St. Carida Janis

This page contains Custom Content

This page contains content that is not official RuneScape lore. It has been made exclusively for use in role-playing and may be subject to change should Jagex release contradictory official content into the website or game.

Saint Carida
Saint Carida, of hallowed name and eye, Mother of Asgarnia.
Place of Birth	Northern Asgarnia
Date of Birth	Unrecorded. Late Fourth Age.
Race	Human (Purported to be half-icyene, though this claim is false)
Gender	Female
Height	5'9"
Weight	135lbs
Occupation	Chiefess, Paladin, Oracle
Religion	Saradominist
Alignment	Lawful Good
Patron Saint of	Asgarnia, Cooperation, Paladins, Seers and Divination

“	What begins, ends. What is born, dies. All that is made can be un-made. Dark has no meaning without light, and for all living things, there is the final silence.	”
–St. Carida on life, now a motto of her monastic order.

Saint Carida Janis (Kah-rye-duh Jan-is) is a sandbox character used in the Elysium role-play. She is one of the founding members of Asgarnia and helped clear the land with the White Knights as Chiefess of her tribe. Currently she had been resurrected by the icyene Arcadia and her icyenic unit. She is played by Kalitu III.

Appearance

Facial

Coming soon.

Physical

Coming soon.

Personality

Coming soon.

History

Background, the Janis tribe

The Janis were a nomadic Fourth Age tribe that were very shamanistic in religion. Simply put, the Janis were barbarian-like in culture, as they wore furs, raided the surrounding lands or tribes, and their mounts, horses, were a center of their culture. It is worthy to note that the Janis were a matriarchal society; women presided over leading the tribe and men would fight for it. Most in the tribe were warriors or archers, as they believed magic was reserved for the "gods" who walked the realm. They were thought to have sent themselves down into the plane to be born again to protect the tribe against evil and guide it towards good fortune.

This meant that they were demigods - half god, half human, who for the time they lived, would live in the tribe with their godly powers until they died and were born again. In reality, these supposed demigods were actually Seers, born with inherent magical ability. Their powers of foretelling the future and their great magical competence made them powerful individuals who led the tribe without question.

As seerism is an inherited trait, an elite "god" hierarchy developed in the tribe and a long line of seers born from a single chieftain would sometimes exist. The children of such a chiefess would often have to wait until the greater god died for them to assume her position. If there was ever more than one adult seer, the position of tribal chief was dissolved for a time and the governing body was made up of a "gods" council. This council was only ever dissolved when there was only one adult seer.

Birth and Adolescence

Carida was born into the Janis tribe, the daughter of a particularly powerful chieftain. Carida was the only child out of four others who had the ability of seerism and was thus raised from an early age to assume her mother's role. A long ways of tradition had been created over time about how to harness the power of a seer and hone it. It was a long and drawn out process, but her ability to divine the will of the spiritual gods would be more than enough to lead the tribe.

It started out with enchanted toys, which the young Carida learned to wield. With age, her ways of training expanded and grew. She moved on to Runestones, slamming them together to see the outcome. Crystal balls and puddles of water turned into scrying pools helped her abilities as a seer.

Carida progressed into her adolescence as a prodigy, whose abilities though unrefined, could be clearly sharpened to even greater than that of her mother's. She was remarked as a kind girl who fought hardly for anything she believed in and fought back just as hard for things she was against.

Leading the Tribe

The day came when Carida had to take the mantles of the tribe. Her mother was dying, growing more and more ill with a peculiar disease. She was stricken with abnormal nightmares, heavy flu-symptoms, nausea, and a complete loss of appetite. Eventually there was the presence of a black tar-like substance, secreted through the nose and eyes, progressing through the body until her blood was solidified. It was a violent death and taken as an omen by the Janis that Carida was to be a successor now, whether her training was finished or not. At the young age of seventeen, Carida became the chieftain of her tribe.

The young woman faced many problems, but loyalty was never an issue. Through rain and slick, the tribe followed each and every command she gave, in the belief she was a god. During this time, Carida tried to continue training herself in magic and in her powers of divination. The magic the Janis practiced was changed and altered through the generations, the original roots of the magic not even resembling the modern magic they cast. It focused heavily on combat spells, having no teleportation spells and only a few enchantments. As such, Carida trained her magic by unleashing it upon enemies. When tribes were raided, it was said she had the stolen survivors rounded up and executed them by way of a variety of magical means.

Carida in her early years was a brutal leader, possessing no empathy or mercy for the people she fought against. They were lesser beings and she was a god - a god demonstrating her will by laying waste to their settlements and purging them from her world. She was manifested in this mortal form to protect and strengthen her true children, and so went many lengths to secure power for the tribe.

As mankind was beginning to re-settle in small permanent villages and tiny towns, Carida watched with uncontrolled rage. The world, her world, was being scarred by their activity. Her forests were chopped down and decimated, her streams were irrigated to farms to feed the wicked who's unholy acts did this. Many times Carida and her tribe rode in on their horses, sweeping into the villages and towns and sacking them. As Carida had commanded, the inhabitants were ushered into the long-hall or town center where the Janis would set fire to it, burning the people inside.

All the raids conducted were successful; using her powers as a seer, Carida knew when and where to attack to get the most rewards.

Conversion to Saradominism

Her hagiography claims that her conversion to Saradominism came from Saradomin himself. While raiding a church hundreds of years old, Carida touched an ancient and very holy relic from the Third Age city of Saranthium. Appearing to her in a vision, the god of order materialized and spoke to her, giving her a prophecy that she would found a new Saranthium (during that time, Saranthium had not faded completely from memory, being very alive in legends and lore which portrayed it as a peaceful capital of Saradominism). It then went on to mention that he blessed her and made her already powerful seer abilities exceedingly powerful.

Like the religion of the Janis, this was another unfortunate misinterpretation. It is true that Carida did find and touch a holy relic from Saranthium. However, Saradomin never appeared before her. Instead Carida saw a vision of the past from Saranthium, viewing it at its height in the Third Age. She only touched it for seconds, but the vision felt like hours. During it she saw the fabled icyene of Saradomin flying over the city and defending it undaunted against the hordes of Zamorakian demons and monsters, watching as the city finally fell. An epiphany overcame her. The realization of the true potential of cities and civilization, the fact that her current society being nomadic because of the fall of these great cities was too much. Carida fell in a month long slumber, during which she experienced more visions.

Paladin-Matriarch, the Sister-Seer

During her sleep she had a dream in which she saw more of the Third Age. Carida viewed many things, including the destructive battles which waged on for years until one side was completely obliterated. After one month on the day of Bennath 10th, Carida awoke from her suspended animation. She was a changed woman with a new ideology and and religion. She was now a Saradominist, converted because of these extraordinary visions.

Now that she was awake, Carida looked around her new surroundings. The Janis were back in their camp and she found herself in her tent. Carida soon learned that her only surviving sister, Seraphia, had taken command of the tribe. It was extremely rare when the Janis were led by a non-seer, occuring only a handful of times in their history. Seraphia was made leader because she was Carida's favorite sister, so it was supposed that Carida would have wanted her to lead. Though Seraphia's intentions had originally been good, she had grown comfortable in her position has leader - even if it was only temporary. Seraphia loved leading the tribe and her newfound power. With Carida's return, she knew she would be reduced to her position as one of Carida's handmaids. Something had to be done.

Carida immediately called a tribal meeting that night. In the camp center, she shared what she had experienced in her slumber, telling tales of ancient battles and long dead soldiers. Carida announced that they were going to unite with the other tribes in the area and eradicate the ogres, goblins, and other beasts in the land. She had communed with a powerful god, the god of the heathens, Saradomin. He was now no longer to be scorned or cursed, because Saradomin was more powerful than every Janis seer combined. In fact, the Janis were his children - descendents of the winged people known as icyene.

This caused an uproar. The Janis were silent, but a storm of fury brewed within. They dare not argue or fight back against Carida. But what she was saying went against generations of knowledge and sense. Carida knew that her words would anger the tribe and prepared for this. Taking out some runes, she performed an ancient Sarothic spell, blasting a bright blue energy beam into the sky. This sort of magic had not ever been seen by the Janis and it mystified them, stunning and shocking the tribals into wide-eyed silence. From her visions, Carida knew that one of her most powerful fighters would betray and try to kill her. Using this to her advantage, she charged another spell in front of the amazed Janis and shot the beam of light at him, blasting him into oblivion. His armor, flesh, and skeleton were vaporized into nothingness. Carida then warned her tribe that anybody who failed to conform to the new ways of the tribe shall share a similar fate.

The Founding of Asgarnia

Coming soon.

The Martyr; Cultural genocide

Coming soon.

The rebellion of Karas & Seraphia

Coming soon.

Death and Sainthood

Coming soon.

Resurrection: Zenith

Coming soon.

The Abbey of St. Carida the Oracle

Coming soon.

Gallery

The Asgarnian flag at the time of its founding. The ten rays on the sun symbolize the ten tribes who united to form the kingdom.

The modern flag of Asgarnia. There are only eight rays, symbolizing the eight tribes who endured and survived the founding.

The emblem of Old Asgarnia, now a symbol of Carida's monastic order.

A version of the emblem with a more superimposed background.

Trivia

• Carida is an anagram for Cardia, meaning heart.
• The motto of St. Carida's order is actually a poem called Life's Memories.
• Her efforts to completely erase her culture and re-write history led to her demise. Ironically, her efforts to cast the Janis down into history as a half-icyenic tribe were successful.
• The name of her tribe, Janis, comes from the Roman god Janus who is said to be able to see past and future.
  • This is a reference to the seerism in the tribe and Carida's power as a prophet.
• The symbols and emblems of Old Asgarnia are actually symbols of the Kuomintang.