"My children are the most precious things in the universe to me. With my spirit partner dead, they are my only remaining family. While I may have done wrong during my life, if I can teach my children to be better than myself, then I will have been a good parent."

The life of an Elderist is not all training, fighting, and hunting. They have dreams, aspirations, celebrations, festivals, and games like anyone else, and they also have families that they care about. Yllran and his spirit partner Shelra raised their children, Anar (on the left) and Nera (on the right), until Shelra was killed by the Purists. Yllran continued to raise them until they first showed enough mystic potential to be Mystics, about the time when he was captured.

Having conceived Anar and given birth to Nera, and raised them every step of the way, he is extremely attached to them, especially with Shelra gone. Yet with the perpetual conflict between the Purists and Elderists, he worries about them constantly, whether they might be caught in the crossfire during a defense of his camp or simply caught alone by hot-blooded Purists. Raising them has made him aware of his own misdeeds in life, and now he wants to try and guide them away from the path he took.

But with both of them already wanting revenge for the death of their other parent, he'll have his work cut out for him...

Full Names: Anar of Clan Ulara, Nera of Clan Ulara
Homeworld: Vhanarr
Ages: 16
Likes: (Anar) Swimming, play-wrestling with Nera, learning mysticism / (Nera) Hunting, snowball fights with Anar, listening to stories
Dislikes: (Anar) Going to bed early, fatty meat, being told to eat fatty meat because it's good for him / (Nera) Electrical storms, losing the trail of his prey, being left out of whatever the adults are doing
Dreams: (Anar) To become a High Elderist! / (Nera) To kill a Kallor just like Vhalren did!

---

Considering for a moment that 'the enemy' isn't just a mass of nameless and faceless goons (even though they are represented as such) occurs rarely in Fire Emblem; but when it does, it's done for maximum effect. And since the player is an outside observer in the conflicts on Vhanarr, seeing it from both sides, the futility of it all is only emphasized.

Vhanarr is changing, and several of the big players in its change will end up around the player character. What happens can easily be tilted one way or the other by their involvement, thanks to it being a tabletop game and not a set-in-silicon video game.

It's also nice to stick to shades of gray instead of everything being black and white as most RPGs tend to be. Pretty much everything on Vhanarr is some shade of gray, with the inter-clan feuds, the lower castes, and the fragmentation of the clans making up the biggest issues. But the reverse of the coin is things like this; the Elderists having families they care for just like anyone else.

While being too ambiguous can certainly be a bad thing, confusing the player, avoiding having everything being in black and white terms makes for a more interesting setting. Bonus points if the player has to really think about their actions - and moreso if they can never really be sure that one or the other was 'right'. It's a bit hard to pull off with the unashamedly railroad plot setup of Fire Emblem games, but it can be done.

Characters belong to me.
Art by  not-fun. Original here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/10229206/