Turian Folklore: Origin of Vakarian
In my Mass Effect fanfiction I am delving into fleshing out culture & myth for each alien race. While it's ambitions, I started with Turians. (Because. Turians. Enough said.)
Vak'Kari is a canon word in my FF and heres the lore behind it;
“Aim not at the foe before you, but at the shadow behind your fear.” — attributed to Serahna, Goddess of Mercy
In the earliest age of Palaven’s dawn wars — long before the Hierarchy, before the unification under the Code — there lived a soldier whose name was lost to time. His legion was routed by the beast Kher’Tal, a creature said to be born from the silence between stars, feeding on doubt and despair.
Mortally wounded, the soldier crawled across the scorched plains of Cipritine’s Cradle, his crown plate shattered, his pulse failing. In his delirium, he saw her — Serahna, the Pale Flame, Goddess of Mercy and resolve. She could not save him; even gods were bound by the law of the cosmos. But she could speak.
“Your weapon is broken,” she told him. “But your aim is not. Do not strike the beast — strike the fear that commands it.”He rose, guided by her light, and loosed his final shot — blind, blood in his eyes. The bolt pierced not the beast’s hide but the reflection in its eyes: his own terror. The creature fell, its body dissolving into ash, and the soldier collapsed beside it.
The next morning, his brothers found him alive, though one eye was gone and his Vak’Shan, weapon was broken. When they asked what had happened, he said only one word:
From that day, it became a vow — the “True Aim,” the strike not of the hand but of the spirit. It came to mean clarity, conviction, and the courage to face what cannot be killed with bolts.
Through generations, the Vakarian line carried fragments of that legend — the belief that a soldier’s true enemy is not the target before them, but the weakness within. To be called Vak’Kari was not to be flawless, but to fight with purpose aligned to truth.
And though Garrus never prayed to Serahna (but his mother did), her influence runs in his blood — every calibration, every impossible shot, every choice made in the dark.
Weapon: The Kher’Tal Fang (Vak’Shan)
“Only the air itself can teach you to strike.” — Turian proverb, Old Cipritine dialect
In the era before Palaven’s first legions, before the unified Code, the world’s skies belonged to the Kher’Tal — enormous winged predators that could lift an armored Turian and vanish into the storms. Their hooked jaws and taloned wings made them both sacred and terrifying. Early Turians called them sky-devourers — the living hunger of the gods.
The weapon would be known as a Vak’Shan, or True Fang — a weapon crafted only from the fallen Kher’Tal. Their jawbones curved like crescent moons, serrated from generations of aerial hunting.
The Vak’Shan was bound in “star-silk” — a thread woven from the fibers of Arathis larvae, which glowed faintly under moonlight. In ancient texts, it’s called “Sar’kalith”, translated loosely as sting of the stars or the silk of gods. Warriors believed that binding their weapon in Sar’kalith connected their aim to the heavens; the fiber hummed in wind, and the most skilled fighters could make it “sing,” slicing the air with a whistle that marked precision.
Because each blade required both the death of a Kher’Tal and mastery of the Sar’kalith weave, owning one was a rite of passage reserved for Palaven’s sky-clans — warrior tribes who defended their territories with aerial and cliffside combat.
To the Turian ancestors, the Vak’Shan was more than a weapon. It was a test of balance. The legend said that a warrior who could make the blade sing without bloodshed had achieved Vak’Kari — the “True Aim.” They could strike fear, doubt, and rage itself without a kill.
Presence alone, the mastery of one self is inself a weapon.
When Serahna’s chosen soldier faced the shadow-beast Kher’Tal in myth, he was said to wield a broken Vak’Shan, its edge dulled, its silk torn — but his aim remained true. The act of faith and defiance transformed the weapon from fang to symbol. Thus, the Vakarian lineage’s ancient motto:
“The weapon sings not in the hand, but in the heart that holds it.”
