Empire of Sulm

Despite its brilliance, Sulm was not a peaceful empire.

• It expanded through conquest, crushing neighboring Flan tribes and enslaving their people.
• Dissent was met with curses or conscription into magical labor—ritual architecture and blood-bound guardians were common.
• Sulm's priesthood enforced ritual sacrifice and allegiance pacts, drawing on ancestral spirits and infernal intermediaries.

Their art and literature glorified eternal rule, flame, and solar radiance—but also domination, purity, and obedience to a singular imperial vision.

Sulm’s height is remembered in broken tablet and whispered legend. Its capital, Itar, lay near the heart of what is now the Bright Desert, surrounded by verdant plains and carefully irrigated fields that fed a teeming populace.

• The Sulmite people mastered agriculture, engineering, and arcane sciences—especially geomancy and temporal magic.
• Great obelisks channeled ley energies, while runed highways connected distant vassal cities.
• Their hierophants and warlocks bound spirits into service and studied the skies to predict omens.

At the head of this empire was a dynastic theocracy, where kings ruled as avatars of divine power, and their bloodlines were believed to be touched by elemental forces. Each ruler took on the title of Sun King, claiming descent from the sky-fire that gave life to the land.

Sulm’s decline began in the reign of its last king: Shattados, a cruel and prideful ruler obsessed with surpassing his divine forebears. In pursuit of eternal dominion, Shattados sought forbidden lore buried deep in the cryptic texts of Sulm’s exiled mystics.

One day, he emerged from a year of isolation, bearing a crown of unidentifiable black metal, said to have “whispered from beneath the world.” When he placed it upon his head, the sun darkened, and the world broke.

• The fertile land withered into shimmering desert.
• Cities cracked and vanished into sand.
• Citizens were transformed into monstrous beings—serpentine beasts, jackal-headed terrors, and living statues of salt and obsidian.
• Rivers ran dry, and plague winds scoured the sky.

What power cursed Sulm remains unknown—some speak of Tharizdun, the Chained God, while others whisper of a forgotten entity from the Far Realm or deep time. Regardless, Sulm was no more.

The remnants of Sulm persist, half-buried or entirely entombed beneath the Bright Desert.

• Ruins such as Mithat and Kasra still hold labyrinthine vaults of magic and horror.
• Sulmite monstrosities, immortal and insane, roam the sands, bound by ancient oaths or forgotten commands.
• Occasional sunken ziggurats pulse with arcane light during eclipses or celestial alignments.

Rary the Traitor, self-proclaimed ruler of the desert, has taken a particular interest in Sulm’s ancient magic, especially its chronomantic and geomantic relics. His experiments in and around Mithat are believed to have reactivated dormant wards and constructs, causing surges of magical distortion across the region.

To this day, locals and nomads fear the old name. “Sulm” is spoken only in warnings or curses. Common beliefs include:

• Dreams of flame and sand are signs of Sulmite influence.
• Mirages that show sunlit cities are portals to Sulm’s still-beating heart—or traps laid by cursed spirits.
• Those who die in the desert may be reborn as Sulmite guardians, their souls bound to lost obelisks.