Orphyrea Amanandar

Orphyrea Amanandar

(Person)

Titles

General, Ruler of Amanandar

Ancestry/Species

Human (Taldan)

Gender

Female

Homeland

New Oppara, Amanandar

Organization

Eighth Army of Exploration

Source: Dragon Empires Gazetteer, pg(s). 18 (1E)
Tian Xia World Guide, pg(s). 131 (2E)

Flag of Amanandar.

General Orphyrea Amanandar (pronounced or-fuh-ri-yah a-man-an-dar) founded the Amanandar, a colony of Taldor in Tian Xia, in 7108 IC. She ventured there from the nation of Taldor on the distant continent of Avistan as founder and leader of the Eighth Army of Exploration.

Background

Early days

Amanandar's rise to prominence began in the waning days of the Age of Enthronement when Taldor had been a land in decline for centuries and, with the impending return of the god Aroden, it was felt something was needed to renew its former glory.

Amanandar was a young general at the time and she proposed the formation of the Eighth Army of Exploration to venture out and expand Taldor's reach. This would be the first Army of Exploration for over two millennia to go forth. Amanandar set sail in 4605 AR seeking new lands for Taldor on the other side of Golarion.

Exploration in Tian Xia

Within a few months of her departure, Aroden's death threw the entire world into chaos. Navigating through monster-haunted oceans now wracked with massive storms, Amanandar steered the Eighth Army of Exploration through the notoriously dangerous Valashmai Sea, passing between the Valashmai Jungle and the continent of Sarusan.

She then sailed the army up the eastern coast of Tian Xia, passing nations engulfed in chaos after the fall of Imperial Lung Wa before navigating through the straits between Bachuan and Tianjing. Entering the Sea of Ghosts, Amanandar and her army sailed north before finally landing in Shenmen. With their ships barely seaworthy, General Amanandar led her armies north along the banks of the Ilushe River until they eventually reached the city of Kamikobu in 7108 IC.

Founding of Amanandar

The city was besieged by more than a dozen bandit warlords, chief among them the ruthless Tsubokandu, who coveted Kamikobu for its location as a once rich, but now abandoned, trade city. With her exhausted forces facing desperate odds, General Amanandar pledged her aid to forces from Zi Ha and Tianjing attempting to contain the bandit warfare in exchange for permission from those allies to found a kingdom on the site.

After defeating these bandits and returning the city to a state of peace, both Zi Ha and Tianjing granted General Amanandar's request as both saw opportunities for shared defense and a place where human offspring of samsarans could find homes. She named the new nation Amanandar after herself, and renamed Kamikobu to New Oppara as she set about creating the new nation.

Death and legacy

The cremated remains of Amanandar and her army are kept in Ten Thousand Lotus Temple of New Oppara, which contains a mural depicting her founding of Amanandar.

After her death, Amanandar continued under Taldan rule, but its people chafed under the distant land's taxation and governance. In 7220 IC it declared independence and became the independent nation of Linvarre.

Her founding of Amanandar is still celebrated in modern Linvarre as Founder's Day, or also Orphyrea's Day, annually on 7 Abadius. Visitors light paper lanterns and float them down the Ilushe River in honor of those who died in the battle that secured Amanandar.

In culture

General Amanandar's troops brought several influences with them that remain part of the culture of modern Linvarre, including a variation of the Taldan card game Coats of Arms that uses the flags of Tian Xia's Successor States and the continued consumption at breakfast of the long-lasting salted pork product known as tuam that once served as an Eighth Army staple.