Khalifa

"Gone are the days of love and war,
when poets sung their nation's lore.
Eternity concluded far too soon,
yet the legend lives on in the
Desert's Dune."

Khalifa: The Story of Arakmat

Recited by the Poet Omar Rashhak
(Note: This is a Work in Progress.)

Foreword, by Lord Ortorius
The Sultanate of Arakmat can trace its cultural history before the emergence of the Aelyrians in any meaningful political sense. By the time Emperor Constantine had forged a small kingdom of fiefdoms, Arakmat had been in existence for over 400 years as a unified kingdom and could recount its history over a thousand years through a dynasty of personalistic Human rulers, Dorin warlords and Katta tribesmen. This rich archive was preserved not by text as most eastern bards and historians had grown accustomed to doing, but rather through oral poetry passed down by elite colleges of orators known modestly as poets. The poets of old Arakmat wielded incredible influence over the realm, and none more so than Poet Omar Rashhak who ascended as the fourth Sultan Belin Al'Hakkar. The story of Arakmat is recounted in a series of tales called the Khalifa, which when literally translated from the Arakmatan tongue means "The Succession".

Recounting the stories of over seventy emirs, forty-three sultans and one caliph, the Khalifa is more than just a laundry list of events; it is the dynamic retelling of the coming of age of a people and their spirituality. For each poet and mood or climate of story there is a unique style and version of the Khalifa. This translation, performed by the late Odin Khrias with his own estimations of years of occurrences, is based upon the original words and their meanings of the Poet Omar Rashhak's Niva Khalifa, widely considered at the time to be the most balanced of approaches. While in Arakmatan the poem rhymes in a soft ambulating rhythm, no attempts to artificially rhyme the translation were undertaken by Odin Khrias. This is probably because the other major translation of Khalifa, First Minister Ieolus' The Succession is notoriously inaccurately translated, grasping at approximations of words that rhyme rather than words that more appropriately approach the real meaning of their Arakmatan counterpart. Khalifa details the political and institutional history of the Arakmatans for the first half, and then the second half recounts a religious and social revolution that concludes with the expulsion of a tyrant and the restoration of the dynasty. It is rare that histories undergo such a drama of heroic proportions, but the Khalifa proves to be a defining work of art that inspires the reader. Aside from the Dwarven Kingdom of Dargis, the Sultanate of Arakmat was the only sovereign power that joined the Empire of its own free volition, and the only sovereign power that preserved its autonomy in the form of a province. To this day it retains its culture, its heritage, its dignity and its sacred succession that had begun thousands of years ago.
Lord Ortorius
Imperial Historical Society
Aelyria Prime, 10204

(OOC: Written by Juan Gonzalez)

The Invocation
May the Great Djinni of Good Fortune bless this sacred work. May the Efreets temper the desert winds so that we might all do more than just hear, but listen as well. Would that the Djann and Djinn cease their plots and the Marids be contained in their desolate prisons. This is the Story of Arakmat; it is both the Chronicle of our Kings and the Legend of our Peoples. It is the story of how a frightened spawn of innocent light was darkened and emerged triumphantly emboldened against all odds. This is the tale of how one generation built upon the accomplishments of its progenitor, and of how sheikhs, emirs, vaziers and sultans shifted the sands of power to be remembered for all time. This story is our legacy; let the awakening of our Succession towards eternity commence. Recited by your noble servant, Omar Rashhak Vesyligen Roshurienya Bukhemet.

Paternal Year
The sun was setting on the peak of the Snake's Tyranny during the year when the Scorpion and the Fingers spread apart [7650], mankind found himself alone and wandering in the baking desert. By day, avoiding the sun, and by night pursuing the moon, the nomads, most of them on bare feet and with little water remaining from their journey, came upon a single oasis graced by the soft winds of the elementals. The encampment was pitched and that year was father to a state. The travel was so hard but the landing soft and welcomed, and so the deserts and the city built about the oasis were both called Arakmat. Thanking the spirits for their mercy, our founders convened an amullekar, the council of the community. All of the strongest men capable of protecting the women came forward and struck their blades into the hot sands to sit under the shade of the great palm. Preservation of the amu [community] became paramount and so clan rivalries were dismissed and the selectmen elected the youngest, and least tainted by the wars that had bewitched our people's past, as Al-Hakkar, the Prince of Power.

Prince Aliyeh Al-Hakkar
The Principality had modest beginnings that were colored by the grandeur of a fragile and false unity. The sheikhs, leaders of the amu, disbanded the amullekar faster than it had been conceived and they rapidly sought to consolidate what gains they could in this impoverished land. Water became the only jewel and by the third year after the coronation [7654-7655, there was traditionally a 14 month meditation ritual that preceded the coronations of the ancient Arakmatan princes], war had found its dominion outside of the city walls. While the women and children were safe within Arakmat, the deserts were emperiled by violence and blood that converted the desert into a crimson garden.

Prince Aliyeh would not allow this and ordered that men who fight or have reason to quarrel would find their justice at his throne. And so, the sheikhs came to the palace on the eastern shores of the original grand oasis and kneeled before the prince. Prince Aliyeh's words were final and he decreed that any man who required either the use of a weapon or the use of a third person to end an argument would have all of his possessions, children and wives combined with those of his opponent and divided equally among the two to eliminate any reason for covetous jealousy. The Throne's Justice was absolute, and the wars stopped when families became divided. Men took to talking with one another and learned quickly that their quarrels were artificial. And it was in this fashion that Prince Aliyeh ended the sheikhs childish feuds and brought about internal peace. At his death two lurnas hence [twenty-three years later in 7678], Arakmat had blossomed with over one hundred families so that when the amullekar convened to establish khalifa [succession] for the now revered prince's line [1], the assembly occupied three plazas and their connecting streets.

TRANSLATION NOTES, ODIN KHRIAS
[1]: ajhellet rem'mullekar khalifat al-hakkar. Herein, we see the use of the paradoxical rhyme; literally, it says "the prince succeeded his own council of community because he was so revered", but that would be improbable given the prince is dead. The khalifa is a sacred sort of succession to the ancient Arakmatans. If a prince reigned well, as Aliyeh did, and at the end of his reign peace was available so that an amullekar could convene to establish a succession of the sovereign, then he was considered a "revered prince" (ajhellet). Revered princes were seen as embodying the spirit of the convention of the amullekar, and so in a way, their will succeeded themselves and guided the sheikhs and the selectmen into choosing a proper successor. So, literally, the prince did succeed himself, having been revered. But in actuality, the amullekar convenes to establish a succession for the prince ajhellet - having been revered.

Prince Singel Al-Hakkar
Aliyeh's second son to his fifth wife, Ubani, was recognized immediately as the one with the greatest potential to lead. At his young age of sixteen, he had already wed and memorized his heikiffa [family history] to within fifteen generations, the requisite number for orator mastery. He was also an accomplished blacksmith and had developed a sharp curve-bladed weapon, the saber. Singel became the Al-Hakkar with overwhelming support and his first duty was to call upon all of the first sons to form a war council [2]. Though many matters were discussed, the use of the saber for foot-soldiers was approved overwhelmingly and Prince Singel taught the city's blacksmiths his guarded techniques. After the first disconcerting migration [3] [probably 7680 at the earliest], it was decided that a struggle [4] against the infidels [5] was necessary for the defense of the Principality and of the City itself. Mounting the local sauri, lizard-beasts, of the deserts, the soldiers rode out on two and four feet [6] and discovered that their isolation was a myth.

Engaging the bandits of the dunes and slaying them while liberating their children and women to the freedom of honest toil [7], the soldiers discovered an encampment building a fortification out of baked mud-brick, reinforced with wood, crime of crimes for the desert. [8] The foul fortress was no doubt a guardian of the pass out into the great wasteland from which the sheikhs had originated, and Prince Singel knew then that other clans of Humans had begun a violent migration to attempt and disrupt the harmony of life at Arakmat. The soldiers destroyed the fortress and all five-hundred of them returned home with much plunder consisting of jewels, gems, gold and statues of fictional Lamia gods. [9] The wealth brought beauty to the Plaza of the Palace to the East in the City, and began construction of a northern Temple Plaza.

TRANSLATION NOTES, ODIN KHRIAS
[2]: jihaddiya. There remains some ambiguity as to the meaning of jihad, for one scroll indicates it is a fiercely spiritual struggle and that one can have a jihad against personal demons or unhealthy habits, for example. But in another tome, jihad is most clearly war against those that threaten the unity of the amu. I surmise that while Poet Omar does not enter into detail about the circumstances of Singel's khalifa, and he dismisses it as "overwhelming", it was obviously not unanimous like his father's was, and so there remains reason enough to believe a splinter faction is forming.

[3]: skiyyerta disfirta. This can also mean a forceful ejection of unwanted vagrants within the city. Whether these vagrants were common desert bandits attracted to the oasis so near the expanse of dried rock, or whether they might have been some of the dissenters of the amullekar remains open to discussion.

[4]: jihadek. Specifically, armed combat.

[5]: zairu prispat. Lit., those who hurt our minds with their nonsense. This is the first time we see this rather universalist term; zairu means, essentially, anyone that does not conform, is seen as insane, or acts contrary to his gender, which to the ancient Arakmatans was worse than insanity.

[6]: The Arakmatans used sauri of both bipedal and quadrapedal species, enabling them to have a combined military cavalry second to none in the region. The fluid charge used by the Arakmatan sauriders is still called today as the Singel Strike.

[7]: munfar. A euphemism for slavery, for because money was seen as a corrupting agent, work without money was more honest than work with pay. The women and children of the banditmen were probably worse off under the hard labor of lifting heavy boulders to defend the fortress, though.

[8]: The few trees that grew in the desert were obviously considered sacred for having survived such harsh conditions; killing them was seen as an abhoration of common spiritual law. The one exception to this is Seifelwood which grows at the base of Arakmatan cacti. We can deduce that the fortress was likely constructed out of non-seifelwood products.

[9]: We know now that the Lamia probably did at one time exist in what became the Great Wasteland dividing the Arakmat Desert from the Savannah of Stars, though at the time, the horrors of their tyranny were too great to believe and stories of their existence were dismissed as fairy tales.

Prince Huron Al-Hakkar
In the Year of the Tiger [7689-7690], Singel passed away and the amullekar convened. Priests from the Temple joined in this year's deliberations, and argued for the creation of a greater administration that encompassed the mystics. [10] The amullekar concluded that decisions regarding administration personnel should be the privy of the prince, but they were no closer to selecting a successor for Singel, who had ruled justly and reformed the Arakmatan army. In the indecision of the council, a war had broken out by the foreign migrants - the Zairu - and the Arakmatan desert traders. Sheikh Huron, the Captain of the Guard, launched a counter-invasion to hold the human tribes at bay, but when the army was returning to Arakmat, he delivered the ultimatum that either the amullekar select a successor or he would select one for them. [11] And so he carried out his threat and disbanded the amullekar when the army proclaimed him Prince. Huron moved into the Eastern Palace and brought with him his wives. [12] A new age was born under Huron. [13]

Huron, now forcing the succession for the interests of the people, appointed a grand vizier in Lord Kabakchuor. Vizier Kabakchuor was a powerful elementalist from lands far to the East and was believed to be the son of an elf-woman and a human. A College of Wizardry was opened near the Temple District, masked by magic so that only spellcasters could discover it. Vizier Kabakchuor energetically trained a unit of wizards for the Arakmatan army at the same time that Prince Huron went to reform the army. The Vizier had brought with him from the East horses, quadrapeds that were much faster than sauri. However, they ate between 20 and 25 kektrons of feed each day. [14] Their tolerance to the desert heat was also quite low, but Huron knew that with speed would come glory against the Zairu once and for all time. A cavalry was implemented to become the primary shock force of the Arakmatan military.

In the Year of the Djann [7694-7695], Prince Huron Al-Hakkar led his army out west and encountered a large contingent of Zairu living among the rubble of ancient settlements. Imprisoned within a tower made of a shiny black stone [15] was a beautiful woman whose eyes enchanted all who would gaze into them. Driven by lust, Huron wiped out the Zairu at the region and freed the woman who introduced herself as Zayishah of the Zairu. Zayishah retold her story of how the Zairu imprisoned her because they feared her magical abilities, and indicated that a silent minority within the Zairu were beginning to grow potent with their nature magic.

TRANSLATION NOTES, ODIN KHRIAS
[10]: wasiri. Literally, wise-men, but probably referring to spellcasters from a growing, fiercely-guarded profession.

[11]. nisi amullekar niki Huron, khalifan al-hakkar sepuron. Literally, if the council could not choose even with Huron's pressure, the succession would fall to the natural prince of power, i.e., Huron. It should be noted that Huron was also one of the sons of Singel, so his claim to power holds legitimacy along bloodlines.

[12] Bringing wives harkens to an Arakmatan tradition of declaring a place as having sanctuary and thus being suitable for a home. We can infer that once Huron moved in, he had no intention of moving out anytime soon.

[13] niv kalinga triat, Huron menket liat. Literally, the years would be adopted as children, Huron would choose a new (i.e., unnatural) destiny.

[14] About 50-60 pounds.

[15] Xet.