Aakif's page

About Aakif

Appearance:
Portrait
Aakif is a young human of middling height but with a powerful athletic build. He clearly keeps himself in excellent physical shape, although his muscles are lean and ropy rather than bulging obscenely. His coppery skin, black hair, and yellowish eyes show him to be of Kelishite descent, and the tattoos that darken the space below his eyes indicate that he was born to the nomads who live in the unclaimed steppes north of the Kelishite Empire. On the other hand, he wears only a thin mustache and a single strip of hair on his chin, despite the proclivity of Kelishite men to wear long, elaborate beards.

Personality:
Aakif is as proud and boastful as any young man from a warrior culture could be expected to be. He has considerable skill at both sword and bow and knows his way around animals like he was born to it (which, in fact, he was). On the other hand, he has had few friends in his life and is thus rather lonely. If anyone can convince him that they truly are a friend of his, Aakif would likely treat them as a blood-brother, above all doubt and recrimination.

He is also deeply superstitious, as his tribe restricted magic only to the single tribal shaman, who used it only in ceremonies and rituals to help the tribe as a whole. The shaman instead interpreted omens and signs from a variety of sources and prescribed herbal and alchemical remedies instead of magical ones. This has left Aakif with a very skeptical view of magic in general and makes him quite nervous when it is used around him.

Background:
Aakif was born into the Sun-Chases-The-Wind clan (Il-Amesh Amaq Irrindi) of horse nomads in the steppes and savannas north of the Kelishite Empire. There he was raised as a warrior, skilled with sword, bow, and horse. His people place great importance on their horsemanship, and Aakif was able to bring out the best in every horse he rode, winning every race in his age group easily. He seemed destined for a place of great honor in the tribe.
That is, until he hit puberty and the spirits came to haunt him. At first, no one connected the spirits to Aakif; after all, he was one of the most promising young men the tribe had seen in generations. Yet the fact remained that odd things happened around him with greater and greater frequency, and his temper became more and more unstable. At last the tribal shaman sequestered him in a ceremonial yurt and performed a divining ritual on Aakif for three days and four nights. At the end of the ritual, both Aakif and the shaman could clearly see the spirits of the dead that swirled and eddied around the young warrior. The shaman immediately sent for the chieftan, and after many hours of discussion, the two came to a decision: Aakif must leave, for the good of the tribe. The spirits of the dead were drawn to him, and any fool knew that where the dead trod, the living must be wary.

Aakif was cast out from the tribe at the age of 14 with nothing but a small pouch of trade goods and enough food and water to get him to the nearest city. The tribe were not cruel; they sent the tribe's strongest warrior to escort him to the edge of civilized lands, and no one blamed Aakif himself for the spirits' interest in him. Still, he had to make due on his own, bereft of the tribe's friendship and guidance.

He traveled to the city of Katheer, in northern Qadira, famed for being one of the busiest trade ports in the world. There, he was eventually able to find work as a mercenary, first for small caravans headed elsewhere in Qadira, then to other destinations in the Empire, and eventually overseas. He continued to work as a mercenary and sellsword for the next six years, using the little money he earned from this to gather his own weapons and armor. Between jobs he spent his time training, learning how to control, or at least contain, the spirits who haunted him. Eventually he learned that if he forced the spirits to be contained within himself, he could set them free for a brief time to dramatically increase his strength and endurance.

Eventually Aakif grew bored of the Kelishite trade routes and ship masters and set out in search of greater adventure. He gradually made his way westward to Cheliax, although that country's strict laws and devil-worship unnerved him, and when he heard of opportunities in Sargava, he spent some of his reserve money to purchase a berth on the Jenivere as it left Corentyn.