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The Qadir, or sometimes called Mansurya, hail from the desert continent of Farahdeen, home of storming sands and the scorching heat. The Qadir are a relatively unseen force in Farahdeen politics due to their related Songaskia replacing their early Sariyd Empire, though large numbers of Qadir still live in their homeland, mostly staying away from the urbanized Songaskia cities. In many ways, the Qadir are a people of habit and tradition, though many outsiders simply see them as stagnant and lacking in ambition. Behind their general demeanor of disinterest in the world’s events however, hides a rich and deep history that suddenly crashed down around them at their zenith, turning them inwards. This innate suspicion also hides a people with exceptional skill in crafts, unrivaled goldsmithing skills, gem cutting precision and an unending thirst for knowledge and machine crafts. Taking the forefront in precision crafts such as glasses and clockworks, the world is starting to take more note of the Qadir as of late, largely due to the newer generations venturing out into the world to remind the other races that their Empire once dwarfed all other Human states. Present day, the Songaskia and Mansuriya are collectively referred to as Qadir, though this is largely based on xenophobic tendencies from outsiders. Only the Mansuriya are the actual Qadir, the Songaskia are merely an assumed subrace.
| Qadir | |
|---|---|
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| Race | |
| Pronunciation | Ka-dir (Maan-soor-ya) |
| Classification | Human. |
| Subraces | Songaskia, Solang. |
| Common Nicknames | Brown-Skins, Book-Priests, Machine-Men |
| Languages | Faraddi |
| Naming Customs | Arabic from Earth. |
| Racial Traits | |
| Maximum Age | 110 years. |
Physical Characteristics
Qadir look very similar to Ailor having the same average framework. Though some of their physical characteristics jump out more, or are much more uniform across all members of this race. Their hair, for example, is uniformly black, often slightly curly or at least wavey, it is almost impossible to find a Qadir with straight hair. Their noses tend to be larger than an Ailor’s, and their jawlines tend to be more square. The men in particular have more aggressive and faster body and facial hair growth than Ailor, and their eyes are always a dark brown color. Their skin is often mistaken for Daendroque, though it is much browner than the Daendroque olive or tanned colored skin. It is often said that Qadir have mysterious eyes, owing largely to their dark eye lashes, giving even men an intense look as if wearing eyeliner. In all other aspects the Qadir are the same as the Ailor.
Meticulous Precision
What sets the Qadir apart from their distant Ailor cousins is their meticulous precision skills. Qadir have unrivaled steadiness in their hands and sharp sight that seems to be far better than that of any other race, even at a distance. Their often ambidextrous hands are capable of crafting the richely and most finely decorated items with extreme precision. It comes to no surprise that the Qadir are the ones who brought clockwork into the world, as well as adjustable lense goggles, glasses, various clocks and finely crafted silverware with intricate patterns. It is often said that the Qadir have such sharp eyesight that they can see the pulp fibers on paper and reverse-engineer a clock simply by looking at its cogs. It comes to no surprise that many Qadir are hired in various nations to establish authenticity of documents, artworks and tell the difference between forged signatures and wax seals.
Mental Characteristics
The Qadir are a very suspicious and paranoid race, largely always on the move or highly defensive of their fortress academies, and fiercely protective of their skills and treasures. Their nomadic existence has largely been forced onto them by the Songaskia, though over time it has become central to their life ideology, in that they feel they have no home since the fall of the Sariyd Empire, even the Hadritya’s are only temporary homes. The Qadir are surprisingly pragmatic and innovative in the fields of scholarly pursuit and new ideas. Their concept of religion is both simple and versatile, leading other races to consider them liberal but very shut off from the world. The Qadir are capable of great charity and compassion for one another, but tend to turn their back on foreigners unless they have proven themselves in service for many years. The Qadir have a natural aversion to magic, it being relatively disallowed in their religion. They also have a severe distaste for fire, the fact that eventually likely lead to the production of clockwork technologies and other electrical mechanisms, owing largely to their fear for dragons despite the fact that they have been extinct for centuries.
History
Qadir history has no clear starting point due to the near complete eradication of the Sariyd libraries during The Great Storm, however from cross referencing Elven history, the existence of the Sariyd Empire has been confirmed as early as 600 BC on the super continent of Farra. Back before the Cataclysm, the continents of Faradh, Farah’deen and southern New Ceardia were one large landmass with bigger rivers dividing them. The Sariyd Empire was generally seen as a weaker competitor of the Elven Empire, but the Elven Empire knew better than to actually engage the Sariyd in combat, who were far better in naval combat with their corsair fleets. The Sariyd Empire seems to have been largely based as a technocratic society, shunning magic and seeking isolation from the world. The Qadir suffered great calamity during the Cataclysm, severely reducing their ability to raid Ailor settlements as the tsunamis and earthquakes hit their lands especially hard. The great continent of Farra was split into three smaller continents and many islands, though the Sariyd Empire recovered and grew stronger in the decades to come after.
The event that eventually cast down the Sariyd Empire and the Qadir, supplanting them with the Songaskia, is referred to as The Great Storm, in 121 AC. The Great Storm occurred after a two decade long campaign by the Sariyd to destroy the Black and Red Desert Dragons, abruptly halting their campaign and utterly destroying their civilization. Over a period of several days, massive sandstorms raged over the Sariyd cities, burying them and their inhabitants under layers and layers of sand, twisting even the environment. Before The Great Storm, Farra was a lush land with many oases and jungles. Just in a matter of a few days, the vast majority of the vegetation on the continent was charred and died. When the sand settled, less than ten percent of the Qadir population had survived, scattered around the land and away from the massive ruined cities. From the dust that settled, the mysterious Songaskia appeared, large armies of darker skinned people with white hair and bright golden eyes. The Songaskia continued to diminish the Qadir even further, pushing them away from watering lands and fertile grounds, starting the new Songaskia Empire.
Present day, the Qadir survive mostly as bandit bands or nomadic tribes roaming the deserts of Farah’deen. Other groups of the Qadir have ventured out into the world, creating fortress academies known as Hadritya’s, places of learning and technological progress with vast libraries, storages and lecture halls. The legacy of the Sariyd Empire is still kept alive among the Qadir outcasts and nomads through oral tradition, however nothing but decrepit ruins remain. The Qadir don’t formally have a nation anymore, but rumor has it that there is one large Qadir city, hidden deep within the Farah’deen deserts where the Qadir attempt to build their Ersah Allwatah.
Society
Qadir society is fairly flat, but strongly dominated by their seemingly conflicting nomadic culture and sedentary intellectual centers, worship of all things technological and their hatred for the Songaskia. The Qadir are always very distrusting of outsiders, but extremely calculative and pragmatic as well. If assisting an outsider stands to benefit them, they would certainly extract as much favor from the situation as they could. There are three kinds of Qadir, the Badawwari Qadir being the nomads, the Aluhalammad Qadir being the scholars living in Hadritya’s and the Allwatah Qadir, those rumored to live in a hidden Qadir capital deep in the deserts. Despite this split of cultures however, every culture is completely identical, the only difference is their preferred habitat. All eventually come together at the Hadritya’s where they pool their knowledge and inventions for the betterment of their whole race.
Politics
Qadir politics is very similar to Dwarven governance in that certain grand inventors or technocratic elders lead their societies from the surface level. Clockwork experts are often held in high esteem among the Qadir, thus filling the role of leader, elder and such, however the technical law giving power of the Qadir are the so called Almuttaq. The Almuttaq are artefacts of great power and mystery, clockwork engines that can seemingly come to life and speak to those who operate them. Very few Almuttaq’s actually exist in the world, intensely guarded by the Hadritya’s inner sanctums. These devices seem aware of the world around them and grant cryptic advice to their operators, the clockwork masters and engineers. For outsiders, the Almuttaq seem heretical and obsolete. The reality however is that whenever a clockwork elder dies, their soul is transported from their dying body to an Almuttaq, adding to the internal collective that is somehow sustained inside the device. As such, every Almuttaq could be considered an elder council in an of itself, which speaks with one voice to guide their people from centuries past. Whatever the exact nature of the devices, they were revered to godhood by the Qadir and their word is often law.
Culture
The Qadir of the outer sands, while a practical people, are hardly a society of base and simplistic existence. The Qadir value, seemingly above all else, innovation and invention, shunning the simpler skin of outside knowledge while delving into the intricate mysteries of their world. It is this sort of innate drive of the Qadir that built their given identity, a kind of self-perception of greater purpose to learn and indulge in knowledge to be found. No mystery or hidden knowledge is too daunting for them, no tome too old to translate or machine too difficult to construct. Qadir have given Aloria some of the most fascinating technological and innovative advances largely unseen or unthought of before. Likewise, their ways of art, fashion, food, and language tend to model this seemingly desperate climb for greater achievement. In the likeliness of artistic gifts, the Qadir tend to value productivity, efficiency, and innovative use -- Qadir art tends to not be art because it is beautiful, but because it is so intricately made, modeled, and researched that it creates its own beauty, at least to the Qadir. Qadir carvings often resemble complex patterns of cog works, symmetrical and geometric shapes, granting a much more machine-like appearance to their art as opposed to for example the organic styles of the Elves or the crude squares of the Dwarves. Qadir fashion is also not a movement of adornment and useless decoration, but of glamorous function and perhaps sometimes outrageous invention. Bracelets always have some sort of tool function hidden in them, earrings can be keys and even the lining of a shirt can be used as a makeshift copper coil wire. Food for the Qadir is perhaps more base in this, as it is usually a stale mock-up of whatever can be locally grown or hunted. Qadir language, however, is eloquent and perhaps even elegant, each word or phrase calculated for intellectual or perhaps more meaningful prose and elaboration. Despite the divided classifications of Qadir, each sort of sect tends to maintain largely homogenous tracts and threads of cultural identity, namely stemming from the shared history of the lost Sariyd Empire, the achievements made therein, and perhaps the future achievements to come.
Religion
The Qadir uniformly believe in the divinity of the Esrah Alwattah, the belief that the world’s gods are long dead and that mankind should construct its own divine being to protect it. The Qadir once had a complex polytheistic religion in the times of the Sariyd Empire, counting over 2400 gods and goddesses, however with the collapse of their Empire, the Qadir blamed the gods, or more specifically claimed the gods had died and failed. With that thought in mind, notable Qadir prophesied that with their technical skills, the Qadir would construct a new god, the Esrah Alwattah. The Almuttaq’s were early prototypes, some several centuries old which continue to guide the Qadir people into the future. All innovations and inventions made by the Qadir can through one way or another be related back to the Esrah Alwattah and their wish to give life to a massive clockwork giant, powered by the soul energies of thousands. The Qadir have always had a long aversion from magic, ever since their original Sariyd religion. They have always believed Magic was something belonging to the gods and mankind should not have the hubris to meddle with the powers of the gods. With the fall of the Sariyd Empire however, it was deemed that soul Magic was in fact magic for the Qadir. It allowed the Qadir to take control over their own souls, and use it to fuel the creation of the Esrah Alwattah and the continued functioning of the Almuttaq’s. Most Qadir families or individuals have some form of small clockwork shrine, often disguised as a clock, on which they have incense and bring small coin offerings. The religion of the Qadir is however very disorganized and personal. There are no temples or priests, no communal worship. The Qadir simply engage in wishful thinking in private and devote themselves to technological progress for the benefit of the Esrah Alwattah.
Combat and Warfare
The Qadir don’t often engage in war as they never formally form nations. Their Hadrityas are perhaps the most well guarded fortresses, and most local rulers tend to ignore them as conquering a Hadritya has no real advantage to a ruler. Most of the technology within does not work in the hands of those without the skill to operate them, and Qadir have been known to use explosives to destroy anything of value if their home was at risk. The Qadir have developed various peculiar devices, switch blades and gear powered crossbows with foldable parts. Qadir weapons have never been particularly strong or made for war, rather they were made to be compact and easily transportable. Re-assembly is one of the strong suits of the Qadir soldiers, especially when it is considered that their weapons cannot effectively be captured by others as they would not possess the knowledge to assemble the weapons into functional condition. The Qadir often favor a very defensive stance, using ranged weapons over close combat. When in close combat however, Qadir fight with ferocity, often using so called Saqdaqs, gloves with short sword sized blades embedded into them like extended hands.
Economy and Technology
Qadir trade is surprisingly dependent on major nations, especially Regalia. The Qadir have a bit of a unique relation with the Regalians in that they provide Regalia with engineers and mechanics as well as basic prototypes and inventions for war, while Regalia provides them with a seemingly endless supply of iron ore and forgers to craft the intricate parts the Qadir need. It could be said that the Qadir are even fully dependent on Regalia to continue their technological pursuit, though they would often deny this. Inversely, it could be said that Regalia is assisting the cause of heresy by working with the Qadir to build their Esrah Alwattah, however the Regalians are reportedly extremely interested in the war-time applications of clockwork machines powered by the souls of fallen soldiers. As such, the Qadir economy can best be described as an uneasy cooperation between the Qadir and the Regalians, with what little is left of the independent Qadir economy mostly being geared towards agriculture and husbandry.
Trivia
- An Almuttaq once went “insane”. When activated, the cogs started whirring and the entire machine started emitting high pitched shrieking noises until it finally ruptured an important hydraulic valve and the entire thing shut down. Later it was discovered Void Essence had somehow seeped into the machine and infested the soul essence within.
- The exact location of the Esrah Alwattah is unknown to most if all Qadir. The Almuttaq guide their people to provide for the hidden Qadir city, though are never clear where the supplies go, or what they are. Some Qadir have rumored that the Esrah Alwattah actually doesn’t exist, and that errant machines are misguiding their people to keep them safe from the truth, that they are a dying species that will never reclaim their place in history.
- Qadir make excellent Soul Mages due to their meticulous precision. Their ability to clearly see the logic of intricate things has somehow translated to their ability to pluck at various parts of a person’s soul and extract them in only half the time of any other race performing the same spells.
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