In a rather plain and unremarkable building in the northern suburbs of Sentinel, followers of the Goddess Leki gather to train, spar and meditate just as their ancestors have done for generations before.  Leki is the Goddess of swordsmanship and venerated throughout Hammerfell by both Crown and Forebear alike. 

Whilst Sentinel’s branch of the House of Leki is closed to participation from outsiders, one is welcome to respectfully observe the traditional rituals of her devotees.  For the Redguards, more than any other race on Tamriel, tradition is far more than just the worship of ashes, it has become the security of the nation.

S.K

Alas lost Yokuda, from whose doomed shores a great fleet voyaged eastward, enduring the rage of the indignant seas that devoured their homeland, till they came upon Tamriel.

Seeking a ripe harbourage to make a new home, this most dread armada reaved the coasts of elves and men, till eventually honoured Grandee Yaghoub spied a likely green-leafed bay.

Swiftly and easily did the dusky warriors overwhelm the unexpecting port, and stake claim upon this oasis in an arid land, and Yaghoub proclaimed ‘I name thee Sentinel’.

A great city was built of stone and tent, and the gold domes of Samaruik rose majestically from the inhospitable sands to shine beacon as testimony to the might of the Yokudans.

But as the golden domes rose ever higher, the native tribes of Orc and Goblin conspired and plotted to push these most hated interlopers back into the seas.

A barbaric host with blunted blades and twisted magics fell upon the fledgling city in a sandstorm of rancour and spite; but the Ra Gada held their ground against this most savage onslaught.

Eventually the brutish host was broken and beaten back across the broiling sands to the farthest horizon hills.  And honoured Yaghoub declared ‘now time has come to conquer the shifting sands.’

And so led by the legendary Ansei, the Redguard rode forth from Sentinel spreading across the desert like a piece of cloth carried by the winds, to forge the land of Hammerfell.

S.K

At a Yokudan ruins on the beaches of the Alik’r, where in the first era the Ra Gada made landing in their invasion of mainland Hammerfell, an Imperial scholar searches for the weapon of the legendary Sword-Singer Navid.  Scholars travel the length and breadth of the land collecting relics of Tamrielic history that they display like works of art to be savoured by only the few in private collections, but this cursed relic would not sit safely in some wooden cabinet in a Colovian manor, and is perhaps better lost to antiquity.

Sword-singers were an order of Yokudan blade-masters who, it is claimed, became so dedicated to their martial philosophy that they could manifest a sword in their hand by sheer force of his or her will.  This sounds fanciful, although it is accepted that they were masters at tempering the blades they forged with powerful magics.

However Navid’s blade was initially formed it is clear that the weapon he left behind became tainted by the invidious and injurious fate of its creator.  In an impetuous act birthed of jealousy and spite, Navid slew his good friend and life-long ally Ihlqub over his love of the beautiful Sayeedeh.  When Sayeedah heard the news she took her own life, and Navid drowned in his guilt.

Yet after his death, others sought to claim his prized weapon, only to fall victim to the ethereal blade of Ihlqub himself.  Now they are cursed to covert the weapon from beyond the veil, and they will never stop chasing it, for they cannot be killed, only put to rest again, and again.

Even the ghost of Nevid now fears his own blade, and when even the dead are afraid, then you know you have a problem.

S.K