Phylae Quotri

First to sail to “Never-where”, Founder of Daria

General information

A great war commander ahead of her time, Phylae was a member of the Governing Council of Sharin, a group of about 20 individuals who make up the head of the Sharinian community's military government. Having witnessed and taken part in the Final Darian Interwar, she subsequently gave up on her military career and, the following day, gave up her position in Sharin's governing body.

Phylae "The Terrible", a common, well-deserved nickname, is responsible for the destruction of plenty of old, expensive assets of several other communities in both mainland Daria and the neighboring Archipelago of Sarsi Rossi. Wherever she went, she left ruin behind.

A Celebrated (Ex-)Mass Murderer

Phylae is revered as one of the founders of The Pioneers, the group accredited with the creation of the modern State of Daria, and her past is usually overlooked.

Pre-unification

Commander of the Sharinian Fleet

Phylae was an ingenious naval commander and a gifted magician. Without exaggeration, not a single one of her naval expeditions wast lost and none of them went into a state of disarray. At its hight under Phylae, the state of Sharin controlled the entirety of the archipelago of Sarsi Rossi, Neris, Kerkas and a significant portion of the southern coastline of the Darian continent.

Having been a writer, Phylae would often record her journeys and describe the new lands that she sailed to them.

"Blood for the Sharinian Queen"

An old saying that was famous in Sharin and the outlying territories due to Phylae's growing reputation as a warlord. Phylae would often favor conquest rather than negotiation—especially with the citizens of Sharinian possessions, whom were mostly tribal and lacked proper organization.

Asserting dominance in & out of Sharin

Despite being disliked by the overwhelming majority of the Sharinian governing council, which she was aware of, Phylae always voiced her opinions with disregard to others in the council, whom she thought of as weak-willed. On top of that, some of the commoners had mixed feelings towards her and the atrocities she committed overseas during her expeditions.

post-unification

Phylae is majorly responsible for the stabilization of relations between the communities of Daria. She helped to renovate the naval trade routes across the federation by virtue of experience.

Phylae is also a founding member of the Szoltag, a governing body now-turned “secret police”.

Intel not available for public disclosure

Throughout her life, Phylae would write a total of 56 books, mostly detailing her journeys and expeditions but also some about navigational techniques and cartography in the southern seas. Most of these journals and books would eventually be published shortly after she died, except for 2 journals—it’s actually one continuous journal split into 2 books—titled “An Expedition”, they detail Phylae’s last voyage.

In the first of these journals, Phylae mentions her feelings about the dilapidated state of her country and people, and the continent in general. Filled with nothing but regrets and escapism, she decides to take an endless westward voyage to “never-where”—the word used to describe a hypothetical land at the end of the seemingly endless ocean. For her journey, she used a Caravel-like, small sailing boat with a crew of 7 of her most faithful men. She would take supplies for 46 days. The journal ends in an abrupt manner with Phylae mentioning an expected storm after 38 days of continuous sailing:

The winds roar, but our Caravel— The Aether—remains in her path. 2 days earlier(36 days after taking off the coast of Mora in Miral, a sailor, Janis, had told me he sighted land north-west of our trajectory. Even though none of us saw land, Janis would go on to swear by his mother’s grave that he did. He describes an “islands-like formation, possibly rocky” land that we had passed this afternoon morning(?). I reasoned with him, telling him it’s long gone and was probably not worth our time assuming it’s just rocky formations. I lay him off-duty for tomorrow.

A storm is brewing at a distance and we’re storming heads-first towards it. A lot of the crew think we should change our trajectory—Janis even mentions having regrets going aboard—but, it’s too late. It will catch up to us anyway.

— P. 234, Day 38; An Expedition

In her second journal, Phylae describes violent seas and storms that would put the Aether and the crew in bad shape. The second journal begins 38 days after taking off and ends with her preparing to anchor the ship and land.

I may be over-exerting my sailors, but I feel like something is out there. Something at the end of this journey that would make this entire expedition worth it. I am not sure what it is, but during nihts nights I can hear the wind calling my name, and the waves telling me to continue. Yes, there’s no other option. I have abandoned everything east of here.

— P. 296, Day 41; An Expedition

A day after our supplies had depleted, land was sighted. The land stretched from east to west. I think this is where the water ends. I rejoice with the remaining sailors at the sight and we open the beer barrel that we had been saving for a special occasion. Janis bitterly remarks that “we should’ve opened it when he sighted land”—I’m really starting to hate his attitude.

The coast is jagged with green mountains in the background—they look hard to traverse on foot. It took sometime, but we found a spot to anchor the ship.

— P. 367, Day 48; An Expedition

Throughout the 2nd book, Phylae mentions a lot of strange phenomena including lumps of dead fish floating in the sea, oceanic Voids—thought to be an exclusively terrestrial phenomenon—, a double moon, a dead body of an unknown man in one of the sailors’ cabins, and several dead wakes appearing out of nowhere.

The journals were masked as stories and their covers changed. The first journal was originally owned by Palmyr Quotri—a descendant of Phylae, and a student of The Meszar School of Magic—until he joined The Ivory Dove, which as of now is in possession of the two journals.

Aligned Organization

The Szoltag