Origins
The area known today as May’Kar was once inhabited by a variety of peoples, who first traveled to it in search of untouched land, and established city-states among the Ukor River which flowed from the north. As industry and urbanization progressed, the pollution of river waters became a major concern. Tensions grew between these city-states, eventually erupting into outright war. The situation was finally brought to a head when a coalition of forces, led by a woman named Tsimfa, seized the city of Saresh, and stymied the pollution. Tsimfa’s successor, Kosami, would go on to be crowned the first Priest-King of Saresh, and by the end of his life, established Saresh as a proper kingdom. Within Saresh, a church called the Habbatt began to exert control over the other city-states of the river through irrigation and engineering, driving people out into the desert, until eventually brought under control by the institution of a legal court called the Mahsai. Eventually, Saresh was renamed the May’Kar Dominion, in recognition of how its people had tamed the desert.
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Geography
The May’Kar Dominion is home to the largest desert in Faedrun, with much of its territory lying within the rain shadow of the mountains that define its western border, but despite this it’s home to a large variety of environments. While it does contain sandy dunes, dry, rocky shrubland, salt flats and oases, it’s also home to the Ukor River, which runs from the north of the Dominion through the south and fertilizes everything it touches. Up in the mountains to its west, large coniferous forests dominate the area. And to the eastern borders are flat rolling grasslands. In the northwest, it even touches the sea and extends into a small archipelago. All of these places are vastly different from one another, not only in terms of their climates, but also in terms of their ecosystems.
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Political Structure
The May’Kar Dominion is headed by its Priest-King/Priest-Queen, held by the Mahsai to be the closest living person to divinity. Beneath them is the yazi, a court of appointed and elected officials who convene in the capital of Saresh to handle matters of law and policy. Beyond the capital, territories are organized into Ukorates and algar.
Ukorates are city-states along the river, led by either Princes (a noted title regardless of gender) or appointed governors, and have varying degrees of autonomy. They’re managed by a magistrate who controls their access to the river’s waters.
Algar are peripheral territories designated by the Dominion, and have an algarad assigned to extract resources from them. The people living in the algari don’t all recognize the May’Kar Dominion as sovereign over them, and each algarad must figure out how to establish and capitalize on relations with them.
Notable Groups
The environment of the May’Kar desert has permanently shaped the peoples that live within it, with different extremes in conditions giving rise to different cultural practices and values. These differences are felt very strongly between the peoples of the Ukor and the peoples beyond it, but there is as much variation within these groups as there is between them.
Saresh, the capital of the Dominion, sits on the northern end of the river. It’s a great sprawling city, which has been divided up into six main districts so that the people within it may better specialize and organize themselves. It is a place where the faithful find work and housing through patronage and military service, and the seat of May’Kar’s power and authority.
Meanwhile, on the opposite end, lies Tsamir, a hotbed of education, science, and engineering. It’s surrounded by lush wetlands that have been a source of endless discoveries in medicine and alchemy, and its remote location makes it relatively independent of Saresh and the bureaucracy of May’Kar.
Beyond the river are the many algari, which are too numerous and distinct to capture in full. The peoples who live beyond the Ukor River in Dominion-drawn algar are incredibly varied. They exist along a continuum, with culture and faith having intermingled with one another over centuries. One of the great follies of the May’Kar Dominion is the belief that these people could be separated into categories that are useful to their needs. The following entries are mere examples of some of the people found in the desert, but this is by no means exhaustive:
- The Mushalee, who have built a city around one of the largest oases in the western desert, and who have a complex history of raiding and trading.
- The Kae’rim, a collective of different groups of nomads who navigate across May’Kar in a great, meticulously planned route which takes multiple years to complete.
- The Yewuan, herders who travel from east to west with the seasons and follow a set of sacred religious law that informs their day-to-day lives.
- The Gölkiyde, who dwell in the Dominion’s western mountains, many of its people moving upwards and downwards to follow the region’s fertility, who recognize no god but their own.
- The Themakeis, who live in coastal and island communities, produce some of the finest luxuries found throughout May’Kar, and are home to star-mages who use the movements of the heavens to dictate fate.
Military
The Dominion’s military is divided up into two branches: The Army, and the Auxiliaries. These branches are independent of each other, with the head of each branch accountable only to the Priest-King. Forces from these two branches are brought together as needed, supplementing the discipline, organization, and superior numbers of the Army with the specialized arms and tactics of one or more Auxiliary regiments.
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Economics
May’Kar’s economy is made up of a complex trade network connecting its central territories to its peripheral ones. Rather than trying to overextend into the deeper reaches of the desert, the Dominion relies on the algari, the people already living there, who are already well-adapted to these areas. Taxes are imposed on trade, not only to further fund the Dominion, but also as a form of incentive, with higher taxes often imposed on non-Mahsai faiths, as well as on groups that are less cooperative towards the crown and the yazi. Beyond the Dominion, its main trade partners are Vandregon and Aldoria.
The Register of May’Kar is an institution made up of politicians, merchants, scholars, priests, and more, and is essential for holding up this trade network. Register officials are tasked with the identification, operation, and maintenance of trade routes; assessing the value of an algar, determining the quota of its algarad whether or not that quota has been met; the acquisition and delivery of materials necessary for state-direct projects; the cataloguing and census of the various peoples of the Dominion and their faiths; and much more.
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Religion
The Mahsai is a legal court which exists to resolve legal interfaith matters, which has in time itself become a religious institution. The Mahsai itself has no gods, no dogma, and no creed. It is not itself a faith that any individual ascribes to, but instead represents a great collection of faiths found from across the Dominion. It’s come to be considered the final authority on matters of faith, and it has the full authority to pass and enforce laws in respect to matters of religion. It recognizes only some faiths as ‘legitimate’, and many powers and privileges are granted only to members of legitimized faiths. Though it has no dogma, it has three central tenets which it uses to determine legitimacy: All life is sacred; corruption fouls the waters; and the Priest-King is the one that lives closest to the gods. The Mahsai has evolved over time, becoming a personal belief held among many, and is also referred to as a philosophy; one of open tolerance to all varied spiritual and religious beliefs. One could hold to the philosophy of the Mahsai, but not be part of the institution of the Mahsai.
The Paladin Corps was established originally as a way of enforcing the will of the Mahsai. They were elite soldiers of faith, who were granted near-immunity to these laws when in the course to carry out their duties. After a period in which rogue paladins enforced the law in their own way, the loyal ones that remained were given holdings, but were barred from membership within the Mahsai and the yazi. Now they take apprentices, and teach them their various sacred rituals and duties, such as the method of cultivating their divine blades, before picking one to inherit their station.
Diplomatic Interactions
Vandregon
The first meaningful interaction between Vandregon and the May’Kar Dominion as proper states was during a series of military campaigns in the formative years of the Kingdom of Saresh, in which Sareshian forces drove south along the Ukor River, eventually reaching Vandregonian lands. They were largely unobstructed for days, before Vandregon’s true military appeared. The retaliation was swift and brutal, with massive casualties on the Sareshian side, who were forced to retreat upwards along the river. The edge of the desert formed a soft border between the two. The Dominion doesn’t have the might to seize Vandregonian lands, but Vandregon can’t bring their advantage to bear in the harsh territory. Even during war time, and especially outside of it, Vandregon has been one of the greatest trade partners of the Dominion, and it isn’t hard to find a wealthy lord still looking to partake in its luxuries and amenities.
The Syndar
According to the Dominion, the first encounter on Faedrun between humans and Syndar was between Yewuan herders and a group of Lairthuduillan explorers from the north. Shortly after these Syndar met with the Priest-King, May’Kar rushed to appease them with favorable privileges such as legitimization within the Mahsai, and preserved a positive relationship with them even leading up to and after the bloody Battle of Grayfield. Now, May’Kar enjoys trade with the various Syndar kingdoms, and some Syndar themselves live in small communities along and away from the Ukor and have contributed to May’Kar’s great diversity.
The Great War
The May’Kar Dominion had a great deal of experience fighting the undead even before the Great War, and so were able to stand as a powerful ally against them. At first they profited from Vandregon’s fighting, leasing companies of clerics and holy warriors out, but as the war approached their doorstep, they formally joined the Grand Alliance. This Alliance was made up of many different states from Faedrun, and they collectively held the Dominion, only ceding ground gradually over the next few decades.
As the May’Kar Dominion fought against the undead, its institutions at home gradually became infiltrated by the Penitent and their sympathizers, who wielded the bureaucratic weight of the yazi and the Mahsai in order to protect themselves from harm. The current Priest-King, Akun, left these troubles at home, opting instead to fight on the battlefield, commanding from the front, eventually becoming a paladin in his own right.
In the year 232, Akun suddenly died, but returned as one of the dead, proclaiming that the undead army would spare the people of May’Kar, should they stop warring against them. The people of the Dominion were deeply divided, with loyalties to the crown clashing heavily with loyalties to the Grand Alliance and to the living. Its diversity of culture and faith, once a strength, only served to complicate the situation to the point of an administrative standstill. As the local Vandregonian forces continued to fight the undead and keep the defensive line held, the Risen-King and his followers turned on them. Detractors of the crown fled the violence south into Vandregonian lands. Crown loyalists pressed on, cutting the Vandregonian Army in half and pursuing those fleeing south, joining up with the undead and eventually overrunning Aldoria.
Meanwhile, part of Vandregon’s forces, which had been stranded in the desert, regrouped and reorganized. The Grand Alliance command was dealt a crucial blow, forcing Vandregon to split it’s army. It took over a decade for this military campaign to reach a conclusion, where Vandregon’s northern army finally marched on Saresh, causing an utter bloodbath as they wiped out any that were loyal to the Risen-King, though the king himself was never found. The Grand Alliance would never recover from the outcome of these events.
Surviving May’Kar & Mardrun Colony
The May’Kar citizens that fled traveled southwards, into Vandregonian lands. They convinced the Vandregonian leadership that they meant no harm, and opposed the Risen-King, and ended up being labeled ‘True’ May’Kar for remaining loyal to the Grand Alliance. Their military was absorbed into other Grand Alliance units, and their civilians were allowed to retreat further south, some eventually ending up on the evacuation fleet. On Mardrun, they struggle to carry on their traditions, separated from the land they had a relationship with, and can mostly be found in a number of small, close-knit communities resembling the algari.
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Inspiration and Garb
The May’Kar Dominion contains a great variety of peoples in it, and no single description could possibly represent everyone. Inspiration for the region pulls from as far west as Greece, and as far east as Tibet, and features a variety of West Asian and North African influences. These inspirations are used in a variety of different specific combinations and contexts, and aren’t meant to come together in a homogeneous mix. Players are expected to be respectful of real-world cultures and be aware of proper representation and avoid tropes, appropriation, and racist stereotypes, and should also understand that the May’Kar Dominion is not an attempt to recreate any one group exactly.
The specific peoples and subcultures described for the May’Kar Dominion are meant to be illustrative examples, and not an exhaustive list. Please email Staff with any questions or for assistance in expanding on these groups.
Historically, clothing is both functional and fashionable, and the needs of a group are going to be informed by their material circumstances. The people living in the southern region of May’Kar, where the desert begins to give way to fields, are going to have different needs than the people living in the western mountains, who face cold winters and live among evergreen forests.
That being said, here are some general guidelines for finding garb that’s appropriate for a May’Kar character:
- Clothing should be light and breathable for most people living in the heat of the desert. This means linen and cotton garb. Tunics tend to be long, almost skirt-like. Pants tend to be loose and baggy. Men and women alike might wear dresses. These base layers tend to be white or in natural, undyed colors. Characters from the cooler regions might wear felted wool or furs from herd animals like sheep or goats.
- Characters with any amount of wealth are likely to layer robes, vests, or coats over their base layer. These might be dyed in vibrant colors, or might be made of a patterned weave, or might feature embroidery or brocade.
- Nobles might instead layer with garments made from imported silk or velvet.
- Belts tend to be wide, and might feature decorative elements like medallions or other belts hung from them, but sashes and rope belts are also commonly used decoratively.
- Cloaks tend to be made of light, thin material.
- Armor is typically quilted, scale, or lamellar, but broader influence over time allows for many different options or materials.
- For headwear, scarves and sashes can be worn around the neck and shoulders. Decorative circlets, bands, and hair ornaments are also appropriate.