Appearance

Physical Description

Lean and athletic, with wiry musculature.

Body Features

Scarred hands from ritual burnings, broad shoulders, and a lithe, intimidating stance.

Facial Features

Hidden beneath an iron mask. underneath, sharp cheekbones and intense, calculating eyes.

Physical quirks

Moves silently, stands unnaturally still, tilts head slightly when listening.

Mentality

Personal history

Faroukh al-Zal was born in the dust.

He was born on a night when the hot wind tore at the ragged tents clustered outside Martek’s third bridge, a place of ash and forgotten prayers, a place the priests did not see, or chose not to see. His father was a scribe, a small man with careful hands who kept the Temple’s tax ledgers, his mother sold water beneath the shadow of the Dome of Flame, and they named their boy Faroukh, meaning fortunate, as if words could ever change fate.

Faroukh’s earliest memories were of heat and thirst, the scratch of reed pens on parchment, and the low, resentful murmurs of his father. "The Law is blind," his father would say bitterly, ink-blackened fingers trembling after a long day bent over records that brought him no joy, only bitterness. "It sees only gold and power, not justice." But Faroukh’s mother always hushed him, casting nervous glances toward the towers of the Inner Ring, those high walls that loomed above the poor quarter.

When Faroukh was six, the drought came. It swept through Martek like a plague, burning the earth, drying wells, leaving children hollow-eyed and hungry. His mother was one of the first taken, her life draining away slowly beneath the unrelenting sun, her voice fading until it was nothing more than a dry whisper. Faroukh sat beside her, helpless, listening to her prayers falter and die, hearing her final words, a promise that the One God was watching, always watching.

Then she was gone, and his father’s heart broke like brittle clay. He began drinking the ink meant for parchments, staining his mouth and hands black, ranting against the Law, cursing the priests and their cold justice. Faroukh watched him unravel day by day, until the priests came at last, white-robed figures, with cold iron masks, and dragged his father into the public square to be lashed for blasphemy. Faroukh stood in the dusty square, silent, small fists clenched tight, watching the whip rise and fall, again and again, feeling each stroke as though it fell upon his own back.

When it was over, his father lay bloody and silent, alive but broken, and Faroukh was taken away by rough hands, placed into the care of the Temple Orphanage. He did not cry. He did not speak. He learned silence in those dark halls, learned obedience, learned to watch and to judge. It was there a Murshid first noticed him, a quiet, sullen boy who never complained, never questioned, who seemed to understand silence.

"You are fortunate, boy," the Murshid told him, eyes unreadable in the shadows. "The One God has chosen you."

Faroukh nodded, feeling no fortune.

They took Faroukh from the orphanage on a cold dawn, wrapped him in a coarse wool cloak, and led him silently to the Temple of the Watchers. He climbed the wide stone steps, each one worn smooth by countless feet, to stand beneath arches carved with stern-faced saints whose eyes had long since weathered away. The Watchers of Silence, the men called them, and Faroukh soon learned why.

He was not taught sermons, nor hymns, nor even prayers, but silence. They trained him to move without sound, to hold still for hours beneath a blazing sun, to feel the truth in the way a man breathed, or the shifting of his eyes. A good Watcher did not ask questions, he listened, he observed, and he judged. And Faroukh, desperate to prove himself worthy of the mercy he had been shown, listened harder than any other.

His first lashing came when he was thirteen. The whip had felt too heavy in his hand, the victim, some petty thief, tied before him, eyes wide with fear. Faroukh remembered his father, bleeding in the dust, and his heart had clenched tight like a fist. But the Raqib behind him placed a firm hand upon his shoulder, whispering words so low that only he could hear. "Strike true, boy," the man said. "Or you'll stand there in his place."

Faroukh struck true, and he did not weep. He did not speak. He felt nothing, nothing at all, except the certainty that this was the Law, and he was its instrument.

There, he met Jalen, an older trainee who spoke quietly of things Faroukh had never heard before, words about freedom, about men who chose their own destinies rather than have them dictated by priests or kings. "The Law is not justice," Jalen would whisper as they lay sleepless beneath a ceiling of worn stone, "only order." Jalen kept a hidden cache of scrolls beneath a loose stone, stolen writings from far-off lands, the ring continent of the Asur, the fabled mountainhomes of the dwarves, and most of all, accounts from Imperial Scholars, full of dangerous ideas. Faroukh read them in secret, heart racing with fear and something else, curiosity, perhaps even hope.

But one morning, Jalen was gone. His bedding was neatly folded, the hidden stone replaced as if it had never moved. No one spoke of him again, and Faroukh did not dare ask. Instead, he buried those forbidden words deep inside himself.

Soon afterward, the dreams began. Dreams of flames and shadows, of whispered voices he could not quite hear, of Jalen’s face turned away from him, vanishing into darkness. He would wake, gasping, sweat cold on his skin, heart pounding, and lie awake until dawn broke through the narrow slit of the high window.

Yet still, Faroukh did not question. He trained harder, and his silence grew heavier, a weight pressing upon his soul. His instructors praised his obedience, his discipline.

Faroukh was seventeen when they took him to the Dune of Knives. A place men whispered about, a barren ridge of wind-carved rock and shifting sands, a place haunted by voices, though no one knew whose.He was alone, stripped of everything but his blade and a single waterskin, commanded to walk the narrow track that climbed the ridge. He climbed slowly, each step feeling like an eternity, sun burning at his back, eyes fixed on the trail ahead. He was not to speak, nor stop, nor turn aside. Only to climb, and to listen.

He heard whispers in the hot wind, murmurs like those of the priests, like Jalen’s quiet words, like his father’s bitter curses. He heard laughter and sobbing, pleas and condemnations, all mixed with the dry hiss of sand sliding across stone. Faroukh pressed on, sweat stinging his eyes, heart beating like a drum, until he reached the summit. There, bound to a post driven into the hard earth, a captive waited, head bowed.

The captive raised his head as Faroukh approached, blinking against the blinding sunlight. He was thin, ragged, his skin cracked from thirst, his wrists raw from rope. He looked into Faroukh’s eyes and smiled a desperate, broken smile. "Tell me," the captive rasped, his voice barely louder than the wind, "tell me what law I broke. Tell me, and I will praise your God for justice."

Faroukh stood silent. He knew his duty, knew what was demanded of him. Yet he hesitated, caught by the pleading eyes. The captive searched his face for mercy, for understanding, for something Faroukh knew he could not give.

He raised his blade. The captive’s eyes widened, lips parting as though to speak, but Faroukh was swift and silent, and the blade came down cleanly. It was only later, back beneath the shadowed arches of the Watchers’ temple, that Faroukh heard the whispers of his own doubt. What if the man had been innocent. He would never know. No one spoke of it again, and Faroukh never asked. But in the quiet darkness of his cell, he lay awake, eyes open, hearing the captive’s voice, hearing Jalen’s whispers, hearing his father’s curses, feeling the blade in his hand and the silence in his heart.

Faroukh was sent far from Martek, far from the temples and the high walls, to a place on the edge of nothing. A small town, a scatter of mud-brick buildings crouching beside a road that ran nowhere but to the endless sands. It was called Qasrah, though the name meant little, and there Faroukh lived in quiet exile, the Watcher of Silence among simple folk who feared him.

He was eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and each year passed like a slow trickle of sand through a cracked hourglass. He did his duty well, not from zeal, but habit. He watched, listened, judged, and the people of Qasrah grew accustomed to his silent presence. They brought him their disputes, their fears, their whispers of suspicion, and Faroukh dispensed the Law as he had been taught, without passion, without doubt, and without mercy. Faroukh began to see patterns, patterns he had always suspected but never admitted. The rich merchant who sold watered wine went unpunished because he paid tithe to Martek’s priests, yet a poor widow was lashed for stealing bread. The strong bullied the weak, and the weak suffered silently. And always the Law looked on, silent and unmoving, blind as stone.

Then came the girl. She was perhaps twelve, ragged and thin, accused by a wealthy spice trader of theft and heresy, crimes enough to warrant punishment far beyond her years. Faroukh stood above her, seeing her wide eyes, her trembling hands, her quiet defiance that reminded him, unbearably, of Jalen, of himself, of all those crushed beneath the silence.

The girl looked up at him, fearless, defiant. "Do it, then," she spat. "Punish me like you punish everyone. But don't lie to yourself, don't pretend it's justice." Faroukh stared, the whip heavy in his hand, his heart thundering like war drums. His arm rose, trembled, and fell, not on her, but at his side. He stepped away, turning his masked face from her, from the accusing eyes of the villagers, from the merchant who snarled protests.

"She is innocent," he lied, his voice calm, empty of emotion. "The girl goes free."

... His superior arrived weeks later, suspicious. "Did you spare the girl?" the older inquisitor demanded, coldly. "Did you fail your duty?"

Faroukh met his gaze, felt the weight of the lie heavy on his tongue. And yet, something within him was strangely calm, resolved. "No," he lied again, clearly, steadily. "She was innocent."

The older inquisitor watched him closely, silent for a long moment. Then he nodded, once. "So be it," he said quietly. "Your duty here is ended. You will report to Al-Haikk. You are Raqib now, fully ordained, and you will serve the Law well, as you always have."

Faroukh bowed his head, silent, heart hammering, knowing the lie had changed something inside him. That night he dreamed of flames, again, but this time of the girl, and of a shadowed figure that filled his heart with dread. He woke at dawn, donned his mask, and turned north toward Al-Haikk.

Morality & Philosophy

Faroukh once believed morality was simple, obey the Law, speak the Word, wield the whip only when commanded. But Qasrah changed him. The lie he told to save a child’s life has haunted him more than any command he ever obeyed. Now, his philosophy is caught between old certainty and new doubt. He still speaks the Word, still wears the mask, but his heart is no longer sure. He yearns for clarity, for meaning deeper than punishment and purity.

Personality

Motivation

Faroukh is driven by a deeply internalized need to reconcile justice with mercy. Raised in a world of rigid order, his greatest fear is that he has become an agent of cruelty, not righteousness. His pursuit of truth is what compels him now. He seeks meaning in a world of contradictions, hoping to either prove the Law is truly divine… or dismantle the lie if it is not. He wants to deserve salvation, not merely perform for it.

Quotes & Catchphrases

The wind lies less than most men.

— Faroukh al-Zal

Likes & Dislikes

Likes silent places (deserts, tombs, empty courtyards). The smell of burnt cedar and old parchment. Honest people, even when cruel. Children (though he is distant with them)

Dislikes excessive noise or spectacle, oaths spoken lightly, High Elves and their veiled condescension, and those who quote the Law without understanding it

Social

Birthplace

Dust Quarter, Outer Ring, Martek, Ibaran

Contacts & Relations

Qadi Hassein al-Rakhim: Mentor, austere but subtly fond of Faroukh.

Inquisitor Umar of the Ninth Circle: Rival, suspects Faroukh’s mercy in Qasrah and watches for cracks.

Jalen (deceased?): Childhood friend, lost to the faith's demands, his memory is a wound that hasn’t closed.

The Girl in Qasrah: Unnamed, unknown, but her spared life is the cornerstone of his spiritual fracture.

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Raqib al-Samt, Watcher of the Silence

Family Ties

Father: Hafiz ibn Maajid: once a respected scribe turned suspected heretic, publicly flogged and later disappeared.

Mother: Layla (deceased)

Hobbies & Pets

Enjoys repairing and binding books, his hands are steady and precise.

Occasionally sketches the faces of people he’s judged. He burns the sketches afterward.