Ryang

Overview

Ryang was the mother of Afanas Korovinovich and several other children, and the wife of Korovin, a Bravos veteran and Leviathan hunter. She died in the Kraken attack during the family’s voyage to Cebir, along with her husband and all her children except Afanas.

Life in Caer Kettria

Ryang lived with her family in Caer Kettria, where they maintained a peasant existence. She was mother to multiple children, including her eldest son Afanas, who aspired to take up his father’s mantle and join the Bravos at Haven.

Understanding Afanas’s Dreams

Ryang knew all too well that Afanas aspired to leave behind the dreary tranquility of their peasant existence. More than his brothers and sisters, he wanted to become a Bravos and hunt Leviathans like his father. She had resigned herself to letting him go to Haven when the time came, understanding and accepting his ambitions even as it meant losing her eldest son to a dangerous calling.

The Fateful Decision

When Korovin made his fateful decision to volunteer for an expedition beyond the walls of Asgartha to settle at Cebir—decades before the official announcement of the Expeditionary Corps—Ryang was shaken by this weighty choice. Nevertheless, she accepted her husband’s arbitration without complaint.

After months of preparation, the family set off, packing everything they could salvage from their old life into a simple cart. They embarked from Arkaster to the west, toward a province once known as Caer Oorun, following the path taken by the famous explorer Abelen Sundström sixty years prior.

The Voyage

Days passed as temperatures inexorably dropped. The coast they followed became covered in snow and ice, and small icebergs began to strike the ship’s hull. Venturing further inland through narrow fjords, these ice floes became larger and more dangerous, making navigation more perilous. They were close to reaching Cebir, the citadel built by the Bravos and the architects of the Ordis.

The Kraken Attack

As night fell, a violent blow struck the bulwark and shook the frigate. When Afanas woke to the chaos, he urged Ryang to watch over his brother and sister while he went to see what was happening and where his father was.

Ryang stayed below deck with her younger children as the Kraken attacked. Afanas heard his mother’s scream from below deck, then nothing but the roar of splitting timber and rushing water. The ship was breaking apart, and Ryang perished along with the younger children, her husband Korovin, and all aboard except for Afanas, who was pulled from the icy waters by an Eidolon woman.

Legacy

Ryang’s death, along with that of her husband and all her other children, left Afanas Korovinovich as the sole survivor of the family. The loss of his entire family in this tragedy became the defining trauma of Afanas’s life, eventually driving him to join the Yzmir and dedicate himself to an obsessive quest for vengeance against the Chrysanthemum Cloak Warlock, whom he came to believe was connected to the disasters at Cebir.