Thirty-Two

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Two, later named Jabari Nthanda
Publication information
Series	Tribal Universe Tribal Comics
Created by	Tony James Nelson II, writing as Tribal Brown
Publisher	Roovet Books
First appearance	Dark Justice
Publication date	March 12, 2026
Publication history	Dark Justice (2026) Murder Island (2026) Tribal Bloody Beginnings (2026) Khalembo the Conqueror (2026) Sakori’s Fury (2026) Zafira the Demon (2026)
In-universe information
Full name	Jabari Nthanda
Aliases	32 The Proctor
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Age	Twenty-six at the beginning of Tribal Bloody Beginnings
Occupation	Proctor Tribal Bible reader Battle mage Former interrogator and wolf operative
Affiliation	Nebu Wolf Tribe (formerly) Office of the Proctor Expedition to Terra
Relatives	Mother: Tia Washington Partner: Rimitorry Ka’ Tora
Home	Nebu (formerly) Fugitive traveling toward Terra
Status	Alive
Abilities and equipment
Powers	Ka’ru manipulation and absorption Tribal Bible spellcasting Elemental, blood, bone, mind, gravity, time and spatial magic Magical viewing and teleportation Enhanced strength, speed and reflexes
Abilities	Interrogation Close combat Observation Tactical analysis Pain tolerance Sacred witnessing
Weapons	Tribal Bible pages Black-stone cipher ring Knives and captured weapons

Thirty-Two, also written as 32 and later named Jabari Nthanda, is a fictional narrator, former Nebu wolf operative, proctor, Tribal Bible reader and emerging battle mage in the Tribal Universe. Created by Tony James Nelson II, writing as Tribal Brown, he is the first-person narrator and central protagonist of Tribal Bloody Beginnings: The Rise of the Dark Alpha.

Thirty-Two’s first comic appearance is in Dark Justice, the first issue of Tribal Comics. The issue depicts him reading a forbidden account of the Thirteen Chambers under Rimitorry Ka’ Tora’s guidance. The story continues in Murder Island, where he reads the suppressed doctrine behind Murder Island and begins to understand how the tribal system manufactures survivors, warriors and rulers.

In the novel, Thirty-Two begins as a twenty-six-year-old interrogator who has carried a numerical designation for seventeen years. Nebu took him when he was nine, removed his original identity and conditioned him to observe, torture, kill and obey. His promotion to proctor, relationship with Rimitorry and unusual compatibility with the Tribal Bible gradually transform him from a numbered instrument into an independent keeper of forbidden knowledge.

The name Jabari Nthanda is not presented as his recovered birth name. Rimitorry gives it to him as a chosen identity, rejecting Nebu’s claim that a number is sufficient to define a human being. His story consequently centers on identity erasure, institutional conditioning, memory, forbidden knowledge and the possibility that a person created as a weapon can become the witness who exposes the system that created him.

⚠Spoiler warning: The following sections contain major plot details from Tribal Bloody Beginnings and Tribal Comics Issues 1–5.

Character role

Thirty-Two functions simultaneously as narrator, participant and keeper of the Tribal Universe’s hidden history. His role changes repeatedly across the story:

Stage	Identity	Narrative function
Nebu conditioning	Numbered wolf operative	Demonstrates how Nebu replaces personal identity with ownership, function and obedience
Interrogation of Tia Washington	Extractor and interrogator	Reveals the moral cost of conditioning when he fails to recognize his own mother
Appointment as proctor	Witness and keeper of records	Changes him from a person ordered to extract truth into one required to preserve it
Tribal Bible reader	Sacred reader and developing mage	Gives him access to history and magic unavailable to ordinary wolves
Jabari Nthanda	Chosen personal identity	Represents his movement from institutional ownership toward love, family and self-direction
Expedition toward Terra	Battle mage and fugitive	Turns the former observer into a direct force capable of changing the conflicts he was appointed to record

His importance does not depend entirely on physical strength. Thirty-Two has access to memories, texts, spells and hidden structures that many stronger warriors cannot interpret. By Chapter 22 of Tribal Bloody Beginnings, he can combine this informational advantage with destructive magic and close-range Ka’ru enhancement, making his rapid growth more significant than a simple ranking of current power.

Names and identity

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Two is the designation imposed on him by Nebu after his abduction. The number replaces his childhood name and operates as a mark of classification, ownership and control. He carries it for seventeen years and initially accepts it as the only identity still available to him.

The shortened form 32 appears in commands, records and dialogue. Its efficiency reinforces the purpose of the system: history, family and personality are compressed into a label that can be cataloged, deployed and replaced.

Proctor

The Dark Alpha appoints Thirty-Two as proctor after the interrogation of Tia Washington. The office belongs to a witness, record keeper and living repository of tribal secrets. A proctor is protected by severe tribal law, but the position requires him to observe events, preserve their truth and carry dangerous knowledge without the freedom to forget it.

The appointment creates the central contradiction in his character. Nebu spent seventeen years teaching him that memory and identity were weaknesses, then assigned him an office built around remembering. As an interrogator, he extracted truth from other people’s bodies. As proctor, truth begins extracting a cost from his own.

Jabari Nthanda

Jabari Nthanda is the name Rimitorry gives him after refusing to treat his numerical designation as a complete identity. The name is chosen rather than recovered: it does not return the childhood erased by Nebu, but it gives him the right to become a person in the present.

Different characters continue to call him Thirty-Two, 32, proctor or Jabari according to their relationship with him. The competing forms of address reveal whether a speaker sees him primarily as property, office, weapon, witness or individual.

Appearance

Thirty-Two is depicted as an adult human male with the trained build, controlled posture and physical discipline expected of a Nebu wolf operative. His earliest behavior is deliberately restrained: he limits visible emotion, watches rooms before speaking and maintains professional stillness even around violence.

A number is tattooed on the back of his neck as a permanent sign of Nebu’s ownership system. Later changes in his eyes reflect the development of his magic. During the Dark Forest confrontation, their ordinary color shifts through orange and gold into a storm-like white as he releases Ka’ru and Tribal Bible spells at full intensity.

Comic depiction

Sakori’s Fury: Tribal Comics #4, in which Thirty-Two and Rimitorry witness the assault on Gia while searching for the Tribal Bible key.

The comics contrast Thirty-Two’s controlled physical presence with the supernatural material surrounding him. Dark Justice and Murder Island place him in a candlelit library before living, forbidden books. Khalembo the Conqueror positions him as the reader whose spell turns a training exercise into a massacre. Sakori’s Fury moves him through Nebu’s throne room, bone corridors and elders’ quarters, while Zafira the Demon presents him as Jabari, a fugitive mage returning to occupied Gia.

Fictional biography

Abduction and conditioning

Thirty-Two is taken by Nebu at the age of nine. His original name, birthplace and early family history have not been fully revealed. He remembers that he once had a mother, a birthday and personal preferences, but seventeen years of conditioning teach him to regard those memories as vulnerabilities.

Nebu trains him as a wolf operative specializing in interrogation, extraction, execution and disposal. By twenty-six, he has killed hundreds of people and can interpret fear, deception, pain and physical weakness with professional detachment. He believes that the child he once was is dead and that only the number remains.

The novel later indicates that Thirty-Two was evaluated as a possible Deathwave subject but did not become a successful member of the program. Doctor Polezah retains and repurposes him rather than discarding him. This history establishes a contrast between Deathwave, who is engineered toward physical perfection, and Thirty-Two, whose most dangerous quality becomes his ability to read, question and reinterpret knowledge.

Tia Washington and appointment as proctor

At the beginning of Tribal Bloody Beginnings, Thirty-Two is ordered to interrogate Detective Tia Washington, who has investigated the Tribe. He experiences a suppressed sense of recognition but continues the interrogation because his conditioning prevents memory from becoming conscious identification.

Thirty-Two believes that Tia dies and participates in concealing what happened. He keeps her identification card, an act of disobedient sentiment that he cannot initially explain. The Dark Alpha subsequently appoints him proctor and moves him into Nebu’s den, where he is expected to witness and record the ruler’s rise.

Tia is later revealed to be Thirty-Two’s biological mother and to have survived within Doctor Polezah’s laboratory. The revelation turns the opening interrogation into evidence of Nebu’s deepest form of violence: the system can erase recognition so completely that a son may brutalize his mother while believing he is performing an ordinary assignment.

Awakening power and meeting Rimitorry

As the new proctor, Thirty-Two is shown the laboratories, council chambers and library beneath Nebu. He learns that his supposed failure in the Deathwave program may have concealed a different form of potential. The Dark Alpha and Doctor Polezah both treat him as an unusual replacement rather than a disposable wolf.

Rimitorry first encounters him as an opponent and reconnaissance target. She measures his speed, instincts and response to pressure before facing Deathwave, the Harpies and Commander Zuberi. Thirty-Two is outmatched, but he refuses to collapse or surrender his curiosity. Their hostile encounter develops into attraction, cooperation and eventually love.

When Rimitorry is later held inside Nebu, she challenges his understanding of his father, the tribes and the official histories he has been taught. She calls him Jabari Nthanda and leads him toward the books that begin his deeper transformation.

Dark Justice and Murder Island

Rimitorry identifies five forbidden books associated with the major powers and concealed history of the Tribal Universe. She guides Thirty-Two toward Dark Justice, a living black volume describing the Thirteen Chambers and the childhood system that produced the warriors later known as The Five.

The revelation changes Thirty-Two’s understanding of Nebu’s ruling class. The legendary strength of Alpha, Utrea, Kavumo, Knargz and Zuberi is revealed not as an unexplained gift but as the result of institutionalized childhood suffering, survival architecture and repeated violence.

After Rimitorry refuses to identify the final members of the surviving group, Thirty-Two opens Murder Island. The second book reveals the proving ground beyond the chambers, its Callings and the laws that turn survival into political authority. These chapters form the basis of the first two Tribal Comics issues.

The Tribal Bible and First Conri Tora

Thirty-Two develops an unusual relationship with the Tribal Bible. Its language reshapes itself into forms he can understand, allowing him to learn spells more directly than most readers. The power is not free: early readings and spellcasting drain his Ka’ru, cause bleeding and may consume part of his lifespan.

An ancient elder exposes him to memories involving the First Conri Tora and the hidden history of Murder Island. The First tells Thirty-Two to find scattered pages and a key, describing a future in which the tribes may be reunited through understanding rather than conquest. The encounter makes Thirty-Two a potential threat to rulers who depend on controlling tribal history.

His role changes from reader to interpreter. The Bible supplies concepts and rules, but Thirty-Two’s experience as an interrogator allows him to imagine violent applications that a conventional scholar might overlook.

Training Tower Incident

During the Training Tower Incident, Thirty-Two uses a Tribal Bible spell to compel forty-five trainees to attack Khalembo. Khalembo kills the entire group, surviving a test intended to reveal the extent of his power. The Dark Alpha then gives him the title Khalembo the Conqueror.

The event demonstrates Thirty-Two’s growing influence before he becomes a dominant fighter himself. A reader standing outside the center of the battle creates the conditions that transform Khalembo’s public identity. The confrontation was adapted as Tribal Comics: Khalembo the Conqueror, published on July 2, 2026.

Assault on Gia and the cipher ring

Main article: Tribal Comics Issue 4: Assault on Gia - Sakori's Fury

Before the invasion of Gia, the Dark Alpha orders Thirty-Two and Rimitorry to remain in Nebu. He tells Thirty-Two that his power is growing but is not yet ready for the battle and warns him not to waste his limited Tribal spells.

Thirty-Two responds by creating his own objective. He takes Rimitorry into the bone-walled elders’ quarters and asks about the key mentioned by the First Conri Tora. A blind elder describes it as a cipher that redirects the cost of reading the Tribal Bible. It will not create new pages or unlimited Ka’ru, but it may prevent the reader from bleeding away his life whenever he activates the text.

The elder creates a magical viewing window through which Thirty-Two and Rimitorry witness Sakori defend Gia against Zuberi, Deathwave, the Harpies, Khalembo and Alpha. When Sakori is impaled while protecting Utrea, the viewing spell collapses. Thirty-Two refuses to accept the apparent death as the story’s end, demonstrating that the former detached observer has begun hoping for the people he records.

They descend into Nebu’s original foundation. The identity of the “loyal keeper” is revealed to be Knargz, who gives Thirty-Two a black-stone ring engraved with shifting symbols. The ring quiets the direct pull on his lifespan and allows him to cast without immediately bleeding himself to death, although his total Ka’ru remains limited. Thirty-Two and Rimitorry escape Nebu and begin searching for pages, allies and a way to oppose Alpha.

Return to Gia and expedition toward Terra

Three months after Gia falls, Jabari and Rimitorry return to rescue Sakori. They discover that Zafira has killed fifty-three Nebu warriors and is waiting to test what the fugitives have become. Thirty-Two combines gravity, time and mind magic against her, but Zafira dismantles the attack and defeats him and Rimitorry. The encounter proves that access to powerful spells does not equal mastery against an experienced Ka’ru user.

Zafira ultimately joins the expedition toward Terra. Thirty-Two travels with Rimitorry, Sakori, Eshari and Zafira to find Reonniz before Alpha can seize him. This part of the story was adapted as Zafira the Demon, published on July 18, 2026.

Inside Terra’s Dark Forest, the group encounters thirty-six elite patrol warriors. Thirty-Two asks to face them alone. He uses Ka’ru-enhanced movement, elemental magic, lightning, blood manipulation, bone growth, ash, suffocation and crystallization to kill the entire patrol.

The battle reveals that he can absorb part of the Ka’ru released by those he kills. Each death replenishes some of the energy spent on the previous attack and leaves him stronger. Afterward, he admits that the transfer felt good and that the thirty-six lives made him feel more complete. His development therefore begins to mirror Rimitorry’s conflict: power is not merely useful but physically rewarding, making restraint increasingly difficult.

Personality

Thirty-Two is controlled, observant, analytical and emotionally restrained. These qualities begin as products of conditioning but gradually become tools he uses against the institutions that shaped him.

Trait	Expression in the story
Observation	He reads posture, fear, inconsistencies, political hierarchy and physical weakness. The same skill supports interrogation, proctor work and spell innovation.
Emotional suppression	He can function around pain, blood and supernatural danger without visible panic, although this control initially prevents him from recognizing suppressed memory and empathy.
Curiosity	After becoming proctor, he asks questions ordinary wolves are trained to avoid and searches beneath Nebu’s visible structures.
Conditioned obedience	He continues to calculate what Alpha expects and which truths are dangerous even after beginning to act independently.
Emerging empathy	His relationships with Rimitorry, Tia, Sakori and the chosen family around the Dark Alpha teach him to hope for people rather than record them only as outcomes.
Creativity	He treats each Bible page as a rule that can be combined with others instead of as one fixed attack.
Protective instinct	His desire to protect Rimitorry and prevent Reonniz from becoming another weapon gives direction to his growing independence.
Hunger for power	After absorbing the Terra patrol’s Ka’ru, he admits that killing and becoming stronger feel good.

Thirty-Two’s development does not erase his capacity for violence. Instead, the story asks what happens when a person trained to understand suffering acquires magic that rewards killing. His most dangerous quality may be the combination of human anatomy, interrogation experience and the imagination to transform broad magical concepts into precise methods of destruction.

Powers and abilities

Ability	Description	Limitation
Ka’ru manipulation	Directs life-force into spellcasting, strength, speed, reflexes and endurance.	Large or repeated effects can deplete his available Ka’ru.
Ka’ru absorption	Receives part of the energy released when he kills, replenishing power and potentially raising his permanent baseline.	Requires death and creates an escalating psychological hunger.
Tribal Bible reading	The Bible’s language reshapes itself into a form he can understand, allowing unusually rapid access to spells and sacred history.	He possesses only a fraction of the scattered text and has not mastered every page.
Teleportation	Opens paths across distance, bypasses conventional barriers and relocates himself or others.	Requires concentration, sufficient Ka’ru and a usable spell.
Magical viewing	Creates a cloud or window capable of showing distant places, earlier events and hidden activity.	The spell drains Ka’ru and may expose his magical presence.
Lightning	Generates and directs lightning externally or inside a target, including multiple precise strikes.	Strong opponents may resist, avoid or counter the spell before completion.
Wind, air and pressure	Enhances movement, redirects attacks, transports other elements and removes breathable air.	Fine control becomes harder under disruption or extreme depletion.
Fire and heat	Creates flame, internal heat, steam and battlefield-scale fire while producing ash for later attacks.	Fire can damage the environment and endanger allies.
Water and blood	Draws moisture from the environment, shapes blood into weapons and interferes with circulation.	Requires available moisture, blood or sufficient Ka’ru to create the effect.
Bone magic	Fractures, pulverizes or forces bones to grow in destructive directions.	Elite Ka’ru users may resist before the transformation takes hold.
Ash magic	Controls ash created by fire, carrying it through armor and into eyes or lungs.	Usually depends on material produced by an earlier fire or destruction.
Ice and crystallization	Freezes liquid and crystallizes blood inside the body.	Demands precise control over a target’s internal moisture.
Gravity magic	Applies supernatural weight and force capable of pinning or crushing targets.	Zafira demonstrates that an advanced counterspell can break its structure.
Mind magic	Produces compulsion, mental pressure and attacks against thought or perception.	Powerful Ka’ru users and trained minds may resist it.
Time magic	Gives limited access to time-related perception and interference.	Remains incomplete and is not yet reliable against elite opponents.
Enhanced combat	Combines wolf training, close combat, knives and physical Ka’ru with spellcasting.	He lacks the lifelong instinct and refinement of the strongest Murder Island-trained warriors.
Interrogation	Reads fear, deception, anatomy and resistance while applying controlled psychological or physical pressure.	The skill is closely tied to trauma and the conditioning he is attempting to overcome.

Thirty-Two is best described as a developing battle mage rather than an unlimited magic user. The cipher ring prevents the most immediate lifespan cost, but it does not create infinite energy. Zafira’s victory over him shows that an experienced opponent can interrupt complex spells before they take effect. Against a single vastly superior fighter, he may also lack weaker opponents whose deaths could replenish his Ka’ru.

The Tribal Bible and cipher ring

The Tribal Bible is both Thirty-Two’s greatest source of power and the primary danger to his survival. Individual pages grant access to laws or disciplines rather than only fixed attacks. He can therefore combine fire with wind, wind with ash, water with blood or blood with ice.

Before obtaining the ring, reading and activating pages draws directly from his body and lifespan. The key sought beneath Nebu is a cipher rather than a conventional key. Knargz presents it as a black-stone ring with symbols that shift across its surface. Once worn, it redirects the immediate cost and allows Thirty-Two to draw or borrow Ka’ru from the environment more safely.

The protection remains conditional:

• the ring does not give him additional Bible pages;
• it does not make every spell instantly understandable;
• it does not prevent ordinary Ka’ru exhaustion;
• it does not make his body invulnerable;
• and it does not remove the moral consequences of drawing strength from death.

By the expedition toward Terra, Thirty-Two has studied thirteen pages associated with Gia in addition to earlier abilities. His advantage comes from combining their concepts, not merely counting the pages he possesses.

Relationships

Character	Relationship with Thirty-Two
Rimitorry Ka’ Tora	His romantic and operational partner. She gives him the name Jabari Nthanda, leads him toward forbidden history and helps him imagine an identity beyond Nebu. He gives her direction during the assault on Gia and later travels with her toward Terra.
Tia Washington	His biological mother. Nebu’s conditioning allows him to interrogate her without conscious recognition. Learning that she survived forces him to confront what was stolen from both of them.
The Dark Alpha	His ruler, evaluator and the person who appoints him proctor. Alpha recognizes Thirty-Two’s potential but attempts to control when and how it develops.
Doctor Polezah	The researcher who evaluates him in connection with the Deathwave program and retains knowledge about Tia. Polezah treats people as experiments, while Thirty-Two increasingly learns to witness the system conducting those experiments.
Knargz	The hidden keeper who gives him the cipher ring. Knargz’s apparent loyalty to Alpha conceals his participation in the larger plan surrounding the children and the Tribal Bible.
Sakori	A physical protector whose endurance contrasts with Thirty-Two’s role as a magical witness. Thirty-Two watches Sakori defend Gia and later travels beside him toward Terra.
Khalembo	Thirty-Two’s mind-control spell creates the battle that earns Khalembo the Conqueror title. Both characters carry identities imposed by systems of power and retain a more vulnerable person beneath the public designation.
Zafira	An elite warrior who defeats his combined gravity, time and mind magic, exposing the distance between access and mastery. She later becomes fascinated with his destructive development.
Eshari	A watcher, shadow operative and member of the expedition toward Terra. Her knowledge of the Dark Alpha’s plans makes her an uneasy ally in Thirty-Two’s movement away from Nebu.
The elder	An ancient guide who reveals the nature of the cipher, creates the viewing window into Gia and directs him toward Nebu’s foundation.
First Conri Tora	A figure within the hidden history shown to Thirty-Two. The First instructs him to grow, locate the pages and key, and consider reunification through knowledge rather than conquest.

Themes and significance

Number and name

Thirty-Two’s numerical designation turns identity into inventory. Jabari Nthanda does not restore the past exactly as it existed, but it establishes that personhood can be chosen and recognized even when original memory remains inaccessible.

Violence and recognition

The interrogation of Tia demonstrates that conditioning can sever action from emotional recognition. Thirty-Two’s body performs familiar violence while his mind is prevented from understanding the relationship in front of him.

Witness and participant

The office of proctor initially appears passive: he must watch, remember and record. His choices beneath Nebu and in the Dark Forest change that definition. Witnessing becomes a source of action when preserved knowledge is used to challenge the people controlling it.

Knowledge and bodily cost

The Tribal Bible makes understanding physically expensive. Every page asks whether truth is worth bleeding or dying for. The ring changes the mechanism of payment but does not make knowledge free; Ka’ru, environment, risk and moral consequence continue to determine what a spell costs.

Power as appetite

Ka’ru absorption rewards killing with measurable growth. Thirty-Two’s battle against the Terra patrol reveals a cycle in which magic causes death, death replenishes magic and the mage leaves stronger than he entered. The external reward makes internal restraint increasingly difficult.

Hidden foundations

Thirty-Two’s movement beneath Nebu operates as both plot and metaphor. His rebellion begins when he refuses to accept the throne room as the complete structure and searches for what the kingdom has buried underneath it.

Appearances

Work	Format	Publication	Role
Dark Justice	Comic	March 12, 2026	First comic appearance; reads the forbidden history of the Thirteen Chambers under Rimitorry’s guidance
Murder Island	Comic	March 11, 2026	Continues the library storyline and discovers the suppressed truth about Murder Island
Tribal Bloody Beginnings: The Rise of the Dark Alpha	Novel	July 1, 2026	Central protagonist and first-person narrator
Tribal Comics: Khalembo the Conqueror	Comic	July 2, 2026	Uses a Tribal Bible spell to create the confrontation that earns Khalembo his title
Sakori’s Fury: Tribal Comics #4	Comic	July 17, 2026	Point-of-view narrator, witness to the assault on Gia and co-protagonist of the cipher search
Zafira the Demon	Comic	July 18, 2026	Returns to occupied Gia with Rimitorry and confronts Zafira before the expedition toward Terra

The official Roovet Books listings currently date Murder Island to March 11, 2026, and Dark Justice to March 12, 2026. Dark Justice remains Thirty-Two’s first comic appearance by issue number and narrative order, with Murder Island continuing the library sequence as Issue 2.

Selected quotations

“I am Thirty-Two.”
—Thirty-Two, Tribal Bloody Beginnings, Chapter 1, “I Am Thirty-Two”

“That’s not the end. It can’t be.”
—Thirty-Two after witnessing Sakori’s impalement

“Now we find the pages.”
—Thirty-Two after obtaining the cipher ring

See also

• Tribal Bloody Beginnings (novel)
• Tribal Universe
• Tribal Comics
• Rimitorry
• Tia Washington
• Tribal Bible
• Tribal Bible key
• Ka'ru
• Proctor
• Nebu
• The Dark Alpha
• First Conri Tora
• Training Tower Incident
• Khalembo
• Sakori
• Zafira
• Reonniz

External links

• “Thirty-Two: The Rising Mage Whose Ka’ru Could Reshape the Tribal Universe” at Roovet Stories
• Tribal Bloody Beginnings at Roovet Books
• Tribal Bloody Beginnings at Google Play Books
• Tribal Bloody Beginnings audiobook at Google Play
• Dark Justice at Roovet Books
• Murder Island at Roovet Books
• Tribal Comics: Khalembo the Conqueror at Roovet Books
• Sakori’s Fury: Tribal Comics #4 at Roovet Books
• Zafira the Demon at Roovet Books