Taur'Sutij

“VICTORY TO THE WILLING, SERVITUDE FOR THE REST.” – Motto of the Exarchate

“You ask me why we make war against you. I shall tell you. You know that we emulate the serpent in all things, and that in ages past, your Federation attacked our frontiers. This war is simply our response: a serpent bites when it is stepped upon, does it not? Yet it is more than that. Your laws have failed, and your once-glorious realm has fallen into darkness and chaos. We shall be the agents of civilisation in this darkened era. We will bring harmony and order back to your shattered Kerlonna, even if we must burn your cities to the ground and raise new citadels of our own. Our final triumph is inevitable. Do not dare to defy us.” – Ħaukiir of Jethyas, a Sutiji Fang-Lord, explaining matters to an Idroslekhi diplomat

Founding Year
Exarch Geħzaid I crowned in Marnic Year 254

Capital City
Kêmmosra, in the central regions of the Tasvrek, is the temporal seat of power and home to the Exarch. The spiritual heart of Taur’Sutij lies far to the west, on the verge of the great wasteland, in an isolated temple known as the Threefold Fane.

Geography
The only border of Taur’Sutij that is definitively known by Kerlonnic scholars is its northeastern frontier, which lies near the Nevai River in southern Idroslekh, never quite reaching the river’s banks, and well to the west of the city of Nevaiallan. In the east, the Exarchate has many ports upon the Sea of the Sun, but how far south its coastal holdings extend depends somewhat on whom one asks. Some Sutiji like to boast that they trade slaves directly with the drow of Zresskeilt, while others say that Exarchate and Empire try to keep a wide distance of unaligned territory between one another. The northwestern frontier of Taur’Sutij, in all likelihood, has no precise ending, but slowly peters out into the vastness of the Dahlimi Steppes. The Sutiji have only gained control of a small spur of the Great Western Dakylsthas, the glaciers of which serve as the source for the colossal irrigation works known as the Rivers of Uldagiz. In the south, the Sutiji are fond of claiming that they have conquered their way as far as the Boenaid River, but they certainly have not pacified the majority of the gnomish tribes of the wasteland, and their control over such territory is thus probably rather weak. The overall area of the Exarchate is thus quite variable according to one’s parameters. However, if one is counting Taur’Sutij as consisting only of those areas predominantly inhabited by humans and obedient to the authority of the Fang-Lords, then Taur’Sutij is still likely the largest human nation in the modern world: it is believed to be a third again as large as Drecitou, making it somewhere around 870,000 square kilometres.

The core of Taur’Sutij has ever been that region known as the Tasvrek (“chosen”), the homeland of the Sutiji people. The Tasvrek lies in the White Thirst, on the verge between the great wastes and the fairer lands of southern Idroslekh. It is a vast expanse of shrub, resinous trees (from which the Sutiji derive their treasured incenses), and coffee bushes, where rain comes only rarely. Before the Rivers of Uldagiz were dredged in the early sixth century MY, most people in the Tasvrek subsisted upon migratory herds of hardy sheep and goats, but in the present age great fields of grain now lie across the breadth of the region. Settlements are densely concentrated upon the irrigation canals, and cities have sprung up upon the axes of the canals where the largest amount of water flows. The locations of the cities, however, are not well known, with the exception of Kêmmosra. It seems that there are few roads in the Tasvrek because the irrigation canals can be used for transportation. It is a lawful and orderly region, well patrolled by military police and maintained by a vast pool of free and enslaved labour. Kêmmosra is here, and it is a metropolis of great size, home to some three hundred thousand people. Though the soldiers of Taur’Sutij often march through the Tasvrek, they are never here for long: it is obedient and stable, for the Sutiji government is responsible for the maintenance of the Rivers of Uldagiz that keep the farms of this sunny country alive.

Southwest of the Tasvrek, the sun grows harsher, the altitude increases, and rain becomes even scarcer. Soon there is almost no soil at all, only dust and bare rock swept by the moaning winds. In some places, great salt flats the size of cities lie stretched upon the plateaus, where the world is all aglow with both the sun and its reflection upon the salt. This is the true wasteland from whence the White Thirst takes its name, a sere and majestic wilderness of ancient canyons, mesas, and petrified forests. Somewhere in the heart of the wasteland, an immense canyon splits the land like a knife, and at its bottom lies a lush, green paradise inhabited by hippopotami, elves, and plentiful game, fed by a river larger than even the Geñkaryo. This fabled waterway, the Boenaid, has long been coveted by the Sutiji, but it is hundreds of miles from Kêmmosra, and the elves have not the faintest desire to surrender their territory to any human authority. For now, the Sutiji seek to slowly spread their sovereignty over the wasteland, until such time as they can launch a concerted attempt to conquer the canyon. The wasteland proper is home to the Folmuut, a gnomish people utterly unlike their Kerlonnic cousins who dwell in clans that survive by hunting the antelope of the desert and herding flocks of especially tough goats. The Folmuut are problematic for the Sutiji, for they are too warlike and independent to simply assimilate, and too expert in the ways of the land to be driven from it. Sutiji diplomats and military can hardly survive in the wastes without the aid of the Folmuut, and must approach them as equals: to demean the prickly honour of a gnomish clan can mean a war, and in this unforgiving land, none is more at home than are the Folmuut. Most of them remain proudly independent of “the serpent clan”, uninterested in its offers of wealth and glory and confidently capable of using land and guerrilla war to bring any attackers to swift destruction. Some gnomish clans have deigned to convert to the Sutiji religion and accept the authority of the Exarch, but even these Folmuut are an independent and proud lot, and unwilling to accept anything but the loosest constraints of Sutiji rule.

The coast of Taur’Sutij is one of the few regions that is truly green within the Exarchate (although only within a narrow band), and there the Rivers of Uldagiz drain into the Sea of the Sun. In ancient times, this was the kingdom of Aptakh, a secretive magocracy that claimed to be a remnant of Old Injil. However, the Sutiji overran Aptakh not long after the Exarchate was first unified, enslaving its wizards, converting and assimilating its people (and exterminating those that resisted), and looting its ancient mage-stone fortresses. Today, the coast is inhabited by the descendants of Sutiji colonists, and there is little memory of the Aptakhi of old, but for the ruins of their cities, now overgrown or drowned by the sea. The ports of Taur’Sutij are so well shut against foreigners that no reports have ever reached Kerlonna of them except by the third or fourth hand, and the reason for this is not clear. Perhaps there are shipyards here critical to the constant war effort against Nevaiallan and Ishyardun, or perhaps these are the sites of massive slave markets where “cargo” is shipped to and from Zresskeilt. Some scholars have even suggested that the coast is the area where the opium poppies of Taur’Sutij are grown, and great refineries are located in the ports where the drug is created and then shipped to various unscrupulous buyers in both Kerlonna and beyond. Perhaps it is even all three of these things, and the Sutiji ports are oppressive landscapes of imprisonment. If so, we Kerlonnic people should likely count ourselves lucky that we do not know more about these places.

Northeast of the Tasvrek lies the embattled Idroslekhi border. In the Marnic era, the Sutiji made probing movements into this region, but they were driven back in a crushing assault in MY 330 known as the War of the Rains. For the rest of the Federation’s history, Taur’Sutij had a polite and rigidly correct relationship with the continent-spanning nation, maintaining a buffer region of unaligned territory and trading with the Marnics. However, after the Great Orc-Wars in the FY 20s, the Sutiji began a slow and steady march northeastward, bringing their forces all the way to the former Federal border. After finding the land ripe for conquest in FY 36, they struck. Now only Nevaiallan stands against them, desperately holding the line for a hundred and sixty-two years with the aid of Ishyardun. The Sutiji border lies some thirty miles beyond the western banks of the Nevai River (protected mainly by the Sun-Sworn scouts), and the whole area has an atmosphere of détente. The Sutiji refer to this particular frontier as “the Verge,” and it has something of a dark reputation among them: they consider Nevaiallan to be a place of corruption and fell wizardry. The Verge, despite what one might expect, is not highly militarised. Instead, the Sutiji keep the entire area largely devoid of settlements, except for temporary military camps. In this way, if overwhelming force is brought to bear against them, the Sutiji forces can quickly withdraw without fearing to lose anything valuable, and return later with far more men. It is an open landscape of plains, hardy trees, and heavy winter rains, the latter often used to disguise the approach of a band of Sutiji night-vipers.

The Sutiji have only made partial forays into the Great Western Dakylsthas. Their conflicts with the krolgashi appear to be quite vicious, mainly because the Sutiji refuse to accept anything less than a total submittal to their religion and code of life, or enslavement, and the krolgashi will accept neither. Like the gnomes, the krolgashi are scattered and independent, with a native’s command of the land, but the Sutiji have far more invested in their mountain holdings than in the wasteland: the water for their irrigation system flows from the Dakylsthas glaciers. If the krolgashi were able to disrupt the free flow of water, the result would be a catastrophic drought and subsequent famine in the Tasvrek. Therefore, the Sutiji have poured soldiers into the mountain frontier, exterminating whole tribes of krolgashi and steadily driving their border ever northward, despite its bloody cost. Very little is known about the northwestern frontiers of Taur’Sutij, but it is believed to be an uncertain territory where steppe-folk raiders and Sutiji settlers contest one another for the best pasturelands.

Population & Demographics
The native Sutiji population of humans is the great majority of the population within the Exarchate. Foreigners that cannot speak the language or insult the religion are attacked or enslaved should they cross the border, unless they have an extraordinary reason for their presence, although it may be that the Sutiji maintain trade with the Dahlimi steppe-folk. Elves are not found within the Tasvrek, due to the lack of any real forest cover; however, it is believed that they inhabit isolated oases within the southwestern wastelands that are nominally a part of Taur’Sutij. Half-elves are very rare and exotic, and are almost only ever found among those foreign diplomats intrepid enough to dwell in Kêmmosra, especially among the Therai’in delegation. Orcs and half-orcs are not found within the Exarchate: those that invaded during the Great Orc-Wars were destroyed with extreme prejudice, and any half-blood offspring were killed. Dwarves do exist in Taur’Sutij, but they are an entirely enslaved population scattered among the cities of the Tasvrek, long deprived of any culture or religion outside that which the Sutiji have instructed them in. They are referred to as tsafkash, or “wise ones”: for reasons that are not entirely clear to Kerlonnic scholars, dwarves fill the roles of scholars and personal servants to the high nobility, despite their enslavement, and indeed enjoy a quality of life superior to that of most free Sutiji. They seem to have accepted their new lot, and believe as firmly in the power of the Three as any human. Halflings are unknown within Taur’Sutij, although in ancient times it seems that many halflings arrived in Kerlonna from the White Thirst. What became of them in the intervening millennia is mysterious. Lastly, the Folmuut gnomes are a widespread and healthy population, only ostensibly subject to the Exarch, dwelling in hunting and herding bands throughout the high desert. Population numbers are very uncertain due to the lack of access to any census figures for Kerlonnic scholars, but based on the sheer size of Taur’Sutij, and the sophistication of their irrigated agricultural system, the Sutiji humans likely number in the millions.

History
The history of Taur’Sutij from an internal perspective is a mystery. Their contact with Kerlonna has never been trustful enough to allow outsiders from the northeast access to their historical records, so what we know of their history must necessarily be derived from a foreigner’s perspective only, and from the myths that Sutiji ambassadors love to propagate alongside their religious doctrines. With what we know of migrations and settlement, we can piece together an incomplete picture of the prehistoric White Thirst. It seems that all three of the “small folk” migrated to Kerlonna from the wasteland: gnomes, halflings, and kobolds. As mentioned above, the halflings disappeared from the White Thirst many eons ago, but there seem to be vague memories of them in gnomish myths and in the folklore of the Sutiji. For most of known history, the only inhabitants of the high wastes were the Folmuut and the kobolds, although this was to change later. What is now the Tasvrek was a savage land where migrating human tribes did war with the gnomes for control of hunting grounds over the centuries, neither ever really gaining dominance over the other. When Old Injil spread its empire across Kerlonna, the ancient humans did not bother to settle any farther than the immediate coastline of the White Thirst, and whatever civilisation they brought to the region did not likely penetrate into the parched desolation beyond. Even if it did, it almost certainly was lost in the aftermath of the Binding War and the collapse of the ancient magocratic empire.

Yet, uniquely among the former realms of Old Injil, the distant territory upon the desert coast did not simply slide back into barbarism, but indeed survived as a new, independent nation. The reason for this seems to be that the wizards of this territory had become so accustomed to power that, even with the defeat of Kjuptal and the destruction of his forces, they were not willing to renounce their old positions. In this isolated territory, known as Aptakh, the ancient traditions of the wizard-empire were preserved, as were many of the arcane secrets that Kerlonna lost with Kjuptal’s fall. Fearful that the rebellion that had destroyed their parent nation could one day spread to their lands, the Aptakhi largely avoided contact with both wizards and worldlings of Kerlonna, continuing their arcane studies in isolation. According to the later Sutiji, Aptakh was a depraved and evil land, where wizards used children for blood sacrifices and raised obscene monuments to glorify the legacy of Kjuptal. Although the testimony of the Sutiji concerning a land that they devastated with war is highly suspect, if Aptakh was even mildly similar to how Old Injil was in its decadence, the Sutiji are probably telling the truth, and the later destruction of Aptakh was both just and necessary. In the days of Aptakh, the wizard-kings had a great need for slaves, and so they waged frequent wars against the people of the outer plains to acquire them, creating great misery for gnome and human alike (the kobold avoided the Aptakhi by returning to their subterranean holdings). It was a long age of oppression and darkness, presided over by corrupt and mighty mages, and unlike in Old Injil, there were no wizards that turned against their rulers, perhaps because the Aptakhi wizards had been so horrified by the destruction of the empire that they thought it worth anything to preserve what they could of it.

For centuries, the White Thirst lay under the shadow of Aptakh, its peoples resisting as best they could against the wizards, but disunited because of tribal and racial differences, and few in number due to the harshness of the land. That is, until the arrival of a group of five heroes. Their names are legend among the people of Taur’Sutij: the priest Kharfad; the woman-thief Inwej; the warrior Ekturk; the gnomish huntress Tashrandi; and an Aptakhi defector and wizard, Roshag. Their precise period in history is uncertain, but they are believed to have predated the Marnic Federation by about a century. Led by Kharfad, the five fought against the Aptakhi for several years, winning the aid of the desert tribes and even travelling to Kerlonna and seeking the intervention of the Guild (which refused, explaining that the Aptakhi wizards were too dangerous, having the secrets of Old Injil). After five years, their rebellion had formed into a cohesive guerrilla army, which drove the Aptakhi slavers back to the coast whenever they went upon their raids, and harried the frontiers of the kingdom, melting back into the wilds whenever the Elder Mages of Aptakh ordered a concerted attack against them.

At this time, Roshag announced to the other four that he had discovered a potent magical presence deep in the western wilds, beyond any human settlement, and that it could be harnessed by both himself and Kharfad as a weapon that could turn the war decisively against Aptakh. The five of them travelled into the wilds, discovering that the site was the lair of a blue wyrm. After a ferocious battle that left them weakened, the dragon was slain, and they discovered what had drawn Roshag: a draconic artefact, being some sort of ancient fang the size of a child and deeply engraved with strange symbols of divine power. The dragon had been trying to turn itself into a god, or something very much like it. When Kharfad and the others approached the fang, however, they were attacked, and Roshag turned on them: he had struck up a deal with the Aptakhi, agreeing to lead his comrades to their deaths in exchange for a title as one of the Elder Mages. The wizard burned Tashrandi to ash while Ekturk, Inwej, and Kharfad were slain with the swords and spears of Aptakhi assassins. The bodies were thrown back amidst the dragon’s treasure, and the tunnel entrance was collapsed, sealing them there.

Without its heroes, the rebellion soon faltered, and Aptakh returned to its glory, oppressing the tribes even more brutally than before. Roshag grew to be one of the greatest Elder Mages of history, and led the Aptakhi to claim great swathes of the desert for their own. He even rediscovered the secret of Kjuptal’s immortality, extending his lifespan unnaturally. Yet for all their suffering, the tribes did not bend the knee, keeping the memory of the four betrayed champions alive in story and in song. Three and a half centuries after their deaths, a small, unremarkable tribe (in their dialect, taur) of humans known as the Sutiji was driven off their normal migratory routes by unusually plentiful rains, and they wandered westward in search of new grounds for their flocks. Eventually, they came into a sheltered valley riddled with caves, where they settled for several seasons. Now, at this time a shepherd named Geħzaid was told many wondrous tales of the heroes and the traitor-wizard, and under the influence of these stories, he wandered about, his mind afire with fantasies of avenging the four and destroying Aptakh and Roshag. One evening, while tracking a lost ewe, he discovered a strange crevice into the rock that he was sure that he had never seen before. Clambering down into the depths in curiosity, he eventually discovered a massive jumble of broken, loose boulders, through which he could hear the faint sound of breathing. Calling out, he was answered with three whispering voices. They told him that if he and his people dug through the rocks, they would find a great reward.

Though at first Geħzaid was wary of this, eventually his inquisitiveness overcame him, and he informed a few of his friends about what he had found. Together, they worked for many weeks, stealing time when there was no work to be done, slowly clearing out the rocks. As they did so, the sound of breathing became louder, and occasionally, the voices would encourage them quietly. When their work was finally completed, the group of young men found that they had unearthed a passageway, and beyond it was a cavern, full of treasure, with the bones of a dragon splayed out upon the hoard. Yet what they discovered that was even more amazing were three skeletons lying about a three-foot long fang, from which the whispering issued. The others, frightened by this “witchcraft,” filled their hands with gold and hastily thanked the skeletons before beating a swift retreat. However, Geħzaid walked up directly to the skeletons and asked who they were. They informed him of their identities, stating that they were Kharfad, Inwej, and Ekturk of old, and that their spirits had been anchored to the mortal world for centuries by the power of the fang. They told him the full details of their betrayal by Roshag, adding that Tashrandi had “moved on” and renounced her mission, while they three had remained behind, burning with the desire for vengeance against Aptakh. They could be returned to life, they advised the shepherd, if he mixed the powder of their bones with the fang and spilled his own blood upon it. He did so, and the earth shook.

When the tribe felt the trembling, the elders demanded to know what had happened, and some of Geħzaid’s companions guiltily informed them of the dragon-lair and of what had been found there. The elders, believing that evil spirits had been awoken, prepared the Sutiji to abandon the valley, but before they could, Geħzaid emerged from the depths. He was almost the same as he had been before, but his eyes were the black slits upon green of a snake. In a quiet voice, he announced, “We are born anew.” Behind him emerged a serpent, as tall as fifteen men and three-headed. It flared its hoods, and light shone forth from its eyes. The people of the Taur fell to their knees. A new god had entered the world, and Geħzaid was its prophet.

Within a decade, the Sutiji had constructed a temple in the western valley known as the Threefold Fane, and Geħzaid had been crowned as the Exarch, the mortal spokesman of the god that became known as Ekharwej. Taur’Sutij had transformed from a rural and unknown pastoralist tribe to a great war-band (wealthy from dragon-treasures) that had absorbed half a dozen other tribes and that was allied with ten more. They called themselves the Exarchate in acknowledgement of their leader, and aimed at a total unification of the human tribes against Aptakh. The wizards, astonished at the rapidity with which this group of serpent-worshipping barbarians had ascended to power and entirely disbelieving their lurid myth of a triune resurrected hero-god, sent peace overtures to the Exarch, offering to recognise him as the sovereign of the inland territories and send him tribute. Geħzaid killed their emissaries and sent a response declaring that he would not rest until Roshag was fed to Ekharwej, naked and screaming. The Elder Mages, realising the gravity of their situation, declared war against Taur’Sutij.

But it was already too late. The Sutiji had created an alliance even larger than that which the heroes of old had forged, consisting of almost every human tribe in the White Thirst. They could counteract the wizards: they had a high number of clerics who claimed that their powers were granted directly by the Great Serpent. Some among the tribal chieftains loyal to Ekharwej had allowed themselves to be bitten by holy cobras: those that survived became divinely graced champions, striking swift as an asp, with poisoned blades. Those few tribes that resisted the Exarch were overrun by these “Fang-Lords” and their warriors, and were enslaved. When the Aptakhi forces marched into the desert, by night the Sutiji clerics summoned up plagues of venomous snakes to invade the camps of their foes, killing men in their sleep, while by day the Fang-Lords charged into combat alongside their mundane warriors, to devastating effect. When the wizards joined the battle, the most frightening ability of this new army was demonstrated: those wizards who were overpowered by Sutiji soldiers were magically enslaved with enchanted tattoos that rendered them completely subject to the will of the priests of Ekharwej. These wizard-slaves were turned against their own people, although occasionally they escaped from the helmet’s domination just long enough to kill themselves. The Sutiji methodically drove the Aptakhi border back farther and farther until they were on the coastline itself.

At this point, a group of Elder Mages committed treason, turning their magic against Roshag and incapacitating him. They then delivered him to the Sutiji forces as a peace offering. The Exarch Geħzaid came up to the imprisoned traitor, and then declared that, “Since you are so eager to turn upon your kind, you have proved yourselves unworthy of the trust that peace demands.” The wizards were sprung upon by a group of Sutiji assassins (known as “night-vipers”) warded by clerics against arcane magic, and butchered. Geħzaid then created a tattoo upon Roshag and attempted to turn the mighty mage into his servant. After a dire contest of wills, the Exarch broke Roshag, and the fate of Aptakh was sealed. With the most powerful wizard enslaved, many of the Aptakhi worldlings defected or even rebelled against their wizard masters. In MY 258, the last real battle of the First Conquest ended with the destruction of the Aptakhi forces. Their cities were overwhelmed from within by rebels, assaulted from without by Taur’Sutij, and many of the wizards committed suicide to escape enslavement. Whether or not Roshag was ever fed to the Great Serpent is unclear, but the Sutiji like to claim that this is so.

The entire above story is the myth of the founding of the Exarchate. Some of it, to Kerlonnic eyes, looks at least somewhat plausible. Certainly, Aptakh is no more, brought to ruin during the initial unification wars of Taur’Sutij. The binding of wizards is a well-known practice among the Sutiji as well, and very old Idroslekhi records even mention a band of five rebels against Aptakh during the pre-Marnic era that was betrayed by a wizard. However, the rest of it reeks of superstitions and mythology. With the existence of Rkagyu in Tefaruq, it is perhaps foolish to simply dismiss tales of “holy necromancy”, but tales of an incarnate three-headed god-snake are, obviously, extremely difficult to swallow. Perhaps Ekharwej truly exists, but if so, the Sutiji assert that after Roshag was sacrificed, the Great Serpent left the mortal world for the godly realms, and the Threefold Fane’s inner sanctums are empty. Whatever it was, the creature is now lost to our knowledge.

With the fall of Aptakh finished, the rapid ascension to power of Taur’Sutij had left in control of a great span of territory from the central plains eastward to the coast. The Sutiji named the central plains Tasvrek, the “Chosen” Land, for its people were the elect of the Great Serpent. The Exarch Geħzaid announced to the people that he had had a vision of a new age, a “fourfold” conquest that would carry their god’s banner across the world.