Orthen Kerrhyl

Orthen of clan Kerrhyl was dragonborn philosopher, politician and clan leader. Not many look at a Dragonborn with first thought of philosopher, but there is surprisingly many layers in the philosophy which the dragonborn live by. And Orthen has been known as one of the greatest of his time, and a father of tharurian identity, and most importantly, their spiritual life.
Orthen would change how dragonborn of Umeros would view themselves and the Dragonic Pantheon, and create ideas that would later unify Tharurian clans together to form the nation of Aradace Tharur.

Physical Description

Body Features

Orthen was described as tall, black scaled dragonborn with particularly creepy look and round snout, with curved horns that grew from the sides of his head, pointing forward. Even with his rather menacing appearance, his smile was described contagious and polite. He was described to take good care of his physical condition and being particularly good runner.

Apparel & Accessories

Orthen was known to dress well in dragonborn standards, and carry icons of deities with him on his chain-belt to bring good fortune. He had 4 piercings on his left ear fin and 4 elaborate piercings on his nose.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Orthen was born Jun 23rd, 2333 AoS, on clan Kerrhyl from his mother Zofqwen, from the subservient tribe Nestak. He was sired by Yoryax of clan Kerrhyl, that then dominated the mountain range and close areas of Scarback Ridge. Clan was somewhat nomadic, and could be broken to smaller tribes that had had come subservient to Kerrhyl. It is estimated, than in Orthen's time, Kerrhyl clan was, in it's best, 500 dragonborn strong, riding around on their raptors from place to place between half-permanent gathering places the clan considered as their own.
Orthen would live with his mother and father to his 3rd year, and after that was officially considered part of the master clan. in his youth, clan was lead by one of his aunts, Xyrann, though because of the family practices of dragonborn is hard to say how much they were actually blood related.
As he grew, Orthen proved to be capable fighter, talented athlete and charismatic speaker, but most interesting feature of his proved to be his curiosity towards the dragon gods. Clan Kerrhyl had for generations had a basic respect and affliction toward Lendys, dragon god of justice. Practices to his worship were pragmatic at best, but they were enough to make young Orthen look for more devoted followers of the god, and he would develop affliction to him, as well of goddess of mercy, Tamara and Bahamut, god of wisdom, bravery and enlightenment. As he learned more from life, other clans and gods, he adopted a philosophy of life, that would determine the course of his life.
He would eventually become leader of his clan and trusted diplomat who was summoned to solve problems between other clans and other rces. He became know as "Great teacher" in his time, and was greatly respected as talented warrior as well as person of honor and wisdom. He would eventually sleep away in Jun 14th, 2397, little before his 64th birthday. In his life he fathered several children and gave his people many wins against foes, alliances and prosperity, and his writings and thoughts live on this day, even if for most his name is now more obscure beyond dragonborn scholars.

Morality & Philosophy

Orthen became famous for taking existing dragonborn ideals and deconstructed them to form his worldview. He learned lot by reading of great wise dragonborn before him as well as to lesser extent learning from cultures beyond his own. In the very core of his philosophy was ideal now so integrated to tharurian way of life that it's hard to imagine world without it. On it's simplest form, his thought went like this:

"In order to achieve greatness,
one must put their effort to learning, as that is way to mastery.
But as time is fickle and limited, one must choose what to master,
as there is no time to master all.
Truly good great individual is not defined just as good and humble student,
but also aware of their limits.
For this they gather around them masters of other kind
both to learn from and extend his knowledge from beyond what they are themselves ever capable.
They who fail to see the value of other masters and don't share their knowledge and skill
are unable to find true greatness;
true master is always as capable as the company they keep,
clan is only as strong as it's most incapable member in their best."

— Orthen Kerrhyl

In Orthen's words, looking for greatness was both moral and necessary, and relying on others was part of the key to success. According to Orthen, living things may not be equal in skill, but in potential and and how that potential should be scattered to different skills and knowledge depends on individual, and joining collective skills and knowledge creates stronger communities, and through that, stronger individuals.
Orthen considered leaders like himself not as rules but as someone that served a function of representative and judge for the collective. He did not see it as much as public's responsibility to serve leader, as much as it was leader who was there to serve the public. He considered competition, learning and ambition as fuel to the soul and way to enlightenment. Soul could be corrupted however, if one would lose ones humility, that made that drive to stay pure and would drive away community, that would compliment individuals talents.

"Greed and jealousy are enemies of learning,
as they blind one's capability to introspection.
Talent of others is your teacher,
failure is a lesson on your way of learning.
Be grateful of these lessons, and celebrate what you have learned.
Embrace your competitor and honor them with respect, as they will make you strong."

— Orthen Kerrhyl

He wrote several scrolls about his thoughts that were copied to the future generations, and many of these were about individual's responsibilities towards the collective, and many of these were considering mastery and leadership. These ideas weren't limited to only mortals, but also colored how Orthen saw gods and worship. For Orthen, worship was not about submission, but mutual benefit.

"God needs worship, like fish needs water, or bird needs air.
When mortal gifts their loyalty to a gods,
gods reward them for their own sake as much as for the mortal."

— Orthen Kerrhyl

Orthen's ideas were well received and started to spread already in his life time, later to be adopted by other dragonborn and creating unity between the clans. These ideas were able tackle the problem of competitive and individualistic nature of the dragonborn and their need for community without tying them too tightly to their dragon ancestors.

Personality Characteristics

Virtues & Personality perks

Orthen was known as level-headed and even-tempered. He was praised from his open mindednes about new ideas and he believed in to importance of being mindful of nature. He was also great believer of equality, something very integral for dragonborn culture.

Vices & Personality flaws

Orthen was, despite his otherwise calm nature, prone to fits of jealousy when bested in matters of courtship. He was also heavy drinker, which might have contributed negatively to length of his life span.

Species

Dragonborn

Ethnicity

Tharurian

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Great Teacher

Life

2333 AoS 2397 AoS 64 years old

Gender

Male

Eyes

Blue

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Black scales

Height

193 cm

Weight

102 kg

Aligned Organization

Kerrhyl

Other Affiliations

• Aradace Tharur

Uniter of the former slaves

Dragonborn had been extremely divided on ideas about the dragon gods, thanks to their collective stories telling their earlier endeavors as slaves for chromatic dragons. Idea of being freed slaves had impact for culture being suspicious of power structures of any kind, making collective advancement and nation building particularly tricky for the dragonborn.
Some dragonborn were simply too suspicious to serve any god or mortal leader, while simultaneously others were looking for community and trying to build order, was it by leader or gods. This had caused several different types of ideals that made coherent, united community of dragonborns finding way to exist and caused lot of problems and skims with different clans and ideals.
Orthen Kerrhyl's ideas formed the basis for ideal that would eventually take away these concerns, celebrating individuality while being collectivist. This view is often confusing for outsiders without the lack of this historical context.

True origin of dragonborn?

Scholars believe that it was Orthen that originally started the idea that dragonborn were created from blood of Asgorath when primordial Erek-Hus sliced him and Tiamat and Bahamut would be born from the halves. It is not know did Orthen use this as metaphor or did he believe it to be literal, but dragonborn after him have considered this as literal truth.
In old text of elves and dwarfs however, there is contradiction with this notion. Information is hard to attain and it is spotty at best, but it points to other direction. There is reason to believe dragonborn were originally created by chromatic dragons as slave race similarly to kobolds. How this was managed is unclear, but there is speculation of magic and half-dragon offspring to be involved. This explains, for example, why there are more chromatic dragonborn than metallic ones.
Metallic dragons took part of freeing the dragonborn from their chromatic slavers, and this much dragonborns recognize, still respecting metallic dragons among their society. However, pointing out that hey might have been created by their slavers is a taboo. It is probably better not to point the possibility to a dragonborn, as that might make you loose your head.