Eiryen Nesaleen

A close-up of Eiryen Nesaleen.

In every world there are those who make history and those who record it; those who wage war and those who write the record. And while one is certainly more prone to the collection of glory, the other is no less significant for its apparent humility.

Then again, there also exceptions to most any rule.

Case in point: Eiryen Nesaleen, the great sage of Parnassius. She is no warrior - she has never fought a single battle, as far as anyone can tell. She is no great sorceress - at least as far as anyone knows. Even if Od is, to all appearances, either insignificant or unused.

Yet, her name is known in every corner of Empirica Sin, her works used as vital texts in every institute of learning.

This is also how she trains her many students, ensuring that even if something were to happen to Eiryen herself... there will be others behind her, prepared to take up her mission to ensure the accuacy and completeness of historical records for the betterment of society as a whole.

This, in the end, is how Eiryen herself chooses to make history.

Eiryen was born in 12543Y to an average Fey family in the independent city-state of Acis. Her family were of a practical disposition - they owned a modest shop where they sold groceries, general supplies and hand-wrapped food items cooked daily by her mother, Marilie. As a child, she was given the education that they could afford - early childhood education in reading, writing and the general history of Empirica Sin, and then catered education from her parents on cooking and gardening so that she could assist with the general store.

Young Scholar

A young Eiryen, pictured inside Virsue

Eiryen realized quite early on that she was more interested in reading, writing, and history than she was in making spiced potato pouches.

As a young girl, both a child and a later as a young adult, she spent the majority of her free time reading... and once she became more involved in the store, she spent all of her personal pay on books as well. By the time she reached full adulthood, she had already decided that she would pursue higher education in the High City which was, at the time, the center for learning in Astrum.

Eiryen attended Virsue, the "Silver School," where she dove into history and philosophy. It interested her that there were historical contradictions from one record to the other - she felt this made sense in Gaean, where lives were short and stories passed on through time. But the fact that these disparities could be found in writing by Celestials, many of whom should be able to remember the events first hand, troubled her. It carried implications about both memory and the personalities of others that she disliked.

As a result, she dedicated her education to comparing different accounts and conducting deep dive research to try and find the truest account one could manage. This meant developing a habit of picking a certain period of time or event, reading everything she could find about it, mapping out the points of overlap... but even this was not fully satisfying, as she could never be certain that her own perception of the points of overlap were accurate.

In the aftermath of finishing her courses, when she was no longer tied physically to the High City, Eiryen began to travel.

For the next several centuries, Eiryen supported herself through writing work - penning academic texts and even contemporary news reports for periodicals.

As for what she did with her free time, Eiryen returned to her habit of seeking consensus in historical records... and then she took it a step farther and began traveling to the areas featured in her chosen time period or event, comparing the physical descriptions (and, in some cases, the physical scars) to the accounts in the histories. Then, she would take the information -- and the tentative conclusions she had drawn -- and interview the surviving people involved... or as many as she could.

All through this process she would record her findings in a journal. It was done entirely for her own benefit at the time. However, when a fellow researcher caught sight of her notes, they suggested that it would be worth having them published as academic references.

She didn't do that. However, she did begin to convert her notes into history volumes, each covering a particular topic in extreme depth. These books were soon being used as references in Virsue.

For the next 1,000 years she would pursue her great passion, and begin filling in the gaps in her research.

By 15893. Eiryen had purchased a large plot of land outside of claimed territories, where spent most of her comparative analysis and writing time sequestered in her work. She never announced that this was her home, but soon aspiring students began to turn up at her door, asking to study under her. Initially, Eiryen was reluctant to take on such duties, but when she considered her own youthful frustration at limited resources and guidance, she decided that she would accept a limited number of students.

Limiting them became, ultimately, something of a problem. She had little resistance to the call of academic passion. But her own home was soon too cramped to house her proteges, and so she began to have additional homes constructed around her own. In time, she had a library built as well, to house their research materials, their academic personal writings, and anything of interest to them for their independent studies.

Eventually, her older students began to assist in teaching her younger students.

Residents' spouses, children, and parents began opening small businesses to occupy themselves.

...decades passed. What was once simply Eiryen's personal home grew into a small settlement, and then a large one, and then a city. However, this was a unique city - a city that was a university, and a university that was a city, with businesses staffed wholly by current and former students or those loved who accompanied them to live there.

Notably, this includes Eiryen's own parents, who moved their general supplies and food to go store to Parnassius shortly after the population grew to a sustainable level.

In time, organizing the entire city became too annoying for Eiryen, who never really wanted to lead much of anything aside from classrooms, to manage. She thus began a council made of her most trusted confidants and left the day-to-day management to them... allowing her to return her focus to the work, and those students she chose to accept into her tutelage.

Eiryen had only the basic teachings for a middle-class Fey, but this was enough to get her on the road to a truly world-class education... initially provided by her own ravenous intellectual appetite and then by Virsue. Today it is fair to say that there are very few with a base of knowledge as broad and deep as Eiryen's. She is primarily focused on histories, but has recently expanded to general knowledge and records of the lifestyle and habitats of various creatures.

Eiryen spent her early career writing freelance for various academic institutions and reporting on the news for local periodicals. Eventually, her academic writing was able to sustain her without outside employment. She is now an educator, scholar and writer with texts in use in educational institutes throughout the world.

Additionally she is the author of several Living Book networks dedicated to updated information in various fields of interest.

In a real sense, she created Parnassius - the world's most respected academic institution. She was also co-founder of the Order of the Silver Tree, which remains the premiere magical research organization.

Eiryen has a quite serious personality - her humor is dry, when it exists, and her voice - while pleasant to listen to - borders on monotone. She has little patience for nonsense - though it should be noted that her definition of nonsense is somewhat specific to things that offend her academic sensibilities. In particular she is offended by propaganda and any intentionally misleading disinformation. She considers it her primary responsibility - before anything else - to ensure that the most accurate possible information is recorded and available for those who are interested. ...her secondary responsibility is ensuring that those who are not interested hear it anyway.

Her general expressionlessness can make her difficult to read. This isn't purposeful, it is only a result of her relatively low emotionality - the same reason her voice has a controlled tone.

A full body shot of Eiryen Nesaleen.

Eiryen looks to be about 30 years old in mortal terms, though she is of course far older than that. She has a generally colorless appearance, with grey hair, grey clothing and grey eyes as well as a fairly pale complexion. She also has insect-like wings with a somewhat glassy appearance.

She is of around average height, and has a small build.

Eiryen typically dresses modestly. Her gowns are long and somewhat old-fashioned; they also generally lack any obvious attempts to play up her appearance. Her disinterest in fashion is evident from how plain the dresses tend to be; however she does have some more "modern" styles which were generally gifts from her students and colleagues.

Most of Eiryen's minimal fuss over her appearance manifests in her treatment of her hair. Often, it is in a simple updo with little fanfare! However, despite her general "colorlessness", Eiryen sometimes adds a bit of variety to her look by placing colored flowers in her hair. She also makes use of different "down" hairdos, though they generally feature some kind of tying back if only to keep her hair out of her face.

While Eiryen, like most Celestials, is capable of some level of supranormal abilities, it is somewhat unclear how strong they are, or even how skilled she is in using them. What is known, however, is that...