Jain Zar

Jain Zar, the Storm of Silence, Phoenix Lord of the Howling Banshees Aspect Warriors, wielding the Blade of Destruction and the Jainas Mor

Jain Zar, called "the Storm of Silence," is the Phoenix Lord and founder of the Eldar's Howling Banshees Aspect Warriors.

History

Asurmen, the "Hand of Asur," was the first of the Phoenix Lords who founded the first of the Aspect Shrines, the Shrine of Asur, and trained the other Exarchs who would become the first of the other Aspects' Phoenix Lords. Prior to the Fall of the Eldar, Asurmen was the Eldar who led the Craftworlds away from the ancient Eldar homeworlds of their now lost interstellar empire and it was he who founded the first of the Aspect Warrior Shrines, the Shrine of Asur, upon a barren world of the same name his people initially settled. Asurmen found that he could not give up the Path of the Warrior to follow a different Eldar Path, for he desired to use his skills to protect what remained of his species after the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh, "She Who Thirsts." From the Shrine of Asur sprang the first Aspect Warriors, and the Path of the Warrior was opened for the very first time to all Eldar. Those Eldar who wanted to follow this new path learned at the feet of their master, and in turn they assumed the mantle of Exarchs before spreading throughout the galaxy. The first Exarchs, the Asurya, the children of Asurmen, were the greatest of his students and went on to become the Phoenix Lords of the other Aspect Shrines, the first masters of the other specialised Eldar combat disciplines.

In the time after the Fall of the Eldar, she was the first warrior of her race chosen to serve at the side of the first Phoenix Lord, Asurmen, and the first to become an Exarch, those Eldar who can never leave the Path of the Warrior for they can never take off the war mask of Khaine. Jain Zar travelled the Webway after her time with Asurmen, teaching her skills to the rest of the Eldar, and leading others along the Warrior Path. Soon there were shrines to the Howling Banshees on all the large Craftworlds, and many Howling Banshees Exarchs to teach the warrior skills of Jain Zar to future generations. Of all the Phoenix Lords, Jain Zar is the most devoted to the shrines of the Warrior Aspects throughout the Craftworlds. She travels the Webway, visiting the shrines and nurturing her spiritual descendants. An acrobat at heart like the Harlequin, Jain Zar (which translates into Low Gothic from the Eldar Lexicon as "The Storm of Silence") is the fastest of all the Phoenix Lords save for Baharroth, the Phoenix Lord of the Swooping Hawks. Jain Zar She still travels the labyrinthine corridors of the Webway, spreading her particular martial knowledge to all but the most remote of the Eldar Craftworlds. Although she is known to disappear for entire standard centuries at a time, she always returns, and the shrines of the Howling Banshees maintain a constant vigil in preparation for her coming.

In 838.M41 in the campaign that became known as the Pyre of Kiliak's Bane, Imperial xenologists began to plunder buried Eldar artefacts on the Maiden World of Kiliak, bringing about a devastating retaliatory assault from the nearby Craftworlds of Biel-Tan and Ulthwé. A sighting of the Phoenix Lord Jain Zar, accompanied by one hundred of her Howling Banshee disciples, was confirmed before the entire Imperial force was slaughtered and incinerated, their ashes scattered to the winds in retribution for their assault upon the Eldar's lost patrimony.

In the late 41st Millennium, Jain Zar ran afoul of the Chaos Space Marine Talos Valcoran, the commander of the 1st Claw of the 10th Company of the Night Lords Traitor Legion. When that warband of Night Lords laid waste to the Imperial colonists of the world of Tsagualsa in the Eastern Fringe, they were ambushed by Eldar of the Ulthwe Craftworld looking to again kill the Soul Hunter before he could become a threat to their race. In the ensuing battle, nearly every member of Talos' warband was slain and he himself became embroiled in a desperate single battle against the Phoenix Lord Jain Zar who had led the Ulthwe Aspect Warriors. Talos allowed himself to take the Phoenix Lord's spear through his chest, and then detonated a grenade to kill them both. However the blast stopped short of killing the Phoenix Lord, whose crippled body was finished off by the Night Lords' Chaos Dreadnought Malcharion. Jain Zar's armour was recovered by the Eldar, and the Phoenix Lord will eventually return when a new Exarch is chosen to take up the burden of the Storm of Silence.

Wargear

Jain Zar wears the special armour of a Phoenix Lord and wields the dual Eldar Power Weapons called the Zhai Morenn ('Blade of Destruction") and the Jainas Mor ("Silent Death"). The Zhai Moren is a light, curved, single-edged Power Sword forged in the Eldar style thousands of Terran years ago before the Fall of the Eldar that shimmers with power. It is light and is wielded with dizzying speed. The Jainas Mor is a specially-crafted three-bladed throwing weapon similar to a Terran chakram known as a Triskele that is able to strike multiple targets with a single cast. Jain Zar's Banshee Mask, the Mask of Jain Zar, was the first of its type to be created and served as the prototype for all of the Banshee Masks now worn by the Howling Banshees Aspect Warriors.

Sources

• Codex: Eldar (4th Edition), pp. 31, 63
• Codex: Eldar (3rd Edition), pg. 10
• Codex: Eldar (2nd Edition), pp. 9, 86
• Planetstrike (4th Edition), pg. 55
• Void Stalker (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden