Zahel, Warrior of the Gandiar

Zahel is always questioning, wondering if what he's doing is right or wrong, a trait that his Mage-masters never appreciate. Most especially, he's always questioning if the total genocide of the Naktar is the proper course of action, even if he has to keep such thoughts to himself at all times. He doesn't believe in the unquestioned "right" of his people to spread out and "save the land from the evil Naktar," especially when it means killing children innocent of all wrong but to have been born at a bad time.

What Zahel does believe is that greed and fear have turned aside all thoughts of negotiation with the Naktar, and even though it's not his place in society to think for himself or offer safe haven for "The Enemy," he does it anyway. He, perhaps more than any other, knows the history and lore of the Naktar, and respects them for what they've gone through as a race. He has a few Naktar friends, and has never seen them as the beasts that the Council of Magic would have all Gandiar believe.

His conflicting urges - save the Naktar as his conscious urges or assist in destroying them as his Masters urge - make Zahel a rather confused Warrior, and his confusion has begun to show in his discipline and battle skills. He's begun to let Naktar escape, or sealing children instead of killing them, and his Mage-masters are beginning to question his loyalty to their cause.

Zahel is of the "lower ranking" Gandiar caste known simply as the Warriors. As such, he's short, around 5'2" tall, and is well muscled from all the labor he's had to do in his life. He wears the traditional combination cloth, hide, and scale armor of a Warrior, fingerless leather gauntlets that reach his elbows, and modified "sandals" that are more like heavy shoes that only barely cover his feet and that have laces that wind up his legs to tie into his lower leg armor. Zahel's preferred weapons are the scimitar, the bow, and the spear.

His weapons make him stand out among the rest of his caste, though, as the styles are distinctly Naktar in make, as well as being good steel instead of bronze, which is all his own people know how to make at the moment. The story he tells others is that he stole them off a Naktar when he was younger, but the truth of the matter is that they were a gift to him from his first Naktar friend.

A headband of braided gold, green, and silver strands is always in place when he's outside of the barracks. It marks him as a servant of three Mages, two of which are on the Council, and for him to walk around without it is to make others question his already shaky reputation. After all, he's of the Warrior caste, and Warriors require masters to tell them what to do; to not wear his headband implies that he can, and will, think for himself... and thus that he's more dangerous than any of the Council can afford, in such troubled times.

In such a rigid society, Zahel knew from the moment he could understand the concept that he was to be a Warrior. His parents were Warriors, his grandparents were Warriors, and their grandparents were Warriors as well. So, accepting fate, Zahel entered training at the traditional age of ten and excelled in all he was taught. At the age of fifteen of he assigned his first duty - to guard the conclave's borders as part of one of several youth brigades.

Zahel accepted that position without question or thought. It was what was done, had always been what was done, and always would be.

His unquestioning faith in his people was soon shattered, though, by a tiny, insignificant event that no one thought a thing about.

A child wandered into the youth brigade's camp one night, starving, pale skinned, and terrified. Zahel, as the newest member, was assigned the responsibility of caring for the child until the brigade could return home, and spent many nights staying up late with the trembling child, soothing away nightmares and chasing off fear.

It was during one such nightmare that he realized what, exactly, he was holding in his arms and was calling "friend"... a Naktar child. A Naktar child who had told him everything about his parents, who had spoken of hopes and dreams and of seeing his parents dead and everything shattering around him in pain.

From that point on, Zahel could no longer simply accept the Mage-masters views of the world. He could no longer just sit back and let himself be a pawn. Even though he completed his tour of duty at eighteen with high honors, and was taken under the wing of three very influential Mage-masters right away, he never regained his surety in how the world worked, and his skills, though topnotch, began to slip as his self-doubt gnawed at him with every mission and raid against the Naktar that he completed.

Zahel began disobeying orders - refusing to kill the children, letting the adult Naktar flee - and suspicions began to rise against him. Especially as his collection of 'amulets and trinkets' rose... trinkets that he carried with him everywhere, and refused to permit any Mage-master to examine.

Trinkets that held the most damning secret of all. The sealed souls of children and a few adult Naktar, protected by his own willingness to sacrifice his self for their safety. He fully intends to find a place far from all Gandiar encroachment to let them free to live in safety, but where that could be, on a world seeming ever smaller with each passing year...