Keshral

Keshral is a kajtlemta individual, quite ill-tempered and—unusual for his kind—someone who prefers to be alone.

He was born upon a wuquezu thrall-colony, a resourcing world where unfree kajtlemta were forced to operate heavy machines to extract ore far underground. This was dangerous and backbreaking work, and it brought no end of sorrow and suffering to the wolf-people. As a small child he discovered that he was one of a vanishingly small number of kajtlemta of that age in possession of the Second Form. But this too brought him naught but grief; as soon as the ravenfolk overseers discovered this they singled him out for the harshest workloads, pressing him into service even as a young adolescent. He keeps only a few memories from that time, but still burns with resentment that the other kajtlemta did little to help lighten his burden.

Eventually, the colony was raided by a gwemoueb hweba warband. The gwemoueb hweba despise slavery in all its manifestations, and have always been willing to take huge risks in order to liberate forced laborers of any kind. Their assault went awry—many wuqueren and kajtlemta alike died—but the survivors were indeed freed, and most were let off on one of the free kajtlemta worlds to the far galactic west. But Keshral chose to stay with the gwemoueb hweba and soon picked up many useful skills: how to fly a starship or aim its weapons batteries, hand-to-hand fighting techniques against foes too reliant on their guns, and the flaws inherent to the code securing many common types of computer systems. It was the last of these that allowed him to finally steal a warship from the gwemoueb hweba who had taken him in. Thus began his journey as mercenary, pirate, and (very occasional) hero.

While most kajtlemta of the present age are rather gentle and amicable, or at least reasonable and honorable, Keshral enthusiastically leans into the menace inherent to his rather predatory appearance, and is quite willing to threaten the other First-Awoken folk he meets in order to get what he wants. He has still not forgotten the feeling of being at the complete mercy of a hated enemy, and gets a rush when he has the chance to inflict it upon someone else (even if he has no intention of actually hurting them). This has not endeared him to many, and as of late there has been a nagging voice in the back of his mind asking him how he thinks he'll end up. Although he is outwardly full of braggadocio about how he plans on dying a spectacular death taking down as many of his enemies as he can, sometimes he wonders whether he might once again find himself utterly helpless, perhaps against a nemesis, perhaps against inescapable doom.

He is a dangerous opponent—not only a strong and vicious one, but also clever and full of tricks. Many who thought him only an angry brute underestimated him thus, and paid for it dearly. His small band of followers is quite diverse: it has included serrulitir whose criminal convictions banned them from serving aboard Kesemlir ships, gulofolk tired of their empires' seemingly-eternal wars against the wuquezu flocks, and brash Root Brethren hoping to make his fights theirs as well. They have invariably been united by a severe, sometimes grudging respect for each other, and a tacit understanding that the claim to leadership is always theirs to make...but the price of challenging him and failing is death.