Raynesia

Raynesia El-Arte Cowen, also spelled "Lenessia Erharte Cowen", "Reinesia Cowen", or "Rayneshia Corwen," is a member of the Cowen family &mdash; the most prestigious dukedom in the Eastal League of Free Cities and second-most prestigious aristocratic family in all of Yamato.

She is the granddaughter of Sergiad, the Duke of Maihama, and the second child of Phenel and Saraliya. Her older sister, Risselthea, married out of the family in disgrace while her younger brother, Iselus, is still young. As a result, the brunt of Eastal high society's attention falls on her &mdash; attention that she would be much happier without.

After the events of the Return of the Goblin King, she becomes the Ambassadress of the Eastal League of Free Cities to Akiba. During her time there, she assists in Operation Capture as an external support member of the Akiba Raid Party.

Appearance
Raynesia is a young girl renowned for her beauty. She has knee-length silver hair, braided on the left side with bangs swept to the right side, and dark blue eyes.

Her attire is left up to Elissa, her lady-in-waiting, since Raynesia herself prefers to wear comfortable pajamas which are unacceptable for social events.

Personality
Born to a high-ranking noble family, Raynesia appears to be the model princess: elegant, soft-spoken, and well-mannered. She is conscientious of how her outward appearance reflects on not only herself, but also her entire household, and does her utmost to appear flawless in the eyes of high society to protect her family name.

However, this is completely at odds with her true nature: that of a lazy, carefree girl who would love nothing more than to simply eat and sleep for the entire day, if not her entire life. In fact, this nature of hers was exacerbated by the strict societal standards she learned to live up to, resulting in the girl having little self-confidence or motivation to do things on her own. She dislikes taking responsibility and having the weight of major decisions on her shoulders, but also dislikes the scheming and maneuvering conducted by the other nobles at the

As a result, her initial assessment of the Adventurers is that they are an exhausting enigma: they don't care for social status and prefer directness, so her carefully-crafted mask is useless on them. Even with Krusty, whom she exposes her true side to, she only does so because he sees through her and constantly exposes her true thoughts. This lack of freedom of choice results in Raynesia having a begrudging relationship with him; on one hand, she doesn't have to worry about maintaining her façade for him, but on the other, she dislikes being read like a book.

Raynesia eventually realizes that Adventurers aren't so much an enigma so much as it is she had never tried to understand them to begin with. After Rieze divulges her past, Raynesia's assumptions about her background are shattered and she realizes that she'd judged the other girl based on her own limited understanding of the world. This prompts her to open up with the Adventurers attending her tea parties about the situation with the rogue Royal Guard, and they work on a resolution to their situation together.

Before the Catastrophe
Most women born into nobility have little real authority and instead exist for political marriages. Her mother Saraliya is an exception, but her extraordinary skills and capability has led her to be a harsh mother with high standards for her children. Risselthea's elopement with a low-born knight brought a great deal of scandal to the Cowen name, an act that Saraliya has never completely forgiven. As a result, Saraliya's expectations for Raynesia are all the greater and, while she lives up to them on the surface, the stress it induces in the girl left her lazy and unmotivated.

On one hand, if she lacks talent and skills, she will never be in a position to do anything worthwhile and her only role will be looking pretty and perfect. On the other, the amount of work she needs to put in to surpass expectations and make a name for herself is too stressful for her indolent nature.

However, those pre-established societal rules are challenged by the Adventurers after the advent of the Catastrophe.

Conference of the Lords arc
Raynesia and Elissa appear before Sergiad when the spies in Akiba return.

Raynesia, Fevel, and Apret are debutantes when representatives of the Round Table Alliance arrive at the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice to attend the annual Conference of the Lords. Finding his opportunity to worm his way out of stifling conversations with the Earthling nobles, Krusty quickly becomes her acquaintance, to her mild displeasure. However, seeing how free he was to do whatever he wanted, unlike her, she came to admire both him and the Adventurers.

Return of the Goblin King arc
Raynesia was told by her father to stay at the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice with her Grandfather due to the invasion of Goblins and Sahuagin as a result of the Return of the Goblin King event. However, because the nobles took too long over bickering on how to use the Adventurers to their advantage, she defies her father's commands and goes to personally plead for the Adventurer's assistance against the goblin hordes. Her outlook on social classes was completely turned upside-down as she witnessed how well-educated the Adventurers were in comparison to the military officers and nobility of the People of the Earth. Her impassioned speech to the crowds convinces Krusty and the other Adventurers to lend their aid.

Libra Festival arc
Because she acted entirely on her own without the authority of the Nobles, she was forced to shoulder all the responsibility, and had to go to Akiba to become the Earthling ambassador to the Adventurers. Ironically, Krusty tells her that since Adventurers don't care about politics, she gets to just laze around all day long, exactly what she wanted much to her happiness.

When she shortly realizes that she's now swamped with requests between the Guilds and Earthlings and now barely even has time for herself. She feels that she got conned by Krusty as a result.

Fallen Guardian arc
Raynesia finds herself swamped by those joining in on her "tea party," Adventurers that were assigned to protect her while several of the Round Table Alliance's guild masters were away on various missions. Marielle in particular takes great joy in dressing her up, while Raynesia admires the stoic Rieze.

However, learning about the murderer makes her tense, and even more so when she learns from Kunie clan member Kinjyo that this murderer is actually one of the Royal Guard. Although she contemplates turning off the magic circuit that allowed the Mobile Armor to operate, she falters upon learning that it would also end the Guard system and cut off Akiba's protection from monsters for at least 10 years. Unsure of what to do, she can only sit by as Akatsuki, who had overheard her conversation, goes to fight him. In the meantime, she is accompanied by Rieze, from whom she realizes that even after all this time, she really didn't now how Adventurers lived or thought.

Upon the death of both the ninja and Soujiro Seta, however, both Akatsuki and Raynesia are berated for their naivete and unwillingness to work with others.

Rieze and Henrietta work together to come up with a strategy to defeat the rogue Guard, and Raynesia is the one visiting Kinjo this time, to ask him to turn off the magic circuit allowing for the operation of the Royal Guard. He repeats the downfalls of turning it off, all which she knew and was prepared for. Even though she was still afraid and wanted to just run away, she determines to herself that would go through with the plan.

Noosphere arc
For her younger brother Iselus' eighth birthday party, Raynesia travels from Akiba to Maihama, where Isaac and Calasin already were to train the Glass Greaves. Rieze accompanies her as a bodyguard, and indeed, some Westelande assassins appear to kill Iselus. However, Isaac, with his new danger-detecting earring, sensed the malintent of the Earthlings and challenged them to a fight.

Not long after defeating them, though, many Earthlings begin collapsing around them as a result of the Eternal Moths. Although Raynesia and Iselus are not affected, their grandfather, Serjiad, was, and they gather beside him in worry. By the time he wakes up, they already moved him into a bed so that he could rest, and Raynesia herself irately wonders where Krusty had disappeared to, vowing to find him and bring him back herself if she had to.

Collapse of the Round Table arc
Right around the time that the Round Table Alliance is under pressure due to Eins' arrangement with the House of Saiguu to establish the Akiba duchy, Raynesia finds herself in a pickle. Raynesia's mother, Saraliya, approaches her with the news that she has received a marriage proposal from Touri Saiguu. Because of the incident during the Goblin King invasion in which she was swept away by Shiroe and Krusty (older, handsome Adventurer men) combined with her elder sister Risselthea's elopement years back, Raynesia finds herself under great pressure to accept the marriage proposal for the sake of her personal and family's reputation, as well as for Akiba's sake. Saraliya leaves Raynesia with the words, "Be prepared, so that there are no regrets."

Shortly before she is due to be married, Rieze and Misa bring her a message from Krusty: "If you aren't upset when something is taken from you, it couldn't have been yours to start with." This message makes Raynesia admit to herself that she loves living in Akiba and spurs her to approach Touri at Akiba Station to decline his marriage proposal, thus setting off the Akiba General Election, for which Raynesia becomes one of two candidates after formally winning her independence from the Cowen family. Raynesia wins her independence by using her mother's words about regret against her, and telling her that she will take the path that she might have wanted to take as a young woman.

Despite Eins' popularity with the People of the Earth, Raynesia prevails on election day, speaking of Akiba as a city of blessings where People of the Earth and Adventurers can work together and promising a new Round Table where People of the Earth are also represented and listened to. After her victory, she becomes the representative and face of the New Round Table Council, replacing Krusty.

Nightingale's Song arc
After the establishment of the New Round Table Council, Raynesia is involved in several plans, most notably a D3-Hub-led initiative to go to the Eured Continent and bring Krusty home. These plans are put on hold, however, when the Genius Eirenus assaults Akiba and creates a space which sucks in all the city's Adventurers. For her part, as a low-level Person of the Earth, Raynesia is unaffected, and meets with Isaac and Misa when they are defeated in the alternate Akiba and return to the regular one's Watermaple Mansion.

Log Horizon: West Wind Brigade
Raynesia makes a cameo in chapter 29, laying over a table as Elissa spreads a blanket over her.

Log Horizon: New Adventure Land
Raynesia makes an appearance in the SNG and has several different forms that can be acquired. Because she doesn't have a normal class that Adventurers have in the light novel, she is a Bard in all her appearances in the game.

Trivia

 * Even though Raynesia is shown to be pretty, it tends to irk her because she is aware of her position, which essentially required her to look pretty and nothing else.
 * Her middle name, El-Arte, may actually be a designation of her standing in the family, since the rest of her family also has -Arte in their middle names, but with different prefixes.
 * In contrast to Raynesia's low sense of self-worth due to her station as a female royal, her mother is in fact quite influential in politics and runs Maihama's intelligence agency.
 * Raynesia shares her Japanese voice actress, Mariya Ise, with her younger brother.