Luritene Uronis
From Almeopedia
Luritene Uronis [lr̩ i ˈtɛ nɛ u ˈro nis], also called Nërona Luritene, was the founder of the Knights of Dévora. She was born around 2790 in a small town in the Eren valley, then under the heavy occupation of Kebri.
According to the Knights, Luritene was the daughter of an Érenati noblewoman of the Arašei faith, Nërona Luziže, who was raped by a linna, a Kebreni lord. (It’s usually assumed, though the story is unclear on this, that Luritene was the product of this rape, and thus was half-Kebreni by blood.) When her brother began his martial training she practiced with him, and was soon found to have an enormous talent for it; she was always able to disarm her brother in sword combat, and soon her trainer as well. She vowed to avenge her mother; but her mother forbade it— she feared that the girl would only suffer her own fate and worse, since the punishment for killing a linna was torture and death.
Luritene was sent to study in Avéla, where she heard the preaching of Nëron Mihel, leader of the Elenicoi. She immediately embraced the new faith, and was soon involved in building the church. (A Luritene is mentioned in the Book of Mihel, and it’s assumed to be her.)
News of the death of her mother sent her into a deep depression. In the midst of this, while reading the Elenico scriptures, she found the story of Dévora, the judge of Israel, and Yaél who killed an enemy general. From this she saw that the new faith allowed armed resistance to tyranny, and at the hands of women. She now felt that Eleď had prevented her from avenging the rape of her mother, because to avenge one’s own crime is both short-sighted and vain. She must instead dedicate herself to fighting all crime, all injustice, all tyranny.
The Elenicoi were banned as often as not, and Mihel built an underground organization to continue the work of the church— and frequently undertook peaceful provocations against the Kebreni. Luritene helped with these, and recruited women both for Mihel's purposes and her own. She respected Mihel's prohibition on violence until he was martyred by the Kebreni in 2820. Now she and her followers left Avéla and, in effect, began guerrilla operations against the occupiers.
Though the resistance soon became outright war, she kept her followers out of the Elenico army. Once too violent for the mainstream Eleďi, she was now too scrupulous. She insisted that the Knights were not soldiers but judges, like Dévora herself; they must not simply kill Kebreni soldiers, but only those directly responsible for specific crimes. Nor could a Knight avenge a crime committed against her; she must dedicate herself, as Luritene had, to fight injustice wherever it was found.
Well before Érenat was independent, she was recruiting Knights abroad— making it clear that they were not an anti-Kebreni movement, but served the entire world.
It’s difficult to separate fact from legend in her life. There are many stories of raids and actions she mounted herself, even into her old age; she is said to have regular visions in which she spoke with Dévora, Mihel, and the archangel Gavrël; the local Knights of Verduria. Ismahi, Kebri, and even Barakhún insist that she personally visited their countries to inaugurate their mission. She died c. 2867, at the Knights’ secret headquarters in the Eren valley.
