Shuddering Forms in Ancient Tomb Depths (Basic Undead for King of Kings)

Given that tomorrow is Halloween (and with roughly another month having passed since my last post... sigh, I really need to get back on blogging and back on running D&D games again, but I keep on meeting roadblocks and annoying hurdles (some my own fault, some not)), I figured it'd be as good a time as any to write about one of my favorite creepy types of D&D monsters: the UNDEAD! I've already written about the undead in King of Kings in a few different places: salt mummies, parrot-fiends, false prophets, and rusalki (not to mention various types of undead dinosaurs in session reports) have rounded out the kinds of dead things now walking in the world of the Enlightened Empire. So check those out if any of them catch your eye! Here, I wanted to make some original, King of Kings-ified versions of classic D&D undead, riffing on Gus L.'s Monster Archaeology posts from years back (a huuuuuge influence on me and my thinking about D&D), namely his post on Lesser Undead in OD&D (please PLEASE check it out !!)

 

The Reanimated

Number Encountered: N/A  

Hit Dice: 1  

Attacks: 1 claw (1d6) or weapon  

Armor: Unarmored (0)  

Morale: 6*  

Puppeteered: The reanimated are controlled by some outside force or being. If that control is severed or destroyed, the reanimated instantly collapse to the ground.  

Undead: Immune to poison, disease, mind effects, etc.  

Unfeeling: Do not react to being harmed. Do not make morale checks unless forced to (such as due to a dispelling or turning).

 

The dead are a tool, one that can be used to very effective ends in the right hands. Whatever their origin, condition, or the mode of their animation, these reanimated cadavers form the backbone of the art of necromancy.

 

Types of Reanimated

Fresh

In Good Condition: +1 to hit points.

Bloated

Buoyant: Floats in water.

Fetid Gas: A successful hit causes the corpse to release stinking gases. Save vs. stench or begin to vomit.

Rotting

Disease: The claws of a rotting corpse carry disease.

Horrifying Countenance: Rotting corpses are disgusting to behold. Save vs. disgust or take a -1 penalty to all rolls while you can see the corpse.

Pickled

Edible: Although it likely tastes poor, the pickled corpse is technically edible.

Preserved: The pickled corpse has advantage on saving throws against effects that would damage or disintegrate its body.

Skeletal

Fleshless: Skeletons are immune to cold effects and take half damage from fire.

Fragile: Skeletons take double damage from bludgeons.

 

There's practically innumerable ways for a corpse to be reanimated: a necromancer animating dead muscle with chthonic magic, a ghul's chilly touch bringing the body under thrall (keep an eye out for a post on ghuls that I keep procrastinating on), a nefarious carnivorous plant wrapping its vines around the limbs like a marionette, baleful rays from purple moon-rocks throbbing in the joints, or fished out of the pickling jars of some mad sorcerer. There is no one way to counteract all types of reanimation (although turning, given the influence of Truth over all things, can be effective against all types of reanimated).

 

[This is basically just my attempt at combining all possible types of "dead body controlled by a necromancer" into one statblock with little modular bits connected. Zombies and skeletons are already this type of undead in OD&D and Basic, so this is more or less a broadening from that original mold! Also, the note that they can be forced to do morale checks is my first clumsy attempt at integrating various ways of "turning" undead that first got introduced in the post on parrot-fiends, since the Unceasingly Useful Dermestid Box provides a secular alternative to undead-turning.]

 

While reanimated corpses lack all agency, being little more than hunks of flesh puppeteered by an outside actor, there are those of the living dead which cling to independence and whose shuddering mockery of life sneers at Truth. Two such willful bodies are worth touching upon here.

 

Barrow Body

Number Encountered: 1d6

Hit Dice: 3+1

Attacks: 1 touch (energy drain)

Armor: as chain (2)

Morale: 10*

Energy Drain: The touch of a barrow body drains a full experience level upon a successful hit. The victim loses one hit die's worth of HP, corresponding to-hit bonuses, and any class abilities gained from the level they lost. A character brought to level 0 by a barrow body dies and becomes a barrow body.

Invulnerability: Barrow bodies take no damage from non-magical missiles. While melee attacks can damage the body's... body, the daeva inhabiting it does not "die" until dispelled (i.e., the barrow body can be rendered immobile by melee damage, but it will still be "alive").

Paralyze with Terror: Anyone seeing a barrow body must save or be paralyzed with terror. Paralysis is broken if the barrow body attacks, goes out of sight, or if the victim is shaken out of it via smelling salts etc.

Undead: Immune to poison, disease, mind effects, etc.

Unfeeling: Do not react to being harmed. Do not make morale checks unless forced to (such as due to a dispelling or turning).

The death of a good, honest person is a victory for deceit, and thus corpses not properly protected (by a watchful dog (their mean gaze shielding from unclean spirits) or ritual fires) are vulnerable to possession by the invisible deceitful daeva Nasrusht. Nasrusht has no body, and thus hungers after bodies, for even feeling dulled by death and decay is more than the nothingness that is its normal existence. In the western satrapies at the core of the Enlightened Empire, Nasrusht is kept at bay by ritual excarnation, placing the body atop a tower of silence and leaving it open to be picked apart by carrion birds and dogs, before the bones are safely removed and ensconced in the tomb. Such towers are a more recent appearance here in the eastern satrapies. Instead, the locals since time immemorial are more accustomed to heretical burial practices: constructing barrow mounds to bury their heroes, or ensconcing them beneath great stone kurgans, flesh still on bone when set into the earth. Thus, for centuries generations of good, honest folk have been left open to rapacious Nasrusht, leaving an uncanny barrow body in many tombs. Some temple exorcists of the True Religion have made it a mission to wander the countryside and expel the Nasrusht-cursed corpses from their crypts, despite the protestations of villagers and tribesmen disgusted that their ancestors are being defiled so insultingly.

 

Corpses of good people are ritually unclean due to Nasrusht's influence, whether reanimated as a barrow body or otherwise. The only exception to this are ancient relics of saints, begrudgingly made clean by temple functionaries disappointed at the popularity of such local cults. Thus, victims of Nasrusht's touch, which makes the skin pallid and the face languid and drains the victim of the will to live and of their connection to their very selves as they become more alike to the dead than the living, will not be ministered to by temple priests until they are ritually washed and atoned. Their accursed half-life can only be dispelled by a high-ranking mobad, and not just any high-ranking mobad but one who has specialized in the art of forgiveness for uncleanliness via star-magic. Such mobads are rare, and likely to request very particular favors in exchange for their services (it is said that one such mobad-doctor, Behzad Marzbani, occasionally makes his appearance in Humakuyun when he isn't on his dhow in the Sea of Giants).

 

[For more on Nasrusht and burial practices in historic Iran, read the page on corpses in Encyclopaedia Iranica. Also note that IRL, the type of burial practice involving exposing the body to the elements actually originated in eastern Iran, not in the west, as I have it here, but I kinda flipped it for the purposes of the game.]

 

Yes, I maybe cleaved a bit too close to the look of the ringwraiths with this drawing but they look cool so

Rove-Wraith

Number Encountered: 1d6

Hit Dice: 4+1

Attacks: 1 weapon (1d6 + energy drain)

Armor: as chain+shield (2+shield)

Morale: 11*

Energy Drain: The sword of a rove-wraith drains a full experience level upon a successful hit. The victim loses one hit die's worth of HP, corresponding to-hit bonuses, and any class abilities gained from the level they lost. A character brought to level 0 by a rove-wraith dies and becomes a barrow body.

Invulnerability: Rove-wraiths take no damage from non-magical weapons, and half damage from silver weapons.

Mount: Rove-wraiths ride upon steeds made from smoke or congealed blood.

Paralyze with Terror: Anyone seeing a rove-wraith must save or be paralyzed with terror. Paralysis is broken if the rove-wraith attacks, goes out of sight, or if the victim is shaken out of it via smelling salts etc.

Undead: Immune to poison, disease, mind effects, etc.

Unfeeling: Does not react to being harmed. Does not make morale checks unless forced to (such as due to a dispelling or turning).

While good, honest corpses are left open to nefarious Nasrusht, the corpses of especially cruel and evil-hearted men, those most motivated toward deceit and destruction in life, are made unclean by their own conduct and can maintain willfulness after death. Most often, these are the corpses of rapacious conquerors, warlords, and tyrants, although especially cruel torturers and sorcerers are present among their number as well. They are called rove-wraiths because, in their desperate restlessness as they hunger after the pleasures of life, they wander about the wildernesses and palace complexes they once ruled over, never comfortable staying in one place (rather unlike the buried bodies held by Nasrusht, or ghuls cursed forever to a single spot). They become fixated on some object of their obsession in life, or on some cruel mission they never succeeded in following through to fruition, which they seek after in their wanderings (even if the mission was as simple as not feeling they had brought enough villages to heel). They are, however, thankfully rather solitary creatures, banding together into small and short-lived alliances of evil, and thus their forces are kept from overwhelming the world of living men.

 

1d12 Rove-Wraiths of the East and their Cruel Fixations

1.  Yarga the Bloodthirsty: Barbarian tyrant of northern Numistan in ancient times, who once delighted in the lamentations of women. Now a blind and deaf mummy stiff under layers of clay with an uncanny drunken ability to dodge blows. Seeks a way to hear his favorite sound again.
2. The Decapitatrix: The cruelest of amazon queens, who decapitated the victims of her raids, and then her own tribeswomen, until she herself came under the blade. A shuddering headlessness under dripping deer hides. Desperate for her own head, now lost.
3. Dog-headed Dyan the Dreadful: The only known wraith of the dog-headed men, who are already known for their demon-haunted cruelty. He was known for injustices done unto babies and mothers. Just wants to taste succulent childflesh again, but for his burnt-out tongue.
4. The Ringseeker: Eunuch advisor to an ancient tyrant, arch-liar and arch-torturer, whose foul tongue wormed its way into his liege's worst neuroses. Ashamed of himself, he seeks after a golden ring of his tyrant's seal, which he coveted from the ruler's heir.
5. Shameful Once-Prince: Wraith of the ruling house of the Enlightened Empire, passed over for the throne due to his evilness, leading to uprising and civil war. Disfigured, scarred, and perpetually sobbing, he wanders after his insistent birthright.
6. Farahnaz the Ferocious: Warrior woman tyrant of the mountain fastnesses, now ghastly and bent over like a dessicated monkey, sword in hand. Wanders the mountains searching for the dragon (now long-dead) that she abandoned her kingdom to starvation for.
7. Skazzadraxx of Tandurstan: Ancient dino-wraith king, whose palace (now half-buried and rotten) was a circus maximus of gore, wherein the now-decrepit thunder lizard mockingly murdered human slaves for the delight of reptile masters. Seeks after rivers of blood once again.
8. The Star-Blind: Selfish sorcerer who sought to spy on all souls in the world through meditations on the north star as an aspect of many-eyed Mihr. Empty eye sockets glowing with starlight, skin bursting with a thousand betrayed secrets, he wanders just wanting to finally die but Mihr won't let him.
9. Filth-Festerer: Mother of a dozen diseases, she was a selfish chthonic sorcerer who bred daevas in her bloodstream and had sex with feces-covered false prophets. Her skin sloughs off like a loose robe as clouds of flies festoon her. She seeks the ancient evil known as the Red Death.
10. Queen Naghme: Poisoner of two dozen husbands and suitors, now given over to spiders and snakes. Her pallid skin bulges with the venomous things crawling beneath the surface, wrapped in her black rag. She seeks after the tomb of her son, in order to marry him.
11. Nameless Betrayer: Eunuch of an ancient tyranny whose betrayal was so rank that his name was expunged from all records, all monuments, and all speech. Shamefully shuddering in a ragged rug clutching a curved dagger, he seeks after his own name, surely still recorded somewhere.
12. [ ]: Sorcerer who sought to bring about the Deluge anew, putting his ear to the ground to listen to the whispers of the caged false stars below. Killed a hundred or more in rituals mocking the sun, but never sought his own immortality, instead being magically suicidal. Cursed by Truth to spit brine when he attempts to speak, he knows his name but it is anathema to be spoken. Seeks out the salt desert, so he may finally dry.

[Yes, these are just wights and wraiths... BUT my hope is that they're at the very least an interesting take on wights and wraiths, that tie them more into the setting :) Thank you for reading and have a happy Halloween!] 

Inhabitants of the World (Peoples of King of Kings)

I puzzled over what to title this post for a good while, mostly because I don't want to use the clumsy language of "races" that D&D stuff has been stuck with for a while, but inversely trying to puzzle out what the name for a broad group of people groups was really difficult and I didn't really want to use super scientific terms like "species", "genus", or "family". I think the incredibly vague and unhelpful word "inhabitants" does the closest thing to justice to the topic of this post, so it's what I went with.

So yeah, this is a setting post for King of Kings about the intelligent inhabitants of the world! It is more of a semi "world bible" of sorts, rather than an in universe statement of lore; the creatures and characters described in this post, and the categories into which they are placed in, are more for my benefit to define what sorts of creatures I use in the world rather than pure world building. I'm personally not a huge fan of the intense taxonomical drive that is present in a lot of D&D stuff, which you can read a very interesting and good post about here, from the wonderful Zedeck Siew. Obviously I am still putting things into categories in this post, but I'm aiming for relatively vague and general categories defined more by connections to fictional cosmology and myth than by how D&D races work, taking cues more from groups of spirits and creatures from real world myth and folklore. So there is still a taxonomic impulse, guilty as charged in that regard, but for King of Kings I want to keep taxonomy as light as possible, and instead emphasize geographic location, familial ties, or political/religious allegiance. If I ever make a KoK book in the future, I'd lean more in that direction for that more "official" presentation, but this post isn't the final official presentation, its basically just a collection of notes put together here for my sake and for anyone who wants to read about my setting.

Maybe that rant was unwarranted, I don't know, I just think about this stuff a lot!

Without further ado!

A person, on a rug

Humans/People

I think I would hope that everyone reading this post knows what these are. While King of Kings takes its cues from the world of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, fundamentally people back then were still just people! Humans are the main inhabitant of the world, living just about everywhere, forming tribes and nations and polities together, etc. etc. Not all humans are visually identical, however, and this is where KoK leans into ancient and medieval conceptions. People groups that would appear at first to be very different from humanity, such as dog headed men, amazons, men of the deluge, and the mouthless astomi, are all still human no matter their, from the perspective of people in the Enlightened Empire, strange customs and appearances. Here I'm trying to lean into ideas of the "monstrous races" from Ancient Greek natural histories and travelogues from Greece, Rome, and the Christian and Muslim Middle Ages. There's a really good book that I'd recommend about this topic that provides a detailed listing of such peoples from ancient and medieval sources, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought. I find this topic super interesting, honestly kind of deserving of its own post, obviously of even more than a post because its a historical topic that has garnered plenty of attention in like, book length works and such. These ancient and medieval conceptions of people from faraway lands being monstrous are something to be careful about though because they're, yknow, tangential to and prefacing racism that developed in the modern period & etc. I find them to be a very fascinating and fantastical element of how real premodern people perceived their world, and I like using them as inspiration for KoK, as a basis to then provide some real depth and complexity onto, but just as with anything else really it's good to try and be mindful and whatnot.

Also people

But yeah uh, other than humans like the dog headed men and amazons, there are also humans that are closer to real world ancient human cultures. City dwelling Shahanistanis, rural farmers, nomadic pastoralists or raiding warriors, etc. etc. I'm going to make more posts in the future with more character backgrounds and stuff about different polities in different parts of the world, so there's plenty more to say. But yknow, its just humans.

from the Kitab al-Bulhan

Spirits, including Jinn

Possibly the broadest group mentioned here, spirits encompasses all manner of immaterial and supernatural entities that dwell all across the world of King of Kings. Mischievous kalikantzaroi, morning star worshiping liliths, burgeoning bakhtaks, all manner of ghosts and lingering auras, localized nature gods, and jinn of all sorts, including afarit like Fire Eater, ghuls, marids like the headless bull thing, and the half jinni half human nasnas. Spirits can be basically anything, which is kind of on purpose so that I can encompass all sorts of supernal immaterial entities and atmospheres in here. Jinn are to the world of spirits as humans are to the material world, and so jinn come in just as much staggering variety if not more than people do. They share in all being made from smokeless fire, and have a parallel and often very different society to that of humanity, but are otherwise incredibly diverse. I would never want to try to make any attempt at like, summarizing all spirits or all jinn in a single paragraph, let alone a whole post or book, though I do want to start writing up more spirits for King of Kings for the blog.

For resources that I've taken inspiration from for spirits and jinn in KoK, check out Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar by Robert Lebling, Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn by Amira el‐Zein, relevant entries in the Encyclopedia of Islam and the Encyclopaedia Iranica, and of course The Thousand and One Nights. Also I'd be lying if I didn't sometimes just take info from Wikipedia for folkloric creatures, or at least as a starting point. Who doesn't use Wikipedia as a resource these days? It's generally pretty good.

Sea Tyrants, including Amphibians

I've made a post about these before, although I'll definitely return to the topic in the future. The sea tyrants are the primordial once rulers of the world, the ancient despots from when the world was wet and the world was young. They flooded the world in an effort to take control of it in its entirety, but were rebuffed when some among them acted as a sorcerous Prometheus and stole star magic to give to mortals. Ever since then, they have dwelled deep at the bottom of the sea and deep in the depths of the earth, while humanity and the traitors to the sea tyrants thrive on the surface. The sea tyrants who betrayed their brethren and stole magic to give to humanity were the amphibians, namely the froglings, salamen, and elder olms. The froglings live among humans, in their cities and towns, and continue to practice magic and  serve as sailors and merchants, while salamen tend to live out on their own in isolated wilderness and swamp communities, and elder olms serve as a potential friendly faction in delves underground. I have so many ideas for sea tyrant related stuff, so keep an eye out for that in the future.

If you couldn't tell, the main point of reference for these guys is almost entirely Lovecraft stuff, yknow Deep Ones and Cthulhu and the subterranean city of K'nyan from The Mound and all that. Add in aboleths and mind flayers from D&D and other underdark goodies and you've got it. And with regards to the froglings, I can't help but bring up my love for Frog from Chrono Trigger, even if my frog people here don't have That much to do with him. Sure these are some of my most overtly pop culture inspiration creatures but who cares its my setting.

Moses tells the giant Cuj ibn Canaq how to curb an appetite

Giants, or the Children of 'Ajuj and Majuj

Far to the north, in the snowy Land of Darkness, dwell the ancient 'Ajuj and Majuj, twin fathers of monsters. Their offspring form monstrous man-eating lineages that roam the wintry vastnesses, attack human settlements of northern nomads, and on occasion raid down south. The Conquering King, when he took hold of all the world, built a great metal and stone wall with a great looming gate in the mountains on the southern edge of the Land of Darkness, to keep the Children of 'Ajuj and Majuj out. Also, I have an idea for a horizontal megadungeon of sorts which would be the slowly rotting body of a giant that you could dungeon crawl in, I think it'd be super fun and cool.

Like I keep on saying, keep an eye out for more posts about giants, especially since I haven't posted really anything about them so far. With regards to references, check out the Penguin book Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North and certain versions of The Romance of Alexander. King of Kings's giants are another example of taking cues and inspiration from how premodern people perceived people from other parts of the world, similarly to the dog headed men et al. I discussed in the section about people above.

Don't know the source of this one unfortunately

Daevas, or Divs/Dews

Dwelling on the upside down underside of the world, daevas are embodiments of all forms of evil and untruth. They are more than simple unclean spirits, they are the living forms of deceit and lies, and live completely alien and surreal lives on the flat plane of the underside. Some divs are collaborating with the sea tyrants in their efforts to slowly seize the surface world, but most divs are lonesome creatures serving only deceit. Like I keep saying, keep an eye out for more posts about these guys.

Here, the main point of reference is to daevas from Zoroastrianism and, later, the Islamic Persianate div; while the names are super similar, it's an important distinction to make, I think, between these religious/historic references and devas in Hinduism, especially since Zoroastrian daevas are comparable to demons. Just sorta making a note of that. For stuff I've taken inspiration from, the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi which I need to read more of, I haven't actually finished it and Manifestation of Evil in Persian Mythology from the Perspective of Zoroastrian Religion by Elnaz Bakhshayeh and Reza Ebrahimil. Also the Encyclopedia Iranica and Wikipedia again. I wanna do more reading to find good inspiration for these entities.

Skeleboy with some carvings made by the ancient Dinosaur Kings

Dinosaurs

A bit of an outlier for this post, because the dinosaurs are more or less all dead. Once the rulers of the eastern satrapies and other lands before the time of the Conquering King, many of them were killed or forced into hiding once they were defeated by his armies, either by his very soldiers or by their human subjects' retribution. Today, they are little more than carvings on walls and rumors of ancient tombs.

Beasts and Birds

Yknow, animals. I wasn't going to include them in this post because I feel like it's kinda self explanatory that animals exist in the setting, but I figured hey why not I can still say some stuff about some weirdos. Obviously, most beasts and birds are just normal animals, but King of Kings has some unusual creatures, whether they are fictional animals that are still more or less comparable to real world things like the lizardmen herded and bred by the Dinosaur Kings, or intelligent beasts like manticores or pigmen, or birds so beautiful that their plumage inspires awe like the huma, or monotremes like gryphons, owlbears, or the swamp dwelling platypus. Just figured I'd note them.

This is what came up when I googled "byzantine elf". Source

Elves, namely the Gnostic Elves

A last but not least, the newcomers on the scene, the Gnostic Elves. The Gnostic Elves rule an empire directly to the west of the Enlightened Empire, the two neighbors being in a constant slow and grinding war that has been going on for generations. They took over the western archipelago and their portions of the mainland a few centuries ago, having come in from across the sea on pale white boats. They wrap themselves up in full body coverings and often wear masks, and believe that the flesh is sinful and must be destroyed, and that through ascertaining hidden knowledge the material world can be transcended. There are, however, heretic sects of elves who reject that gnosis, most notably the Hedonist Elves who dwell underground in isolated colonies.

I know I sound like a broken record but yeah keep an eye out for more posts about the gnostic elves and about the never-ending war between the gnostic elves and the enlightened empire. The Gnostic Elves have taken a lot of inspiration from a variety of sources: obviously their religion is derived from ancient Gnosticism, while visually and with regards to their role in the fictional world they take cues from the Eastern Roman Empire (for which I really like to refer to The World of Late Antiquity by Peter Brown and the History and Secret History of Prokopios), and their history of having come here from across the ocean to conquer takes inspiration from the Tarascans/Purépecha of Mexico who have a similar story of coming from across the Pacific, and the Seljuqs who conquered Anatolia from Central Asia.

And that's it! Those eight inhabitants of the world are going to serve more or less as a guide for my world building and adventure location making, and a bit of a taste of some posts to come as I elaborate on some more of these in more detail! Hope you have a lovely day!

The Lands of the East

 I've been realizing that my posting about King of Kings has been strangely piecemeal. A monster here, a random table there, etc. To rectify that, I'll be making a series of posts detailing some of the more foundational aspects of the setting, both for my own sake (since I'll be actively fleshing out a game world for use with my own games) and also for y'all! Gonna be doing this from the top down, in a sense... starting out with an overview of the satrapies and kingdoms of the east!

If one were traveling from the west to the east, more likely than not you would be along the King's Road, a loose collection of paths, paved roads, and bridges that crawls up from the First City, antediluvian urheimat of humanity, capital of the Enlightened Empire, birthplace of Shahanshahs, home of the one who those in the east call He-Whose-Face-Is-On-Our-Coins (obviously many know his actual name, but it has become a custom to refer to the King of Kings in such a manner). The King's Road leaves the First City and slinks between mountain peaks until it reaches The Wall of the Conqueror, the looming metal and stone edifice erected by The Conquering King (ancient unifier of the whole of the world) to keep giants and things far worse at bay. Turning eastward, the traveler eventually comes upon the city of Humakuyun, and is now in Elburz Satrapy, ancient homeland of the Dinosaur Kings before their defeat by the Conqueror.

Elburz satrapy (which I made a previous post about here), so called for the mountain range that shields it from the burning desert heat to its south, is the gateway to the east, a land of rolling hills and verdant valleys darkened by looming mountains. Its capital is the city of Tabur, a medium-sized walled city of roughly 8,000 souls. Tabur is the religious and political epicenter of the east: it is home to the satrap of Elburz, Gholam Ruyanian (a hunched soft spoken old man, veteran of the Neverending War waged by the Enlightened Empire with the Gnostic Elves to the west), and is smack dab in the middle between two of the most sacred sites here at the eastern edge of the Empire. To the west of Tabur is the Holy Cedar Forest, a land blessed since even before the days of the Conquering King, dwelling place of implacable spirits and strange beings. The Holy Cedar Forest is the home of the jinni Fire Eater, who the players met several sessions ago. To the east of Tabur is the Holy Mountain, looming mountain peak eternally topped with snow, ringed at its base by the Hallowed Halls of the Holy Mountain, colloquially known as Temple Town, a ragged complex of temples, inns for pilgrims, and half-abandoned ruins of shrines and saintly mausolea clinging to the cliff faces. Tabur is the de facto home base of the players in my campaign as of right now. It is a city of tyrannical local officials, arbitrary executions, severe inequality between the urban poor and the city's rival noble houses, violent outbursts dividing the people over the outcomes of horse races, and looming stone edifices from generations ago topped with the curved beaks of cruel birds.

Northeast of Tabur is Humakuyun, the real happenin' place of Elburz satrapy. A city of roughly 10,000 souls, it is the opposite of Tabur in nearly every way: rather than political-religious significance, Humakuyun has mercantile significance. It sits on the southern shores of The Sea of Giants, at the confluence of the King's Road that goes east-west and the road to Tabur going south. Humakuyun is the home of the Order of the Egg, the ancient clan of assassins with imperial sanction, as well as the Grand Hospital of Humakuyun. It is also home to myriad markets for both inanimate good and for slaves or hirelings, bars and other places to party, and sorcerous clubs developing new spells. If Tabur is old money and old power, Humakuyun is new money. 

After Tabur and Humakuyun, Elburz satrapy becomes little more than wide wilderness pockmarked with the occasional village. Heavily forested mountains and sloping hills collapse into verdant valleys of tall grasses and looming trees, isolated communities barely connected to one another by the most precarious of paths. The great distances involved prompt innovations in communication. Pigeons are used for message sending, with donkeys and ceremonial giant lizards for the ferrying of goods. More pertinent or violent desires require more direct involvement. It is not exactly uncommon to come across a roving taxman with sword in hand, a bounty hunter wielding a crossbow, or a contracted manticore wearing a written pact from some noble house on their neck. At the furthest eastern edge of Elburz is the vast Hinterbog, a stinking morass of rivulets and stagnant water. Home to salamen, many types of leeches, and things even slimier, the Hinterbog is the natural barrier between even the relatively settled valleys of Elburz and the wilder places beyond.

To the northeast of Elburz, on the eastern shore of the Sea of Giants, is the Domain of the Client King. A renegade war-bek of the King of the Nomads, whose rule stretches in a wide band at the southernmost edge of the Land of Darkness, fled his overlord's rule and bent the knee to the Shahanshah of the Enlightened Empire. Vested with defending the Empire's northeastern fringe from incursion by nomadic barbarians or things even worse, the Client King Aktan Timurbek does his job... to varying success. In truth, he sees himself less as protector of the Empire, and more as being protect by the Empire, protected from the vengeful nomad king in his yurt-palace on the backs of elephants. Aktan Timurbek the Client King has a capital city on the move, the city of Tungush, which cycles between several different spots throughout his domain in the grasslands beyond the Hinterbog. In truth, the region is not as secure as the Client King may make out, with bands of cannibalistic dog-headed men trawling the grasses and even insidious children of Ajuj and Majuj infiltrating the barrow mounds and small copses of trees.

To shift focus to a land opposite that of the Client King, to the south of Elburz satrapy is The Great Desert, or Kavir-e Bozorg. Quite possibly the largest desert in the world, even if it is not truly so it may as well be to its inhabitants. The Great Desert is truly what cuts off the east from the rest of the Enlightened Empire, necessitating following the King's Road from the west. Within the last few generations, however, the Great Desert has become less of an impediment, with camels being used to cross its expanse. A foreign import, these hot desert camels come from far to the west, and have been pushing out the traditional art of giant lizard breeding and riding. The Great Desert is haunted by ghosts, jinn, and writhing worms that subsist beneath the sands. In fact, many of its natural niches have been filled by worms unnaturally at ease with the sand and heat. The only places of rest in the Great Desert are the occasional Oasis City, settlements given special rights and autonomy by the Empire more in recognition of how difficult it would be to police them than in any ethos of charity.

Northeast of Kavir-e Bozorg, and east of Elburz satrapy, is the twin satrapy of the east: Numistan satrapy. Numistan is a land of bloodshed and metallurgy, mountains rich in gold, gems, and fine clay, bleeding out into the rivers, staining the land a cacophony of color. Numistan is the coin press of the east, the sky blotted out by the billowing smoke of foundries and smithies. It is a land cut in twain, with its eastern half governed by the southern dog-headed men, the more urbane (though still cannibal) cousins of the barbarian dogmen of the north. The tribes of Numistan paint themselves with ochre and lapis lazuli, and many of them ride on goats and yaks in the mountain slopes. The more urban sorts in the satrapy hold onto poetry and lizard breeding, and just about everyone reverse and worships the Conquering King as a deified warrior.

The capital of Numistan satrapy is the city of Gavarpazir, also known as The City of Spires. It clings desperately to a mountainside like a starving traveler, its towers clawing toward the sky like grasping hands. Gavarpazir is the home of the satrap of Numistan, Bashtar Khodadad, a greedy career bureaucrat, despised by the Kanarang (looming warrior-protector of the east who sits upon the back of a great black horse). Gavarpazir is a city of roughly 6,500 souls, the height of provinciality in truth but a center that claims pretenses of high culture. To the east of Gavarpazir, toward the border with the dog-headed men, are glorious mountains carved in the visage of men, robed hermits and bloody warriors shaped from the ancient stone themselves. To the west of Gavarpazir are a collection of large lakes peopled with fishing villages, dominated by taxmen and superstition. The people of the fishing villages speak of werewolves that swim just beneath the murk clinging to the surface of the water. Numistan is a land of militarism, tribalism, and gold, coveted not only by men but by griffons and giant ants as well. Dog-headed men in fine silken uniforms standing at the border staring at cataphracts and manticore-mercenaries, rural guides in flowing red robes and faces painted in bright hues sitting astride goats to guide travelers to stashes of gold hoarded by griffons. Not all beasts of numistan seek gold, however.

Beyond the easternmost fringe of Numistan and the Realm of the Client King, there are the Petty Kingdoms of the Road, tyrannies and despotates grown fat and rich off of trade. These are satellite states of the powers they border on, influence with them fought over by the Enlightened Empire on the one hand and the Furthest East on the other. Clinging close to the arteries of trade, the foothills of the mountains, or the occasional steppe oasis, the Petty Kingdoms always want a leg up on the next city over, a deal better than the one previous got, an agreement that will keep them even safer from the King of the Nomads, the giants, or the dog-headed men than any of their neighbors.

TL;DR: The east of the Enlightened Empire is a strange and wild frontier, the edge of empire colliding with worlds beyond it. There is Elburz satrapy, which is verdant wilderness pockmarked by rare settlements except for its two most prominent cities, once the domain of dinosaur princes. To its east is Numistan satrapy, a land of bloodshed and gold where both beasts and men fight over precious metals. To the south is the Great Desert, pretty self explanatory what that is, and to the north the Hinterbog (a really big bad swamp) and the Realm of the Client King, a steppe/grassland area that is relatively within the reach of the Enlightened Empire. Beyond the empire's borders are the Petty Kingdoms, which are caught in a sort of regional war of influence between the empire and a rival in the Furthest East.

If you want some real world geography to point to or look to for visual inspiration, Elburz is Mazandaran and Golestan provinces in Iran, the Hinterbog is basically any eurasian bog though I've mostly been referring to ones in Russia, the Great Desert is Dasht-e Kavir in Iran, the Realm of the Client King is Turkmenistan, and Numistan is northern Afghanistan and Kashmir.

How about a map!

And here's a map with the regions mentioned in the post outlined in respective colors if you're having a hard time reading the handdrawn one.

Key to this map:
Orange: The Great Desert or Kavir-e Bozorg
Light Green: Elburz Satrapy
Dark Green: The Holy Cedar Forest

Dark Turquoise: The Hinterbog

Cyan: Numistan Satrapy

Yellow: The Realm of the Client King

Burgundy: The Empire of the Southern Dog-Headed Men

The Dog Who Speaks Softly and the Woman Who Barks Like a Dog

 

The Dog-Headed Men of the barbarian north feast on the flesh of their fellow men. They go hunting with their spears and lances, pouring forth on horseback to slay woman, man, eunuch, and child. The naked bodies slung over their mounts, their packs full of stolen silver, they return to their homes in the wilderness. The nomad Dog-Men wear necklaces of human teeth and spheres of silver. They take perverse pleasure in desecrating the idols of the gods of the Enlightened Empire's Good Religion. In the east, the Dog-Headed Men of generations past seized the lands beyond the Empire and formed their own kingdom, at the crossroads of west and east. The Dog-Headed Men of this land do not act so wildly, but instead keep their fellow man in outdoor preserves and cook them up in high brow ways. The eastern Dog-Men wear gold and rich silks and long gloves that reach up to their elbows.

The fire-priests of the Good Religion use the Dog-Headed Men as a moralistic example of what not to do. Their cannibalism is a most heinous sin, and one which suffuses their whole bodies with uncleanliness, but they are not unclean by nature. Humans are never unclean by nature. Rather, the Dog-Headed Men worship daevas and sully their holy form with cannibalism. The mobads refuse any Dog-Man who does not abandon meat for the flesh of fish and flora (the life furthest from manflesh in all respects). 

It is a well-known fact that the gaze of a dog dispels unclean spirits. The Dog-Headed Men despise dogs (the mobads say because the demons riding on their backs fear the dog's gaze, the Dog-Men say because domesticated dogs are just disgusting and uncanny). When descending on a town, they bash the heads in of the people's hounds and leave their bodies to rot. They fear and hate wolves as well, culling them in the wilderness and sacrifice them in mass pyres and ashen burials. 

The Dog Who Speaks Softly

In the city of Humakuyun, the port of the north, there dwells a lone Dog-Headed man. His new name is Pesir Khub, and he hates to hear his old name. He wears his hair cropped close to his head, and is clad in a green cloak that descends over his whole body. He lives with a local wife (a woman without a dog's head named Somayeh), and has a single daughter (Elnaz) cursed with dog-headedness. He despairs over his daughter's already present taste for flesh.

Pesir Khub moved to Humakuyun from a town on the borderlands with the barbarian north. He was member of a group of Dog-Men who bowed before the governing authority there and took part in the rituals of the local shrine, abandoning their ways. Taken into the employ of the temple, he traveled to Humakuyun with an entourage of similarly converted Dog-Headed Men (although he kept with him a wooden idol of a Dog-Man god, stained red from soaked blood). On the way there, his companions were attacked by bandits and slaughtered, leaving him and a young temple functionary to flee across the wilderness to the port city. He was the first Dog-Headed Man to live in Humakuyun for some time (there were several Dog-Headed Women there when he arrived), and he disavowed bloodshed for the second time in his life. He had his canines removed so that he may never again puncture the arteries of a man, and for this reason he speaks with a lisp, and mutters quietly to avoid barking brashly as the Dog-Men do. He is ashamed of who he is. He keeps a pale greyhound to keep himself beneath its baleful gaze.

One day, he returned home to find his daughter gnawing on a bird. She took to crawling around on all fours and snatching at flitting insects and crawling lizards with her gnashing teeth. She still has the canine fangs her father tore from his mouth. She is sixteen years of age now, and sneaks out at night to do things her father and mother do not know. He fears his own daughter.

Pesir Khub is a level two fighter but does not carry weapons. He can speak and understand the speech of the Dog-Men, but refuses to utter any of its words. His most valued possessions are his dog and his hidden bloody idol, and his greatest loves are his wife, his daughter, and his work.

She's like this but more chainmail and with a sword (also it was Really hard to find a suitable picture of a chainmail-clad barbarian woman)

The Woman Who Barks Like a Dog

Among the Dog-Headed tribe of Kanashan, there lives a woman without a dog's head. She only goes by the name Half-Moon, and she bellows out wildly and harshly when the tribe goes on hunts. She is a warrior of the Dog-Men, who left her life in the fertile valleys of the Enlightened Empire to join the people who ate her neighbors. She was gracious to them for doing so; the very ones they devoured were the ones who tormented her for her blemishes, her clumsiness, and her quietness. When they gulped down the flesh of the firebrand preacher, she saw the man who ordered her exiled into the forest for perversion destroyed in cosmic justice. Despite everything that the mobads say about the Dog-Headed Men, about the daevas that ride upon their backs and the heinous sin of cannibalism that curses their whole people, she was saved by the rapacious rampages of the Kanashan Dog-Men. And so she joined them.

Half-Moon walks on all fours when she is not riding a horse. She finds it an easier way to move around than shakily stepping around on two feet. She keeps her hair long and unkempt, and wears mail armor and cloaks that drape over her body as she crawls around. She used to speak haltingly in Shahanistani, but now issues orders to her fellow dog-warriors in the barking tongue of the Dog-Men. But she refuses to eat the flesh of men, instead hunting beasts in the forest and snatching the burnt flesh of wolf-sacrifices. She leaves the cannibalism to her Dog-Man benefactors.

Half-Moon is a level four fighter who wields a long rusted sword as her primary weapon. She lives in a yurt that she can tear down and carry with her on her horse. She collects trinkets and baubles and curiosities, and is fond of little things that catch her eye. She never wants to return to Shahanistan.