Whisker
Damnation Dignified
Name: Askaajor "Askaa" Ivanjav
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Race: Khagagan
Affiliation: Born Okoklo
Appearance:
Standing at only 5’7 inches high, Askaa is short for a Khagagan. If it were not for the short, crisp beginnings of a scruffy beard on his chin, he might’ve been mistaken for a child. His hair is cut as short as his beard, and only permitted to grow out into braids during the height of a fearsome winter upon the fields. He prefers a heavy mantle in place of the scale or leather trappings a warrior in his society might wear, giving him a scholarly appearance in comparison. It has a floral pattern in the fashion of the Sho, but trimmed in furs from the wild. He wears no adornments with this save for a bone-beaded bracelet and a gaudy crimson earring in his right ear. In a shoulder strap across his body, a plain, unadorned saber hangs within arm’s reach. And like all Khagagans, he very, very, very much prefers the bow.
Personality:
Even from an early age, Askaa has always been melancholic, serious to a fault. The knowledge that he is ultimately different has shaped him to be cautious with anything that he says or does, for he knows that others will be looking to him for answers. Answers that he might not always have. On the outside, he wears a mask of quiet confidence, breaking such for only a special few who recognize him beyond what he represents. Internally, he doubts himself, over-analyzing each decision that he has made in case he has overlooked something. Always, he is questioning himself, searching for a confidence that is real.
Skills:
Occupation:
Khagagan Soothsayer
Weapons:
The Saber (resembles the modern day Falchion) he carries with him.
Like all Khagagans, he prefers to use a bow atop a mount for hasty firing and retreating tactics that keep him out of harm’s way.
Askaa's wolf, Gansuhk, is as much a weapon as he is a part of Askaa's identity. He is not mounted out of respect, but is allowed to travel as an equal by his side - like a brother rather than a dumb animal. As of this date, at least 3 men are known to have met their death by Gansuhk’s teeth.
Artifact:
He wears the mask of the Bone Crow, an object that augments the abilities of the mind for those who know how to use it.
Bio:
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where this no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Askaa was born during the coldest of winters in a hut far from the reaches of any Khagagan camp. His father was an Okoklo hunter, a modest outrider who traveled in the forefront of the band to relay news of traveling herds, uninhabitable conditions, or reports of enemies in the area. His mother was a wanderer, a woman of skill and talent who kept his father’s company for a time, but never relayed information of her birth clan.
To him, she bore a single son before she disappeared for good. He was given the name Askaajor, son of Ivanjar, the fierce lion, but it was shortened to Askaa by the time he was five.
For many years, he was raised apart from the wandering clans, traveling with his father who always rode ahead. He learned to bend a bow, to cultivate plants, to tell direction just by looking at the angle of the stars or listening to the wind. When he was eight, he learned the joys of running with the wolf, for his father’s reproduced and gave him a pup of his own.
But these idyllic years were short-lived.
In the late summer, they returned to the Okoklo Clan. Askaa had never been around so many people before. Though familiar with them through his father’s stories, it took a long time for him to adjust. Indeed, he never did learn to speak freely and laugh with ease like the other children did.
He was never given the chance.
At nine, he had his first visitation – a White dream. The Okoklo Clan Chief’s youngest daughter had been sickly for days, her stomach swollen with the birth of a potential heir. The old women questioned her survival. The men sought medicines to ease her pain. Askaa did none of these things. He merely gave her a strange flower he had seen dancing in his dreams, and spoke to her of its existence. His words seemed to give her strength. She lived and gave birth to a son. It wasn’t enough to go on, but Askaa soon had other dreams, a few going beyond his resting hours and materializing in the daytime to be seen in the most mundane things.
In an old woman’s porridge, he would see tracks of white stag. In a wisp of smoke outside a family’s tent, he might behold their fortune a month from now, perhaps a year. Always, he would see signs of things that he struggled to make sense of until their appointed time.
The others in the Okoklo Clan, however, soon took notice that beyond luck, the Outrider’s Son had talent. Soon, he would have a faithful following who brought him gifts. Others would forever ask of him for their blessing. Others wanted to challenge him out of fear. The Chief was more dangerous than all of them, for his was a surging of pride. At thirteen and still a boy, Askaa was meeting him personally with his own self-appointed guardians.
No one would listen that he didn’t know how to control it. No one wanted to hear how he didn’t always understand what the things he saw meant. They believed him blessed by Wisdom, and so he had to become wise. He would read countless books, study the arts of war, and train daily with the bow and the sword for it was a tenement of the Wolf to embody strength. By the time he reached manhood, he was no longer telling fortunes for old women, or warning superstitious hunters of oncoming snow. He was counseling men as high up as chieftains on omens of war and favor for the Clan.
And always, he had to remain wary for men’s minds were poisoned for what they did not have.
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Race: Khagagan
Affiliation: Born Okoklo
Appearance:
Standing at only 5’7 inches high, Askaa is short for a Khagagan. If it were not for the short, crisp beginnings of a scruffy beard on his chin, he might’ve been mistaken for a child. His hair is cut as short as his beard, and only permitted to grow out into braids during the height of a fearsome winter upon the fields. He prefers a heavy mantle in place of the scale or leather trappings a warrior in his society might wear, giving him a scholarly appearance in comparison. It has a floral pattern in the fashion of the Sho, but trimmed in furs from the wild. He wears no adornments with this save for a bone-beaded bracelet and a gaudy crimson earring in his right ear. In a shoulder strap across his body, a plain, unadorned saber hangs within arm’s reach. And like all Khagagans, he very, very, very much prefers the bow.
Personality:
Even from an early age, Askaa has always been melancholic, serious to a fault. The knowledge that he is ultimately different has shaped him to be cautious with anything that he says or does, for he knows that others will be looking to him for answers. Answers that he might not always have. On the outside, he wears a mask of quiet confidence, breaking such for only a special few who recognize him beyond what he represents. Internally, he doubts himself, over-analyzing each decision that he has made in case he has overlooked something. Always, he is questioning himself, searching for a confidence that is real.
Skills:
- Archer
- One-handed Swordsman
- Keen observation by having a long time span in between blinking.
- Minor medicine
- Practices in the occult, particularly in the art of scrying.
Occupation:
Khagagan Soothsayer
Weapons:
The Saber (resembles the modern day Falchion) he carries with him.
Like all Khagagans, he prefers to use a bow atop a mount for hasty firing and retreating tactics that keep him out of harm’s way.
Askaa's wolf, Gansuhk, is as much a weapon as he is a part of Askaa's identity. He is not mounted out of respect, but is allowed to travel as an equal by his side - like a brother rather than a dumb animal. As of this date, at least 3 men are known to have met their death by Gansuhk’s teeth.
Artifact:
He wears the mask of the Bone Crow, an object that augments the abilities of the mind for those who know how to use it.
Bio:
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where this no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Askaa was born during the coldest of winters in a hut far from the reaches of any Khagagan camp. His father was an Okoklo hunter, a modest outrider who traveled in the forefront of the band to relay news of traveling herds, uninhabitable conditions, or reports of enemies in the area. His mother was a wanderer, a woman of skill and talent who kept his father’s company for a time, but never relayed information of her birth clan.
To him, she bore a single son before she disappeared for good. He was given the name Askaajor, son of Ivanjar, the fierce lion, but it was shortened to Askaa by the time he was five.
For many years, he was raised apart from the wandering clans, traveling with his father who always rode ahead. He learned to bend a bow, to cultivate plants, to tell direction just by looking at the angle of the stars or listening to the wind. When he was eight, he learned the joys of running with the wolf, for his father’s reproduced and gave him a pup of his own.
But these idyllic years were short-lived.
In the late summer, they returned to the Okoklo Clan. Askaa had never been around so many people before. Though familiar with them through his father’s stories, it took a long time for him to adjust. Indeed, he never did learn to speak freely and laugh with ease like the other children did.
He was never given the chance.
At nine, he had his first visitation – a White dream. The Okoklo Clan Chief’s youngest daughter had been sickly for days, her stomach swollen with the birth of a potential heir. The old women questioned her survival. The men sought medicines to ease her pain. Askaa did none of these things. He merely gave her a strange flower he had seen dancing in his dreams, and spoke to her of its existence. His words seemed to give her strength. She lived and gave birth to a son. It wasn’t enough to go on, but Askaa soon had other dreams, a few going beyond his resting hours and materializing in the daytime to be seen in the most mundane things.
In an old woman’s porridge, he would see tracks of white stag. In a wisp of smoke outside a family’s tent, he might behold their fortune a month from now, perhaps a year. Always, he would see signs of things that he struggled to make sense of until their appointed time.
The others in the Okoklo Clan, however, soon took notice that beyond luck, the Outrider’s Son had talent. Soon, he would have a faithful following who brought him gifts. Others would forever ask of him for their blessing. Others wanted to challenge him out of fear. The Chief was more dangerous than all of them, for his was a surging of pride. At thirteen and still a boy, Askaa was meeting him personally with his own self-appointed guardians.
No one would listen that he didn’t know how to control it. No one wanted to hear how he didn’t always understand what the things he saw meant. They believed him blessed by Wisdom, and so he had to become wise. He would read countless books, study the arts of war, and train daily with the bow and the sword for it was a tenement of the Wolf to embody strength. By the time he reached manhood, he was no longer telling fortunes for old women, or warning superstitious hunters of oncoming snow. He was counseling men as high up as chieftains on omens of war and favor for the Clan.
And always, he had to remain wary for men’s minds were poisoned for what they did not have.
