Qatar Archives

King Lugobi, ruler of the kingdom of Qatar on the eastern coast of the continent of Mbali, has just completed an astounding architectural masterpiece to house the first Mbali Archive. In a world where history is kept by masters of oral storytelling called griots, attempting to document the land’s stories is a unprecedented endeavor. The lore contained in the stories told by griots are the key to amazing magic when combined with the rhythms mastered by specially trained musicians. Those who have mastered both the stories and the rhythm are called Masanii.

The work of the Masanii have kept a relative peace in Mbali for centuries. Ten kingdoms have flourished in this peace with only a few succumbing to war. In this time of camaraderie with neighboring kingdoms, King Lugobi takes the low risk gamble to send representatives across all of Mbali to collect the stories, legends, and historic records of every kingdom of Mbali, to be translated and preserved in his great Archive. How well this act of academic study is received among the kingdoms is yet to be seen.

Lugobi has assigned two citizens of Qatar the tremendous assignment of coordinating efforts of collection and organizing the collection contents into a revered system that will stand for generations: Dulamah, one of the king’s advisors and the oldest living griot in Qatar, heads the project. He has quite the library himself of hundreds of stories he told over the years. He tries to keep a personal storytelling flavor to his journal entries. His wealth of knowledge informs the recorded stories that come in. Most of the time he can make sense of the tales from other regions with foreign complexities. He trains his assistant everyday in the work. His assistant is the second assigned citizen.

Barika passed a test of knowledge and skill to earn the role as Dulamah’s assistant. She was the youngest citizen to take the examination of lore outside Qatar, written language, and advanced logic. She is gifted but was raised in a home of Masanii skeptics and dissident tendencies. It is those tendencies that attracted Dulamah to her the most. Even though the project is a brain child of the king, most of the Masanii and the tsi-ites of the temple of Jind believe the project to be a waste of kingdom resources. Jind gifted griots and the Masanii with the mind to keep the histories of the land, and that gift was for a reason. This knowledge was not meant for the common man, nor is the attempt to retain it by other means, following the Hand of Jind. The king faced much opposition, but believes that all will come around, once they recognize how the Archive will make Qatar the center of knowledge for all of Mbali. Barika actually believes in the benefits of the Archive beyond just the greatness of Qatar, but that it could empower every patron that utilizes its records; the first and most important patron being the King himself and the royal family. Dulamah also looks forward to the challenge of correcting Barika’s misguided presuppositions.

Lugobi requires that Dulamah and his assistant keep personalized journals of their engagement with the collection. As they review the reports, stories, and tales that come in, they are to record their response and write down regional practices, terms, etc., all in their own words. Even if their personal opinion is tainted, Lugobi wants to know their thoughts and demands their sincere reactions.

This platform will house all of those entries, telling their story and the stories of the entire world of Mbali.