Mata

## Mata Inayat

Mata Inayat is a Gnome Rogue introduced in the premiere episode of Legends of Sha'oghal.

## Backstory

**COVER STORY: Mata Inayat is a traveling merchant who lives in a small apartment in the Trade Ward of Logantach. She's originally from a middle class neighborhood in the city of Mithjall. She and her cart, known as the The Curious Bauble, are a common site in the Trade Ward and she quickly became one of the most popular people in the area. Known for her excellent wares, strong tea and exciting stories. She is known and loved by people from all backgrounds and travels freely throughout Logantach.**

ACTUAL STORY: Lozen Nebekeyende is originally from the small fishing community of Bellglen. She comes from an ancient gnomish family that was one of the clans forced to move to the area after the Great Divergence, 798 years ago. Her clan of forest gnomes was one of the original native people’s in the land of Ormon Valley and Forests with their own culture and belief structure. When the Ghrian Kingdom took power following the Great Divergence, her clan’s monotheistic nature based belief system was outlawed and they were forced to assimilate to the Ghrian religion. The Ghrian’s burned their books, destroyed all religious icons and forbid them from speaking the names of the ancient gods. Her clan, along with all the gnomes and dwarves living in the Orman Valley and surrounding mountains and forests were forced from their lands and relocated to reservations in the Mithjall region. While the various gnomish clans had always had favorable trade relations with each other and the dwarvish clans, they were now forced to live and work together in Mithjall. While this originally caused a lot of tension, the two groups have since learned to peacefully coexist and work together. The gnomes shared their advanced engineering and tinkering skills and the dwarves shared their metallurgy skills, creating a formidable alliance. The items and technologies they produced became highly sought after by the Ghrian Kingdom. A dependency the gnomes and dwarves were acutely aware of. This lead them to begin thinking of ways to leverage this dependency, such as discretely sabotaging the armaments they sell to the military.

While the gnomish clans seemed to peacefully settle into their new lives and lands, they never forgot their stolen lands and the crimes inflicted upon them by Ghrian Kingdom. The elders of the community figured out ways to preserve their beliefs through passing down oral history (as written records of the events had been outlawed) and developing a secret coded language and symbols. They then started working with the dwarves to form a secret resistance group, The Order of the Hammer & Satchel. The society was named after the legendary heroics of Eitri Longbeard and Celryn Ormon Geeck that helped solidify the steadfast alliance between the gnomes and dwarves. They are a paramilitary organization of war engineers. While a large focus is on technological development for the betterment and defense of Mithjall, there is also a small elite faction of highly trained fighters that is tasked with carrying out espionage, sabotage and assassinations, all geared at destabilizing the Ghrian Kingdom. Lozen’s grandparents and great aunts and uncles were some of the original founders of the Order. She joined at a young age and quickly advanced through its ranks to become a well-respected member of this elite group. She is a master of disguise, cunning strategist and lethal with virtually any weapon or item.

Members of the Order keep their involvement deeply shrouded in secrecy, as membership in the group is punishable by death. They’ve learned to hide in plain sight and not draw attention to themselves and their actions. Setting themselves up as leaders in the community, successful tinkerers and merchants and ensuring peace and order within the community, so as to be left in relative peace not draw attention to themselves from the Ghrian monarchy. All resistance activities are carried out far from Mithjall so as to not draw attention to Mithjall.

Since the dwarves and gnomes of the area are known for their technological marvels, it is not uncommon for them to be found traveling throughout the land selling their wares. This is exactly what Lozen started doing. Her set family themselves up as successful merchants in Bellglen and Lozen would frequently travel to the various communities within the Mithjall province making contact with other members of the Order, passing along intelligence and carrying out secret missions. It was during one of her trips to Mithjall that she made contact with Tomas Watson, leader of the Logantach Resistance. Tomas had heard rumors of the Order & The Shield and traveled to Mithjall to try and unite their groups to work together to fight against the Ghrian Kingdom. After a secret meeting between Tomas and several members of The Order, it was decided that Lozen would relocate to Logantach on her own and be the Order’s emissary to the Resistance. Lozen was reluctant to leave her family, as they were very close. But that all changed when her cousin and best friend Victorio was killed during an ambush. The Order is always cautious and distrusting of anyone outside their community, but Ghrian spies are everywhere, seeking to route members out and eliminate the resistance. Victorio received intelligence from a contact that a Ghrian royal family member would be traveling through Bellglen unaccompanied and planned an ambush to kidnap the royal. Victorio and a small group of The Order set up traps to disable the carriage. Everything was going perfectly until Victorio opened the carriage door and rather than the Gharian royal, he was met by half a dozen Ghrian mercenaries working on behalf of the king. Victorio’s contact had sold them out. The mercenaries slaughtered Victorio and the other members of The Order, placing their heads on sticks lining the road as a warning to others. Lozen was devastated. She immediately sent word to Tomas Watson, agreeing to be The Order’s emissary in Logantach.

Using her guise as a traveling merchant, Lozen moved to Logantach and the Resistance set her up with an apartment in the Trade Ward. In order to protect her family and community, should she be captured, she changed her name, her appearance and created a new identity. Now going by the name Mata Inayat, she established herself as a merchant originally from a middle class neighborhood in the city of Mithjall. She and her cart of trinkets, named The Curious Bauble, became a common site in the Trade Ward and she quickly became one of the most popular people in the area. Known for her excellent wares (many provided by the Resistance), strong tea and exciting stories, she ingratiated herself in the community. This allowed her to travel freely throughout the area without drawing attention to herself and gain access to a wide range of people from all classes in order to gather information. Now a well known merchant, she would often travel to various areas throughout the region selling her wares, but also trading intelligence and providing weapons and technology to other members of The Order and the Resistance. She has proven herself to be one of the deadliest and most valuable assets to the Resistance.