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Sarv'swati Vel'Sharen
- Abusive Parents: While not outright seen abusing any of her bloodline onscreen, she has been stated to have killed any of them that tried to join Sil'lice's side once they realized she was framed.
- Angst Nuke: Frustrated that she cannot make her Last Stand in the throne room thanks to her own actions, she shatters the very room she stands in out of rage.
- Bad Boss: Her awesome fighting skills came at the cost of being a very poor clan leader. To wit:
- She is said to keep a very firm grip on her line. Some members of Zala'ess's line defected to Sil'lice when they figured out on their own about the betrayal, but those members of Sarv'swati's line that were similarly sympathetic to Sil'lice were simply killed before they could do so.
- When Kio'nel comes to report his failure to defend the Penal Colony, he is visibly trembling and in terror for his life. And sure enough, she kills him.
- When she asks Tlu'rath to send the remaining Imperial Guards out to hold the gates long enough for Zala'ess's reinforcements to come, he informs her that she has already squandered all of them. She responds by trying to kill him, though in this case she fails due to having dropped her axe without even having noticed.
- Not to mention, her method of killing those who either fail her or sympathize with those she sees as enemies ultimately backfires on her, too since she's basically lessening the numbers of her own army.
- She brutally murders messengers who bring her unwelcome news, even if those messengers are soldiers under her command, and then wonders why she's got no army.
- Blood Knight: Possibly, and the expression on her face when she
made Quain'tana barren suggests it. Then there's what she does to Kio'nel for his failure. - Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: She's the brawn in the trio of herself, Snadhya'rune and Zala'ess, being the one to lead the Sharen army and resorting to action to solve problems, as seen in her fight with Farasank.
- Break the Haughty/Humiliation Conga: The District War is one long series of this for her, eventually resulting in her death at the hands of Quain and Zala (who sabotaged the duel).
- The Caligula: Among her sisters, Sarv'swati is the most outwardly dangerous, and is known for keeping maniacal control over her family, including killing those who sympathized with Sil'lice after the Nidraa'chal War. She also seems to be the most feared of her sisters by the public. The fact that she seems to have undergone some Sanity Slippage over the timeskip doesn't help one bit.
- Control Freak: Has been referred to as one more than once, both times by own her own family.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Played straight with Farasank, though he does put up a good fight. Then when she kills Kio'nel she completely curb stomps him.
- Did Not Think This Through: She tends to not think thoroughly how her far long her actions will cause destructive consequences and only thinks of the immediate benefits she can reap from them. The biggest example was helping with the coup to kill her mother and betray Sil'lice and Nishi'kanta which resulted in her becoming defacto head of the family, but that later would prove unwise because it caused those left of their bloodlines to have it out for her and her middle sister to go to their enemy, the Sarghress, for protection. There is also the fact that by allowing their lines to be massacred it also hurt their army and caused them to lose territory to the Sarghress as well.
- Dishing Out Dirt: We don't get to see her use it much, but if what she does to her mother's throne room is any indication she's quite proficient with earth sorcery.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The apparent reason she opposes Snadhya's plan to let Zala dig herself in deeper, since she points out that her children are Sharen and she doesn't like the idea of letting Zala's family members get needlessly killed. That said she has no trouble killing Kio'nel for his failure to protect Dari'yako, and she killed members of her own bloodline who sympathized with Sil'lice following the Nidraa'chal War.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: When she kills Kio'nel in a fit of rage, her entire eyes glow red.
- Hair Antennae: Has a prominent pair of these. Though considering the way she ran the Sharen Empire into the ground during the District War, her "antennae" can be seen as Idiot Hair.
- Honor Before Reason: Her last ditch effort to restore her clan to power disrupts Zala'ess's attempts at diplomacy, despite Zala's plan being more likely to work. She ultimately dies when Zala sabotages her duel with Quain.
- Hypocrite:
- As Snadhya'rune points out, Sarv'swati's opposition to Snadhya's plan to let Zala dig herself deeper is pretty hypocritical considering the things Sarv'swati's already done.
- She is a Control Freak over her own family and expects loyalty to the clan, but is one of the sisters that betrayed their mother during the coup.
- Irony
- During the Nidraa'chal coup, Sarv'swati worked with Snadhya'rune and Zala'ess to betray and murder their mother, Diva'ratrika. Diva'ratrika's final act of defiance was to try and face her murderers from the throne room. Sarv'swati took great satisfaction in sealing her victim inside. But many years later, Sarv'swati faces a Last Stand of her own, thanks in part to this very betrayal. And having sealed the throne room, Sarv'swati finds herself unable to repeat her victim's actions or properly mourn her.
- When Sarv'swati asks Snadhya'rune for help keeping Zala'ess in line, Snadhya'rune suggests letting Zala'ess exhaust herself against the Sarghress and seizing the advantage to subjugate them both. Sarv'swati refuses out of clan loyalty and moves in to deal with the Sarghress herself. But when Zala'ess moves her forces out of Chel to forge an alliance, Sarv'swati ends up being the one to exhaust herself. In the end, most of Sarv'swati's line is wiped out, the survivors surrendering. While Zala'ess moves in to destroy the weakened Sarghress, reconquer Chel, and declare herself Empress with an absolutely overwhelming army of foreign allies.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Barely got out the word "But—" before she got a literal splitting headache.
- Last Stand: Attempts one in Chapter 44 at the Council Dome, only to be bluntly told by Tlu'rath that no one is left to hold the gates because she's squandered or alienated all of them. She winds up fleeing instead when the Sarghress finally break down the door. She later tries it again by challenging Quain to a rematch duel, but loses it and her life thanks to Zala interfering.
- Lady of War: Stated to be one of the most powerful war leaders along with Quain'tana, and her fight against Farasank shows that she's good at hand to hand too.
- Machiavelli Was Wrong: Her efforts to keep the clan together using fear of her wrath works — for a while, but as the District War comes to a close, those she had previously cowed turn on her after the fake Empress deception is put to an end and those left surrender soon after.
- Matricide: And for bonus points she was the one who came up with the idea and later "sealed the deal" by collapsing the entrance of Diva's throne room.
- Moral Myopia: She disapproves of Snadhya'rune's plan to let Zala'ess dig herself even deeper so that Snadhya'rune and Sarv'swati can elevate themselves cleaning up after her mess, conveniently ignoring that she was complicit in the coup against her own mother and was willing to set up both Sil'lice and Nishi'kanta and their families to take heavy casualties during the War. Snadhya'rune rightfully points out that it's a little late to be squeamish about backstabbing and treachery now.
- My God, What Have I Done?: She betrayed and murdered her own mother to further her ambitions. But this action ultimately leads to her own undoing. Confronted with her own doom, she breaks down in tears at her mother's tomb, apologizing and begging her to come back.
- Perpetual Frowner: It's actually become a bit of a running joke that the only facial expression she's capable of is a scowl.
- Pyrrhic Victory: She betrayed Sil'lice, Nishi'kanta, and her mother to launch The Coup, allowing her to become the de facto leader of the Sharen clan. However, her actions eventually come to carry a terrible price.
- With Sil'lice and Nishi'kanta's bloodlines extinguished and alienated, the Sharen lost half of their army, making them unable to retain as much territory and allowing the Sarghress to fill the vacuum.
- Forcing her family to taint themselves gave the Sharen clan a powerful advantage against the other clans, but thanks to Snadhya'rune's betrayal, it has been causing them tainting sickness, and has ensured their doom.
- Bringing the Black Sun into their fold helped lessen the Sarghress clan's numerical advantage and have a group of mercenaries who would not be influenced into fighting for their enemies, but hurt public relations due to the Black Sun's barbaric reputation.
- Ironically later in the story when the tides have turned against Snadya'rune and the Nids, the Black Suns betray them when they realize it's futile to keep fighting for them.
- Attacking Machike when most of the Sarghress were away gave them a big advantage against a potential threat, but in breaking the rules of their own empire by enslaving neutral commoners, they angered the populace and brought open war with a clan that was very nearly their match.
- Zala'ess's line provides the political caste of the Sharen, while Snadhya'rune secretly wants the Sharen clan destroyed anyways. Sarv'swati's family however, provides the main branch of the Sharen clan's army. As a result, Sarv'swati is more heavily invested in the District War and takes dispropportionately more losses.
- The false empress gambit helped maintain morale, but when she was assassinated, it gave the Beldrobbaen an excuse to pull out of a losing war and end their alliance with the Sharen.
- Enslaving large portions of the populace gave the Sharen clan a Penal Colony under their exclusive control, as well as Cannon Fodder Slave Mooks. However, this caused them to lose all remaining popular support from the commoners.
- Betraying Nishi'kanta was necessary for the coup, but it eventually results in her bloodline sabotaging the defenses of First Landing, allowing the Sarghress to conquer it with ease.
- Similarly, a member of Sil'lice's line almost manages to kill Sarv'swati herself.
- During Sarv'swati's Last Stand, she orders that the Imperial Guard who normally defend the Imperial Dome come down to hold the gates long enough for Zala'ess's reinforcements to arrive. But between purging Diva'ratrika's loyalists, sending them out in the field to die, and sending them away to protect the fake Diva'ratrikas, she has squandered them all, leaving nothing left but a battered and demoralized army to face the Sarghress hordes.
- By the time the District War starts coming to a close, Sarv'swati has lost nearly everything and is faced with her doom. Sarv'swati breaks down in tears at her mother's tomb and begs her to come back.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: On the receiving end of two of these in quick succession in Chapter 44, first from Kyne, her own grand-niece and then from Tlu'rath, who flat out tells her that she's squandered all of her allies.
- Rule of Symbolism: It's probably not a coincidence that the sword strike that kills her destroys her crown in the process.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: At the end of Chapter 44, disappears, which effectively ends the war.
- Statuesque Stunner: Given how she compares to Farasank she's clearly pretty tall, and is stated at one point to be the tallest of the Sharen sisters.
- The Stoic: Unemotional to the point of being robotic, her default facial expression hardly ever changes.
- Not So Stoic / O.O.C. Is Serious Business: the one time in the main archive where she loses control of her emotions is after she is all but defeated by the Sarghress and returns to her mother's throne room, whereupon she throws a gigantic temper tantrum.
- Straight for the Commander: Believing that the Sarghress will completely collapse without Quain'tana and allow the Sharen clan to reclaim its supremacy, Sarv'swati attempts to redeem her failures by going after her. It ultimately succeeds, but she doesn't live to see it.
- Super-Strength: She is strong enough to smash through the thick metal armor of Sarghress golems with her axe.
- Tears of Remorse: Murdering her mother fuelled her ambitions, but ultimately ruined her life. Faced with her own doom, she cries, begging her mother to come back.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: During the timeskip, between Zala'ess sneaking off to Nuqrah'shareh, Snadhya'rune staying in Felde and Sil'lice and Nishi'kanta ending in up Mimaneid Sarv became the defacto leader of Chel's Sharen. Probably not at all coincidentally, this marks the point when the war starts going really badly for the Sharen.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The aftermaths of her one-on-one duels with Quain'tana have resulted in events that continue to shape the Sarghress clan even now.
- Before Ariel was born, Quain'tana was rendered barren after losing to Sarv'swati in a fight. After Laele'aell, Quain's favorite daughter and heir, was possessed by a demon, Quain became desperate for a new heir. She began to repeatedly abuse and bully her rebellious eldest daughter, Mel'arnach, to give birth to a daughter, resulting in Mel hating her mother more than ever. When Ariel was born, she was kept away from Mel while Quain posed as her mother while being raised into a proper clan heir. In the end, Sarv was indirectly responsible for Mel's grudge with her mother and for the direction Ariel's life has taken.
- In her final duel with Quain, Sarv managed to nick her enemy with a poisoned blade, ensuring that Quain would eventually die despite her own death. As Quain's death neared, one of her more ambitious allies, Suu'be, grew bold enough to try to eliminate Quain's entire family in a bid for power. Both Quain and Suu'be die as a result, causing the Sarghress clan to be later split into two factions, one loyal to Ariel and another desiring the deaths of all nobles starting with Ariel herself.
- Villainous Breakdown: Increasingly goes through this as the District War inexorably enters the Sarghress clan's favor. By the end of chapter 44, she has been reduced to whimpering for her mother like a child.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Her fight with Farasank ends with her pulling a reversal and slamming him into the ground, face first, and them slamming his head into the ground again with her hand for good measure.
- You Have Failed Me: She brutally kills Kio'nel for his failure to protect the Penal Colony.
Nihi'liir Vel'Sharen
A younger Sharen of Sarv'swati's lineage, she lost her arm to Faen's psychic attack.
- Alpha Bitch: While Chrys'tel is more of a Lovable Alpha Bitch, so far Nihi'liir is just an Alpha Bitch, and even the other characters think so.
- Asshole Victim: She doesn't die, but she brought the loss of her arm on herself, and then played straight when she gets killed by a disguised Ariel.
- The Baroness: Develops into one after the timeskip complete with sadism.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: While she was at Orthorbbae she seems to have had something like this with Chrys'tel's gang, since she was familiar enough with them to tag along with them when Faen was supposed to get tainted, but it was quite clear that they barely tolerated her presence.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Implied, not unlike her mother, though it bit her in the ass in a fairly major way.
- Kick the Dog: To Shinae. She repeatedly gloats about Shinae's "child" and promises to tell Zala about it if Shinae objects.
- Off with His Head!: The way she dies. Generally agreed to be one of the more satisfying deaths thus far.
- Punny Name: Her name is possibly a pun on the word nihilism.
Vidhi'yani Vel'Sharen
An older Sharen of Sarv'swati's lineage and one of the imperial overseers. Makes her first appearance in Chapter 30.
- Car Fu: Uses her floater to ram into Kyne to allow Sarv'swati to attack the open golem cockpit.
- Fallen Princess: In the finale, with her family fallen from power and mostly annihilated, she becomes a wanderer, and eventually a farmer.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Her hair, where one sidelock is dyed black.
- Mysterious Veil: Her unobstructed face has never been seen because she wears one.
- Silk Hiding Steel: Pretty much literally, both in character type and because she actually wears armor under her silk clothing. Her armor also displays strange lights, indicating she could be a summon as seen in the Tomato Surprise entry below.
- Tomato Surprise: Is has not been confirmed yet, but when Farasank and his men try to strip her to her breasts, she deflects their attempts and does it herself, exposing a strange series of lights across her chest. [[spoiler: These lights are similar to the ones displayed by Sateja Vel'Sharen in Chapter 28 when the latter revealed herself to be a summon. Fans speculate about what this might mean. Note that Vidhi'yani always wears a veil across her face and that in the very next panel after she bares her chest, her mother Sarv'swati suddenly appears in the tavern (and Vidhi'yani herself just disappears from panel). Was this by way of summoning? This has yet to be confirmed.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: She's seen at the battle of the Council Dome but not seen after, though she's assumed to have been captured along with the rest of Sarv'swati's bloodline.
Sun'ya Vel'Sharen
One of Sarv'swati's sons. Makes his first appearance in Chapter 30.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: It was speculated by readers in the comic forum that the Sharen higher ups must be rather lazy in their policing of the city if Sun'ya's having the time to kiss and flirt with a female commoner whilst on duty was anything to go by. Three pages later however, he proves exactly why he is a member of fake!Diva'ratrika's Imperial Guard.
- The Casanova: If his actions with the female commoner in Chapter 30 are anything to go by. She even appears to be pregnant, though it's uncertain if it's by him or not.
- Wild Hair: His hair is unusually styled as thicker and wavier than other drowolath males shown.
Nori'ga Vel'Sharen
- The Alleged Steed: His dragon, Kicker, is referenced as being widowed and thus the only dragon that was available for Nori'ga to take, and his former master apparently did a terrible job at training him.
- Butt-Monkey: Even from his first concept art fans correctly pegged him as the loser of Sarv'swati's line.
- Horsing Around: His dragon, Kicker, and a few people on the forum noticed that his handling of Kicker is very incorrectnote , which may be intentional on the author's part to show how bad he is at it and/or how badly trained the dragon was.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: In Chapter 44 surrenders when the Sarghress forces break into the Council Dome.
- Wild Hair: Like his brother above, his hair seems unusually thick and wavy compared to other drowolath males shown.
Anin'dita Vel'Sharen*note
An Imperial Guard of Sarv'swati's lineage, first seen protecting the fake-Diva during Chapter 39. Her concept art can be found here◊.
◊.- Carry a Big Stick: Wields a heavy mace in battle.
- The Corruption: She is suffering from tainting sickness.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Has an earth affinity.
- Making a Splash: Carries a water foci, as well.
- Locked Out of the Loop: As with many of her fellow guards, she was kept unaware of Diva'ratrika's death. Though she's started to have her doubts...
Sorn'mal Vel'Sharen*note
An Imperial Guard of Sarv'swati's lineage and Nona's mate. He is first seen protecting the fake-Diva during the height of the District War. He shares a close bond with his dragon, Baef. Appears in Chapters 39, 44, and 50. His concept art can be found here◊ and here◊.
◊ and here
◊.- Bling of War: Not so much, himself. But he's adorned Baef in a variety of trophies.
- Bloody Murder: Has a blood affinity that he's trained to use offensively.
- I'll Kill You!: Makes it clear in no uncertain terms that he will cut Shinae apart, piece-by-piece, if she kills Nona.
- Facial Markings: Has a distinctive jaw tattoo on his right cheek.
- Scars Are Forever: In addition to the blinded eye, he has a number of prominent scars on his nose and cheek.
Daksha'yani Vel'Sharen*note
An Imperial Guard of Sarv'swati's lineage, stationed in the Beldrobbaen fortress during Chapter 41.
- Cool Mask: A white veil that hides her features.
- Tap on the Head: Zig-zagged. A blow to the back of her head knocks her out cold, but she's also seen in the epilogue nursing a rather nasty head wound.
Ty'tose Vel'Sharen*note
A scarred Imperial Guard of Sarv'swati's lineage, serving in the Beldrobbaen homefront during Chapter 41. His concept art can be found here◊.
◊.- Extra Oredinary: Has a metal affinity.
- Paralysis by Analysis: Tends to over-analyze things to an extreme.
- Scars Are Forever: Has a very prominent burn scar on his cheek.
Xharidil'uit Vel'Sharen*note
A female Vel of Sarv'swati's lineage, initially seen serving in the Beldrobbaen front of the District War during Chapter 41. Reappears in Chapter 49, having joined Snadhya'rune's entourage. Her concept art can be found here and here◊.
and here
◊.- A-Cup Angst: While not really poorly endowed, she's quite jealous of those with large busts.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Has a rather poor taste in men, especially once alcohol is involved.
- The Dark Arts: Proficient in nether summoning.
- Take Over the World: Her personal goal, though she may be a bit out of her depth.
