Hweila Karrana was a Khurshi sunsinger who called for the dawn and high noon for her village. During the early days of Shem, she was a respected member of her people and a powerful religious leader. When her village was wiped out by disease, and only she survived, she left seeking answers. She went into the deep deserts and communed with the sun, and there she met Lady Midday, the demoness of the deserts, who challenged her to a contest of endurance. Hweila, being proud and still strong, agreed and set out to outlast the demon, going without food or water in the brutal sun of the Khurshi deserts. Five days later, the Dry Demon began showing her mirages, but she withstood the temptations. Six days after that, she knew she was dying. She asked for help from the sun, above her so hot and unrelenting, and in that moment, she slipped away into the darkness of a coma.

When she awoke, she was in a cool, dark cave with a subterranean river flowing through it. Three lionesses sat near her. The first told her that they had driven away the demoness, but that she still owed the demoness for having lost the game of endurance. The second told her that the Mother of Dawn heard her prayers and answered, but that she now had to return to the Mother's service. The third told her that she would live despite her dehydration, but she was now weaker than ever. Hweila thanked them, then asked how she might repay them. They told her she could do so by fulfilling her duties to the Mother.

After recovering further with water and a bit of food, she went out to find Lady Midday. When she found the demon, she resisted the temptations to go double-or-nothing, and she paid the price she promised--her right hand. Next, she went back to the cities, and she found a prayer leader to serve. She returned to the faith, and she let it guide her.

A year passed, and she recovered. She became respected in the cities for her sunsinging, and the Caliph himself sent for her. She went to him in his palace and sang for him, and he rewarded her with three treasures: a golden hand to replace hers, a carpet that flew, and a disc amulet as a symbol of her faith. She thanked him humbly and returned to her work as a sunsinger in the city. The hand she sold. She gave most of the money to the poor, but kept some and bought a simpler false hand for herself. The carpet she traded. She took it to a merchant and exchanged it for a mule to ride. The disc she kept.

Another year passed, and the heralds proclaimed that Khurshid was now at war with demon-worshipers from Ylloriix, a nation of spider monsters. Hweila answered the call and offered her services as a sunsinger to the armies of the Caliph. They accepted her, as leaders of faith were welcomed to their ranks. She took her mule and her disc and her sturdy iron hand, and she rode out with the Caliph's host. She served as well as she could, leading the morning and high noon prayers, and invoking her faith to protect them armies from demons, but one day she was separated from the squad she had been assigned to. The forests were dense and dark and humid, and she became disoriented. She wandered, trying to find the armies, but she only found spiders.

Fighting for her life, she continued to wander. Her mule died, and so she walked. Her iron hand became rusted, and so she left it behind. Her disc remained polished and bright, and it lit her way even at night. Eventually, she came to a river, and there she found a crude boat used by the spiders. She took it and let the river take her away, hoping to find a neutral village from which to get information. Instead, it took her into a waterfall, where she was thrown from the boat... and landed in a web strung over the river. She tried to do as she was trained and burn her way out, but she could not help but struggle. She became further entangled. When she was completed trapped, however, her disc reacted to her desperate prayers, and a flash of bright sunfire erupted from it, destroying the webs. She fell into the river below.

She had never learned to swim when she lived in the deserts. She only managed the boat because the river's current carried it. The river dragged her under and onward, and she nearly drowned but for a group of kindly bokkens. They walked out on the branches over the river and used sticks and vines to pull her out, and then they helped her recover. While they had no allegiance to the Khurshis who invaded their jungles, they had much hatred for the spiders. So they helped her out. They told her that the news was that the Caliph had been captured and he was to be sacrificed to a demon lord. She begged them to help her, but they said they could not. They could, however, point her to a place where she might find the means to defeat even a demon lord: the Mountain of Trials...

Ages later, Hweila now leads the Dunerunners, an elite force of desert soldiers. In the Age of the Pit, she has become involved with her fellow Champions of Hope and Wisdom to defeat Harkan the Black.