Kalahan

Kalahan
Type	Targai tribe
Leader	King Hithrausa
Scope	Abanir

The Kalahan (pronounced KAH-lah-han) are a targai tribe within Abanir. They are best known for the devotion to the Chaskan goddess Aduntarri and for their vigilance against the qlippoth that occasionally emerge from planar rifts beneath the Northern Wall.

Location

For the most part, the Kalahan remain near the Great White Lakes in northern Abanir. Sometimes they venture farther south to trade before returning to the cold lands they call home.

Demographics

Most of the Kalahan are human, but they also count half-elves and half-orcs amongst their number.

Culture

Religion

Unusually, the Kalahan follow not the typical Abaniri faith but rather worship Aduntarri, a deity within the Chaskan pantheon. Around Y9590^* independent missionaries from Viridia began to cross the steppe, proselytizing to any who would listen. They found little interest, in general, but the Kalahan were an attentive audience to clerics of Aduntarri in particular, and within the next decade the tribe had converted.

To the Kalahan, their activities against the qlippoth are a religious calling. They view themselves as protectors of the steppe against the extraplanar creatures that would otherwise threaten it. The tribe does not build temples or even have clerics serve as religious leaders. Rather, to Kalahan their actions alone speak to their faith.

But the religion of the Kalahan is not quite the same as how others might worship Aduntarri. They still acknowledge the gods of the Abanir pantheon, and especially the Nameless One, who they believe to be the the one who drives the qlippoth into the world. These deities are rarely worshiped, however, aside from by two clans within the tribe who have clung especially tightly to their previous faith. Similarly, the tribe continues to construct wood and bone horse effigies after successful battles, a practice otherwise associated with the Abaniri goddess Uxtama.

Society

patrols of the foothills and nearby steppe. war-clerics specializing in mounted combat.

generally good relations with other targai and gatai tribes, they don't involve themselves in broader strugges in abanir, pretty dedicated.

Art

It is common for the Kalahan to etch petroglyphs into rock faces near locations where they fought a victorious battle. These commemorations of their triumphs are very often larger than life, imagery twenty to thirty feet tall depicting both their defeated foes and their fallen comrades. The petroglyphs sometimes serve as sites for contemplation and prayer as well, especially for funerals before the dead are interred in their ancestral tombs hidden beneath the steppe.

Horses kept by the Kalahan, and especially those they ride into battle or during hunts, are often painted purple and blue in Aduntarri's holy colors.