Jochewed

Jochewed (pronounced Yah-k'-ved) is a priestess of Jan, the god of healing rain, and lives in the desert-lands of Flouna. When her fellow priestesses predicted the fall of the Merunet kingdom, she was imprisoned and subsequently survived the sacking of her homeland. She now searches for her son, Ahlseti, who was taken captive by the invading army. She is fiercely religious, and believes that Jan will one day be the ruler of all gods.

## History

### Early Years

The Merunet people were a mix of many different races of shifters, and lived together in relative peace under the worship of the four desert gods, Bel, Gōt, Jan, and Meshti. Jochewed was falconborn, a daughter of Jan (or a wildhunt shifter) with the signature features that lent to her identification with the hawk god: a hooked nose, large black eyes, long toes, and thick sleek hair that easily combed together like the barbs of a quill.

Traditionally, Bel required the sacrifice of the first born child, or more commonly an animal sacrifice in their stead. Jochewed’s parents at first ignored this rule as they were poor and only had a single pair of goats, who they wanted to mate before sacrificing. However, the goats never bore a kid, and 2 years later were killed in the night by wild beasts. Believing this to be punishment for holding back their sacrifice, Jochewed’s parents sought repentance and brought their daughter to the priests of the city as an offering. But fate had other plans for Jochewed, and as can sometimes happen in pre-ordained times her life was given to the gods in another way; not as a sacrificial offering, but in a life of servitude to the god Jan.

Jochewed grew up with the priestesses of Jan, learning the intricacies of her faith and performing divinations and divine healings. When she turned 10 Jochewed was given a blessing of inauguration, and in it the higher priestess gave her the gift of Strangetongue, the fluency in a language no one spoke, but that she would someday need to know. Jochewed was quite skilled in the healing arts, and chose to focus her priestess duties toward them. Many of her fellow priestesses used divining cards, but Jochewed never learned their magic, an art that she now fears may be lost forever.

In her youth, Jochewed met a man in her healing practice named Saho, a priest-warrior of Gōt, who was injured in a battle with a band of Yuan-ti kidnapping raiders. She and this priest fell in love for a time, and she became pregnant with his son. But before her son was born, Saho fell in battle in a raid against the Yuan-ti city. This would not be the last time that the snake people would take a loved one from her. Jochewed named her son Ahlseti, and raised him in the living-chambers surrounding the holy place of Jan.

### Defiance Against Tor-Ahl

When Ahlseti was a very young boy, the ruler of Merunet died, leaving his son, Entef, the ruler of the kingdom. Entef was set on expanding his power and influence over his people. While the ruler was already considered a sacred being chosen by the gods, Entef went one step further, declaring himself to be the successful reincarnation of Ahl, the father of the gods, and changed his name to Tor-Ahl. To celebrate this “revelation” Tor-Ahl set up a grand feast in his honor where he would be recrowned, not just as king but also as the divine ruler of the world. Defying him would surely result in extreme punishment, but the priestesses of Jan feared only their god, not their king.

During the party each division of priesthood was called upon to perform a task for their new god. The priests of Meshti were to prepare a feast more extravagant than the kingdom had ever seen out of goods taxed from the people. Bel was to provide sacrifices in Tor-Ahl’s honor. Gōt’s priests were to bring back symbols of conquest from the four corners of the lands around them, and the clergy of Jan was to herald their god’s arrival with tidings of good omens and prophecies of a blessed future. The first three clergies did as they were told, preparing a lavish feast, bringing back the heads of twenty Yuan abominations (at great cost), and preparing the sacrifice of seven maidens.

But when the time came to give the prophecy, the high priestess of Jan sought true divination from her god. The high priestess of Jan fell into a divine trance as she began her prophecy, and to Tor-Ahl’s wrath and dismay, she prophesied that Entef was a false ruler who in 3 years would cause the ruin and destruction of Merunet and her people. Outraged, Tor-Ahl ordered the diviners among the clergy of Jan to be bound and impaled, then burned when the sun went down. The priestesses of Jan who were healers were spared this fate, instead being thrown into the chambers beneath the streets to rot.

### Sacking of Merunet

In Merunet tradition, height or being put higher up is usually a show of respect, and in contrast being put lower or below the ground is a symbol of a lower status. Both in respect for this tradition and to avoid spending money on guards or jails, prisoners were simply kept in underground chambers with only a small grate through which they could beg for food, living only on the mercy of those who looked down on them. It was in one of these chambers that Jochewed remained, along with 2 other priestesses, for 3 years, begging for the mercy of those who walked above her. The cell was empty, with a stone slab to be used as a bench or bed, though it was mainly used as a refuge from the grime and rain that fell through the bars. It was easier for her than other prisoners, as many did love the priestesses of Jan and would come for blessings and healings and give bread and honey as payment.

Ahlseti was adopted by the newly instated clergy of Jan, set in place under Tor-Ahl’s dictation, but even at such a young age Ahlseti missed his mother. When he had the chance, he would sneak off, often at night, to the chamber where she remained, and they would talk. She could barely reach him, as the priestesses had a leg shackled to the floor to prevent escape, but these visits from her son meant the world to her. Her faith in Jan and her son were the only things that allowed her to stay sane in those conditions, and yet she almost hoped that she had been placed here in vain, that the prophesied day would never come. If it did, she couldn’t protect her son.

But come it did. Perhaps the warriors of Gōt were too aggressive in eradicating the Yuan-ti, or perhaps they hadn’t been thorough enough. One night, while Ahlseti was sneaking out to visit his mother, Jochewed heard the sound of distant battle. Panicking, she pleaded with her young son to find a safe place to hide so that he might maybe survive the coming destruction, but Ahl-seti was too young to understand the severity of the situation, only that his mother was frantic. He froze and cried, trying to get closer to his mother through the bars seeking comfort as Jochewed screamed and begged him to run. He couldn’t act in time. The slaughter drew near, and in a moment a huge snake-like body slid past, grabbing her son and stuffing him into one of many burlap sacks, dragging behind him through the streets, and Jochewed’s screams were drowned out among the screams of her people as her once proud city was pillaged.

### Escape

All was quiet when morning came. The caw of vultures could be heard near and far, and a steady trickle of blood dripped through the bars into the prison. But Jochewed wouldn’t let it end here in this chamber with no food. Surely those snake fiends would use her son as a sacrifice to their false gods, but not if she could stop it. Peering through the bars, she spied a fallen spear a ways off. She shredded what little clothes she had in order to make a lasso, and after several tries managed to pull the spear to her jail cell. Her sister priestess lamented that the spear was bronze tipped and would dull long before it could chip away the stone or chain binding her leg there. Jochewed didn’t need it to cut through the chain.

She took the remaining cloth and wrapped it around her leg just below the knee, tightening it into a makeshift tourniquet. Then she braced her knee against the stone slab at an angle, and ordered her fellow priestess to jump on it. Not seeing another way out, her sister priestess hesitantly agreed, but first broke the spear shaft and wrapped it in cloth to give Jochewed something to bite down on. Her shin didn’t break cleanly on the first try, but after a few excruciating attempts the leg bent where it shouldn’t, and using the spear’s head the priestesses cut Jochewed’s leg off, freeing her from her shackles. Jochewed escaped, first returning to the temple to heal her leg (but not restore it), then after scouring the desolation around her brought a pick which her sisters used to break their shackles free from the stone floor and join her out of the cell.

Ahlseti was still Jochewed’s primary concern, and despite the mass graveyard of unblessed corpses Jochewed decided to follow the Yuan-ti out into the desert. Besides, there was no time to bless all the corpses before they rose up under the conscription of Borthax. Jochewed left, wandering in the direction she was sure the snake people had gone, but it would take her three years of searching, finding new settlements, and giving blessings in exchange for information, before she would find where the Yuan-ti had gone. Through such long years Jochewed had almost given up hope, but she felt in her heart that Jan would unite her with her son. But still her mind told her that there was no hope, and her searching slowed as she drew into depression and despair; the Yuan-ti didn’t hold sacrifices for so long. It would take a miracle for them to have never sacrificed the child.

### Search of Ahlseti

And a miracle it was. Jochewed had gathered as much information as she could in her wanderings, but finally a good solid clue had led her far to the North West, a distance that seemed too incredible for a full army to travel. Yet here she was, at the brink of a cavernous temple, adorned with stone facsimiles and statues of vipers with hideous faces. And at the outskirts of this temple a small camp of marauders, long since having looted the empty temple and living merily off their riches. Jochewed pried for information about what had happened, and as it turned out this army of snake men came back to their temple, victorious, only to be ambushed and killed by the nomadic army of the Leonids 3 years ago. The snake undead wandered the temple’s dark depths, but the valuables had been taken by the Leonid army and the remained snuck out by these thieves. Jochewed was less interested in the treasure. She ventured down into the depths to confirm if her son was still alive.

Upon clearing the temple of the undead (which took over a month) Jochewed found the sack her son had been carried off in. A short distance away were shackles, likely where the prisoners were kept before being sacrificed, but the locks had been broken, not unlocked. Surely Ahlseti was alive, taken again by the victors of battle, but this time by the Leonids. She knew nothing of these Leonids, except that they were under the patronage of Gōt, and while Gōt was not her god he was a much purer and more just god than the atrocities worshipped by the snakes. For one, Gōt only allowed the sacrifice of animals, specifically adult male animals, which meant her son was saved. Now she just needed to find where the nomadic warrior tribe would have taken him.

It has been over ten years since Jochewed learned of her son’s fate, but still no better signs of his whereabouts have been uncovered. But the day is soon approaching, she feels, that she will find another answer, or at least the means to an answer. Perhaps the gift of Strangetongue will be the means by which she is reunited with Ahlseti.

Even so, with the destruction of the Merunet, the tribes of the gods have been scattered. Perhaps before she can be reunited with her son, she will have to show the world that Jan is the ruler among gods. Surely Jan set this into motion for a reason, and the gods are not so benevolent that they would give something to their followers without gaining glory and power for themselves.