Ruan Darach

**Ruan Darach** was a female Saposhan roboticist who served the Cassiopeian Republic as a participant in the expedition to the planet Heilyne. Darach helped found the Stilltide settlement on behalf of the Republic, alongside fellow settlers Hui Ying Yorod, Meredith Firth, and Feng Eastsun. As a founder, Darach was posthumously declared one of the four Mothers of Stilltide.

## Biography

### Early Life and Career

Ruan Darach was born in the year 4866 ASA. As a baby, she was the only survivor of a devastating starship crash on the planet Xiangshu. The inhabitants of a nearby Xiangshuren settlement discovered the crash site and nursed the Saposhan baby back to health. A small family who lived in the nearby settlement adopted Ruan and gave her the name she would continue to live with for the rest of her life. Ruan lived on Xiangshu for remainder of her childhood, welcomed as a fully-fledged member of the community.

As she grew up, Ruan developed a complex relationship with the crash site of where she first arrived on Xiangshu. When she wasn't enjoying her time exploring the oak forests of her home planet, she would often tinker and experiment with the different mechanical parts salvaged from the wreckage of the starship. Her lifelong experience with working with machines and old technology gave her the reputation of a roboticist in her village. On a rare occasion a traveler would come to Xiangshu from off-world, she ask a million questions to learn more about the wider Cassiopeia Galaxy.

### To Bigger and Better Things

One day, by the time she was in her late 20s, a small scouting team from the Cassiopeian Republic came to Xiangshu to check up on the state and well-being of its inhabitants. Ruan Darach became acquainted with the Republic scouts and grew a stronger interest in the wider cosmos. The scouting team, having noticed her considerable roboticist skills, offered her a place in the Cassiopeian Republic, to which she immediately accepted. Darach traveled off-world for the first time when she left Xiangshu with the CR scouting team, eager to see new worlds.

### A New Life on Heilyne

By 4894 ASA, Darach had traveled with her scouting team for over half a year. Throughout her travels, Darach visited and became acquainted with dozens of different worlds once only familiar to her by name, or unfamiliar to her completely. Near the beginning of the year, Darach received an offer to participate in an expedition to the planet Heilyne in the Ice Quartz Sector as part of a proposed colonization project. Darach accepted this offer and came to Heilyne with a new yet even smaller team of Cassiopeian Republic members: the administrator Hui Ying Yorod, the privateer Meredith Firth, and the officer Feng Eastsun.

## Personality and Traits

Ruan Darach was a Saposhan woman with salmon pink skin, red-colored eyes, and red horns that grew from the sides of her head.

Above all, Ruan Darach's most defining trait was her endless curiosity and imaginative mind. She loved tinkering with old Automatons and salvaged machine parts just as much as she loved learning more about the greater universe around her. She was an upbeat, outdoorsy woman who loved the rain, as she was always comforted by the gentle showers of her homeworld. Darach was adventurous, rarely ever fearing the risk of injury or death when undertaking perilous yet exhilarating tasks, which made some think of her as careless.

Darach was an extremely extroverted who loved to socialize with others and meet new people. To her, meeting new people meant getting plenty of fresh perspectives on the many subjects that interested her. Ultimately, most saw Darach as an eccentric yet optimistic and brilliant mind.

## Skills and Abilities

Ruan Darach's strongest skills were as a roboticist, tinkering with machines and Automatons old and new. She was observant and research-motivated. Her experiences while traveling alongside a crew of Cassiopeian Republic scouts gave her expertise in long-ranged combat and proper firearm usage, as well as some acute familiarity in hand-to-hand combat.

As one of the four founders of Stilltide, Darach acquainted herself with the art of construction. She also became a considerably skilled cook and craftswoman for the town.

## Trivia

* Ruan is based off of a randomly generated colonist character from the sandbox video game *RimWorld*.
* Ruan's name comes from *ruan*, a Chinese plucked stringed instrument. Her surname Darach comes from the irish word for "oak".