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Ra'Shari

A Ra'Shari

The Ra'Shari were gipsy nomadic people, only stopping in one place for short periods of time. Anyhow they usually were seen in the Peddler's Row at Medinaat al-Salaam. They were called the Free People, the Keepers of the Chronicle, or the People who Travel. [1]

Demeanor[]

Once one understood their strange customs and their unusual take on truth, the Ra'Shari proved to be a steadfast and trustworthy people. [2]

Lifestyle[]

The children were considered sons and daughters of the whole caravan. With ten years they were trained in the school the caravan choose for them. At the same time their future couple was also chosen, and with sixteen they used to wed. The Ra'Shari woman left her caravan and joined the one of her husband. At that moment they began to memorize the caravan's Chronicle. They would never retire, they would rest when they were dead. They buried on earth the corpses of the dead, not in sand. Their tongue was a hybrid between the Ashalan and the Ivory Kingdoms tongues. [3] Their caravans were also seen in distant places such as the region known as the Great Void. [4]

Magic[]

Ra'Shari magic still came in three parts, but the new aspects reflected their long duty in the Burning Sands. [2]

  • Dawn Magic: cast at the rising of the sun. All blessings and curses were born at dawn, with the approval of the Bright-Eyed Mother Sun Shilah. All magic that concerned luck was Dawn Magic.
  • Dusk Magic: the magic of words and illusions, cast at dusk. Dusk Magic could fool and deceive anyone who could not understand the Ra'Shari's words.
  • Night Magic: cast in the quiet and safety of the Ra'Shari's encampments. All life endured because the Pale-Eyed God Khaleel stemmed his wife's wrath. All life moved to the rhythm of Night Magic, permitting wounds to knitted and animals to understood humans.

Diviners[]

The Ra'Shari sahir learned these three kinds of magic, and might learn them in any order, becoming the Ra'Shari Diviner. [2]

History[]

Creation[]

The Naga believed the Ra'Shari and Ashalan were the first human and nonhuman races created by the jinn, forged from the wind and sun and stars as servant races. [5]

Chosen people of Vishnu[]

Once, long ago, the Ra'Shari were the chosen people of Vishnu, and called upon the tripartite blessings of Provider, Preserver, and Pervader. [6] They were originally a group of priests, guardsmen, librarians who administered Pahatan, one of the city temples devoted to the knowledge in the jungles north of the land later known as Ivory Kingdoms. [7] In the the "Golden City" they tended the Temple of the White Tiger, devoted to Vishnu the Preserver. [8]

Alternative Tale[]

Other sources told the Ra'shari once were members of the Ujik-hai. those who met the Rokugani Ki-Rin Clan. Martazera, the gaijin woman who befriended the Kami Shinjo, created a new faction which was known as the Moto Clan, that traveled with the Ki-Rin until the Battle with the Rocs. Those Ujik-hai who remained apart of the Ki-rin where known as the Ra'Shari in modern times. [9] [10]

Day of Wrath[]

The city and temple were destroyed during the Day of Wrath. Some of the survivors fled to the south, into the jungle which had survived. The immortal Ashalan, the second children of the Moon and Sun, appeared and told the world had been burned, as the consequence of the First Jinn War and the wrath of the Sun against her son, the Jinn Lord, Kaleel. The No-God would return one day, and the world should prepare to fight against it. [8]

Keepers of the Chronicles[]

The Ashalan made a magic ritual which poured all the current knowledge over the Ra'Shari, every word recorded in the Chronicles by the scribes was inside the memory of them. They had to keep them save near the Burning Sands, until the end of the Age, when all the knowledge was again necessary to defeat the No-God Kaleel. The Ashalan tasked the Ra'Shari to keep safe the Chronicles which contained all the necessary knowledge to defeat Kaleel upon his return. The Chronicles were distributed between fourty-nine families who became the Keeper of the Chronicles. They became nomads and began to travel in caravans, [8] forming the First Caravan. [11]

Naar Teban[]

The Ra'Shari knew the truth about the Day of Wrath, but they had sworn to keep it secret. When they encountered several Naga Abominations who began to tell their plight to the story recorder gipsies, the Ra'Shari realized the Naga also knew the truth about the infamous Day, so they had to be destroyed. The sent words to the Ashalan, and they prepared Ashalan Blood-Sworn legions to eliminate the intruders before their stories could spread beyond the gypsies caravan. Eventually the Naga began to suffer the effects of the Naga curse in the Burning Sands, so instead attack them waited to see their deaths. The next new from the caravan was to see the destroyed wagons, burned to husks, and all the caravan members murdered. From that they the Naar Teban haunted the Sands. [12]

The Splintering[]

The first years were hard, many of the Ra'Shari died under the sun, or under the despair of his new life. They endured, faded and grew, until a moment they called the Splintering. They were too many to travel as one caravan and split it in four caravans. [13]

Jewel of the Desert[]

Their connection to the Ivory Kingdoms deity was long gone. The task given to them by the Ashalan defeated all other concerns, and this task slowly colored all parts of their life, including their magic. [2] With time, the caravans reached Medinaat al-Salaam in the Burning Sands. For first time in years, the four caravans gather to talk about this miracle, a metropolis which had raised after the Day of Wrath in the Burning Sands. They decided to keep at least one caravan near the Jewel at every time. [13]

Immortal Caliph[]

They saw how a powerful Sahir, Hanan Talibah became the Caliph. [13] The Grey Woman saw the assassination of the current Sultan's son, the Prince kill his father and family. She cursed him with immortality [14] and the inability to ever use a weapon again. In revenge he had her and her family exiled from Medinaat al-Salaam. [citation needed] Hanan was revealed as the Immortal Caliph and her khadi guard set a rule of terror over the Jewel. [13]

Exiled[]

Ra'Shari Caravan

Ra'Shari Caravan

They circulated throughout the cities of the Sultanate and Senpet empires. No one accepted them in any city, seeing them as murderers and renegades. They left in large caravans, heading south into the deep desert. [citation needed] They became the keepers of the Old Tongues and the Great Chronicle of Man. They left with secrets that would be lost when the Caliph ordered all of the city's libraries and universities razed, the memories of the days before Shilah's wrath scorched the world. [15]

Return[]

The exile came to an end and returned to Medinaat al-Salaam, three hundred years after they abandoned the City to fulfill one ancient mission. [16] They walked again amongst the betrayers of their faith, and conspired with the last of the Ancients to prepare for the Awakening and shelter the rest from what might very well be the end of the world. [15]

Erba'a Alliance[]

The Moto Tar-Khan Kiyoshi built a powerful Horde. He intented on storming Medinat al-Salaam to end the rule of the Immortal Caliph Hanan Talibah and her Senpet allies. His forces were soon joined by the Yodotai and Ra'Shari. The combined Horde (now known as the Erba'a Alliance), also swelled its ranks with many former slaves of the Senpet, now hell-bent on revenge, the Hanif and the Rokugani Scorpion. In 1132 the alliance laid siege [17] and broke the walls of Medinaat Al-Salaam in the Shattering of the Jewel, but did not seize it. The own citizens broke free from the Caliph's reign of terror. [18]

Return of the No-God[]

Kaleel, as foresaw by the Ashalan, returned. Kaleel's Legion fought against the Celestial Alliance. It was defeated with the aid of the Ra'Shari knowledge. [19]

New Temple[]

Many Ra'Shari after the Awakening believed it was time to build a new Pahatan, or to use the Jewel as the place to make a new Golden Temple. [20]

Destroyer War[]

In 1171 Kali-Ma, the avatar of Shiva the Destroyer, and current Champion of Jigoku, invaded the Emerald Empire unleashing the Destroyer War. Ra'shari commanders were under her command, and one of them was killed in 1173. [21]

Schools[]

Known Ra'Shari Champions[]

References

  1. Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, pp. 174, 176
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 The Ra'Shari
  3. Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, p. 186
  4. Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, p. 296
  5. Way of the Naga, p. 34
  6. Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, p. 190
  7. Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, p. 184
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, p. 177
  9. School & Ancestor Update, pp. 28-29
  10. Clan of the Ki-Rin, by Patrick Kapera (Imperial Herald #13)
  11. Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, p. 180
  12. Way of the Naga, pp. 34-35
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, p. 178
  14. The Rise of the Caliph, by Patrick Kapera
  15. 15.0 15.1 Starter Quotes (LBS - The Awakening)
  16. Ra'Shari Caravan (LBS - The Awakening)
  17. Re-Awakening, Part 1, by Lucas Twyman
  18. The End of Age
  19. Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, pp. 177-179
  20. Legend of the Burning Sands Roleplaying Game, p. 179
  21. The Destroyer War, Part 16, by Shawn Carman



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