#its more that the specific flavor of brainworms i have

[plaguelin]

Chief Munitions Officer Renyak

End of Dragons spoilers ahead - but only for very early on in the expansion! And nothing really of consequence!

Early in Act 1, we are introduced to Renyak. He immediately stands out as an interesting character among our cast of villains, and I would like to talk more about him! So, prior to the end boss of the Seitung Province meta, we don't have a face to put to Renyak. All we hear is dialogue, from which we can discern:

The hissing, growling, bestial qualities in his speech.

A voice-type that we really haven't heard before! I don't know how else to describe this, other than each race in the game has a certain 'flavor' to their voice that is pretty unique and pretty easy to identify. Renyak's is an outlier.

We know he's not a dredge, because of the recorded conversation with Ivan where he clearly doesn't understand dredge values (and is instead very possessive of his things).

"The others, what do they say about me?" "That you're insecure?"

Ankka then tells him, "look, ex-slavers like you don't get by on looks."

Crow's Pre-Seitung Province Meta Conclusion: Renyak must be a krait!

The krait are known slavers. In fact, that's one of the few things we actually specifically know about their society.

His snakey hisses, growls in dialogue

Like, where else would one even go if they didn't want to hang around their own kind? The rest of Tyria might be working on being more accepting of other races, but the pirates of Tyria seem to be miles ahead so far as inclusivity goes - they seem to accept anyone who wants to join up. The Aetherblades are likely similar in that regard.

Crow's Great Disappointment: During the Seitung Province meta, the final boss is Renyak. And he's a charr.

But it just doesn't sit well with me! I've been waiting for krait to get literally any kind of development for years! And his voice is unlike any other Charr voice we've heard; it's too... snake-y! Too screechy!

Plus, the mention that he's an ex-slaver. That is a very specific profession that we don't see much of throughout Tyria. Certainly not among Charr - though I guess possibly the Flame Legion could be into it. And, let's be real, the Inquest would probably happily do business with slavers to get experimentation subjects - but I doubt they'd do that dirty work themselves (and if they did, they'd probably call it 'field collecting' subjects or something...)

My Brainworms At Work:

Renyak is a munitions expert; shown to be a scrapper in-game what with his stupid gyros. Assumed to be at least somewhat tech-friendly.

We've seen the Aetherblades use holo-tech. Ivan, specifically, is known to be a holosmith. I wonder what you could do with tangible holograms, hmmmm?

It wasn't what he wanted out of the conversation, but Ankka notes that he's "insecure." There's got to be some truth to that, given he continues to press her for gossip.

The Aetherblades might not be a group of best friends doing best friend things, but there must be some base level of trust between them, otherwise nobody would stick around. Granted, at the time of the recordings discovered in Act 1, they were stranded in Cantha and couldn't just saunter off without probably being arrested. But, it's safe to assume that Renyak's paranoid nature is not a new development. Whether or not it's earned or reciprocated, he feels like an outsider among them.

If he's insecure enough to sniff out the crew's opinions of him from Ankka (and, important to note, he doesn't do this because he's any more comfortable with her - iirc, it's a transaction. She tells him what the others say about him; he fixes her gun. He clearly feels like he needs leverage to even have a normal conversation with her about this), why wouldn't he be insecure enough to hide behind the illusion--or hologram--of a more acceptable, more common race. One still bestial in nature, but less likely to draw even more ire than his already sub-par personality would draw on its own?

Therefore, my brain declares that Renyak is still definitely a krait. An ex-slaver; a legitimately bad person. Deeply insecure existing so far outside of what little we've seen of krait society, an outcast even among the multi-racial Aetherblades.