Ardeshir ibn Raham

Age: 20

Appearance: Ardeshir is tall, with a wiry build, honed by years of exercises intended to help compensate for his half-crippled leg. His black hair is short, and his braid is thin and braided, in the fashions of old Tasaikandan shahs. He wears linkstone gems as earrings, and wears a simple crown made of obsidian: forged from a gift given to his ancestor Jahan, from the legendary Ixtana.

He dresses in the finest and latest fashions, in silken robes or leggings and vests. He makes a point to never be armed, even when going into battle. His dark blue eyes are often adorned with kohl, mostly to hide the bags beneath his eyes that are a result of long nights studying sorcery.

History: Ardeshir was born in a palace marred by intrigue and infighting. His father's wife bitterly loathed children like Ardeshir, who had been born of concubines. His mother died in a mysterious riding accident, and other concubines and their children suffered mysterious fates, or were accused of treachery and exiled or executed.

Ardeshir himself was poisoned by an unknown assassin, and the attack caused nerve damage so significant that it left one of his legs almost entirely lame.

But rather than wallow in self-pity, he threw himself into the studies of the gods and sorcery, rediscovering the eldritch secrets of the old, traditional gods of Tasaikand.

Since his brother has been planning for his great maritime expedition, Ardeshir has been all but ruling Tasaikand. He has embraced a strange philosophy that is both traditionalist and one of reform: he wishes to rekindle the golden age of Tasaikand and the worship of his people's ancestral gods, but wishes to bring about such a golden age by reforming or systematically abolishing slavery.

He has freed the slaves used to construct new temples and other royal projects, and those skilled workers in turn have established business or taken up traditional employment, allowing them to be taxed, boosting Tasaikand's coffers, and has encouraged the nobles and governors of Tasaikand to follow suit.

This has been met with some grumbling, but since he has only encouraged emancipation or freed his own personal slaves, there has been no outright resistance or protests from the slave-owning merchants and nobility.

He has recently proven himself as a wartime leader as well. When a rogue governor of a Tasaikand border province hired mercenaries to enslave Kyrami villagers in the border-mountains, the Shah of Kyram responded by declaring war and invading.

Rather than fight in pitched battles, Ardeshir used his sorcery to reroute rivers to delay the enemy, and cause great fogs to roll in that confused and delayed the enemy further. And during the confusion of the bloodless war, he arranged for the death of the renegade governor, and delivered his head to the Kyrami shah, and peace was soon agreed to.