The Kokushi

The Kokushi, self-referenced as the Silent Horde, were a militant terrorist group and largely unrecognized proto-state that operated in the outlands and deserts of southern Ertdor and major parts of lower Kilran. Claiming to be the successors of the Xolumir Khaganate that ruled the majority of Aquila for several thousand years, the Kokushi opposed the so-called Kilran Hegemony that ruled Aquila's largest continent in a loose confederation of citystates and sought to depose its leader, Empress Tatha, around the time of the Resurgent War.

The Silent Horde's totalitarian regime dominated the countryside for several years, raiding countless frontier settlements and effectively eliminating all intercontinental trade in the area before its leadership was dismantled by an internal coup orchestrated by vigilantes called the Outlanders.

​Structure
The exact nature of the Kokushi state is hotly disputed by contemporary scholars. While the group claimed international sovereignty and legitimacy to the throne of Kilran, it maintained no formal relations with any recognized countries or states outside its sphere of influence and did not possess any sort of advanced economy - its only source of revenue was the pillaging of farmers and other countrymen inside its own loose borders, along with allegations of illegal funding by international non-state actors, mostly in the form of weapons, medicine, and other war supplies.

However, the upper echelons of the Silent Horde were very deliberately organized, and its very limited government, while mostly the manifestation of a malevolent and autocratic military stratocracy, did provide some form of security for those citizens who swore fealty to its Leader; local governments mostly comprised of democratically elected leaders governed the individual provinces under Kokushi hegemony, though these were universally subservient to the central Horde leadership.

​Leadership
While most of the conscripts and hired mercenaries who comprised the Silent Horde would never even hear their master's name, much less attain an audience with him, a clandestine and powerful inner circle indeed dictated every move of the Kokushi, and their orders were unquestionably followed by the Underkhans, who relayed their commands to their individual armies.

​Kastor


The Kokushi was indisputably led by its paternal autocrat and magocratic sorcerer, the mage Kastor, true name Byakko. Claiming to have once served as one of the original Khans under Xolumir Khagan, Kastor asserted that his position as the last living Khan made him the legitimate successor to the entire state of Kilran by divine mandate. However, his claims are mostly unsubstantiated and met with intense skepticism by critics, who doubt that even the most powerful sorcerer could extend his life for so many centuries and still be in peak physical condition. There is always, however, some truth in legends.

Celjik
If Kastor was the brains of the Silent Horde, Celjik was his muscle and mouthpiece. Celjik was a hardened warrior who knew nothing but combat and strife for longer than he could remember. Unlike the other riders of the Kokushi, who wore bright ceremonial masks to conceal their identity, Celjik sported a plain white bone countenance with foreboding red streaks. His true origins and even his true identity were known by few, but his terrifying blade and uncanny ability to inspire fear and loyalty among his subordinates became legend to all enemies of the Horde. He was Kastor's personal executioner and foremost commander in battle, and known for his almost unwavering silence.

​Lithium
Ben Holliday was a strange sight in the dark halls of the Kokushi stronghold and a stark contrast to nearly all of Kastor's other trusted advisers. Known by most simply as Lithium, Ben's past was shrouded in secrecy, but those few senior members of the Horde who could recall the day he joined their ranks had heard whispers of his origins; there was speculation that he had organized a violent proletarian revolution, or he was the personal assassin of Tatha before changing allegiances after a supernatural vision, or even that he was simply one of Kastor's sinister creations that grew minds of their own, or perhaps all or none of these things. Most were content to know that Lithium served as the Khan's spiritual and scientific adviser, always tinkering on some new weapon that would help restore Kastor to the throne.