Beyond the mountains at the back of the pagan city states on the south shore of the Middle Sea; beyond the great and accursed Salt Sea of Ghem that puts a southward limit to the spread of the power of the Eastern Church; there rests the ancient Empire of Urighem.
URIGHEM (demonym: Urig)
History
The
founding of the Empire of Urighem is by reason at least three thousand
years in the past, and many centuries more if we are to believe the
ancient records which ascribed reigns of two and three hundred years to
the early Ilu-Barag kings. That would put its origin in the Age of
Silver, but there is no record of contact with the dominant race of that
ages. More certainly, it is known that Urighem lost many
vassals to the nomadic Men of Copper in the following Age, but defended
its core realm and even assimilated some of the Cupric bloodline into
its ruling caste. The Eskata who ruled the northern world in the Bronze
Millennium found the mountains and Salt Sea to be a comfortable barrier,
and during this time Urighem sluggishly rebounded, retaking the
Dwarf-friend provinces of Pungatan and the lands of the south shore of
Ghem.
That is how Urighem's past would be seen in most of the world of Mittellus, but Urig historians deny the cycle of metallic ages and have never heard of the coming Iron Age or its various prophecies. Sceptics exist, but they prudently keep their doubts clandestine. In whispered conclaves and encrypted scrolls, they report investigations into forbidden archives, ancient tomb records, and the tales of far travellers. They see reason to question the unanswerable dogmas of the Empire: that all peoples outside Urighem are wandering savages who may, charitably, have degenerated from previous greatness; that the dynasty of the Ilu-Barag descends in an unbroken line of succession from the first of those god-rulers, Hurzak; that Urighem has never been conquered; that its armies have never lost a battle in the field, other than through treachery; that its peasantry has always been grateful, its middle classes deferential, its rulers benevolent.
The authorized scrolls record, for the past thousand years, no catastrophes, no wars, no innovations. There are only the regular successions of new Ilu-Barag, the comings and goings of priesthood and civil service, and the monotonous fluctuations of a fundamentally stable economy. It is not asked why the former satrapies of the south shore of Ghem now lie barren and overrun; why the Pungatani tribute has trickled to a token amount, and only trusted officials are allowed to travel there; why the towering oared ships of the Nim-Lal caste only patrol the salt sea shore, sinking any raider or trader they see, growing fewer every generation.
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