Knight Order

Name: Ranalie of Reane

Head Title: Chaosbane

Other titles: The White Knight, The Life of The West, the Unstoppable Icon, Rayda’s Teeth, Starlend Manifest

Relevant Faction(s): The Royal Knights of The Old Kingdom of Reinen (Lord Knight Class)

Race/State: Human/[REDACTED]

Age: 6,000+ by the beginning of Woodcastle

Height: 155 cm

Weight: 49 kg unaltered, but can change weight to feather-lightness or several tons in a matter of seconds as a situation demands using mutamancy

Original series: The Courts Divided

Personage: There are, in the course of the Omniverse’s history, certain figures that discern themselves from the writhing masses of time and suffering. These are the men, women, and otherwise that are dealt cruelly their cards of fate, and are left to live out their misbegotten lives in the expectation of a short, confused dreamscape of nightmares that they might dare to call their existence. These individuals are few in number, and their most notable trait is being unknown. There are a hundred trillion trillion stories cut short, buds of flowers nipped before their time. This woman is not among that number.

Royal Knight Order, known previously as Ranalie, heralded from the town of Reane, a long-since-destroyed village that existed in Aerna’s northwestern woods, south of the ice wastes and north of the fairy swamps.

She, along with her clan-mate Roem, were set off on a mission across the highlands to ask for help from a higher power. This was during the onset of draconic incursion across the Aernan continent, and the two forced through weeks of travel on the constant threat of discovery by the meat hordes. After their assignment was completed, she settled with Roem to become his bride. A short time after that she became pregnant, only months before their relatively happy situation was brought to an abrupt and grievous end.

A raiding party hit by their home, impaled Roem several times and left him for dead, while capturing her and taking her to the local warlord’s keep.

Expecting slavery, she immediately consigned herself to her fate in order to protect her upcoming’s child’s favor with her new master. Then, on the same night, Chaos made his first appearance.

In a blind flash of fury, he killed nearly everyone in the great hall, affording her the chance to escape amidst the manic bloodshed.

She did not see him again until two and a half years later. She had remarried to a mutual childhood friend, Vern, and she had given birth to Roem’s son, Arram. Chaos found the three of them, and immediately killed Vern and Arram, who were both in a nearby glade playing. No one knows why, but most everyone has a theory.

Following the noises from the house, Ranalie found the scene only seconds after the event, and fainted immediately.

All she found when she woke up was the red streaks of what appeared to be their stolen bodies, either by Chaos, wolves or one of the cruel other denizens of the woods.

The loss of husbands and a son are too much for most people to withstand. She immediately made arrangements to take her own life. Seconds before she took her own life via a hastily-tied noose to a sturdy tree, she was halted by a being that claimed to be an emissary of Starlend, one of the higher realms of the Omniverse and chief-kingdom over stars and matter.

The emissary explained that the mysterious figure that took her family’s lives was in fact a minion of The Great Black Knight, servant of the Goddess Witch Rondi. Speaking a prayer of courage over her, the emissary then charged her with the duty of defeating Chaos and taking revenge for what he stole from her. Ranalie received Monument, a Starlendic blade with the compressed power of a nova. As Monument is a weapon of immense power, she nearly killed herself in an eager attempt to pick it up. It was not until Ranalie joined the Royal Knights of Reinen that she was offered the education and means to train in alteration magic: mutamancy. Nearly two thousand years later she returned to the glade and retrieved the blade that was rightfully hers.

Her will to slay Chaos was mountainous in the following decades, but it was only a matter of time before her fast-won power as a swordsmaiden waned into the constant dullness of life once more. The two continue to fight, even today, somedays harder than others, but usually not at all.

In summary, she, like that few, were delivered a decisive hand of fate that should have ensured her destruction, however she is of that even smaller number of individuals that took the hand they were dealt, and still won their game.

Many historians call her lucky, others call her a hard worker and one that profits off the challenges she’s given, and while she is arguably all those things, she is also one of the smartest cheaters to have ever been born. She, like most Royal Knights of Reinen, have had to make difficult decisions and sometimes sacrifices when it comes to their respect for their humanity versus their desire to survive and protect the masses.

Just what is the value of a weak, innocent life when compared to a millennia-old savior of nations, after all?

Despite being loved dearly by the populace of the Western Kingdoms, Knight Order has secrets hiding along every inch of her body, her home, and in many of her relationships with the other knights. Just what is she hiding?

There will be many who will claim they know why, that they’ve “figured her out” but the reality is that she has a past that holds too many layers to be understood in a single lifetime of questioning and study; one simply had to “be there” in the key moments to truly know her.

Like a living timebomb, her psyche continues to struggle with the immensity of ghosts that haunt her past as she attempts to reconcile between that and the constant expectations of her gradually elevating offices of responsibility. She’s outlasted everyone she’s met with the exception of Chaos, and many say it’s only a matter of time before one or the other comes out as the sole victor of their millennia-long war.

She’s usually a quiet, contemplative sort, with an enormous tolerance for stress, however an exceptionally short fuse when it comes to her own thoughts. Order’s not the sort of person one should leave alone for too long, as she’s apt to turn to binge drinking to deal with the continuous mental onslaught of guilt and depression that also doubles as an unexpected fuel for her continuous high performance – its almost as though she feels like she has to atone for something. Knight Love is an exceptionally dear friend of hers and probably the only person other than Chaos to whom she feels comfortable enough to actually talk about her personal issues; it’s no coincidence that both of them happen to know her darkest secrets.

Influence: Widely considered the greatest front-line fighter of the human race, Order’s ability on the battlefield has been compared to the strength of an entire planet’s military capability. Using Monument, she’s able to “arc” the solar ray of the blade, projecting a stupendously-high energy attack across several kilometers, though the range is purported by some sources to be able to reach as far as she pleases. As Monument is a blade from the upper realms, it does not necessarily obey the common rules of physics, and has as of the time of this writing successfully defeated every single weapon it has been matched against; all with the exception of Chaos’ own weapon: Kingdom Slayer. Theories abound throughout Omniverse society as to why their weapons are individually capable of such immense destruction, and yet struggle to more than nick the blade of the other. Rather than running about libraries looking for references, I’ll just go right ahead and tell you that Chaos’ weapon is also a weapon from the ascended realms, and thus their materials are more or less comparable to each other.

Throughout the years she has taken up a household name as the protector of The West. While Rayda’s leadership was worshiped, and Knight Redemption’s image was followed everywhere, it was Order who was seen as the unquestionable teeth of the old, great Reinen. While she has her detractors and many, many critics, the common-folk see only a lionized goddess of war, committed endlessly to the defense of her beloved republic of kingdoms. The reality is far more dire, of course, but there you have it.

Hobbies and interests:

-Gardening

-Painting (secret)

-Alcohol culture (drinking, brewing, etc.)

-Hosting tea parties for close friends

-Birdwatching

-Alteration magic

-Exotic tourism

Notable relationships:

-An awkward nemsisship / ironic marriage with High Overlord Chaos

-A considerate tutor and guide to Knight Justice, who really needs the help

-Knight Love’s best friend for longer than most civilizations have existed