Empire of Nehekhara

Nehekhara is a massive Empire that is situated centrally in Arabia, but it has control of an Empire that stretches from Eygpt to Ind. Arguably the largest Empire in the World in the meaning of size, it is an Empire that controls tens of millions within its borders. The Empire is beyond powerful, but recently it has been stalled by some serious opposition on many different fronts but the largest and most dangerous being the rise of Ind, and Outland to their east.

The empire is the largest christian nation in excistence and spreads Chrisitanity where ever it goes, and this religion also has come to define of whome will be the leader based on their family relationship with Jesus, or the relationship to a desiple of Jesus. While once an almost secular nation they are now basically defined by the Christian religion, and see it as their duty to spread it after they overcame an extremely dark time by the rise of Jesus Christ of whome begin to call himself the son of God after he was told by Zeus that he was his son. This started through their being at one time ruled over by their greatest Sultan in the form of Jesus Christ who was the starter of Christianity and believed to be the son of god on Earth. This real life connection has meant that all Sultan's live by the code of ruling which was written by Jesus nearly directly after he wrote the most important book of the area in the Bible.

The current Sultan and one of the most powerful men in the World is Salif Saladin. Salif is dealing with an increasingly difficult eastern border which is growing restive due to the migrations of the people of western Ind caused by the expansion of the forces of Illidan Stormrage. This is combined with the growing threat of the Empire of Byzantine which they have no means of combating without losing their hold on the east, or weakening themselves with the Lahmians.

The Lands of Arabia would only give rise to Nehekhara after the desert dwelling humans were uplifted by the High Elves who saw them as a greater ally then those who had previously dominated Arabia. The High Elves would spend centuries uplifting the humans until finally the Empire of Nehekhara gave rise, and it would expand massively until finally stalling into a long period of decline. This period of decline would become defined by both the fall of the Sultan and the rise of Jesus Christ. Jesus would rebuild the losses of the dark ages in Nehkhara and would bring about a Golden Age for their people before he was lost after being betrayed by the Kingdom of Lahmia. His death would cause a massive war between Lahmia, and Nehekhara and the war would end quickly when Lahmia was conquered and became a client state.

Early History
Before the coming of the first Sultan, Nehekhara was a far more sparsely populated land, empty of the teeming caravans that now dot its sands and plains.

The native humans of the region were a wandering folk,goat herds and gatherers for the most part,abandoning one region when the sands came to wash them away, only to move their tents eastward toward the mountains in summer or toward the sea in winter, as the winds took them. Only in the city of Al-Haikk was this wandering set aside. First a trade moot for the various nomads of the region, it became the site of a great annual horserace.At first the nomads made seasonal visits, but eventually some came to live there permanently,working the fertile land near the coast. Legends grew up around the place - that it was the site of great births and deaths, and that its waters couldheal even the mortally ill.

The High Elves arrive
It was the Elves that first were convinced the native Arabyans were worthy of trade rather than conquest. Though the locals wore coarse clothing,used crude weapons, and spoke an awful, grating tongue, their love of horses earned the Elves friendship.The Elves established great trading colonies along the coast which drew the attention of the desert nomads, and many moved there. These trading posts would later become the great cities of Al-Haikk, Lashiek , and Copher. Arabyans came in large numbers from the interior of the Sahra Desert, expanding Al-Haikk and bringing commerce, learning, and formalized temples to the city.It took the Arabyans less than a century to settle the coast and to expand eastward to the border with Ind and the Lahmia, which sparked a series of minor conflicts.

Fortifying the boundary with a hundred stone watchtowers and the fortified city of El-Kalabad, Nehekhara's armies waited, guarding the borders against their eastern neighbour, the armies of the Kingdom of Persia. The armies turned their attention southward and set about expanding. The southern city of Ka-Sabar was created as a resort town, to show the ruler that life could be carved out of the desert and to grant relaxation and quiet to the thencurrent ruler of Araby. They founded other settlements as well, including Al-Bashir, Martek ,and Bhagar , along with many others lost beneath the sands.



Growth

 * We realized that our Empire was diminshed to the point that we could no longer hold these far fledged colonies alone, and for this reason we offered the Arabs the chance to change their future. We gave them swords, and supplies and watched as they formed the largest Empire in human history.


 * -Caledor Dragontamer

Following this period of exposure to the Elves, the people of Nehekhara were bustling and their population centers and armies were the envy of all their niehbors. They maintained friendly relations with basically none of their neighbors simply to the fact there trade with the Dwarves, and Elves was more then enough. This started off as simply not making the usual overchurchs of payment to Lahmia, or Persia which the Arabian tribes had been conditioned to think was normal. It started off as that but eventually the Arabs became arogant with their dealings with the region, and this culminated in the massacre of an entire convoy of diplomats that had been sent by the Persian Empire. When the Persians prepared for war it was made clear to them by the Elves that the Arabs had the support of the Elves and thus no action was able to be taken against them. This beligerance had caused quite the problamatic relationship between Nehekhara and their two closest rivals in The Persian Empire, and Lahmia. These two Kingdoms were hell bent on removing Nehekhara from the lands they wanted, and more importantly gaining the vastly important trade port of Al-Haikk.

War with Persia
The Persian King at the time was a brash man with little stomach for waiting for a good oppurtunity. This came full bore when he launched a massive attack on the Nehekhara capital of Al-Haikk. Al-Haikk is perhaps the most impenetrable city in the entire region, and The persion King attacked it blind. His army overwhelmed the region which made him arrogant but as they approached Al'Haikk they surrounded the port and put it under their siege. The siege continued for nearly a year as the Persian army battered away attempting to get inside but the defenders barely were damaged, and the Persian army was desintigrating in the desert heat. As the Persians prepared for another attack on the city they came under massive assault from the rear by the gathered Arabs, and in this battle the Persian Army and their King were massacred to a man.

Middle Eastern War
With the defeat of the main Persian army now complete the Lahmians realized they had to step in or they were in real danger of watching as the Nehekhara Empire destroyed the Persian Empire. The Lahmians quickly gathered together the independants in the center and massed their armies for a major attack on Copher.

Decline
Following the death of El-Habrim the Nehekhara empire entered into a period of territorial stagnation, and severe cultural decline. This period was highlighted by the violent regimes of El-Abrahim II., and then upon his assasination the rule of Hervius Gallapio who was the first Sultan of Nehekhara born in Turkey.

Hervius's reign was one of complete internal strife, where in everyone who the insane and power hungry Hervius believed was his enemy was locked up or killed.

The reign of Hervius would only come to an end with the rise of Jesus Christ which would cause a rebirth in Nehekhara.



Jesus Christ
Main Article : Jesus

Jesus Christ was born in 71 B.C. in the massive Nehekhara city of Jeruselum. He was an extremely powerful Magi user, and became very politically motivated during the age of his life. For a time Jesus pondered simply protecting his region from the depravity of the mad Sultan, but eventually realized that it was within his power to save the Empire from destruction and so he had to help. He knew that if he left and began to expand his following the Sultan would have him assasinated so instead he went on a quest to recruit the twelve most loyal members of his followers and trained them in the use of Magi.

Each of these men was responsible for a specific area within Nehekhara and with this strategy in mind the Sultan was blinded by the power of Jesus, and missed the growing enemies throughout the Kingdom. Each of the chiefs turned entire tribes in their respective regions to the side of Jesus, and over the course of several years every area of Nehekhara had huge followings of Jesus Christ.

War with Lahmia
Jesus was a great believe rin intelligance of your enemies, and in this way he dispatched spies to all the nations surrounding Nehekhara. After time went by the spies returned to him with information, and what they discovered in Lahmia was beyond horrifying to him. It appeared to the spies that the aristocrasy of Lahmia were Vampires, and preying on their people like demons.

With this knowledge Jesus raised his armies and begin harassing the Lahmian front to discover the strength of these Vampire armies. In each battle the Lahmians were victorious but not because they used Vampires but because of the most brilliant military commander anyone had ever seen. This Lahmian commander named Abhorash was using his army of 250,000 and defeating armies twice and sometimes more then that of his size.



Death of Jesus
With Queeen Neferata now completely on the side of listening to whatever Nagash wanted her to do, she ordered her messengers to send a communication to Jesus that she wished to meet with him near the mountains of Cache, where she would like to discuss the ending of the conflict between the two of their kingdoms. Jesus was given the truce of kings which was basically the most honor bound thing you could offer another king, and it meant that no harm would come to you while on the other persons land.

As Jesus left Nehekhara and entered Lahmia his commanders and advisors advised him strenuosly to take a much stronger force, and to have the massive reserves he had called in to assist him in case something happened. In the end he trusted that honor would be upheld, but he also believed himself the son of God, and in this way no harm could come to someone who was doing to the work of God. This belief brought him right to the outskirts of the large estate city of Cache with nothing more then his elite gaurd, and a small force.



Betrayal
As Jesus entered the outskirts of the fortress of Cache, he became confused as to where the Lahmians were, and his commanders begged him to pull back, and for the first time he understood that he had been duped and he attempted to order his army backwards. As the army attempted to shift backwards they discovered that they were now surrounded by what appeared to be a million plus enemy soilders. But this was no ordiinary army this was the army of Nagash, and he alongside his million plus skeleton army charged the roughly 50,000 Nehekhara army. The battle didn't last long with the forces of Nagash absolutely destroying the army before it eventually surrounded the elite gaurd of Jesus, and the son of God himself. As Jesus's gaurd was wittled down man by man, he himself used his immense power to destroy thousands of the attackers each spell he cast. As the last of his gaurd fell Jesus himself watched as the skeletons stopped coming forward and made a massive entrance path for something.

Jesus watched as the enigmatic figure of Nagash walked down the pathway. When he reached the end no words were said they simply begin fighting. On a normal occasion the two were equally matched, but with Jesus having just fought for nearly an hour he was exhausted, and the world lost its second Man God when Jesus failed to deflect a killing spell and fell to the ground dead.

Growth
Following the collapse of the Lahmian resistence the Empire of Nehekhara was stuck in a rut for some time as the apostles of Jesus attempted to discover what purpose the death of Jesus could have possibly served. Eventually the apostles came to believe that Jesus would return at the time of Nehekhara's greatest need, and for this reason they built an idea of growing Nehekhara so that it would be just as he left it when he returned. Some of the Apostles argued for massive expansion, while others wanted a conservative approach, and eventually after much debate the agressive Apostles led by Peter would win the argument and put in place the first Sultan in the form of Mehmad I. Mehmad I. would wage a final war against the rising Armenian Empire, the Caucus region, and begin the aggresion against the Empire of Ind.

Sultan
Sultan (pronounced [ˈsulˈtˤɑːn]; Arabic: سلطان‎ Sulṭān) is a noble title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership" and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة sulṭah, meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who claimed almost full sovereignty in practical terms (i.e., the lack of dependence on any higher ruler), without claiming the overall caliphate, or to refer to a powerful governor of a province within the caliphate. The dynasty and lands ruled by a sultan are referred to as a sultanate (Arabic: سلطنة‎).

A feminine form, used by Westerners, is sultana or sultanah; the very styling misconstrues the roles of wives of sultans. In a similar usage, the wife of a German Field-Marshal might be styled Feldmarschallin (in French, similar constructions of the type madame la maréchalle are quite common). The rare female leaders in Muslim history are correctly known as "sultanas". However, in the Sultanate of Sulu, the wife of the sultan is styled as the "panguian".

Among those modern hereditary rulers who wish to emphasize their secular authority under the rule of law, the term is gradually being replaced by king (i.e., malik in Arabic).

See Also : Salif Saladin

Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb (Arabic: صلاح الدين يوسف بن أيوب‎, Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, Kurdish: سه‌لاحه‌دین ئه‌یوبی, Selah'edînê Eyubî) better known in the Western world as Saladin, is a Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty, and is the Sultan of Nehekhara during the events of the Rise of Lucerne.

Saladin was born in Tikrit, Iraq. His personal name was "Yusuf"; "Salah ad-Din" is a laqab, a descriptive epithet, meaning "Righteousness of the Faith." His family was of Kurdish background and ancestry, and had originated from the village of Ajdanakan near the city of Dvin, in medieval Armenia. In 1132, the defeated army of the Lord of Mosul, Imad ad-Din Zengi, found their retreat blocked by the Tigris opposite the Tikrit fortress where Saladin's father, Najm ad-Din Ayyub was warden. Ayyub provided ferries for the army and gave them refuge in Tikrit. Mujahed al-Din Bihruz, a former greek slave who had been appointed the military governor of northern Mesopotamia for his service to the Seljuks had reprimanded Ayyub for giving Zengi refuge and in 1137, he banished Ayyub from Tikrit after his brother Asad al-Din Shirkuh killed a friend of Bihruz in an honour killing. According to Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, Saladin was born the same night his family left Tikrit. In 1139, Ayyub and his family moved to Mosul where Imad ad-Din Zengi acknowledged his debt and appointed Ayyub commander of his fortress in Baalbek. After the death of Zengi in 1146, his son, Nur ad-Din, became the regent of Aleppo and the leader of the Zengids.

Saladin, who now lived in Damascus, was reported to have a particular fondness of the city, but information on his early childhood is scarce. About education, Saladin wrote "children are brought up in the way in which their elders were brought up." According to one of his biographers, al-Wahrani, Saladin was able to answer questions on Euclid, the Almagest, arithmetic, and law, but this was an academic ideal and it was study of the Bible and the "sciences of religion" that linked him to his contemporaries. Several sources claim that during his studies he was more interested in religion than joining the military.

Demographics
Main Article : Demographics of Nehekhara

Its massive size would imply a massive population to go along with it, but in many provinces this is not true. The provinces of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran constitute only 40% of the land size of the Empire but have 79% of the population.

People of Nehekhara
The people of Nehekhara are divided into two broad groups: the nomads and the city-dwellers.While the nomads dwell primarily in the high,romantic desert plateaus, the citizens for the most part, inhabit Nehekhara's lowlands and coasts. It is cooler and wetter there, with frequent morning fogsand heavy but brief rains during the monsoon season. Life is not driven by the search for waterand green grass, as it is for the nomads. Though irrigation and wells are still required for agriculture,in general, the people of Nehekhara's settlements have easy access to water and other basic necessities-things the nomads hold so dear.

The citizens are sedentary as well as settled. A man often lives in the same house as his father, and in the same community as his grandfather. There is a greater sense of continuity here than in the desert,with buildings and businesses offering proof of man’s ability to tame the land. Trade is more established in the settlements, which often have suqs (covered markets) in addition to open bazaars.The population is more highly concentrated here than in the wild lands, giving rise to stronger rules of order and law.

Nehekhara's citizens also are more cosmopolitan than the desert-dwellers, for they have been exposed to foreign visitors. Traders fromfar-off lands rarely venture into the inhospitable desert, but they frequently visit Nehekhara’s great cities.As a result, the citizens have gained a broader,more practical outlook. While they are oftenreferred to as city-dwellers, they live in settlementsof all sizes, from the crudest collection of mud-brick hovels to the golden towers of Al-Haikk.

From the perspective of the people, their lives are the same-soft, sedentary, and restricted. Indeed, the similarities between those who live in a village andthose who live in a great city far out-weigh thedifferences.Outside the settled areas of Nehekhara, tribes of nomads wander the hot deserts from watering hole towatering hole. These tribes resemble trading-caravans, but contain whole families. The nomads are fiercely independent of their city-dwelling brothers.The men of Nehekhara are much the same as the men of the European states, such as the Empire and Gondor, but the little differences between them have led to years of war between the two races.Whilst the men of the Empire have pale skins andblondish hair the men of Nehekhara have olive coloured skins and thick black hair. They often cultivate small pointed beards and tend to have brown eyes.They usually wear turbans and loose fitting robes,mainly because it’s too hot to wear anything else.

Arabian
See Also : Arabian

Kurdish
See Also : Kurdish

Turkish
See Also : Turkish

Persian
See Also : Persian

Religion
Main Article : Christianity

The empire is the largest christian nation in excistence and spreads Chrisitanity where ever it goes, and this religion also has come to define of whome will be the leader based on their family relationship with Jesus, or the relationship to a desiple of Jesus. While once an almost secular nation they are now basically defined by the Christian religion, and see it as their duty to spread it after they overcame an extremely dark time by the rise of Jesus Christ of whome begin to call himself the son of God after he was told by Zeus that he was his son. This started through their being at one time ruled over by their greatest Sultan in the form of Jesus Christ who was the starter of Christianity and believed to be the son of god on Earth. This real life connection has meant that all Sultan's live by the code of ruling which was written by Jesus nearly directly after he wrote the most important book of the area in the Bible.

Arabic
Main Article : Arabic



The spoken Arabic varieties are spoken in a wide arc of territory stretching across the Middle East and North Africa. Arabic languages are Central Semitic languages, most closely related to Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic and Phoenician. The standardized written Arabic is distinct from and more conservative than all of the spoken varieties, and the two exist in a state known as diglossia, used side-by-side for different societal functions.

Some of the spoken varieties are mutually unintelligible, and the varieties as a whole constitute a sociolinguistic language. This means that on purely linguistic grounds they would likely be considered to constitute more than one language, but are commonly grouped together as a single language for political and/or ethnic reasons. Arabic has also borrowed words from many languages, including Hebrew, Greek, Persian and Syriac in early centuries, Turkish in medieval times and contemporary European languages in modern times, mostly from English and French.

Kurdish
Main Article : Kurdish Language

Kurdish (Kurdish: Kurdî or کوردی) is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages.

Kurdish is not a unified standard language but a discursive construct of languages spoken by ethnic Kurds, referring to a group of speech varieties that are not necessarily mutually intelligible unless there has been considerable prior contact between their speakers. The second official language of Iraq, referred to only as 'Kurdish' in political documents, is in fact an academic and standardized version of the Sorani dialect of a branch of languages spoken by Kurds. In its written form today "Kurdish" has two regional standards, namely Kurmanji in the northern parts of the geographical region of Kurdistan, and Sorani further east and south. Another distinct language group called Zaza–Gorani is also spoken by several million ethnic Kurds[13][14][15][16] today and is generally also described and referred to as Kurdish, or as Kurdic languages, because of the ethnic association of the communities speaking the languages and dialects

Persian
Main Article : Persian Language

Persian (locally known as فارسی fārsi, دری darī), and тоҷикӣ تاجیکی‎ tojikī) is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and countries which historically came under Persian influence. The Persian language is classified as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanid Persia, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Persian Empire in the Achaemenid era. Persian is a pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, making Persians the source of much of the diplomats sent to Europe.

Persian has had a considerable, mainly lexical influence on neighboring languages, particularly the Turkic languages in Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia, neighboring Iranian languages, as well as Armenian, and Indo-Aryan languages, especially Urdu. It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing much vocabulary from it after the Muslim conquest of Persia. With a long history of literature in the form of Middle Persian before Islam, Persian was the first language in Muslim civilization to break through Arabic’s monopoly on writing, and the writing of poetry in Persian was established as a court tradition in many eastern courts.

Points of Interest
Settlements In Nehekhara by royal decree all settlements with a population of more then 200,000 are called cities, while settlements with more then 50,000 population are known as towns.

Al-Haikk
See Also : Al-Haikk

Al-Haikkis a city-state of Nehekhara, and is the largest trading port in the area along with the largest city of the Arabian Peninsula by far. It is traditionally the capital of Nehekhara, as it the most powerful in the entire Empire but it has been rotated out under several Sultans of whome chose their favored provinces for the right. Even during these times the power of Al-Haikk is something so great that even when not the capital it is the home of the Sultan`s elite Janissary otherwise it might be open for revolt.

The city of Al-Haikk is the home of the Shabak Clan of Nehekhara of whome has come to be a very large demographic within the Empire of Nehekhara. Originally the Shabak ethnicity was a small force in Al-Haikk but under the excesses of Hervius the town commited several large scale genosides against the populations and the Shabak were one of the last remaining groups that had yet to be attacked. The Shabak make thier cultural heartland around the palace grounds of Kuwait within Al-Haikk and it is here where their cultual leader and the leader of the Christian denomination of Sunni Christianity makes his home.

Al-Haikk is the home of the Sunni Christian religion and it is here within the palace of Kuwait where they form the central leadership ranks for this religion.

Once the largest city of the High Elves in the region they abandoned the town after the humans that they had uplifted became stronger then them and begin to surround the town with their military forces. The humans would quickly take control and the city-state of Al-Haikk would remain independant for some time until it was united under the rule of Hervius Gallapio the Greek who took control of Nehekhara and nearly destroyed the entire Empire. It was used by Hervius Gallapio as capital and stronghold during the time of strife between he and Jesus, where parts of the defenders rebelled against him, forcing him to meet the crusades in the desert outside the city, in The Battle of Al-Haikk. Following this Jesus would come to power and his skill at leadership became obvious when he further expanded the port of Al-Haikk and added larger defences to the port side of the town so that no sea-borne force would eveer dare to make an attack on the city. Following his long time in Al-Haikk the people of Al-Haikk erected a massive Church to show their love for Jesus, but it was not completed until ten years after his death. Either way the love of Jesus is the one thing that to this day continues to define the cooperation of the city of Al-Haikk.



Baghdad
See Also : Baghdad Baghdad is a massive city located in central Nehekhara within the Iraqi province. Baghdad is the home of the Apostle Andrew of whom continues to rule over the city, and his dominance, and direction can be felt in every inch of the city.

Lashiek
See Also : Lashiek

Lashiekis called the “Corsair City'” though more due to the prowess of their thieves than the level corruption of among the general populace. Lashiek is the major port of trade between the Kingdoms of Europe and Nehekhara due to its location in Syria where it is the primary port of this massive province within the Empire of Nehekhara.

It is said that a Lashiek thief can steal the eyes out of your sockets and you will not notice it until next week. That being said, the laws of the city are harsher here than in any other city and nowhere in the known world is the watch more diligent and incorruptible. Only the best of thieves survive in this city.

Lashiek`s population is dominated by the Syrians of whom were the founders of the town and have held a stranglehold over the town since its creation. In the south part of the town their exists a foreign element and it is here where the traders will stay, along with many of the members of the town that the Syrians do not respect such as the Palestinians to the south, or the Jordanese to the east.

Lashiek was founded by a tribe of Syrians sent west by Jesus from the capital of Syria of Damascus. The town would grow quickly following the destruction of the port of Dailin during the fighting of the Civil War, and following this Jesus sent his apostle Peter to the town and his work there would become the bedrock of much of the present day structures that dot the port. Lashiek grew even wealthier with the growth of sea travel following the destruction of the Pirate nation of Carthage of whom had blocked much of the trade with Lashiek in order to maintain control.

Copher
See Also : Copher



Copherhas always been fiercely independent. Its rulers rarely yield graciously to orders from the Sultan. Many of the city's trading privileges dates back to the Mad Sheikh Tupar and these are defended with a force of arms if necessary. The city produces the finest spices native in Araby, and has the greatest slave market. The city is somewhat more liberal than other Arabyan cities, and though it does not have any established universities on par with the greater Old World cities, it is nonetheless considered a place of learning. Scholars flock to Copher to sit in on informal gatherings, and most noble houses openly have a Vizier in their retinue. Copher is primarily a merchant and trade city, and as such they gain their armies the old fashioned way: they buy them. Mercenary units, naval units, desert clans, and un-tethered Mameluke organizations are pressed into service as need demands. Usually, such a need calls for a limited action, over which the Sultan have full control.



Martek
See Also : Martek

Marteklies at the mouth of the Chewan-el Bardouk. Caravans from the south and north converge on Martek to bring to the Sheikh wares and merchandise from far-away lands.

Martek is located in the province of Iran within the Empire of Nehekara and inside this province it is located in the deep south nearly at the border with Ind. Desert and Mountains are all that surround Martek and for this reason the town relies upon its trade to survive and cannot really be sieged for any real period and hope to survivieDespite its isolation, Martek is bustling city, serving as a chief trading post between the citydwellers and the nomads of the Great Desert. Both city and wilderness people mingle on the streets. The great, smoky city of Martek is ringed with a wall to the north, and surroned by mountains to the south.

El-Kalabad
See Also : El-Kalabad

El-Kalabadis the Guardian of the Western Gate, the Gulf of Medes and the West Lands bordering Lahmia. Constructed by the Apostle John the elder the fortress has withstood many attacks but its secretive defences are such that an attacker must attack the city before understanding the true depths of its defences.

El-Kalabad is populated by the army and people of John the Elder of whome remains nearly unmovimg at the side of his savior John the Elder.

El-Kalabad is a mighty fortress city at the very border of the Great Arabyan Desert' guarding the main route that would be taken by any Lahmian leader mad enought to attempt to take this mighty fortress. kingdom and the critical Gulf of Medes.

High Elves
See Also : High Elves

The Arabians are great sailors and have for many centuries fished the adjoining seas and traded south along the coast, northwards to the western parts of Europe, and westwards as far as Ulthuan. The High Elves do not permit Arabian vessels to travel further west than Ulthuan itself, their high-prowed dhows are a common sight in the outer harbours of Lothern. Fortheir part the High Elves maintain a mercantile presence in Copher and Lashiek as they have since time immemorial. The Elves and men of Araby had dealings even during the long centuries when the Elves abandoned their colonies. Being not only capable seamen but also bold and adventurous,Arabyans will eagerly exchange fishing and trading for piracy, and nowhere is this more the case than in Lashiek which is consequently known as the City of Corsairs.