Welcome everyone to another instance of FANTASY BOOKING! This time, I wanted to actually share with you a thing that was made by myself and my players in one of the two Dungeons and Dragons games that I run. Yes, I am a Dungeon Master. It is absolutely one of my prides and joys to do. I love creating stories, watching characters, and the thrill of the game. I've been doing it for a very long time, probably twenty years, and I've loved every second.
My first campaign is a Ravenloft campaign, which is my favorite ADnD setting, and will always be. But I wanted to do something different. I have a system for world creation so that my players and I can make a unique world to us as a group. I've also had an idea in my head since college for an abandoned concept that was based on African lore, geography, and themes. So, with my players help, we created the world of Dunesko. And of course, why shouldn't I share it with you?!
I'm going to present it to you as I did my players, with an in-character written editorial of the history of the world. I hope you all enjoy this small departure from normal IHAO business.
.;[]:. .:[]:. .:[];.
Before life came to
Dunesko, there was only the Sand. Endless and all-encompassing, it stretched in
all directions, without sun or moon, day or night. Beneath the sand, there grew
a Seed. Within that Seed were the twelve Numen, Spirit-Gods that shaped the
world then and now. When the Seed cracked open, the twelve Numen came forth,
one by one.
The Untamed came first, a
beautiful Heron that brought with it the sky, the birds, the trees, and the
beasts of the land.
The Weaver came second, a grand
spider spinning a web of fate over the lands, the animals, and the races to
come.
The Spark came third, a beetle
pushing the sun across the sky, bringing fire to the races and sparking imagination
within them.
The Night came fourth, a
starry vulture, spreading its wings to cover the sky and bring the races their
first dreams.
The Labor came fifth, a mossy
Ox that helped the races toil the earth and work the land, bringing forth more
of their kind.
The Maw came sixth, an
enormous hippo, that opened its jaws and the rivers poured from it, allowing
men to trade their work.
The Pride came seventh, a
powerful lion to gather the tribes and teach them to hunt, providing for their
kind.
The Slaughter came eighth, a
greedy hyena that hunted just to kill and destroy, causing the first wars.
The Power came ninth, a bronze
rhinoceros whose strength and skill supplied the races with the means to fight
their wars and protect their tribes.
The Thunder came tenth, a herd
of gazelle, whose hooves warned of the coming dangers, and herding the races
into greater societies.
The Swarm came eleventh, as
locusts and gnats and frogs and snakes, bringing plague, famine, terrible
storms, and powerful dragons that destroy the land.
The Herd came last, a
skeletal elephant, trumpeting its sad sound as the dead joined him on his trek
to his resting place.
A Brief History of Dunesko, Land of the Dunes
Written by Jacobi Bladeback
(in Lehonti and Sauriel)
Prologue
What a beautiful and astounding world we live in, fellow
beings! Large and small alike, we must
give deference to the largest in this world, she being the Numens who shaped
our land and with their guidance created our glorious history. In my studies, I have learned many an
interesting detail about our strange and varied history. And even more so, I have learned that many
know small bits and pieces, but there has yet to be a dedicated collection of
our history, from all aspects, across all empires. So, I now present to you, a Brief History of
Dunesko, Land of the Dunes.
Chapter 1: Pre-History
As best as can be determined, before the first records of
the Auriel scribes, there was an expansive empire on the southeastern side of
the Vuori’jono Mountains. The Elves
called the great empire Xendrixia, like the desert itself. Ancient glyphs indicate that it was created
by a great Pharaoh (it means God-King in ancient elvish, furthermore known as
Xendrixian), an elven man stillborn, yet still alive, named Xendrix. He swiftly became a legend, declared himself Pharaoh
and established a long-lasting heraldry called “The Majesty.”
As Xendrixia grew it power, it also grew corrupt, as each
passing Pharaoh in Xendrix’s line took more and more control over all the races
that are not of Xendrixia. The Pharaohs
and the Xendrixian elves all forsook the Numen, rejecting their control over
their lives and focused on arcane sources of power. The first necromantic rituals were
created. The first order of the Mirage
was formed, though none follow the conceits of an order to a lost Numen any longer. Kobolds, Sauriels, Humans, all were made
slaves to build the lost monuments, shrines, and temples to the Majesty of
Xendrixia.
It was hundreds, maybe thousands of years before almost
abruptly, the Xendrixian Empire fell.
Legend says that the Last Pharaoh was a powerful necromancer who shaped
the Numen to his will and called for from the bones of the dragons a dangerous
and powerful slave, a Death Dragon. It
is unwritten how the Xendrixian Empire fell, but there were no Pharaohs after
the last, and Xendrixia’s capital fell.
The races dispersed to the far corners of Dunesko, and the elves had
been left to wander the Dunes.
Chapter 2: The Birth of the Races
To the Northwest, along the banks of the Auriel Sea, where
the Auriel River and Auriel Jungle converge at the Auriel Delta, the humble
Sauriel race founded their first city.
It is the oldest living city, with great limestone walls and buildings,
beautiful paved roads, and all of it has lasted for hundreds of years. I am a bit biased, I must say, for my home,
but it is undeniable that a Sauriel city’s bones will almost assuredly never
die.
It did not take long for the Sauriel race to expand,
traveling up the Auriel River towards the sun.
There they found Vuroi’Vesi, the enormous kobold named mountain of water
pouring into the Ja’Arvesi. There, a
contingency of finheads created the city of Aqueus on the southern bank of the
lake. Lizard-men dug steps into the
mountain and the Observatory was built above the waterfall, bring Aqueus its
now world-wide acclaim. At the same
time, a traveling party explored the Auriel Sea to the south. On the southern bank of the sea was
established the city of Arboreus, right next to the now known as Cirdon Forest,
though it was formerly the Southern Auriel Forest.
On the other side of Xendrixia, a permanent oasis, somehow
able to not be swept by the magicks of the elves or the Kauhea’Tuuli, became a
refuge for the humans, known at that time as the single nation of Ash. They gathered together in their first
governance, called Asher. Kobolds had
moved to the far southeast to the Vuori’Suuri, or Great Mountain.
My own race at that time started to put together their law,
the building blocks of the social structure that guided us for so long. At the same time, the humans across the world
rejected law, seeing fit to live in controlled chaos instead. And the kobolds tell a tale of their great
hero Kai’lliso, who was supposedly the size of a hornhead and was the first
kobold to strike the earth with a pick and begin to mine the mountain. I quite enjoy their legends, as a failing of
us Sauriel’s is our strict sense and pride of history as opposed to the dreams
of the other races.
Chapter 3: The Rise of the
Sauriel Empire
Enterprising endeavors became the Sauriel’s goal. There was an entire world to explore to the
east and the south. The enterprising
guild, the Brick-Brotherhood, began to cut their way through the Southern
Auriel Forest and laying a road along with them. Two generations of our kind worked their
lives tirelessly cutting through the dense forest until they reached Cirdon
Lake further south. How the Cirdon got
its name is a mystery to us, as the records have been lost to time. They continued their travel along the
Cirdon’s river. It was at this time
Kauhea’Tuuli arose again, smashing against the mountains and making travel dangerous
for all Sauriels. Trapped on their river
boats, the Brick-Brotherhood hunkered down, braving the rapids, until they
reached a safe valley, hidden between two large mountains. It was there the city of Ardon was
established. News of this history was
recorded and flown back to Auriel City as fast as possible. It was this news that first started the
Sauriel’s libraries and histories.
Asher was not much a place to live as it was a place to
survive, and soon a family and clan of humans known together as the Volkrad
would have enough of the humans of Ash, reject their heritage and leave Asher,
traveling north. In the north they found
the amazing Ja’atikko glacier, as well as savannah lands cold and flat. At the foot of the Ja’atikko they established
the new home for the Volkrad, Isaachar.
Another offshoot of the humans, ones more focused on worship of the
Numen called the Malakar, left Asher as well not long after, heading south with
the help of the elves, finding the expansive swamplands to the south and
establishing their new capital for their race, Amalekiah.
It was at this time that the gnolls first migrated from the
far southern deserts. Lead by the
gnoll-mother Nissa and her three daughters, they crossed the Black Desert and
the Cirdon River, finding a new home in Xendrixia. Their matriarchal society, based on the
biggest and strongest women, lead the gnolls to split into three major packs: Cakar,
Rahang, and Berlari. All three sisters
believed in focusing on gnoll survival through the hunt, but each sister had
her own opinion. The Cakar preferred to
fight for their food. The Rahang
preferred to make anything their food.
And the Berlari learned to keep their distance and pick their fights,
running as they need.
Also, the Kobolds mined Vuori’Suuri and established an
underground city, named Ma’ati.
Chapter 4: The Grand Meeting and
Its Fallout
Much was changing in the world as races were coming in
contact with each other for trade and the borders of their claimed lands
starting to come in contact. Oxnard, a
wise hornhead, established an assembly of Sauriels in the Auriel Delta. The Assembly was created among the Sauriels
to further establish our governing body and our caste system, finally naming
the Auriel Delta as the capital of the Sauriel Empire. The Sauriel Empire covered over half the
known world, so an information trading guild of Flyers called the Post worked
to put large posts across the rivers, savannahs and even points of the desert
to pass messages more quickly and efficiently.
Using the Post, the Sauriels called for the Grand Meeting where all
races came to Ardon, the city of safety.
The human nations (Asher Oasis, Malekiah, and Volkrad), the gnoll clans,
the Xendrixian elves, the Kobolds, and the Sauriels all together signed The Treaty
of Peace and Trade, which established rules for trade between races and cities,
as well as a non-aggressive pact so that no race would interfere or attack any
other race.
The Sauriels established two new cities after this meeting
in hopes of expanding their empire.
First was the city of Aphar at the base of Vuori’Suuri. It would be dishonest of me to say it was not
for a purely beneficial gain from those small hard-working Kobolds. Size has always played a part of our own
discriminatory lives, though it was much worse during those decades. To establish trade with the third human
civilization, the coastal city of Anchorage was made, though the storms were
too rough to explore its oceans for more than basic resources.
Many things changed after the
Grand Meeting. The humans, in a matter
of pride, changed the name of their cities, as Amalekiah became Malekiah and
the Ashers established a new name and an official town in the oasis now known
as Gaddeanton. The newly christened
Gaddeantons turned to trade to establish a true economy, though they also
applied heavy taxes and tolls along the few path ways that existed into the
city, specifically with Anchorage.
Not too long after the founding
of Aphar, a terrible accident happened in Ma’ati, destroying the majority of
the Kobold’s only city. It was after
that terrible accident that most kobolds decided to leave their native home
behind and instead spread out around the world of Dunesko. A single family clan, the Syva’asuk, angered
at this cowardly action from their perspective, instead entered the few
remaining mines and caves of Ma’ati.
They have not had contact with the surface since.
It was a generation of peace and
trade, as all the nations grew stronger and felt safe. As we know now from our vantage point, this
was merely the cause before the Slaughter’s terrible storm.
Chapter
5: The Sauriel Wars begin
A single fisherman, a human from Malekiah, was up to his
hips in the swamp water, catching the crustaceans and other vermin of the
bog. His life is not particularly
important. His children’s lives probably
not as well. All of their names have
been lost to history. But his account of
a single day has been immortalized. I do
not know if any reading this have heard his account before, but I will include
it in its entirety below:
“The crabs were snapping light that day. I was wading through the sugar cane bog over
east when I saw it. I heard it
first. A rumbling, like a hungry dog’s
belly, tore through the mists and steam coming off the ponds. I put my hand on my claw hammer’s handle,
worried about what may be coming. I saw
a rustling in the willows, and then it burst forth. A great red hyena, as large as an elephant,
larger, with blood drool coming from its mouth and claws, not entirely there,
almost as if it was made of the wind itself.
I saw the Slaughter stand before me and felt its breath on me, and I was
certain I was a dead man. As I struggled
to force the words of worship from my mouth in the hopes the Slaughter would
spare me, I watched him root into the swamp, digging with his massive claws
until he disappeared.”
Why is this account important? Because this not common event is what
preceded the Slaughter’s personal race of warriors to be born into the world,
the Orcs. Born from the ground, weapon
in hand and ready to kill, this was the first sign of the terrible wars to
come. The Orcs seemed pleased to kill
any they could find, though they tended to focus on the elves, gnolls, and
humans. That is probably the only saving
grace of the Sauriel race.
Within the old caste system, the Lizard-men were once a
member of our race. They were considered
the lowest of the low, meat-eaters good for nothing but labor and expendable
bodies. It was the way life has always
been. They were unintelligent, smelled of
rotted meat, and brought nothing to trade or society. Or so it was perceived at the time. But that perception also made them ignored, this
allowed the Lizard-Men to plan a terrible revolt. They all attacked at once, killing those who
policed them and any that got in their way.
Ardon took the worst of it. The
Sauriel Wars had begun.
Ardon was destroyed as the Sauriels knew it in the matter of
a two week siege. The Lizard-Men burnt
anything that wasn’t stone, killed any that stood in their way, and forced
everyone in that city to die or leave.
The Sauriels looked to their allies for help, but the Treaty of Peace
and Trade made it so that no other race could interfere in this civil war. Gnolls broke the treaty almost immediately,
joining in both sides of the conflict.
The other races had their own issues.
The Orcs had begun to raid villages of the three human civilizations,
Gaddea, Volkrad, and Lehanti (the empire of the southern humans in Malekiah),
murdering, raping, and pillaging. The
Kobolds argued amongst themselves as a group, the Ma’ante believed they should
return to their homeland. And the elves
took to fighting the Orcs as they found them, removing all vestments of
civilization and staying purely nomadic.
In the Auriel Delta, a commando unit was created for the
specific purpose of eradicating the rebelling Lizard-Men. Some Sauriels called it genocide, mostly
those living Aphar or in Aqueous, but the Assembly deemed it necessary, calling
members of all the castes to join the cause.
At the same time, those who for were of sound mind and body and were not
training to join the Sauriel High Legion instead worked to build an immense
wall 5 miles out in a circle on all sides of the Auriel Delta, to insure its
protection. This focus building and
rebuilding, now that trade to the south was cut off, also lead to a long trade
road being created across the desert from Aqueus to Gaddeanton and from Anchorage
to Aphar. In hindsight, this was a
tactical failing that lead to the Sauriel Empire’s fall.
Chapter 6: The Fall of the
Sauriel Empire
The Lizard-Men, leaving behind the ruins of Ardon, moved to
the more inhospitable regions of Dunesko, making a military Stronghold among
the peat bogs and oil rivers to the southwest.
There, they began to make plans on their next conquest against their
former betters.
Elsewhere, the human empires, all staying out of the Sauriel
War, made their own political improvements, expanding each empire. The Volkrad were able to establish their
first true kingdom beneath the rule of King Carolus, a great warrior knight and
slayer of Orcs, protectors of farms in the north. He and his elite guard, the Caroleans,
protected the humans and kobolds of the northern tundras from many raiding
parties of Orcs. In Gaddea, a shadow
government took form. Built upon
back-alley deals between different guild heads and corrupt police, Gaddeanton
became a well-oiled machine, greased by money and information. In Lehonti, a new religion focusing on
worship of all 12 Numen, but only each in their time, arose, called
Huruda. The emphasis was to worship one
Numen for a full moon cycle, then to immediately begin devout worship of the
next in a particular series.
The first great setback of the Sauriel War was the loss of
Ardon. The second was when Gaddea sent
their militia to Anchorage and successfully slaughtered their way to control,
truly creating a new empire. The shadow
government even changed the name of Anchorage, now known as the human land of
L’Trel. The war had now become a
two-fronted one, and the Assembly decided it was best to retreat from Gaddea
and prepare for the Lizard-Men’s next attack.
But they were not prepared.
The third great loss for the Sauriel’s was that of Arboreus. Armed with arrows dipped in the oil sea and
fireball loaded catapults, the Lizard-Men had made their way to the north and
laid absolute waste to the lumber town.
It was burned completely to the ground, and every tree within a day’s
travel was burned down as well for good measure. The Lizard-Men oiled the earth to stain it
black and keep anything else from growing.
Other interesting events transpired in this era. A great hero among both the Sauriels and the
gnolls, a Bladeback named Arins, tried to convince a pack of male gnolls to
join the fight in the war. The gnolls
had their own battles to fight, so Arins traveled with them, eventually
becoming accepted into their pack and being honored with a new name,
Kapusa. Arins of the Gnolls lead his
pack through the desert to find the ruins of Xendrixia, now mostly buried in
the desert that shares the same name, hoping to one day help the gnolls
establish a true home city that he believed they deserved.
At dawn not long after the utter destruction of Arboreus, a
single Lizard-Man herald under the white flag of peace approached the newly
built gate to the Auriel Delta. He had
with him a treaty, penned by the Lizard-Men, that was made to end the conflict. The Lizard-Men wished for their equality and
had proven they were willing to fight fang and claw to be treated as
equals. He nailed the contract to the
great wooden door, the last remnants of the Arboreus lumber mills, before
turning and retreating. He was shot dead
not twenty paces from where he nailed the contract to the door.
The Assembly decided to end this civil war at once with a
show of strength. The full Sauriel High
Legion was sent south deep into the Blightlands. There, a one month battle killed nine out of
every ten men that were in the Legion, and almost as many Lizard-Men. But despite the dreadful loss of life, the
Sauriel High Legion had slaughtered the Lizard-Men’s leaders and forced the
remaining barbarians to retreat. A
pyrrhic victory, but victory nonetheless.
Many Hornheads and Bladebacks died that day, stunting their castes for
generations, even to this day. The
Sauriel War was ended, and the price paid was a terrible one.
Chapter 7: The Three-Fold
Empires; or the Age Just Past
The Sauriel War was over, though conflicts still remained. Lizard-Men still prowl the Blightlands and
other places. Orcs continue to raid
farms and villages, looking to take any foothold they can into the human
empires. Things continued on their
natural course.
Aqueous, one of the few Sauriel cities to escape the
conflict completely carved a treacherous but reliable pass through the
mountains into the Xendrixian desert, creating a road to the gnoll encampment
at the past Pharaoh’s ruins. Aman, an
astrologer from Aqueous, who was sick of the war and all the death it brought
to the Herd, took an oath of pacifism and poverty. His philosophies began to convert others to
his school of thought, leading them down a path to enlightenment, through
complete peace.
The landscape of the world began to change in the aftermath
of the war. From the literal ashes of
Arboreus, a new city was formed by the survivors of the war, as well as nearby
Orc raids. The humans, gnolls, kobolds,
and Sauriels all together named the city Ascendant, in hopes it would lift
their spirits. A human general from the
Lehonti Empire in Malekiah brought with him his mean and rebuilt the city of
Ardon for his home empire, renaming the city Honshar. Honshar established a War College for both
mage and warrior, which has since graduated many of the most prolific members
of any military. As a stopping point
halfway down the Cirdon River, a citadel name Wysos was created by all races
for the kingdom of Lehonti.
King Coralus the Second of the Volkrad Empire traveled by
wooly elephant to the city of Aqueous to much pomp and circumstance. He brought with him a proposal, mutually beneficial
for both cities. Aqueous no longer had
support from the Auriel Delta, but was too important a city to lose in another
terrible war. King Coralus proposed that
the city become part of his Volkrad Empire.
The local assembly took a full moon-cycle to deliberate, but in the end
agreed. It was not long for the new
empire to share its knowledge with one another, making leaps and bounds in the
science of engineering.
Amon in his last years founded a philosophy college in
Aqueous in protest to the Honshar War College in Honshar. He died, worried that he had not done enough
to leave Dunesko better than when he arrived.
At the same time, an order of his followers calling themselves the Order
of the Pure Wind lead a pilgrimage of like-minded peace-seekers to the
east. They created for themselves a
commune at the top of Vuori’Tuuli which they called the Home of the Wind.
The Sauriel Civil War had longer reaching political effects
as well. In Aphar, now its own entity
separated from its mother city, found a political uprising. Flyers began to rebel against the caste
system there, protesting and calling for change, all in the name of equality,
higher class jobs, and better payments.
Not long after the Sauriel War ended did the Xendrixian
elves show their utter distaste for anything important. They sent their messages to mages, wizards,
warlocks, sorcerers, and any other with any arcane power to a competition, the
Numen’s Duel. It has happened every year
since, during the Summer Solstice. I
have attended many myself, and while the elves have very little opinion of wars
and governments, they make up for it in spectacle and social proclivity.
Now, almost fifty years have passed. The Three Empires continue to expand as more
and more of the population spreads out from the water into the foothills and
savannahs. Ascendant has become the home
for many of the gravely injured and ill, and the best medicine men and doctors
live there now. As a home to many
veterans of many conflicts, war games and reenactments are the major source of
pride for those there.
Dunesko is a dangerous place. If it is not the orcs, it is the
dragons. If it isn’t the government, it
is bandits and thieves. But we all make
due and try to live our lives. And this,
is my full accounting of the abbreviated history of Dunesko.
-------------------------------------------
An interesting note …
I am not a man who understands the weather or the
stars. But I do dabble in astronomy, and
I have spoken with many philosophers and astrologers about the event that
happened. Kauhea’Tuuli came this year
from much further south, destroying the city of L’Trel. Gaddea has sent its men to the south to Aphar
for support and trade to rebuild the city.
I fear they wish to expand once again. Kauhea’Tuuli was devastating this year, and I felt my walls shudder and
quake for the first time ever here in Honshar as I finished penning my final
draft of this collected histories. I
fear something terrible is on the horizon.
The 50th Numen’s Duel takes place this year. There have been far too few accounts of
Lizard-Men to the west. There are
reports that Orcs are forming cities.
And one of my colleagues has gone mad with his search for the
unfindable. As I look to the stars and
moon for guidance, I see nothing good.
In fact, I wish to share with you all a dream I had. Take it as a portent of terrible things to
come. Or the dreams of an aging scholar.
I saw a skull, carved of stone. Stone that was alive, and heaved and breathed
like a sleeping horse made of marble.
The skull was just a piece of a larger stone. In its mouth, a symbol, ancient and
profound. I looked up its meaning … it
meant in Xendrixia: the Infinite. The
stone glowed and around it, from the shadows, were new creatures born. Creatures that had never existed, and should
never be. I reached out to touch the
skull, but just as I felt the spark of some other-magic, just before my
fingertips touch the warm, pulsating stone, I awoke.
I write this, hand written and rushed. I do not know why I write this, or how many
will read it. But I have at least
written it.
~
Jacobi Bladeback
