Overview
Khoradyn Kaldaryn is the former supreme commander of Keldara, a legendary earth mage, an explorer, and the founder of Kaldaryn in central Valrindor. He comes from Xalmyrra and spends much of his later life beyond it, first in Thundermarch and then across Valrindor, where he builds a voluntary peacekeeping army with Garrik and leaves Garrik in command.
His previous-cycle counterpart is Khoradyn (Founder), the ancient Khoradyn who cofounds Thalassai, becomes the first archon of Earth, founds Thalmyris, and lives roughly five millennia earlier.
Khoradyn is lost at Cyndarel after fighting beside Aldar and Zhang against Raphael and Gabriel. Alistair detonates a weapon over Raphael's body, and Khoradyn's allies mourn him as fallen after the blast devastates the battlefield.
Appearance and Personality
Khoradyn is a tall, broad, older man with thick steel-gray hair, a thick gray beard, slate-blue eyes, and weathered features. He often grins, asks blunt questions, or offers to go exploring, even during serious strategy meetings.
He is adventurous, warm, direct, and fiercely opposed to forced rule. Khoradyn wants peace in Valrindor, but he insists that people follow him and Garrik by choice. He welcomes surrendered enemies, offers displaced people a place in Kaldaryn, and uses force only when diplomacy fails.
As a mentor, Khoradyn is demanding but generous. He trains Jin after Stormbrook's destruction, teaches Zhang, guides Keldarans such as Kren and Rhalyn, and gives the memory-lost Brynor both a name and a home without prying into his missing past.
Abilities, Skills, and Magic
Khoradyn is a renowned earth mage in Xalmyrra and Valrindor. He raises pillars, monoliths, walls, fissures, tunnels, mountains, and city-scale fortifications with direct control over stone and terrain. In battle, he splits the ground under enemies, moves through or beneath the earth, marks routes with raised stone, creates precise stone constructs, and collapses massive formations onto opponents.
He also uses ice magic. During Jin's training, Khoradyn tests him with both earth and ice, and later forms an ice boat during an expedition. He fights in front-line engagements around Xalmyrra, Kaldaryn, Maraveth, Omberion, and Cyndarel.
Isaac teaches Khoradyn a fragment of his unique magic before the defense of Hengzhou. The lesson is balance magic, and Khoradyn's aging halts after it. Outside combat, he is a commander, public speaker, teacher, scout, and expedition leader.
History
Khoradyn's Xalmyrran history begins with Khoradyn Kaldaryn, supreme commander of Keldara, on a northern Keldaran expedition. Khoradyn disappears for more than twenty years after entering the Thundermarch-Keldara mountain passage with Kren, Rhalyn, and Keldaran companions. The route was created by Isaac, and it leads Khoradyn's group into Thundermarch and Valrindor. Khoradyn eventually returns alone with damaged memories; Rhalyn returns years earlier with similar memory loss.
In Thundermarch, Khoradyn's Keldaran group lives in mountain caves until Jin brings them to Cloudrift Temple, where Khoradyn teaches students and trains Jin after Stormbrook's destruction. Khoradyn later leaves with Zhang, Kren, and followers from his growing circle to restore peace first in Thundermarch, then in Linsothar, Shaoying, and eventually Skarnheim.
Khoradyn meets Garrik while both are trying to stop violence in Valrindor. Their armies join, and Khoradyn becomes the visible leader of a growing peacekeeping movement. After the shaper devastation around Hengzhou, Khoradyn, Garrik, Kren, Zhang, and their allies gather survivors and followers into the movement that becomes Kaldaryn. Khoradyn then asks Garrik to lead the new nation while he continues ranging across Valrindor.
After returning to Xalmyrra, Khoradyn joins planning and expeditions against the renewed darkness, including Brynor's mission into the Land of Darkness. Fragments of his Thundermarch and Valrindor memories resurface over time. He later returns to Valrindor with Rhalyn and Astheron, reconnects with Garrik, and fights as a Kaldaryn field commander during the Maraveth War, the Siege of Omberion, and the Battle for Cyndarel.
At Cyndarel, Khoradyn and Zhang fight beside Aldar against Raphael and Gabriel. Khoradyn opens fissures, rises from underground, rejects Raphael's claim to rule, and collapses a mountain of earth onto Gabriel while Zhang uses plasma and lightning. After Raphael is defeated, Alistair detonates a strange weapon above Raphael's body, and Khoradyn is lost in the blast.
Relationships
- Garrik: Khoradyn builds the movement that becomes Kaldaryn and deliberately leaves Garrik as its ruler because Garrik is better suited to administration and long-term command.
- Brynor: Khoradyn meets the memory-lost Belanor near Varentis, names him Brynor, and becomes an old friend and mentor.
- Jin and Zhang: Khoradyn trains Jin at Cloudrift Temple and later trains Zhang directly. Zhang follows him into the Valrindor peacekeeping movement and fights beside him at Cyndarel.
- Kren and Rhalyn: Kren and Rhalyn travel with Khoradyn through the mountain passage into Thundermarch and remain part of his Keldaran circle.
- Isaac: Isaac teaches Khoradyn a portion of his unique balance magic during Khoradyn's Valrindor peacekeeping work.