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 The Kashaen are a coalition of desert tribes that shared a common ancestry in the Before-Time as the vassals of the great king Helios on the land of glittering sands of Ekael. Once, they had been an army of perfect warriors that fought to protect the borders of Creation. United by the hand of Lucent Copper Haze, second coming of their never-forgotten lord, that is what they have once again become. Their banner shows the Seven Tribes that gathered as one to follow Lucent in his exodus to the Sunlands.
Not the leaders of the tribes, but rather, spiritual leaders and folk heroes of the people as a whole. Diamond Dog Night ^ Diamond Dog Night: A former janissary, and formerly one of the elite slave-soldiers of Gem, Diamond Dog Night is a splintered and intense young ennuch who, having gained his freedom through force of arms, devotes his life to the protection of his people. Like many of his kind, Diamond was purposefully 'infected' with the Midnight Sunstone Malady - not an actual illness but a rare condition first seen in miners working in Gem's pits. Caused by breathing in gases exhaled from the lungs of the great slumbering Jotun who dwells under the city (though almost no one realizes this), it causes a persons hair, teeth, nails, and patches of skin around the joints in the knees and elbows to calcify in a diamond-hard and gem-like fashion. While not physically debilitating, it is still considered 'disfiguring' and most of those infected are left as outcasts. Diamond was no different and upon his escape, had an iron mask sealed to his face. He exists now mostly as a "thing" rather than a person, in his own eyes as much as anyone elses. A creature of shadowy iron and lether clothing and glittering gemstone flesh whose devotion to the tribe is absolute and even fanatical. He gazed upon Lucent after fleeing from Gem and re-joining the tribe of his birth, one of the ones the Solar united as the new Kashaen, and believes in him beyond all reproach.
^ White Sun: The Lady of the Night, White Sun is both a seer and an oracle, as well as one of the most learned members of the tribe - both in tribal lore and in comprehension of the world at large. She was born on a moonless night, a night without color when the desert seemed to freeze to ice, and many believe that spirits who walked on this fell evening possesed her, for she was born without color herself. Her skin is without pigment and her eyes pink, she could not long endure the desert sun directly and had to be swathed in pale cloth from head to toe. Only under the moonlight does she ever shed her wrappings, revealing a woman of heart-breaking beauty and an elegant, cunning face. Only the tribes former shaman would have much to do with her in her childhood, the rest feeling she was an ill omen, but has since proved her worth by far exceeding her step-mother and teacher in the lore of the supernatural world. She still remains a step apart from the rest of the tribe however, a shyness that many take as cold superiority. She is also the only person who Diamond Dog Night has ever shown his face to - they are star-crossed lovers.
^ Ten-Tooth Serpent: The tribes greatest 'merchant' to speak of, Ten-Tooth Serpent is an eccentric and exciteable young woman whose sole concerns in life seem to be the procurment of money and personal comfort. Another refugee from Gem, her life as a concubine to the despot was considerably better than many would imagine and it was less a hunger for freedom that saw her fleeing the city as a desire to _own everything_. Her idle time as a harem girl to an oft-abscent master left her days open to dally with visiting Guild merchants and make "friends" with several. Through them, she came to have a greater comprehension of economic theory and merchandise than most of the students of even the Realms great merchant familes come to know. Deciding that the creature comforts the Despot offered her were far below what she could have on her own, Serpent (who went by a very different name then) was the one who engineered Diamond Dog Night's escape and used him to get her into the tribe. Often underestimated, being both a woman and a half-breed, but wickedly skilled in her art and far from unwilling to bend a few morals (or break a few mortals) to get what she wants, she has been as often a trouble to the tribe as a boon to it.
^ Obsidian Heart: Eclipse-born. Cursed child. Born on the day of a foreboding Solar Eclipse, born with irises in the same shape, black at their core with an ominous golden halo, Obsidian Heart was shunned from birth, portents of death following his wake. Sand appeared dark, water was foul, animals appeared dead and foul, ruining the hunt, and even those alive he caught were diseased. In time even his parents grew weary of protecting him, casting a child of barely ten summers out in the sands to die. A child lost to sandstorm, crying until his tribe vanished… and one that would reappear to save his own kinsfolk of a raid from the Jackal Tribes, years later, wielding weapons of carved Obsidian, with razor-sharp shards embedded in his forehead and his back forming a glorious, ominous sun. He was taken back to the tribe, kept at arm’s length. Outside the tribe, always away, but counted on for their defense. He was a cold, unforgiving, angry individual, tolerating his tribe more than wishing their embrace anymore, wishing to show them how they needed him, every step he took pain from the Obsidian Shards that made him faster, better, stronger, that made him able to fight so much better than the people he hated, despised, needed. That is, until he met Lucent Copper Haze, and of all f the Kashaen, was the one who most resisted believing in the Solar boy. They fought, the warrior bested easily, yet still raging against his promises of ‘destiny’. But the Solar spoke to his soul, changed him with simple words, “Destiny is for us to break. We make our own path.” That is what he truly offered them, and he took Lucent’s hand, then, becoming as fervent as Diamond Dog in his devotion to the Solar!
^ Laughing Heart: Menfolk say that Laughing Heart is no woman, but a man-eating beast simply wearing the skin of one. To this, she will often smile and laugh and readily agree. It is not a pleasant smile nor a pleasant laugh. She has had pleasantry in neither since the day, many years ago, a lot drawn by the tribe saw her as a young girl lashed to a stake at a crossroad as offering to the spirits there. Many recall the girl as bright and cheerful, always full of affection and humor for everyone, so rare a brightness in their often dull and grinding world. Yet, that day, she had not laughed nor has she cried when her parents tied her to the stake and walked away. She should have not survived the day, but by dawn the next week she had returned to camp upon the back of a massive spotted hyena. Around her throat, she wore a lead tooth that she had not had before and said she had been given it in a dream. It and the beast she rode were gifts from a god so old, the world had forgotten his name. The crossroad was HIS place though and so he had come and set her free, to send her home to tell the tribe to never again leave their blood to stain his home. The tribe believed her; they had no other answer for the strange things she brought with her. Laughing Heart abandoned the family who had abandoned her and staked out on her own, quickly becoming a huntress of unmatched skill. Laughing Heart seemed almost as one with her strange new pet and when it was mortally wounded in battle against raiders years later, the girl unhestiantly cut it open, constumed it's heart, and stripped it of it's skin. She wears it as a cloak even to this day, a strange and still-fresh looking hide. There are times at night when many say they can hear her laughing to herself and others speak in shivers of how much more like a beast than a woman she often sounds.
^ Painted Wind: Some think he is mad. Others think he is a god in mans flesh. Yet, no one in the tribe is certain what to make of Painted Wind, beyond that he is a figure of nearly as much reverence as their Solar King. Born of a young daughter of the tribes interum chieftain, no one knows just who his father was. On the even of his birth, his mother abruptly left the camp and fled into the desert. Parties hunted for days to find her, but it was as if the desert itself rose up to swallow her. It was not until several years later than warriors of the tribe found the boy, seated in meditation upon a smooth desert stone. He was wild haired, skin red like firedust, and with eyes pale and white. All across his flesh were tattoos that formed the images of dozens of desert creatures and around his throat he wore the amulet of the missing daughter. Brought back into the tribe, he quickly rose to a place of mixed respect and supersition. He almost never drank or ate, his body gaunt and spindly for it. Late at night, when the rest of the camp goes silent, people often hear him drifting like a phantom in the night, singing the sand to sleep. Then, a boy, now a man, despite a diet of mostly sand and cactus juice he is a wild beauty as untamed as the desert itself. He claims to speak to the vast wasteland itself, to feel the footfalls of ever beast that walks upon it and ever danger that hides below it, and only too often have his predictions been proven right. Often found speaking to himself, many say he sees spirits as if they were things of flesh and converses with them. Laughing Heart was the one who had first found Painted Wind and the two share a strange bond. He says that she is not OF this place, that he cannot see her or feel her around him. It seems not to stop her from seeing and feeling him, however, as it is little secret her nightly visits to his tent.
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