Update BT 1 - Pillar of Salt
Why are we here? Why is the world here?
The world was formed from chaos and disruption. Belaal calmed the waters that Keth had caused to overflow their boundaries, and he made mankind to sacrifice to Keth, so that the Flood unending might not return. Asphet on gossamer wings conveys the smoke of their offerings to the above, and gives the flood that men deserve. Thus is balance restored between the Creator and the Destroyer.
The world was created by an omnipotent god. The Shanalash has always existed at the center of the world, pure and undefiled, protected from demons and greedy spirits by the Guardian of the old light. Cycles of power rise and fall, and the spirits of great warriors and matrons reappear from generation to generation, but none of the great rituals need be changed until the day the world dies. Sokol, the All-Encompassing, whispers to men in their sleep, guiding them to their destiny as his voice echoes in the crashing of the waves.
The world has always been here. It is divided into the spirit and material worlds as day is divided from night. Good spirits guide humanity, and evil ones seek to destroy us and lead us astray. But through proper behavior and practice, the good spirits’ protection can be secured, and the evil spirits warded off. So that Sova might not weigh down men’s souls into the deep; so that Hao-Tsui might not be reborn into an era of darkness.
The peoples of the world are not in agreement about its origins.
But one thing will soon become certain even to those who are certain of their place and the righteousness of their people: The world is changing, faster than anyone can anticipate or prepare.
And those who turn back to gaze at the past will be frozen in time forever.
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Civilized Zone 1 - Chufriel, Eshylam, Gedolm, Gwonsaum, Kaksi, Selamai [Theme]
Synopsis: The rise of the Shanalash, cultural flourishing of the Republican period and the coming of Jaishmagi Shuryah. Introduction of the neighbors which enter the historical record with Shuryah’s conquests, the Chufriel and the Gwonsaum, and notes on the rising power of the Kaksi. A turn to the great western sea, and a discussion of the rise of the theocratic Eshylamic Empire and the states in its orbit: The Gedolmic dynasties to the south and their Selamai vassals on the island of Ykeyefra. Finally, the political situation as it stands in 1500 BCE, with the civilized world on the brink of migration, disruption, and civil war at every turn - but also the potential for unprecedented power and glory.
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Near the center of the supercontinent of this planet, two great river valleys wind their way through vast expanses of scorching desert and stark mountain ranges. It is here that the earliest and largest flourishes of the fledgling human civilization occurred, grown from the bounty of the great rivers.
The East: A Name Eternal
Approximately 3500 BCE, something happened that can only be traced through the dimmest legendary memory and through archaeological strata. Migratory tribal groups from the northern mountains disrupted the fragile, formative city-states of the Fertile Crescent. Their language and pictographs had replaced those of the natives by the beginning of the third millenium BCE, and after an initial fragmentary period during which irrigation systems seem to have collapsed and some ancient city-sites were destroyed, these migrants emerged at the head of a new hegemony.
They called themselves the Shanalash.
Early Shanalashian civilization can be separated into three broad periods: The Formative Period, [3500-2100], the Republican (or Helashian) Period [2100-1600], and finally the Imperial Period [1600-present]. During the Formative, proto-Lashic pictograms developed into a true written language, along with the familial glyph system. A sophisticated barter economy emerged, and along with it, the first signs of the worship of Ashva, in ceremonial copper and gold discs engraved with complex symbols.
The city-states of the Formative period were ruled by an assortment of petty kings and queens, but only a few intact inscriptions from before the Helashian invasion survive. A two-hundred year hegemony from about 2400-2200 BC was led by the petty dynasts of Efer, who ruled over the whole region as far north as Ieresah. Their greatest king, Harshayah, called himself the “Master of Brands,” for his herds were said to contain cattle branded with the glyph of every great family in the Shanalash. Efer’s hegemony was secured by little more than brute force; each new king of Efer boasted of putting down rebellions and sacking rebellious cities, usually Olai and Hais, his greatest rivals.
The later years of Efer’s dominion were consumed by wars against the mysterious eastern Kedash, and seem to have come to an end when the city was ransacked by Kedashian armies. With it was destroyed the famous Spiral of Sheshi, the now-infamous palace of Harshayah’s brilliant but increasingly debauched children. Of the Kedash and their descendants, we will hear more later, but for a time the lands east of the Tharan river seem to have fallen under their sway.
After the fall of Efer, a brief period of instability began, where the great city-states struggled for supremacy. The coming of the Helash upended this old system. Perhaps invited by some of the warring rulers of the Sanalash, perhaps not; the powers that be were overthrown by these northern invaders, ending the Formative period and beginning the Republican period. In an ironic repetition of ancient history, again was the political equilibrium of the Two Rivers disrupted by northern invaders. It will likely not be the last time.
Some say that the noble classes of ‘jaish’ and ‘vaish’ emerged out of the marriage alliances produced by the conquest, while others claim they came from a legendary attempt by the Helashi to emasculate their Shanalashian conquests by forcing their women to rule them. Regardless, all of the old dynasts were overthrown, most notably by Arjab, a legendary Helashian hero who slew the last tyrant of Hais in single combat, and reportedly spoke with divine Ashva. The tyrannies were replaced with assemblies, perhaps modeled on the tribal councils of the Helash, but featuring a dichotomy of noble men and women into ‘jaish’ and ‘vaish’, effectively warriors and administrators.
Regardless, the Republican period featured the emergence of fairly stable leagues of assemblies, typically led voluntarily by a Great City, and a heretofore unprecedented flourishing of science and culture. The new Helashian arrivals quickly assimilated into the culture they had found, maintaining their warlike ancestry in the symbolic rituals of the jaish. Politics, such as it was, resulted in cities still seeking hegemony, but not through war as much as trade and political pressure. Military contests between the cities seem to have been more ritualized and demonstrative than actual wars. The period is divided into the Elashic and Rahic Hegemonies, during which the leading city (Elash, or Rah) accepted tribute and in return protected the weaker cities from various invaders. An inscription regarding the defeat and massacre of invading ‘Genash’ may be the first historical reference to the Gwonsaum that exists.
The worship of Ashva became more elaborate at this time, featuring a large tableau of demons and spirits presenting themselves as enemies and guides during the saga of the Great Guardian’s thousand-year regeneration. A formal order of priests emerged as well, perhaps providing an outlet for disenfranchised urban males who did not have the Helashi blood necessary to become jaish. Priests, unlike the vaish who concentrated on organizing a city and the jaish who focused on fighting for it, were expected to provide the logic and order of the Guardian Ashva in all ways to it’s loyal children.
As such, the priesthood became an extremely lucrative and demanding institution, with Shanalashian priests expected to be masters of fields as diverse as medicine, mathematics, finance and architecture. By the time of the Imperial Period, their actual religious duties were practically overshadowed by their other professional abilities; far different, as we will see, from the god-prophets of the east and the northern shekems.
The Imperial Period begins with the rise of Shuryah, a dynamic figure who again changed the balance of political power in Shanalash, not from without but within. Historically, during the Republican period it was difficult for any individual city-state to overcome its neighbors due to the fractiousness of alliance politics within the assembly itself. Shuryah upended this by seizing control of the local assembly in his city of Ieresah through a combination of charisma and invective against corruption within the assembly. He then forged a strong alliance with the local priesthood and built a fearsome chariot army, along with a core of extremely loyal jaish loyal to him personally, the so-called ‘Assembly of the Body,’ for it met not in a city but wherever Shuryah was.
Even in securing supreme power, however, Shuryah did not follow the same pattern as petty kings like Harshayah had in the past. He used the term ‘Jaishmagi’ to describe his rule, ‘Great Jaish,’ sometimes shortened to simply ‘magi.’ He emphasized that in taking power, he was doing so with the consent of the assemblies, and although raised above them with supreme power, his rule would (in theory) benefit them equally. Shuryah did appoint many of his fellow Ieresahans to assemblies across the land to keep them in line, but despite this tactic he generally recognized the decisions of the assemblies, who nonetheless tended to do him complete obeisance.
Dissatisfied with ruling any less than the universe, Shuryah led the conquering armies of his empire outwards, subduing the overawed cities of the Gwonsaum and the scattered, semi-sedentary princes known as Chufriel. It is here that they enter our story.
The North: Loyal Dogs, Cruel Masters
The evidence is inconclusive, but it is possible that the Gwonsaum established themselves in the headwaters of the Tharan and Janashak at the same time as the Helashi invasion of Shanalash proper. What is known is that by 1700 BC, the Gwonsaum had begun to coalesce into stable city-states, perhaps in imitation of their southern cousins. Like the Shanalash, the Gwonsaum had a great guardian named Migwon, though this took the form of a dog-spirit, and was less overtly hegemonic and deific than the solar Ashva. Both cultures shared a great loyalty to dogs and they are frequently depicted in their iconography, but one of the defining features of Gwonsaum culture not practiced in Shanalash is the dog-sacrifice as part of a funeral ritual.
To the Gwonsaum, the whole world was filled with spirits good and evil of varying power and strength, and these spirits could be contacted and even spoken with through the aid of a shamanic intermediary, the shekem. As such the shekem became one of the most revered figures in society, and the architecture of Gwonsaum cities was often designed around the spiral-shaped temple complexes necessary for the proper practice of the appeasement rites, in stark contrast to the angular, grid-planned cities of the Shanalash.
The short political life of the Gwonsaum has been fairly tumultuous, and they have spent significant periods of time being threatened by one or another of their neighbors, preventing any sort of internal unity from forming. Politically, each city-state is typically divided between the power of the shekem and the krek, a hereditary warrior ruler not dissimilar to a Shanalash jai. As this period wore on, however, the shekems gained increasing power at the expense of the kreks, with rebellions sometimes being led by shekems against kreks who have failed to practice the proper rites, inviting crop failure or foreign conquest. In several instances this has led to the rise of a Megshekem, an individual of great spiritual power and authority who holds sway over several major cities. (Note similarity to the Shanalashian Jaishmagi and Kaksi Megkrak, indicating a proto-Lashic origin for all of these peoples.)
During the 1600’s, the Gwonsaum submitted willingly to the conquest of Shuryah when he came north with overwhelming strength of arms, and most inscriptions seem to show that the local shekems viewed the foreign conqueror as a type of powerful spirit that had to be appeased. [ Even after Shuryah’s death, the shekems continued to refer to the Jaishmagi of Ieresah as ‘the Shuryah,’ reinforcing this belief.] The fact that the kreks more strenuously opposed Shanalashian expansion, and were defeated by Shuryah’s armies, also gave the shekems an opportunity to gain more power at the kreks expense.
But the Gwonsaum were not alone in migrating to the east. Another great tribe, the Kaksi, also joined them, becoming established in roughly the same 1800-1700 period. Unlike the Gwonsaum, who tended to organize in city-states, the Kaksi retained their tribal kingship structures and formed a powerful state on the central plateau that they promptly named after themselves: Kaksa. Reflecting a common origin with the Gwonsaum, the Kaksi also believed in the ubiquitous nature of the spirits and the spirit world.
Differently from the Gwonsaum, their chief-spirit was a great bear, Uraga, who imbued their warriors with martial strength. Also differently, their religious figures were always subservient to the hereditary nobility, and the local nobility were subservient in turn to a Megkrak, a high king. As such the military strength of the Kaksi quickly eclipsed that of the Gwonsaum cities, who instead built increasingly high walls to deter Kaksi raids. The tendency of the sons of the Megkrak to fight a vicious civil war to gain the favor of the spirits upon the death of the previous one has prevented the Kaksi from becoming a true empire yet, but with their expansionist tendencies they are on the cusp of becoming one. Already the royal palace at Takkur with its great bear-statues and other fine treasures of bronze and gold has become legendary to the south.
The Gwonsaum are truly stuck in a difficult situation, caught between their perpetually ambitious Shanalashian neighbors and the new, rising power of the Kaksi. It seems likely that they will fall under the sway of one group or the other if either makes a concerted effort to conquer them. Avoiding that - or embracing it in a way which can be managed - seems to be the Gwonsaum’s only hope of avoiding an unfortunate fate. But fate, as the ancient tales of the great shekems tell us, can often be cheated by the wise and cunning.
Shuryah’s empire also reached to the northern sea, where the emperor was confirmed in his might by meeting but scant opposition from the scattered and disunited tribes of the region, most of whom seemed perfectly willing to add him to their pantheon, which already accommodated so many gods. [Some have even theorized that the origin of the god Sokol was emerged from a local divinity cult of the emperor, but this is unproven and controversial.] These were a queer people, many of whom were semi-migratory herders, and they worshipped a dizzying array of gods and idols.
After Shuryah’s son’s death, these peoples seem to have either rebeled or fallen out of Ieresah’s control, perhaps under the authority of a charismatic priestess-figure whose historicity is debated. By the time of Urshaihafah, they were sufficiently united under a powerful king named Turan, who was able to, if not defeat Urshaihafah, at least weaken him enough to try attacking the Gwonsaum instead, where that tyrant met his ultimate fate, with Turan’s soldiers possibly contributing to the victory. One of Turan’s sons, Zerial, has ruled fairly effectively for twenty years, but the Chufrielites have already begun to revert to their fractious nature, with individual princes (called Morah) worshipping their own gods and ruling practically independent of the king in Thabora. It remains to be seen what will happen to Chufriel, though the options in the short-term are not pleasant.
The South: Pillars of Heaven
Moving at last to the south, we find that sometimes, reality can eclipse even the greatest legend. For there, an empire has risen to equal if not surpass Shuryah’s at its apex. Or rather, a theocracy. The Shanalashian corruption of their name, Eshylam, was how many foreigners would come know them, mostly as a legend of distant wealth and incredible power. Other corruptions exist: Mirjar, Esilot, and others, and no one term for them has yet come to predominate. In their own language, however, they called themselves Adj-ilan. The Hand of the Gods.
The origins of the Eshylam, historically speaking, seem to date from the mass migration that originated from the Shanalash in 3500 BC. The migration of the proto-Lashic cultures into the Fertile Crescent set off a chain of migrations and disruptions that ultimately resulted in the ancestors of the Eshylam, a Semitic people, coming into the Djah river valley, where they appear to have gradually overthrown and conquered the inhabitants of the local city states by 3000 BC, though the Adj-ilan did not emerge as the victors over a unified empire for another several centuries.
The pantheon that emerged seems to have taken on elements of both invader and invaded; the world was in balance between a Creator (Belaal) and a Destroyer (Keth), who interacted with a feminine fertility goddess (Asphet) who controlled the river flood. Numerous lesser gods were also extant, including most notably an anthropomorphic hippopotamus named Jurwem who served as the patron god of craftsmen, but the major Three deities were the most popular by far, and their priests the most powerful. Version of their cults spread far, even into Chufriel and the other smaller kingdoms to the north.
The government of the Djahic cultures, both before and after the creation of Eshylam, has been theocratic, specifically a divine priesthood ruling in a conciliar fashion, and typically with the most senior priest or priestess of the ruling council as first among equals. The format of the Eshylamic religious belief, and of the council, was such that each high priest represented a particular deity and was considered their mystical embodiment, a living prophet of their will. As such, the High Priests themselves were treated with deference and worship akin to gods, and the ruling council the literal recreation of the divine pantheon.
Each particular High Priest then tended to manage the portfolio of their god: The High Priest of Belaal would control the affairs of trade and diplomacy, the High Priest of Keth the military, the High Priestess of Asphet irrigation and so on. This division of labors prevented the priestly orders from collapsing into strife and intrigue for supreme power; as did the highly ritualized nature of their duties. Of course significant periods of intrigue and civil strife did occur, especially when a High Priest or Priestess failed in his/her duties, necessitating their bodily sacrifice to the gods.
This division of labors extended to the division of the populace itself. Most peasant families were bonded to the service of one particular priestly order, and all their children were so bound from birth, unless their lives were traded from one priesthood to another, as often did occur in the course of negotiations between priesthoods. As such, chattel were the main and initial form of currency among the Eshylam; the eventual introduction of coins resulted in the weights being standardized to fractions of the cost of a peasant.
The greatest of the ancient Eshylamic cities was Qidris, home to the chief temples of most of the priesthoods, and their tombs, libraries, storehouses and palaces. Though the balance of power has shifted in the past, Qidris is where the current council sits. And it would be near the city, extending up and down the Djah for several dozen miles, that they would construct the Pillars. The pillars were just that: Stone monoliths rising directly into the sky, several hundred feet tall and more than a hundred feet wide. Contrary to popular opinion, they were not tombs; proper Eshylamic burial rites for priests involved the sinking of a funeral ship.
They were sites of mass ritual sacrifice.
Let us briefly mention in passing two minor states related to Eshylam, and very much under their dominion. On the island of Ykeyefra, and in a few small scattered coastal enclaves, dwelled the Selamai. These people were led by a High Priest of a god called Sokol, the first of whom had once sat (according to legend) as head of the Eshylamic Hayrath, the council of high priests. There are no other records to corroborate this, and Sokol was mostly unknown as a god in Eshylam at this time. A common origin as members of the tribal confederacy that formed the empire is possible, though the question of whether the Sokol and his followers ever actually lived in Eshylam proper, or simply swore allegiance to it as it expanded north and created this ancestral legend, is up for debate.
Regardless, the Shoru established good relations with his fellow priests in Qidris through regular tributes of tin from Ykeyefra, and created a council of his own in shambolic imitation of the genuine article. The Selamai have further served Eshylam as crewmen for their ships, and supported their expansion northwards as they steadily conquered and colonized a swath of coastal territory to the southern border of Chufriel. Whether the Selamai will further differentiate themselves from the horde of lesser tribes serving Eshylam or be eclipsed as other peoples take to the seas remains to be seen.
To the south, a queer perversion of Eshylamic rites has been seen in the city-states of the Gedolm. They too were ruled by a priestly hierarchy, and worshipped slightly different gods, but still centering around a creator and a destroyer. For the majority of their existence they have escaped the notice of Eshylam, fighting amongst themselves, but in the last century and a half they have gradually been pushed to the south by a series of expansionist campaigns by the Hayrath. Lacking the chariots, the ships and the manpower of the great empire to their north, most of these ‘Sfutim’ have been forced to pay tribute to these powerful northern priests, while their northern cities have been conquered outright.
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As The World Stands
Two of the sons of the dead Megkrak of Kaksi are fighting each other in a great war for the kingship. The victor will likely try to invade the Gwonsaum, Chufriel, or both, perhaps depending on if or how these neighbors respond to the situation.
Following the defeat and death of Urshaihafah in battle and the collapse of the alliance of Mergis, the greatest power in the Gwonsaum is the Megshekem of Tusendakru, who has gained much prestige for expanding the temple complex in the city and directing the people against foreign raiders. It is unclear if this will endure after the Megshekem’s death. The other Gwonsaum states are largely passive and defensive.
Power in Shanalash is divided in a variety of states after the collapse of the Empire of Shuryah following Urshaihafah's death. The colony of Shuhai in the north is the smallest power player, but actually has the best Shanalash army remaining, due to constant border struggles with the Chufrielites. Urshaihafah’s son claims the title of Jaishmaga from Ieresah and has managed to hold on to the hinterland and a few surrounding cities, but he is not widely respected beyond the territory he controls. Another tyranny has arisen in Keishah led by one of Urshaihafah’s former jaish, and seeks to challenge Ieresah for dominance.
In the south, Jaidarah has thrown off the yoke of the Jaishmagi, calling for a return to the free assemblies of the past; (under Jaidarah’s control, of course,) this cause has gained significant support in the traditionalist cities of the south that were seriously overtaxed by the Empire. Meanwhile, the rising foreign power of Kedu has pushed all the way to the Tharan and sacked the colony of Ershai, further catalyzing the lesser cities to unite around Jaidarah as the league hegemon and protector. The-once great city of Olai didn’t feel like trading Ieresah’s yoke for Jaidarah’s, and was brutally sacked as punishment; it has fallen into terminal decline.
The Eshylam have recently supported the creation of client states in Ykeyefra and the distant island of Karros; having secured their northern border and trade networks they are now preparing for a great campaign of conquest against the Sphutai, who they view as unenviable barbarians fit only for enslavement. They are also preparing to raise a Pillar in Qidris greater than all that have come before it, though this will take some time to complete. In the long-term they will likely become entangled in northern politics again, especially if the Kaksi come south, but for now they feel confident in letting it go.
Most of the tribes east of Eshylam are wandering the desert like lunatics and squabbling over the few bare patches of ground fit for habitation. One exception is the kingdom of Jerab, which has settled the hilltop city of Zaphelim and wishes to stay independent of Eshylamic domination if possible. All of Chufriel’s neighbors generally hate them with a passion, and the Chufrielite confederacy is likely to collapse from a dozen directions after Zerial’s death. In particular the coastal city of Qiryal is considering defecting to Eshylam.
Civilized Zone 2: Kayula, Desa [Theme]
Some two thousand miles from the civilized world is another civilized world. That might be surprising to the Shanalash, who think themselves the sole center of culture and light in the universe, but to others, used to tales of worlds springing from the minds of gods, it would not be so surprising that a different world can exist just beyond the horizon. The Kayula have enjoyed a civilized existence just as long as Eshylam or Shanalash has, sharing in common with all the world’s early civilizations the dependence on a great river for irrigating their crops. Their pyramidal palace structures were no less complex, and their religious scriptures no less detailed, albeit in an extremely difficult semi-pictoral language with over ten thousand characters.
But socially, the Kayula could not be more different than their western neighbors. The Kayula believed in a universe in which a panoply of gods acted in seemingly mysterious ways, somewhat chaotic at first glance, and unlike Ashva’s divine order or the sacrificial demands of the Eshylamic pantheon. Furthermore, the Kayula did not yet have an established priesthood - though scholars and gurus of the esoteric called dakshina have begun to fulfill a similar role - and their philosophy emphasized a human’s destiny as learning from the gods, not necessarily prioritizing any particular course of action or social morality. Imbibing psychoactive substances in order to attain this wisdom has been a common feature of early Kayulan cults, practiced and encouraged by the dakshina.
Perhaps this psychosocial attitude of passivity before esoteric divine wisdom rather than seeking to emulate divine order has caused the Kayula to be more inwardly focused than their neighbors, for they did not seek to conquer lands beyond their river valley. Rather, they were united in a matriarchal, legendary state called the Vijayaka, which supposedly endured for a thousand years before succumbing to an invasion from the north. These invaders were led by the patriarchal, warlike Desa, who defeated the local armies and sacked the ancient cultural center of Kamath. This was a traumatic period during which the Scepter of Ishkni, a legendary item said to have been given by the river-god to the first matriarchal ruler of Kamath, was lost, as the last Vijayi herself cast herself into the water to seek the protection of the god that inhabited the Jalneer, becoming a local deity in the process.
Some have theorized that the Desa and Helash migrations had a common point of origin; certainly both groups have linguistic and religious origins in common. As the Sack of Kamath is the first historical event we can plausibly record in Kayulan history, it is more relevant to examine what occurred afterwards. In the Jalneer Valley, the Desa seem to have rapidly assimilated into Kayulan society, even abandoning their native language (except for a few important loanwords) by 1500. This resulted in the reassertion of the traditional matriarchal culture and the pictographic writing system, while the Kayulan city-states previously united under Kamathakan dominance have begun to use Desa mercenaries as a tool to re-create the old hegemony, though none have yet overcome their neighbors.
But further to the east, in the Yamneer, the Desa did not meet such organized resistance, nor did they encounter a sophisticated culture capable of assimilating them. Here, a powerful kingdom has arisen around the city of Arjivh, where a king elected by from among the noble jivha has taken absolute power and rapidly expands into the demon-haunted southern forests. Unlike the weaker Desa confederacies in the northern Jalneer, the kingdom centered around Arjivh aggressively worships a monotheistic, hermaphroditic god of light and darkness, and derides the Kayula gods as demons. It remains to be seen how the Kayula city-states will respond to this new threat, and whether they will be able to overcome the renewed Desa challenge or be overcome by it. Perhaps somewhere in the middle, lest Ikshni weep for her people once more.
If you have any questions or would like to know more about anything, I'm happy to oblige. 
