On the wild savannas of north-central Taggarus during the Godless Times, the hhennan prowl in nomadic tribes, seeking food, water, and the occasional shelter. They live in rough tents and enjoy all that their rough life has to offer: liquor bought from travelers or made in special hidden stills, feasts of wildebeest and zebra, rutting, and the open freedom of the savanna.

They like to laugh, to keep hyenas (their ancestral animal), and hunt in dangerous packs. They are tricksters, game-players, and occasionally mad prophets, like the shaman woman Juruda Adar.

In her thirteenth year, she went on a hunt that seemed at first like any other hunt she had been on, until she came to the edge of the tribe's territory. There, she met a strange sight: a two-headed mgnwa, bizarre simply for its two heads, but mind boggling for being so far from its own territory. Beyond the skulls on sticks that marked her tribe's hunting ground's edges was the territory of a tribe of cheetahmen, and Juruda knew not to go there. Her own tribe had split up briefly--her to check out the disturbance she sensed and the others to the waterhole beyond the old rocks.

The mngwa slowly approached her, body low, ready to attack, and she held her spear ready to defend. Then, the beast pounced, and her efforts to defend herself were futile. She was ripped sternum to groin, and her legs were mangled. Before she lost consciousness, her spear merely irritated the beast.

She dreamt, in her blood-deprived delirium, of a realm with vibrant green pillars, each with a staircase winding around it. She lay in a pool of violet blood, and felt it all slowly leeching her strength away. She struggled to the nearest pillar, marked with the sign of a claw and fang. As she edged her way up the staircase, its color shifted slowly to a brownish yellow, at after what seemed like hours, she reached the top, where she met the mngwa again.

"You struggle against your role," it said.

"I am not prey," she responded. "I am a laughing hunter."

The mgnwa considered her a moment, then said, "I will feast upon your body, little one, for your bloodline is strong, and I have need of sustenance."

"Is there not better sustenance?" she asked. "Am I truly so special?"

"You are," he replied, "for you are one of the Named."

"I don't understand," was all she could manage.

When she awoke, she was naked, in a pool of blood, on the wild savanna. Around her were the cheetahmen of the tribe nearby. The leader of the band that found her told her that they had heard her scream and come quickly as cheetahs could to help. When they found her, one of their warriors fought a two-headed mgnwa, and in the battle, he, the prince of their tribe, died. But when he died, his blood mingled with hers, and that of the mngwa.

The mingling bloods brought her back, but the other two seemed to die.

Not knowing what to do, the young hhennan girl thanked them and told them she would return to her tribe. Two guards were detailed to aide her, and she was reunited with her people.

That night, she dreamt again: this time, she was both a prince of the cheetahmen and a girl of the hhennan. With her was the two-headed mgnwa, and they traveled the width and breadth of Taggarus. She realized, then, that her soul was now joined with the other two--H'karu Kion, Prince of the Y'kath-Kion Tribe, and Buru Buru, the Two-Headed Mngwa. When she awakened, she went to her chief, and told him, "We must not be apart any longer. We are all one people, we of the Wild Blood."

Her voice, bearing three souls, came with power, and the chieftain listened. She and her tribe joined quickly with their cheetahman neighbors, then with the thracen to the north, then the lionmen to the east, then more and more tribes, until she had united almost 100 tribes.

They lead her to the Mountain of Trials, where she sought the mantle of Champion. While she faced the Trials, though, her people began to face internal struggles--old rivalries, outside assaults, the demonic cults of the region, and so on--and they dispersed, disbanded before she returned. When she did return, she found only 100 people left. From those, she chose her Court.