220 / 08 / 13 - Lt Vyken Guardian

Following the terrible murder of Lieutenant Cleo by former Captain Longfang Guardian on 6th Himer, new officers had to be promoted to lead the Inner Guard. One of these is Lt Vyken Guardian - Chirin Guard  (31). A human and lifelong resident of Chirin, Vyken has served in the guard for 15 years. Tall for a human, with broad shoulders, and regulation length brown hair, you have probably seen him at the bridge or the market always with a ready smile. Though popular with many of the guard Vyken was known to disagree with previous officers over the use resources on the Independent Investigators rather than patrollers. It will be interesting to see how the Inner guard changes under his leadership.
The youngest son of Councillor Rosemary Factor, Vyken learned early on that all of his accomplishments would either be compared to his siblings, or attributed to his family's wealth. In order to have a career that no-one could attribute to his family he decided to leave trading entirely. While the idea of crafting appealed to him, he realised that the skills he had learned growing up were not what was needed in an apprentice. Some proficiency with a sword, and a way with words don't help with making spokes for a chair. However, they were enough to get him accepted into the guard. When Vyken signed up, he was sure he would join most of the other young recruits in being assigned to the outer guard, but it quickly became clear to his instructors that his ability to calm a situation with the right attitude and words would be far more useful in the inner guard. Though some claimed favouritism was shown to the son of a wealthy trader, both his training record and his performance in in the inner guard have justified the decision.
Vyken was promoted to corporal after 2 years, having shown a knack for motivating and guiding the other members of his patrol. His first assignment after his promotion was to the bridge. It was here he found he was able to bring to bear some of the knowledge he had picked up from his family, noticing some unusual things about what was declared and uncovering a smuggling ring. After a similarly successful assignment to the market square, he was promoted to sergeant, and it looked to many that he was on the path to becoming an officer.
Unfortunately for Vyken, his mother becoming a councillor disrupted his path to promotion. While there was no suggestion that his mother had or ever would exert any pressure to see him promoted, the fact that his rapid rise could be interpreted that way, meant that he was deemed ineligible for promotion to Lieutenant.
Now with few suitable officer candidates left for the inner guard, Commander Stonewall has been forced to reassess this position. In his words, "I have no doubts about Vyken's competence, but in order to reinforce the fact that he earned the rank himself, we had intended to delay offering him the promotion until he had started a third term. That is clearly a luxury we no longer have, so i had no reservations about promoting him at this time."