Ashnard

The Mad King with Rajaion
Ashnard
Species	Beorc
Class	King Daein
Affiliation	Daein
Hair color	Blue
Weaponry	Gurgurant
Base	Daein
Debut	Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Ashnard is the primary antagonist of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. He was deranged and obsessed with warfare and power.

Background

Ashnard was part of Daein’s royal family in the thirteen generation, but he was of a distant bloodline and thus unlikely to be named king. Ashnard hated these customs in which people’s places in life were determined by the classes they were born into. He believed that a person’s status should be determined by strength, with the strong in charge and the weak used as stepping stones and being expendable. Ashnard became a powerful warrior and engaged in skirmishes with Begnion. But he was not content with this and sought a position that he considered more worthy of one with his strength.

As for the laguz, he used them only as tools in his mad plans due to their great power. His men developed a special medicine that, when fed to a laguz, would turn them into mindless, feral, and above all powerful beasts. At one point he had a laguz mistress, the dragon princess Almedha. There was no love between them but a strong mutual attraction. This led to Almedha becoming pregnant, at which point Ashnard saw her as worthless since she had no power during her pregnancy. This led the two to a falling-out and a separation, after which they would not see each other again. After their son was born, Ashnard became obsessed with him until he realized that the boy had no ordinary powers. He then rejected the boy as well after using him as bait to lure Almedha's brother, Rajaion, into a trap. Ashnard successfully captured Rajaion and twisted his shape beyond recognition with the aid of the feral laguz medicine. Rajaion became Ashnard’s steed and was assumed by many to simply be a very powerful wyvern.

He somehow acquired Lehran’s Medallion and began seeking a way to revive the dark god sleeping within. He believed that one of the herons living in Serenes Forest could awaken it, so he sought to acquire one. To do this, he arranged the assassination of the Apostle Misasha in the Begnion Year 625. He then provoked the people of Begnion into initiating the Serenes Massacre, in which the forest was burned down and nearly all the herons killed. Ashnard’s men were able to capture a heron princess, Lilla. He imprisoned her in the Palmeni Temple and made her try to revive the dark god. Lillia fell sick and died, but the medallion was then taken by Gawain, later known as Greil, and his wife, who fled Daein with it.

Ashnard arranged a twisted scheme to become king of Daein which he arranged in 626 with use of a blood pact. He hired a traveling wise man and tricked his father into signing a blood pact held by the wise man, claiming it was just a contract for the wise man's services. Ashnard then had the wise man activate the blood pact's curse. This caused a plague across Daein which killed over a thousand people. Among the casualties were his stepmother and the many other princes who would become king in his place. Before he himself would be affected, he decided to stop the blood pact's curse in the only way he knew how: by destroying the document and killing the one bound to it by his or her signature. So Ashnard killed his father and tore up the blood pact. In 627, he finally became the king of Daein.

As he had planned, people who proved to have great strength were given high positions in his government. His top retainers became known as the Four Riders of Daein. Ashnard was also known to captured people from across Tellius and force them into battles to the death, with the winners becoming part of his government. He also received special armor that was blessed by Ashera, from the Black Knight, one of his Four Riders, which improved his prowess in combat. Ashnard also improved anti-laguz attitude by having Daein schools teach lies about the laguz so that the Daein people saw them as enemies. Ashnard was also able to manipulate Rajaion’s former fiancée, Ena, when she came to see Rajaion. But he saw that Ena always seemed to distress Rajaion, so he eventually sent her away to work with Petrine.

In 645, Ashnard was finally ready to execute his scheme and spread the seeds of war across the continent in hopes that the rampant warfare would awaken the dark god from the medallion, even if he didn’t have it. He started by executing a brutal attack on Melior, the capital of Crimea. The sudden siege was successful, except that the princess, Elincia, had escaped. Ashnard sent his forces far and wide in search of her, and it was eventually found that she had joined with a group of mercenaries led by Greil and his son Ike. The Black Knight was successful in killing Greil, but he could not locate the Medallion. They later planted a spy in the group, Ena’s grandfather, Nasir. Nasir was successful in stealing the Medallion and sending it to Ashnard. He also sent the Black Knight out to capture another heron royal, and he eventually returned with Leanne. However, she was rescued before Ashnard could begin torturing her.

In the meantime, Ike led the Crimean Liberation Army in overtaking Daein. However, Ashnard chose to leave the Daein capital and instead inhabiting Crimea’s capital. Ashnard divided his forces and allowed the Crimeal Liberation Army to march towards Crimea’s capital. This is because Ashnard saw how Ike’s group had overcome many Daein forces despite all the precautions they had taken, and he wanted to see how far Ike could come.

Ashnard engaged the Crimean forces in battle in "Endgame: Repatriation". He sent out his elite soldiers and said he’d look forward to seeing how Ike dealt with them. Ashnard lost the final battle and was killed. In Hard Mode, he touched Lehran’s Medallion and went into a berserk mode after being beaten the first time and had to be defeated again in order to kill him. In his dying words, Ashnard was impressed by the strength of his killer but at the same time desired more. Even though Ashnard was dead, Sephiran mused that his dream still lived, as the seeds of war had been scattered across Tellius.

Trivia

• Ashnard is playable in the Trial Map mode of Path of Radiance. He is unlocked by completing the game fifteen times.
• In the Trial Map mode, Ashnard has an in-built Support Bonus with Petrine that protects her from critical attacks.