Anandi Virasana

Anandi Virasana was a human noble of House Virasana. She was the first Virasana Emperor called Mother of the Empire.

While she has become something of a benevolent grandmother in the minds of the people, she was first and foremost a shrewd business woman and a cut-throat politician.

The jubilee of her coronation on May 28th, 1402 ET, is still celebrated in many parts of the Empire as Anandi Day, something of an unofficial birthday of the Virasana Empire.

## Appearance

* Anandi is usually portrayed as a portly matron, often with little children in her arm or playing around her, or other symbols of familial happiness
* Dark haired and dark eyed, she apparently loved flowing colorful robes while eschewing much jewelry, even keeping her hair as plain as possible.

## Youth on Gui Lin

Born into a time of political unrest, her family controlled a substantial area of Gui Lin. An eager student from an early age on, she was quickly known as an inconvenient child, questioning the status quo and rarely accepting things as they were.

While she adored her family, especially her elder brothers, the relationship with her father was fraught with conflict. Historians assume that while a successfull ruler himself, Baku Virasana was deeply insecure about the future of his family, and his unruly daughter endangered his carefully maintained air of competence.

At nineteen years of age, in 1367 ET, Anandi left home, either due to a banishment or simply ran away. After a short time of making a living as a dockworker, she was captured by the Liang Shu river pirates. But she negotiated, fought and charmed her way back into freedom, and by age 22, she was Captain of her own river pirate crew.

When news reached her that her father and two of her brothers had been kidnapped by a rival family branch, she used her pirates - who by then were fiercely loyal to her - to lay siege to the mountain fortress of Pahaad Kila. Not only did she free her family members unharmed, but also managed to ransack a substantial amount of treasure from her enemies.

When her family asked her to reunite with them, she did so only under the condition that her fellow pirates would be allowed to join as well, and as members in good standing.

> "I promised that, one day, you would beg for my return. Have you come to fulfil my promise?"
>
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## Maharanee of Gui Lin

After further squabbles with her father, Anandi enventually took over the lead of her house and quickly managed to unite the fractured political landscape of Gui Lin behind her. Her victory over the Magocrats of Simela and the N'goro Alliance are still taught as prime examples of political craftsmanship.

By 38, in 1386 ET, she had united much of Gui Lin and the adjacent planets behind her. While rarely leaving Gui Lin, she set a clear code of conduct and penal law for all citizens, and her popularity grew in step with the growing prosperity. By then, most people were already calling her the Maharanee of Gui Lin, on par with many of the then-popular individual planetary kings, even though she had never been officially crowned nor accepted the title.

## Mother of the Empire

At 54, in 1402 ET, after three more planets joined her 'Virasana Alliance' to a total of sixteen (80% of the known, rediscovered planets at that time), she was proclaimed Empress by her peers. Dividing her time between her work on Lagoona and her extensive family on Gui Lin, she became one of the most adored rulers in known history.

## Death and Legacy

Her death at 124 years of age in 1472 ET was bemourned by all, most of all by her seven children, fourteen adopted children, 87 grandchildren and several hundred great-grandchildren.