High Lord Seanán

It has come to my attention that the Council of Elders is no longer reading these diaries at meetings, although they will be archived for future generations. Now that the experiment is more well-established, there is no need for my insight, though Torin and Áed continue to send their reports as usual. As a result, I may be more long-winded. Dear reader, whoever you are, if they don't burn this as soon as they receive it, please excuse my rambling.
No one will listen to me anymore.
They listened the first years. They listened before I reached my majority.
It is supposed to be the opposite.
I care about them too much. I know it. I know they expected humans—even the half-humans—to be unable to be loved, but they are. My children are my blood, my family. Why shouldn't I care about them? Don't we shapeshifters care about each other, even though we know we're all destined to die young? It's the same. And I know that my children are just as capable of complex thought as I.
Perhaps you think that says more about me than it does them, and you may be right.
If loving my children is insanity, then I am insane.
I should rip this up and burn it myself. I know I'm mad and that I should never see combat or die with honor. I know they won't take the compound because it would compromise the experiment to separate the children from me. More than that, I am useless for anything else, and I know that well.
The training I must participate in is much more a distraction from my "obsession." They don't expect me to survive combat with any amount of training, even though with my son I drove away a cloud of serpents.
They will see this experiment through to whatever end. Ultimately, my sanity or lack thereof doesn't truly matter to them. To them I am a means of creating powerful beings capable of facing the serpents. I am, in other words, just like the girls.

— Diary of High Lord Seanán, this entry written aged 101 (20 in human terms)

The second High Lord of the Colony, who lived a life longer and more impactful than he ever could have imagined, is often blamed entirely for the horrors of Tír na Creatlach. His diary paints a very different picture: a seventeen-year-old boy taken from his home, called a failure of a shapeshifter, and given six human women to be his wives. I don't suggest that Seanán is not responsible for his actions, or for the mass suffering caused by the colony. I merely remind the reader that he was, at the beginning, only a boy.

Personal History

Seanán's parents were killed in a naer attack when he was very young (Diary of High Lord Seanán, Note 1). Historians aren't exactly sure who took care of him after that, but modern aignaoithe typically expect relatives to raise orphans, and this seems to have been a historical practice as well.
At some point, likely between the ages of 60 and 70, he was discovered to be a shapeshifter and was trained in combat and the use of his power. The Record of Shapeshifters reports that his performance was below average to unacceptable. He displayed a "dishonorable disinclination" to fight, which may be identified as a fear of the naered.
It is assumed (by historians, his contemporaries, and Seanán himself) that his poor performance as a fighter was a major contributing factor in the Council of Elders's decision to select him as the first subject of their "experiment," which would become the colonization of Tír na Creatlach. He was 85 years old when he arrived at the first compound, newly-built at the time, six female humans newly-stolen from their homes. He became the father of the first half-aignaoi humans at age 86 (17 in human terms).
His diary shows that he felt himself in love with Deirdre, one of the human girls assigned to him, until her death in childbirth six years after the beginning of the colonization. Furthermore, it is clear that in his youth he cared very much for his children, though there was little he could do about the fact that they were being produced to either make more part-dragons or fight the naered until death.
However, after nearly 100 years of witnessing the deaths of humans for whom he cared, he grew more detached from his increasing numbers of wives and children. By the time High Lord Torin passed away and the Council of Elders placed Seanán over the colonization efforts, he felt (according to his diary and his first few laws) that the colonization was necessary for the defeat of the naered.
He ruled as High Lord of the Colony for 318 years, until his death at the ripe age of 496. As High Lord, he expanded the colonization to the entirety of modern-day Crathlia and established the majority of the practices associated with the colony.

Family Ties

Seanán was an orphan. Although he was probably raised by relatives, it can be inferred from his diary entries that he had no significant emotional ties to any family remaining, and indeed very few ties to Inis Baile Mor itself. This lack may have been part of the reason he was chosen for the colonization.

Religious Views

From his policies, it can be inferred that Seanán was rather devout. He ensured that all the humans under his rule were educated in Creationism and held celebrations of New Year's each year. The integration of human winter solstice traditions with the traditional aignaoithe New Year's celebration was his doing. He mentions several times in his diary that his first few girls wanted to keep their old traditions, and apparently decided to allow this mixing. In fact, the mixture of traditions became the standard way of celebrating New Year's during the colonization.

Written by Cordelia Colbreak Evenbrook

Species

Aignaoithe

Ethnicity

Shapeshifters

Honorary & Occupational Titles

High Lord of the Colony

Life

85 SA 411 DA 496 years old

Circumstances of Death

Died of old age.

Birthplace

Inis Baile Mor

Current Residence

Chéad Caisléan (meaning "first castle," modern-day Lexport)

Gender

Male

Eyes

Green-gold.

Hair

Golden.

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Warm tan.

Height

5'8.

Related Historical Events

• 411 DA
  Seanán dies
• 93 DA
  Seanán's Reforms
• 85 SA
  Seanán is born

Physical Appearance

The Record of Shapeshifters reports him as a golden-feathered dragon of average size. As a human, he had golden skin and hair, and a naer's scar on his left ankle.