Cynis Deyan
Type: Dragonblooded
Aspect: Wood
Titles: Senator (Deliberative Greater Chamber); Strategoi (Vermillion Legion), retired;
Residence: Cynis Wing (Imperial Palace); Palace of Trees (Pangu Prefecture);
Cynis Falen Deyan is an elder Senator of the House Cynis Deliberative caucus, once-beautiful face marred by a jagged scar which cost her an eye. No more Immaculate than one would expect for her House, Deyan is known to run through a neverending succession of lovers and concubines, favouring none for long.
Though her mother speaks of her childhood talent at playing the Lawgiving Zither, others tell more of a wild, rebellious youth who avoided her responsibilities, going so far as to flee to the Threshold to avoid the marriage her House had chosen for her. Deyan spent a great deal of time in the Scavenger Lands, indulging in the hedonism of Great Forks and mercenary adventurism in the Hundred Kingdoms. After many years, an accumulation of enemies (and a terrible scar across one eye) forced Deyan to return home to the loving embrace of her family.
Unwilling to brook rebellion, even in face of an attempt at contrition, Deyan was commissioned into the Vermillion Legion and sent off once more, in hope she would die in service to the Realm. She did not, instead which securing successive promotions. Some claim this was due to a keen military mind, others say that she was quicker to order a charge than to think, her accumulation of victories surpassed by a record of losses. Certainly she did not hesitate to send her troops into battle regardless of odds, and was harsh with both foes and local populations. Her ascent eventually led to her taking the rank of Strategoi, where her approach did not change. After many victories, fortune turned against Deyan and the Vermillion suffered a number of severe defeats, leading to the Scarlet Empress 'rewarding' her with promotion to the Deliberative rather than the usual order for leading a suicidal assault… a choice many thought of as an expression of Imperial displeasure with her House over its commercial undertakings at the time.
In the Deliberative, Deyan has been a strong proponent of the Realm's territorial integrity and maintaining its tributaries, loudly calling for harsh military action in response to the loss of Thorns and the risk to the Linowan resulting from defeat in the War with the Bull. She has a reputation for aggression, but many colleagues critique that while she is first to offer a hundred suggestions, should any suffer failure she is first to sidestep responsibility.
