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Undari History
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Once a great Empire stretched over two million square miles, founded by a worker
of dark magic that created a death cult. The grim cult of Undu reigned for millennia,
opressing the populace and ruling by fear and ritual sacrifice until finally their
capital was first weakened by the Cataclysm and then razed to the ground by a surprise
assault made by the ragtag remnants of a people from another continent, the
Machtig-Baelvolkerung.
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Word of the defeat of the previously unassailable Undu spread and like a flashfire
angry Undari peasants across the vast Empire rose up in waves and overwhelmed the
Undu and their guards with sheer press of numbers, tearing down their bloody ziggurats
and ending their red-handed rule forever.
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But left without leadership and with no rival power group available to fill the
void, the Undari collapsed into squabbling splinter states of no real organization
or power. The first few decades after the fall of the Undu this didn't matter and
the generation of those that rebeled had a time of relative peace, but soon neighboring
peoples began to take advantage of the destabilized state of the once powerful Empire.
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The Undari splinter states have spent the last two millennia being raided, taken
advantage of, and otherwise living as victims of more powerful neighbors, and depredations
from within as well. However the last century has seen a rise in nationalism in
some Undari states and attempts to break out of the cycle of victimization, and
also annexations by the Zadeshi, a cousin race, have seen the eastern Undari come
under strong rule once again.
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The next few decades will be a pivotal point for the Undari as a people. They may
rise up to claim a better existence for themselves, or they may be absorbed by the
Zadeshi, or they may incite their stronger neighbors to finally stamp them out entirely.
Only time will tell.
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ORIGIN
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Towards the end of the Age of Rebirth, that long ago time when the survivors of
the wars of the previous Age of Opposition struggled among ruined and wrecked nations
and landscape to regain some measure of civilization, a young survivor of the northern
Aranashi named Undah (OON-DA) discovered he had an innate power to absorb
essense directly from the deaths of living creatures and use that energy to will
magical effects into being.
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All Aranashi had the capacity for Volomancy, though it was a rare attribute, but
this was a slightly different aspect of that strange form of magic available only
to the Adepts of the Aranashi. In more stable time periods in a land with strong
law such a monstrocity as Undah would likely have been identified and killed, or
at least checked. But in those unsettled and anarchic times the twisted and
embittered young man rose to power virtually unopposed.
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Able to bend reality to his will and to suck the very life from an opponent to fuel
his magic with, Undah was a fearsome and awe inspiring figure and he soon found
willing followers to do his bidding to earn his favor. Rumors began to spread that
he was the son of the death god Morgar and was thus semi-devine with power over
life and death. Soon a cult of superstitious worshippers venerating him as a living
godling formed.
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Called the Urgaza Undu (ER-GAH-ZAH OON-DEW; the Chosen of Undu), they
proved to be willing thralls to obligingly capture hapless victims to be sacrificied
to feed the death magic of their master, and some were so fanatical as to offer
themselves for sacrifice. Others with martial skills became the guardians and enforcers
of the cult.
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Undah lived a long time, supplementing his lifespan with his dark magics, and sired
many children on many women. Some of these children had the same Gift as their sire,
and some of the children's children did as well even if their parent had not, and
so on. In this fashion Undah was joined by young apprentices that allowed the spread
of the cult to control more lands.
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The cult started by Undah spread over three hundred years like a wildfire, and soon
controled the central basin of the Danoshorvas continent, most of the previous northern
expanses of the once great Aranashi Empire. Any non-Aranashi communities encountered
were either displaced or fed to the altars, while Aranashi were subjugated to the
grim and merciless rule of the Undu. This new nation was declaimed the Undari Empire
by its bloody-handed ruler and marked a dark time within a dark Age.
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Undah finally died after over three centuries of deathmongering, but the order of
"priests" he had formed from his descendants that had the Gift ruled on
after his death in his name. They claimed he had ascended to take his place by Morgar's
side and had charged them to carry on in his name as his chosen priests and disciples.
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UNDARI IMPERIAL EXISTANCE
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The Undari Empire was a pyramidal society in both the conceptual and literal sense
of the word. The symbol of their power was the step-sided ziggurat which is a sort
of pyramid, and similarly their culture was a hierarchical pyramidal caste system.
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Over ninety percent of the population were essentially agrarian serfs living across
the vast countryside of the huge Empire, all laboring for subsistence with the prospect
of becoming a sacrifice to fuel the magic of the Undu should they not perform adequately,
commit a crime, fall behind on their taxes, or just get chosen for sacrifice by
sheer bad luck.
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Here and there throughout the Empire where geography and convenience coincided were
small cities with walls raised with the aid of Undu magic that included squat, ugly,
step sided ziggurats that served as temples, residences, and sacrificial altars
for the local Undu.
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Residing in the outskirts of the cities were the high-skill servants of the cult,
called Urakaga (ER-RAH-KAH-GAH), which was basically a hereditary caste as a family
passed down trade skills to their progeny thus keeping their line useful to the
Undu. Largely exempt from sacrifice unless they earned ire in some way these were
the priveleged few of the Undari, but they lived uncertain lives of only modest
reward all the same.
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Also residing in the cities were the favored and dedicated Urgaza cultists which
served the will of the Undu and were their primary agents of governing and administration.
The most dedicated and loyal servants of all, the Empire would never have been able
to function without them.
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Preeminent among the Urgaza were the soldiers of the Undu personal guard, the Orshitoth
(OR-SHUH-TOTH). Chosen from among the descendents of the Undu that lacked the full
Gift for their dark magic yet still had the potential for it in their blood line,
each Orshitoth was trained from early childhood in the art of the three-bladed orgab
(OR-GOB) and the wavy-bladed bronze glaive named the turogab (TER-OH-GOB).
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Upon reaching manhood a would be Orshitoth had to survive a rite of passage. If
they did then an aged Orshitoth that was deemed to be no longer useful was sacrificed
and their soul was invested into the new Orshitoth by an Undu. This granted numerous
abilities upon the warrior so invested, giving them some supernatural powers and
greater insight into the fighting arts gleaned from the experience of the veteran
the soul had once belonged to and any souls that had been invested into that warrior
as well.
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Each time this was done the souls of all the predecessors in the chain of succession
from one Orshitoth to the next accumulated and so to did the power of the resulting
new Orshitoth. In the beginning the advantages gained in this fashion were relatively
minor, but by the end of the Undari rule there were some unbroken chains of Orshitoth
investiture that were extremely potent. Unfortunately for the Undari some chains
were lost in battles, to accidents, and occassionally the magic just failed when
a new host rejected the investiture; such hosts were sacrificed as punishment of
course.
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Finally there were the Undu themselves who even at their peak were never more numerous
than one for every million Undari yet held absolute authority, with total domination
of all aspects of existance within their nation, monopolization of almost all wealth,
unquestioned religious authority, and unchallenged political control. They lived
lives of the most terrible excess and cruelty, feeding on the life forces of others
with impunity and weilding their magic as a goad and a means of oppression.
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Though there were occassional uprisings they were always small scale, unorganized,
local affairs that were easily squelched by the Undu and their Orshitoth enforcers,
and all such uprisings were mercilously and indiscriminantly punished. In general
most Undu didn't even question the rule of the Undu; they were born and grew to
adulthood while being indoctrinated by the very society they lived in that resistance
was futile.
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OTHER NATIONS
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Sheltered between a nartural fortress of stone formed by the mountain ranges that
bolstered their lands on all sides the Undari seemed unassailable and indestructable
and no other nation ever made a serious attempt to displace them. However the Undari
did project force into neighboring nations on all sides of their borders and were
bitterly resisted and eventually forced back to their own borders.
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Interestingly enough, the greatest wars fought by the Undari were against another
Aranashi successor state, the Zha'iirian Union to the south. The Zha'iirians hated
and feared the Undu more than the other great powers of the day because they were
in fact originally one people. The Undu proved in the their expansion that they
would chase off or kill non Aranashi but would subjugate Aranashi and force them
into servitude. The enlightened Zha'iirians considered existance as a serf toiling
endlessly with the fear of being fed to an altar constantly looming to be a fate
worse than death.
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Their fears were well founded for the Undari made numerous attempts to encroach
southwards, and it was only highly disciplined and strong magical resistance on
the part of the Zha'iirians that rebuffed them. It was the constant struggle with
Zha'iir that prevented the Undu from expanding over the Dursha Mountains and conquering
the scattered groups of Aranashi that would eventually become Zadesh in fact.
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THE CATACLYSM
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Finally, thousands of years of rule later, a great flood rocked the world. The Gersage
land bridge was flooded, creating the Gulf of Tears and the Straits of Upinthia,
expanding the Sea of Osloanda by half again it's size and drowning the northeastern
stretch of Zha'irian cities in the process. In the wake of this, Danoshorvas and
Ullushorvas became seperate continents but the Undari had more immediate concerns
as their capital of Borshioc, located on the delta where the Unter-Calish River
gives way to the Sea of Osloanda, suffered extreme flooding and a loss of some portions
of the lower city. It was only the magic of the Undu living in the High Temple that
saved the city from being completely destroyed.
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In the aftermath the Undu began rebuilding the city but needed someone to do the
heavy lifting, so they began the usual practice of sending slaving parties into
the primeval and dangerous subcontinent south of Undari lands to capture the physically
powerful Kor and Hurgur. After many months of this one such slaving party encountered
a small group of huge paleskinned men that looked like the men from the north of
the Undari lands. The Undari took these menfolk as slaves too, which would prove
to be the greatest mistake ever made in the long history of their Empire.
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What the Undari slavers did not realize was that the big humans were from a group
of survivors from a far away land that had come to these shores after destroying
their own continent to end the threat of the Morgathi Imperium's Horde of Undying.
Though beleaguered and much reduced in number they were still a powerful race of
warriors and mighty magic users known as Druids and Obermancers.
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SACK OF BORSHIOC
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When knowledge of the lost patrol came to the leadership of these people scouts
were sent to discover more about this new enemy. The scouts tracked the slavers
back to Borshioc and returned with horrid tales of the Undari death cult and their
systematic human sacrifices, but didn't realize that Borshioc was actually the capital
of a vast Empire, or that if given time the Undari could marshal forces from far
and wide to wipe out the remnants of the Machtig.
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In typical fashion the brave and bold warrior people rushed to meet their salvation
or destruction head-on and soon thereafter a force of around eight thousand Machtig
warriors, a few hundred Druids, and a handful of Obermancers assaulted Borshioc.
Easily entering the partially destroyed city where its defensive works had been
claimed by the Cataclysm, the Machtig poured in to the suprised metropolis.
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The Druids outnumbered the Undu in the temple three to one and were able to prevent
them from working most of their death-feuled magics outright, while the Obermancers
rained fire, lightning, gale force winds, surging waters, and shook the very earth
itself and the mighty-thewed barbarians ravaged the populace with their iron blades.
Even the mighty Orshitoth were unable to repel these fierce invaders that appeared
seemingly out of no where.
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Deprived of their weapon of terror, the Undu were helpless before their invaders
and the Macthtig overwhelmed the High Temple of Undah. They put every single occupant
of the city to the sword save some few that escaped to the north before they had
total control of the city. Though they took some losses, the Machtig were easily
victorious, and after the battle was over the Obermancers razed the city leaving
barely two stones piled upon another.
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REBELLION
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As news of the High Temple's fall spread it touched off a massive uprising by the
oppressed peasant caste of the Undari, who had been kept under heel and used as
sacrifices for almost four millenia. Across the breadth of the Empire mobs of hundreds
of thousands rushed the cities of the Undu, slaying the higher caste Undari that
weren't wise enough to flee or integrate themselves in the masses and pass as lower
caste, charging the Temples to pull down the Undu.
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SHATTERED
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Many died but sheer press of numbers carried the peasants to victory. Within three
months of the fall of the Hight Temple at Borshioc the Empire was shattered and
descending into anarchy, and within two years the Undu were no more. A few of the
dark false priests were said to escape and survive, but they never became a power
again.
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In the modern day only Vei-Da remains as a successor to the Undu cult.
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