Nirai Kujen

**Nirai Kujen**, born **Hajoret Kujen**, is the true Nirai hexarch. He appears in Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem, and Revenant Gun.

## Appearance and Personality

Kujen is 864 years old. His signifier is Kaleidoscope Moth. As a revenant, his physical appearance is that of his anchor at the time. His current anchor is Nirai Mahar. Hexarch Shuos Mikodez considered Kujen a "talkative bastard" and was aware that discourse with him was never safe.

Unlike other revenants, he is capable of taking complete control of his anchor's dreams or, with great concentration, their body.

## Personal Life

As a child concubine on his birth-planet, Kujen sired a couple of children with some other concubines, later losing touch with all of them. He also caused the deaths of his mother and six-year-old sister, a fact now known only to him.

He is mainly attracted to men, rarely choosing a woman or alt for sex or anchoring. Known intimate relationships include Heptarch Nirai Esfarel and Agent Andan Nezhe. General Shuos Jedao.

He keeps a supply of potential long-term anchors on hand at all times, insisting on beautiful, mathematically-trained men or manforms whenever possible. Known anchors include Liyeng, Uwo, and Mahar.

## Innovations

Kujen was astonishingly versatile in science and technology, and was once told by a mentor that he could do great good with his skill in those fields.

Kujen invented the first mothdrive, allowing the heptarchate to expand rapidly. He also pioneered the field of mathematics which led to modern calendrical mechanics, making remembrances more pervasive than they had been in his childhood; wrote papers on algebraic topology; and developed the black cradle to allow himself to transcend death. Some evidence suggested that the Liozh were destroyed partly as a consequence of attempting to remove remembrances from the calendar.

Together with Visyas, Kujen designed formation instinct. Sometimes Kujen thinks they did too good a job.

Kujen was an innovative practitioner of psych surgery, and is one of the best psych surgeons in the hexarchate. His work in the field includes improving the process for refugees and veterans and also using the art on Jedao and others whose attitudes he felt like adjusting.

Kujen's most recent innovation is an entirely new immortality device.

## History

Kujen spent his youth on a war-torn planet whose name would change twice in the next nine centuries. A child concubine of a local warlord whose stronghold was bombed and looted by the Kel, he was placed in a Vidona orphanage and tested into Nirai Academy early, never forgiving the Kel for burning the warlord's priceless archival materials.

## Trivia

* Kujen will appear as "Death" in Hexarchate Tarot. The card stands for transformation and the cycle of existence; reversed, it evokes festering and decay.
* In the original draft of *Ninefox Gambit*, Kujen originally could not body-hop at will, but this was adjusted in revisions to set up some developments for *Revenant Gun*. Kujen was also not a sociopath but "a lonely old man terrified of death;" rewrites transferred Jedao's original sociopathy to him.
* In the original draft of *Raven Stratagem*, Kujen died "in exactly the place you would have expected him to die if he hadn't run off." This was also changed to allow developments in *Revenant Gun*.

## References

1. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 2
2. ↑ Author's blog
3. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 2
4. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
5. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 30
6. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
7. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 6
8. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
9. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 3
10. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
11. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 3
12. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
13. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
14. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 2
15. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
16. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 2
17. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
18. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 15
19. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 20
20. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 11
21. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 23
22. ↑ Artist's design
23. ↑ Hexarchate Tarot: Major Arcana
24. ↑ TheBookSmugglers interview: Oops, I Accidentally Wrote A Trilogy