Let's meet our cast.
Jadid Ahad: Monk
Jadid is not particularly tall nor handsome. His face, along with ritual scarring, shows the effects of hundreds of hours of sparring, fighting, and broken bones. His grey eyes are penetrating, especially offset by his deep, golden-brown skin. He is wide, though not quite stocky. A lifetime of training has led his body to be quite fit and muscular.
Jadid is customarily clad in his ceremonial temple clothing. he wears loose white pants tucked into taped-up soft boots on his feet. A white sash serves as a rudimentary belt. His torso is often unclad, displaying the ritual scarring through burns that adorn his chest and back (serpents on the back, sun imagery on the front). When training or expecting combat, he often wraps his forearms in white linen tightly, but otherwise more burned tattoos show there. As is traditional for his order, scarves also cover his mouth and nose in all but the most intimate settings. His hair is kept long, as he is only to cut it when defeated in combat. It is a huge disgrace to see one of his order with short hair.
The man now known as Jadid Ahad was the son of Bedouin pilgrims lost in the Wastes. They stumbled up on the fabled Bayt Min Uf"uwan min Raml, the home of an ancient order of mystical desert fighters. While the parents did not survive much longer, the ascetics raised the infant in the ways of their order. He has since been trained in their unique fighting style that relies much on both acrobatics, devastating quick strikes, and painful grapples. He was taught from a very early age where weak joints are, what parts of the body can be easily exploited or hurt, etc.
Though those that find this temple on their own often live the rest of their lives there, it is customary for someone raised there to be sent into the world in order to learn what life outside is like. It is desired, but not required, for them to return at some time to update the temple on the ways of the outside world.
Training in the arcane is often common for these monks, but while Jadid has learned of magic, he has displayed no ability to produce it on his own. Now 17, a man of his order, he was sent out with his first name (which means "New One," as all other such orphans are named when they first leave the temple) in order to find his path. He knows of good and of evil, he knows of many things intellectually, but it is now his time to experience them. He seeks knowledge, experience, and to further his abilities.
Gerber Loewe: Knight
Gerber was born to a pair of travelling Prustan merchants in the town of Kartare under somewhat mysterious circumstances, in that his mother was not known to have been with child. His parents tended not to stay in one place very long, though they seemed to be well-known with certain elements wherever they went.
Gerber was treated well by the Loewes, and by their friends, but their bustling lifestyle left the boy with a feeling of inconstancy. He took an early interest in religion, much to his family's chagrin. He left them at 15 and became a page boy for a knight of Lothian he'd met in Tarsis.
The knight insisted that (the physically adept and strong of heart) Gerber train to someday join the order. And so he did train. And so he did join. At age 22, his initiation was the proudest day of his short life.
Surprising to Gerber, knighthood was mostly uneventful. It was ninety-nine percent training and tedium punctuated with brief moments of excitement and terror. Still, he enjoyed his life and his work...he remained physically adept and remained strong of heart. Until the politics crept in.
Control of Gerber's order fell to a new liege, Commander Rajali, and a new group of knights assumed leadership. His mentor vanished suddenly in the night one summer, and no actions were taken to look for him. Those who spoke up were punished and eventually fell in line or quit to be replaced by new recruits. Naive young Gerber kept quiet, hoping for the whole thing to blow over.
It did not blow over. Eventually, during a quest that was morally dubious to begin with, Gerber was given an order so distasteful that he could not in good conscience comply. He was ejected from the order and banished from the Empire to the land of Uraq over the sea to the south, where he lived in poverty and drunkenness until Garavel recruited him to help liberate and reestablish the city of Kelmarane.
Gerber is 6'3" and 220 lbs., but most people don't realize it because of the way he carries himself, usually hunched over in tattered robes. His dark brown hair has grown to his shoulders and his beard is embarrassingly unkempt.
Mahjub Mutawalli: Rogue
Mahjub stands at 5'10", tanned of skin despite his life in the city, and is on the thinner side but not without his fair share of muscle. He has a handsome face, one that barely betrays his half-elven ancestry but for his slightly pointed ears. He is often clean shaven, both on his face and head, and those few close to him judge how busy he's been by the length of stubble he's grown, as he's become accustomed to spoiling himself with the comfort of a paid shave by a trusted hand whenever he can. Those who've met and/or employed Mahjub consider him charming and witty, the quintessential city man. He makes a decently profitable living offering himself out as a guide to city newcomers, a go-between among the traders, a bargainer/procurer of items ranging from the mundane to the rare, as well as a man connected with the shady underbelly of the city.
Mahjub grew up orphan-like on the streets of the city, and despite most people assuming a human man raped an elven woman when noticing his features, the truth was his mother was a human whore used and paid for by an elven noble (or so his mother claimed, but few believed.) She considered the child a burden and rarely cared for him, which left him no choice but to fend for himself on the streets, spending many of his formative years in and around the city and its most infamous market, begging and stealing to survive. The strange and often horrific sights he saw there forced him to grow up fast.
Once Mahjub reached his teenage years he often liked to offer his services out merchants, facilitating deals and offering up protection. It was in this capacity that he was often beheld as the de facto leader of a group of young rogues angrily referred to as "Karam's Street Rats", most assuming that he himself was the elusive Karam and posing as his own spokesman. Though he has never admitted to such an identity or affiliation, most merchants in the city would not deny that a kind word and a few coins slipped into Mahjub's palm seemed to uncannily protect their goods from ceaseless minor thefts that can wear away at profits. Mahjub even claims to have been employed on occasion by Lucky Farouq himself, one of the most popular and reputable merchants in the city.
A man of young (half-elven) age and experience, Mahjub makes a decent living offering these same services and more to all visitors and residents of the city. His mother, long since retired from whoring once word of Mahjub's successes as an essential contact about town reached her ears, lives in a modest home and wants for little, though it could hardly be said that her son spoils her, to her own chagrin.
Abud al-Jabiri: Beguiler
Abud is 45 years old, 5'7 inches and weighs 130 pounds. His pale skin is always covered by a robe that has been harshly punished by the sun. His eyes are green, his smile ingratiating and his manners composite and fine. His skin sports several scars and tattoos, but that does not mean they are real.
A 45 year old desert half-elf, Abud likes to live a fine life. The harsh, punishing desert only intrigues him, as he wonders how many secrets ths silent sands hold.
He left his family several years ago and travelled the deserts until he found Uraqi. He has a gift for languages and for arcane magic. He believes an honest day's pay for another day's work is something that should happen to other people. He likes a good story, a great tale and to see how far he can take a lie.
He's been passing himself as a sorcerer and is always on the look-out for adventuring parties going to the desert, so he can get his share of gold without too much trouble.
He's friendly, easy-going and always manages to duck out of any heavy labor. Folks never seem to mind.
Dima Ughruda al'Badiya: Sorceress
While her parents are well established in Rashadar, Dima's family come from a tribe that settled at a large oasis on a desert trading route. Her Grandfather is still there as the current patriarch of a permanent community. There's a favourite story they love to tell from many, many generations back; of a Djinn, an Efreet, and a Marid who found the oasis during a sandstorm and blessed it and the family for their hospitality. The tradition of welcoming travellers and trading goods continues, with the proceeds sent to town and sold at the family's market stalls. The suspicion of jinn ancestry might have something to do with the occasional appearance of a child with magical abilities; Dima was the only one currently known in the tribe, but her sister Mehri has now discovered her own abilities as well. When the twins were born, Mehri came first, and then as Dima was delivered the heavens opened with the annual rains. Grandfather has indulged the girls perhaps a bit too much after such an auspicious beginning; they're the apples of his eyes and he hasn't been as quick as he might to try and arrange husbands. He knows they'd never agree to it anyway.
Dima left Rashadar to search for her twin who had vanished. Rumours of a girl fighting in the battle markets led her to joining an expedition for the Pactmasters to retake Kelmarane.
Dima and her twin, Mehri were well known in the markets of Rashadar and now Kelmarane; identical brunettes with large dark eyes, prone to impromptu dancing outside their family perfume and silks stalls bringing traffic to a standstill. Unwanted attention is quickly rebuffed, as Dima is a sorceress of some ability and not afraid of enforcing a "back off!" She exudes a very outgoing girlie-girl demeanor.
Abu'l-Faraj Muhammad bin Is'haq al-Nadim: Cleric of Hannan
Abu'l is a quiet, stern imam of Hanan, coming to spread the word of his lord.