Cheerful Shield

Cheerful Shield

Type: Sidereal

Caste: Journeys

Titles: Humble Student of the Markets

Cheerful Shield is an agent within the Golden Barque of Heaven, politically affiliated with the Bronze Faction of the Sidereal Exalted. Unlike others among the Fivefold Fellowship he retains the name he was born under from many centuries past, proud of his mother who earned title within the Shield patrician clan serving the Imperial legions. This provided opportunity for a young Shield to attend the early primary schools chartered by the Realm for the wealthy scions of patrician families and the Empress' own descendents.

Shield was the first Sidereal to Exalt under the dwindling stars of the Age of Sorrows, famously critical of the aged savants steering the course of history by ancient prophecies... prophecies that failed to account for the Great Contagion yet continue a mandate lessening Creation every year. This has made him the chief voice among the statician-sorcerers of the Theanoan School against the more orthodox gods and Exalts responsible for weaving Fate.

The recent release of the Solar Exalted revitalized the Gold Faction within the halls of the Bureau of Destiny, younger Exalts far more eager to topple the power structures of the Bronze. The Golds quote his great treatise-prayers, using his own prophecies as evidence in arguing for deposing Chejop Kejak and restoring the Solars as god-kings of Creation. Shield has withheld support for the Gold and Ayesha Ura, distancing himself from their cause; he warns his colleagues at heavenly symposiums, hoping naked self-preservation will spur them to righteous cause where his fiery rhetoric has failed for centuries.