Caliph

The woman that would become the Caliph was born Hanan Talibah. She lost her mother very young, and her father was an aide to the Merchant King of the Houses of Dahab, which meant he spent around nine months a year away from their home at Medinat al-Salaam. She was raised by servants, and grew fearful of death and loneliness.

On the eve of her fifteenth birthday, she rummaged through her father's belongings, recently returned from the Senpet Empire, looking for her gift. Instead, she discovered a copy of the Senpet Book of the Dead. Shortly after, her father died. Because she had no other relatives, the Merchant King took charge of his aide's estate, "adopted" Hanan, and auctioned all of her belongings.

She soon had reasons to hate the King, who treated her as his property and was open about his intention to sell her as a wife, as he had done with Hanan's mother. She secretly learnt the Senpet language from a servant and studied the Book, that she had somehow managed to keep hidden. The Book taught her about the Senpet's cosmology, and many secrets. It also had secondary effects over her: her magical ability increased, and her inner fears became full grown obsessions. Finally, from teaching found in the Book, she created a new magical technique - the Ceremony of the Hidden Heart - that allowed her to make her enemies into undead servitors: the Khadi.