Knighted Queen Schifshech

Schifshech, known in Portia as the Knighted Queen, was a Portian salticid leader. She was instrumental in the Founding of Portia and plays a significant role in the Portian cultural consciousness.

History
Schifshech was born in about -20 PT to a Portian canopy in the Terran Mingle. At this point, the first tensions between the Mingle species were developing, and were exacerbated by extensive theological arguments and ideological differences that had cropped up between communities. Notably, Portian supremacy as a mindset had been festering, since the Portians had long believed themselves to be the first storytellers and originators of Proto-Terran myth.

According to the accounts of multiple species' histories, Schifshech rallied and raised an army of about two hundred separate canopies over the course of two years. They planned an attack on leaders of other species' canopies while simultaneously scouting a path west toward forests they knew were largely uninhabited, thanks to the obstacle of the Eurasian Mountains and the threat of the Solenopsids. Under the leadership of Schifshech and through the employment of aggressive guerilla tactics against a largely unprepared Mingle population, the majority of Portian salticids in the Mingle split off and fought their way toward the west, where they settled and formed the Portian state. In the process, the first official war between Portia and the Solenopsids began, and would continue with constant skirmishes on the eastern border of the country until the final Ant War around 600 PT forced the Solenopsids back into the mountains permanently.

After becoming the first Portian Queen and producing dozens of slings, Schifshech died in 15 PT at the age of 35, elderly by salticid standards.

In Portian Mythology
Portian myth holds Schifshech up as a legendary warrior and trickster figure. In one story, a young Schifshech saw Moonbluster come down from the sky to end the world, and fought it off singlehandedly until it crawled back into the Moon. It was widely believed that Schifshech had divine inspiration for her break from the Mingle, which is itself mythologized into a much larger conflict than it would have been. Doubtlessly, many small factions had broken off from the Mingle before, but unlike Portia had not lasted long as independent states or had backing from the majority of members of a whole species.