“My sole desire is to rule through strength. The weak perish, and the strong live on... This is the law of nature. It is the law the goddess herself created when she forged this world.” — Ashnard, to Bryce
Ashnard (Japanese: アシュナード Ashnard) was the thirteenth King of Daein, feared and reviled across Tellius as the "Mad King", and was the architect of the Mad King's War of 645. He took the throne of Daein after a plague destroyed the rest of his family, and was obsessed with strength and desired to re-shape the world into one where the strength of an individual determined their fate. In order to achieve this, he plotted to draw all of Tellius into a world-spanning war to awaken the dark god inside Lehran's Medallion, beginning with the conquest of neighboring Crimea.
While he quickly seized total control of Crimea and engaged Gallia in a protracted war, Ashnard was opposed by Crimea's surviving princess, Elincia, and the young mercenary leader Ike, who eventually united Gallia, the Begnion Empire, and Phoenicis behind the cause of ending the Mad King's War. Ashnard's machinations brought both Lehran's Medallion and a heron who he believed able to use it into his possession, and the intensifying opposition played into his plans for the medallion. Ashnard took a keen interest in Ike, the son of a former Daein general of legendary strength, and in the prospect of personally fighting Ike and testing his might against a worthy opponent.
(Source: Fire Emblem Wiki)
