Post by Shava on Oct 31, 2013 15:50:38 GMT -5
Mukh, Mukhtar Kel Gres* half; imajeghen Straight Fourteen & July 8 Fourth 9", Acacia, and Runespoor skin mukhtar son of kanzah * The Tuareg (like a large part of Africa) do not use Surnames, a Western Invention. The teacher for his Sort was surprised when he didn't have one and he told her his mother's name which she questioned as it sounded female (matriarchal society). She decided to give him the name of his tribe for a last name (despite his protests it was not a name for individuals) and entered him that way (although he did convince her it was a last name, no middle name). The first letter back to his tribe that summer caused much amusement over Western Civilization's ways of dealing with the real world when it didn't fit on their forms. Mukhtar is a son of the desert, a traveler with his family, but he has responsibilities expected of him since he was small. Children often began their work at an early age, practicing for their own families instead of supporting the one they grow up in (as his brothers marry they have moved into their wives' families for instance). At ten he began a smaller version of a warrior's training instead of the full thing as his unusual magic abilities will be needed in another capacity during battle (defensive of course). He still plants and takes care of the animals with his brothers at each site, their rural home deep in the mountains where the few crops of the tribe are kept. As the first wizard in his family in a long time (the first in nearly 300 years and 120 for the tribe since the last), he has great responsibilities on his shoulders for one so young. When it was revealed to him what his path would be at age nine, he started growing up much faster mentally then most of his siblings and other tribal kids. It was more then just a warriors path and no one envies him his spot in the tribal hierarchy just as he sometimes wishes it wasn't his. Too many lives will be dependent on him and his talents and thus he puts serious effort into his studies. The fear of failure sometimes seems a bit overwhelming, but like any tribal warrior he sees it as his mission in life to succeed and do it well for those he loves. Being at Hogwarts has opened his mind to how wildly different the world can be. The conversations, the news of the wizarding world, the strange and peculiar people & the way they think... Sometimes he really does feel completely isolated from the rest. Few of the students he knows have real purpose, most are fairly lazy about their studies, and no one seems to have any idea what living in the wild really means. He finds it hard to relate (even though he does try a bit) and friendships have been hard to come by so far. When he turns seventeen he will be expected to return full time to the tribe (unless he marries outside the tribe), something which makes him quite happy, but a small part of him wishes before then he could teach someone from the wizarding world the wonders of his homeland. It would be nice to see someone from outside the Desert with the same light in their eyes when they talk about it as he is sure he has himself. Few outsiders come to the desert to see it like the tribes and the few who do often return to live there, the life making so much more sense the the "civilized" world and far more natural. In addition, he has realized that in doing his job to learn what both half of his magical inheritance have gifted him, he will never be fully from either world. With that he also needs to find a way to balance both for himself as well as others, a tricky thing to contemplate at age fourteen. Some people would think the odds are stacked against him, but he feels if his grandfather fell in love with the desert enough to stay then surely he can learn enough from the North to find his own place in the world. A hard worker before, he now finds himself with more balls in the air then he could ever imagine. Keeping things in balance and still remembering to be himself is a challenge he is still trying to accomplish. While still not a big book study person, he pays far more attention in classes then most realize, picking up details most students miss. He prefers an active learning environment and although he may not like a class or think it is not worth the time, he was told to behave and make his family proud. Therefore even his worst class his teachers are impressed with his efforts, if not his results. His grades are not the highest by far, but his intelligence is obvious through both his capacity for languages and his abilities to learn two different magic disciplines and somehow use them together. The trick is teaching him the things he can see using -- if it is something towards his goals or seems useful in his homeland, he will pour far more enthusiasm into it. So a few of his teachers have noted this in his records and have started thinking about how to angle things in such a way to catch his imagination. Those that do find a student alive with effort and understanding who will do reports & studies far outside his homework and more into obscure uses & twists on each spell. His perception of Hogwarts is colored by his raising. Ravenclaws are hard to understand for him; the Kel Tadele are the knowledge seekers of his tribe and thus are physically active sportsmen, readying themselves for exploring and investigating other places and peoples to gain new knowledge, often by theft and spying. Gryffindors make more sense to him as the Kel Gharous have similar warriors who fiercely protect the tribe from others, but they don't compete with other family groups like the House does at Hogwarts. His own family, the Kel Gres, don't seem to have a match a all being the ones who control most of the trade and craftsmen and bring the most wealth into the tribe, but do the least amount of actual hard work being more adept with their tongues then their hands. These background assumption on what kinds of people are in the world have colored his perception of others at Hogwarts and made it harder for him to understand them, especially as he keeps trying to think of the Slytherins as just another type of Ravenclaw. Few evil people exist in the Sahara as groups work together for survival, something the Slytherins never seem to do. Self centered people do exist there, but are often weeded out over time by the nature of the environment and thus he finds them the most confusing of all. personality To understand Mukhtar, one must first understand his people's history which has a great influence on both his growth, birth, and future. The Tuareg people (TWAH-reg) are a nation of nomads some five million strong (if you count all the castes, a million plus otherwise) living across borders in the Sahara desert. They ignore political boundaries as the desert has been their home since their civilization flourished around 500 BC period in what is now known as Libya. They had a great many slaves, mined the desert for both minerals and water, and had a very successful culture which included several primitive wizarding folk. A mixture of magical blood has been added to the nomads over the centuries in small groups so that they count as muggleborn who are aware of and train their own wizards in secret with old knowledge passed down. During Roman raids, a great queen known as Tin Hinan led them south into the desert and began the nomadic lifestyle they are still familiar with today more then 2000 years later. Continuing as raiders as well as nomads, they flourished in the desert in separate tribes encompassing one of the larger desert communities in the world ignoring nation's borders and taking what they needed, trading for what they could not take by force. They continued to own slaves and employ them as craftsmen, preferring the life of nomads over those of settled peoples. Thus many of their traditions and knowledge have been passed down orally and writing sand to their children and rarely known to outsiders until the present day, even then only in the last few years. Using carefully picked out desert mysteries, those few wizards and witches in the tribe (less then twelve in the last two thousand years) taught the tribe how to identify and train future wizarding children using left-behind crafted magic 'teachers.' Their wizards have a strong skill with early non-verbal spells and often work without wands, depending more on other items they wear to help them bend magic to work for them. The tribe continued to run caravans for trade, mining salt & Amazonite from hidden mines, and selling crafts made by their slave society. They have achieved a remarkable society trading and gathering what is needed from the desert and have become known for many traits including being sharp minded as well quick sighted and teaching their children the wisdom of many centuries of knowledge. They live in portable tents, often on stone foundations left at particular camps around the desert and navigate in ways no westerner could ever follow. Their tea ceremonies are only performed for honored guests and tribe members, a complex pouring of three different times. They welcome visitors, finding tourists to be entertaining as well as easy buyers of items which others might not pay as much for. They still practice with swords and knives as well as guns (which are kept out of sight of all outsiders) and although their slaves are not called such, their society is filled with layers of castes in a system only now outsiders are beginning to figure out. Some of these wandering tribes have home bases in different areas around the Sahara, such as the Air Mountains where Mukhtar's people live now. These bases are where crops and animals are cultivated and where children and women are left under protection while the nomads do their trade and barter across the sandy desert. The Air Mountains however are under a small war currently (from 2007 on) against the controlling governments against them who are bent on bringing them under their control. Prison camps, soldiers, and raiders have to be avoided to reach home these days as tourism has dropped off. The wily Tuareg pick off the stragglers and capture small units of soldiers who simply disappear while the military takes any they capture out of the area completely forcing them into labor in an attempt to bring the tribes to their knees. Combined with several recent droughts, this has caused the population here to drop off except for a few small villages around the four main oasis and the hidden village of Mukhtar's people. From a strong matriarchal society, Kanzah (meaning 'Treasure') married young as did many women of the tribe to a man named Aafiya (meaning 'Good Health') a warrior of some standing because of a rare father. A young man named Atherol Selwyn from Britain (a pure blood wizard who was tired of the Wizarding world's politics) had been visiting the nearby ruins twenty years earlier and got caught in an attack between French and Tuareg forces. Wounded in the ensuing chaos, he had survived in their village for nearly three years leaving the modern world behind and creating a very nice home for himself before he was killed in a fall. Two months after his son's wedding (leaving behind enough money for his daughter-in-law to significantly increase their caravan sizes) they were at a tribal meet (a ruined town tribes would meet in covering the old walls with their tents and banners and creating for a day a colorful market) and there met a British wizard who had known Selwyn and passed on the news. Surprised at the ending of an old school chum, he begged the family to let their son be born in England to keep the connection alive. Knowing how strong family ties are, the family agreed for the sake of family and went with him to the Selwyn home in England, barely in time for Mukhtar's birth (as travel with nomads had some complications) and there learned about the man they called father. During this time unknowingly, one of the old Selwyn ghosts attempted several nights running to possess the child, trying to find a way back to the world of the living. While only moderately successful and unable to maintain a possession for very long, a good amount of imprinting happened to the child who picked up a sensitivity to ghosts and the supernatural. The Selwyn's used their political clout at the time to get their 'cousins" British citizenship before the birth so the child could have a full training, never realizing he already had a desert potential upon him. Eventually keeping up a connection they promised by Owl (which they took back with them a set of four) they returned to the desert and a big welcome from the tribe plus a lot of stories about their disappearance. Over seven nights they had discussions about what to do about the situation and how to deal with the outsiders. The first thing, they decided, was to find out if the child would have magic or not. Accordingly, the tribe broke tents and went to an area seventeen days away in the ruined badlands, an area often avoided because of it's lack of anything but lizards. And lots of lizards. There they watched carefully as she carried the child toward a particular rock they knew of and lo and behold, the child not only waked up in her arms, but reached for the stone. Over the next few hours they tried a few other tests and determined that one day the child would have magic and therefore would be taken care of carefully for the future benefit of the people. So life for little Mukhtar began on a more positive note then his beginning itself. He grew like most of the children in the tribe, cheerfully serious and eager to learn and they taught him as any child, but watched him more carefully as the years went by. As he grew up with his siblings (who all carried the potential for spreading magic blood to their descendants, but none were wizards or witches), he learned much about life in the desert. He dreamed of one day being a caravan master for his family and selling crafts and raw goods around Northern Africa. His sisters worked the house as well as ran the organization of the caravans, his brothers followed in their father's footsteps, and Muk wondered why he was always encouraged not to limit himself to the dreams he spoke of. He played and worked and learned like a sponge, especially interested in the stars and finding a way of protecting the village more so then it's cleverly hidden location and water supply. Muk alone in his family was able to touch the hidden door (hidden by magic and protected by blood connection; his father and siblings could see it, but not get closer then a foot away) in the passage to the spring, but he had no key for the door which people said was his grandfather's. He burned to know what was beyond the door and spent many days there trying to figure out what made him so different. He also reacted differently to 'unusual places' where the world of the supernatural held sway and the villagers began to mark in their minds the places he had issues with. Thus they were aware of his magic surfacing later when he was ten and the sand he slept on often turned to glass overnight. Being a sensible people, they began lining his mat with items to be covered in glass and took advantage of those nights and began to make their way to a special place which they alone knew the location of. At the Arbre Perdu's twin to the North along the caravan road they made camp off the "trail" (as no one except a nomad would have called it anything since it was just sand with no trail visible) and using measurements known only to them they placed an extra tent over a particular spot and began digging inside until they unearthed a large and ancient coffer made of stone. Inside were a number of small charms, statues, bracelets, etc all with animals represented (as animals feature heavily in the stories of the people). Then they placed him front of it and asked him to look through and find out which one 'spoke' to him. It was a matter of moments before he pulled out an armband with the pattern of a desert tortoise on it and they were satisfied. He was told to wear it from then on and they reburied the cache, carefully smoothing the sand out again and that night he slept over the box on the sand. Mukhtar's dreams were filled with travel, steady and slow on the back of a tortoise as it showed him a view of the desert he was not aware of. From the lower perspective he saw the bugs, the spiders, the small snakes hunting mice, and the vegetation well hidden amongst the rare rocks. For seven nights he slept there and learned a new perspective on how the world worked and his perceptions sharpened. A few weeks later he was in a stone circle many miles away with only his father and younger brother nearby (having broken off from the tribe for a short time so the father could be there and train the other in his sword work at the same time). Each stone had different memories, lessons to be learned and understood much like complex puzzles with levels upon levels. The lessons taught him through sheer persistence and personal experience, letting him find the answers which made the ideas stick more then a regular lesson would have. Each summer from here on out he would get more and more complex lessons in many different forms, most from buried treasures deep beneath the sands. The magic of the people is silent, more sensing the potential and weaving wards to protect and detect dangers. Complex magics of the Desert are far beyond him and will be years before he can do things like saving memories in rocks and manipulating energy. It will be a lifelong work, unlike Hogwarts which will only be seven years long. Having made their mark on him, no one had any issue with the foreigner's offer of free training. And when the time came and his eleventh birthday approached, his father took him into Libya to their contact (with the Selwyn's made by owl) there who helped make the connection to Britain and temporary housing at the Selwyn's townhouse in London. After helping his son adjust (and leaving a small pouch of Amazonite to pay for his son's school supplies) he then returned home, back to pick up his son for the summer break. Due to the normal pattern of travel, no one in the tribe would be in the northern part of the Desert during the other breaks for students so he would have to stay at the school the entire year. It was a very lonely feeling year for Murkhtar, despite several owls through the year from the tribe. The entire country seemed such a foreign place, no desert anywhere, few stars, and the smell of the ocean in the air. Nothing felt safe or understandable for the boy and the father helped him as best he could, the two of them often sleeping in a tent on the roof of the house they were staying in. As the month before school at Hogwarts started, they spent time with a guide, trying to translate what they were seeing to what they knew. Many times over his father told him to trust in himself and what he knew to be true, to keep the Desert alive inside himself. When he went, Hogwarts was bizarre and different like most of London, but overfilled with life, surrounded by a wilderness far more intimidating for him then anything he had seen before. The air was wet and hard, his lungs had to work to get him up stairs, and he could only thank Anansi that everyone else's eyes were as wide as his were. During his first few months he dug in and adapted, learning knowledge from books for the first time (much harder to learn that way, he noticed) and loving the classes once he proved to himself he could actually use a wand. Next summer when he returned to the Desert, he actually had to stop and look into the Desert, seeing himself poised on the edge between two very different worlds. Looking back and forth between the modern City they were leaving and the desert in the distance while his father watched him (knowing this was an important moment and waiting to see what his child would do next), Mukhtar saw the advantages of both. If he could manage to learn from both, he would have power no other wizard in his family line had possessed and possibly the ability to do some amazing things for the tribe. However, it would require two different masters really, two completely different ways of seeing the world and once he started that path he would never fit in completely with his people again. Not comfortably like he always had before. Could he sacrifice what he adored about his family & people, making himself an outsider in their eyes to do what he wanted to which was protect them and improve their lives? Could he give up his deepest love to make sure it survived? It was a terrible moment for him and one that stuck out for many years afterward as many people would say he grew up a bit that day. The resolve to continue walking forward was something that changed his character forever and won quite a bit of pride in his father's eyes as well. history His family are all Imajeghen, nobles of the Tribe of Kel Ayr. mother Kanzah, daughter of Wajd, 43, Muggle, caravan owner (owns one hundred and fifty camels) father Aafiya, son of Nasmah, 45, Squib, Clan (Tewsit) elder siblings The tribes have an odd situation. With magical blood mixed in every three hundred years or so all the way back to 500 BC, they have maintained a line of magic potential more then wizards with barely a dozen in the entire time. Thus this is a family of muggles with occasional wizards in the line. Whenever a wizard from outside the clans has married in, most of the children are squibs, carrying the potential down the family line. Thus Mukhtar gets his magic from two very different magical family lines, the opposite ends of the spectrum. Seerat, daughter of Kanzah, 19, Squib, Manages Caravans, married w/4 kids Reshma, daughter of Kanzah, 18, Squib, Gardener, married w/3 kids Maysarah, son of Kanzah, 17, Squib, caravan rider, married w/2 kids Ghadir, daughter of Kanzah, 16, Squib, Gardener, married w/2 kids Abisali, son of Kanzah, 15, Squib, learning trade, married w/1 kid other significant magical relatives All ancestors, long dead. Any tribe member can quote their family connections back twenty generations at a minimum. Here are the magical ones he has also had to learn. Atherol Selwyn, English, 51, Pureblood, Wizarding Engineer, lived 27 years ago, died in rock fall. Shayaan, son of Musta'eenah, 87, tribe muggleborn, lived 323 years ago, died of drowning. Tahseen, son of Absi, 36, tribe muggleborn, lived 552 years ago, killed during clan raid. Zayaan, daughter of Kardawiyah, 72, tribe muggleborn, lived 730 years ago, died of old age. Naseer, son of Aziz, 98, tribe muggleborn, lived 1150 years ago, died of old age. Antonia Paciaecus, Roman, 40, Pureblood, lived 1498 years ago, died in childbirth. Abdul Khabir, son of Ruqayyah, 12, tribe muggleborn, lived 1876 years ago, killed bringing a pass down on pursuers, saving the entire tribe. Quntus Fulvianus, Roman, 34, Halfblood, lived 2002 years ago, died of wounds fighting the Roman army. residence ; Wherever his tribe is this week in the Sahara, permanent home in the Little Assode village in the Air Mountains only about an hour's ride from Assode. family best spell - Locomotor. For some odd reason, this moving objects spell he finds simple and damn useful. In the desert they don't care about magic use during the summer so he often gets to practice. The trace does not appear to work well a thousand miles from Britain. worst spell - Orchideous. Okay, this might be a simple spell for others, but whenever he casts it he gets a variety of cactus and other dangerous-to-hold plants, although to be honest they are all blooming (he spent a day in the hospital wing last time and the nurse threatened him should he try it again in his hand). A painful lesson. For some reason, maybe the magic if his people's history, his 'desert' background shows up in many spell results. OWLs taking and grades
note about tribal magic - The tribes' magic works in the desert, period. There will be no foreign spells or items used at Hogwarts as the magic works more towards wards and detections then spell casting. While he will be using non-verbal spells from each of his past magic years (as he relearns his spells on his own time) this will be the only effect visible at Hogwarts, exception being the desert quality to the effects of his spells. languages - Tamasheq, English, French, and Arabic. The written language is called Tifinagh (which he practices with his notes). There are four other Tuareg languages which are only learned by the nobles who make sure their children learn all of them. This is a secret to their power as well as they are the only ones who can communicate with all the other groups in the Sahara. Muk has mastered the basic languages and is being taught in the other languages of the tribes. patronus - For a long time, Muk was worried he couldn't learn Western magic and this would all be for a loss, until finally after much effort in class he managed his first spell and it was Wingardium Leviosa. The joy mixed with relief at this first magic will always be one of his best memories. And when he can cast it (and he will be able to, easily), it will be a HUGE, if slow, desert tortoise. It will get registered by the Ministry as the third biggest one on record, nearly twenty feet in diameter. hair - His tribe keeps their hair wound and often the men have it under their turbans. Mukhtar's hair is lighter then most of the tribe more like a lighter brown then their normal black. It poofs naturally like a giant afro and he likes the feeling of it and keeps it that way at school. He has tried the cornrows thing popular in other places in the world and it is interesting, but not a favorite feeling for him. When his hair is tied in knots and braids it gets much darker, although not black, it does take on an appearance of it. Only two people are allowed to mess with his hair at school; Ariel and Susie when she is with Ariel. He wages a constant war of removing ribbons because of this. tatoos - Summer of his twelfth year Muk underwent a few rituals with tribal magic which will gave him some tattoos on his thighs, belly, & shoulders. They were done with an ink which became slowly become only visible to those with magical sight so are invisible to muggles. Otherwise he is fairly unmarked except for a few slim knife scars here and there which will fade into nothing as he gets older. fighting - One thing which is very surprising for his age is the fact he already has abs. This would be from the knife work outs he does to be able to protect himself on tribal raids (they have been in war in the last few years) which he still practices at school late at night with unsharpened metal swords. Wood is too precious to use that way. Non-Verbal Spells and Wandless Magic - A long term talent from the wizards and witches of the tribes, non-verbal spells are far easier for some reason, usable even in the early years of magic teaching. Desert magic is often silent and uses hand movements, so he often practices the spells he is taught at Hogwarts quietly and by the end of his second year he had learned how to say his first spells in silence. Past desert wizards have also used items like jewelry and decorations to fulfill the same connection to magic a wand does. Maybe at some point someone will notice when he forgets and uses one around someone that way. Different Climate Experience - The Sahara is dry and clean, Britain moist and dirty. Things mold here far faster then at home and the air is far harder to breath, almost like he has gone for a run in the Tibesti Mountains. Breathing here in Scotland is a challenge and prevents his normal endurance from being the best he knows it can be. On the plus side, he is improving hugely each summer back home in the desert (which surprising in many places is higher then the Scottish mountains), even as he feels inadequate to the new climate. What most people forget is that humidity also affects those not used to it with extreme temperatures as well making the winters far harder for him here. This might be the most debilitating part of his existence at Hogwarts and he spends a lot of time almost sitting in the fireplaces. Ghosts - While he finds ghosts fascinating and real companions, he can not stand being in physical contact with them. The cold is intensely painful for him, making him jerk away without control. The problem is that the bad ghosts pick this up as much as the good ones enjoys speaking to him so areas where harmful or dangerous ghosts reside are particularly dangerous for him. In fact, dangerous spirits tend to focus on him entirely, drawn to his aura even when they are complacent otherwise. Peeves fortunately does not count as a true ghost so is not as attracted to him as ghosts are. There are fortunately only a couple of places in the Desert he has to watch out; Britain is, unfortunately, filled with many more. There are a few rare dangerous supernatural areas in the world and if he should ever be at one, he will have a reaction to them, but this has not been discovered yet. extras I am Shava, the massively confusing and misunderstood, who prefers the oddest characters imaginable. Enough? Probably for most of you. I've played forever and a day, and this will be my first character on this particular site, or this fancy-dancy application (and you wonder why I never did it on PI you might now have a clue). I understand proboards 5 to some degree, but nothing about this elaborate coding so I am now scared to touch anything else on this page or write too much for fear of screwing up something... ooc |