Who's Who in the tale of Jao

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Ari Jackalstooth
A famous warrior of the Green Shadows, Ari earned his name during his initiation rite at the age of 12. As he was foundering in the jungle, struggling with narcotics, he was set upon by a jackal which thought to make a quick snack of him. The young Ari beat the jackal to death with a rock and kept its teeth which he wears in a necklace. In adulthood, he is one of the foremost warriors of the Green Shadows. He is ashamed of their current status as slavers, but feels they can earn glory back by provoking the other tribes into outright war.

Bitter Berry
"The girl with the scar". Bitter Berry is Dark Eyes' spy within the Green Shadows tribe.

Black Wind's Answer
Chief of the Bone Faces tribe. Black Wind's Answer is aged but still a massive man-mountain. Picture a native American Brando with silvery hair falling to his shoulders. The chief does not speak much, instead mumbling his words to Savage Echo who shouts them aloud to his tribesmen.

Cunning Mantis
Rahaen's younger brother, Cunning Mantis was just starting to come into his own glory as a hunter of no mean measure, and a strategist of some repute when he was cut down in the prime of his life by the savagery of a claw strider. However, he was buried in glory by the Lunar Exalted, Jao, son of Jiun, and his spirit has no doubt gone on to great things in the otherworld.

Curious Ember
Once a part of Wary Monkey's band of spearmen, this hotheaded girl presented Jao with the fire-wand taken from Ari Jackalstooth. This was only the beginning of the troubles she was to cause for the young Exalt.

Dancing Sparks
The girl whom the young Jao had a crush on, Joyaen, daughter of the fire-keeper Whispering Heat, is known as "Dancing Sparks" because of her ebullient love for life. Dancing Sparks, in turn, has had her heart set from an early age on the manly Rahaen.

Dark Eyes
The outsider known as Dark Eyes came to the Ten Tribes following the Dark Story - the forbidden songline which leads away into the jungles to the southeast. None now living recall what lies at that songline's end, but this may be why only three of the Ten Tribes were willing to trust the Lunar. Dark Eyes has taken command of the Red Scars tribe and announced his intention to unite the Tribes and drive out the indigent woodcutters.

The Funnelweb Spider Woman
An ancient ancestor of Jao's, the Funnelweb Spider Woman is one of the most famous heroes of the Nine Ravens. She ruled the tribe for nearly three score turns of the seasons and set a standard for longevity which no chief since has managed to emulate. (Although some say that Vahael may yet come close.)

Grandfather Oak
A dryad-king, Grandfather Oak is the God of the Iron Forest. He has been the patron of the Ten Tribes of the People for forty generations, but in these fell times he has abandoned the People and made new pacts with the wood-cutting men who come from the westlands. Some say that Grandfather Oak has abandoned the People because they strayed from their true ways. Others say that it is a sign that the People must now leave the Iron Forest and find new lands, even as their distant ancestors did so long ago.

Grasping Roots
Chief of the Green Shadows tribe. Grasping Roots is old and cautious, but also pragmatic. He respects the wealth and opportunities that Guildmaster Haarken has brought him.

Green Briar
A warrior of the Nine Ravens tribe, Green Briar is getting older and slowing down. He has never been a great huntsman, but always an adequate one and is well known in the tribe for his brewing skills and collection of filthy stories.

Slavemaster Haarken
A member of the Guild - a popular merchant organization run by the men of the westlands. Haarken is the entrepreneur behind the Green Shadows' slaving operation and has been supplying them with weapons and tools for the purpose ... at "very reasonable prices".

Hungry Hog
The most rotund of the Nine Ravens tribesmen, Hungry Hog literally could not stop eating. Despite his corpulence he was even-tempered and willing to endure hardship, making him well-liked within the tribe. He was the older brother of Lazy Log and young Pi-Yen. Poor Hungry Hog came to an end when a patch of wasp-weed made him stir from his hiding place while a claw strider was about. His body was given to the sky by the Lunar Exalted, Jao Following-Tides and his spirit is now at peace.

Inishaan
A beautiful courtier of Raksi's.

Jiun
One of the foremost hunters of the Nine Ravens tribe, Jiun is the niece of chief Vahael, cousin to Panther's Tread and mother to Jao, Following-Tides.

Lazy Log
Fattish tribesman of the Nine Ravens. Lazy Log loves sleeping. He also loves his sister, Pi Yen, and he loved his late brother, Hungry Hog very much too. Lazy Log is a natural coward but so amiable that it's hard for the other tribesmen to fault him for it.

Listening Skull
Shaman of the Bone Faces tribe.

Marcus Astreleinius
The true ghost that has become the patron of the Bone Faces tribe is not Worship of Many Worms, but instead Marcus Astrilenius, a sorcerer-prince of lost Zarlath who died at the time of the Great Contagion. He obtained Worship of Many Worms's soul in a riddling contest with a Nephwrack after it had been hammered down into soulsteel and used to forge a small cruciform dagger.

Panther's Tread
Lin, daughter of Vahael, is known as "Panther's Tread" for her amazing skills as a huntswoman. In fact, she is the greatest hunter the tribe of Nine Ravens has known in living memory.

Pi Yen
Pi Yen is only fifteen. She is the little sister of the two laziest tribesmen in the Nine Ravens - Lazy Log and the now deceased Hungry Hog. Perhaps because of this, the small, quiet girl is exceptionally keen to prove herself as competent and hard-working.

Lord Poisonoak of the Seven Twilights
A warrior of the Fair Folk, dipped in the aspect of Wood, Lord Poisonoak was the captain in charge of a company of the Fair Host during the Great Incursion. When the Empress repelled the incursion and reality began to reassert itself, he sent his forces back to the Wyld but he himself waited for seven nights to see the Fair Host return. By the seventh, when they still had not, he found himself stranded too far from the rapidly retreating deep Wyld. Trapped in creation he carved himself a small kingdom and peopled it with Ravagers, preying on nearby settlements and the occasional Guild foraging party looking for the ruins of fabled Sperlinka. Lord Poisonoak met his end at the hands of Jao-Following Tides and Dark Eyes.

Rahaen
Rahaen was Jao's childhood companion until the age of ten when Jao was adopted by Whispering Leaves and Rahaen went to the hunt for the first time. Jao looked up to the older boy, and indeed Rahaen was taller, stronger, faster. He has grown to be quite a formidable huntsman in his own right and now leads his own band. His love for Terris remains undiminshed over the years and he is very close to his younger brother, Cunning Mantis.

Raksi, Queen of Fangs
Tall and imposing, with the dark-coloured skin of a southlander. Her jet black hair runs in tiny fine braids down to her waist and his held back from her face by a simple, elegant torque of heavy silver which gleams with a soft lustre. Her eyes burn with a singular age and knowledge. She is Raksi, Queen of Fangs, ruler of Lost Sperlinka.
  Raksi was ancient when the First Age ended and has ruled in Sperlinka since long, long before the People made their way to Silent Waters and began their worship of Grandfather Oak. Her ways are not the ways of men. She rules the fallen White City as a god should.

Rugar
Rugar One-Eye is an exiled Dynast of the Dragon-Blooded, the Terrestrial Exalted who rule the Realm. For as-yet undisclosed reasons, he is banished from their society and works in the area known as the Threshold, which lies between the Realm's authority and the wild lands where the Ten Tribes live. Rugar is a skilled huntsman and has worked on and off for the Guild for some time. He has the elemental Aspect of Air.

Sacred Sky
Silent, thoughtful member of the Nine Ravens tribe.

Serena
With milk-white skin and bone-white hair flowing to her waist, Serena has slid in and out of Jao's life several times already. Quite what she seeks, or what she is to Jao, has yet to be determined. It is clear that she is one of Luna's chosen, however.

Sharp Rock
Childhood friend and confidant to Cunning Mantis, Sharp Rock is a man of few words, but much consideration. His brain can easily weasel its way through the narrowest cracks while his body appears to be totally immobile, and he has nearly endless patience. When Jao exalted, Sharp Rock was the first to know what he had become and to offer him homage.

Smoke In A Cloudless Sky
Short and ugly, with a protruding nose and sparse tufts of wiry hair protruding from his balding pate, Smoke In A Cloudless Sky is one of Raksi's confidants and courtiers. He is a Lunar of undisclosed abilities and often appears armed with a moonsilver blade, straight and clear, in the style of a wuxia fighting sword, at his waist.

Steals-From-Memories
Spearband leader of the Bone Faces tribe. Like many Bone Faces women she keeps her hair cropped down to the skull, save for the long pony tail at the back. Steals from memories met Jao, son of Jiun when he brought his people into Bone Faces territory after the Green Shadows raids.

Strikes Wisely
The older brother of Wondrous Rainfall and a huntsman of the Red Scars tribe. Although almost inhumanly beautiful, Strikes Wisely is a capable warrior and has not allowed his vanity (he has never been struck in battle) to interfere with his courage. Dark Eyes brought Strikes Wisely and his sister on the pilgrimage down the Forbidden Songline, and in the lands of Lord Poisonoak the young warrior was scarred for the first time by the Fair Lord's inhuman ravagers.

Sudden Forest Stillness
Shaman of the Green Shadows tribe.

Tastes-Like-Leaves
Bone Faces tribesmember and brother to Steals-From-Memories. Tastes-Like-Leaves is apprenticed to the Bone Faces shaman, Listening Skull. He earned his name as a child when a princess of the Fair Folk ravaged him during a raid on Bone Faces lands. Apparently, the Fey in question spat him out because he tasted pungent. The young Tastes-Like-Leaves later explained to his fellow tribesmates that he had rolled in a patch of stinkweed as he was fleeing from the assault.

Terris
Childhood nemesis of Jao's and daughter of the huntress Steps In Shadows, who died of a wolf-spider bite when Terris was twelve. Terris chased after Rahael until she was about fourteen or so, whereupon she learned how to make him chase after her instead. Therafter the young hunter followed her hopelessly, but she ended up giving her heart, or at least her affections, to a young spearman of the Sky Runners named Howling Lizard.

Tiger's Tail
Moody, passionate huntress of the Nine Raven's tribe. So named because it's said that a man going into her tent after dark would be safer taking a tiger by its tail.

Twisted Root
Nephew to chief Grasping Roots of the Green Shadows tribe. Twisted Root was part of Ari Jackalstooth's slaving band; one of the few who escaped when Jao attacked them.

Wary Monkey
A cousin of Jao's on his father's side, Wary Monkey was the leader of the band of spearmen left to keep watch over the Nine Ravens' autumnal holt at Silent Waters. He was cut down in combat by Ari Jackalstooth when Ari's band raided Silent Waters.

Whispering Heat
Rin-La, the firekeeper, is known as "Whispering Heat" by all who have heard her, bent over the firepits, murmuring soft and encouraging words to the elementals within, mollifying them to keep the fires from escaping, flattering them that they might burn brighter in the rains or in the cold. She is the mother of Dancing Sparks, amongst others.

Whispering Leaves
Ao-Lun, named "Whispering Leaves" is brother to the hero Jiun. Ever since he outwitted a dryad in a riddling competition while still a boy, Whispering Leaves has been on the shamanic path. In keeping with the Nine Ravens tradition, he has taken a raven spirit as his totem. It was he that requested of Jiun that he might raise her son, the young Jao.

Wondrous Rainfall
A young girl of about 17 from the Red Scars tribe. Exceptionally beautiful and with a great curiosity about life. She was named for a great storm which occurred the night she was born, ending a particularly long and dry Season of Fire for the Tribes. She and her brother, Strikes Wisely, were brought down the Forbidden Songline to Sperlinka by Dark Eyes.

Worship Of Many Worms
The heroic ancestor summoned by Listening Skull to be the new protector totem of the Bone Faces tribe. Jao discovered that in fact Worship of Many Worms's soul has been hammered down into soulsteel, the metal of the dead, and forged into a dagger. The dagger came into the possession of the ghost Marcus Astrileinius, who won it from a Nephwrack in a riddling contest. Marcus has been impersonating Worship of Many Worms so that he might receive chiminage from the Bone Faces, but so far he has held his end of the bargain and served them as a protector to the best of his abilities.






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