Mandalans
Servants of the Kang, their passivity hides a powerful secret.
Personality: Mandalans are, for the most part, a peaceful race of scholars and artisans. They abhor violence, considering militarism to be the domain of unsophisticated and primitive peoples. Conquered by the Quan, they now serve the Kang just as willingly. Mandalans can be found as scholars, historians, personal servants, gardeners, and menial laborers throughout the empire. However, while they have submitted, they have not surrendered and everyday each works in his or her own way to hasten the end of the empire and return freedom to the Mandalans.
Not all Mandalans.are content with passive resistance, however. The Mystic Warrior cult is a secret sect which seeks to turn the Kang’s violence against itself in a campaign of covert nocturnal warfare. While Mystic Warriors favor non-lethal force, they recognize that sometimes there is no other choice but kill or be killed.
Physical Description: Mandalans stand 5 ½ to 6 feet tall and weigh 110 to 180 pounds. They have golden skin, almond-shaped eyes, pleasant features, and shaven heads. Women typically wear their hair in a single golden top-knot. They typically wear simple silkcloth robes and sandals.
Relations: Mandalans are viewed as meek sheep by pretty much everyone. Which is just the way they like it.
Alignment: typically lawful
Mandalan Lands: The Mandalans ancestral home is in the central part of the Kang Empire, but they can be found throughout the Empire serving in whatever capacity is demanded of them.
Religion: Mandalans follow a philosophy they call “the Way” which draws guidance from Nature and encourages its followers to live in harmony with the Omniverse. Wind, water, fire and stone – the forces of nature – are to be channeled and utilized, never for personal gain, but for the greater good. Meditation and quite contemplation are the source of Mandalan wisdom and serenity. Mandalans, Ariane, and Aeriad get along very well.
Language: Quan (the language of the Empire). Most know Talislan as well.
Adventurers: The only Mandalans likely to be found on their own outside the Empire are Mystic Warriors (monks). Typically they have either come west because the heat back home became too intense, or perhaps they are on a mission of their own.
Roleplaying Notes: Nature is your supreme guide and the Way is the philosophy by which you live your life. Every living thing manifests the Way, and is therefore worth understanding. The Way is gentleness and the absence of strife. Resistance should be passive. Be like water against a stone. In time, it will wear away. There is no need for forceful methods of destruction.
Discuss, but never argue, for it is better to withdraw and meditate than to create conflict. Wisdom is greater than knowledge, for without wisdom’s light, mere knowledge cannot be directed for good.
As a Mystic Warrior, you are one of the chosen few who must take an active role in hastening the demise of your enemies. The Quan have fallen, and now it is the Kang’s turn.
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