Aun’Shi

Aun’Shi is an Ethereal of the T’au Empire, a member of its ruling caste recorded as unusual for carrying an honour blade into combat, and linked to Vior’la. The Ethereals govern the T’au castes through counsel, ceremony and the doctrine of the Greater Good, and are ordinarily kept apart from the fighting; Aun’Shi is noted because he is recorded as taking part in it.

Accounts of his career centre on the Empire’s wars against Ork incursions, in which he is recorded as fighting at the front alongside the Fire Caste, the warrior caste, rather than directing events from a shrine. Existing Orrery records place him at the frontier sept of Ke’lshan, where he is said to have been captured and later recovered, while the map anchor for this dossier is Vior’la, the Fire Caste sept world whose academies train aggressive Mont’ka cadres. Accounts differ on which sept should be treated as his origin, and this page does not resolve the point. Vior’la’s own record notes that Ethereals restored order among wavering Fire Warriors during a World Eaters landing, which is the setting in which an Ethereal of his kind is placed on that world.

Aun’Shi remains active within the T’au Empire and is cited as an example of an Ethereal whose authority rests on conduct in battle as well as on doctrine. He is usually set against Commander Farsight, a native of Vior’la whose departure from the Empire took him beyond Ethereal authority, and he belongs to the same period of the Third Sphere Expansion as that commander and the Ethereal leadership at T’au, including Aun’Va. His precise chronology is not firmly recorded, so his place on the timeline is given by his caste, the Ethereals, rather than by a fixed date.