UKULAN CHAGHAN

“Because inside me is a beast that snarls, and growls, and strains toward freedom.. and as hard as I try, I cannot kill it.”

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NAME: Ukulan of the Chaghan
GENDER: Male
AGE: Thirty five
OCCUPATION: Mercenary, shaman, mentor, adoptive dad
TRIBE: Chaghan
BIRTHPLACE: The Azim Steppe
HOME: Nomadic
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral

THE STORY

Originally of the Qerel tribe in the Azim Steppe, Ukulan was born clutching a black clot of blood in his fist, a rare and ominous sign among the Qerel. The shamans interpreted this as a dual prophecy: the child was destined for greatness, yet he would struggle with an uncontrollable temper, much like a qasar dog.His parents, rejoicing at the birth of their first and only son, celebrated with a great hunt followed by a feast for the entire tribe. But while his birth was a moment of joy, the shamans’ second omen troubled some of the Elders. The Qerel had long borne the curse of the inner beast-- a phenomenon akin to berserker rage that overtook warriors in the heat of battle, blinding them with bloodlust and driving them to slaughter all in their path.For those who could not master the beast within -- or who succumbed even once -- exile was their fate.Until he came of age, Ukulan seemed the very ideal of a Qerel warrior: not only tall and strong, but calm, composed, and possessed of extraordinary self-discipline. So it came as a shock when, during his ritual hunt, Ukulan lost control. The trigger: watching his ritual brother mauled before his eyes by the tiger they had set out to kill. It took three warriors to subdue the raging Xaela and drag him back to the tribe for judgment.Despite their disappointment, the Elders held to the old laws. Tradition would not bend. Ukulan was banished-- cast out from the Qerel and condemned to live in exile unless he could one day return having mastered the inner beast. Left to fend for himself in the untamed wilds of the Steppe, the boy found he had no choice but to embrace the very rage he had been told to resist to survive.As Ukulan wandered the Steppe in exile, it was inevitable that his path would cross with the Chaghan.

The Chaghan—an offshoot of the Qerel who revered the berserker rage as a sacred gift from the Dusk Mother herself—could scarcely be called a true tribe. They were more a scattered horde of madmen: raiders, killers, pillagers who roamed the Steppe without honor or restraint. Yet to a young exile who had lost everything -- family, tribe, kin -- they were something else. They were a home.They accepted Ukulan without question, without judgment. His fury was not a burden here, but a strength. Among the Chaghan, his wrath was not feared-- it was celebrated. And so, despite the atrocities committed, Ukulan followed in their blood-soaked footsteps.Days turned into months and years, as time became an incomprehensible construct for a Chaghan embracing the beast, his thoughts clouded by the crimson haze of battle. Each time the Will of Karash surged through him, the claws dug deeper. With every life taken, he marked his flesh—scars and tattoos alike etched across his body, a grim tally of bloodshed.It was during one such raid that everything changed.Ukulan drove his spear into his prey's chest, and beneath the crunch of bone he heard the faint cling of a totem on his waist. As the dying warrior gasped his final breath, that sound rang out again as he collapsed. Ukulan looked down. The blood-stained ornaments hanging from the warrior’s belt were unmistakable: teeth of a steppe tiger, carved in the style of the Qerel as a totem. The same teeth he had seen long ago, buried in his ritual brother’s body -- the moment the beast first took hold. Something inside him cracked.In that moment, the man buried deep beneath years of rage stirred. He saw clearly: he had become the very thing that had shattered his life. The source of his pain had always been loss, and yet now he was the one inflicting it. The cycle had turned, and he was no longer its victim--but its vessel.And so, for the first time, Ukulan fought back.The beast did not take well to it, thrashing in protest, claws dug deep, but Ukulan did not yield. He did not purge it-- such a thing was impossible. Instead, he shackled it, dragging it into the depths of his soul. It would remain there, ever growling, ever waiting-- but contained. He was Ukulan of the Qerel once more. Beloved son. Loyal brother. Promised warrior. While the Chaghan continued their rampage, Ukulan turned his back and walked away. With no destination, no tribe, and once again, no home.Ukulan wandered far, a drifter whose heart carried the weight of Steppe thunder. He passed through bustling ports where Hingan bells chimed and sea salt bit his skin, through Doman valleys rebuilt from war, where children played among ashes not yet cold. In each land he was an outsider -- tolerated, sometimes paid in coin for his strength, sometimes feared, never understood. But in taverns dim with lamp-smoke, in the bottom of a bottle, he found stillness. That stillness was dangerous.In silence, the beast whispered. It didn’t speak in words but in urges -- the tremor in his fingers when mocked by a group of drunkards at the next table, the twitch in his eye when cornered by a rowdy group of thugs, the pounding rhythm of war drums that only he could hear. Ukulan had become an expert at hiding the signs, but the truth was always the same: he was not healed. He was only contained.Yet, those moments of stillness afforded him small pockets where he could reflect back on his life-- see where he had fucked up. He saw now what he had not before. The Chaghan existed because the Qerel had made them so. Their sacred tradition, so rigid, so absolute, had birthed its own undoing. Ukulan was not the first to be exiled for losing control-- and he knew he would not be the last.The beast did not destroy the Qerel. The Qerel, in their fear, had fed it.

Those thoughts lingered in Ukulan’s mind, occupying the small pockets of clarity found in between drinks-- drinks paid for with gil earned through work as a sellsword, mercenary, and monster hunter. Each job carried the risk of the beast breaking out of his cage, threatening to come free in the thrill of battle when his heartbeat surged. It was during one of these wanderings through the Free Cities of the West that he first heard something truly different from the ramblings of madmen and philosophers he had come across for a cure to his condition. Not condemnation. Not indulgence. Not silence, but instead harmony.The words came from a traveling monk, an old man of Ala Mhigo, who spoke not of conquering one’s rage, but of embracing it. He spoke of the inner flame, how it must be tempered like steel-- folded, not quenched. Honored, not feared.“You are not meant to be empty, Ukulan,” the monk said before their final parting. “You were born with fire. It will burn until your last breath. The goal is not to snuff it out, but to choose where it burns. And who it warms.”
That wisdom stayed with him. Slowly, it began to take root. As months turned to years, the Will of Karash grew quieter, the instincts of bloodlust duller, number. He no longer lashed out at the voice within-- but neither did he try to silence it. He faced it and sometimes fought it. It was messy, raw. Sometimes, he'd smile at it and embrace it. And in doing so, the man began to lead the beast, not be led by it.When Ukulan returned to the Steppe, it was not as a lost son of the Qerel, nor as the wild savage the Chaghan had once known. He was something different now-- something new. The pain of exile no longer weighed him down; nor did the despair of loss longer chain him.He sought out the Chaghan, the only people who had once accepted him for who he was-- even though it were in the full embrace of the beast. They did not recognize him, of course. Their memories were fragmented, lost beneath years of madness and unchecked fury. Recognition in the Chaghan was a luxury; most hardly remembered their own names, let alone a brother who had walked away. So, when he approached, they fought.But Ukulan was no longer just strong; he was skilled, fighting with control and precision that the Chaghan were not used to, his steel folded by his experiences outside the Steppe. One by one, those who callenged him fell, their brute force no match for their lost brother's controlled violence.Then came the true battle: rehabilitation.Most Chaghan only shed the grip of the beast once utterly exhausted, some collapsing into unconsciousness. But when they woke, they were not met with exile, or judgment, or a spear through the heart. They were met with food. Fire. A hand on their shoulder. A family began to take shape—not of blood, not of name, but of shared pain. Ukulan taught what he had learned: that the beast could not be destroyed, only understood; that passion was not weakness, but potential. The very same scars that the once-Qerel warriors had carried in their minds for so long after being cast out were now in the process of mending... slowly, but surely.Over time, the Chaghan evolved, growing not just in number but in spirit. They gradually shed their past identity as a band of raiders and madmen, transforming into a true clan united by shared suffering rather than rage.To this day, the Chaghan live on. Not as the shattered offshoot of the Qerel, but a people reborn. A clan of warriors, exiles, and survivors guided by their inner fire, no longer used to burn but to warm. And at the heart of it all walks Ukulan-- mentor, brother, warrior… and to a surprising number of loud, stubborn little Xaela, Dad. And while he may grumble at the constant tugging at his pelts, the barrage of endless questions, having to wake up in the middle of the night to break up wrestling matches or getting no sleep due to being buried beneath a pile of giggling Xaela children, everyone knows he'd have it no other way.They are not Qerel. Not the Chaghan they once were.They are something new. Something whole.And undeniably, unapologetically, a family.

THE CHAGHAN

☫ The Chaghan are a stray group of exiles from the Qerel clan who are, for the most part, detached from each other and have no ruling body.

☫ They are known for embracing the Will of Karash -- a form of berserker rage that causes one to be able to perform feats of strength that'd normally be impossible for an Xaela.

☫ The Will of Karash, despite affording the user great power, comes at the price of succumbing to rage that causes one to howl like a wild beast, gnaw on one's weapons and fight without discriminating between friend or foe.

☫ Recently, a few individual groups of the Chaghan have banded together, forming their own autonomous clan. Although still embracing their inner beast, they have learned to control it enough to the point they succumb to it (mostly) at will, controlling the beast instead of it controlling them.

☫ The Chaghan warriors that undergo the Will of Karash primarily wear pelts made from the fur of Steppe tigers, an outward reminder of the wearer's having gone beyond the confines of his/her humanity and become a divine predator.

☫ Likewise, the deceased of the Chaghan are laid to rest wrapped in furs made from the pelts of steppe tigers prior to their funeral rites.

☫ As the Chaghan have gained more structure, they have embraced their shamanic and religious side with such fervor that rituals and practices have become part of their identity. An example of this is the initiation ritual, symbolizing death and rebirth in the form of an initiate of the Chaghan having to spend time in the wilderness alone, living like their totem animal (a Steppe tiger) and learning its ways, obtaining their sustenance through hunting and gathering. As an offshoot of the Qerel tribe, the similarities are noted between their rituals.

☫ To live in the manner of a Steppe tiger -- a Baras -- is the ultimate goal for a berserker of the Chaghan. The bond with the savage world is indicated not only on the geographic plane – life beyond the limits of the civilized life of the towns… but also on what we would consider a moral plane: their existence is assured by the law of the jungle. A Chaghan ceases to be an ordinary Xaela, and instead becomes more of a tiger-man, more a part of the Steppe than civilization itself.

☫ Once a Chaghan has passed his initiation and has become a part of the clan, they acquire the ability to induce a state of possession by his kindred beast, acquiring its strength, fearlessness, and fury. This ecstatic trance state can be induced in the heat of battle, or through emotional outbursts themselves -- lending a reputation of hotheadedness to the men and women of Chaghan.

☫ Yet most of the time the Chaghan who have learned to control their inner beast induce it through numerous shamanic and religious rituals. These rituals include fasting, exposure to extreme heat as well as ceremonial weapon dances before battle for a berserker of the Chaghan to acquire the traits of a Baras. As the Chaghan are known to be able to enter their berserker state without these, it's thought by many historians through Eorzea that these rituals only serve to impose a form of self-control upon the warriors so that they do not lose themselves.

☫ It's suspected that milkroot is used in a ceremonial context by Chaghan to induce and even enhance their berserker rage.

☫ The berserker state is initiated in a series of steps - first the warrior begins to shiver, the teeth begin to chatter, and a chill overtakes the body. Then the face changes colour, reddening and swelling with blood as the famous hotheadedness of the Chaghan give way into a great rage instead.

☫ On the battlefield, the berserker warriors often enter the fray naked but for their animal mask and pelts, howling, roaring, and running amok with godly or demonic courage.

☫ Once a warrior survives his berserker state, they are left with both permanent and temporary side effects. It is known that once the condition ceases, a great dulling of the mind and feebleness of the body follows, lasting a day or perhaps several. Furthermore, the warrior is also imparted with emotional deadness and vulnerability to explosive rage to his psychology and permanent hyperarousal to his physiology — hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder

• IN CHARACTER
• OUT OF CHARACTER

Hello, thank you for reading through my Carrd.I am a 21+ writer that has been roleplaying in FFXIV for a couple of years now, and roleplaying as a whole for 10+ years. I am open to all themes and all kinds of RP, and even though my preference is for para-RP, I mirror well.

One thing I would like to mention is that OOC=/=IC and I absolutely /despise/ OOC drama. I reserve my right to walk away if there is anything of the sort. This includes any OOC bigotry, racism, homophobia, transphobia and so on.I am a full-time medical worker and thus may need to schedule RP. Feel free to ask for my Discord if you'd like to do some scenes there -- I prefer Discord most of the time, actually.

Chances are you saw me in the usual RP spots people watching -- this means I am probably shifting through Carrds and just generally idling. Send me a tell beforehand if you'd like to set something up, RP, or even for a chat! Questions are more than welcome. Especially about the Chaghan!This is a character that is constantly a work in progress -- as RP happens, the character may grow and change. Please keep that in mind. That being said, Ukulan is a character inspired by numerous sources such as the Berserk series, Mongolian culture as well as Nordic berserker culture. I myself am descended from nomadic Turkic-Mongolian people, specifically the Yakuts and the Buryats, of the Central Asian Steppe (the culture that the Xaela are partly based on) so I hope I can provide a good representation of the culture!Other than that, have a great day!