Notable Unathi

Unathi history and society has a long list of notable individuals and heroes that are known across Moghes, or who's fame has become a household name in both Moghes and Ouerea.

Myths and Legends

The majority of Unathi legends follow the feats of individuals and their impact on the world. They stress the importance and abilities of single individuals, and carry with them moral lessons that tend to reinforce Unathi cultural ideas.

Kazani: the First Guwandi

Kazani Guwandi, born Kazani Kaxedun, is an ancient figure who is believed to have been born sometime between 300 BCE to 20 CE. Born before the Sarakus Hegemony, he was the first of two sons of a small noble family that ruled over the village of Kutah. He was raised as the heir to his Clan’s lands and spent his youth in a comfortable life in luxury. Coming into his teenage years he began to fall subject to fits of rage, often exploding on people and physically attacking them for even the smallest provocation and earning a reputation as a brutal person. His father sent him to be trained as a warrior in the hopes of giving him an outlet for his anger. He was trained for years as his instructors tried to bring discipline to the Prince. During training he would fly into a berserk rage and maul his sparring partners. After nearly killing one of them, his father finally just sent him off with the army to fight their Clan’s enemies in the constant battles they fought to defend their lands.

Kazani became a feared warrior within just a few years. He would work himself up into a frenzy before battle, gnashing his teeth and screaming at the enemy. He was known to charge without orders, smashing into the enemy lines and hacking away at them with his sword and bashing them with his shield. He quickly rose to command the Kaxedun army in his late 20’s, and always personally lead from the front line and was the first to make contact with the enemy. Under his leadership and with his seemingly unstoppable strength the Kaxedun clan quickly expanded and seized much surrounding territory. By the time Kazani inherited the role of Clan-Leader once his father died, he was barely in his 30’s. Despite his prestige and power however, he was never offered a wife as all Clans knew of his violent ways and refused to allow their daughters to be put at risk at the hands of such a savage person.

His brother, Trazli Kaxedun, one day came to his brother and demanded that he be given half of the Clan’s lands to govern himself. Trazli had no lands of his own, and had grown jealous of his older brother. This set Kazani into a rage and he attacked his brother immediately, killing him on the spot.

When the rage subsided, Kazani looked on the body of his brother and realized what he had done. He dropped to his knees and wept for the Ancestors to forgive him.

He soon abandoned his Clan, renouncing all of his titles and possessions. He wandered off into the wilderness, taking on the name Guwandi, which loosely means ‘clanless gladiator’. He travelled the globe, looking to die in battle to redeem himself. With each duel he fought, he hurled himself into it intent to win. He knew that if he simply meekly accepted death that he would never redeem himself for his fratricide. Kazani spent years trying to die in battle. For an entire decade he walked Moghes, slaying foe after foe. He grew increasingly desperate, provoking entire bandit parties, town militias, and even whole armies to face him in the field, alone. Each time he fought viciously’, often over entire days without rest, his sword never dry.

By the time he was 40 years old and reaching the twilight of his life, he looked back upon his many conquests and uncountable victories, and wept. Kazani was cursed to be unbeatable, and knew he would never find peace or redeem himself before the Ancestors.

One day Kazani came before a wandering shaman in the unknown wilds. Kazani was desperate for a fight, and fell to his knees before him. Kazani explained his curse and begged the shaman to lift it so he could die in battle. The shaman listened intently and finally asked what Kazani would to have done with his remains when he died. Kazani said he wanted to be buried at his Clan’s former estate next to his brother. The shaman agreed, and said he would lift Kazani’s curse if Kazani would fight him to the death.

Kazani, despite knowing the shaman would surely die, was desperate enough to accept. When they began the duel, Kazani hurled himself at the shaman. But the shaman deftly dodged out of the way and struck Kazani in the back of the head with his walking staff. Kazani fell forwards and hit his head on a rocky outcropping, killing him instantly.

Slain by one of the High Elders of the Akhanzi order, Kazani was finally found to have died in battle and his sins redeemed. He was reunited with his brother and the Ancestors and they joined Sk’akh to live in the eternal afterlife.

Tryazali Kres'ha'nor

Tryazali was born in 949 CE to a minor noble family in what is modern day Baandr. He is credited in Unathi myth as founding the first Hegemony. Information about Trizarki comes from the epic The First Prince and the Night Queen written 1572-1602 CE. According to the epic, when Tryazali was 26 he became separated from his hunting party out in the mountains. He wandered for five days and five nights, unable to find food, water, or shelter. As he was about to die of exposure he was saved by a mysterious tribe of all-female warriors. After he had been nursed back to health by three of the tribe's healers he was taken to meet with their queen, who styled herself The Empress Of Night. She was a ruthless and cunning leader with an azure-colored hide and pure white eyes who claimed to possess magical abilities and a strong spiritual connection to the ancestors. She had been known to lead her tribe of warriors on various raids of the neighboring cities and keep her village hidden in the deep forests in the mountains. After her talks with Tryazali, she demanded that he repay the debt he owed them for saving his life. She tasked him with the rescue of her eldest daughter, who had been kidnapped by a nobleman in S'th. The Queen promised many blessings for the safe return of her child Raz'ha, but warned Tryazali that should he deviate or try to escape from his debt, she would place a curse on him that would doom him and his clan for as long as they tread upon Moghes.

Tryazali eventually learned the whereabouts of the princess, who was being held as a slave to the Lord of S'th, Taraz Jy'haza, keeping her as an exotic curiosity due to the color of her hide, which was a rich azure color. Tryazali would later storm the Lord Taraz's castle and demanded a duel for ownership of Raz'ha. Lord Taraz rebuffed him and sent out his own soldiers, but one by one they fell before the skilled Prince. Eventually Lord Taraz accepted the challenge after overhearing whispers of cowardice amongst his court. According to the epic the resulting duel lasted two entire days before Prince Trazali slew Lord Taraz. Victorious, Tryazali then proclaimed himself the new Lord of S'th, liberating the city and freeing Raz'ha. Before returning her to her mother, the two ended up falling in love, and she elected to remain with Tryazali, becoming queen of S'th and taking the name Kres'ha'nor with her mother's blessing. Tryazali expanded the influence of S'th and eventually created the First Hegemony. He died at the age of 53, in the year 1002 CE. The Kres'ha'nor Hegemony after him continued to grow and dominate most of Moghes.

Shizarsa Ksi'ka

Ksi'ka is believed to have been born in 1632 CE to the leaders of a small tribe outside Darakath. She was bethrothed to a hunter from another village but even from a young age she resented this fact. She is known to have been a wild child, picking fights with other children. When she was 17, before the planned wedding day, she fled her village with her father's sword and crossbow. Outraged, her betrothed, Karask, sent several expeditions after her to arrest and return her. Ksi'ka managed to wound a hunter sent after her with her crossbow but her inexperience with combat lead her to being quickly disarmed and arrested. As she was being escorted back her group was ambushed by bandits and she was kidnapped yet again. Shizarsa was held as a captive of the bandits, who forced her to cook, clean, and otherwise act as a maid for their enclave. According to legend she struck a friendship with one of the bandits and he agreed to train her to defend herself.

When she was 27 Ksi'ka killed the leader of the bandits and began leading the men herself. She became an infamous bandit, harassing traveling merchants. One day she even attacked Karask's village, killing him and freeing a woman he had taken as another wife in her place.

Her fame and power grew until she controlled a small petty kingdom that surrounded Darakath and with dozens of kills under her belt. Fearing the barbarians ravaging the countryside Lord of the city sent out his eldest son, Gri'zarsuth, to lead 48 of the city's soldiers to find the bandit enclave and destroy it.

Eventually Gri'zarsuth and his men managed to ambush Ksi'ka's camp and slew or captured the majority of her men. According to legend Ksi'ka managed to kill four men and was the last one standing. Gri'zarsuth managed to knock her out by hitting her in the head with the flat of his sword.

Ksi'ka was considered a wild savage by everyone in the city when she was dragged to the dungeons in chains, but Gri'zarsuth fell in love with her. He begged his father four times to spare her, and four times he refused. The day before her execution Gri'zarsuth begged again, saying that he could civilize Ksi'ka. Finally his father relented on the condition that he be able to civilize Gri'zarsuth within a year.

Ksi'ka's wild spirit was reigned in by Gri'zarsuth over the following year, and the barbarian savage was transformed into a proper princess. At the end of the year she was brought before Gri'zarsuth's father, who marveled at the change a man could bring such a wild woman. She was allowed to live, and eventually married Gri'zarsuth.

The Contact War

Don'zai Azarak

Don'zai Azarak was born on 2408 CE in the former city of Darakath, the capital of the Azarak Kingdom, which also briefly served as the capital of the Traditionalist Coalition during its existence. His parents, King Yuiz Azarak and Queen Kwina Azarak, gave him two siblings, both of which were sisters, and his family all followed the Tha'kh faith.

Prince Azarak received extensive education from a young age, showing promise and charisma. When he was 16 he was sent to the University of Darakath to become an Apprentice for the Guildmaster of the university, where he also received his education. While attending university he would be bethrothed to his future wife, Princess Wei'za from the northern kingdom of Izgwani, and they would marry when they were both 20, in 2428.

They had two hatchlings six months after the marriage ceremony, giving Don'zai two children; the male Don'ziki and female Yuiza. Don'zai immediately fell in love with his children and became famous for his elaborate and lavish displays of affection. Using his influence as Prince and heir of the Kingdom he managed to persuade the University of Darakath to rename two new campus buildings after his children. He also spent excessive funds on having the baby rooms renovated with elaborate decorations and furnishing, famously including a small fountain in his son's room and hydroponic trays growing a variety of colorful, exotic plants in his daughter's room.

Don'zai's father died when he was 24, in 2432, and Don'zai was crowned King. Though he professed a desire to continue his studies and delegate matters of state to his staff, the unprecedented event of alien life visiting Moghes forced him to take a leave of absence from his studies and take on official duties as King.

The human and Skrell expedition that made contact with Moghes in 2433 was done in the Izweski Nation, which was the world's sole superpower and Hegemony.

Knowing they had the only functioning spaceports and access to the greater galaxy, Don'zai sent repeated requests to the Izweski to have an Azarak representative sent to humanity and the skrell to speak for his Kingdom but each time he was rebuffed, with the Izweski taking on a patronizing and condescending attitude to his Kingdom.

Azarak called a summit of all world leaders in late Versakh (April relative) of 2433. The summit took place in Tisxaclas, the capital of his allies, the Izgwani, where he gave his infamous speech and single-handily managed to become a global icon and the poster boy of the anti-Izweski bloc.

During the global crisis that had erupted after the Izweski had colonized Ourea, in which humanity and the skrell had practically taken charge of, Don'zai Azarak was one of the leading figures that would come to found the Traditionalist Coalition. He personally served in the conflict, becoming an artilleryman in the Azarak 1st Retinue, his family's private levee. Images of him manning an artillery cannon in active battle were turned into propaganda pieces and he became known as the King on the Battlefield.

It's not known if Azarak approved a nuclear weapons program or even authorized the deployment of their use, but following the atomic attack on Da'ha'den on September 5th, 2439 and the following nuclear exchange his whereabouts became unknown as the 1st Retinue was hit by an Izweski atomic bomb while stationed outside Res'karum. Originally the Retinue had been warned about the impending attack and were attempting to retreat away from the military base and disperse into the countryside.

King Don'zai Azarak spent the week on a journey back to Darakath, facing incredible danger as command and control began to collapse across the planet. He became separated from his retinue and was forced to travel alone, most of his travel spent on foot.

Don'zai managed to make it back to Dakarath, which had been spared from atomic attack by virtue of its defenses. However his journey saw him afflicted with severe radiation poisoning, and he spent the remaining duration of the Contact War too weak to be effective, effectively bedridden.

Don'zai refused all medical treatment, forbidding a doctor to enter the grounds. When his wife tearfully begged him to let the doctor in to provide anti-radiation treatment, he is quoted to have said,

"I will die in in my own home on my own terms. I refuse to die at the axe of the Izweski."

Don'zai died of severe radiation poisoning on 2441. In his final lucid moments, his final words are said to have been,

"Care for our children, Wei'za."

Contemporary

Not'zar Izweski, Izweski Hegemon

Portrait of Not'Zar Izweski, circa 2458.

At 22 as of 2460, Not'zar is the second oldest child to the Hegemon and his First Wife. He become the new Heir to the Hegemony after the death of his brother in a shuttle crash in may of 2458. Not'zar Izweski chose to seek an education in Sinta'studies (Unathi Humanities) and pursued a bachelors in Sinta'Philosophy in the University of S'th before his duties as Lord-Regent forced him to suspend his studies.

As an infant he was struck with The Rot, a deadly viral infection passed from breeds of Moghean birds that almost claimed his life as an infant. The next 5 years were spent on a hospital bed as a sickly child barely clinging to life. The Rot causes Unathi scales and even the rest of the hide to rot and fall off, leaving open wounds and necrotic tissue while it also harms muscle growth while weakening tendons. Every day specialized surgeons had to remove more and more infected tissue to contain the spread of the Rot.

Not'Zar survived the disease and spent his entire childhood in physical rehabilitation. He was unable to stand at all, and his condition was an open secret - the Hegemon S’kresti refused to let Not'Zar socialize with anyone outside the castle courtiers. S’kresti was deeply ashamed at having a crippled son. When Not'Zar was 13 he told his father than he wanted to stop rehabilitation because it wasn't working and he was still unable to walk. S’kresti dramatically pulled him out of his wheelchair and dangled Not'zar out a castle window, telling Not'Zar that if he ended the rehabilitation then he wouldn't have a cripple for a son. The incident made a fearful Not'Zar continue the rehabilitation, and after years of more grueling rehabilitation he was able to walk once more when he was 15.

While he was able to keep all of his limbs and regained the ability to walk with assistance from his cane, it's believed that his continued physical weaknesses from muscle damage and general weakness leave him unable to meet the standards of physical fitness to join the military and military academies that are traditional for Izweski to graduate. In addition, he is constantly battling aches from the weaknesses in his muscles and bones, needing oxycodone to get through a typical day.

Not'zar Izweski is extensively traveled, entering the core of human space for the first time when he was 16. Many close to the young Prince have said he indulges heavily in human and skrell cultures. In his Creative Writing Workshop at the university he created several illustrated fantasy stories which were popular with the human expats studying abroad on Moghes, which include "Mecha Battle on Luna's Torment".

His true potential wasn't fully realized until the fateful events of May 6th, 2458. On that day his brother Yakt and his wife died in a shuttle crash. During the funeral Not'Zar's father became inconsolable and eventually fell into a deep depression culminating into a coma. Legally Not'Zar was now the heir, but a brother in-law, S'linzar, quickly seized the moment and declared himself the Lord-Regent before Not'Zar could seek his claim.

The succession crisis split the Hegemony down the middle and Not'Zar quickly had to maneuver the dangerous political climate. Not'Zar had his immediate family quietly flee Moghes. Not'Zar spent the rest of May navigating court intrigue and rallying support for his claim. He managed to retain an alliance with Lord-Admiral Trazarial Yizarus. Yizarus had the unique strength of commanding the HMV Cataclysm of the 1st Fleet; the most powerful warship in the Hegemony. Ickza attempted to purge the government of Not'Zar loyalists but was unable to drive a wedge between the stubborn Trazarial despite declaring Trazarial a traitor and seizing all his assets on Moghes. These events lead to a dramatic stand-off in orbit of Moghes, as the loyalist 1st Fleet stared down the 2nd Fleet, commanded by Yizarus' brother Azikyui.

Through clever political posturing, Not'Zar managed to hold onto his claims for long enough that he had secured enough allies to create a serious threat to the Ickza's power. Rather than risking a full blown civil war, Not'Zar cleverly took advantage of S'linzar's pride by calling him weak and challenging him to a duel. The proud S'linzar agreed, and in a key mistake, allowed Not'Zar to bring to battle 'whatever he could carry'.

Not'Zar took advantage of this by showing up to the duel in a combat mech before a large crowd of the Hegemony's most powerful nobles. The battle was short, with Not'Zar draining S'linzar's breacher suit and leaving his in-law helpless.

S'linzar surrendered and ceded his claims and titles, restoring the title of Lord-Regent to Not'Zar.

During his reign, Not'Zar has shown an unwillingness to use force to resolve disputes. He is also openly critical of ancient Unathi customs and traditions, and his desire to trust in an inherent goodness in Unathi has made him come off as patronizing and naive. However, Not'Zar is by no means as a coward. When the Maraziite Order besieged his family's personal castle in Skalamar, he stood firm and repelled several attempts by the inquisition to breach the gates. However, Not'Zar's cool head prevailed as he forbade the city garrison from interfering, which he feared would have spilled out into open violence throughout the city.

His negotiations with High Priest Unzi have directly lead to the Sk'akh church being given legitimacy as a political force.

Despite holding onto alliances with key supporters, Not'Zar's position remains tenuous. The young nobleman is struggling to remain a moderate in a dangerous and polarized regime. He remains committed to giving Unathi a place in the galaxy and gain respect from the greater empires of the humans and skrell, but his moderate and progressive policies threaten to cause more instability and resentment from the nobility.

Hizoni Razi, Izweski Spymaster

Hizoni Razi in her spymaster regalia, sporting a silver crown. She is known to flaunt her wealth often, and keeps an air of elegance around her.

Hizoni was born 2440 on Ourea as the third daughter to Guildmaster Keicacu Razi, headmaster of the Merchants Guild and owner of Razi-Snax. As an azure she has been seen as the beauty of her clan, and gained the most attention - learning the ways of womens education from her mother and caretakers. After her teachings, she was put into diplomatic situations to defend the Merchants Guild from hostile subterfuge - and eventually found herself in a situation where she defended Not'zar Izweski from an assassination attempt, slaying two would-be assassins and destroying the murder plot. Ever since then, Hizoni has found herself enjoying more and more time with the Hegemon Not'zar Izweski. Hizoni's relationship to Not'zar has been made public simply due to the fact Not'zar has continued to use Hizoni's first name only whenever speaking of her, insighting a large amount of interest from bards and paparazzi.

As spymaster, she has a web of female agents that act to defend the Hegemon and Hegemony from dishonorable subterfuge. Being women, they are not held to the same Warrior's Code as men, allowing them to act in their own best interests.

Yizra Unzi, Exiled High Priest

Once the court chaplain for the Izweski, High Priest Yizra Unzi used a cult scare in 2458 to rapidly elevate his power and centralize the Sk'akh church, becoming the official leader of the Church and commander of its militant inquisition, the Maraziite Order.

Yizra was born in 2407 in the city of Skalamar and raised by a wealthy, orthodox Sk'akh family. His father was a Priest for a large local church and helped the young Yizra through his studies to gain a Doctorate in Sacred Theology, becoming a priest by 30. His father's influence helped him rise the ranks of the Church quickly, and he inherited his father's church by 32 when he passed. One of the responsibilities of Sk'akh priests was diagnosing many ills that could be blamed on malacious spirits. Families in Skalamar would bring the mentally ill to the churches to ask if they were genuinely mentally ill or possessed by evil spirits. The mentally ill were often disowned or kept locked up in private Guild institutions, never to be heard from again to avoid embarrassing the family. A priest declaring them possessed kept the Unathi in the care of the Church, so Yizra became a champion for the mental health community in the city because he would always diagnose them as possessed in order to take them under the care of his Church for long-term treatment and care.

The popularity with the city gave him enough influence to be appointed the new Izweski chaplain when the former retired. He was put in charge of all the ceremonial festivities of the capital city of Skalamar, but he still made time to give sermons in his Clan's church. The Church at this time was organized but there was not a lot of formal control or bureaucracy - it was held together by traditions and expectations.

Yizra was rather quiet during and after the crisis' of the Ouerean colonization and the Contact War outside advocating for a peaceful resolution or quick Izweski victory. During the war however he donated nearly all of his wealth to various charities that looked after disabled veterans of the war along with rebuilding efforts for villages ravaged by the conflict.

The turning point of Yizra's career came in 2453. As Yizra was walking from the Izweski Citadel to a charity to meet with the leaders, a group of Unathi in cloaks approach him on an isolated street. They engaged in a brief theological discussion before trying to convince him to join their movement. He refused repeatedly and tried to get past them, making them grow agitated. They started grabbing him and trying to drag him into the alley to kidnap him. His shouts were heard by nearby Watchmen, who rushed to the scene and caused the assailants to flee. They chased the assailants into an alley that lead to a dead-end, but they had disappeared into thin air. The only thing left behind was a single piece of bloody manuscript with a strange, illegible scribbling on it.

The incident deeply concerned him and he began reaching out to his contacts throughout the city. Through sympathetic law enforcement he discovered that there's been a spate of disappearances and murders throughout the city going back as far as 2433. After enlisting the help of several priests and private detectives he compiled all of the evidence that pointed to a massive, unprecedented underground cult movement being responsible. He took the findings repeatedly to law enforcement and various Lords, but all rebuffed him, saying either that he was being zealous or that he had no authority over secular matters like law enforcement.

So Yizra went public with his findings, stoking the flames of a Cult Panic that swept Unathi space in 2458 to become High Priest, assuming total control over the entire Sk'akh faith. He consolidated his power and also founded the Maraziite Order, a military order under the command of the High Priest with the right to bear arms and dispense justice against spiritual threats to the Hegemony. In its short existence it has arrested several hundred individuals and seized many tomes and documents that Mariziite authorities claim are evidence of cult involvement.

Yizra has become single-minded in his goal to eradicate the threat of the occult from the Hegemony. His growing zeal and conviction has lead him to behave more ruthlessly, believing more and more in the ends justifying the means. He's never been recorded disparaging the Th'akh faith (outside general theological disputes) but he has overlooked Maraziite persecution of Th'akh shamans during his tenure.

For skeptics it's unclear how genuine Yizra's intentions are, and he's often painted as a paranoid zealot.

The cult the Maraziites are fighting remains a vague enigma, and they aren't fully sure if it's a single movement or several. What scant physical evidence they gain from arrested cultists is written in a code that no one has been able to break, and no cultist has revealed secrets under interrogation. Though he hasn't admitted it to anyone except a few Chapter Masters of the Order, not even Yizra fully understands what they are fighting.

Vuthix Akhandi, Elder Shaman

Portrait of Vuthix Akhandi, circa 2459.

Vuthix Akhandi is one of the most well known Elder Shaman of the Akhanzi Order, and is the face of the Akhanzi through recent history. He is the first Elder Shaman to advocate a mass evacuation of the Order from Moghes to escape the Iron Crusade, a massive attack on all Order temples. He is currently living in Mendell City, Tau Ceti in the newly built Akhanzi Library.

Vuthix Akhandi was born in 2405 into the now extinct clan Slithiss, which resided in the once fertile lands east of Mudki. He felt the calling to be a shaman at an early age, but his clan members did not hold high respect to him for the role was largely ceremonial and often more political token than a respected profession to the Slithiss clan. He tried over several years to enact reforms within the clan, to increase spiritual idealism within, before finally growing frustrated with the lack of interest from his Clan's leaders. Vuthix began casting what influence he had to travelers, and in his early twenties, received an invitation to join the Akhandi Order from a shaman on a pilgrimage through his home lands that he had the pleasure to speak to. The decision to abandon his clan and renounce all title to it was not a difficult decision for Vuthix, and he formally renounced his affiliation with the Slithiss clan soon after, beginning his own pilgrimage to the mountain temple far to the southwest. There was no further significant contact between Vuthix and his former clan for the next four decades as he learned various teachings of the Akhanzi as an acolyte, then a shaman, and now an Elder Shaman.

During the Contact War in 2438, the lands of his youth suffered heavy bombardment from atomic weapons, and fearing his ancestors were dead, went out and found his childhood home was now a radioactive crater. He scoured the surrounding area, where he managed to find a group of survivors - and a nephew and niece - within the wreckage of a Sky Behemoth. He gave the survivors treatment and spiritual healing to help them survive the fallout, and gave them guidance and care as he led them back to his temple with in the mountains where they would be safe. The two remain the only living connection Vuthix has to his old clan name. Both of them have decided to take the title Akhandzi and join their uncle in the Order.

In 2459, the Maraziite Order enacted a major attack on all Akhanzi temples, burning thousands of years of ancient scrolls, texts, and teachings. This Iron Crusade forced many of the Elder Shamans to leave Moghes, with Vuthix saying, "They can not truly steal our ancestral home - for our ancestors are within us, not just on Moghes. Wherever we as Sinta go, our Ancestors follow - within our spirits." Vuthix then came to Tau Ceti with hundreds of other Shamans and hundreds more acolytes all holding as many scrolls as they could. Under the guidance of Vuthix, the Akhanzi Order has made a new spiritual temple and library in Mendell City where they teach any and all who ask to learn.

Juzida Si'akh, Prophet of Flame

Juzida was hatched Juzida Aizahi into a small family in 2409. His father ran their villages' church and raised Juzida as an orthodox member of the faith. He was sent to the neighboring town of Ouairu for schooling in the small university there. He received a basic theological education and pursued a Doctorate in Sacred Theology with the intent of overseeing his village's church with his father. His studies ended on 2437 with the outbreak of the Contact War. His father died in the early stages of the war while acting as a Chaplain in the Izweski army. Juzida took on the mantle of Priest and struggled to maintain his small church as an unassuming, technically unqualified priest for those 2 years.

It was shortly after his 30th birthday in the spring of 2439 that the Contact War went nuclear. His village received no prior warning. Juzida was in the basement of his church taking inventory when the ground began to shake and there was a sudden, unearthly roar that knocked him flat and caused sections of the basement to cave in. Juzida quickly left and emerged from his basement to a hellish landscape of brimstone and devastation. His entire village was completely gone and it was as if nothing had ever been there. In the distance Juzida saw the rising mushroom cloud heralding the apocalypse. It was here that Juzida fell to his knees and received divine revelation as Sk'akh spoke to him directly. Sk'akh told Juzida that the Unathi species had become too sinful and corrupted by evil and that the missiles streaking through the sky were the bringers of Judgement Day. Sk'akh told him that everyone that died within the new few hours from the fires of atomic bombs would be cleansed of sin and join her in the afterlife, while all those left behind would be abandoned as Sk'akh wrote off the Unathi species and condemed them to forever reincarnate on Moghes, trapped on the hell that they had created for themselves. Sk'akh finally warned Juzida that she would only consider saving the species if they proved their worth by rebuilding and purifying Moghes, and that Juzida would be the Final Prophet to represent Sinta'Unathi and prove to Sk'akh that the species was worth saving.

Portrait of Juzida Si'akh in the middle of a firebrand sermon, circa 2457.

Juzida immediately abandoned his clan name and took on the last name Si'akh, which loosely means Prophet. Juzida Si'akh spent the rest of the Contact War wandering the wasteland, initially unsure about how to handle his monumental life goal. He watched as civilization collapsed in the face of the apocalypse, and how survivors and tattered remnants of the old kingdoms were fighting a desperate war of survival. His travels had him exposed to the greed, selfishness, and brutality consuming Sinta'Unathi in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. But he also saw glimmers of charity and good deeds that cemented his hopes that his people could be redeemed in the eyes of Sk'akh.

Taking these experiences Si'akh preached his doctrine across the Wasteland. With the end of the world having happened, his message resonated well with the survivors who desperately looked for answers as to why Sk'akh would allow this to happen. By 2450 his congregation was up to several thousand, and his entourage traveled the Wasteland with him, and it was from this point that Si'akh began to deal with persecution from the Izweski, who chased him out of their lands wherever they found him.

By 2457 Si'akh had survived several asassination attempts, but coincidences (or divine intervention) had foiled all of them, and he claims it is because he is literally immortal and unable to be killed until his mission is complete. The same could not be said for his followers. The Followers of Si'akh were violently persecuted, leading Si'akh to form The Reavers of the Flame, an armed religious order tasked with defending the faithful and guarding pilgrimage routes from marauding bandits or Izweski incursions.

Si'akh is passionate, fiercely devoted to his beliefs, and unwavering in his committment to see the Sinta'Unathi species redeemed. He is known to be extremely giving, immediately handing off any food or water given to him to someone more needy than he. His followers have periodically had to directly confront him and beg him to eat after he goes several days refusing to eat. And while he insists he is Sk'akh, his single-minded mission to completely overthrow the traditional order of Unathi society has caused him to be branded a radical heretic. He has experienced so much prejudice and violence that he has become very radicalized and unwilling to consider deviating from his life mission.

The Grim Compact

Tizma Aihagi

Tizma Aihagi, born in 2420 to a minor noble Traditionalist family, now rules the Grim Compact. He was only 19 when the Contact War went atomic, forcing his Clan to flee into space. With many being slain in the attempt, what few relatives remained with him on a makeshift, damaged shuttlecraft were quickly boarded and captured by a first generation pirate vessel. His surviving Clan was sold into slavery but he himself remained a captive as his captors argued about the price he would fetch before they agreed to sell him after attacking a Frontier patrol corvette to secure weapons.

Tizma realized that he would not survive, as his captors were naive, feckless, and did not have a background in warfare. One night before the raid he broke out of the cell and rushed to the Captain’s quarters with a crowbar in hand. He woke up the Captain to allow him to reach for his sword and rise before Tizma, who had been trained for battle by his Clan, deftly slew his enemy.

He seized command of the ship and intimidated the crew into following him. He quickly went about turning his new crew into a hardened fighting force. After several months the ship had several small victories under its belt.

Tizma spent the next decade slowly increasing his wealth and power, and the size of his fleet. His driving goal was to find his scattered clansmen and liberate them, and over the years he succeeded in this quest, bringing the surviving members of his Clan together with him on his ship by 2454.

In August of 2456 his growing, rag-tag pirate fleet launched a surprise raid on a shipyard of the Frontier Alliance, having infiltrated it with false visitor IDs the pirates went in unarmed but picked up weapons caches smuggled into maintenance. They stormed the docked cruiser while most of the crew was out on leave, forcefully ejecting it from the station and fleeing with it before a response could respond in force.

With the strength of a cruiser and the prestige of the daring caper, Tizma’s fame and infamy rapidly spread. It was shortly after this that his armada took on the moniker Doom-Sails. Ships within the armada would be given decorative solar sails to be dramatically unfurled outside, or even within, battle. Carving out a small petty empire in the frontier, Tizma ruled several hundred trade routes with an iron fist.

It was in 2458, at 32, that he met Yizilna. Their fleets had been having skirmishes with one another at certain trade routes as their spheres of operations expanded. The two pirate lords arranged a face to face meeting. Tizma had heard only rumors about the Dread-Lady, and he went in not believing the stories that a woman could be so fearsome, dismissing them as fantasies. When they both entered a small, neutral mining outpost docking bay and he saw her he was immediately smitten at the sight of such a powerful woman.

He transformed what was meant to be a discussion about how to carve up territory into a proposal for an alliance. Yizilna laughed him off originally, but he insisted on the benefits an alliance would bring, as well as declaring his desire to rule by her side. Yizilna was soon swayed, and the two formed the Grim Compact.

Alongside his co-ruler, Tizma rapidly consolidated the Compact’s power. In a joint operation, Tizma lead an attack on the Kaziti system in 2459, rolling over the small rag-tag human and Unathi militia of the short lived and unremarkable Republic of Kaziti. Tizma, with his background in the nobility, laid down the foundation for the Compact’s feudal organization. However around this time was when Tizma’s envy began to manifest, and the first Great Spat occured, which directly lead to Yizilna defeating a Frontier Alliance fleet in the Battle of Yivari Prime, further driving Tizma’s burning envy.

Tizma today is known as a measured and business-like Unathi, adherent to Sk’akh. He is generous to his men and magnamious to his victims, following the Star Code closely. He carries with him the sword he originally gained by killing the Captain that held him hostage decades ago. However he is a man struggling with envy and his temper, which often overtake him. He constantly seeks more power and influence. When times with Yizilna are calm, he is more than happy to operate protection rackets on traders without incident, but when his envy flares up he becomes frustrated with a lack of action and performs more and more daring feats of adventure and danger.

Yizilna Mo’hi

Yizilna Mo’hi, hatched as Zobari Mo’hi in 2422, was raised by a minor Sk’akh Clan that operated a small unchartered fishing guild south of the now-abandoned city of Da’kath. As a hatchling she had an independent and rambunctious fire, constantly getting into scraps with other hatchlings. Her father immediately saw the potential of a warrior within them, and praised her efforts. However the then-Zobari insisted that they had no interest in wives or courtship, wanting only battle. Annoyed, her father insisted that Yizilna frequently meet with the local Sk’akh priest, of whom continued to press Yizilna to fulfill their duty to the clan. It was here that Yizilna first privately disclosed to him that she had a turmoil between her soul and the vessel of her body. When the priest began admonishing her for wanting to go off to battle as a woman, she falsely recanted, unwilling to lose the potential of glory.

The growing chaos and tension across Moghes from the arrival of humanity had their father fear for the future of the Clan and so he wanted all of his sons to know how to fight. Yizilna was sent to become an apprentice under Zoboz Tza, a warrior of renown who lived in Da’kath. Thus in 2437, at 15, they began training. After only a year, the Contact War broke out, and Tza took the young Yizilna with them to one of the many battles raging across Moghes.

Zoboz insisted that Yizilna was not ready to fight when they came to their first battle, in a large farmland south-east of Bahard. Yizilnai was left to observe at one of the Coalition’s camps on a hill that overlooked the front line. She watched the Coalition levys, numbered in the tens of thousand, engage in battle. Hegemonic breacher suits fired with their exotic, alien laser weaponry during the Coalition charge, killing thousands as she just watched.

Eagerness overtook her and she abandoned her post, she stole a Threshbeast and rushed to join the battle in simple steel armor. By the time she had reached the front line it had transformed into a brutal, desperate slog at close quarters. She picked up an energy halberd from a fallen Hegemonic warrior and joined the melee. Fighting well at first she was soon overwhelmed and was disarmed. She was saved from a finishing blow by Zobaz, who slew her attacker and reluctantly fought alongside her. The battle was ultimately a pyrrhic victory for the Coalition. Zobaz admitted that she fought well, but admonished her for disobeying him.

Having taken a serious blow to her dominant arm, she was sent back to her Clan to coalesce until she could wield a weapon properly again. Filled with a new sense of pride and confidence after her first battle, she declared before her clan the true nature of her soul, and she abandoned her old name to take on Yizilna. Her clan, knowing she was sincere, immediately admonished her for entering into a man’s field of warrior-hood, and demanded that she abandon these pursuits to take on the role of a domestic servant to be prepared to be wed to a wealthier guild family. They took away her weapon and armor, and forbid her from leaving the grounds. She became angry and resentful, believing she more than proved herself. This resentment grew worse as she continued to hear news about the war, while she was trapped cooking and cleaning around the house.

The sudden atomic hellfire that swept across Moghes came to her when the city of Da’kath was suddenly obliterated in the middle of the night by an atomic bomb, and her Clan was forced to flee, leaving nearly everything behind. They were one of the first to reach the Untouched Lands after a week of travel, and filtered through the confused and panicked Hegemonic patrols and guard stations to enter Skalamar proper, with several members being separated. With all of the fear that the entire world was facing an encroaching apocalypse they desperately sought passage on one of the many shuttles taking people off-world. At one of the Skalamar shuttleports Yizilna became separated from her Clan in a stampede that forced her into a departing shuttle with hundreds of other strangers.

This shuttle was quickly poached in-system by one of the countless pirates that were taking advantage of the mass exodus, and all of the passengers were taken prisoner. Yizilna was forced into a servant role with other Unathi prisoners, forced to cater to their human captors. After a year of being held prisoner, on 2440 she staged a slave uprising with the other captors. This uprising was brutally put down, and in their anger the pirate crew took the surviving captives to the Malefaction and sold them all into servitude.

Yizilna was purchased by one of the slavemasters of the Malefaction station and once again found herself performing menial duties. Here she endured her servitude for the next seven years. But she was determined to fight back, and spent this time secretly training and plotting with other slaves, engaging in small acts of sabotage and drilling them in forgotten maintenance tunnels using the few lessons she learned from Zobaz, and stolen textbooks on battle doctrine.

On 2447, at 25, she staged a slave revolt on the station. This time it was successful. Yizilna had every slaver beheaded, then offered the rest of the pirates amnesty in exchange for serving her.

Now in charge of a dilapidated retrofitted former space prison and a rag-tag fleet of freed slaves and intimidated pirates with questionable loyalty, Yizilna immediately declared to them all that the next goal was to take over the galaxy.

On 2452 she had grown in infamy after revealing two retrofitted Hephaestus Promethean super-freighters in the Malefaction shipyard. With the cargo holds torn out and replaced with weapons mounts and additional armor packed onto the front, these new Hammerheads became fearsome, lumbering beasts that could devastate almost any contemporary vessel in a ramming action. The group, with their aggressive bravado, went as far as to name themselves the Steel-Spirits.

Their exploits finally frayed the patience of the Frontier Alliance, with nearby member states assembling a fleet to destroy the Malefaction and Yizilna. On the day of their arrival into the system, the Malefaction revealed its secret, and evaded their attack.

On 2458, at 36, Yizilna met Tizma. Frustrated at the sudden encroachment on her territory, she agreed to a meeting, intent on scaring him away. She was surprised at the sudden declaration of love and offer for an alliance by this stranger. In her career Yizilna had encountered men who either resented her or feared her; this was the first man to be so bold as to make an advance. Confused at first, she was soon swayed by his arguments about the strength their armadas could possess if they united. She was also eager to see if this strange man would meet her expectations.

So the two formed the Grim Compact, and combined themselves into a single armada. They moved the Malefaction to the Kaziti system, overwhelming the defenders and creating a new base of operations. With the new power and wealth provided by the Compact, she could take on more daring operations.

Yizilna soon started to feel the deep envy Tizma felt at her accomplishments. She was reminded about the humiliation the demands her Clan had put on her, and she delighted in eggingion the envy. She felt as if she was getting back at her clan by projecting them onto Tizma. When the first Great Spat occurred, she relished the chance to assert her accomplishments and out-do Tizma. She took her entire armada and goaded a Frontier Alliance fleet twice her size into battle, and miraculously defeated it using the same tactics as before, in what is now called the Battle of Yivari Prime.

Yizilna today is known as a harsh and crass woman that offends the sensibilities of traditional Unathi for her behavior and actions. She follows the Star Code with near resentment, and makes exceptions for captured slavers, who she has a standing order to have beheaded whenever captured. She has no interest in her old clan, and makes no effort to find them. She seeks power at the expense of everything else, and some have argued that she only uses the Compact to further this goal. She is constantly seeking excitement in battle, and attracts like-minded individuals, leading to her Steel-Spirits’ reputation.