The Orphans of Kemet
"They can never pay for what they've done, not truly. Their deaths won't bring back our families. But we can make sure that they don't live on while our loved ones are gone."
The Orphans of Kemet is a quasi-vigilante group comprised of those whose families were killed by the Cult of the Leviathan during the Dragon Wars. Most of the members are literal orphans whose families were wiped out during the Calamity in Kemet, but they welcome anyone whose lives were destroyed by the Cult's atrocities. They have undertaken to hunt down and bring to justice any members of the Cult that remain in the world.
Public Agenda
The Orphans make no bones about their core mission. They intend to find any and all members of the Cult of the Leviathan that escaped during the final days of the Dragon Wars, and make sure that they pay for their crimes. Officially, the Orphans will bring any Cultist they uncover to the governmental authorities to stand trial and be executed by a court of law, but in practice a surprising number of Cultists are killed while resisting capture. The Orphans are not officially a part of any government agency, but many of the governments in both Elbid and Lemuria approve of their activities and grant them leeway and tacit support.
History
In the aftermath of the Calamity in Kemet, there were thousands of young children left in the ruins of their nation. These children were too young to have truly engaged in the worship of The Pharaoh Undying, and thus were disconnected from the ritual that claimed their god and their families. Most of them were under the age of seven when the Cult of the Leviathan murdered their country.
The only adults in Kemet who survived the Calamity were those who were not worshippers of The Pharaoh Undying. A large portion of these were visitors from the Empire of Albion who were in the process of negotiating with the Pharaoh for greater support in the war against the Cult. Under the direction of Lady Jane Starr, the delegation from Albion undertook to rescue as many of the Kemet orphans as they possibly could. Without their efforts, many of the children would likely have perished along with their families. Lady Jane Starr convinced the Imperial Navy to divert several ships to Kemet to help with the rescue effort, and to then transport most of the children back to Albion. She then dedicated herself to the care and education of the children she had saved, claiming that God in Heaven had placed them in her charge and she was not released from this duty until all of her children had grown up.
Among the children rescued by Lady Jane was Asar Ben-ka. He was one of the older children, being eight years old during the Calamity. He threw himself into the task of saving and raising the other orphans almost immediately, and became one of Lady Jane's most trusted friends in this mission. But when he turned twenty-one, he decided that the time had come to pursue his true desire, which was to make sure that his people were avenged. He founded the Orphans of Kemet with Lady Jane's blessing in 1826, and has led them ever since.
Raised in Albion
When the Calamity in Kemet occurred, most of the foreigners in Kemet were from Elbid, not other nations in Lemuria. This is due to a long-standing agreement between the Living Gods of Lemuria to respect each other's territories; the Living Gods did not care to expose their worshippers to the ways of other Gods, as this had caused issues in the past. As a consequence, most of the children were rescued by the Empire of Albion, and then taken back to Albion to be raised. In the meantime, the Empire assumed control of Kemet's territory, holding it in trust for the orphans when they came of age. In the years since the Dragon Wars ended, the presence of a large Albion military force on Lemuria has been a point of tension between the Empire and the Mu Confederation, and pressure to hand Kemet over to the children has grown immensely, and many of the Orphans have returned to Kemet to take over the territories administration. Observers from the Confederation have not been pleased with this however, and claim that the upbringing given to the children in Albion has divorced them from their culture, and they fear Kemet becoming a satellite nation to the Empire. So far, there is no clear resolution to their objections in sight.
I like these guys. I don't know why, but I do.
On another note, I'm curious if you don't mind sharing the gist of the prompt you used for the header image of the four individuals; given different garb and grooming ideals, I feel like what you have there excellently represents how I picture my Targotians/Zendylites, and I'm very curious how the look might be described (ethnic/cultural description is probably one of my weakest writing skills).
Sure - the prompt I used was something along the lines of "A group of phenotypically Egyptian people, in Victorian British clothing, in their early twenties, looking competent, determined, and dangerous." I'm glad you like them!