Characters / Chronicles of the Kencyrath - Randir

This is listing of Randir Kencyr in the series Chronicles of the Kencyrath.

For the main character index, go here.

For Tirandys, Terribend, and Keral, go here.

the Randir

Randir politics were said to rival those in the so-called poison courts of the Central Lands, tangled webs of intrigue, feud, and assassination—not that anyone outside Wilden ever learned the half of it. Above all else, the Randir was a house of secrets.

The Randir are one of the most powerful of the nine major Kencyr houses. They are the patrons of the Priests' College, which is located in their keep, Wilden.

The Randir have a feud with the Knorth, which stem from the Randir being powerful, ambitious, and wanting to rule. There's some personal issues among their Highborn too. The Randir also have tense relations with the Danior, their little neighbors who they would like to take over.

The Randir are known for being secretive, fanatical, and manipulative.

As a house

• Alliterative Family: R names—Rawneth, Randiroc, Roane… Names beginning with the same letter as their house's name—Alliterative Names—are very common among Kencyr Highborn.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Randir are rife with corruption and in-fighting.
  • Enemy Civil War: They're a house of very divided loyalties, which is nice for Jame.
• Decadent Court: In and of themselves, they are a mess of politicals, with The Usurper, Mother Makes You King, and a Noble Fugitive who looks like he's headed for Rightful King Returns.
• Enemy Mine: The Randir and Caineron are allies in that they both oppose the Knorth. But both houses want power—want to be highlord—and if the Knorth were out of the way, they would turn on each other in a heartbeat, since their once-ally would then be their new biggest rival to power.
• Scary Teeth: Those loyal to Rawneth often file their teeth into points.

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Highborn

Rawneth

Lady Rawneth of Randir

Randir Matriarch

Rawneth: Do you think it beyond me, Matriarch?
Kinzi: I think you believe that very little is.

• Ambition Is Evil: Rawneth's ambition is her defining characteristic. In her earliest chronological appearance, she wanted to blood-bind the Knorth heir Greshan to her, and marry him. Since then, she's hired assassins to kill her kinsman Randiroc, ordered the massacre of the Knorth ladies, and engaged in Black Magic to advance her interests. It's paid off, too: as Randir Matriarch, mother of Lord Randir, a powerful sorceress, and the patroness of the Priests' College, she's currently the most powerful woman in the Kencyrath. The whole thing has shades of Protagonist-Centered Morality in it too: Jame and Kirien becoming powerful within their houses despite being women is shown as positive, in the vein of You Go, Girl!, but when Rawneth does it it's despicable.
• Body Surf: This is a favorite technique of Rawneth. She takes over the bodies of her followers on a regular basis to look through their eyes or speak with their mouths; too much of this, though, and it kills the follower. She sometimes lets go before that happens.
• The Exile: Kinzi exiled her from the Women's World for trying to blood-bind Greshan. It hasn't prevented her from becoming the Randir Matriarch, but she still seems to be banished from Gothregor, as she is the one member of the Council of Matriarchs who never visits that keep.
• Evil Sorceress/Sorcerous Overlord: Complete with Deal with the Devil, Evil Tower of Ominousness and everything.
• Femme Fatale: Rawneth is described as darkly seductive in the very best Femme Fatale way, especially in the short story and flashbacks that take place in her youth.
• Femme Fatalons: Ganth notices them in "Hearts of Woven Shadow"
• God Save Us from the Queen!: She's the only Kencyr woman we know of who really rules a house, and she's quite cruel—although she's not a "bad lord" the way, say, Caldane is. One major role of a Kencyr lord is to provide emotional security to their bound Kendar, and Rawneth's followers are fanatically loyal, which means she had to be doing something right.
• In-Series Nickname: The Witch of Wilden. Also, the Bitch of Wilden.
• Kick the Dog: Taking Quirl's name. Before that, all her villainy had to do with political ambition (and let's be honest, the Knorth of that time—Gerraint, Greshan, Ganth—were pretty bad too). But doing something so horrible to one of her own people is different.
• Lady of Black Magic: She's elegant, feminine, and proud, a strong Shanir and she practices native magic like shadow sorcery and shadow casting.
• The Woman Behind the Man: She is the ruling force of the Randir, not her son Kenan.
• Mother Makes You King: She got rid of Randiroc and had her own son Kenan installed as Lord Randir.
• Prehensile Hair: In "Hearts of Woven Shadow"
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin
• She Who Must Not Be Seen: We see Rawneth several times in backstory scenes, we talk to her a few times in the present via possessed people, and we get a split-second glimpse of her in her tower in Honor's Paradox, but Jame has never actually seen her in person. And yes, it definitely makes her scarier.
• Unholy Matrimony (Defied): Rawneth and the equally evil Knorth heir Greshan wished to marry, but were thwarted by the then-Knorth Matriarch Kinzi, who disapproved of Rawneth's ambitions.
  Trishien: They would have suited each other, I think, but what a lethal pairing.
• You Have Failed Me: Took the names of the Randir cadets who tried and failed to kill Randiroc for her.

Kenan

Kenan of Randir

Lord Randir of Wilden

• Bastard Bastard: There certainly was no contract for his birth… This is the least of the secrets he and his mother are keeping.
• Half-Human Hybrid: His mother is Rawneth, a Randir Highborn woman; his father is a darkling changer named Keral, who left humanity behind some time ago.
• Jerkass: What little we've seen in him shows him to be an unpleasant and casually cruel man.
• Puppet Lord (Implied): Kenan and his mother usually "speak with one voice", and the one time he takes action on his own it's unsuccessful. And he doesn't seem to have any Kendar bound to him personally.
• The Usurper: Rawneth arranged for him to inherit rather than the rightful heir, Randiroc.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Kenan is a darkling changer, like his father Keral and his daughter Shade. He uses this power to impersonate Hollens Lord Danior while kidnapping Kindrie and trying to assassinate Torisen.

Roane

Roane of Randir

"You should meet my cousin Roane. He likes to play games too."

—Rawneth

Rawneth's cousin, who was a favorite of hers, and Greshan's crony in his days at Tentir

• False Friend: Rawneth introduced Greshan to Roane, and by all indications, he was always really loyal to her, not Greshan.
• Posthumous Character: Ganth killed him over 40 years before Jame's story starts.
• Softspoken Sadist: On the night Greshan called Ganth to his quarters, Roane is described like this.

Randiroc

Randiroc of Randir

Lost Randir Heir

Glow-bugs traced his movements. He played with them, sculpting their flight with his white hands, expanding his gestures into wide, glowing sweeps. They danced with him, and he with them, wind-blowing kantirs in a moon-silvered field. At times, in flight, his feet barely touched the bending grass. So her mother the Dream-weaver had danced, free of earth, free of pain or regret, free as the wind blows.

—Jame

• Arrow Catch: Randiroc easily catches an arrow in To Ride a Rathorn—but then, he's pretty much the only living Kencyr with combat skills that can match Tirandys.
• Assassin Outclassin': The Bashtiri Shadow Assassins have been trying to kill him for decades now, with a spectacular lack of success. Keep in mind that they are invisible.
• Bond Creature: The crown jewel-jaws as well as possibly his horse Mirah.
• Dark Is Not Evil: A Shanir who has to drink blood to survive, and is accompanied everywhere by a swarm of carrion-eating butterflies. He's also a genuinely nice guy, and his honorable nature contrasts to the usurper Kenan and his mother.
• Long Haired Prettyboy: Just let Jame tell it:
  Jame thought at first that it was Kindrie, but only because of the long white hair—too long, surely, unbound, waist-length, clinging to the stranger's shoulders and back. Moonlight turned his whole body into gleaming alabaster except where blue shadows traced wiry muscles and the threads of old scars. He scooped up water and dashed it in his face. It ran down, gleaming, over the hard lines of his chest, stomach, and loins.
  • It's Barbarian Long Hair too, what with him living in the hills
• The Mentor: He tutors Jame in the wind-bowing Senethar and is the randon who finally helps her start making progress with weapons. He also mentors Gari, who like him has a Shanir bond with swarms of insects.
• Mystical White Hair: His most obvious Shanir trait.
• Naked First Impression/Outdoor Bath Peeping: The first time Jame sees him.
• Nature Hero
• Noble Fugitive: He lives in the wilderness, on the run from the assassins Rawneth set on him when she got her son made Lord Randir in his place.
• Nude Nature Dance: His Establishing Character Moment
• Our Vampires Are Different: Randiroc picked up a particularly Blessed with Suck version of Shanir powers, involving slowly becoming only able to consume blood, milk and honey (and honey hurts his teeth), being intolerant of sunlight, and being followed around by a cloud of Jewel-jaws (carrion-eating butterflies) as his familiars.
• The Quiet One: He rarely speaks, and never so far in complete sentences. Jame attributes this to the many years he's spent almost completely isolated from human company.
  • Smart People Know Latin: In the form of Smart Kencyr Know High Kens. Him saying a few words of High Kens shows that despite his imcomplete sentences, he's well-educated.

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Kendar

Shade

Nightshade

• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl
• Body Double: She takes Randiroc's form to draw attention away from him during an assassination attempt. This is what finally convinces his loyalists among the Randir cadets that she's actually on their side.
• Bond Creature: Her gilded swamp adder, Addy.
• Defeat Means Friendship: The relationship between Jame and Shade is made closer by Jame's defeat of her and then Jame's efforts to protect her and keep her at Tentir.
• Heel–Face Turn: After meeting Randiroc, she switches loyalties from her father and grandmother to him.
• Rubber Woman/Voluntary Shapeshifting: During the last part of her training at Tentir, she discovers that she is a darkling changer, and stretching oneself appears to be the first thing a changer finds that they can do. She goes on to learn how to shape-shift in the broader sense.
• Thrown Down a Well: A rapidly flooding well, at that.
• You Are Not Alone: She has moment of this when she's in the well.
  Jame: All right. Here's something they didn't consider: you have friends.
  Shade: I do?
  Jame: God's claws and small, furry fishes, of course you do. Who d'you think tracked you down here and is waiting on top to help pull you out? Half the Falconer's class, that's all.

the Tempter

the Randir Tempter

• Bee-Bee Gun: Jame and Gari jointly kill her with a swarm of bees, summoned by Gari's Shanir power and guided into her mouth and down her throat by Jame.
• The Corrupter
• Sadist Teacher

Simmel

Simmel

• Tragic Keepsake: His mother's teeth
• You Killed My Mother: Simmel's mother, a Randir randon captain, gave her soul to her Mistress, Rawneth, to form a demon to kill Kindrie and Jame. Bane killed the demon, also ending the soul donor's life; as normal, Jame gets blamed.
  Simmel (possessed by Rawneth): Ah, my family have been good servants to my lady, and my mother was one of the best. After you were done with her, my lady returned these to me, lest I forget. I will never forget, and neither should you.

Quirl

Quirl

• Even Evil Can Be Loved: He's a bit sympathetic by himself, because he's so young and gets killed basically by house politics. But what really makes him sympathetic is his mother's love for him.
• Nominal Importance: When Jame finds his dead body, Shade tells her his name, which is a hint he'll matter later on. Rawneth then Defies the trope by taking his name away.
• Take Away Their Name: As punishment for failing, Rawneth takes his name away.
  That was what Rawneth had done to the cadets who had failed to kill her son's rival: she had taken away their names. Without a name, soul and body crumble. No wonder they had been too wasted even to cast proper shadows. Soon, it would be as if they had never been born, except for an aching, nameless void in the lives of those who had loved them.
• What Measure Is a Mook? (Averted): Quirl is a Randir, and he tries to kill Randiroc, and Shade says he's an idiot—and yes, he still matters.

Corvine

Corvine

• Human Notepad/Note to Self: She carves her son's name on her arm so she won't loose it, even though she can't remember it.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Her bond with the Randir breaks, and Torisen subsequently binds her back to the Knorth, after Rawneth stole her son's name.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Her son Quirl is killed.

Awl

Ran Awl

Senior Randir randon; Randir war-leader and Randon Council member

The Randir senior randon, and a teacher at Tentir

• Iron Lady: Of the members of the Randon Council who we really meet—Harn, Sheth, Aden, and Awl—Awl is the only woman. She and Sheth tie for most solemn and under control. The issue is really based in houses, not gender: Awl and Sheth are from houses where they have to behave this way, while Harn and Aden come from houses where they have more freedom. And really, toughness and solemnity is asked of all randon, regardless of gender. Still, Awl fulfills this trope, and it's interesting because she provides an example of the kind of randon women that Brier might come to be—but Jame will never been solemn, and there are no examples of randon women like the kind Jame might come to be.
• The Mentor: To Shade in The Sea of Time.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Shade has to Mercy Kill her when she's turned into a shifter against her will.
• Power Hair: Like many randon women, Awl has close-cropped hair.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Like Sheth, she is from a dubious house, but is an honorable randon.