Raziel Nazaret is every inch Solterran. Made from salt flats and drought, he is the legacy of an ancient people and the desert does not, for one moment, let us forget it. The dark man exudes Solterra's harsh aridity in every sharp, angular line of his frame and each curve seems to glint like a knife-edge beneath torchlight. From behind bruised-violet eyes he observes; though do not expect to catch expression in the shadows. At seventeen hands he is not short of height -- nor muscle; but no desert serpent is without its weaknesses and Raziel’s has always been the sea; a lion on land becomes a stone within water; certainly you will not catch this Solterran wandering the Terrastellan shore.

If gold is the currency of the sand dunes of the north, then Raziel is its merchant. It is the accent to his dark coal skin; slashing through his mane and tail like streaks of sunlight against a smoke-hewn sky. Speaking of which, Raz has long adopted the habit of his house to keep his hair cut short and sharp; some say it is to highlight the guttural severity of the Nazaret silhouette; others simply acknowledge the elegance and convenience of the style. The most striking feature of Raziel's image is the brilliant lurid gold that leaks from splintered, painless cracks in his flesh, horn and hooves; its flow fluctuates periodically -- some days it pours from his skin like syrup, other days it cannot be seen at all. Interestingly it seems to pulse more fervently during moments of heightened emotion; this is something Raz has learnt, assuredly, he cannot control.

∎ The Hellhound of Solterra.

Flaws: Self harm. Judgemental, insensitive, antisocial, and sour. Terrified of the sea. Intolerant and wary of outsiders. Resents the underbelly of Solterra; including the peasants he employs. Often comes off as pretentious and elitist. Distant and frustratingly apathetic.

Merits: Logical and level-headed. Decisive. Orderly. Wry sense of humour. Has been sober for 3 years. Protective of those he cares for (... just Gahenna, then) Has an eye for expensive and rare merchandise / architecture / paraphernalia. Intelligent.

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Raziel was not always so serious. Amongst the hot sand you might have caught a dark-skinned boy pelting stones across the oasis, or tittering at the court jesters -- who, so often, happened to be slaves. But you would also have noticed that the boy was never alone; it was impossible to miss his shadow.

Nonetheless, both boy and shadow are now long dead.

In the years following the fall of Zolin and the Old Solterra, Raziel was forced to crush and bury his grief beneath the ebony floorboards of Saudagar. He twisted skyward, blooming from his roots as a lazy, spoiled sapling into an unmovable redwood. It seems so distant now, those years he spent loitering from one lavish room to another, staring at the foreign exchange girls who seemed to get prettier every year.

Raz is a man with an impenetrable husk. No amount of needling will crack his apathy; he cares for so very little in this hot, harsh world. Gahenna, his hound, consumes the last pool of warmth that lies untouched by the stone walls. He does not often like to think what he would do if he lost her too. He is, as a result, frustratingly calm in the face of antagonism.

Unsurprisingly, given his indulgent upbringing, Raziel is a creature of high taste. You certainly won't catch him frequenting the downtown taverns and only absolute necessity brings him out from the hollow halls of Saudagar. If you happened to call him a recluse, you would not be wrong.

Although particularly hateful toward of the 'common' people who slaughtered his mother and brother, Raziel is indiscriminately resentful of others. Solterra is a land of savages, no matter how dressed up they may seem, and he knows better than anyone not to turn your back on a pack of dogs.

P R E L U D E

Balsheva was spider-legged, brilliantly violent and unapologetically Nazaretian. As the eldest of three daughters born to Elazar Nazaret, First of His Name, she carried the burden of inheritance the way a grim-reaper might carry a scythe: easily. All of Elazar’s girls possessed an alien kind of beauty that felt both harrowing and utopian, but Balsheva -- she was an entity all of her own.

She first met Osirius Azhade when she was four months old. He reminded her, as they stood in the dust-thick courtyard of Solterra’s imperial schoolhouse, of the many cacti guarding her father’s desert estate. Silent, watchful and barbed. She thought he might have a thousand eyes for all the cold light that poured from his gaze but, of course, it was not enough to make her think of him again.

Until -- the morning of her third birthday when Elazar, quite unexpectedly, announced their betrothal. The memory comes to me quite clearly: the look of brazen revulsion on Balsheva’s cast iron features, the smell of sweat lingering beneath cloying perfume, the gurgled snarl bubbling in the throat of Balsheva’s great hound.

She had always known that such a day would come, when her hand would be extended to a man she might not know in exchange for money, power or alliance. She knew it was her duty, but like all wild things, Balsheva just could not accept the collar that tightened around her throat every time she looked at her husband. Mutual resentment soured sorely into loathing -- he was too secretive, she was too poisonous.

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The years passed and the estrangement between Balsheva and Osirius never waned. Even when their firstborn child came lurching, wet and breathless, onto the cashmere sheets it was not enough to lessen the contempt that lived like a wild animal between them.

That first child was Raziel. And four delirious minutes later came his unexpected shadow, Raoul.

The boys were, initially, indistinguishable. Bearing umbral-grey pelts and spear-straight locks streaked by gold, they might have been mistaken for a trick of the light or a whiskey-haze that told the drinker, surely, he’d had too much. In the first few days, only their eyes gave up the game, for in the sunlight violet could never be mistaken for ruby.

( As was the custom for every Nazaretian boy or girl born into the family, Raziel and Raoul were each endowed with a newborn Hellhound; the great black animals had existed as bonded companions alongside the Nazaret for thousands of years, dating back to the earliest records of the ancient tribe. By domesticating the Hellhounds they often encountered, the Nazaret were ensured protection. )

They grew like bamboo shoots; lounging on satin windowseats and hunting the odd-escaped slave beside their hot-blooded hounds. They knew only excess. Their education was expensive and unrivalled. They wanted for nothing.

But at what cost?

Where other children might have been tucked into bed by their parents with a kiss and a gentle story, the twins were left to their own devices. With their grandfather weakening rapidly at the hands of a mysteriously aggressive virus, their mother absorbed in the bullet-fast world of work and the capitol, and their father too bleakly indifferent toward their very existence, the boys knew nothing of nurture, love or guidance. Of course there was the extended family with which they shared the estate; aunts, uncles, cousins, third-cousins-once-removed, but they learned all-too quickly that the only people they could truly trust was each other.

What happens next is, both to Raziel and I, a blur made of blood and fire and the sound of people dying. It was the eve of their second birthday and the blue evening air was starting to bite once more -- autumn did that to you back then, it always seemed to catch you by surprise. Nothing much catches Raziel by surprise anymore. It happened slowly at first, like a fever dream; someone shouted "Zolin is dead" and Raoul even laughed, a memory that feels a shade more nauseating with every playback in his brother's head. But it wasn't some joke cracked by an unruly kitchen-boy. It wasn't funny when the burning roofs lit up the bodies like theatric torchlight.

It wasn't funny when they saw their mother dart toward them across the street, only to catch her feet in the disemboweled intestines of an Ieshan official they'd met once at church and subsequently slam into the quarters of a dark woman carrying a spear. Raziel saw Balsheva look back at them once, with an unrecognisable expression in her eyes he had never yet seen, before that strange dark woman sunk the spear through her skull like it was butter to be sliced.

It did not end there.

The streets glittered with the frenzy of liberation. They ran, hellhounds at their ankles, for the safety of Saudagar; or anywhere with a roof that was not burning. Raziel knows they might have made it had they not been drowning in vast, intricate finery. It wasn't enough that they stank of money; for who could fail to see gold oozing, quite literally, from the fissures in their skin. Two young rich boys were irresistible targets.

It was over in a heartbeat. Raziel did not even catch the light fading from Raoul's face. One moment his brother was stood at his flank, head firmly attached and in the next, it was bouncing down the cobbled yard -- once, twice, thrice, before rolling to a stop. The world began to pirouette. Three flashes: Raoul's lifeless body crumpling like a bin bag at his feet. An axe dripping with gold-blood. A warbling howl rising from the lungs of his brother's hound.

Raziel cannot quite remember the events that followed immediately after Raoul's slaughter. Perhaps, in a fit of maniacal grief, he fought his way out of there with Gahenna at his side. Perhaps they lost interest in him or perhaps even he was saved. When he woke the next morning to find himself partially submerged in the cool waters of Solterra's oasis, almost entirely unharmed, there remained only pain and darkness in the place where the memory of how he'd survived the massacre should have been.

Raziel thinks, even now, that perhaps it is better that way.

S O L T E R R A N - H E L L H O U N D

Lupus Infernum, or more commonly known today as the Solterran Hellhound, is an ancient canidae species that roamed the prehistoric deserts of Solterra. It is likely that they originated from distant southern lands beyond Novus, migrating to the northern tip of the sun-kingdom approximately 2000 years ago. The earliest written record of their existence, and subsequent interaction with the primitive desert tribes, can be found in the writings of an Ieshan priest. He makes reference to a towering black beast, large as a horse, that slaughters even the strongest of warriors with ease. It is in this document that the moniker 'Hellhound' came to be.

It is not known exactly when the Nazaret tribe started interacting with these savage albeit intelligent animals, but the timeworn markings drawn upon the walls of Tinea's caves speak of a man who did not flinch when the devil knocked on his door; who instead reached and placed his palm upon the muzzle of that dark wicked beast. In Nazaretian culture, that man is known as Xaliskar -- translated from the old language as Saviour. From that day onward, the future of the Nazaretian people and the Solterran Hellhound was to be forever bound.

G A H E N N A

Gahenna has been by Raziel's side since his Birth-Day. They did, and still do, everything together: growing, learning, fighting, losing. Her littermate, Hazor, bonded of Raziel's twin Raoul, disappeared shortly after Raoul's death; she pines for them both still. As with all Nazaretian Hounds, she acts as protector, guardian and companion; she would give her life for him in a heartbeat.

The modern hellhound is not quite as big as its ancestors, but such a fact does not make it any less intimidating. Centuries of selective breeding have produced an animal that has retained the brutal strength, speed and nature of the species, whilst emphasising the fiercely loyal and protective qualities that have made it so popular among the Nazaret. It is almost as if horse and dog share something innate; something unspoken -- anyone outside of the family who tries to tame or approach a hound will immediately find themselves in dire need of a physician, if they are lucky.

Gahenna stands just shy of 4 feet / 1.3 metres at her shoulder, stretches to roughly 6 feet in length and weighs in at almost 200 lbs. Her coat is short, sleek and carbon-black. Her muzzle is reasonably long and square, leading from a large elegant skull characterised by erect ears that are cut at birth so as to stand upright -- triangular and tall. Her tail is smooth and long, curling up over her back. Her eyes, white and featureless, are haunting; such a mutation is not unheard of within the breed, but neither is it common; though do not be fooled, Gahenna is anything but blind. Bright gold swirling markings gild her forehead and ankles. Around her neck sits a deliberately baroque, 24 karat gold collar, embellished with grooves; the most striking features of the collar however are the long, gold thick spines that protrude out to end in needle-sharp points.

GODS ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO BLEED GOLD.

Raziel's blood is pure gold. It weeps from painless, superficial cracks in his skin, hooves, and horn, whilst also leaking from the tearducts in his eyes. There has never seemed to be an explanation for such a phenomenom, despite his mother calling the physician to the house more than once. It leaks randomly, without control, though there does seem to be a correlation between excess flow and a heightened state of emotion.