Dorchadas/TheGameDreamsoftheFirstAgeShiningStar
Contents
Shining Star ni Kestrel, Chosen of the Sun =
Shining Star was born to a poor peasant family in Hollow (modern Nexus), close to three millennia after the treaty that ended the Primordial War. She was quick to master the minor magics that mortals had claim to, and when she Exalted into the Twilight Caste, no one was particularly surprised. The stars had proclaimed her glory from her birth, but not even her family realized just how glorious she would be.
She studied under the reclusive Twlight called An Dagda after convincing him to teach her by saying she wanted to learn sorcery in order to better help the people of Creation. He was very very old--one of the heroes of the Primordial War--and she was his last student. When he died, he gave her his daggers--the famous pair Promise Keeper and Dream Weaver--as a parting gift, and told her how proud of her he was for her devotion to the cause. She was an apt pupil, and by the time he died, she had become an extremely powerful sorceress.
For several centuries, Shining Star devoted herself entirely to her craft, becoming a sorcerer almost without peer. It was during this time that she married the No Moon Lunar Nine Lives, with whom she had an unfortunately tempestuous relationship. While they both loved each other, neither of them were entirely committed to the idea of monogamy, but no one else they dallied with could keep their attention as well as the other could. Together, they produced great feats of sorcerous engineering, some of which still survive into the Second Age.
One thing about Shining Star was her appearance--she was plain, quite plain, and it rankled her to be in a Circle with Ashraielle and--to a lesser extent--Ruby. As a powerful sorceress, she could have easily modified her appearance, but she never did. That would have been admitting defeat, and defeat was one thing that Shining Star was unwilling to allow.
The Great Curse
As time wore on, Shining Star became increasingly convinced that the ends--namely, the safety of the Realm and the pursuit of knowledge--justified any means. She began to summon demons more and more frequently, seeking to gain mastery of the knowledge of the Primordials. She claimed she was doing this as a preemptive security measure, but it nonetheless made many of her fellow Solars uneasy. She conducted experiments on unwilling mortals, using their short lifespans and the importance of the knowledge to be gained to justify her actions. She also became more and more paranoid, believing that others did not understand the importance of her work and were willing to stop her because of it. She set up several traps that would be triggered on her death, and built her own tomb to safeguard her work for her next incarnation. She eventually came to distrust even her own mate, who had become distant due to her activities, often leaving for years at a time without telling her where he was going.
Despite (or because of) the effects of the Curse, some of her greatest work came about during this period. The Realm Defense Grid was greatly expanded under her supervision, eventually covering all of Creation, and several refinements in warstrider and Manse technology allowed the military of the Realm to greatly improve its capabilities. Many of the artifacts she made during this period were considered without peer in the First Age, though the reputation of their creator stained them somewhat. She was the designer of a breeding program for the Dragon-Blooded, which did increase the numbers and power of the Terrestrial Exalted, though this would later prove to be detrimental to her and her friends. She also managed to solve the centralization problem of the Houses of Doors just before her death, a feat that would have revolutionized travel if there had been time to impliment it.
Death
Shining Star was working on a hearthstone that would have made demon-summoning far easier. She had not told anyone about its effects, but nonetheless, the infamy of her experiments had reached the point where Seventh Son could take no more. He took it on himself to assassinate her without leave from the Deliberative, and though he was successful, the traps she placed to be triggered on her death killed him in the process as well as destroying the city where she lived and killing several million innocent mortals. Her Essence was considered a high-priority target, and the Sidereals managed to get a hold of it one incarnation later and place it in the Jade Prison for safekeeping--the only Solar for whom such an exception was made.
Theme Song
Ani DiFranco - Not a Pretty Girl
Back to Memories of the First Age
Back to Dorchadas
