White Face

The White Face were a group of twenty-seven Barghast tribes/clans that lived in the mountains to the north of Capustan on the continent of Genabackis.^[1] Their name likely reflected their custom of decorating their bare chests, shoulders, and faces with thick white paint that gave them the appearance of bone and a skull with dark pits for eyes.^[2]

In Memories of Ice

Over one hundred thousand of the White Face Barghast answered Humbrall Taur's call to counsel as well as gathering to witness Trotts challenge to become a warleader of the clan.^[3]

Following the fight and finding out that the Founding Spirits of the Barghast had awakened but were trapped in Capustan, the White Face eventually agreed to join the war against the Pannion Seer who had recently laid claim to the city of Capustan.^[4]

The White Face were instrumental in lifting the Siege of Capustan^[5] and afterwards profited greatly by selling food and supplies to the city's survivors.^[6] They also successfully retrieved the bodies of their ancestors.^[7]

Taur's warriors accompanied their Malazan allies to Coral where they participated in the Battle of Black Coral that ended the war.^[8] Afterwards, they returned to their lands in the Barghast Range.^[9]

In Reaper's Gale

Sometime after the end of the Pannion War, in the last days of the reign of King Ezgara Diskanar of the Letherii Empire, the clans of the White Face Barghast "disappeared" from Genabackis and travelled to the north-central coast of the continent of Lether, landing just to the north of the Awl'dan plains. The White Face numbered in the hundreds of thousands and their transports had been thousands of huge seagoing war canoes.^[10][11]

Humbrall Taur having tragically drowned at the landing, the White Face combined clans chose Onos Toolan, an Imass, to be their new warleader. Abandoning their vessels, the Barghast travelled to the southeast, using the Tellann Warren to cloak their movements. They began a long, intensive reconnaissance of this new territory in order to learn the lay of the land and to determine the current political situation of the inhabitants. While reconnoitering, the White Face learned that the Grey Swords of Elingarth - with whom they had apparently planned to rendezvous^[12][13] - had been annihilated by the Letherii Army due solely to the treacherous betrayal of the Grey Swords by the Awl forces. For Onos Toolan, as a result, there "would be...no room for mercy. Not for the Awl. Not for the Letherii army..."^[14]

After allowing the Letherii army to wipe out the Awl army in battle - the two forces for some time having been at war with each other - the White Face Barghast emerged from the Tellann Warren and then finished off the by now exhausted Letherii. The Barghast killed them all in "a frenzy of explosive savagery".^[15]

In Toll the Hounds

Baruk grew distressed at reports that the White Face Barghast had all disappeared. Crone told him they had taken to the seas after the Tiste Andii investiture of Black Coral. Meanwhile, the Grey Swords had marched back to Elingarth, purchased ships and followed them.^[16]

In Dust of Dreams

All twenty-seven^[17] White Face Barghast clans had migrated to Lether. After having dealt with the Letherii and the Awl, the White Face eventually became involved in a war with the Akrynnai - who were an important nomadic tribal people already inhabiting the area and who had done nothing to provoke the war.^[18]

For a variety of reasons, eight of the twenty-seven White Face clans had become disenchanted with Onos Toolan's leadership style and with his performance as warchief of the combined clans. These clans had broken off, one by one, to independently settle elsewhere on the Lether plains. Amongst the remaining nineteen clans, however, there was a great deal of turmoil and unrest and more clans would probably have eventually left if the war with the Akrynnai had not broken out.^[19]

As the White Face Barghast discovered, however, the quality and quantity of the Akrynnai warriors and their allies - under the leadership of Sceptre Irkullas - were much more potent adversaries than the White Face clans had expected. Repeatedly successful in battle, the Akrynnai soon "...left the Barghast reeling".^[20] At the hotly contested ultimate encounter^[21] between the White Face clans, led by Maral Eb, and the Akrynnai forces an extremely mysterious, cataclysmic event overtook the battlefield and destroyed all of the combatants - both Barghast and Akrynnai alike. The war that the White Face Barghast had begun so rashly, proved, in the end, to be catastrophic for all the parties involved.^[22]

In The Crippled God

A member of the Forkrul Assail in Kolanse - when he learned that they would be fighting the White Face of clan Gilk - referred to an ancient Barghast army that the Forkrul had created and had called the Gillankai. The Gillankai shared certain similarities with the Gilk and this particularly disturbed the Forkrul Assail Lawful Inquisitor, Brother Diligence.^[23]

Known White Face Barghast clans

• White Face Barghast^[24][25]
  • Ahkrata^[26][27]
    • Skincuts^[28]
  • Barahn^[26][29]
  • Gadra^[30]
    • Snakehunter^[31]
  • Gilk^[26][32]
  • Nith'rithal^[26][33]
  • Senan^[26][34]

Known Individuals of the White Face Barghast

Absi (half-Barghast) Bakal Balamit Bavalt Bedit Befka Benden Ledag Cafal Corit Desorban Elor Estaral Faranda Hega

Hessanrala Hetan Humbrall Taur Jastara Jayviss Kamz'tryld Karavt Kashat Krin Maral Eb Netok Old Yara Ralata Riggis

Sagal Sathand Gril Sekara Spax Stavi (half-Barghast) Stolmen Storii (half-Barghast) Strahl Talamandas Talt Trotts Yedin Zaravow

Notes and references