So what is the Bedouin?
Well, he’s not Algerian. At least, he’s not Ahmed Zeghida. I’m not saying if he truly is an Algerian posing as a Bedouin, or a Turk posing as an Algerian posing as a Bedouin, or something else entirely.
At least, I’m not telling you that right now. Later, many of his secrets will be revealed.
But the question ‘what is the Bedouin’ is asked in a role-playing game sense. After all, this entire exercise is to introduce you to a role-playing game setting—Mundus Novit: the Changed World.
So, in game terms, what is the Bedouin? Is a parapsych/psionic? Is he a wizard or sorcerer of some kind?
I’m still not telling. This much I will say: his game information will be forthcoming at a later date. When we get closer to the end of Dark Horizons, you will start to see game information. Can you hang in there that long?
Here’s something more: the Bedouin doesn’t know what he is. He knows he can do things, and he knows he gets information from somewhere, but he couldn’t explain how it is done. In “From Delhi With Indifference,” he gains information about objects by running his hands over them. He does this, and he knows he can do this, but he does not know how he does this.
And that’s an interesting way to play a character with powers.
Think of your True20 adept. This adept has powers. True20 is wide open enough that it doesn’t explicitly tell you how to run powers in your game. So there aren’t things like mantras that must be uttered or rituals that must be performed. There are powers and some characters have these powers.
The Bedouin has powers.
In a game, the player would know everything about the powers. The character, however, does not. Perhaps on an instinctual level—as in the Bedouin knows to run his hands over objects, that he needs physical contact to read the past of these items—the character knows he must act in a certain way or do a certain thing to succeed with his power/talent/”whatever the heck it is I do,” but he does not know or fully understand the rules of his talents.
This is the Bedouin. He knows what he can do, he just couldn’t explain how.
And here’s the last little tidbit about the Bedouin. He is powerful. We will see how powerful when it gets closer to the end. He is not powerful in the sense of fireballs out of eyes and lightning bolts out of his arse, but he has his talents and he knows how to use them. While he is combat capable—he deals handily with the hit teams—his real power is knowledge. He knows things. Not just things he conjures out of thin air, like Tashi’s name. The Bedouin can speak a plethora of languages. He knows that a guy using an designated marksman rifle with a laser sight is not a sniper, he’s a shooter or maybe a marksman.
He knows a lot of stuff.
And that makes him powerful. At least in this setting. Knowledge is power, since so many people are trying to keep so many secrets. A lot of guys can beat people up and shoot people. Very few know the things that the Bedouin knows.