Sorcerer Kings

Sorcerer Kings

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Forged by the sorcerous cabal that brought down a god, the nation of the Sorcerer Kings has forged an Empire that started on a continent of their own creation only to expand to the Elemental Domains.

“Be ever respectful of your peers and fellow magical academics – and be ever ready to demonstrate your superiority over them. Excellence comes only in the company of kindred spirits and the inevitable antagonism it kindles.”

– Dyelin, Pyre of Gods and Mortals

Far to the south and east of the lands of the Hundred Kingdoms and the City States lie lands that exist on no map known to mankind, even the wide-ranging exploration fleets of the Old Dominion, for they quite simply did not exist at that time.

These are the lands of the last successors to the legacy of the Old Dominion; they are the cabal of Sorcerer Kings who transcended the limits of mortal magic by binding themselves to the Incarnate Souls of Balance, the Primordial Elemental Lords, and channeled their awesome primordial power to bring down their mad God, Hazlia, and usher the Fall.

Fleeing the destruction of Capitas across a chain of volcanic islands they raised, they were ultimately forced to bind the last of these islands into an entire continent their burgeoning power allowed them to raise from the very seafloor. Barren and desolate, the four surviving Sorcerer Kings: Erme, Who moves the Oceans, Dyelin, Pyre of Gods and Men, Hormus, Who Lays Mountains Low and Alessa, Weaver of Winds and Fates, gazed upon it and called it good.

They settled upon this new land and founded their realms, bonding their mortal servants to their elemental counterparts – seeking thus to guide their newborn elemental children in the gargantuan task of turning the desolate new continent into one capable of supporting life. Feeling the call of the power and responsibilities they had suddenly assumed would soon draw them away, they established a formal hierarchy among their servants, tasking each of them with a separate task in bringing forth the bounty of this new land.

The Elemental Courts thus established, the Sorcerer Kings then withdrew to master the awesome powers and responsibilities they had inherited with their primordial mantle, turning their attention to stabilizing the continent they had raised and the weather phenomena that the Fall had unleashed – only to find their efforts hampered by unexpected primordial foes. Quickly drawn into an escalating conflict beyond the sight and understanding of their mortal subjects, the elder Sorcerer Kings abdicated their titles to the most powerful and competent of their followers, charging them with seeing their appointed task to completion. Without the guidance and authority of the elder Sorcerer Kings, these hierarchies soon burgeoned in complexity and size as the sheer scope of the monumental task overwhelmed the nascent Elemental Courts. Old ranks were dusted, and new titles were invented to catalog, organize, and structure the expanding bureaucracy. The ancient titles of Sultan, Vizier, and Emir rose to share space with Dukes, Marquises, Marechals, and Barons. Countless rank systems were created amongst their servants and followers, giving rise to the Marids, the Djinn, the Efreet, and the Rakshasa, just to name a few.

The Courts initially cooperated in the creation of Enclaves, where the mortal servants and families of the Courts were to be settled. Though of lesser status than the Courts, these Enclaves were granted every need they might have, with abundant mineral resources, clean water, temperate weather, and lesser elemental assistance and have thrived to become paradisiacal metropolises that surpass any upon the old continent.

The cleverest, most gifted, and most beautiful of their numbers would ascend to the Elemental Courts in elaborate ceremonies, through which riches and largesse were bestowed upon their families. These gifts and bounty earned the Courts the undying gratitude of the Enclaves, which in time would morph into outright worship, further twisting the fabric of an already strained system.

In time, a large population of refugees followed the first Exodus to this new continent. These hardy survivors crossed the raging oceans and a steaming archipelago with no assistance but the final blessing of the Goddess Ninuah, who sent her chosen servants and what wildlife remained into a final migration in a desperate attempt to safeguard the remaining trapped population of Capitas and its environs.

Unplanned and unaccounted for, these Tribes were barred from accessing the bounty of the Elemental Courts and Enclaves, for both were more interested in promoting each other and themselves than accounting for the needs of unexpected visitors. Claiming they were never part of the Elders’ plan, the Elemental Courts took no further action other than to destroy the archipelago that had allowed these survivors to reach them in the first place. The Enclaves quickly closed their gates and walled their farms, excluding the Tribes from the wealth that had been bestowed upon them.

Rejected by the servants of the Sorcerer Kings, these Tribes rejected them in turn, turning to the worship of Ninuah, whose final, fading blessing ensured that they not only survived in the barren lands of the new continent but slowly thrived. Adopting the life of nomads and ranging the vast, semi-barren flats of the new continents, these Tribes came to depend on their herds almost entirely. As the Long Winter eased and the capricious Courts ever so begrudgingly fulfilled their mandated role and brought life to the plains, the Tribes’ numbers began to swell. With the passage of time, they grew in size – until the pressure of their tribal population pushed them into the fertile but guarded lands of the Enclaves.

The relentless conflict between the idyllic Enclaves and the now heretical Tribes would ultimately draw in the mighty Elemental Courts, setting the stage for a massive confrontation that would awaken the Elder Kings and shift the balance of power in these new lands forever, setting them on a course to collide with the civilizations of the old continent after centuries of isolation.

The Politics of Magic

It is, perhaps, as inevitable that the pursuit for magical excellence will ignore the dull realities of everyday administration, as it is that rival Elemental Courts, Sorcerers and even apprentices will compete in their race for absolute elemental mastery. 

Enclaves
Elemental Courts
Mahabarati

The Enclaves

It is perhaps difficult to fathom the level of comfort and luxury the Enclaves enjoy without understanding that due to the patronage of the Elemental Courts, the elements themselves work in their favor. In the cities the heat of summer and the stench of so many bodies crammed together are wafted away by cool breezes that never let up. Their farmers are blessed with perfect rain patterns and rich soil upon which to till their fields while the rivers never flood, but gently irrigate the fields next to which they meander. Fire has been completely tamed and their forges can run day and night, producing some of the cleanest alloys and finest steels mankind has ever seen. This has allowed their craftsmen and scholars an unparalleled amount of freedom to perfect their craft, resulting in some of the most beautiful works of art and architecture in the world, while their libraries, relics salvaged from the last days of the Old Dominion, have continued to grow, and prosper.

This affluence, though, has a price. The population of the Enclaves exists purely to serve the needs of the Sorcerer Kings. The laborers exist to fuel the craftsmen and scholars, who in turn exist only to provide the Sorcerer Kings with new potential recruits. While the Gift does not distinguish between vocations or heritage (much to the chagrin of more than a few enterprising Sorcerers) so if a higher percentage of the population is educated, then a higher percentage of those who awaken their Gift will be educated, shortening the training period for an aspiring Sorcerer significantly. If a child is shown to possess the Gift, they are to be immediately presented to the local Raj who will reward their family for the loss of their child as they embarks on the long journey to the Trophaeum Peak, where the Elemental Courts meet, to decide their fate. There, depending on their Gift and inclination, they might be apprenticed to a Sorcerer of one of the Elemental Courts and begin their journey into the Domains or, should their Gift be judged weak, relegated to the role of servant for their betters.

Every aspect of the Enclaves exists only to further the interests of the Sorcerer Kings, its population subject to the changing needs of their distant overlords. Until recently this was scarcely felt beyond the occasional loss of a favored child as their Gift awakened, but as the gaze of the Sorcerer Kings turns to the fertile lands of Alektria and beyond, the needs for manpower and servants for the expeditions is rising, pressuring a population long accustomed to comfort and plenty. Whereas in other societies one could chose to leave, the lands that surround the Enclaves are blasted and barren places, where only the destitute, the exiled and the Tribes roam, giving the poor population of the Enclaves little choice but to follow the whims of their masters.  The notion of rebellion can scarcely be countenanced when the entire population and way of living depends on the largesse of the courts, and that is before one even considers the ever-present gaze of the Rjakur regiments, recruited from exactly those desperados and hardened survivors who roam the wasteland outside the Enclaves. Brought in from the deadly badlands that surround their Enclaves into a life of plenty these men are trained, conditioned, and indoctrinated by the Raj and his Sardar commanders until their loyalty is beyond question.

Centuries of isolation have made the population of the Enclaves, and the world, forget their true purpose: to provide what the Sorcerer Kings need to establish Dominion once more over the known world.

The Elemental Courts

At the very center of the Sorcerer Kings’ continent, the Jaadoghar Kajhaana, lies the Trophaeum Pinnacle, once a modest island in an archipelago, but now a testament to the raw elemental power the Sorcerer Kings unleashed when they raised the entire continental shelf to provide themselves with a kingdom. Within this volcano lie the four thrones of the Sorcerer Kings themselves: Erme, Who moves the Oceans, Dyelin, Pyre of Gods and Men, Hormus, Who Lays Mountains Low and Alessa, Weaver of Winds and Fates. Despite its awesome size and mind-boggling effort that went into making this mountain a monument worthy of their saviors, the Trophaeum Pinnacle lies mostly empty, its role remaining a more monumental and ceremonial focus to the Sorcerer Kings and their ambitions: to plumb the depths of sorcerous knowledge and climb the heights of power.

The four Elemental Courts are geographically and politically scattered across the realms of the Sorcerer Kings. Erme, Who moves Oceans, holds court from the beautiful garden palace in Jeel Sangar, in the northern Archipelago. Her lands are small and mountainous but what surface there is, is covered in a riotous burst of life and vegetation. Dyelin, Pyre of Gods and Men, resides in the forbidding fortress of Jalaag. The desolate lands he oversees teem with minerals and hide valleys so fertile they can feed his Enclaves with production to spare. Hormus, Who lays mountains Low, rules his burgeoning kingdom from the imposing stepped palace of Adharnev. His lands are the most expansive, his fields the most fertile and his Enclaves the most populous. Alessa, Weaver of Winds and Fates, tore one of Hazlia’s palaces from the sky itself and holds court within the floating fastness of Hava Mahal. She does not supervise any Enclaves directly, but rather wanders the whole of Jadoghar Kajhaana, aiding where she is welcome, meddling where she is not, but seeking to promote the fortunes of the Sorcerer Kings overall.

From the teeming activity and sheer number of resources that flow into and from each of these Elemental Courts, one could perhaps expect them to be teeming with powerful Sorcerers and mighty Maharajahs pursuing campaigns of learning and conquest that would beggar minor kingdoms. This is not the case; not because the Sorcerers are not busy with exactly the kind of mighty Sorcerous pursuit one would imagine these puissant casters to be engaged with, but simply because they are not there.

The greatest secret and power of the Sorcerer Kings is the discovery that while the domain of Balance is the physical world we all inhabit, the slumbering primordial is so powerful that each of its four constituent souls have Domains of their own which underpin our existence. Mortals could not hope to access or even see these outlandish realms if it were not for the intercession of the Sorcerer Kings themselves who bind their most powerful apprentices to the denizens of these Elemental Domains, allowing mortals to set foot within these primordial realms.

The power, knowledge and prestige of any Sorcerer is determined by how deeply they have delved into the Elemental Domains, what secrets they have thus uncovered, what denizens they have bound and what resources they have exploited. So, Sorcerers must devote the vast majority of their time to exploration and exploitation of this uncharted frontier, becoming more powerful in the process.

It is the secret, most ambitious, dream of the Sorcerer Kings to finally plumb the true depths of the Elemental Domains and master their powers, in order to one day bring down the barriers separating the Prime Domain and its Elemental mirrors. This would allow the Sorcerer Kings to awaken balance and rule all of existence, wielding their unmatched elemental powers as the Primordial’s stewards and protectors.

Mahabarati

Belief is Power

Power calls Power

Power Corrupts

There should be none among the Sorcerer Kings who have not learned the Cardinal Principles. And yet, the sad truth is that their history is riven with instances where these rules are… forgotten. No example of this neglect is more glaring than the rule of the last Regent of the Court of Fire.

Seduced by the power at his fingertips, this individual not only subverted the mandate of the true Sorcerer Kings but also drove a wedge so deep between the Elemental Courts and their subjects that society has yet to fully recover. His attempted annihilation of the Khans was an act so vile that it called the true Sorcerer Kings back from the depths of the Elemental Domains to return to their children who had gone astray.

Through sheer effort and magical might, the Sorcerer Kings were able to set things right. But the fact remained: in their absence, there was no one capable of opposing a rogue Sorcerer or, heaven forbid, an entire Court. Knowing they would once again be called away by their Elemental halves, they set about creating a contingency, a failsafe to protect their people from the dangers of unchecked power. The Mahabarati were their answer.

The principle behind the Mahabarati is very simple. Its execution, however, was the result of countless years of research and toil by the Sorcerer Kings and their Courts. Where a Sorcerer is a gifted individual who binds and masters an Elemental in an inherently unbalanced relationship, a Mahabarati is the precise opposite: an ungifted mortal whose nascent soul is grafted to that of an equally unformed Elemental. As they grow and mature together, this symbiotic bond strengthens, molding itself around the needs of each partner, ultimately becoming a whole far more powerful than the sum of its parts.

True, the Mahabarati wield magic—but they do so in a purely instinctive manner. Their Elementals grant them power and control over matter in a way that reflects their character and temperament. Theirs is not a power born of arcane study or mastery of deeper Domain levels, but of conviction, drive, and direct application.

By drawing on the ambient magic, a Mahabarati can accomplish extraordinary feats of strength, agility, and endurance even at the earliest levels of mastery. As their control deepens, so does that of their Elemental partner, enabling the Mahabarati to manipulate their chosen Element, while their guardians manifest as familiars or even mounts, capable of physically interacting with the world. The greatest of the Mahabarati, who are not necessarily the eldest, have guardians who can manifest in sizes eclipsing all known animals, rivaling dragons and monsters.

But the greatest success of the program was not in creating powerful soldiers, it was in the process that determined who they would be. That only became possible when the Sorcerer Kings relinquished control. Trusting in the balanced nature of the Elements, the elemental seeds were designed to seek out a host, but only one worthy of the Elemental in question. Each Element has different needs, and so different qualities are sought. As a result, Mahabarati have risen from the dregs of Enclave society to the gilded halls of the Elemental Courts, helping heal old scars by uniting heroes from all walks of life, regardless of caste or creed.

All who live under the rule of the Sorcerer Kings know that the Mahabarati can be trusted to serve as arbiters and protectors—not because they are superhuman, but because Mahabarati are not made.
They are born.

Forces

Characters

Maharajah
Raj
Sardar
Sorcerer

Infantry

Dhanur Disciples
Ghols
Mahabharati Initiates
Rajakur

Brutes

Efreet Flamecasters
Efreet Sword Dancers
Steelheart Djinn
Windborn Djinn

Monsters

Mahut
Rakshasa Bakasura
Rakshasa Ravanar

Locations

The Settlement of Taj’Khinjaha