Salim Rakubar

Salim Rakubar (pronounced "Sah-leem Rah-koo-bar"), self proclaimed master thief, mercenary, treasure hunter, and ladies man, is a Kharidian played by Raltin Avarr .

History[]

Turning A New Leaf[]

He grew up as a street urchin in Pollivneach, learning the ways of petty crime as most street urchins do. He eventually came to count himself among the numbers of the well known desert bandits, and spent years continuing to hone his skills. His adeptness in the art of stealth and stealing eventually earned him fame among the bandits as well as authority, though no true leadership. This all changed one day when he went out on a raid with a band he often accompanied and they stopped a small camel caravan. The men of the caravan put up little fight and were dead in moments. It was when the leader of the band, Rauq, ordered the deaths of the women and children that Salim questioned his orders in a treasonous manner. When this happened, Rauq ordered the death of Salim as well, but Salim had luckily made enough friends who immediately sided with him.

The fight was short and bloody, the band tearing itself to pieces, Salim being one of the lucky few survivors. Leaving Rauq's head impaled on cactus spines near the caravan wreck, Salim left the bandits, knowing if he were to return he would be killed for his insubordination. The events of the caravan convinced Salim to change his ways, at least partially, and so he found himself back in Pollivneach. The renewed man, instead of stealing from the innocent and weak, began to work small jobs of harrassing and stealing from the bandit camps scattered across the desert. His new work fulfilled him and began to change him from a cutthroat to a Kharidian Robin Hood. He can often be found across the desert and at Pollivneach every now and then after a good haul.

Salim, The Slave Camp, And The Emiress[]

Foreshadowing[]

After a long and hard venture, Salim aquired the head of a man who he had sought to bring an end to for quite some time, and decided to go to Al Kharid and tell the story so that he might be rewarded for his deeds. Having reached the city, worn and tired from the endeavor of his late adventure, he walked for the palace steps. There he hoped to meet one of the guard captains to tell his story to, but was instead greeted by the sight of the Emira of the city, speeking to a noble at the palace steps. After waiting to gain her ear, the noble left and the Emira addressed Salim.

With a tongue of silver, flattering the Emira, he was granted entrance to the palace, where he cleaned himself up and told his great tale. He told her of his history thus far, up to the point he had turned a new leaf on life and became a man of the people. After telling her this, he began the real story, of the friends he had made by harrassing the bandits and helping the common man. Among these friends were Rafuq and Bashir, to which in time came to be brothers to him in all but blood.

A Story For Royalty[]

Together with his two friends and their other men in arms, they became known across the desert as thieving heros, stealing from and punishing criminals while giving to those in need of help. This continued for many passings of the moon and stars, until came the day that word of an old aquantance passed Salim's ears. Sahlir, a man who was the right hand of the band leader Rauq which Salim had slain, was also one of the few to escape the day at the caravan, and now had become a terror in his own right, running a slaving operation in the Northern desert. Salim and his friends took it upon themselves to right this wrong, and so marched through the dunes until they came across the encampment of Sahlir. Beholding the operation was like looking upon the tight security of the palace in Al Kharid, it was a daunting gauntlet of warriors and barricades, seeing this; Salim and his friends stowed away in the dunes to plot how best to get in.

It soon became apparent they would have to infiltrate by taking on the roles of slaves, and so disguised themselves as peasants. After being found by Sahlir's men, they were taken to the camp and put to work, and after this happened the men that Salim, Bashir, and Rafuq had left behind began to stage mock raids against the encampment, mimicing a rival band of bandits who wanted Sahlir's territory. This ruse kept the guards distracted as supplies were smuggled in by a select few of Salim's men, who brought in swords to arm the slaves to revolt. While they waited, Salim and his friends were forced to do as their disguises were made for: slavery, and they toiled away in the mines until their fingers were worked to the bone, spending each night in pain from the horrendous work load that was set upon them. Soon came the day the slaves were ready to revolt, and the guards watching over them in the night were silenced quickly by Salim and his two friends. The shackles of the slaves broken, they began to revolt, and as planned Salim's men attacked in unison with the freed slaves.

The battle lasted throughout the night, and the rising sun of dawn revealed the carnage of the fighting. Tents and buildings were layed in cinders and ruin, though within this rubble layed the corpse of Bashir, who had fallen during the night, the exhaustion of the slavery work having been his demise, as he had not been able to muster the energy to keep fighting and was run through with a scimitar during the skirmishes. Salim and Rafuq were likewise exhausted and were lucky to survive at all, but upon discovering Bashir's body, they flew into a rage, for in the ruins of the encampment it was discovered that Sahlir was not to be counted among the dead. The ring leader had escaped before the fighting began, for a slave who was a plant by Sahlir informed him of the treachery. Salim and Rafuq, with grief in their hearts, discovered the tracks of the camels that Sahlir and his top guards had used to escape, and were filled with the purpose of revenge to catch him.

Two days they pursued through the sands, until finally sighting the bandit lord. Too exhausted from the pursuit and the previous slave labor, Salim and Rafuq were unable to attack head on with what little men they had. It was then that Rafuq hatched an insane plan, but one that could not be denied with the sorry state they were in. The area of the desert they were pursuing Sahlir in was the known territory of a giant desert strykewyrm, and so crafting a special explosive from gunpowder and other material, they plotted to lure the monster. Creeping close under the cover of night, they went right under the nose of Sahlir, who had positioned his elite around him during the night, and having the element of surprise, Salim and Rafuq, along with their men, attacked. Salim grappeled with Sahlir while Rafuq began to set off the explosive as the men kept the elite guards distracted from him.

As the large concussive explosive detonated, the fight froze from the noise. Not but a few moments passed when a giant wave of sand began to flow in the direction of the skirmish. The men of Salim and Sahlir fled in terror, but Salim and Rafuq bravely attacked Sahlir to force him to keep fighting, for if he would turn and run all he would recieve would be a dagger to the back. As the wave of sand approached, Rafuq fell to his knees from the exhaustion, as he and Salim had not slept in their pursuit of Sahlir, and the bandit lord took his chance, stabbing Rafuq in the chest with his sword. Just as Sahlir landed the blow, the strykwyrm dug underneath him and erupted from beneath both him and the dying Rafuq. The maw of the monster closed shut, Rafuq being devoured whole and Sahlir being bitten in half, his torso end snapping clear and falling to the sand while his lower half dissappeared into the gullet of the beast.

Salim, who had been trying to stab Sahlir from behind, was not in the path of the worms mouth but rather its head, and was thrown clear of the attack over into the sand nearbye. Falling prey to exhaustion as Rafuq had, and from the pain of his fall, Salim's vision dimmed and he lost consciousness. He awoke later that day, his vision dazed as his eyes gazed into the blazing sun, seeing the blurred shapes of circling vultures. He lost consciousness yet again, and was revived not long after by a Bedabin nomad, who saw the vultures circling and came to investigate. Tilting water into Salim's mouth, the nomad woke him up, and the revived Salim staggered to his feet.

After briefly talking to the man, who had not only saved him but also his camel Hapesh from wandering lost in the dunes, Salim staggered over to the upper half of the dead Sahlir and used his knife to claim the head. He followed the Bedabin to his people's camp, where he rested for a day and then went on his way. He thought that someone of authority should hear of this tale and so rode to Al Kharid to seek some sort of reward for his hand in stopping the slave trading. Though thoughts of reward were in his head, he was full of grief over the loss of his two great friends, men he had known for a good deal of time and counted as family. And so Salim finished his story to the Emiress, who exclaimed with surprise at how much he had endured.

A New Friend[]

The Emiress sought to reward him, but Salim, after thinking for a moment, declined. He once more flattered the Emira and after a time of conversation, befriended her. He was granted a boon by her that he might return to the palace anytime he might wish, and Salim was delighted that he would be able to see the woman when he pleased, as he quite enjoyed her company. He later rode from Al Kharid to rejoin what men of his remained in Pollivneach. Though still having grief in his heart over the loss of his friends, he rode into the desert with a slight smile on his face, curious where his newfound friendship with the Emiress might lead.

Prophecy of the Scarab King[]

Salim and two other men, a fellow kharidian named Adyin and a retired Zamorakian knight by the name of Henry, met at the bar in Pollivneach one day, and after a round of drinks they decided to go treasure hunting at the ruins of Uzer. Upon arriving, they found little in the ruins to speak of, but after a while of searching, Salim tripped over something in the dirt of the ruins. Turning and kneeling, he started brushing away the sand and grit, to be greeted by the sight of a stone tablet. Upon picking it up, he dusted it off and showed it to Henry, the tablet had a symbol of a scarab on the top of it, ancient kharidian writing in the middle, and a hand indention at the base. Salim, wanting to see if it was cursed, asked Henry to put his hand in the indent and trick the man to see if his suspicions were correct.

Henry did not fall for the ruse and challenged Salim to place his hand in the indent. Deciding he had nothing to lose, Salim did so, and after a few moments the tablet started to glow a bright yellow. The stone of the tablet crumbled away, and revealed beneath was a surface of solid gold, the tablet having been beautifully crafted. Salim watched in amazement, and after removing his hand; found that the tablet stopped glowing. Salim then asked Henry to place his hand in the indent, and after doing so, the tablet did not glow for him. Henry then exclaimed that it was probably because Salim was a kharidian that the tablet had acted in the way that it did. Thinking, Salim was unsure about this, but his thoughts were interupted by the shouts of men outside the ruins. White knights had been trailing Henry, and upon viewing the knights from cover discovered that there were nearly ten of them.

Desperate, Henry asked for help from Salim and Adyin in dealing with them. Salim told his two companions to get to cover as he pulled a small, round ceramic ball with a bit of ragging sticking out from a hole in the top from a cushioned pouch at his belt. He lit the ragging and threw the ball at the men from behind a wall, the small object exploded, sending small shards of metal flying around in the air. Eight of the knights suffered fatal wounds from this small attack, and Henry quickly dealt with the last two. The men rode back to Pollivneach soon after, Salim carrying his small treasure with him. On the ride back, Henry revealed some of his history, saying that his old nickname was "the lion", and this resulted in a tale from the sixty year old knight.

Appearance[]

He likes to wear a white robe with trims around it as well as the characteristic Kharidian turbin. His hair is black and smooth, the facial hair styled exactly like his portrait above. His eyes are a dark and rich color of brown. His voice is a rich moderate tone with a mild Kharidian accent, he also has very expressive eyebrows. His main weapon is a large curved knife that is easily visible at his belt.

Personality[]

He is outgoingly friendly for a thief, and possesses a natural charismatic air about him that makes him very likeable. He likes to inspire courage and teamwork among his fellow man and is not at all shy, especially when it comes to chasing women. His body language also adds to his electrically eccentric personality, because of this he would actually make a fine living in theatre. He loves to maintain a dramatic flair, making him have quite the character and some people are caught off guard by this, expecting him to be a rough and tumble desert dweller. His strange mix of characteristics would make him having a disguise as a noble quite believable, and he uses this to his advantage when it comes to infiltrating.

Other Information[]

He has an excellently trained camel named Hapesh, of which he is emotionally attached to, somehow having formed a sentimental view of the camel.