Évana

This article is adapted from the entry for Évana in The Sâryan Encyclopedia, Cárshǒhl University Press, 22nd edition (716).

Évana was probably the most infamous Sáharían pirate; it was said that only the villages of her homeland Ároásh were safe from her, and that may have had more to do with them serving as safe havens than any sentimentality on her part. In her two decades roving the sea, she overcame numerous ships—both Sáharían and Hlorasan—and even made some raids on land, in the south of Sáharía and the northwest of Shêlan. She also lays claim to being one of the only female ship captains from pre-Vúlnorían times

Life:

Évana was probably born in the -280s or -270s. Whether she was named Évana by her parents, or adopted it later as a pseudonym, is unknown; most Sáharían names were not identical to their root (évana was Old Sáharían and Ároáshe Sáharían for “seagull”), however this may have been a looser rule in Old Sáharían, before Sáharían’s explosion of convenient adjectives and verbs to derive feminine names from instead.
There has been some speculation that Évana may have been connected to the unrecognized royal family of northern Sáharía (her name shares its root with the line’s founder, Évanun, but it was a common name in Ároásh). It is just as probable, however, that she was a commoner, possibly from a fishing village, and her husband was a soldier for Northern Sáharía, or was caught up in the resistance to South Sáharían authority or the southern backlash against it.
In any case, she was born in what was then the country of Northern Sáharía, and her formative years would have been shaped by military conflict as the south attempted to reunify the country by conquering the north. It was probably during the completion of this in the late -250s that Évana lost her husband to the conflict, though the violence continued for years after, so it may have been slightly earlier or later.
Not long after that, but certainly after Suthéun completed the conquest in Sílnun’s name in -253, Évana and several others set sail from the coast of Ároásh in a few small fishing vessels, and somehow managed to seize a longship from the Sáharían navy. Évana and her crew promptly began their career of piracy, mostly preying on Hlorasan trading vessels with their longship, but continuing to use smaller ships to attack Sáharían and Shêlanian longships. After some time, they even became bold enough to attack Hlorasan war-galleys. By the mid -240s, Évana’s name was known and feared throughout Tílthoría and Quemar.
Évana’s strategy mostly relied on spending long amounts of time at sea, out of reach of all authorities, however she was known to put in at remote fishing harbours in Ároásh. Starting in the early -230s, she began to make raids on coastal settlements, both in northern Bismatne and along Sáharía’s southern coast (mostly Silcavón). She was even rumoured to have conducted a raid in the Surnat Fens, in the northeast of Shêlan, and to have sailed within sight of both Sáharía’s capital, Cárshaló, and Shêlan’s, Shêtama, both set comfortably inland along the southern coast of Tílthoría.
Many from Ároásh resented the south for the conflict, but Évana doesn’t seem to have held any ambition of fighting for a new northern independence, as some others did. In contrast, she may have come to reject putting much store by cultural or ethnic groupings. When King Télnarun (r. -238 to -229) sent a representative to offer a pardon and support if she and her crew would leave Sáharían vessels alone and only attack Hlorasan ships, she is said to have answered, “My husband was not killed by a Hlorasan.”
Ultimately, Évana was killed in a confrontation with the Sáharían navy in -232. While not all of her crew, scattered on several boats, was captured or killed, they disappeared from history not long afterwards. She left behind mixed feelings in Ároásh, but was regarded with at best admiring hostility by those from other places.

Date of Death

-232

Birthplace

Ároásh or Thúroshó, Tílthoría