Laral Farad Jornlec (died 430 IE) was a member of the powerful Laral Family. Unlike his cousin, Umish, or his uncle, Jorl, he was not a member of the Realm‘s Warrior Caste. Still, he led the failed invasion of the Etruscan colony Anacreon. When confronted by Admirals Eileen Burke and Quentin Austin, he withdrew from Compact space.
Farad commissioned the legalist Yrdesh to have Lattus Tishla killed. Yrdesh, in turn, hired Jeris Mar to obtain a weapon and create the biotoxin to kill Tishla’s twins. Jeric gave the weapon to Nolan Rosc. However, Tishla lived and killed Yrdesh herself. Farad found and killed Jeris and showed her head to Rosc, intending to kill him for failing to complete the job. Rosc defied him and was rescued by Delda Rallis, a third member of the group Tishla setup to recruit settlers. Backed by the Guardian's Peacekeepers, he gave Farad less than a day to vacate Laputan space.
Farad traveled to Armaneya City to intercept Rosc to prevent him from recruiting human settlers for Hanar. Delda Rallis intervened, bringing Peacekeepers to eject him from the station.
Upon the death of his cousin Umish in 429 IE, leadership of the family, as well as possession of Amargosa, fell to Farad. He arrived in early 430 to take over the planet in defiance of the custody assumed by the Realm's Seat of Supremacy while the chose a new Sovereign. The Warriors on Amargosa resented having to answer to a non-Warrior, particularly after Farad decapitated one of them to assert his authority. He found the planet to be boring. When confronted by Malcolm Russell, an agent of Juno, he rejected the deals made by his cousin and uncle with Marcus Leitman.
Upon his arrival on the surface, Farad asserted his authority by killing a Warrior who questioned his claim to Amargosa. He then demanded that all humans on the planet be exterminated. A Warrior named Ponax became his aid and guided him in dealing with Gelt Warriors. Farad was disappointed to learn that his cousin’s wife Peteesh had fled and surrendered to the human resistance.
Farad entertained himself aboard the grounded colony transport by crowding humans into the ship’s arena and having them incinerated by heat ray for his amusement. During one such session, Ponax briefed him on the process selecting a new Sovereign of the Realm. The Sovereign’s heir remained in minority, though, at age 13, the Seat of Supremacy could consider waiving that minority as Gelt became adults at 14. However, a regency seemed unlikely as the Seat of Supremacy did not generally agree to such an arrangement. Other candidates included the leader of the Legal Caste, the the sitting Sovereign Consort, Hanarian Chancellor Orias Palak, and, in a surprise sympathy nomination, Lattus Tishla. This last enraged Farad, prompting him to shoot into the latest crowd of doomed humans and ordering Ponax to submit his own name despite Realm leadership holding the Laral Family responsible for the war with the Compact.
Farad met with the widow of one of the crew killed when during the attack on the colony transport. Again enraged, he demanded to know why his general did not pursue humans into the mountains. When the general balked, Farad remotely triggered his suicide capsule, disintegrating him. He promoted Commander Brigga to general and ordered him to begin exterminating humans immediately. In the meantime, Farad received word from Lucius Kray, “military governor of Amargosa,” offering a truce with Laral Peteesh to be gifted to Farad. Farad agreed, but then detoured to Deming when the city went completely silent and the mechs his cousin commissioned to fight for the Gelt had been coopted by the Northern Resistance.
Farad delayed a trip to Riverside to visit Deming. They found the city abandoned, but a red carpet with the human version of royal trappings laid out at the mech factory. The Northern Resistance, which attacked the city, had decapitated the heads of Warriors and put them on pikes along the path laid out for Farad. Inside, a makeshift throne with an effigy of Farad awaited them. Someone had tacked a sign on the effigy that said, in three languages, “You’re next, Farad. Love, Chapaan.” A Warrior with a Gelt death collar and his hands cutoff emerged and warned Farad that this Chapaan was a teenage human girl who had every intention of killing Farad. The collar then strangled him. After surviving an assassination attempt, Farad ordered the city burned to the ground.
Farad arrived at RIverside, landing at Alexei Leonov Spaceport. Kray first threatened him by demonstrating the biotoxin he had weaponized, melting a Gelt prisoner to sludge. He then made a peace offering of Laral Peteesh. He witnessed Kray alongside Diana Jovann and realized the humans were too fractured, with the Northern Resistance a wildcard. In private, he pondered leaving with Peteesh, where he would force her to bear him an heir, and bombing the inhabited continent into a radioactive hell, moving the Gelt currently settled to the far side of the planet. Ponax and Brigga talked him out of it. However, he demanded they find Peteesh so he could have her that night.
They found her in a shed where Kray had been keeping her hidden. Davra Andraste had also been held prisoner there and attempted to escape. Farad, learning Peteesh had been booby-trapped with biotoxin, shoved his dagger into her navel, triggering the toxin to dissolve Peteesh. As she died, Eric Yuwono burst in and tried to kill him. Ponax jumped in between the two and died from the gunshot. A second shot took out Farad’s knee. Yuwono killed Kray’s escort of him and fled with Davra.
Brigga located Farad and had a lead on Kray’s whereabouts. In the process of locating him, they came across Diana Jovann as she evacuated the city. Farad incinerated her. He and Brigga found a cellar where Kray had left a fusion weapon. Riley had planned to detonate the weapon, but had passed out drunk Brigga shot him. Kray appeared and taunted them. The moment they realized he only appeared holographically, the weapon went off, vaporizing Farad.
Appearances: Broken Skies, The Exile, Storming Amargosa