Flagg

Empires of Sand

I'd like the College to just be sticky fingers in a lot of pots so I reckon there's great room for interaction!

/Pouts at Flagg

@Darkmatter

great! hence the okie doke. :)

Empires of Sand

I put up a work-in-progess.

It's not even close to being finished, but it's something. I still have to structure it all better and fix grammar and all that stuff for what I have written. I'm just posting what I have to show tangible interest and also call dibs on the idea of a sea of ship wrecks. The Sea of Giants may or may not be an old spaceship shipyard.

@Pepperm1nts

Looks great so far!

Empires of Sand

@Flagg
I'd disagree. I think being a weird order who trains a sought after profession has a magical door and need provisions gives plenty reason to interact.

@Darkmatter

Okie doke.

Empires of Sand

@Chairman Stein One suggestion for your NS- given your high population, you ought to be located near a major water (and thus food) source.

@Darkmatter No objections from me on your idea. The door could be archeo-tech, or just the ruins of a former non-advanced civilization. Magic, or tech, or whatever you want it to be. My only worry is that they'll have little reason for interaction with anyone, so maybe give them a reason/means for relationships with other factions.

@neogreggory Sounds good. Instead of tucked away in the middle of nowhere, maybe base them out of someone elses faction? Make them nomadic? More room for interaction.

@Arawak Please put your WIP NS in the Character Tab with UNAPPROVED at the top. Just easier for me to keep track. Thanks! It looks good!

@Dead Cruiser Sounds good, can't wait to see it. My faction will be somewhat similar, so our dudes will have to hate each other.

@Pepperm1nts You make some good points regarding the trading cities and tucked-away fortresses. any ideas on your faction?

@ClocktowerEchos something orky would be great.

@all: Anybody good with paint? Any volunteers for putting together a map? I just need a basic, interesting looking landmass, and I will fill in features, factions, etc.

Empires of Sand

@all: Ok! So I filled out the religion, race and resources tabs a bit. Please note that these are not meant to limit your creativity, and you are in no way bound to use anything found therein, though you are encouraged to.

@Chairman Stein Looking good so far. No criticism, except to maybe not go the whole pseudo-ottoman hog?

@gorgenmast Likewise looking good. Note Dratha is a name of an ethnic group, not the name of the world or desert. Just Ctrl F and change all the "Dratha" to "Azoth" and you're good. My bad for not making that clear in the OP.

Empires of Sand

Great. Glad to have so many awesome people involved. Later tonight I will fill in a bit of the tabs in the OP about resources, religion, etc.

Empires of Sand

Jesus that's a lot of things to fill out.

Oh well, here goes a quick doodle for a guild of slavers since I want to do something small for once.

Laughably WIP

-Faction name: Slavers of the Azure
-Faction Type: Slave Trading Guild
-Flag/Banner: (A cyan diamond at the center of a black-grey-black banner)

GEOGRAPHICAL
-World-Realm Map:TBA
-Major Cities: N/A
-Major Castles: Their only castle is a trading post turned fortress called the Azure. It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and it is where they secretly hide their weapons and wealth in a massive vault hidden away in a dark dungeon full of putrid monsters. Said vault is never to be opened, not even by the mysterious leader of the guild.
-Buildings of Interest:
-Geographic Features of Interest:

RACIAL
-Majority Race: (Please avoid the bog-standard D&D fare here. If using versions of fantasy races pls give them your own twist, and please find ways for different factions to include races created by different players.)
-Majority Race Appearance:
-Majority Race Characteristics:
-Minority Races: (If any)

NATIONAL DRAMATIS PERSONAE
-Head of State/Monarch:
-Ruling Dynasty (If applicable):
-Constable Of The Army (If applicable):
-Religious Head (If Applicable):
-Persons of interest:

CULTURAL
-History:
-List of Historical Grievances
-Relations
-Cultural Notes; Slavers

RELIGION, MAGIC and ARCHEO-TECH
-State Religion: (If applicable. Either create your own local religion or take on a major religion. If creating your own, I will need to approve.)
-Religious Information; N/A
-Religion Demographics:
-Holy Relics In Possession: The energy staffs are considered holy relics by the slavers.
-Holy Sites Under Control: N/A
-Magical Information: No magic other than sigils and runes they have attained from other factions in their trades.
-Archeo-Tech: They have energy staffs, origin is lost to time. They are very ceremonial in design. There's a few staffs that jolt a burst of energy which disintegrate targets. They seem powered by the sun and are few in circulation. Some say the staffs speak to those who weld them, compelling the warlords who weld them to be ever merciless.

MILITARY
-Total Military Size
-Military Details (Unit Types and distribution of numbers)

@Arawak

Looking good. the energy staves are the kind of thing I had in mind with the archeo-tech stuff.

Empires of Sand

Drathan Union

-Faction name: Drathan Union
-Faction Type: Magocracy/Oligarchy
-Flag/Banner:



Motto: From Wisdom, Power. From Power, Right.

NATIONAL (if applicable)
-Capital: Zar Dratha
-Government Type: Mageocracy/Oligarchy
-Currency: Drathan Teeth
-Population: ~3 million humans
-Unique Trait #1: Wizard-Lords: The Union is governed by the (often fractious) Congress of Masters, a group of extremely powerful mages. Drathan sorcerers are famed for their skill and knowledge of hidden arts, as well as for their almost complete lack of scruples. Magical inquiry of (almost) all kinds thrives in the cities of the Union. All forms of magic, including necromancy, blood magic, and the other branches of dark arts are permitted and indeed actively studied in the Union.
-Unique Trait #2: (Created by me)
-Unique Flaw #1: Subjects, Serfs and Slaves: Except for the relatively small members of the Drathan ruling caste, and for mercantile plutocrats, the denizens of the Union are deprived any political participation, and the vast majority of the population are serfs and slaves. The Congress of Masters lords over a diverse empire encompassing a huge, racially and culturally diverse population. For the most part, they are forced to rule with the lash, and inspire little loyalty or love from their subjected populations. [practical effects = police state, heavy revolutionary activity and often mutinous armies]
-Unique Flaw #2 (Created by me)

GEOGRAPHICAL
-World-Realm Map: Zar Dratha sits on the swampy shores of the Sour Sea, in the northern Ashlands of Azoth. The other cities of the Dratha are scattered along the banks of the Varyon river, with a few deeper in the Ashlands to the north.

-Major Cities:
Zar Dratha (capital)
Zar Pellos, the City of Nightmares
Near Ryloth
Zar Mythrad
Tripantos
Kurnug, Hive of the Ungol

-Major Castles:
The Tower of the Sun and Moon
Zar Varyon
Far Ryloth

-Buildings of Interest:
The Seven Libraries of Dratha
The House of the Masters
The Ungol Breeding-Pits

-Geographic Features of Interest:
The Sour Sea
The Varyon River
Northern Ashflats
Mount Dagoth

RACIAL
-Majority Race: Human. Most humans hail from the ashlander tribes subjugated by the early Dratha.

-Minority Races:
Dratha (ruling caste)

Ungol known to many as the Spiderlings or Ghul-Eaters: an insectoid race that has been described as resembling a cross between a spider and a beetle-grub. The Ungol are a fierce, cannibalistic species, highly intelligent and endowed with a strong penchant for magic. They dwell in underground warrens in the northern ashlands, preying on each other, their own young, ghul tribes, and anything else foolish enough to get too close. They have served the Dratha for centuries, ever since their kind was nearly wiped out in the Ravening Wars. The Mage-Lords noted their skill at fleshcraft, and have employed them in breeding vast slave armies of ghul and mutants, as well as using them as mercenary soldiers in their own right. Their only major remaining settlement is Kurnug, a hive to the north of the Sour Sea.

Ghul: used as slaves and conscripts, many variants are specially-bred by the Ungol to serve the Dratha as slave soldiers, such as the fearsome Trollkin. The Dratha have also hired the ghul tribes of the Ashlands as mercenaries.

NATIONAL DRAMATIS PERSONAE
-Head of State/Monarch: Khalul the Magnificent, Archmagister of the Congress of Masters, Primarch of House Velym

-Persons of interest:

Magister Athalus Velym, Lord of Zar Dratha

Magister Qux the Deathless, Ruler of Zar Pellos, Primarch of House Nagath

Magistrix Kai daz Syfo, Ruler of Zar Varyon, Primarch of House Syfo

Banipal, Chief Fleshweaver of the Ungol

CULTURAL

History

The origins of the Dratha are shrouded in myth. Legends say that the First Sorcerer, Othman Dratha, stole the secret of magic from the Moon-King Ithumarius- though details on how this was done differ. Some say he slept with Uan, the Moon-King's favored concubine, and so stole the god's virility. Others, more sinister, report that he conspired with Uan to sacrifice the King to ancient powers, and shared with her in eating the divine heart. Few Dratha believe such superstitious nonsense, but tales of Othman's ruthlessness and ambition illustrate the guiding tenets of Drathan society.

Whatever the truth about Othman Dratha's origins, it is clear he founded the grand city of Zar Dratha on the shores of the Sour Sea to be a place for the gifted and clever to practice the High Art, free from the disdain and scruples of the masses. From its inception, therefore, Zar Dratha has been a city of slavery and sorcery, where the magically inclined are supplied with the wealth and leisure necessary for the pursuit of Mastery by the toil of the many. The wizards of the city carefully tended their bloodlines, practicing specialized eugenics to ensure their offspring were of unparalleled magical inheritance. Their race became known as the Dratha, divided into four great bloodlines: the Syfo, Nagath, Velym and Sura. These Houses each have their own traditions and affinities, and the Velym and Syfo readily adopt new members outside the bloodlines.

New cities were founded by the wizard-lords of Zar Dratha along the shores of the Varyon River and amidst the ashflats of the north. The native tribes and populace became their subjects, tending to their grub and fungus farms in service to ever-more demanding Masters, whose pursuit of magical power, wisdom and immortality became increasingly ambitious. Great cities blossomed in the dark soil of the northlands to rival Zar Dratha itself, and internecine wars between and even among the Houses became common. The slave trade, along with the export of rare foodstuffs and exotic leisure goods formed the foundation of a rapidly developing economy.

A nearly successful invasion by the Azar and a series of increasingly serious slave revolts [room for expansion/collaborative history] forced the Dratha mage-lords to consider their mutual interest, and so the Congress of Masters was founded in Zar Dratha, a political body whereby disputes between the ruling caste could be arbitrated with limited bloodshed (murder of ones opponent was and is still an accepted practice among the Congress, especially if it helps to avoid an unnecessary civil war). From the Congress was born the Drathan Union, a nominal confederation of the Drathan lands and cities. In time, the Union came to include the Ungol spider-people, whose magical mastery (and chilly ruthlessness) was second only to the Drathans themselves. The Ungol have contributed their secret arts of flesh-magic to the Union, providing them with slave-armies of ghuls and mutants to fend off the avaricious southerners and the threat of domestic revolt.

-Relations
Farai
Osmuli
The College
Qarthine
The Azure Guild: The Drathan lords welcome the famed slaving guild in all of their cities, and are pleased to do business with such a reliable purveyor of flesh.
Oqer
Empire of Azar

RELIGION, MAGIC and ARCHEO-TECH
-State Religion: Old Ways
-Religious Information: the Old Ways are commonly followed among the masses of the Union, with the upper castes adhering to more philosophical variants. Red god worship among the ghul slave armies is common, and the Ungol revere their own cthonic divinities.

-Archeo-Tech:

Ungol Flesh Engines

MILITARY
-Total Military Size
-Military Details (Unit Types and distribution of numbers)

Empires of Sand

From Wisdom comes Power. From Power comes Right.
From the Twenty Seven Hidden Precepts, Drathan Holy Text

He stood quite still, curved sword held loosely in one hand, dark eyes watchful and alert. He was in the nave of some ancient temple to a forgotten god, half buried in the sands. Shafts of sunlight streamed through cracks in the ancient dome above him, filtering through falling trickles of dust to create strange, clutching shadows in the reddish gloom.

He tilted his head to one side, as though listening for something in this forsaken place other than the howl of the wind outside.

After a long silence, he nodded, as though satisfied.

"I come in my own name," he said, "I offer my own blood."

He ran his free hand quickly against the edge of his blade. Blood pattered from his palm onto the sand-covered floor. Outside, the wind picked up to a new pitch. Something stirred, or seemed to stir, in the darkness of the temple, just out of vision, but he did not show his fear. To do so, in this place, would be death.

Yes, yes the blood is precious. said a voice like echoing brass. It came from everywhere and nowhere, filled with unimaginable greed. This libation merits reward.

He closed his bleeding palm, wrapping it in a strip of linen.

"Now," he said, "I claim the offered reward. Reveal to me that which the augurs foretell. What doom approaches?"

Empires of Sand

GM's Note:

If you have a question for me, please include @Flagg in your post so that I'm sure not to miss it.

-Reserved-