Nierae’s father, Agnar, was the grandson of the late chieftain and was selected as one combatant. Brígh, the daughter of the last chief’s predecessor was chosen as the second. Brígh refused to yield, which forced Agnar to kill her.  It was a debt Brígh’s daughter Ja’el could not forgive. Ripe with anger at her mother’s death, she was cast out, as even her own clan would not back her fury. To their minds, Brígh had died with honor as dictated by the law of their people. As a result of her banishment, Ja’el was considered dead. While they were of different clans, Ja’el and Nierae had been cousins and friends, and so, Nierae mourned Ja’el’s loss.

Some years went by, and out in the wider world, Alexander and Azazel began their assault on the Aenean Empire. With his most powerful assets having turned against him, the emperor sought to recreate what he had wrought in a stronger yet more controllable fashion. How else could he hope to defeat their might? He sought creatures of like element to his sons, believing that he could outdo his previous work by using someone of the right strength and knowing he had no time to raise another pair of children.

By then, Ja’el had made her way well into the empire. When she found herself caught up in the emperor’s plan, taken as a possible subject of the emperor's rituals, she was all too eager to redirect him towards those who had betrayed her and her mother. She worked with them directly, fostering a plan to attack the Khald’s strongholds in such a way as to draw each clan together for a war moot.

Ja’el was tied and beaten, seemingly a prisoner of the Aeneans she aided. Believing her ruse, the Khald brought her back into the fold, trusting that she had attempted to reach them to warn of the oncoming army. Ja’el used this trust to sneak in powerful Aenean mages and make way for the Aenean army. After enough fighting had demonstrated the giants’ strength, the mages bound them, making them easy targets.

Those who were not killed in the initial battle were rounded up and transported out of the mountains and back to Posmenos, Nierae among them.

## The Making of a Chimera

It was soon discovered that those past the Khald’s age of adolescence were not viable subjects, nor were children whose bodies were too weak to handle the power required. With lifespans of around 120 years, the Khald reached adolescence around 15 and physical maturity around 30. Nierae was just shy of her twentieth year when the Aeneans invaded, so the magic took hold. Again and again, she and her brethren were subjected to agonizing rounds of magical and alchemical rituals meant to merge them with the abyssal essence of the void, with the blood of Azazel himself.

The process was raw and expedited by necessity. The number of those killed by it were far greater than those that survived. The survivors were then forced to fight the remaining Khald so that the magicians could observe their development and monitor the Aenean’s ability to control them. So it was that Nierae and the other subjects slaughtered their own people, including her mother. When none were left, they were pitted against each other.

Nierae was the last man standing.

## Potius Mori, Quam Foedari

Some twenty years after their war began, Azazel and Alexander’s armies reached Posmenos. The siege dragged on, and in that two year’s time, Nierae and the chimera created to battle Azazel and Alexander were set loose against them. Alexander destroyed his chimera, but for Nierae, the battle went differently.

While she was incredibly powerful, the twenty years of torturous transformation could not make up for the centuries of increasing strength Azazel had lived. At some point during their fight,  his attack broke the mechanism by which the Aeneans controlled Nierae, and she surrendered. She had no wish to die for the people who had forced her to eradicate her own. She willingly turned on the Aenean  army,  aiding the brothers in their cause.

She witnessed the destruction of Posmenos and has fought at Azazel’s side ever since. During the Aevum Bellum, Azazel’s army was on the march through a conquered portion of the old Aenean Empire bordering on the Agrio Desos. The army had infiltrated the jungle, capturing a great many gryphons. During the parade, a war band of Griffari ambushed the parade, intent on cutting Azazel down for the violation of their jungle. Nierae blocked the assassination attempt by taking the blow that was meant for Azazel and was nearly lethally wounded in the process. Azazel adopted her into the Valkyrion Gens thereafter.