Sankal Aleksandra the Great

Aleksandra is an ancient Sulmu, one of the first generation born to the original 300 Sulmu on Adin. Her parents are members of the prestigious Sodality of Delvers, tasked with finding the best minerals and metals, as well as maintaining the Sulmu system of coinage. They have literally thousands of years of experience in their craft, first on their homeworld and then on Adin. Aleksandra was the first new Sulmu born into the sodality, only the tenth Sulmu born ever. She was cared for by her parents' sodality and loved by them all.

The Journey Begins

After her third birthday, the point of adulthood, Aleksandra had to decide whether to become a full ranked member of the Sodality of Delvers. Much to her parents' dismay, Aleksandra did not share their love of digging and decided to leave the sodality and become Sulmu-Ru. While this was officially a self-imposed exile from Sulmu society, what it meant in practical terms was that she was a freelancer that could hire out to different sodalities to see what she liked. This is also the point where the new Sulmu laws for children said Aleksandra would be permitted to start consuming ambrita, stopping her aging.
Aleksandra spent the next eleven years of her life testing the waters of each new sodality as it formed. Some were split off from other sodalities that had become too large, but many were focused on entirely new disciplines. Alexsandra charmed her way into as many as she could. Though she seemed to have no other innate shaping abilities, Aleksandra excelled at other things. Most of those things bored her and she moved on, once satisfied that she could in fact do them. At the age of 14, she finally applied to officially join her first adult family, the Sodality of Reasonably Safe Alchemy.₁

Home is Where Your Sodality Is

The SoRSA semi-carefully guarded its methods and secrets, and required membership to be taught or even directly witness any sort of reactions. This, they claimed, was what made it reasonably safe. It also meant lots of applicants, because the knowledge-hungry young Sulmu-Ru had largely been approaching life in the same way as Aleksandra and wanted to know everything. Plus, the only Sulmu permitted to use fire were the SoRSA and the elite Sodality of Cuisine, and Aleksandra wasn't going back there. The barrier to knowledge created value, and Aleksandra wanted in.
She had worked with the sodality before as Sulmu-Ru, gathering herbs on contract. While testing in her interview, it was discovered that Aleksandra in fact did have another ability beyond the typical Sulmu stone and metal shapers. She was able to shape liquids, heating or cooling them as well as blending and separating elements. A natural fit for the SoRSA.
For over three hundred years, Aleksandra stayed on as a Gurus with the SoRSA, deeply in love with alchemy. The six Tur and the Sankal that led the SoRSA were unchanging, devoted and ageless pioneers pushing ever further with their knowledge.
Aleksandra chose the SoRSA over the chance at promotion time and time again. Any group of Gurus would have gladly followed her into a new sodality, but she had no interest. Once she had surpassed all of the Tur of the SoRSA in skill, their Sankal appealed to allow a seventh Tur.

Catalyst

While The Sodality of Bureaucracy was itself composed of dozens of Tur to keep everything within one sodality, they were also the ones in charge of the rules. The appeal was denied, citing some arcane combination of article, amendment, paragraph, and the like. The Tur responsible for rejecting the appeal had never read or even knew if that paragraph existed for certain. But he was a clerk, and if he didn't know it then someone at the Sodality of Reasonably Safe Alchemy certainly wouldn't know it either.
Aleksandra left the SoRSA soon after. She had considered leaving before the appeal, but once that process had started she decided to stick it through and see what happened, leaving her fate to the SoB. Progress in alchemy had slowed to a crawl during her time there, as most major discoveries had been documented and replicated countless times. It was time for a new challenge.

The Search for Meaning

After centuries of working with extensive math, her next stop was The First Sodality of Banking and Commerce₂ for around twenty years until the numbers became predictable. Then she was off to play with fire again at the Sodality of True Cuisine (no relation) for around ninety years, the Sodality of Impartial Saints for twelve years, the Sodality of Intermittent Light for two months, the Sodality of Recovering from Cults for a year, the Sodality of Martial Prowess for ten... she wore a lot of hats.
After that, she finally delved into the fine arts, something she had resisted previously not due to lack of interest, but rather lack of confidence. Aleksandra knew numbers and formulas and information, but creation was different. She began her approach from an alchemist's view, and worked her way into the Sodality of Unusual Painters by contributing the finest inks and pigments they had ever seen. She could also stir one hell of a cocktail.
Aleksandra spent the next three hundred years in the SoUP. They had long since evolved past a simple clan of painters and were involved in all manner of artistic deviance. Aleksandra sampled it all, even working for the first time with metal and stone shaping from an artistic perspective rather than an industrial one like her parents had.
She attained the rank of Tur within the SoUP, but again resisted splitting off into her own sodality. Many were formed from like-minded Gurus in the SoUP that wanted to start their own to focus on a specific art form, but Aleksandra preferred the freedom of being a more general artist. Being able to switch crafts between projects was good for keeping her interest better than many professions had been able to do. She also really enjoyed continuing to make all the pigments and assorted chemicals for their Sankal, a post still held by the sodality's original founder, a dedicated and brilliant painter of over 700 years.
It was during Aleksandra's time in the SoUP that the Udug arrived in Sulmu lands, and things really began moving in Sulmu culture. While the Sulmu knew of the existence of the other species on the world, the Gods had instructed them to keep to themselves and remain peaceful. But the Udug changed all that, presenting themselves as would-be conquerors that had far outpaced the Sulmu in population. Aleksandra never had any direct dealings with the Udug during the first contact, but was intrigued by the new engineering sodalities that began to emerge after their arrival.

The New Sound

One of these was of special interest to Aleksandra, who appreciated the strange and new. A few Sulmu-Ru had traveled to Udug lands and learned their primitive methods of forging metal with fire and tools. With the Udug, the use of tools and heat augmented their failing shaping abilities. For the Sulmu that could still shape using only thought and touch, adding the focus of a hammer had just led to several huge leaps in material science. The resonance of the hammer strikes strengthened metal in ways that were difficult and time consuming with regular shaping, and the steady rhythm of forging put the Sulmu into an extremely focused state that led to better work. They formed a new sodality based on this emerging metal art, each member hammering out intricate art or machine parts to the rhythm of the Sankal's forging.
The rhythm was infectuous, and soon the entire city was tuned in to the neverending song of the hammers. The beat resonated in the heart of every Sulmu, perhaps Aleksandra most of all. They all felt attuned to the hammering on some primal level. Aleksandra threw aside her disdain of metal shaping and joined the sodality with a newfound interest.
For the last hundred years, she served as Tur to her new mentor, Sankal Heffgar of The Sodality of Swing. When Heffgar stepped down from his position during The Winter of Peace, Aleksandra was elevated to the title of Sankal. Heffgar stayed on as a Gurus, but recognized the change in culture that was approaching and wanted Aleksandra's diverse background to help guide the sodality into this suddenly wider world.

The New World

Aleksandra did just that, volunteering her sodality to be the first to visit the Adinite Five Nations and engage in trade. She chose one of the splinter sodalities to lead the rhythm in their absence, and hired an Adinite ship to transport them to Kibalagaldi. The full sodality of 43 members, three dependent children, and a dozen Sulmu-Ru₃ landed in New Eridu and rented a shop and seven houses.
The people of Kibalagaldi were very welcoming to the sodality and the beautiful goods they offered, but not all Adinites shared the Sulmu appreciation for the noise that accompanied their craft. The Adinite population of the city looked more sleep deprived by the day, and soon the complaints started coming in.
Aleksandra bartered for three different models of the new Adinite motorized wagons, and they moved a league outside of the city. There they set up camp, and spent the next few weeks bringing in materials and making their own wagons based on the Adinite design, sized for Sulmu occupants. Wagons were adapted into homes, kitchens, mobile forges, workshops, everything they would need for a comfortable life but on wheeled frames. Gurus Heffgar had the idea to add couplings to each wagon, to prevent accidents as well as keep the sodality together on the road, and share engine power to move the caravan along.₄

A Fresh Audience

As they worked, a crowd gathered. At first it was just a couple of Adinites passing by on the road, but then those people came back and brought friends. By the time the first wagon was completed, there were more than fifty people from New Eridu that came out daily to listen to Aleksandra lead her Turs through their forging for the day, the rhythm rising and falling throughout the day through periods of frenzy and rest.
Aleksandra realized they had something more here than simple trade opportunities. Even though they weren't making goods for sale, they had customers. They were entertaining people with their labor, and there was value there. Each time a wagon was completed, the crowd cheered. Each time Aleksandra called for a break or the end of forging for the day, they begged for more. And they danced.
A week later came the first Festival Day since the Sulmu had arrived in Kibalagaldi. The sodality rested on the day of the festival, which was also the tradition in the Five Nations. A couple of the Sulmu-Ru went into New Eridu to see how the Adinites celebrated but most stayed at the camp, still timid of dealing directly with the locals. Their audience came to them, with more new members than ever, hoping to hear the Sulmu at work. They had brought food, ambrita, and lots of glorious drink.
Aleksandra allowed the most skilled of the Gurus to take the six Tur forges, and led them in the start of a new rhythm, slower and more focused on the art of sound than the shaping of metal. She then handed over her hammers to another Gurus and joined the party. The Gurus kept the rhythm all through that day and until sunrise the following morning. The Sodality of Swing maintains this tradition every month.
The sodality travels across Kibalagaldi in their wagon train, brightly painted with Aleksandra's pigments, to the beat of Sankal Aleksandra and her Tur hammering away in their wagons. At each stop, they circle the wagons and put up temporary fencing, charging admission for those who want more than the "backwagon" sound anyone else gets to hear. Every show is sold out.

Spread the Beat Around

Rejecting the traditional sodality structure in this new land, Aleksandra has promoted several dozen Gurus that showed promise in their percussive studies to Tur. By her decree, no more than six Tur may forge at once together, with the Sankal leading them if she is available. But the Tur do forge, every night in every important town in Kibalagaldi. Sometimes accompanied by Adinites with their quiet and reedy instruments, sometimes just a lone Tur tapping out a muted story that makes its listeners remember home or a lost love.
This puts Aleksandra in the wonderful position of having a network of informants all over Kibalagaldi. "The Sulmu follow the work," as the saying goes, but it's handy to know where the work is going to be before the customer does. A more accurate saying would be, "The work leads the Sulmu." Besides goods and entertainment, Aleksandra has also discovered the value of information.

¹The name was very misleading, but had meant the difference between approval as a new sodality and being led quietly out of The Sodality of Bureaucracy by security again.
² It took a considerable amount of bribery to get this name approved by The Sodality of Bureaucracy. It's never been determined why The First Sodality of Banking and Commerce insisted upon the "First" as they were not the first bank to exist, nor were they really claiming to be first at anything in particular. But in the time since, every banking sodality has changed their name to follow suit. These name changes come at a hefty price, as do any permits for new banking sodalities. The Sodality of Bureaucracy just adjusted the bribery into a convenient additional fee to avoid misunderstandings and low ballers.
³ Due to the Complicated Relations Act put into place by the SoB after contact with the Udug, no member of a sodality is permitted to speak to a non-Sulmu. Sulmu-Ru are employed as negotiators, diplomats, and couriers. Alexsandra ignored this law for the most part, once she was in the Five Nations and away from the SoB.
⁴ This feature caught on quickly, and within a year almost all new wagons in Kibalagaldi were built with these couplings.

Species

Sulmu

Age

807

Height

4'11"

Aligned Organization

The Sodality of Swing