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[name] Hakem ibn Khalil al-Celebi
[age] 24 - ah, youth.
[physical appearance] Richly tanned skin, deep-set eyes framed by long lashes, thick eyebrows, the beginnings of a quite fashionable beard, a thick mane of black curls, and a long nose - these are all characteristics of a typical man in Hakem's family. That much is perfectly ordinary about him. What stands out are his eyes, one a deep blue and the other a rich, shocking red. He tends to wear a one-eyed mask or an eyepatch, to hide the red one.

[history] Proud, honorable – that’s how Hakem’s family has thought of itself for generations. After all, it’s been a part of his country's very much elite guard for so long. Malgham may be a land that's lacking in acreage, but Hakem’s family has a long history and considers itself wealthy in influence, trade goods, and morality. Both of his parents were guardsmen, and their parents before them (well, his mother’s paternal grandfather was an Outsider, but that’s really of no consequence – it was generations ago, and his bloodline is otherwise pure). As such, Hakem grew up immersed in the values of Malgham's dominant religion. War is bad, and fighting is bad. His family would hold nightly rounds of "peaceful," contemplative discourse over dinner when they weren’t on duty, and as a child Hakem spent much of his time studying histories and the patterns of war.

In war, there is no such thing as victory – only loss. That’s what Hakem’s been taught to believe. So his dreams of joining his ancestors as a venerable member of Malgham’s priest-guard aren’t those of self-sacrifice or of a desire to reach the Gates that Malgham's citizens believe so holy. His actions are born out of a desire to eliminate war that’s been ingrained in him since childhood. Hakam trained in self-defense as a child, and continued to mainly practice defensive maneuvers as a teenager on the cusp of joining the guard. After all, to disable is always better than to kill, or so Hakem believes. Not that Hakem had done much of either in his short life – it’d been enough that he was practicing and trying, right?

His younger sister was born when he was fourteen. As a result, he was constantly called in to help raise her – his parents had been forced to raise him themselves, but as a teenager he was a convenient babysitter when his parents were performing their duties. This obviously cut into his own time for study and training (and entertaining himself with logic puzzles and games), but much more time was taken out of his physical combat training than anything else. After all, that had always been his least favorite part of the day, and he'd never thought it quite as necessary as being able to peacefully convince someone else to the side of Malgham. Hakem believed he needed more knowledge and oral ability to convince others to make the correct judgments about life. He reaped the consequences of that decision as a young adult.

While he’d been training almost all his life, he was very lacking in actual physical ability. He enlisted in the priest-guard at the age of seventeen, but took awhile to be trained to the level of combat ability expected from the Malgham Honor Guard, which is why he was already twenty years of age when he was finally assigned to a guarding rotation. However, he was confident that he’d improve and rank up quickly. How could he not? His ancestors had guarded the Gate for so long he could hardly remember the names of any who hadn’t!

Two and a half years of toil later, he was rewarded with a summons to see the High Priestess - and a notice to begin training for his induction as a guard of the order of red paint, the section of the guard known specifically for guarding the Gates. It was a shock, both to Hakem himself and to his family - most of whom, especially in recent years, were sworn to the order of white paint, a division generally full of hedgewitches and other guardsmen who healed refugees and travelers. A member of the Celebi family, fit for fighting and not for magic? Unthinkable. (Though of course there'd been hints, when candles had never responded to waves of his hand...)

Yet he continued, for he could not conceive of changing the Lady Malgham's mind. A year later, having been inducted, he was given his first great mission: to travel to Sunderland, a missionary for Malgham's cause. Accompanied by a group of hedgewitches and merchants, Hakem set off - and not a moment too late, for the very day he arrived in Sunderland, he began to feel the strangest compulsions...

He's not sure how he'd ever be able to return now.

[personality] Hakem is told he was born knowing exactly what he wanted – that is, to be clean and safe in his mother’s arms. That part of him, he thinks, isn’t a bad thing, because it’s not power he wants but logic and order and polite discussion from all sides. Even as a child, he reasoned with his parents when asking for favors or gifts, and he hated fallible reasoning once he’d learned what it was. He learns from his mistakes and he is extremely passionate about his beliefs, which are both good things, but his zeal for said beliefs often gets in the way of actually getting something accomplished. He’s definitely a pacifist and would prefer to avoid physical conflict as much as possible. Hakem loves a day without bloodshed, and really that’s why he's still so dedicated to Malgham's cause. He does, however, enjoy verbal debate and keeps up with the news, local and otherwise. He does his own research and forms his own opinions, and he likes to think they are the correct ones.

He was a haughty guardsman, however, and was often biased towards fellow guardsmen whose families had not long been parts of the Malgham guard. This didn’t mean that he attacked them, of course! He is (still) a man of peace, and nothing could change that, he's certain. However, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t up for a little snubbing and turning his head away when one approaches, right? Right? He believed that guardsmen who hadn’t belonged to Malgham, so to speak, as long as he had, should follow his advice in almost all things – even more so than he believes others should. And, why, foreigners? He’s certain they’ll convert to his side once he talks to them! His pride drives wedges between himself and others, and has been one of the largest obstacles in his mission to convert - for of course, that is still the goal of his travels here.

As you can see, once he’s formed an opinion, anyone would have a hard time convincing him otherwise. He’s one of the most rational people he knows, after all. His reasoning is definitely sound, and he refuses to budge on any point. And no, you can’t turn thirty degrees instead of forty-five degrees; that’d throw the entire plan off! Hakam assumes that everyone recognizes his judgment as superior (even when it isn’t) and he wants everything to go exactly as he plans it. Naturally, this isn’t always how it turns out...

As a chosen, he's frustrated that the guardian who has picked him, so to speak, refuses to allow him back to Malgham, and he thinks it weak that he cannot stop himself from seeing the images Anselm presses imploringly into his mind. He has no intentions to fight in Sunderland's war. War is loss, after all.

Malgham

Malgham is a small, deeply religious country - think the Vatican, but with a religion that is far less wide-reaching - located on an island. Many of the nameless religion's adherents (called Visitors, for their aim is to travel through what they believe is the gate to heaven) live within its borders, in one of the three towns that surround its central gate (supposedly said gate to heaven, having been corrupted and robbed of color long ago) and temple. It's known for its trade goods, obviously: pottery, poultices and remedies (from a population high in hedgewitches), richly dyed textiles (from its large population of sheep and goats: its only livestock animals), and jewelry. Their weaponry is also said to be of very high quality but in honesty it's mostly shields and daggers, and they don't sell those. It's also known as a place of refuge: it tries to be neutral in every war, and often heals refugees who head its way before sending them back on their way.

Its population is very much saturated in hedgewitches (who generally tend to be diviners or healers; there are some who perform glamours or communicate with animals but they are by far outnumbered by the sort their religion favors: it's a self-selected pool, many think), which is probably the only reason war hasn't overtaken it yet: that and the strong, cultlike ideals of the population. It and the gate are guarded by priest-guards of Malgham's central religion, who are all trained mainly in weaponless self-defense (they aim to knock people out without major injuries rather than killing them or hurting them significantly). The secrets of its central temple and gate are guarded rather jealously, and it's a wonder (or is it?) that the central circle of rulers hasn't been overtaken by corruption. The order of priest-guards that is devoted to divination selects new governors as the previous ones die or retire from Malgham's pool of adults: it's an oligarchy, with a council of five: one for each religious order and a high priest or priestess (often called Lady Malgham regardless of the lady's gender: they are always publicly referred to as female, though) who handles public relations and swears new priest-guards in.

Their official position on Sunderland's newfound war on wolves is that it's infinitely preferable to negotiate with wolves and unseelie fae. After all, war can only end in loss.