KARELSE
Part of the
Octarian Empire
Karelse is a small country under the 'protection' of the Octarian Emperor. This is due to the fact that, about two hundred years from the present date, the monarch, King Fharad ni Gwainio, could not trust either of his two sons enough to rule the country well after his death. Thus, in his will, he requested the Empire's involvement in affairs to ensure that his people did not suffer from the deprivations of civil war in the small kingdom. After Fharad's death, Emperor Marius IX moved three legions within the borders of Karelse and declared a state of martial law until the succession was settled.
The Princes Bhergam and Terfad both sent embassies to the Emperor, asking for (at first), his arbitration in settling the succession. They first suggested a dual monarchy, but it was clear that such an arrangement would not work to all present, for the half-brothers hated each other with a passion. Each tried to undermine the other greatly, until the Emperor tired of the squabbling and began to negotiate secretly with each to increase his control of the kingdom. Finally, Terfad declared that he could not condone such a surrender of power to Emperor Marius, and gathered a force of dissidents to march against the legions.
In a short and bloody campaign, Terfad's forces were at first surprisingly successful. Staging a series of attacks upon supply trains, they stranded the legions in the relatively barren country, before hitting patrols sent out to stop them. After four months, the legions were starving, and may have been forced to surrender, but for a fatal error of judgement. Terfad was outsmarted by the Octarian field commander, Sullanis, and nearly his entire force was annihilated in a single engagement by the better trained legionnaires. Terfad himself was publicly executed for his actions in the capital.
This left Bhergam on the throne, but with no power at his disposal, for the Emperor insisted that Bhergam stick with his latest offer, and neatly stripped the new King of nearly all his powers. These were placed in the hands of the Praetor, the Octarian governor sent to 'advise' the king on issues arising in the kingdom, an arrangement which lasts to this present day in the rulership of King Abdunahl and his queen Ghirine. The assimilation is almost complete, but the kingdom still retains theoretical autonomy.
The Karelsi are a dark-skinned race, whose activities are largely based around trade and sheep and goat herding. Forming the border between the Empire and the great deserts of the Drylands, the capital of Karelse (also called Karelse) is an important trading post, as the terrain makes it difficult to bypass the city. The terrain is a mixture of plains, rocky hills and scrubland, breaking into desert on the borders of the Drylands.
A
Merchant's Guide to Karelse, Gateway to the Desert
Submitted by
Onethil
Lying at the far western edge of the Octarian Empire, and bordering upon the great wastes of the Drylands, the city of Karelse, and more generally, the larger principality with which it shares it's name, is a land of contrasts and extremes. Trade there is vigorous and profitable, but the unwary merchant may soon find that the Karelsi frontiersmen, while far from the cosmopolitan world of the Empire, are quite worldly.
The rough-and-tumble West End is home to merchants selling some of the most refined pleasures offered throughout the Empire, yet the prevalence of taverns there, housing scores of unemployed mercenaries wating for the next caravan into the Drylands, makes the West End a dangerous place to roam without an escort. In immediate juxtaposition, however, lies the glittering Bazaar district, where white-washed adobe walls encrusted with jewels of the desert and guarded by Imperial legionnaires mark the opulence, and control, of the Empire. It is from here that the Empire's appointed governor makes trade policy, adjucates treaties with the Dervish clans, and serves the will of the Emperor.
The city lies flush against an enormous outcropping of red rock, whittled slowly over time by the desert winds into a curved sickle whose concave side faces southwest toward the Great Western Road and it's path into the Drylands. A vast wall with only two entry points completes the circle started by the natural rock, thus encircling the city on all sides and protecting it from the raids of desert dwellers (Dervish and Elvish alike) who may desire the bounty that lies within. Because of its proximity to the Scorpion Oasis within Dervish territory, and because of it's relative isolation from the rest of the Empire, Karelse is a natural stopping point for caravans travelling the Great Western Road of the Empire. In part because of its unique position of protection, the Empire levies a large tax upon trade caravans seeking shelter within its walls, although most merchants are happy to pay it, frequently banding together in cooperatives within miles of Karelse's gates to defray the cost and perhaps get a jump on early trading.