(Putting up the backstory, stats coming presently)
Unions of chieftain and shaman are rare among the tribes that walk Creation, and much is often expected of children who are hoped to inherit the battle prowess and commanding force of one parent, and the keen wisdom and otherworldly perceptions of the other. Salith Pride Born exceeded even the greatest hopes of his birth, but if one were ever to ask him, he might take issue with how well that had truly helped anyone, himself especially.
In his youth, it was the inheritance of his birth that drove him to seek a life in the wide world beyond the lands his people wandered. For his keen mind ever wondered what lay beyond the horizon, and his powerful frame and honed skill in warfare gave him hope that he could endure seeking that knowledge.
He was the greater whole of both his parents, and his force of personality even then felt inexorable, and so his desire to spend time walking out into the world was met with little challenge or dispute. It was in that world that Salith made skillful use of both a developed intellect, unerringly perceptive awareness, and the warrior training he had taken to with natural fervor. He made a name for himself as a mercenary, serving in several different companies and campaigns, even in positions of leadership now and then, earning wealth enough to give himself time to pursue nothing more than his own self education and further refinement of his innate abilities.
And yet it was in that time, when he could simply think and nothing else that he realized the satisfaction of his curiosity had brought him little satisfaction at all. That a world of petty and small wars was nothing more than petty and small itself. That civilization held nothing for him but a growing degeneracy that was making him feel increasingly ill. That in these lands, he was nothing more than a tool to be used and discarded, whereas in the wilds he had walked out of, every warrior was part of a tribe, a whole, valued and familial. There was greater meaning, clarity, and simple worth in the life he had left behind, and he resolved to return to it, having realized that greater sophistication did not make for greater merit.
And it was thus that he came home to the wilds and wastes of the South, and his tribe welcomed him back with open arms. He rose to become a warleader among them, and what wisdom he could refine from his travels abroad he used to strengthen his people without detracting from the spirit of their virtue nor way of life. That strength lead them to greater victories and prosperity than before, and greater still in clashes with other tribes borne often of spiteful jealously. It was unfortunate to be sure that some of those disparate bands were under the patronage of an old and bitter solitary lunar exalt, and that at his forceful bidding they came to greater unity of purpose, and others were cowed to join them.
Salith’s people would not bow, and they fought so very fiercely, yet against sheer numbers alone, the outcome was inevitable. The vicious grotesqueries their opponents had been taught as a way of life by their twisted god only hastened the final defeat.
They were brought low and to heel in the desert sands, Salith’s parents having died in the many battles, and Salith himself taken before his assembled people, the shamans of their rival tribes cursing away his sight, searing it with magics that left no wound, yet left him staring out sightlessly. They sought to shame and break the will of their new thralls. Not simply severing their line of chiefs to leave them as martyrs, but having them enfeebled, and left to slowly die in shameful infirmity, to let the lingering thoughts of the tribe’s proudest son flailing helplessly in the sands shatter what pride his people had left.
Salith for his part, even as he was seared with pain, burned the images of his surroundings into his mind, desperately clinging to every detail, remaining still and silent even as he heard all leaving him to perish alone.
Time passed, and Salith remained still, he felt for where the warmth of the sun bore down on his form, and from thus where it best faced him. He combined that information with the images of his surroundings he had focused upon, and then he began to walk. Recalling firmly the lessons and legends his mother had taught him, he walked for days, collapsing, and then walking again, enduring on fierce dedication alone to the single fraying hope he had left.
For Salith walked out to the Wyld, knowing the chance that lay therein to shape himself anew. To see anew. It was the only chance he had, the only chance his people had, and it would be taken from him kicking, screaming and snarling before he would let it go.
By miracle, or fate, or sheer bloody stubborn mindedness, Salith eventually felt the distortions that signified the onset of chaos. And so he sat and began to slow his breaths towards a meditative state, opening his mind. He did not need the drugs rather generally preferred, for the agony he had been denying for days on end served well enough to scour away any other sensation.
His memories of his time beyond time and definition are vague and jarring. He knows only that he stood in the face and midst of chaos and unmaking, demanding the strength to see, asserting his reality in the face of unreality, unyielding in his conviction to exist, to survive, to be strong. There was laughter, and there was tears, and there was screams, and there was awe, and there was triumph. As to whether all were one, or even all his, he remains unsure to this day.
When it was done, he awoke back in the lands of shape, and sight was his, and yet it was not. It was a sight beyond sight, not borne of his eyes, but of every heightened sense beyond them, of realms beyond the real. Futures unknown danced in his dreams, and prophecy leapt unbidden from his tongue as he staggered and rambled in the heat. He thought that eventually he had cohered until he saw a silver haired boy before him, laughing wildly.
“I am unsure if this birth of yours came from pride or survival, but perhaps in you they are one, and perhaps that is good and worthy enough to make you mineâ€
The boy leapt forward at that, and touched paired fingers to the center of Salith’s forehead before he could react, and the world then blazed silver. He would later learn that his rebirth in the wyld interacted strangely with his exaltation, that his castemark ever shone, that his sightless eyes gleamed silver, that nature forceful enough to assert his existence within chaos left him without a protean enough quality to take animal forms beyond his totem. But such reflection would come later, for in those moments he was driven consumingly to hunt, and to kill. Stalking the dunes and wastes to come across a totem befitting one who would be chief again, bearing down and consuming a lion, taking its strength and heart for his to complete the cycle of his renewal, driven not simply by feral concerns, but in truth by forces beyond himself, forces he would later wonder if he should fear.
He stalked back towards the tribal lands at that, the promise of future wrath echoing in his wake. Fortunately for him, he was found and intercepted by the Silver Pact along the way, taken and trained and taught. Never quite calmed or soothed beyond internalizing his fury, but at least he was refined beyond what he was. The tests seemed endless, and some, oriented around conflict and perception, he would often pass spectacularly. Others he would just as often fail spectacularly, but of course, such was the intent of the casting process. While there was some debate to caste him as a no moon, in the end it was understood that he was a chieftain’s son, and while there was yet introspection in him, his pride and immediate bloody minded goals better marked him as a full moon warrior.
He resumed once more his long walk home, and his roaring calls for his tribe to rise up, to reclaim their freedom and dignity were met only with silence. The personal vengeance he would wreak upon such of their enemies he would come across brought him a terrible revelation. His tribe would not break through any hell that had been visited upon them in his absence, and in vicious spiteful fury, their conquerors responded in a measure worse than death. His people were marched to Creation's ports, and sold as slaves.
Tracking them in desperation, Salith found only trails that scattered across the seas of the world, and further pursuit would require skills he did not possess. But as always, he was a quick study, and violent prowess earned him berth and tutelage on various vessels that cared more for strength at arms than for the source from whence it came.
Once he had learned enough, he seized a ship of his own. Salith would train the first groupings of his people that he could liberate in the talents he had picked up. As he raided outwards after the rest, he became a sort of pirate by default to those he assaulted to liberate his own from. His strange sight aided him in this, with visions and dreams that guided him towards his lost kin. Yet tracking slavers and their sales across the seas of Creation also brought him into conflict with such as the Lintha and more predatory of the Fair Folk, and to those victimized by either, he became something of a hero by default.
It was the latter that brought him into contact with the Emissaries of Perfected Water, the band of exalts, spirits and god bloods that did their best to ward the West from the innumerable threats that sought to consume it entirely. He admired their spirit of guardianship, and their desperate, unflagging efforts in the face of impossible odds spoke to him on a personal level.
What was first wary trading of information and partnerships of convenience eventually blossomed into a full allegiance. Which for Salith was just as well, his people could not return to the lands of their enemies, and he himself did not yet have the strength to win them such a homecoming. They would need new purpose to dedicate themselves to, new homes to make their own. The Emissaries aided him in locating an island manse to base himself and his people within. In turn, he has joined himself to them and their cause. His people live in the West now after all, and to safeguard it, is to safeguard them.
As far as the wider lunar nation, his contact is most often with the Swords of Luna, for in his battles at the west, he is within the wars waged to preserve Creation's faltering frontier. He advocates for the Emissaries as being a group with similar purpose, and a useful organization for the Swords to coordinate with and sustain the existence of. He continues to raid slavers and their ilk out of habit, continues to find and train his people as fleet and fighting force, and every so often casts his sightless gaze to the horizon, to his original homeland, and ponders if destiny will bring him to a reckoning.
Unions of chieftain and shaman are rare among the tribes that walk Creation, and much is often expected of children who are hoped to inherit the battle prowess and commanding force of one parent, and the keen wisdom and otherworldly perceptions of the other. Salith Pride Born exceeded even the greatest hopes of his birth, but if one were ever to ask him, he might take issue with how well that had truly helped anyone, himself especially.
In his youth, it was the inheritance of his birth that drove him to seek a life in the wide world beyond the lands his people wandered. For his keen mind ever wondered what lay beyond the horizon, and his powerful frame and honed skill in warfare gave him hope that he could endure seeking that knowledge.
He was the greater whole of both his parents, and his force of personality even then felt inexorable, and so his desire to spend time walking out into the world was met with little challenge or dispute. It was in that world that Salith made skillful use of both a developed intellect, unerringly perceptive awareness, and the warrior training he had taken to with natural fervor. He made a name for himself as a mercenary, serving in several different companies and campaigns, even in positions of leadership now and then, earning wealth enough to give himself time to pursue nothing more than his own self education and further refinement of his innate abilities.
And yet it was in that time, when he could simply think and nothing else that he realized the satisfaction of his curiosity had brought him little satisfaction at all. That a world of petty and small wars was nothing more than petty and small itself. That civilization held nothing for him but a growing degeneracy that was making him feel increasingly ill. That in these lands, he was nothing more than a tool to be used and discarded, whereas in the wilds he had walked out of, every warrior was part of a tribe, a whole, valued and familial. There was greater meaning, clarity, and simple worth in the life he had left behind, and he resolved to return to it, having realized that greater sophistication did not make for greater merit.
And it was thus that he came home to the wilds and wastes of the South, and his tribe welcomed him back with open arms. He rose to become a warleader among them, and what wisdom he could refine from his travels abroad he used to strengthen his people without detracting from the spirit of their virtue nor way of life. That strength lead them to greater victories and prosperity than before, and greater still in clashes with other tribes borne often of spiteful jealously. It was unfortunate to be sure that some of those disparate bands were under the patronage of an old and bitter solitary lunar exalt, and that at his forceful bidding they came to greater unity of purpose, and others were cowed to join them.
Salith’s people would not bow, and they fought so very fiercely, yet against sheer numbers alone, the outcome was inevitable. The vicious grotesqueries their opponents had been taught as a way of life by their twisted god only hastened the final defeat.
They were brought low and to heel in the desert sands, Salith’s parents having died in the many battles, and Salith himself taken before his assembled people, the shamans of their rival tribes cursing away his sight, searing it with magics that left no wound, yet left him staring out sightlessly. They sought to shame and break the will of their new thralls. Not simply severing their line of chiefs to leave them as martyrs, but having them enfeebled, and left to slowly die in shameful infirmity, to let the lingering thoughts of the tribe’s proudest son flailing helplessly in the sands shatter what pride his people had left.
Salith for his part, even as he was seared with pain, burned the images of his surroundings into his mind, desperately clinging to every detail, remaining still and silent even as he heard all leaving him to perish alone.
Time passed, and Salith remained still, he felt for where the warmth of the sun bore down on his form, and from thus where it best faced him. He combined that information with the images of his surroundings he had focused upon, and then he began to walk. Recalling firmly the lessons and legends his mother had taught him, he walked for days, collapsing, and then walking again, enduring on fierce dedication alone to the single fraying hope he had left.
For Salith walked out to the Wyld, knowing the chance that lay therein to shape himself anew. To see anew. It was the only chance he had, the only chance his people had, and it would be taken from him kicking, screaming and snarling before he would let it go.
By miracle, or fate, or sheer bloody stubborn mindedness, Salith eventually felt the distortions that signified the onset of chaos. And so he sat and began to slow his breaths towards a meditative state, opening his mind. He did not need the drugs rather generally preferred, for the agony he had been denying for days on end served well enough to scour away any other sensation.
His memories of his time beyond time and definition are vague and jarring. He knows only that he stood in the face and midst of chaos and unmaking, demanding the strength to see, asserting his reality in the face of unreality, unyielding in his conviction to exist, to survive, to be strong. There was laughter, and there was tears, and there was screams, and there was awe, and there was triumph. As to whether all were one, or even all his, he remains unsure to this day.
When it was done, he awoke back in the lands of shape, and sight was his, and yet it was not. It was a sight beyond sight, not borne of his eyes, but of every heightened sense beyond them, of realms beyond the real. Futures unknown danced in his dreams, and prophecy leapt unbidden from his tongue as he staggered and rambled in the heat. He thought that eventually he had cohered until he saw a silver haired boy before him, laughing wildly.
“I am unsure if this birth of yours came from pride or survival, but perhaps in you they are one, and perhaps that is good and worthy enough to make you mineâ€
The boy leapt forward at that, and touched paired fingers to the center of Salith’s forehead before he could react, and the world then blazed silver. He would later learn that his rebirth in the wyld interacted strangely with his exaltation, that his castemark ever shone, that his sightless eyes gleamed silver, that nature forceful enough to assert his existence within chaos left him without a protean enough quality to take animal forms beyond his totem. But such reflection would come later, for in those moments he was driven consumingly to hunt, and to kill. Stalking the dunes and wastes to come across a totem befitting one who would be chief again, bearing down and consuming a lion, taking its strength and heart for his to complete the cycle of his renewal, driven not simply by feral concerns, but in truth by forces beyond himself, forces he would later wonder if he should fear.
He stalked back towards the tribal lands at that, the promise of future wrath echoing in his wake. Fortunately for him, he was found and intercepted by the Silver Pact along the way, taken and trained and taught. Never quite calmed or soothed beyond internalizing his fury, but at least he was refined beyond what he was. The tests seemed endless, and some, oriented around conflict and perception, he would often pass spectacularly. Others he would just as often fail spectacularly, but of course, such was the intent of the casting process. While there was some debate to caste him as a no moon, in the end it was understood that he was a chieftain’s son, and while there was yet introspection in him, his pride and immediate bloody minded goals better marked him as a full moon warrior.
He resumed once more his long walk home, and his roaring calls for his tribe to rise up, to reclaim their freedom and dignity were met only with silence. The personal vengeance he would wreak upon such of their enemies he would come across brought him a terrible revelation. His tribe would not break through any hell that had been visited upon them in his absence, and in vicious spiteful fury, their conquerors responded in a measure worse than death. His people were marched to Creation's ports, and sold as slaves.
Tracking them in desperation, Salith found only trails that scattered across the seas of the world, and further pursuit would require skills he did not possess. But as always, he was a quick study, and violent prowess earned him berth and tutelage on various vessels that cared more for strength at arms than for the source from whence it came.
Once he had learned enough, he seized a ship of his own. Salith would train the first groupings of his people that he could liberate in the talents he had picked up. As he raided outwards after the rest, he became a sort of pirate by default to those he assaulted to liberate his own from. His strange sight aided him in this, with visions and dreams that guided him towards his lost kin. Yet tracking slavers and their sales across the seas of Creation also brought him into conflict with such as the Lintha and more predatory of the Fair Folk, and to those victimized by either, he became something of a hero by default.
It was the latter that brought him into contact with the Emissaries of Perfected Water, the band of exalts, spirits and god bloods that did their best to ward the West from the innumerable threats that sought to consume it entirely. He admired their spirit of guardianship, and their desperate, unflagging efforts in the face of impossible odds spoke to him on a personal level.
What was first wary trading of information and partnerships of convenience eventually blossomed into a full allegiance. Which for Salith was just as well, his people could not return to the lands of their enemies, and he himself did not yet have the strength to win them such a homecoming. They would need new purpose to dedicate themselves to, new homes to make their own. The Emissaries aided him in locating an island manse to base himself and his people within. In turn, he has joined himself to them and their cause. His people live in the West now after all, and to safeguard it, is to safeguard them.
As far as the wider lunar nation, his contact is most often with the Swords of Luna, for in his battles at the west, he is within the wars waged to preserve Creation's faltering frontier. He advocates for the Emissaries as being a group with similar purpose, and a useful organization for the Swords to coordinate with and sustain the existence of. He continues to raid slavers and their ilk out of habit, continues to find and train his people as fleet and fighting force, and every so often casts his sightless gaze to the horizon, to his original homeland, and ponders if destiny will bring him to a reckoning.