People of Repute or Disrepute
Hwarin Dalthippa
Daughter of the Emperor, Satrap of Sylila
Hwarin Dalthippa, the living daughter of the Emperor, is a genuine Lunar Hero. She helped resettle Rist after the Moonburn (1/49) had cleansed the land of the Aldryami. In 2/8 she married Ingkot Axe and a half, a Storm-worshipping barbarian king of Sylila, converting him and his people to the Lunar Way. Together they conquered, bribed or magically subjugated the various tribes of the area. 2/15 saw the subjugation of the Dara Ni, but in 2/16 the Blue Deer Princes of Vanch raided and burnt Jillaro. Emperor granted the land of Sylila (including the lands of Rist and Dara Ni) Imperial Satrapy status in 2/25. Hwarin began building Jillaro, inviting the foremost artists and builders of the Empire to help her.
When their son Phirmax was killed by a river spirit summoned by the rebel king Gwythar Longwise, Ingkot led a retaliatory raid, but was killed by the spirit, Bold Vareleus; his body washed downstream to Jillaro. Hwarin lead her armies south, a magical elevated roadway rising under her feet as she walked. This is the beginning of the Daughter's Road campaigns. She left Jillaro riding on a hearse, and at the Bridge of Phirmax summoned a war unicorn, donned the Red Mask of War, and lead the armies south in a terrible array.
Mirin's Cross in the kingdom of Holay was the first battle of the campaign. For four days magical energy ripped the cosmos apart. Dead gods rose and fell, Spirits were dismembered, and the Revealing Crimson Light of the Lunar Way was freely deployed. The barbarians were smashed, and Gwythar was bound as the Guardian of the Greater Daughter's Road (also known as the Grand Trunk). The road crosses the Black Eel river on an indestructible crystal bridge. The Lunar armies stormed across the bridge and overran the fortress of Mirin's Cross.
Hwarin continued south, finally defeating the last holdouts at Filichet and claiming the Helmet of Perides. The barbarian kings and their families were sent to the Empire to face a lifetime of slavery. She is currently busy with her invasion of Vanch and Imther, punishing those lands for supporting Gwythar in his conspiracy. As before, magical roads rise up and bear her as she leads her army forward.
General Anarash
Lady Talia's Dara Happan husband, now deceased. Following the Battle of the Baggage, Hwarin Dalthippa had him crucified, leaving Lady Talia a widow.Minny
Lady Talia of Carantes' handmaiden. It was her beauty which attracted Eseseku's eye and led, ultimately, to the Battle of the Baggage.SurenOntor
UnderSecretary for the Provincial Fisce SurenOntor is Hwarin's bureaucrat who is overseeing money-raising, permits, paperwork, etc. He's a stuffy fourth-generation Lunar from Glamour who would faint at the sight of a bared weapon and whose blood would turn to water if he heard the howl of a wild animal - he doesn't even like to go to the Hideous Zoo in Glamour, he was scared by the captured Walktapus as a child. He has given Keros a meager sum for expenses, and expects a proper accounting at the end of the expedition.Special requests for Imperial equipment have gone through him, and most have been refused (the large merchant Moonboat, the 3 regiments of troops, the concerted efforts of the Comet Seers, etc.). He has steered some people to the expedition (Losisi In-the-Sky, frex).Kratikos
A learned, refined and, above all, rich Pelandan Second of the ket of Mintinus, the noble Kratikos has served as Keshborvo's patron for nearly a dozen years. He corresponds frequently with his client, being especially interested in the knowledge and observances of daily life and differing philosophies that Keshborvo gains on his mercantile ventures.In his younger days, Kratikos was an academic expert in grotaron brachiognomy. Indeed, it was his expeditions to the West that brought the hitherto-fabled gigantic race to the light of Imperial scholarly scrutiny. His corpus of work on the mythic and gigantologic implications of elbow extension, arm-hair density and relative tri-arm muscular development is a model of its kind, and a pioneering study in eugenics.
Unfortunately Kratikos' later career was blighted by his open advocation of the existence of the legendary peak-hopping, sabre-toothed spirit mountain mammoths -- who are invisible to all but grotarons. Rumours of an over-indulgence of gocha root spread. His works on the mammoths' magical life, and even their supposed lost graveyard on the Spirit World, were less well received.
Carshatar
Carshatar is a Liturgist in the Order of Dry Bones: weak as a worm and slow as a snail, timidly treacherous and a cowardly sycophant. He is, however, a surprisingly vicious man with an evil temper, and in orations he expresses vitriolic sentiment with a terrible anger. He was one of three brothers, raised by his doting mother, his family still love him despite his faults. Foolish Sassan employed him, paid him for his dirges and introduced him to Bentusian pleasures. The Spolites still treat him as one of their own, though, and he is a devoted follower of the fashion.He is pessimistic concerning the fate of the expedition which he views as suicidal. On the other hand, he thinks of Engiziland as an immense unblessed graveyard and, if he were not an immense coward would consider it an Holy task to consecrate that grave. (indeed he wonders if Preserve Solemnity of Burial Site, and Smite Grave Robber might be useful spells to cast against the Lunar expedition).
Funeral Oration (17):
" Venturers, mighty and brave, let us talk of graves, of wyrms, and epitaphs. Our very bodies are no more than vehicles carrying us ineluctably towards death. We are all necronauts, always, already. My heart has abandoned you unto death, to revel in the arms of squamous misery beyond the Deathline. It behoveth not men to live long in this wise so I bid you make ready for death, as you enter that cursed land. Make ready for death as you go hence, to loathed Dragon Pass, of Wyrms friends and foul Dragons, born in Dragonewt cities forlorn amongst horrid shapes, and shrieks,and sights unholy! Where the Inhuman King spreads his jealous wings,and the night-dragon sings; There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks, in dark Dragon Pass shall thy ever dwell, down among the dead men. To die, it will be an awfully big adventure. Necronauts, in the midst of life you will be in death. You commit this expedition to pass through the deathline; sure and certainly hopeless of more than the briefest continuation of life.
Alas! good venturous youths, I love thy courage yet, and bold emprise; But there thy sword will do thee little stead. For other arms and other weapons must be those that quell the might of squamous charms. The Inhuman One with his bare wand can unthread thy joints, and crumble all thy sinews. Be careful, take care, be fearful, night and day look sharp, ghouls, ghosts and the unquiet dead shall feast on thy souls. You will need presence of mind to survive, but better still than that, would be absence of body. Your ultimate aim shall be the construction of an expedition that will convey you into death in such a way that you may, if not live, then at least persist. . . To deliver yourselves over utterly to death, not in desperation but rigorously, creatively, eyes and mouths wide open so that they may befilled from the deep wells of the Unknown.
Farewell..."
Carshatar is not a supporting character, he is not a backer and he certainly doesn't want to go on the expedition. He just thought he'd bless the expedition with funeral rites that, in all probability, they won't be getting as their scattered body parts are strewn across Engiziland by the draconic fiends that he expects them to arouse.