Yeshara

🔈 (yeh-SHAH-rah)

Yeshara, called the Wolf-Queen and the Queen of Eternal Waking, is an ancient Yo’nari queen and the ruler of Cairn Dor. Her attempt to free her people from sleep created the shadowed domain of Cairn Dor; her repeated efforts to extend that “freedom” to other peoples resulted in a cycle of wars across Apporia lasting thousands of years.

Origins

Though many details of her origins are shrouded in mystery, a few details are clear. Yeshara ruled the Yo’nari, a tribe of early Northerners and ancestors of the modern day Deno’qai, who lived in the interior mountains of Apporia before the Downfall Wars. The Yo’nari had frequent dealings with the fey and other strange inhabitants of the Apporian Peninsula, and Yeshara came to believe that dreams made mortals vulnerable. Her fear became an obsession after her brother Ilanar disappeared following a fey bargain and was later found trapped in a dreamlike torpor.

Yeshara outlawed lullabies and rites associated with sleep, imposed prolonged vigils, and punished what she called dream-taint. Her campaign culminated in a midwinter rite at the Cleaver-Stone, intended to sever the Yo’nari from the Plane of Consciousness and end their need to sleep. Instead, the rite created Cairn Dor, transported Yeshara and her followers into it, and transformed the Cleaver-Stone into a portal between the new realm and the Material Plane.

Rule of Cairn Dor

Now, Yeshara rules over the domain of Cairn Dor, where she enforces her vigil against sleep. Her guardians, the Shemra Azem, are magically connected to dreamers, kidnapped mortals from the Material Plane; through this connection, they never sleep, and can survive seemingly fatal wounds.

Her subjects, the remnants of the Yo’nari, now called the Nurim-Dor, live in fear of sleep.

Yeshara cannot be killed while Cairn Dor exists, but she can be subdued. If her magic fails, she falls into a slumber that lasts for tens or hundreds of years and puts her domain into stasis while it lasts.