Roleplaying

LEGENDS AND LORE

Legends abound among the clans and the favorite is that of our origin. Some say we were created out of chaos, some that we evolved, and others that we were created by dragons. There is the tale told by the Ligers at Jadugar Senf which goes as follows:

Long ago in the beginning there were dragons. Some were good, some balanced, and some were evil as is the case with most. The evil dragons waged war against the first Elves and destroyed their city.

As the elves fled the destruction, the dragons decided that this was not enough and determined to hunt the elves down. The dragons created a new race formed of the elements of air, and chaos and using the form of the great hunting beasts. Thus were bom the Sarr.

But, kittens, the tale does not end there for the dragons abandoned their new creations and left them to fend for themselves. For a while we hunted elves for we knew no better. As time went on we evolved and vowed to not hunt those that walked upright as we did.

And to this day we do not hunt elves or humans. The dwarves, the gnomes, and other scavengers we treat as sentient beings. Our anger we save for those who would attack our homes, families, and our friends. The goblins are one such race but that is another story for another time.

Around the campfires of the Syrune, or Moontigers can be heard the story of the creation of this clan and the mint known as D'AgnArr.

Long ago one of the first necromancers, knowing of the sarr's inbred hatred of the elves, convinced them through trickery and deception to join his cause. He managed to get all of the clans but one to participate for he could not find them. The clans followed this man for he appeared as a Sarr and killed many elves.

They went to war; and as the killing proceeded, and from the beginning unbeknownst to the Sarr, they were being poisoned by poisons so vile that they do not exist in the present. This man was taking no chances for he knew if the Sarr survived and found out what he had done, he would be torn to shreds and his body left to lie in the dust.

As the battle raged the Sarr started to falter, getting weaker. They killed all the elves they could see till none were left standing and then realized that they too were dying. But while they watched, the clan of the Moonfigers killed the necromancer, and then proceeded around the battlefield helping those they could. As the survivors rose and surveyed the carnage wrought, they assumed the evil was over until they noticed that where the poisoned Sarr had shed lifeblood a plant sprang up. This they left till later. Most Sarr were cured though many died.

The battlefield was a boon and a curse in one package, for from this battlefield came the Sarr ability to detect poison and to resist disease. But also from the battlefield came the mint known as D,AgnArr which makes one agree to things one would rather not and to which only the Syrune or Moontiger and their offspring who guard it are immune. To this day the Syrune guard the battlefield and the pass that runs from it and let no one live who possess this plant.

That is their sworn duty, the history of D'AgnArr the cursed mint, and of how we came to possess our abilities and thus ends my tale.

The next tale is one that is old and is told around most campfires and only the Ligers know the full extent of the story.

Over a thousand years ago, before our move to Jahavra, before our animosity towards the elves had lessened, an expedition to a place called Sadhe as an outpost to keep an eye on the elves, was lost.

The expedition was headed by a great earth scholar and her mate who settled in Clanthia. Here they proceeded to hunt elves. Then one day the entire colony disappeared. Search parties were sent to find any trace of the colony but all that was found were deserted buildings and cold silent campfires. No one knows to this day where they went or why except maybe the Ligers. Stories exist of large cousins to the Sarr calling themselves Rhakshasa who have appeared in that area.

Another legend this one told by the Cheetah clan but verified by the Ligers is of the Avenger. Little is known of why this flaming horse roams the countryside but what they do know they sing in awe around the campfire. To those that are honorable and follow the ways of balance and are honorable and loyal, the Avenger is not a threat, but to those who are traitorous and ignoble he is a bane of death.

As the legend goes in the distant past, the rider of one of the greatest horses of the Cheetah clan who was a devout follower of Balance was slain by a traitor's hand and left to die where he fell. The rider knowing he was to die and that his horse was dying also called to Balance to avenge him and all others who would be treated in such a way, and to take his essences and that of his mount and to do with them as Balance would. The rider disappeared, his essence turning into a glowing light that combined with that of the mount. The horse's mane turned to moonlight, his eyes lit with fire, his teeth turned to blades - a traitors bane, his hooves on striking the ground struck flame and instead of neighing he now roared causing fear to all who heard. Rider and mount now one became the Avenger keeping the land safe, ridding it of traitors and coming to those who, in greatest need, would call to the Avenger.

Most often than not the Avenger strikes without warning, for few dare call to him except in the most dire of cases. The Ligers have done so and the Cheetah clan, for the Avenger is a member still of this clan. A place is set for rider and mount every year during the Festival of the dead and every year the clan is visited. In this way we know this legend is real.

This is the tale of the five Kalobagh, told by an old toothless tigress, who liked to tell it around Halloween. A tale of why the sarr prefer edged weapons over blunt.

In the early days of the founding of Jahavra, the Kalobagh, the black ones, had been eliminated from the lines of those who left Old Myrr. None had been born in a hundred years, and so it was with great surprise, that a daughter of house Palang produced one, an otherwise healthy child, but whose every hair was black as death.

Of course the matron upon hearing of it decreed that the child be killed and burnt, and the mother and any of her line was forbidden to have any more offspring. She was rebellious though and bore two more children on male and one female, out of love for her mate, but each child was given to another female clan member to raise, in ignorance of the child’s lineage. These two leopard children were normal in every way, they were strong and finely-marked. No one knew they were brother and sister, so when they met, people remarked what a beautiful couple they made, and soon they were life-mates. But they never produced children.

One fine spring day the young leopard tore his wife’s throat out and devoured her heart, then drank poison, and they were never seen again. But their five secretly-borne children; each pure black and embracing an ember of hatred for the Matriarch, a tiny fire fueled by a letter from their still living grandmother, explaining why they must leave and never return. They left in the shadow of the new moon. Three females, Three-barb, and Undelund, who shaped chaos as easily as a white tiger shapes earth magic. The youngest was Okfar, who made up for her lesser magical abilities with her heavy silver mace. Two males, the eldest, Wahid who’s power equaled that of his sisters, and Ethnayn, who’s skill with the staff equaled his skill with spells. Oh! The wicked arts they learned. Who taught them? Nobody knows. Corrupting their natural aptitude for the chaos arts by using the power to draw the unliving from the earth.

On a night ten years later, the five walked forth from the deep desert with their army of skeletons, in the shadow of the new moon. The matron, a mature lioness, picked up her great sword and gathered her women about her, with silver swords flashing light from their torches. Men stayed behind with the very young and very old, although some valiantly picked up swords to fight bravely alongside their women. The wicked blades skipped off their eyeless skulls and slid between the clattering ribs, the skeletons advanced as their numbers slowly dwindled, mainly falling to dust beneath the might of the earth casters.

From the black night behind the last wave of undead, five sets of teeth gleamed in the dark, a hiss and the skeletons stopped forming a wall of bone. You are so set in your ways. See our power? We use the dead, instead of letting them lie wasted. They are a source of labor, and mindless troops. Embrace us, and we’ll teach you how best to destroy them. Okfar snapped her mace from behind her shoulder, smashing a skeleton into pieces to demonstrate.

Never. spoke the Matriarch. It is not our way. The ancient Sarr knew of your evil, the smashing weapons are only good for fighting the bones that you force into animation. You are the only keepers of this knowledge here. When you are lying, as salted husks in the desert, then we will have no need of your crude clubs and sticks.

With that the matron rallied her troops, blasting the remaining skeletons with earth magic. A group of lynxes surprised the Kalobagh from behind, with cruel playing magic, trapping them and preventing them from running away. They were then cut to ribbons, each strip carefully cataloged as it was rolled in salt, and poisons, and left in the sun in the desert to blacken, along with their grandmother, who gladly joined them in their fate. The sand covered the curling black flesh and was never seen again.

Now, to this day, a sarr will not touch a blunt weapon, it feels unnatural and crude in our hand, as does the casting of the black arts. Neither has there been seen any black offspring of the Palang. But when the shadow of the new moon covers the land, it is said that strange black forms can be seen writhing in the black sand, waiting for some hungry sarr to chance across some bit of salted black meat in the desert. Here endeth my tale.

A sarr does not prefer salted meat, though it will do in a pinch, and never, never will eat the salted meat of another sarr. If a Sarr die in a foreign land, a piece of meat, preferably the heart should be preserved for sending home in sugar, or spirits, or spices, but not salt, which is reserved for dishonorable disposal of bodies.

The tale of the sarr attack on the Arcane Supply line during the Battle of Tiksylvan in the defense of our allies of the Sutherlands, as told by Umar ibn Karim Al Rahmat, scribe for Fahtimah Al Maghz Grand Matriarch of Jahavra and the Sarr.

My name is Umar ibn Karim Al Rahmat, scribe for Fahtimah Al Maghz Grand Matriarch of Jahavra and the Sarr.

I and the handpicked sons and daughters of the Jewel of the Sea were chosen by her for a mission which her high advisor deemed of utmost importance, the Arcane were attacking Tiksylvan. My job would be to record what I saw and see it got back to her.

Though this is not our land we do as our Grand Matriarch aks, we follow Thorn Redawn, Celestial Guildmaster into this field of death. Thorn and the Grand Matriarch handpicked us from all of our kind. We numbered close to 200, sarr from every tribe, family, and faction to lend our strengths to the cause of defending the Sutherlands and our allies. We had a one job to do which in and of itself should have been simple enough but nothing in war is ever simple, and the task we had set upon our shoulders was to cut off the Arcane supply line.

An order of sarr knights made up the majority of our force, our backbone, their armor blackened, the better to hide with and sneak up on the enemy. The remainder of the force included members of the Ocelot clan Al Tarik Rah or House Dark Walker, calling themselves Margh Saye, and even I know little of them except the fact that they were our covert operations team and experts in the art of killing. Cheetah messengers and combat healers for their speed, and a group of Ligers from Jadugar Senf, all celestial casters of 9th rank, to lend there strength to that of Thorn's, and the last grouping consisting of healers from Bast and Panah and the healing schools there.

We skirted the main fight passing by groups like Darkholme, Isles, Sudbyr, Cerroneth, and Sahde all fighting bravely, we helped where and when we could. Managing to get to the supply group Margh Saye had gone ahead to circle around behind the Arcane for a surprise move and box them in, they waited only for the signal from Thorn and the main group to attack.

Coming up quietly I pulled back to a rise to watch the battle and coordinate the healers and such. My job was to record the outcome good or bad.

I had heard of the golems and I saw then four of the foul things, not as large as some had described but horrendously large all the same. In their arrogance the Arcane had left a small force to guard their supplies, though they still outnumbered us two to one. I saw High Advisor Thorn get into position with the rest and then the signal began, a wall of sound that descended on the stillness, a roaring, screaming, chuffing cacaphony of sound and fury, and death came on padded feet from every direction. Steel clawed gauntlets tore out throats, swords drinking a red river of blood as we reverted to that state of beastiality we all would regret later, but for now reveled in.

The golems started for us. Then the second roar sounded and the sky descended as arcs of lightining rained down, and gouts of flame and ice filled the air. The golems went down amid a barage of spells the likes of which I never hope to see again. I watched Thorn and others take out Arcane, and the Arcane in turn took some of us. But we won, oh yes we won my Matriarch but the cost, the cost is high. As the fighting dies down around me I see that four out of five of us are dead and of the Margh Saye that came with us not one survived.

We clean up the area finding no more Arcane and then hear in the distance the sounds of victory from our forces, so that we know they too have won. We go home now, home to bury those that will not ressurect and to greet those that will. Thus ends my tale,

Signed this day,

Umar ibn Karim Al Rahmat, scribe for Fahtimah Al Maghz Grand Matriarch of Jahavra and the Sarr