#thank you for attending this Lore Dump(TM)

[thereluctantinquisitor]

Sorry for the repost @chaitea09​ but for some reason Tumblr is refusing to put the cut in the right spot??? So I’ve just redone it here to save everyone from the wall of text! Anyway, on to round 2:

So, just for context, Kyriin is not technically a name, it is a title used in place of a name. There are technically two Kyriin that feature in the story, but both receive handy nicknames from the people closest to them (Kyri for one, Riin for the other). How convenient, no?

So basically, the Kyriin are a rank of warriors who hail from an isolated city called Kal-Kriya, deep in the desert to the west. Because there’s a bit of Lore for both the Kyriin and Kal-Kriya, I’ll just break this into two parts and put it below the cut. This got long af imsosorry:

Kal-Kriya

The city of Kal-Kriya is largely underground, built into the sides of an enormous caldera. Being situated deep in an unforgiving desert, it is essentially a mystery to the rest of the known world, with majority of what is known about it spread through myth and legend (and often wildly untrue). No one really knows where it is or how to find it. Basically, all who have set out into the Reddesan Desert in search of it have not returned. Whether they found what they were looking for or succumbed to the harsh landscape and deadly beasts that roam the sands, no one can truly say.

Essentially, what is now known about Kal-Kriya is that it is the first line of defense for basically all of the kingdoms to the east. The desert is home to many deadly creatures, kept largely at bay by the Kal-Kriyan hunters and warriors. How they do it is an utter mystery to the eastern kingdoms, but the Kyriin (more on them later) definitely leave them with a lot of spicy theories.

Historically, Kal-Kriya was formed not long after the Divide. It is said that a large group of defectors from the great city of Khathis (which later became the heart of the Khathi Empire) were herded into the Reddesan and left to die. However, after a day or so of wandering, a figure appeared on the dunes ahead of them, loosely formed from swirling sand. It began to lead the exhausted and thirsty group deeper into the desert. With nowhere else to go, they followed, the figure always remaining a few dunes ahead, swirling and shifting like a mirage. Eventually, after almost a month of being led from oasis to oasis, surprisingly unaccosted by any of the desert creatures, they came across a large caldera, at the heart of which a lake had formed. The soil around it was surprisingly fertile, with plants they had never seen before already growing in thick tangles, and the walls of the caldera were interspersed with large, circular caverns, as though they had been dug out many hundreds of years ago by something enormous (and, luckily, long gone).

Basically, they began to set up their city in these large caverns, expanding them as needed, farming the land within the caldera to support themselves. Rain is rare, but there is an underground reservoir that keeps the lake from drying out completely, even after extensive droughts. The figure who guided them there became known as ‘Shei-tah’ (‘stone-mother’), and is believed to dwell in the sand and stone of the Reddesan. She became the patron deity of Kal-Kriya and plays an integral role in the formation and function of their society to this day.

One of the main duties performed by Kal-Kriyans is the scouring of the desert, particularly near the caldera, and the hunting of the beasts that attempt to either enter their lands or move further east, towards the outskirts of the desert. Basically, it is in their best interests to keep these creatures as far to the west as possible, as well as to prevent them from growing too large in number. The ones they target are large predators, which are often heavily armoured and possess lethal poisons. It was definitely a rough few decades, as they established their city and struggled with the threats around them. But they eventually developed techniques suited to keeping the creatures at bay, either by killing them or forcing them to retreat deeper into the desert. Now, specially trained groups of Kal-Kriyan’s roam to the north and south, hunting beasts of various species and returning with food from the carcasses and collecting certain parts that can be refashioned into armour, clothing and weapons. If they need to make a kill, very little goes to waste. It is one of the ways they are able to self-sustain so well, with the lack of traditional livestock and limited agricultural space.

In terms of their relationships with the cities beyond the desert, Kal-Kriya historically kept to itself until the Khathi Empire attempted to find and seize it somewhere in the 2nd century. While their army never successfully reached the city, they came close enough to cause alarm, which led to a delegation being sent from Kal-Kriya to negotiate an accord. Initially, this negotiation failed, with the Khathi soldiers seizing the delegation as prisoners and trying to get them to give up the location of their home.

So, the Kal-Kriyans retreated into their city, sealed themselves inside, and let the creatures of the desert swarm west.

While the Khathi Empire had outposts all along the border of the Reddesan, where they intercepted and killed the few creatures that managed to make it that far, they were in no way prepared for how many suddenly appeared. After a few weeks of desperate defense, Khathis agreed to re-enter negotiations with Kal-Kriya, who sent one (1) warrior, blessed by Shei-tah’s highest priests, capable of surviving the now incredibly hostile distance between the city and the Khathi army. One of the most distinguishing features were the dark tattoos that seemed to snake along his arms, legs, torso, hands, feet, even up his neck and vanishing into his hairline. He arrived, and basically declared that the Khathi had to ‘leave and never send their army here again’. Given the situation, Khathis wasn’t in a very strong bargaining position, with their own army falling apart at the seams from the heat and the near constant attacks by the denizens of the desert. So they agreed on one condition: Kal-Kriya had to have some presence outside the desert. Basically, they didn’t trust them hiding away the way they did, so there needed to be some means of communication available.

This is when the Kyriin (meaning ‘Chosen’) were officially formed, with the negotiating warrior becoming the first of the order.

The Kyriin

The Kyriin are highly trained warriors, all tattooed in the likeness of the first of their order. Basically, every ten years, ten Kyriin are sent from Kal-Kriya to the eastern kingdoms, where they will roam until they accept an offer (this usually happens within the first month, if not the first day, as noble houses send family members to camp at the edge of the Reddesan so they can make their offers as soon as the Kyriin set foot outside the desert). It is largely a symbolic act, as holding a Kyriin’s contract is considered a rare honour that indicates power and prestige. However, the Kyriin are essentially sworn to the one they enter an agreement with, and often serve as bodyguards to powerful people due to their combat skill. There are rules and such that they have to follow (such as not participating in wars, giving away information on Kal-Kriya, or harming another Kyriin) but I won’t go into them here.

After ten years spent in the eastern lands, their contracts end and they return to Kal-Kriya with whatever they gained from their contract (goods, knowledge, technology, etc.), and the new group of Kyriin arrive.

But there is another reason why so many fight for a contract.

There is one among the ten Kyriin known colloquially as a the “black-eyes” (or the krea morei). This warrior is said to be able to perform unbelievable feats of strength that greatly surpass anything that could be considered human. However, they are utterly indistinguishable from the other Kyriin, tattooed and dressed identically, and forbidden to reveal themselves prior to receiving a contract. Even after taking a contract, the only time they are discovered is if they need to use their strength for some reason, and sometimes a decade passes without the krea morei ever being revealed. They receive the name ‘black-eyes’ because, when they are truly exerting themselves, the whites of their eyes appear to flood black. If anyone got close enough, they would see it’s actually a dark red (a result of blood vessels bursting from the strain being placed on their bodies), but basically anyone who had gotten close enough to tell the difference hasn’t lived to spread the Good News™.

Lots of superstition surrounds the krea morei, with some noble houses only offering contracts to the first Kyriin to emerge from the desert (as they must be the strongest and fastest), and some only offering contracts to the last (because they were clearly not threatened by the dangers of the desert and therefore made the crossing at a leisurely pace). In the end, it’s all crap, because they’re not some strange hive-mind that all operate the same way. While they all call themselves Kyriin and leave their true names behind in Kal-Kriya (chiselled into stone, to be reclaimed upon their return), they are still distinctly individuals who will arrive whenever they happen to arrive. There is also a desperate desire to work out what makes the krea morei ‘tick’ (so to speak) but so far no one has been able to work it out.

So, Kyri is a member of this order (and, spoiler, the resident krea morei). Basically she arrives at this gathering of the nobility at the edge of the desert… and just walks straight past them. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. This is unheard of, but the reason for it is because, since leaving Kal-Kriya and venturing into the desert, she has been receiving visions from Shei-tah, showing her powerful flashes of places and landmarks, accompanied by emotions of fear, pain and desperation, as well as an urgent compulsion to head east no matter what (this is the extent to which Shei-tah can really communicate). All Kyri knows is that she needs to keep heading east, and if she takes some noble’s contract, she might not be able to do that. She cannot risk splitting her attention and time.

So, she starts to head east, unsettled, uncertain, and unbound by contract, hunting for the scenes from her visions which get weaker the further she ventures from the Reddesan. Eventually, she starts to realise that she can’t do this on her own, and needs to find people who can help her. This is what leads to her liberating Taelan (one of the Morithi, who are people from the eastern isles that possess an uncanny sense of direction and never forget a path they have walked) from his master. Eventually, they also join up with Delver and Syldana.