Shaganate

"Night reigned over sands as black as coal, The hills stood tall and silent like dark sentinels ever watchful over their lands, The few tufts of bladed grass whispered softly in the wind as the sparce and bitter waters trickled almost fearfully away towards the sea.

Bleached bones stood as epitaphs to vanquished creatures and fallen men unburied and unmourned seemingly part of the landscape as much as the jagged black rocks that protruded from the ground around them like the teeth of a hungering god giving the land of feeling of quiet dread.

Silently through the night the shagar glided clad as black as the sands they walked over as if cut from the fabric of the night itself, even as the sun rose they fell into the shadows like forgotten nightmares moving amongst the sentinel hills."

The Shagar are a slave race much like the Jackals of the South, They guard the Iron Sand hills in the northernmost part of the empire and hold the foretresses against Miletia and the Draconians of Hysinburushin.

Shagar are all owned by citizens of the empire, Their achievements and honours are sahred by their owners and also by their clans, Some citizens will buy slaves in the same clan to show a sense of solidarity and unity even on a superficial scale.

The Shagar clans are a legacy of their days as nomadic warring tribes, The title of clan-chief is essentially defunct and is not recognised by the empire, They instead bestow the Title "Regional Indigenous Co-Ordinator" but to the shagar these men are still their chieftains.

Shagar have a very strong sense of honour, unlike other races though this honour has nothing to do with Justice, Duty or Loyalty and is borne completely out of a towering sense of Pride and Arrogance, Every shagar sees his Clan as the foremost example of Ruthless Might in the empire, and every shagar privately considers himself the most exemplary member of his clan.

Competition among shagar is very common, until their conquest by the empire the shagar slaughtered each other at every given opportunity, Now they must request permission to begin a bloody duel from their Clan Chief, This process is called "Wer Wishidar" and will usually require the shagar to provide the funds to replace themselves for their owner should they fall, needless to say the more accomplished the shagar the less likely they will be allowed to duel.

The sands of shagar are dense iron sands that are coarse and black, This combined with the heat and the sun makes the land incredibly hot during the day and incredibly cold at night, Many travel to the shagar hills thinking themselves well adjusted due to time in the central chimerian desert but are unprepared for the more humid heats and freezing dew of the nights.

Shagar buildings appear tiny at first glance, A single room is visible are spaced far apart in a seemingly hazardous manner, this is because the shagar buildings are mostly subterranean, The first room is the entrance hall where anyone may enter, The first floor is the guest hall for visitors and dignitaries, the second floor is reserved for friends and allies, The third is for Family and children, The fourth is personal quarters for those living in the house and the fifth floor is the armoury and secret vaults of the men of the house.

The shagar use small ammounts of money to trade with imperial citizens but maintain their own small economies based on a barter system, This allows the slaves to be more free to fund their own posessions and equipment as opposed to Jackals who are more state controlled, Each clanchief has a delegation of Imperial Enforcers who are exempt from normal shagar customs, These men do not speak and will examine every floor of a shagars home to make sure they comply with the empires codes of living, They also make sure no slave gains more wealth or influence than is appropriate and will execute anyone they think is attempting to move above their station.

Shagar society has a very sadistic outlook, Empathy and Pity are relatively non-existent, Humour is usually related to pain or misfortune and songs and artwork are usually related to battle, They have a coming of age ceremony where the shagar scar their faces to show their indifference to pain and willingness to bleed for the empire, Shagar are also known to torture prisoners and massacre civilian populations if given the chance.

Shagar clothing is usually fairly light fitting linen materials in dark colours, They also carry heavy woolen overcoats to be worn at night, They favour light to medium armour and stealth is seen as an essential part of combat, Although the shagar are great fighters their inherent mistrust of eahc other and sense of self superiority means that the mesh poorly into unified fighting forces and are incapable of the discipline of other armies, This means that while a shagar is a fearsome foe on an individual scale they tend to become less effective the more of them there are trying to work together, They tend to favour curved blades like falchions and scimitars and small compound bows.

The shagar also make up a large part of the empire secret assassin force they call "The Order of Eternal Slumber" Which has the creed that if any man even dreams of betraying the empire or the triumverate they will stay in that dream forever and never awaken.