History of Samarkand: Modern Samarkand

Previous: The Guilded Age

Modern Samarkand

The modern age of Samarkand began arrival of the Magnates from the Shield of Strakos. Brought in as mercenaries by the ruling Al’bahar Khan.

However, weakened by the Dance of Mangrus and internal politics, the Magnates quickly took over the rule of Samarkand, and after a coup, involving the assassination of current Khan and the forced marriage of his daughter, Diodotus Khan ascended to the throne.

Under Magnesian rule, the Sea Cult flourished as the new Khans declared themselves living incarnations of Okeana.

But their reign has been turbulent at best.

The Halfling Warlords to the north ramped up their wars against the gnomes, causing a huge influx of elvish refugees in the city. Unsurprisingly, this raised tensions across the city as much of the elven population joined the Batiir. The Jadid, in response, began to assassinate particularly vocal elven resistance fighters, causing widespread riots in Zafar District.

Midylos Khan, in response, began to purge both sides: routing out gnomish barrows and elven homes, in a brutal campaign to suppress the sectarian violence.

This worked for a time but Midylos Khan was, unfortunately, assassinated in a Jadid attack. The city descended into chaos, which quickly spread throughout the region.

During this upheaval, the Mazil'Dhaki, sick of having their storage buildings burned and their trade halted, united with the Court of Heaven and called to a Magnate general, Euthydemus, to return from his campaigns in the south and bring order to the city.

Euthydemus came with fire and steel, establishing himself as Khan and son of Okeana. He reinstated much of the orcish nobility, but pruning the power of the Mazil’Dhaki and the Court of Heaven shortly after being handed the crown.

Samarkand today

History of Samarkand: The Guilded Age

Pervious: The Golden Age

The Guilded Age

Thus begins the Guilded Age.
With the increase of Si’adi influence, the Bodur, a historically rather aloof faction, move into the city proper, using their silver to patronize the local artists and craftsmans. The dwarven ingot becomes the standard of the working class while goblin coinage remains favored by the upper class.

During this time, tragedy struck, with several sinkholes suddenly opening across the city. The two major ones became a canal that ran under the Temple Hill and and a aquatic scar through the center of the orcish slums.
Further investigation by city officials and looters discovered an extensive tunnel system under the city, probably dated back to the Orcish Khanate, however it appeared to some that the tunnels were expanded recently.
The Bodur became the scapegoat though they claimed this was simply the fear mongering of the Si’adi.

During the spread of the Dance of Mangrus, the Khan pushed to use these tunnels as a way to quickly dispose of waste. This plague weakened the political power of both of the Court of Heaven and the Khan, as it struck the royal caste hardest of all.

People, losing faith, turned to wisemen and shamen, and powerful magical guilds began to blossom over the city as they were watered by the cities gold.

At some point during this time, Eskander the Banshee appears on the scene. His country and heritage unknown. He becomes a formidable force and a shadow in the night, founding the first Assassin's Guild in Samarkand.
It's first target supposedly the reigning Khan at the time.

The Guild of Engineers, a powerful force in the military and influence taste makers when it comes to goggles, achieve perhaps their greatest feat after a series of border skirmishes with the halfling sky-lords lead to the crown gaining possession of a broken down zeppelin.
Reverse engineering the tech, they launch the first vessel: the Aintisariun.

Forming a hegemony with the magical guilds and several crafters guilds, the zeppelin holds the city hostage as Khanate forces battle with guild militia in the streets for supremacy of the city.
The fighting continued several weeks before ending in the Treaty of Open Hands. The most important of the stipulations outlined was the creation of the Wise House or the Mazil'Dhaki, a ruling body composed of representatives from the various guilds. From there they could create laws and organize and levy trade agreements.

The Mazil'Dhaki's first test was during the completion of the cities curtain wall.
The east city of the city had lain open for centuries, unfinished partly because of the succession of wars and partly because the city relied on the natural defenses of the surrounding terrain. During that time, the elvish slums had spread up the side of Mount Zafer and spilled across the river. A ferry had been established.
When royal builders came in, they were quickly attacked and killed. The workers went on strike and the Mazil'Dhaki sprang into action, pooling money and creating the Watchmen's Guild to first protect the builders and then to police the city.

The Khan, at this time, had become a figure head, mainly staying away from Samarkand to rule his empire from afar and waging war on the border lands but with the growth of the Watchmen's Guild, the Khan discovered he had a guild on his side. Many men who served in the army went home and became watchmen and they were loyal to him.
This caused a rift to form between the Khan and the Mazil'Dhaki, who were not pleased that their military force was suddenly co-op’ed by the crown.
The Khan began to use the Watchmen's Guild to police the merchants and keep the Mazil'Dhaki and the Court of Heaven in check through threat of violence.

The eight orders of the Sorcerer's Guild became fractured over ideological differences, forming seven unique guilds. The eighth order, lead by the necromancer, rejected the guild system out right. Her order, a taboo and often hushed up branch of the guild even at the best of times, was tired of the squabbles and infighting, as well as the cultural mores that prevented her students from fully exploring their school.
And so she left, vowing revenge, or so we're told.

Next: Modern Samarkand

Samarkand at the end of the Guilded Age

History of Samarkand: The Golden Age

Pervious: The Khanate Civil War

The Golden Age
Faradun’s successor, his only son, was an unholy man, filled with a lust for the things of this world. He invited rich and powerful men from across the globe to his court to experience the finest things, fully confident that the favor of the Okeana would protect the city from outside armies.

But there was one, Ilsion Stakros, a pirate who made his way in the world as a merchant after having taken a series of salt traders and finding the life easier.
This Ilsion was a cunning man, and in secret paid for the blessing to be lifted. With the oceans calmer, an invasion force by sea was more likely and so he plotted his coup carefully. The sea blossomed with overseas trade, bringing spices, silks, wool, grain, gold, and salt into Samarkand's markets to be traded.
Ilsion was about to strike but he was killed by his mistress, who was a concubine to the Khan. She proclaimed herself Queen Azadah I, after finishing off the Khan as well.

Khan Azadah was a tyrant that wore velvet gloves.

She turned the Najam back into an elected position and sponsored a new age of religious tolerance, while dealing swiftly and cruely with those that crossed her. Because of this, Samarkand experienced a surge in Temple building, most notably the Dragon Temple on the remains of Lazar's Tower and the Sacred Stones of the Roc Worshippers on some of the surrounding hills.

Religious fervor was at its highest pitch and the Court of Heaven became covetous of the Khan's power, but Azadah was not to be overthrown and she declared complete religious freedom with the Purge of Altars, chasing the Court of Heaven into the streets and publicly whipping them and having several assassinated for treason.
The Court of Heaven was no more.

Azadah Breathe-of-Fire inherited an empty treasury and while the ports brought in much gold, her authority was still somewhat weak. The Court of Heaven had tithed the people and given a portion to the crown but now with them gone, the tithe was transferred to the crown.
She also turned to investment, partnering with half-hobgoblin traders and bankers to pour money into traders and local guilds. Both profited and soon a network of guilds and banks began to dot the city and with it another vein was added to the religious revival: the hobgoblin sun god, Akhenatan

These banks and guilds clashed with the already established dwarven caravaners, long since the way in which gold flowed into the city. This tension increased till the Day of Shadows, when the sun was blotted out from the heavens. More zealous Bodu declared it a sign: the sun began to think itself above the cosmos and must be brought low. Thus the Istanuians were born.

Two years later, Khan Azadah Breathe-of-Fire died, thus ending the Golden Age

Next: The Guilded Age

History of Samarkand: The Khanate Civil War

Pervious: The Khanate Era

The Khanate Civil War

Truthfully, the Khanate was falling apart for decades but with the destruction of Nebulon's Tower, the Khan sought to fill her coffers through picking fights in the Eastern lands, butting heads with her steppe cousins.
The skirmishes lead to battles and the battle to wars and the wars to the gates of Samarkand.

The Jalpiqul, lead by the hero Rasul, sided with the steppe orcs, while the Cingibi remained loyal, having greatly benefited from the current administration.
At the Battle of the Gate, Rasul was slain but the clans took the barbican and overran the city. Rasul would later become an elvish national hero, worshipped by a new brand of elves, the Batiir,or  those who've sworn eternal holy war on their oppressors.

The Rape of Samarkand wasn't the end of the war. It didn’t stop until both sides had torn the other to pieces, bathing the land in blood and bones.
The end came by human iron as a member of the Court of Heaven, Faradûn, united the human population and overthrew the broken orc rulers and established himself the new Khan of Samarkand.

Unable to fight back, the orcs retreated to the hill where the remains of Lazar's towers were: the area largely abandoned even decades after the sorcerer's death.

Faradûn Khan was as benevolent as a priest king could be, passing legislation that gave freed elves free movement within the city and finishing the Eastern wall.
He overthrew the Najam of the Court of Heaven but made it the title of the high priest of Savash’kisi.
He took residence in the old Khan's palace and turned the Fire Temple into a Sun Temple for the glory of his deity.

Tensions began to rise between gnome, elf, and human as the Slave District, unable to climb further up the sides of Mount Zafer, turned down, surrounding the Court of Heaven and the sacred site of the Sky Cult with poor squalor.
After several crack downs, the Jalpiqul began to build into the mountain, carving out cave homes in the living rock.

The death of Faradûn marked the beginning of the Golden Age of Samarkand.

Next: The Golden Age

Samarkand at the end of the Khanate Civil War

History of Samarkand: the Khanate Era

Pervious: the Founding Era

The Khanate Era

This era begins sometime after the Court of Heaven is established. It's is a mini golden age: trade begins to flood in from across the sea and the population booms.
But not all fortune is favorable and the Okeana's curse rears its ugly head.

From beyond the Salt Sea of Thazruk the Dragon Horde comes. Lead by the vicious Uldrek Khan, the orcish horde cuts a path through the surrounding lands.

As rumors of the destruction reach Samarkand, the Court of Heaven and the Najam begin to shore up defenses, building walls and fortifications.
But this only serves to heighten tensions between the gnomes and the humans as the humans plan to build all the way up to Mount Zafer, the ancient perch of the Roc Riders and holy ground to the Sky Cult.
The humans press any way and start to fortify along the Eastern river, but their efforts are sabotaged by gnomish resistance fighters who've already sold their blades to the Khan.

And so Samarkand burns. The fort of the Cinder Cingibi is thrown down and the city is burned.

The population wait in fear only to watch the orcish horde split in two, half returning and half occupying the ruins of the fort.

Now is the Age of the Khan

The orcs bring their foreign god, an ancient dragon, Atesh, building a high altar to him out of the remains of the fort. Some merchants and opportunist adopt this new deity and the slave markets flourish with the spoils of conquest to the Eternal Fire.

Several generations pass. The cliffs of Mount Zafer become overrun by freed elven slaves and trade becomes regular again. The orcish warlords, too stupid to take the helm of government and perfectly happy to simply let the gold flow in, let the Court of Heaven rule, though the seat of Najam is now occupied by the prophet of the Dragon Cult.

The grand daughter of Uldrek Khan, though, aspires to greatness and with the help of eunuch named Mazyar, she embarks on a series of ambitious building projects.
The first is a fine palace encircling the Fire Temple to honor her ancestors and honor the Eternal Fire. Next, a wall to encircle the orcish camp, who made the sloops around the Fire Temple their permanent home.
Flush with the prestige, and with the prodding of Mazyar, she begins work on Nebulon's town, a 3/4 mile high monument to the power of the khanate.
It is finished on the 200th anniversary of the founding of Samarkand (though it is only 200 years since the orcish invasion so not technically the founding but what can you do?)

---

Lazar the Insane was a private man. A power wizard by all accounts but a chronic introvert but a rather antagonist person if provoked.
He'd moved into an old abandoned watch tower at the then edge of city and set about doing his research, hoping to be left alone with his torture equipment and collection of plush animals.
Lazar loved his schedule. He had his food brought to him but every week, like clockwork, he'd nip down to the tavern, have some sweet yams and sujamma and then return to his tower.

While almost every week. One week, he went for his usually excursion only to find the place in ashes. He tried to sit at a still standing table but nobody came to wait on him. And that damned youth music was especially loud. All it sounded like, to his ears, was the screams of pain as people died. What is the world coming to?

Rather upset, he returned to his tower in a bad mood.

That bad mood last 200 years.

To get his anger out, Lazar the Insane would climb his tower every morning, and either blast pure magical power into the air while cackling at the sky or throw baby animals from the top.

But nothing help.

One day, as he was about to drop a child from the heights of his workshop, his attention was grabbed by what was happening on the hill just north of his.
Some rival wizard had the gull to build his own tower. And right next to Lazar's. What nerve! He dropped the kid (like the kid's mother was begging) and begin to concoct a plan. He would wait and bide his time.
On the day that the tower was completed, he launched all his magical power at it, completely destroying it and much of the surrounding hillside. That will show that upstart Nebulon not to enter his territory.

After Lazar went for sweet yams and sujamma, feeling much better

---

With the tower in ruins, the Khan, looked to recoup the loss. Deeply in debt and staring rivals who were sharpening their blades in the face, she once again sought the advice of her most trusted advisor, Mazyar the Builder.
He said that the best thing to do was to get the people on her side and to do that, she must feed them and he knew how.

Canals, he said, with a flourish of his hands. Building freshwater canals across the otherwise rather arid landscape would make for more farmable land and, he told her, it would give fresh water to populous.
And so the construction of the Great Canals of Samarkand begin.

Now, nobody knows for sure if this was done on purpose but Mazyar routed the main channel right through the elvish ghetto, displacing an already upset portion of the population.
And they rioted, storming the grain silos and burning the Fire Temple.

Later scholars would appreciate the irony but nobody thought it was funny at the time.

The orcs we're divided, and soon they'd rip the city in two.

Next: The Khanate Civil War

Samarkand at the end of the Khanate Era

History of Samarkand: the Founding Era

The Founding Era

The Gnome Titans moved into the area, lead by their Liwa to combat the growing halfing invasions. It was part of two sister forts, one where the river empties to the ocean and one up north at a ford before the mountains become too treacherous to cross.

The Cinder Cingibi force built the red pentagonal fort in the top center of the map and the bridge to allow easier crossings.

After the burning of the sister fort, the current Liwa contacted his cousin, Alsyd Aintisariun (Later known as Lord Victorious), a famed gnomish Roc Rider to help shore up the faltering gnomish line.
Victorious built a nest for himself and his most trusted men on the highest cliff face in the local area (you can see the remains to the far left, sort of top area in purple). The Cinder General commissioned 4 imposing Roc statues, one for each corner of the next, for his eyrie

With Victorious's help, the gnome Titans were able to all but destroyed the local halfing threat, as well as the majority of its population on the peninsula.

Peace came and with it the wives and children of the Roc Riders. A small settlement grew as the base of Eyrie. Soon other gnomes came.

In awe of the magnificent birds, the small town commissioned a 5th statue to be put on Victorious's favorite perch, to stand beside his beast when he came to visit.

Years past and the Roc Riders grew bored and so, one day, he departed with his men to find more exciting pastures.

Two generations past and while the Eyrie fell into disarray, the gnomish town grew, expanding its fields beyond the river, helping the Cinder Cingibi build watchtowers, bridges, and a wall spanning the mouth of the canyon.

Dwarfs on the horse golems also began to track the area though they were few and far between, mining establishing their colonies up on the mountains where the copper veins were rich. That is, until humans from across the sea began to show up.

The Cingibi began to forget the Nakhninery, the household gods they originally worshipped in favor of Yerknk’i Tery, the Lord of Sky, and the city became known to travelers as Sama'rkand, the Sky Born City.

Because the Liwa of the gnomish fort took little care of the city administration, the little gnomish settlement grew in wealth but not the infrastructure necessary to defend it and so, to no one's surprise, the Al’bahar struck, burning the town and overrunning the native population.

They settled the town, destroying the gnomish burrows, and forcing the natives to the rocky outcroppings under the fort.

The Al’bahar brought with them a strange goddess, full of fury and power and on a hill overlooking the docks they built her a temple, sacrificing their loot for her divine protection.

Time past, as it does and the invaders became settlers and the settlers became natives.

Tensions between the Cingibi and the Al’bahari began to relax with the humans securely on top. Still the gnomes began storing their grain in the Titan fort in case the humans got any ideas.

During this time the Bodur built a workshop at the bottom of the hill and the Eyrie continued to fall into disrepair, though the religious life of the Samarkand began to grew. Both the Sky Cult and the Cult of Nakhn found favor with the gnomes, while worship of the Sun Cult held the hearts of the native human settlers, who became known at this time as the Korsan.
But the religious face of the city was changing: the Nakhninery Cult began to find converts in the ruling Al’bahar, who renamed them “Djinn” after their own tongue. The worship of these household gods soon outstripped the Ocean Cult among the majority of the sailors. Every street and block became sacred to the Djinn, watched over by their careful eyes.

The Shamen of the Djinn, the ooluu dil, or the Dead Tongues, became extremely influential, even going so far as to start small riots against the Najam, the leader of Samarkand.
Worried that he'd be overthrown and shrewd like the spider, the Najam brought the Dead Tongues together in a ruling body to given him council and pass laws. He called it Mahkamat Aljana, the Court of Heaven.

Thus ended the Found Era.

Next: The Khanate Era

Samarkand at the end of the Founding Era