Muhab Al-Khayin

Muhab Ibn Rais Al-Qiliqia Al-Khayin: Muhab, son of Rais, the Cilician, the Traitor; is a cursed "pirate" loose in the Caribbean Sea. Captain of the Phlegethon, a Galley who shares the same lust for blood that curses Al-Khayin

## Appearance

Muhab is an emaciated former man whose face is nothing but a skull flaking its skin away held together by some form of curse. Muscles are practically nonexistent over his bones, with portions of his flesh having completely fallen off. What skin does remain is highly scarred showing a story of past injuries. He wears a white and red thobe whose upper half has been shed and wrapped around his gutless waist. While his legs are covered down to the ankles allowing his sandaled feet to be seen. On his belt are attached two scimitars rusted but yet still functional, above them on his head is a turban.

## Personality

Al-Khayin rarely leaves people to of what he likes for all he cares about is violence. A being obsessed with a need for blood seems to be all that sustains his life. He does not mock, he does not care for diplomacy for jabs and quips, a man of action to the end of many others' lives.

## Known and Rumored History

Once known as Muhab Al-Qiliqia he was an officer of a Galley during the era of the Crusader States in the Levant. At some point, he betrayed his Captain leading a coup in which he released so much pent-up wrath, hatred, violence, and spite into the Captain before and after his death Allah himself cursed him and all who stood complacent in the action. This left the man now called Al-Khayin alone as commander of a rouge vessel, he resorted to piracy and theft to allow his crew to continue living. Eventually, a storm had them stranded at sea for an extra two days longer than preferred and had stolen their provisions, they were lucky enough to find a Venetian trading ship which they captured unfortunately it also didn't have enough food for their crew. The men grew so desperate they resorted to cannibalism. After that they hungered for nothing less, they did this for years than years longer than longer after that, so long that some of these men were old enough to have died twice over.

At some point within the last 50 years they appeared in the Caribbean, their boat the Phlegethon is said to appear from clouds of steam on the open ocean, carrying the curses of Moses his boat leaves a wake of red boiling blood. He is often known to target to most fearsome captains in the sea, be they pirates or naval commanders. They say it's so they can incorporate others guilty of the great sin of wrath into their crew.

### The Plague of New Providence

Was a morning like any other in the Pirate Republic, when low-lying clouds seemed to swallow the port of Nassau. They came in thick and very very humid, so thick the piers became slicked with condensation. Eventually, a young boy playing on the sands of the beach noticed. The water turned red, and left behind from the wash were strings of red. When a doctor came he recognized it as what it was, blood filled with clots. An hour passed as hysteria spread pirates within the town noticed their ships sat lower as steam pooled around their hulls. A few tried to leave their air sat still, only rising with the steam, with no wind to push them. An hour more passed, and visibility was null.

A few men looked out from the pier's end observing what many called a plague from god. They saw the bow of a ship come through, as it got closer oars came into view, then a single man standing on the ram tip. As he got closer the men ran, they could see he was no man but an abomination his face was naught but the skull, and what shin he did have clung so tightly you could see through to the bone. A rusted sword in their hand, the being leaped off as the ram smaller into the pier, the sounds of cracking wood splintering covered feet of black-robed beings just like the first jumped over. There was silence, as the devils looked upon where they had arrived or what little of it they could see, and the 3 men looked back. Until the figure they first saw, unknown to them called Al-Khayin stepped forward, with a sword thrust to the sky. A war cry incomprehensible screamed and an order was given, these demons charged as the three men were skewered their voices silenced without time for cries of pain. A hundred devils rushed into the town, with black covering all except their bone faces, no one was spared. Swords though rusted cut sharper than any other through the abdomen of the undeserving. Heads lopped off merchants, and even children had their necks be all the holds them up as wooden stakes went through jaws into their brains. Before their bodies were raised as displays.

The pirates who had weapons to defend themselves found them almost useless they cracked bone, but it did nothing to prevent the arms of the demons from cutting them down. Fires roared up from buildings as torches were tossed through windows. The masts of brigs fell over as the ships were scorched in hell’s fire. Even the thick trees of the Bahama’s forests suffered as the grass was covered in ash. The smoke mixed with steam and fog and stopped all sunlight from reaching Nassau's cowering men and women. It was two hours, relentless Arabic chanting filled what looked like a starless night sky, the sands became red with blood, and corpses were decorating storefronts dismembered. To the survivors, it felt like weeks with no sleep until all was silent besides the roars of fires.

Those who dared come back to the pier found it missing and collapsed from fire. But there was no galley at the end. An hour passed the ocean returned to water, another hour, the fog lifted, but it took until the end of the week to round up every single corpse and piece. Almost all of them unidentifiable they could guess the town’s population pirate and commoner alike had been brought down to almost an eighth, and not but one ship had survived left out of the fully stocked port. From their stories of the Phlegethon and its crew of demons spread across the Caribbean.