Dorchadas/TheGameDreamsoftheFirstAgeMaenin
Yamahashi Maenin, Chosen of the Sun =
Maenin-sama, Hierophant of the Solar Deliberative and ruler of Creation, was born in a humble farmer's cottage on the Blessed Isle. It was later claimed that all the animals within a mile cried out simultaneously at the moment of his birth, that comets and meteors fell in profusion all throughout Creation, and that his mother had been a virgin who was never touched by any man but her father. The legends grew in the telling, though there is some basis for them--the stars predicted great things for the young Maenin, and when he was fifteen his family sent him to Meru to join a monastery. He never arrived--at least, not at the monastery. He was set upon by bandits on the road, and by the time a patrol of guards found him, he had been keeping the bandits spellbound with stories for hours while the light of the Unconquered Sun burned on his brow.
He was assigned to the North as an itinerant whose job it was to travel from city and city and inspire the people, reporting to the Deliberative any major problems that he encountered. He took to the task with zeal, and within a few decades was well known throughout Creation as a man of honor. It was during these first few centuries that he met the woman who would later become his wife. He had tracked down rumors of a Yozi cult in Cherak and managed to interrupt a ritual where the participants were planning to offer up a virgin for possession by Octavian, the Living Tower. Unfortunately for them, as they were raising the knife, the woman on the altar burned with silver light and transformed from a meek fifteen year old into a blood crazed battle machine. Maenin barely had time to get out of the way before the nascent Lunar Exalted slaughtered all of the ritual participants. After her blood lust had faded, he introduced himself and offered to guide her to the nearest Lunar for training. Hikari accepted, and when she had come into her own a century later, they were married--in secret. The public marriage ceremony would not be for another few centuries, but they felt they could not wait. Both of them loved each other greatly, and they knew that waiting would serve no purpose beyond annoyance and sorrow. The Hierophant of the time found out about it, however--she assigned the two of them in joint residency in the West.
He spent several centuries in the West, working with the local censor of the Celestial Bureaucracy before the Hierophant died and the time came to elect a new one. The political battles were extremely fierce, and finally Maenin was chosen as a compromise candidate. He was known in the Deliberative as a serious, hard-working man who was devoted to the service of the Realm. Many of the parties who finally agreed on his selection hoped that he would prove easy to manipulate. Unfortunately for them, Maenin's reputation concealed a willpower as strong as steel. He took to the task of Hierophant like he had been born to it, and the strength and skill with which he maneuvered other people into accepting his dictates astounded everyone.
He had a brief affair with Ashraielle, another member of his Circle, but he mostly viewed it as a way to pass the time while Hikari was far away in the Wyld. When she returned, he broke it off and sent Ashraielle North to get her out of the way. Hikari and he had only recently publically married, and Ashraielle had not heard about it--it was not one of Maenin's wisest decisions, and it certain made Hikari very angry. It caused no lasting damage to their relationship, though, which only made Ashraielle angrier.
The Great Curse
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Maenin was head of the Solar Deliberative, the titular ruler of Creation. While initially he often spent time in prayer to ask the Unconquered Sun for advice, more and more he simply assumed that he knew the will of the Unconquered Sun. Had he found a middle ground between the two extremes...but he did not. He went from unsure of his own decisions to far too sure of them. Towards the end, he believed that every word he made was personally endorsed by the Unconquered Sun himself, and that anyone who did not behave as though this were true was at best deluded, and at worst a traitor to the Realm.
As Hierophant, most of the decision making power was in Maenin's hands--though the Deliberative had little power over individual Solars' domains, it was responsible for Creation as a whole. He began to siphon off money for infrastructure repair and relief efforts from disasters and placing it in the hands of the Solars. Near the end of the Solars' reign, the Solars were making fantastic profits and living lives of obscene luxury while many of the mortals suffered as the magical infrastructure that made the First Age possible was being neglected in favor of the Solars' personal projects. What Maenin wanted was what the Unconquered Sun wanted--it was obvious to him, and so his desires were for the good of the Realm.
There were some benefits from this. Maenin's fanatical hatred of Yozi cults meant that Yozi activity throughout Creation declined precipitously in the years before the Usurpation, though there were probably a lot of innocent people killed in the purges as well. He also was better than any previous Hierophant in holding back the Fair Folk, such that even after the Usurpation they dared not launch a full-scale assault until several centuries had passed.
Death
As Hierophant of the Deliberative, Maenin attended the New Year's Day ceremony at Meru, though more as an attempt to prove his devotion than out of any remaining piety. Like the other Solars there, he was slain by the Dragon Blooded host, even though Hikari attempted to defend him, and thus passed the man who ruled Creation in the days when the Solars excesses were legend. His Essence was locked in the Jade Prison with the others and sunk to the bottom of the sea.
Theme Song
Assemblage 23 - Let Me Be Your Armor
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