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A former human ascended to godling-hegemon status, Finnvarðr the Unerring once ranged across vast swathes of the Tianhai in search of foes to consume.
He was, at first, much like his vastly powerful kin from Midgard: possessed of unending ambition towards greatness, an insatiable thirst for power, and an eagerness to seize both at any cost. For a while he waged war under the aegis of the Four Hegemons' military, wielding powers with which he could singlehandedly annihilate armies and fleets, but he eventually grew disillusioned with conquest and parted ways with the other xianba. For him striking out alone held the promise of a fate under which the galaxy might eventually be reshaped to his whims...but also the threat of being overcome and devoured by a more powerful rival.
Every accounting of his history is necessarily incomplete, and fraught with the perils of attempting an unbiased understanding a man who has become a culture hero. There are texts that ascribe to him all manner of atrocities, and many more that vehemently defend him against such accusations. The legends do tell of Finnvarðr eventually alighting upon a verdant, ancient world, one not sullied by the footfalls of mortals before that day (and still unknown to First-Awoken astrographers). He set forests aflame and threw aside the world's natural protectors as if they were dry twigs, carving a swathe of destruction across the planet until he stood before the Guardian Beast who embodied all life upon it.
The Guardian Beast was a wizened creature, a being with stiff limbs and a penetrating gaze. Confronted by the monstrosity that Finnvarðr had become, he did not shrink back in fear, nor did he make as to flee. Instead, he calmly offered to give up the world-soul that he bore—if only Finnvarðr would first honor its memory by joining himself to it and momentarily uniting himself with it. When the Guardian Beast promised him also that he would be bestowed with the vast wealth of celestial wisdom that was their world's birthright, Finnvarðr finally relented.
It is said that this union almost shattered Finnvarðr's mind, for in the briefest of instants that he endured it he experienced things no mortal was meant to know: every infinitely vast moment across countless lonely eons of time, an acute awareness of every last leaf and vine and creature that crawled or stalked or skittered through the forest depths, the slightest glimpse into an understanding of life woven together in such vast panoply that he was but a mote in a vast ocean of light. When he emerged he was a man changed, for although the xianba sought eternity and godhood through the endless grasping of power, power alone could not even begin to help them comprehend the true meaning of either.
Perhaps ironically, it was this barest sliver of comprehension offered to him that turned Finnvarðr away from his erstwhile aspirations. He left, profoundly shaken, still trying to come to terms with what he had just witnessed. Over the years he would go on to visit more worlds, demanding from their Guardian Beasts a portion of their spiritual essence and also the smallest taste of the celestial wisdom they safeguarded. He told them that the heavy price he exacted from them would ultimately be for their own good, that only by becoming stronger at their expense could he save them from certain destruction. And thus did he continue to grow in might, even as the Dawn Judgment neared and the Celestial Dao moved to correct the great perversion that was taking place.
Finnvarðr reappeared within Hegemony territory as that great, terrible empire was beginning to turn upon itself, its xianba either attempting to force their way into the Ertianjie or arrogantly preparing to wage internecine war upon each other even as their galactic campaigns of subjugation stalled. The few godlings who confronted him paid for it with their lives. He, though, sought neither revenge nor his own conquests, but instead withdrew to a secluded place where he could set his plans in motion.
The legends are, at this point, obscure as to what his motives were, or who his allies might have been, or what knowledge about the Hegemony and the godlings he had come across. Some claim that he had made an uneasy alliance with a celestial, or that he discerned the coming of a great threat beyond even that of the xianba, or even that his human nature had given way to that of a Guardian Beast. But all agree that he had a set of celestial artifacts forged, artifacts that were delivered to the ancestors of the Hraðfaringar, and that he then set out on a quest whose purpose only he knew. He disappeared, and shortly after the Dawn Judgment ended the xianba terror forever.
Historically, it was believed that in time immemorial, the predecessors to the Hraðfaringr had been watched over by celestials known as fylgja, until their order was extinguished by the demons during the age of suffering preceding the War of Ten Thousand Gods. Much later, as the humans refined their knowledge of their divine Talent, the Hraðfaringr's antecedents learned to store the catalytic qi within their souls into the physical forms of yeguai, creating a bond-creature and physical manifestation of their power that they also referred to as fylgja. It is not clear what sort of beast Finnvarðr's fylgja is, but it is clearly quite formidable, fighting alongside him with frightening power.
Finnvarðr survived the destruction of the Dawn Judgment, but bereft of his catalytic qi his human form perished almost immediately afterward. He lives on through his fylgja, his soul having undergone a transformation of sorts, and he is now effectively a baishouren or Guardian Beast in his own right. He was waylaid in his quest to slay the incipient Revenant-Godling, horrificially injured and finding himself on a world whose denizens had just survived a cataclysm of their own. Nursed back to health by them, he in turn healed their world and took up guardianship over it; his old memories slumber within him but most of them are locked away. He has little recollection of his past existence as a human.
