Ahavu the Serpent

Ahavu Jikitha was a Selkie druid-warrior born in Safimir, the capital of what is now the Kingdom of Marsham. In his day, he was a druid-aristocrat of the Safimiri empire who served as their ambassador and connection to the Khilaian Isles and selkie mercenaries. He was also the bastard child of the Safimiri monarch, making him a pseudo-royal of high status even as he remained on the political periphery.   Ahavu understood his own clan connections to the selkie island council in feudal dynastic terms and eventually laid claim to the isles as a prince of the Khilaia. In 275 ME, he seized control of the Khilaia in a coup and brought it under the loose political control of the Empire of Safimir. Ahavu sought to "modernize" the selkie world, centralizing and organizing it in the model of Safimir. He issued a legal code, built bureaucracies, and issued new forms of inheritance. Some of Ahavu's reforms were swept away after he was deposed, but his bureaucracies eventually formed the nucleus of the early Khilaian government.   Ahavu was a pious Pratasa man deeply loyal to the Western Archdruids, who hoped to mobilize selkie resources to win the War of the Five Deserts for Safimir. To this end, he placed the brilliant commander Kova in charge of the united Western forces. Ultimately, Kova deposed Ahavu and built the First Selkie Empire from his coalition forces.    Ahavu's coup of the Khilaia makes him historically unpopular among selkies, and Pratasa histories often blame him for their loss in the war of the five deserts. For this, Ahavu is often called "the Serpent" - a legendary usurper and thief. This is an uncharitable framing of the old druid, but in many ways he has become a storybook character over the last 1,800 years.    This is a historical stub.