Resh-Khali: The Nations of Ash Part 2: The Phoenix

The Fortress-State of the Sun Phoenix

Located on the western bank of the northern end of the Jade Asp River Sea, the slowly rising fortress city of the Sun Phoenix shines with the sun's favor. Special sandstone blocks, found with golden flecks serve as the walls of the fortress. The white stone temple-palace of the Sun rises even about the walls, as a beacon to all travelers. Warriors with golden shields and golden swords protect stand on the walls, ready to defend the city. This is a city desperately attempting to defend against the phantom of a threat. 

The city is organized. Every block planned out, the length of every street and alley, planned exactly. The shape of every structure, designed and approved, in order to fit the proper parameters. The main street is wide enough for multiple carts to pass each other, and it leads directly to the Temple Palace of the Pharaohess, the Thrice Born Daughter of the Sun, Norah-Bennu. 

Here the streets are busy with work. People training, smiths working hard at their forges,  supplies being moved into storehouses. The streets are filled with humans, heru (humaniod avians that once served the fallen god Horus), and the largest population of halflings still living. 

The Fortress-State is one of the few places with there is an organized faith. Worship of the Sun Phoenix, as embodied by Norah-Bennu, is the religion of the land. Priestess attend the needs of the people, and holy warriors defend the nation against threats. Here, faith comes first, the other magics take a secondary role. 

That being said, there is no better place to study the element of fire. Flames are everywhere. Lanterns that never dim, braziers that fill the air with sweet wood smells, forge works, and even decorative artworks encompassing flame can be found through out the city. 

The Fortress City originally was established as a bastion by the joint Fallen Gods consisting of Horus, Bennu, Isis, Bast, and Sekhmet. Through the course of the Travails, the Gods diminished. Isis battled her rival Set, who fled to the east. She pursued, and neither have been seen again, their final fates unknown. Bast and Sekhmet got into a five day squabble over leadership of their joint followers. The two of them, despite protests from Horus and Bennu, walked into the desert to finish their argument. Neither returned. Leadership fell to Horus and his sister-wife Bennu. 

During the battles of the great beasts, the fledgling settlement was dangerously close to one of the numerous conflicts between the great desert beast, Garisik the Thrice Stinger, and the dark beast from the stars called Yhintholril the Endless Tendrils. In an effort to protect the people, both Horus, Bennu, and their champions and children Atenconin and Norah strode out to attempt something to distract the massive beasts. The powers unleashed were without measure. The valor, dedication, and devotion has seen no equal. Even the combined might of fallen gods and the loyalty of their children were no match for forces of nature, incarnate. 

Atenconin fell first, protecting his mother. Then fell Horus to one of the great stingers. As Bennu quickly gathered her husband and son, Norah stood to defend them, while her mother wove the magics to preserve them, and potentially allow their resurrection. Norah, though, was batted back, like a gnat, and she was thrown into the magics her mother was weaving. Suddenly there was an eruption of fire, scarring both of the titanic beasts. The blast caused the two titans to scatter away, and continue their battles elsewhere. 

When the flames and dust settled, only Norah remained. Stunned, unsure of what happened. Even the bodies of her parents and brother were gone. It is unknown what truly occurred on the field of battle that day. Norah returned to the fortress, but refused to be called a hero. She also announced a change of her name from Norah to Norah-Bennu, and declared herself the Pharaohess, and Defender of the people. 

Since that day, she has been a stern, but fair commander. The once skilled, but impish young woman has given way to a focused military ruler. Every person is the city is part of the city's defense. No one, save the elderly and crippled, is given free pass. If you can labor, then you labor. If you can swing a sword, you are taught to swing it better. 

Crime is punished. There is no rehabilitation. Either you learn your lesson the first time, often with a branding or loss of a limb, or you are slain or exiled. There is no third chance. 

The Fortress City boasts one of the largest military forces, and despite some occasional crusades against it's necromantic neighbors to the south, there have been no attempts at expending the nation's borders. 

That being said, the occasional paladin, priest, or other holy warrior is sent out into the wider world. Some are sent out just to see what is out there. There are rumors, though, that the Pharaohess sends some adventurers out to find a means to return her sibling and parents to the lands of the living. 

Resh-Khali: The Nations of Ash Part 1: The Asp

While there are scattered hamlets and smaller settlements that dot the landscape where there are sufficient resources to support a few families to live together, there have been groups that have gathered to form new "kingdoms", rising from the ash and ruins of the old world.

While this is not a definitive list, this does represent some of the more powerful groups that reside on the various continents.

The Kingdom of the Golden Asp

On the eastern coast at the southern mouth of the Jade Asp River Sea, sits the capital of the nation called "Imish-ashter" (Golden Asp). It is a surprisingly grand city, built of painted stones, mud bricks homes, and even some rudimentary roads and sewage. A number of ziggurats dot the city without an easily determinable pattern. The people are tanned from the sun, wearing little more than a loin cloth or kilt, possibly with some jewelry. It is a healthy people, a rare place where learning is encouraged, and literacy is common. They have begun to cultivate the desert, creating a large enough food supplies that they can be even exported to other lands. This is an oasis in a rough world. This luxury and security does come with a disturbing price.

The kingdom is supported on the bones of the undead. Necromancy is the preferred magic of the land. Skeletons and zombies perform household duties, such as cleaning and house maintenance. Once the night falls, mummies patrol the streets, enforcing curfews and deterring thefts. Ghouls stalk the graveyards, cleaning the bones, and preparing them for "service" as an honored ancestor to either continue the labor normally filled by slaves, or to stock the military forces that protect the land from potential invaders. 

The military forces are surprising egalitarian, humans serve along side death knights as commanders. Gender is not a factor when it comes to defending the lands, and who can learn to hold a sword or cast a spell. If you are breathing, you serve your King, and defend your family. If you are no longer breathing, your service does not end. Common soldiers will return to just fill the ranks, but those who have proven themselves may return as Skeletal Champions, Death Knights, or even Wights. No one ever is returned as a vampire, though. 

The ruler of this land of the dead and living is the Great King Eternal, Sumrigal. Sumrigal is a lich, donning the finest raiment available, a tiered crown resting upon his skeletal brow. He rules with a firm grasp on his people, but he does not squeeze too tight. He protects and provides for his people. The undead tend to the crops, they assist in construction efforts, and they defend the citizens of his new kingdom. He knows that he must walk a fine line between being a tyrant and being the beneficent ruler. The necromancy taught in the schools are from his own teachings and study. He supports the arts, especially painting and poetry. He is a ruler both terrifying and understanding. He has learned his lessons. 

Millenniums ago, Sumrigal ruled his land with a tight clawed hand, fear, and power. Then a band of heroes rose up, crushed his armies, banished his demons, and in a climatic battle, fit for the greatest of operas, he was defeated. His bones and phylactery were entombed, warded and bound, never to reform, never to escape. That was before Shiva's dance. Now he is returned. The opportunity was ripe. In the chaos, the masses sought any sense of security, and his name was lost. He was not known as the evil tyrant... he was just another powerful being that had the strength and force of will to attract and defend his followers. 

Ever since then, his little fortress city-state has grown. He has had relative peace. There have been some skirmishes with the Fortress-State of the Sun Phoenix to the northern end of the Jade Asp River Sea, but they have mostly ended in stalemates. 

His greatest pain comes from the Upheaval Ridge, a series of jutted, rocky badlands that serve as refuge for bandits and raiders of a number of races. Many appear to serve the will of either the Black Fang, some sort of Gnoll demi-god, or the Red Haired One. The fact that both of these forces have used odd golems, divs and demons to booster their numbers is a source of concern. 

Smurigal does not promote a faith in his lands. He forbids the worship of himself as a god. He has found that rarely ends well. He does, though, support the worship of Death, in both the aspects of eternal peace, as well as in eternal labor as one of the Undead. Death is never given a name, never a gender, never any indication of a form. Death is Death and Death is Everywhere. The End needs nothing more to identify it. 

The Great King finds adventures a great boon to his nation. He actively supports his necromancers to travel abroad. He encourages those with special talents, to do likewise, or to travel into the wastes to discover ruins, and bring back gold and gems, lost mysteries and wisdom. It is far better to have hot blooded, unique individuals working for him, rather than plotting against him. 

Resh-Khali, the world where Shiva danced

Resh-Khali, the Great Sapphire, was a jewel in the crown of the Sun. It was a world of magic and life, of wonder and adventure.

The world has changed. Once vibrant, filled with trees and rivers, mighty cities of stone, crystal, brick, and iron dotting the landscape, the world is now covered in ash, the results of the Dance of Shiva. The clouds have broke. The Centennial Night has passed. The Sun once again bears down, hot and angry at His long exile, upon the ruins of once might races. The Moon looks forth from Her palace of stars, a mix of paradoxes, bringing hope and madness, all with the same hand.

There are those that claim that the world is now smaller than it once was. Other claim that it is now larger. Nonetheless, after the Years of the Dance of Shive, the face of the entire world has changed. Once fertile lands became deserts; huge lava fields spread across the land, creating black stoned badlands, with obsidian spires jutting out of the cooled volcanic earth. Finally, the lands cracked. some lands, formerly joined, not had a narrow lake-sea between them. Others found portions of their lands submerged into shallow seas. While even others found black ice glaciers impede on them. Finally, the southern most lands thrust northward. A land of ice and snow, uninhabitable, was suddenly thawing, becoming a lush jungle, filled with structures long hidden in the frozen encasing.

Even the Lands Below were not unaffected. Once thriving metropolis caves were suddenly filled with lava. Other caverns, filled with strange life, long forgotten, opened, their tendrils reaching forward and claiming the unsuspecting. Many races ran to the surface, as their only option. The Lands Below are now lost to the surface world. It is unknown what survived and in what condition.

No one knows what triggered the Dance of Shiva. Old men that claim to be sages argue back and forth over the cause, the death of a god, a purely natural phenomenon, or even more unlikely, an accident trigger by a single careless wizard.  Honestly, it doesn't matter. It happened, and the world suffered.

The Gods feel from the heavens, greatly diminished in their once divine might. Some attempted to rule as king, others just wandered. Most were slain by mobs of rival deities or in battles against their rivals themselves; some by their own followers, terrified and angry, lashing out at the ones who should have protected them; and some died as martyrs protecting their people from some great danger. There are few, if any, of the Divine Immortals still wandering the world. No one worships them, no one remembers their names. They are shadows of a time that is no longer of consequence.

The fires died, after a time. How long they erupted from volcanoes, fissures, and the depths of the sea is, again, another argument for old men. Both the High and Low races barely survived the cataclysm. The First Travail had ended, the Second Travail, the Gods-Purge continued, and the Third Travail, the War of Titans was about to begin.

Great beasts rose up from the depths of the oceans, the voids between stars, the sands of the deserts, the fires that erupted from the deep earth, and from the crumbling mountains that once contained them. They battled each other, amidst  the remnants of belching flames and the choking smoke. Nations that barely survived the initial eruptions were suddenly trodden underfoot of titans. Death under the claws and spines of creatures caused many to flee to caves, and beneath the ground, in desperate efforts that the strength of the earth would be sufficient to grant some safety. Where their blood fell, the land changed, becoming more fertile, or even more barren. Many of the titanic creatures were wounded, beaten, but never slain. Then, as quickly as they appeared, they crawled back into the world, or drifted back to the stars, and vanished.

Through it all, the Centennial Night left behind gifts and nightmares. Magic was once rare, the province of the few, but at the time of the Unquenchable Flames, it spread like a plague on the land. Spell casters all suddenly found magic easier to grasp. The dead rose. Dragons and other beasts long thought vanquished awoke. Oddly, outsiders; demons, angels, genies, and the like; found it difficult to enter the world, unless specifically invited, or bound to the soul of a living being.

Magic was now easier to obtain, in some ways, but all the schools of magic had been destroyed. A studied spellcaster could only learn from the spellbooks of rivals, from parchments found in ruins, writing on temple walls. The other option was to turn to another source. Dragons, liches, vampires, and other mythical beasts saw the benefits in beholden casters and would teach willing apprentices... for a price.

The Fourth Travail has only recently concluded, The Carving War. The clouds had broken, the Abandoning Sun returned. No great beasts battled and bleed, the earth was, mostly silent, with only the occasional eruption or tremor. The Centennial Night had broken, the world returned to a balanced cycle. This means that the survivors could unify and attempt to rebuild. This also returned the desire of power and greed to the world.  Great beings, men that had stolen the power of the gods, dragons, powerful undead, barbarian warlords all attempted to declare territories and kingdoms. They raided their neighbors, marched forth in armies, built fortifications, and ignited new flames, bringing death and misery to a people already weary. While there were some "great battles" fought between rivals, in the end, most people accepted their "new ruler" with just the desire to survive and not be drug further into death.

Resh-khali has seen much change. It has been only half a century since the Centennial Night broke. The world has begun to stabilize. Rough cities and towns now dot the viable landscapes. The world may never return to it's former state, but the High and Low Races survive and move forward. Tyrants rule most lands, in varying degrees of oppression. Where once magic was rare and faith common, the roles have reversed. Magic and science now are the hopes of the future, the means that the world will rebuild. Now religion is a hobby afforded to the eccentric, fools, and madmen.

Resources are still scarce, trade is dangerous, as bandits and pirates, some of them kingdom sponsored, roam the travel ways. Exploration, to make contact with far off lands that may have resources lost, is a thriving business, but also a danger. Some places are doing well for themselves, and do not wish interlopers that could bring the threat of war. Adventures dive into ruins and tombs in hope of finding lost powers to help their nation... or overthrow it for their own.

In the background, seers of all traditions have started to talk about the Fifth Travail. The rulers and leaders explain that this Travail, if it ever happens, will be many years down the line. They also use it, though, to spur paranoia and xenophobia. "We can only trust ourselves. Use others only to gain strength. When the worse happens, we will be prepared, if we are strong. The others are weak and would only drag us back into the caves."

This is the world of Resh-Khali. A world just recovering, in need of champions, in need of unity. It is also a world of paranoia, xenophobia, and anxiety, as the people look at the earth, the sea, their neighbors, the stars... wondering, waiting, dreading the day that Shiva makes the final steps of his dance.