The World of King of Kings: The Kingdom of the Straits

Just like with my last post, it has also been more than a year since my last King of Kings worldbuilding post! I won't bore y'all with a rehashing of my intentions for the series; this is the second part in a hopefully multi-part series of posts about various parts of the world of King of Kings, told primarily through rumors, character backgrounds, random encounters, and the like. Check out the previous World of King of Kings post for a rundown on the general historical timeline of the setting and stuff about the Enlightened Empire, the core setting of the campaign!

 

From the Church of Abreha wa Atsbeha, near Wukro, East Tigray, Ethiopia

A map of the Kingdom of the Straits, with south on top.

THE KINGDOM OF THE STRAITS

Situated to the southwest of the Enlightened Empire is the commercially powerful Kingdom of the Straits, so called because it stands astride three points which control the flow of east-west trade. The Kingdom's capital, She-ako, abides among looming obelisks in the heat of the southern continent, although its influence reaches much farther. The wise and magnanimous kings of She-ako are rich off of trade, and patronize the only bank which loans to Shahanistanis, Gnostic Elves, and Dog-Headed Men alike. It was this grand bank that, along with the kingdom's fleet of Frogling-operated sea vessels, bailed out the Enlightened Empire during the Fifty Years' Crisis (when amazons, dog-headed men, and rebels almost tore the Empire apart).

Due to its geography, the Kingdom of the Straits can be neatly divided into three parts. The Kingdom's mainland stretches from windy highlands (the old heartland, where the capital is located) down to the sweltering lowlands, where the Kingdom's two main rivers empty into the sea. Across from the mainland is the arid peninsular province, rich in frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon. This was its own independent kingdom centuries ago, before one of the kings of She-ako invaded and razed its capital, Hudh, to the ground. The last of the Kingdom's territories is the small settlement of Kago on the heavily forested Isle of the Moon, little more than a trading outpost for tropical fruits and pygmy elephants.

 

Aksumite governor and Arabian troops, Angus McBride

RUMORS ABOUT THE STRAITS

Roll 1d12:

1: In the markets of New Hudh and elsewhere, a message is preached aloud and whispered at night: the last of Hudh's ancient kings still lives, and his return will usher in a millennium of independence for the peninsula. 

2: Beyond the southern mountain passes dwells the man-eating, four-eyed, ax-headed ogre Bulgu. The country is defended from him by a great warrior that wields stelae as if they were clubs.

3: A frogling sorcerer from She-ako has cast a spell on select coins from the grand bank that lets him see through the drachmae as if they were eyes. Only small signs, the barest of distinct notches, will show which coins are ensorcelled.

4: In the highlands around She-ako, every blacksmith in every town can transform into a hyena simply by biting his metalworking tongs.

5:  There is a frogling sailor who moors in the port of Kago with a ship made of banana peels, propelled by fruit flies. To some he is kindly despite his gross exterior, to others he is a rapacious pirate.

6: Dwelling in the mountainous highlands are emaciated ants with the faces of lions.

7: The southern amazons are engaged in a jungle war with the merchant princes in Kago. They burst out of tunnels dug beneath the undergrowth.

8: The elephants from the Kingdom of the Straits are the wisest of elephants, baptizing themselves in rivers and performing funerals for their dead. However, they are cursed, because they worship the moon.

9: Ostrich-hunters will trick these anxious birds by bending over and holding up an arm in imitation of the ostrich's silhouette, holding their spear between their toes until it is time to strike.

10: The bank of She-ako puts out bounties for those who have debased or defaced the currency; punching a hole through a coin is a death sentence.

11: Laughing leucrottas, with reddish fur, cloven hooves, and a single solid flat tooth on bottom and top jaw, lurk in the highlands. They compete with ghuls for corpseflesh, which they masticate into a paste. The King of Kings has been seeking out one to add to his menagerie.

12: A fisher-witch of the lowlands rides on twin crocodiles, one foot on each, as she evades the soldiers of the king that keep peace in the river deltas.

 

Statue of the Occulted King (in reality, Dhamar'aliy Yuhbabirr of the Himyarite Kingdom of Yemen)

CHARACTER BACKGROUNDS FROM THE STRAITS

Roll 1d10 or pick (in parentheses are the starting items afforded by the background)
1: Abandoned Ambassador (letter of introduction, a tattered and stained gabi, a walking stick, a gold and pearl memento of home)
2: Agent of the Occulted King (eyes that glance back and forth, a quiet whisper, a silver icon of the Occulted King's hand, a curved jambiya dagger)
3: Dhow Sailor (a dhow, your sea legs, 40' of rope, a short dagger)
4: Disgraced Banker (stolen lockbox with 30 coins in it (1 drachm each), one ear cut off, a great sense of appraisal)
5: Elephant Wrangler (A baby elephant, 60' of rope, 2 spears, experience grappling large animals)
6: Exiled Moneyer (a defaced coin on a string, a crucible for melting metal, a hammer and anvil die, quick feet)
7: Incense Harvester (a thick cloth used for climbing trees, a hammer and scraping tool, thick calluses, a hunk of sweet-smelling resin)
8: Orator of the Occulted King (a scroll of propaganda poetry, a silver tongue, a silver icon of the Occulted King's eye, a curved jambiya dagger)
9: Spice Merchant (a crate of cinnamon, a laboring servant, a set of scales)
10: Stele Carver (a hammer and chisel, extensive construction experience and knowledge of stone, a cowrie-shell necklace declaring your importance)

Fallen obelisk, more standing in the background, Aksum, Ethiopia

TREASURES FROM THE STRAITS

Roll 1d10 or pick:

1: Silver filigreed censer, filled with frankincense.

2: Specialized mancatcher, used by the march-rangers of the northern borderlands to ensnare headless man-eaters whose faces are in their chests. Its wider grip grabs them at the waist.

3: Jambiya dagger in a jewel-encrusted sheath.

4: Fan made from ostrich feathers.

5: Statuette of a previous king of She-ako carved from elephant ivory, set into an ebony base.

6: Wooden helmet that covers the neck and head, with a visor of ivory that can be lowered to block the gaze of the dreadful catoblepas.

7: Amphora with swirling designs, filled with hundreds of coins.

8: Silver necklace with a small walnut shell, complete with hinge and lock; when the walnut locket is opened, it contains a lock of the Occulted King's hair.

9: A gold statuette of a crocodile with a woman sitting atop it.

10: A stone chest full of cinnamon; but be careful! There is a 2-in-6 chance the cinnamon has been adulterated with wood shavings!

Dawit II, emperor of Ethiopia 1507-1540 (its kinda tough to find Ethiopian pictures contemporary with late antiquity unfortunately)

EMBASSY FROM THE STRAITS

The embassy from the straits is a potential random encounter (namely a subtype of the "nobles and veterans" encounter type).

Composition of the embassy:

The Ambassador: as a 1+1 HD noble. Carrying a letter of introduction that declares their stated purpose (roll on the table below). Wields a gold and silver staff topped with a wooden carving of the local god of She-ako.

2d6 slaves.

1d6 lesser ambassadorial staff.

1d3 cooks.

1d3 merchants.

1 augur trained in ornithomancy.

2d6+1 guards (as veterans).

Horses and mules enough for all the above and to transport all the embassy's food, supplies, and any gifts or tribute they bring with them.

The embassy's stated purpose:

Roll 1d6:

1: Summoned on behalf of the satrap to observe local games (and do some trade-related dealings on the side).

2: Investigating rumors of activity by partisans of the Occulted King in the satrapy.

3: Delivering a bank loan (transported in amphorae and lockboxes) to a noble client.

4: Negotiations with a Gnostic Elf merchant (the embassy has gotten lost, in no small part due to the chaos on the border between the ever-warring Gnostic Elves and the Enlightened Empire).

5: Giving tribute to the Kanarang in recognition of his essential role in keeping the lands of civilization safe from the barbarous Land of Darkness.

6: The embassy is more or less autonomous, the ambassador having received a vision in a dream telling him to go north.

The embassy will have with it treasure and tribute, including:

1d3 items from the above treasure list.

4d6x10 She-ako coins (worth 1 drachm each)

Animal skins (incl. elephant, lion, catoblepas, ape, and ostrich feathers) collectively worth 2d6x20 drachmae

Crates of cinnamon, sesame, frankincense, and myrrh worth 500 drachmae or more.

The King of She-ako confronting notables of Hudh... or, in reality, Negus Najashi (possibly the king Armah) refusing the request by the Quraysh to send back the Muslims who emigrated to Ethiopia back to Mecca (from a 14th century manuscript by Rashid ad-Din Hamadani)

Much later than the period I usually take inspiration from, but this was too cool to not include: a plaque depicting a lion from a Zagwe dynasty era church, originally manufactured in southwest India!

The World of King of Kings: A Brief Timeline and the Enlightened Empire

7th century silver and gold bowl depicting a King of Kings hunting

I've been meaning to get back on writing King of Kings posts, namely world building posts to fill in a lot of the big foundational gaps that have been left in my approach to writing about it on the blog up to now. So here we have a series of posts about the major empires and states of the KoK world, beginning with a brief timeline and description of the Enlightened Empire, the vast realm in which KoK is set. There'll be six of these polity posts, so look out for those when they come by!

But, to begin with, a bit of a reflection. I'm constantly struggling to balance my love for writing world building detail, evocative elements, and things that bring verisimilitude to a setting, with the need to primarily write things that can actually be gameable or primarily just contribute to inspiration rather than telling a referee or reader exactly what to do with a setting. That's been on my mind for a while, but was most clearly brought forward with Prismatic Wasteland's post Lore! What is it Good For? I really want to write lore, in a broad sense, for King of Kings, but also not just make it a boring Forgotten Realms Dragonlance Mystara gazetteer y'know? So, my hope in these posts is to try and strike a balance. Future posts in this series will center on things like character backgrounds, random encounters, and rumors about a given part of the world from the perspective of those in the eastern satrapies. While I'll be writing about places that can be really far afield from where my game currently is, the goal is to always tie things back to the needs of the game.

This first post won't have as much of that, because it is about the very empire that the King of Kings game is set in; it will be given much more detail in plenty of more posts about the game!

Noah and his Ark, from a 16th century Mughal miniature

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF AGES AND YEARS SINCE THE DELUGE

[This is meant as a small set of events to anchor the world's history on, not a comprehensive history that players would need to memorize.]

Roughly 1,000 years ago, the dreadful Sea Tyrants flooded the world with their sinister star magic, in a last ditch attempt to seize control of all the world. This is the start of history, as before the Deluge there are only vague myths, and a world almost unrecognizable. The First City, now capital of the Enlightened Empire, was able to survive the Deluge with magic stolen for them by a promethean Traitor Frog, ancestor of the Froglings, ensuring the survival of humanity and other land animals. In the Empire of the Great East, they have a different telling; that a sagely lord and his family went to the top of the tallest mountain in the world and made a deal with a great Olm and a Dragon to channel the waters into the Great East's two rivers, draining the land before it could even flood completely.

The below is a general timeline of years since the Deluge:

0-150: The Age of Heroes, wherein half mythic warriors and newly born sorcerers began to seize holdings for themselves, slay lingering batrachian horrors left all over by the Deluge, and scout out the first spells and rituals.

150-400: The Age of Tyrants, wherein the sons and daughters of the Heroes rule arbitrarily and with the legitimacy of their Heroic descent. Tyrant is here meant not solely as a pejorative, though many rulers in this period were murderous despots. Kingdoms rise and fall. This era is when the Dinosaur Kings ruled over what are now the eastern satrapies.

400: Invasion of the Conquering King, wherein the great Ruler of the World conquered most of the known world (other than the Empire of the Great East), from his island homeland in the western archipelago. He would die without an heir and leave his world empire to his generals.

400-500: The Wars of the Successors.

500: The Mountain Uprising which established the Enlightened Empire.

500-800: Golden Age of the Enlightened Empire, the Great Three-Coin Age

800-850: The Fifty Years' Crisis, wherein the Enlightened Empire was brought low by the invasions of the Gnostic Elves to the west and the nomad confederation led by the Amazons from the north, along with a rebellion within its own territory. 

850-present: The Never-ending War with the Gnostic Elves, the Rule of the Kanarang in the east, the Enlightened Empire as it is today.

Ardashir I receiving the ring of power from Ahura Mazda

STATE, GOVERNANCE, AND RELIGION IN THE ENLIGHTENED EMPIRE

The Enlightened Empire is a monarchy under the rule of the King of Kings (or Shahanshah), currently a boy of only 9 years named Khosrau III (in the East, he is more commonly known as "He Whose Face is on the Coins"). Ostensibly an absolute monarch, power is in reality delegated to and mediated by a number of lesser authorities, most notably the Satraps that govern the provinces on behalf of the Shahanshah. There are more than a dozen such petty rulers in the satrapies, and an even greater number of lesser leaders, ranging from tribal chiefs to village matriarchs to temple priests and priestesses. The satrap of Elburz satrapy, where the King of Kings campaign is currently set, is an aged former warrior named Gholam Ruyanian, who also serves as the urbanarch of the city of Tabur. The satraps of other satrapies will be detailed when those provinces are described.

While the boy King of Kings plays and studies in the echoing halls of the great palace in the First City, ultimate rule is truly in the hands of two authorities in an uneasy alliance. The boy sovereign's mother governs in his stead, keeping the peace in the First City, greatest city in the whole of the world, with her diplomacy, alliances, and temple obligations. This dowager empress, regent of the greatest empire in the whole of the world, is the most powerful person in the world. However, in the East, there sits the black gloved tyrant, the Kanarang, military governor of the whole of the East. The position of Kanarang was established in the days of the Fifty Years' Crisis, to crush the intrusions of the Amazons, Dog Headed Men, and other Barbarian Nomad Tribes, and since then he has ruled the East. Whatever lines may be drawn on parchment in the libraries and thronerooms of the First City, the East is not truly divided into sovereign satrapies; they are all under the authority of the Kanarang. The Kanarang is a traveling tyrant, always astride his black horse, with his men and their hangers on in tow.

Khosrow II Parwiz on his throne, by 3d artist Joan Francesc Olivera

In the First City, the boy King of Kings sits upon a wooden throne emblazoned with jewels. Next to him stands his mother, and flanking them both are the thrones of the other great rulers of the world: the Moon Emperor of the Great East, the King of the Straits, and, more recently, the Kings of the Southern Dog Headed Men and of the Gnostic Elves. These other four thrones are set at lower heights than the Shahanshah's throne; were they to ever meet in the First City, they would be forced to look up to His Most Glorious and Enlightened Magnanimity, Blessed by Truth and Sunlight.

The symbol of the King of Kings' authority is the Huma bird, whose shadow bestows royalty. A high flying Huma is kept in a cage in the First City, and a ceremony is held shortly before the Shahanshah's coronation where the bird's shadow passes over the crown prince. If the bird refuses to fly over the Mirza, this forebodes doom; anything bad happening to the Imperial Huma is an evil omen.

The inscription of Kartir, most influential Zoroastrian priest in the early Sasanian Empire, at Naqsh-e Rajab

Closely intertwined with temporal authority are the spiritual authorities, the Temple Bureaucracy of the True Religion, official state religion of the Enlightened Empire. It would perhaps be most accurate to describe the Enlightened Empire as a coalition made up of the Imperial system centered on the King of Kings and the Temple hierarchy of the True Religion (the Kanarang is a newer element but could be considered the third pillar of the state, as the premier military leader in an age dominated by armies). The True Religion has as its major centers a number of ancient cities and temples in the Southern Heartland satrapy, where the Mountain Rebellion that founded the Enlightened Empire began, along with the First City. A whole hierarchy of mobads, herbads, and other priests administer state sacrifices and official rituals, maintaining proper practice in order to sustain the Enlightened Empire, under the beloved light of the Sun, manifestation of Truth. Further afield from the core of the Empire, religious practice and belief becomes more heterodox; in the King of Kings campaign, religious life is a mix of official authority, unusual local practices (from the perspective of the core), and heretical sects.

[I'll make a post about religion in King of Kings at some later point. The interactions between a hierarchical state religion and a number of more vaguely defined local practices on the hinterlands of empire is a topic that fascinates me, and I want to communicate that in KoK. I don't want the True Religion to be Too much of just a "fantasy Zoroastrianism," but a lot of that is kind of inevitable (the name "The True Religion" even comes from late antique Zoroastrianism, terming itself "The Good Religion").]

A Sasanian era mosaic from Bishapur

1D8 RUMORS ABOUT THE IMPERIAL COURT

1: Khosrau III, boy King of Kings, delights in torture and mockery. He ties the legs of prisoners and peasants to gryphons and lets them fly in opposite directions, clapping and laughing as the gore rains down from the sky.

2: Khosrau III, boy King of Kings, has a terrible sickness that will likely keep him from reigning for much longer.

3: Khosrau III, boy King of Kings, is a kind hearted soul who loves animal life; there is a constant need for new pets for the curious child.

4: The queen mother has been taken in by a long bearded wilderness wiseman in a horsehair robe, who claims to be able to teach her son sorcery.

5: The harem-in-waiting for the boy shah is currently open to women (and eunuchs, who may be impressed into the guard corps); perhaps an in into court life?

6: The queen mother attempted to appoint a priest at the Holy Mountain in Elburz Satrapy that would be friendly to state interests, but the Kanarang kidnapped the appointee.

7: The uncle of the boy King of Kings is a repugnant pervert who lords over a personal estate in the hills outside the First City, casting an evil shadow over the city in his impurity.

8: A son of House Manati [keepers of the Parrot Fiends!] is kept as a hostage in the imperial palace, not allowed to leave the palace complex.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE ENLIGHTENED EMPIRE

A very sketchy map of the Enlightened Empire; also, south is on the top here!

I don't think I should outline the geography in too much detail, especially since I've already zoomed in on the geography of the Eastern Satrapies in a previous post. 

Briefly, though:

• West of the Enlightened Empire is the Empire of the Gnostic Elves, across the Pazu river, where the Never-ending War has been ongoing for the past 150 years.
• the Pazu Rud and Arvand Rud form the lowland riverine section of the Empire's heartland. Sitting at the confluence of the Pazu and Arvand is the First City, greatest and most ancient city in the world.
• Just east are the mountains of the plateau, namely the Heartland Satrapies in the south, which form the highland section of the Empire's heartland.
• South of the Heartland Satrapies is the Ocean. East are the Hinterland Satrapies which border on the Empire of the Southern Dog Headed Men.
• North of the Heartland Satrapies is the Kavir-e Bozorg, that desiccated desert which forms the dead center of the Enlightened Empire and divides north from south.
• North of the Kavir-e Bozorg are the World's Edge Mountains, along with the Wall of the Conquering King, which keeps the giants and barbarians of the Land of Darkness out of the lands of the south.
• Northeast of the Kavir-e Bozorg are the Eastern Satrapies, Elburz and Numistan.
• North of the Eastern Satrapies are the Sea of Giants, the Hinterbog, and the Realm of the Client King, that nomad subject of the Shahanshah and Kanarang.

FUTURE POLITY POSTS:

The Empire of the Gnostic Elves

The Kingdom of the Straits

The Kingdom of the Southern Dog Headed Men

The Empire of the Great East

The King of the Nomads

Lesser States