Worldbuilder Spotlight:
- Venture to Russitea, south of the Tanshu Mountains to the nation of Shetugu! Take the time to visit the many ziggurats of the capital, and bask in the local culture (unless of course, you happen to not be human.)
- Go to a Random Page
Honour the Dead; for though they are Dead, yet may they merit recognition.
Appease the Dead; for though they are Dead, yet may they seek revenge.
- Translated from the copy of the Ekastos Texts found in the tomb of Turhaat II, 7th Radiant Pharaoh of Quuarmar
Territory
At the height of their empire, Quuarmar territory encompassed the majority of The Desert of Kobbon, based around the now-dry River Djatra and surrounding floodplains.
People
The Quuarmar were a race of tall, extremely dark-skinned Humans, characterized by wide noses and high foreheads. As a whole, they were a proud, disdainful nation - especially in their golden age during the Celestial Age of Blessings. Quaarmari helioglyphs suggest that both men and women wore sophisticated, tasteful clothing, consisting of broad strips of cloth woven from some sort of linen and decorated with intricate, stylized patterns taken from nature.
Technology
Current archaeological findings suggest that the Quuarmar were a greatly advanced civilization in certain technological aspects - indeed, their achievements in the field of clockwork engineering are exceeded only by the spectacularly intricate contraptions made by the City of Chronographers (who admittedly have the rather unfair advantage of still existing as a society). Similarly, they are considered astoundingly ahead of their time in the field of anatomy and necrology (described below), due to their... unorthodox methods of treating the deceased. They were masters at the art of stone-carving, and imbued much of their work with a form of magic known to scholars as "helioglyphs".
Helioglyphs
The ruined monuments, tombs and palaces of the Quuarmar all share one major trait in common: the peculiar carvings on the faces of the gargantuan blocks of sandstone that compose the vast majority of Quuarmar architecture. Carved deeply into the stone, the glyphs are of varying sizes and degrees of detail.
At first glance, they seem like a purely artistic form of decoration, telling stories and portraying scenes from Quuarmari life and legend in an intriguing stylized manner. However, the recent discovery of a series of cog-scrolls detailing the precise functions of these glyphs (the famed Helios Texts, found in the tomb-colony of the Artificer-Priests of Sheptis-Kha) has shown that they were in fact enchanted in such a way as to make them absorb magical energy from the sun's ever-present rays - indeed, as a sort of rudimentary solar panel.
When active, these "helioglyphs" apparently glow with a soft radiance, adding an extra level of artistic merit to the rather bland style of Quuarmari architecture. It is thought that the Sacred Artifice of the Artificer-Priests, as well as much of the research carried out by the empire's Necrologists, was made possible by this constantly-renewing energy source - although the exact processes are still unknown. Similarly, it is unknown how effective these helioglyphs were on their own, and how long they would retain their energy when deprived of the sun's rays.
Heliobelisks
Essentially, The Heliobelisks seem to have served as the main power conduits for the empire, channeling solar energy from one city to the next along the River Djatra. Hundreds of heliobelisks line the banks of the ancient riverbed in varying states of decomposition, and the Helios Texts relate how, in the empire's glory days, these towering monuments would hum pleasantly with the force of the collected energy, ferrying it wherever it was needed in massive arcs of soft golden light. To use an extremely biased, anachronistic analogy, these monolithic obelisks acted rather like a primitive form of power lines.
Sacred Artifice
The second most important task of the empire's solemn Artificer-Priests (after the observance of the rites and customs of worship and burial) was the Sacred Artifice: the maintenance and construction of the bizarre clockwork homunculi and golems of the Quuarmar. By somehow imbuing artificial constructs (often augmented with clockwork machinery) with the magical energy collected by the helioglyphs, the priests were able to give give animate functions to inanimate creations. These constructs could not think for themselves, but were able to respond to spoken commands, by virtue of the arcane enchantments of the priests, coupled with well-placed helioglyphs.
It is interesting to note that while these constructs could potentially have carried out all labour within the Quuarmar empire, their use was restricted to the upper class, and the peasants were forced to do their own work. It was illegal for a peasant to be in possession of a work of Sacred Artifice.
Clockwork Homunculi
The most basic of Quuarmari constructs, the Homunculi were created out of whatever material was handy at the time - mostly clay and reeds - that encased a clockwork "skeleton" designed for basic locomotion and physical labour. This inanimate frame was inscribed with a single helioglyph (sources disagree as to whether this was the symbol for Life or Servitude, or some fusion of both) and awakened with a properly-applied burst of solar magic.
Most Homunculi were shaped like miniature human beings, although some texts suggest that other sizes and forms were possible, but more difficult to properly create and control. Descriptions of Homunculi augmented with extra clockwork machinery are few and far between, as they were valued solely as menial servitors.
Actual Homunculus remains have never been unearthed.
The Scarab Guard
Many cog-scrolls and helioglyphs depict or make mention of the Scarab Guard, but very few sources actually document the composition and process behind their existence. It is thought that they are a peculiar sort of golem, consisting of an hard outer armour-shell (possibly from some extinct form of giant scarab) with a clockwork "skeletal system" inserted to give the construct the power of motion.
Inscribed with various helioglyphs on the larger armour plates and awakened by magic like the Homunculi, the Scarab Guard's main purpose was as a last line of defense in tombs and palaces - they would be placed in secret chambers and instructed to awaken if disturbed by intruders, mercilessly attacking the would-be desecrators with their gear-driven jaws and talons. There are also documented cases of their being used in wars against neighbouring tribes late in the period of intense military expansion.
No officially recorded archaeological expedition has met with Scarab Guard remains - but there are many tales of encounters with the golems by uncreditable sources.
Gear Mummies
An odd fusion between the skills of the Necrologists and the craftsmanship of the Artificer-Priests, the Gear Mummies seem to have been implemented as guards during much later eras than the Scarab Guard - essentially replacing them due to their increased intelligence and capacity for repelling or destroying intruders.
Gear Mummies were usually placed inside "decoy" coffins - sometimes even more ornately decorated than the real coffins, to decieve grave robbers - and were made from the remains of lower-class peasants (usually ones who had died violent natural deaths and were unfit for Necrological research), augmented with deadly clockwork weapons or "prosthetics" and inscribed with a complex series of helioglyphs designed to restrict free will and force servitude.
Many expeditions have encountered Gear Mummies whilst excavating tombs - and while they are tenacious creatures they can be subdued with a strategy of meticulous hacking into very small pieces. Their clockwork attachments tend to have run down over the centuries, but can still be quite painful when bluntly swung at a team of archaeologists.
Necrology
Widely regarded as an unsavoury practice at best (and a demonic one at worst), the Quuarmari invention of Necrology was at once a great advancement for science and a dangerous step for ethics. Meaning literally "the study of death", Necrology is precisely what its name suggests - the dissection of fresh corpses in order to understand two previously unexplainable concepts: firstly, what happens to the conscious spirit upon death, and secondly, if (and how) it can be brought back to the body afterwards.
Government
Believed to have been an oligarchy, centred around the three main branches of Quuarmari power: the ruling class, headed by the Radiant Pharaoh and his Court of the Desert Falcon, the religious community of Artificer-Priests and the science-cultists of the Circle of Necrologists. Justice was swift and, by all accounts, very harsh, with many executions by throttling carried out by powerful instruments of the Artificer-Priests, who would then hand the bodies over to the Necrologists for study.
The Court of the Desert Falcon
The Artificer-Priests
The Circle of Necrologists
Culture
Arts and Architecture
Quuarmari art is not hard to come by. The helioglyphs present on the walls of nearly every ruined building are certainly worthy of such a classification, but they seem to be the only form of two-dimensional art that the Quuarmar used to express themselves. They were accomplished sculptors, however - sandstone statuary, inlaid with jewels and often decorated with tattoo-like helioglyphs, can be found in many sites of tombs and public places. These stylized works often feature famous rulers, symbolic animals, and the major Quuarmari gods, and are usually either life-sized or a great deal larger.
Architecturally speaking, the Quuarmari style displayed a love of strength and grandeur, featuring sweeping vertical walls (often with a gentle inwards slope to catch the sun's rays better), and a multitude of massive columns with geometric capitals. The walls are often curved slightly, giving a sense of harmony as well as power. Naturally, every inch of these gracefully monolithic buildings were usually covered in helioglyphs depicting stories, proclamations, and descriptions of life in general. Not all of these have been documented.
One thing the Quuarmari never seem to have worked out, however, is the use of the arch. Similarly, they seem to have preferred to weave patterned awnings and string them across open-air dwellings to create a roof, rather than making solid ceilings. These awnings have naturally been all but lost to the elements. Underground chambers, of course, were hollowed out of the earth and supported by glyph-covered stone slabs propped up against the walls.
The Gate of the Dead
The Desert Falcon Palace
A breathtaking architectural marvel, the Desert Falcon Palace is situated in the centre of the once-buried capital city of Bakar Ibkis, and is one of the only Quuarmari buildings to feature a completely circular floorplan (most buildings feature walls that are merely mildly curved). The palace is composed of eleven (discovered) circular tiers, each lightly slanted inwards and roughly 30 feet tall, for a total (discovered) height of about 330 feet. Originally, only five of these tiers were visible above the desert sands which covered the Quuarmar capital for centuries before its excavation.
The interior of the Desert Falcon Palace has yet to be excavated, since no visible entrance has yet been found. The similarity of its design to that of The Mobile Kingdom of Kaluang Clah (infinitely larger and more intricate, and featuring floating gardens, but still very much alike in shape) has led many to postulate a link between the two architectural marvels, and some scholars even predict that further excavation will reveal another five tiers and perhaps even a set of mechanical legs like those of the Mobile Kingdom. This is, of course, pure speculation.
The Clockwork Catacombs of Shemakhaat V
Language
There are two different branches of Quuarmari language, each of which serve a very different purpose: the inscribed, magical helioglyphics and the written vernacular, affectionately dubbed "Mari" to distinguish between it and the cultural adjective.
Helioglyphics
Much of the magical traits of the helioglyphs have already been discussed in previous sections, but the actual linguistic characteristics are something of a mystery to current researchers. They are currently useful for their pictorial value, but it is believed that many glyphs carry a deeper meaning as well, since each one has many variations and is used in a different manner in different places, yet seems to follow an esoteric pattern that is yet to be fully understood. In addition, there are many glyphs which do not appear to depict a known object or concept, and which may function as modifiers or have various other linguistic uses which are as yet unknown.
Mari
Visually, Mari is a much less impressive language than its monumental counterpart (appearing to the untrained eye as a mass of mere hasty scribbles), yet it is this modest alphabet which has contributed the most to academic knowledge about the beliefs, history and daily life of the Quuarmari, thanks to the famous Ammolite Codex found in the ruins of the Ammolite Court, the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Blue Moons, outlining a pact between the two civilizations to basically leave each other alone in light of the unfriendly reception of the Kingdom's traders by Quuarmari merchants and commoners, which may even have escalated to violence at some point. A painful translation of Mari through the ancient dialect of the Kingdom and into Kyrosian revealed much about the structure and basic vocabulary of the Quuarmari vernacular, and scholars have been able to piece together a good deal of the language from this rudimentary lexicon.
Religion
Myths & Beliefs
Almost all of what scholars now know of the Quuarmari myths and beliefs come from their sacred cog-scrolls, the Ekastos Texts, a copy of which was contained in almost every major tomb found to date. By comparing these decayed texts and filling in the missing pieces from some with the information from others, a fairly accurate story can be assembled with regards to the Quuarmari creation story and mythology.
According to legend, the earth was formed from the union of Sheptis-Kha with the seven Moon Brides, sprung from his thoughts. The beasts of the earth were formed from Eneru-Khaaten's Sacred Artifice, and the River Djatra from Khadis-Pasha's glittering coils.
Pantheon
Sheptis-Kha
The Blinding Pharaoh Whose Eyes Cast Fire, lord of the sun and ruler of the gods. By far the most important god in Quuarmari mythology, Sheptis-Kha is said to have been born of a spark from the primeval night. Credited with inventing the art of helioglyphs and passing it on to his Artificer-Priests as a gift. Appears in art as a male figure whose head is obscured by an orb.
The Moon Brides
The Luminous Consorts of Sheptis-Kha Whose Dances Bring Comfort. There are assumed to be seven Brides (for the seven moons of Xothu), but texts found so far have only mentioned three by name - Sethat-Amanar, Sobtep-Sather, and Nuberu-Abebi - and they all appear the same in artwork and are thus impossible to identify. Their presence in the night sky reminded the Quuarmar that Sheptis-Kha and his family were always watching over them. They are portrayed (always individually) as orbs with one stylized eye.
Eneru-Khaaten
The Cunning Scarab Whose Fingers Spawn Wonder, master craftsman and inventor of the Sacred Artifice. Eneru-Khaaten lived deep underground, according to legend, where he toiled day and night in his workshop making a thousand different creatures of living tissue, as one would make a clockwork Homunculus. Portrayed as a giant scarab with eight human arms, each engaged in various activities that differ from one depiction to the next.
Gebtis-Beshat
The Grasping Sorceress Whose Will is Death. Queen of the night and the collector of souls, she lives behind the stars and scatters her precious hoard in the night sky as stars so that all may see her power over the living. The night is her time, after a bargain made with Sheptis-Kha to remind the Quuarmar of their mortality. Appears as an empty black robe, speckled with stars. If the correct enchantments are made, however, it is said that she will give souls back to the non-living and the dead - for a price.
Khadis-Pasha
The Glittering Serpent Whose Coils Bring Plenty, king of the River Djatra. Indeed, most myths portray him as literally being the river itself. Especially kind to fishermen and farmers, he is said to have fought with Sheptis-Kha in ages past, being cast down into the desert as punishment. Depicted mainly as a river with a serpent's head at both ends.
Muthat-Takhsut
The Golden Guardian Whose Fists Shake the Earth, lord of war and violence. A relatively minor god during the golden age of the Quuarmar, Muthat-Takhsut appears to have been more prominent in earlier centuries, during the time of military expansion into the desert. He is portrayed as a four-armed warrior dressed in traditional Quuarmar battle regalia, carrying a sword, a shield, a spear, and for some reason a fish.
Luxasht-Baseni
The Screaming Whirlwind Whose Voice is Thunder, god of the desert wind. Another minor god, who serves an unknown purpose within the pantheon. Presumably prayed to in order to avert sandstorms, which were uncommon but by all accounts disastrous to the Quuarmari way of life.
Ashar-Djekis
Absolutely nothing is known of this god/goddess except for his/her name, found scrawled upon the wall of a recently-excavated chamber of the tomb of Isherath I, along with the remains of a small child who appears to have been crushed when the tomb collapsed. The name's syntax alone has led scholars to assume its bearer's status as a deity, and further excavation will doubtlessly lead to more information.
Burial Customs
History
Early History - The Stone Kingdom
Little is known about the Quuarmar in the early days of their existence, since nearly all knowledge of their society is derived from their own records, which begin during the Iron Kingdom. Few archaeological sites have been unearthed from this period, and those that have present evidence of a much more primitive society than that which later came to pass.
Military and Technological Expansion - The Iron Kingdom
Golden Age - The Gold Kingdom
Necrological Expansion - The Silver Kingdom
Decline and Fall - The Obsidian Kingdom
The exact reason for the decay and eventual demise of the Quuarmar during the Dissolute Time of Poorhouses is subject to speculation. The obvious disappearance of the River Djatra is considered the most likely explanation, but the reasons for this sudden draught is as debated as the disappearance of the Quuarmar themselves. The most recent helioglyphs found in the Desert of Kobbon seem to date back to before this disaster, as well, since they portray the river in all its splendour. It is thought that the art of helioglyphs was lost before the river dried up, along with many other Quuarmari advancements.
There is a popular belief that the necrological arts of the Quuarmari were their ultimate downfall - that their lust for the secrets of life eventually condemned them all to death - but this is mostly myth, as far as actual archaeological discoveries have been able to determine.
Population
International Relations
Aside from their military conquests in ages past, most of Quuarmar's dealings with the world outside its borders are speculative at best. It is known that trade occurred between the Quuarmar and the Kingdom of Blue Moons, thanks to the recent unearthing of the famed Ammolite Codex in the Kingdom's ruined capital, but aside from this no mention is made of economic relations with any other civilizations - and even trade with the Kingdom is assumed to have stopped following the negotiations described in the Codex.
After their fall and subsequent rediscovery, of course, many races have sent scholars and archaeologists to the ruins to salvage what information they can - often snatched from the fingers of explorers from other factions. The Dwarves in particular have shown a keen interest in the clockwork contraptions of the Quuarmar, along with the Great Ogres, and rivalry is especially fierce between explorers from both races. The Grand Lilithians hope too to acquire much of the Quuarmar's ancient knowledge, to further their quest to know everything there is to know, and many Human countries have expressed interest in the (mostly economic) gains to be made from excavation of the tombs and palaces of the lost kingdom. Many private treasure-hunters have also made a claim to the spoils of the Quuarmar, being less scrupulous about the methods by which they secure their fortunes and more willing to "get their hands dirty", as it were, in their quest for the same.
Economy
World-View
The Quuarmar as a people seemed to display an unhealthy obsession with the mechanics of life and death, if their helioglyphs and cog-scrolls are accurate reflections of their thoughts and mindset. It is thought they were a very introverted society, concerned above all with internal affairs of state, magic and science.
Page Information
|
Wiki Information |
 Update to PBwiki 2.0 An entirely new PBwiki experience, including folders and easier editing. |
Create your own free wiki!