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Of Moof and Akar

The ancient empire of Ak began after the cresting of the great sun but in the very earliest days in the dawn of the new world, so early that it is said that the great Amber sands that separated north from south and dominated Aphora were instead a vast steppe valley. In those earliest days, when the first men had just emerged from the kiln of the great sun, it is said there was a good man named Akar. He founded the first city ever seen by men at the delta of the Vijara river and the people called it Ak in his honor. With his leadership and the peoples hard work they raised mighty temples and humble houses of solid mud brick. It was once the greatness of Ak and its riches had spread as far as the newer early kingdoms of the east and the rare artisan goods they cultivated began to attract wealth that it had begun to draw other eyes not seeking trade.

The main rival city which had formed around a great lake in southwestern Aeophora known as Jalaf decided one night to attack the city by fording the Vijara in mighty reed rafts, and slaughtering the Akians with there spears. Akar himself was run through but was saved by his wife Shaza and together with a small band of 15 retainers they fled the now conquered city.

With no hospitality in the east who had accepted there new trading partners, they had no choice but to wander the hot barren steppe through the mountain pass in the north.

They traveled for 130 days, with no food for 10, and Akar in a deep coma being kept alive only by his loving and tender wife and his seething rage at the men that had desecrated his city fueling his dreams of revenge.

They had hoped to reach the mystical city of Rahm which was said to be the very kiln of the first men itself to restore Akar to life.

they reached the mountain of Amb in the middle of the great valley, and Akar was lowered into the pools within the core of the inner chamber. After 3 days his starved companions were about to abandon hope when they felt a deep rumbling shake the core of the mountain. Akar's dreams had turned to dark whispers during his time in the pools, whispers that offered him a fiery hand extended for his, offering him his craved revenge if only he would take it. He did, and with his dormant rage reignited the mountain and caused it to erupt in a glorious explosion so violent it could be felt across all of Aph, killing all of his companions including his wife, but imbuing in him a primal power and steadfast determination for conquest.

When Akar emerged he saw the extent of his fury, the steppe he had half consciously been carted through on his destined path had been reduced to a blasted dessert, but his mind was clear and saw only one path forward. With no remorse and nothing but ambition and power, Akar emerged from that mountain a god.

He walked through the waste he had created resolute and confident, his beard and hair alight with embers until finally he approached the mountain pass and went onward to his old home of Ak.

The warlord's of Jalaf had reduced Ak to a cesspit of fornication and murder, the city had become a slum just as Jalaf was. When Akar overlooked the city and saw this it is said his hair grew alive with flame once more and his eyes turned as black as coals, he rained his hellfire over the city and reduced it to ash, sparing only those that would serve him and leveling the city bare. After this he marched to Jalaf with a small host, hearing of the horror of Ak the warlords threw themselves at his feet and offered all of there slaves as tribute.

Akar accepted this, and at last his hair and beard fell back to its state of flickering embers. From this point on all of southern Aeophora belonged solely to Akar, he used his great power to remake Ak into a city of wonder, high walls of fused sandstone, a magnificent temple palace built for his worship and residence, and at last, along the main island of the city and strewn across the smaller islands in the delta of the river he erected 7 unthinkably high towers of seemingly solid volcanic glass and ashen brick with no staircases that he would ascend with his power, supposedly to commune with whoever had bestowed him his mighty gifts and enact there will, while still being revered as a god himself.

The Akian Empire grew, conquering Sanjuf and the many tribes that made up far western Aeophora, for all of this time Akar lived unnaturally long, seeming to never age. eventually Akar's passion for conquest lead him to lead his mighty host north towards Halasphora, the great kingdom of the north, and while he marched his troop through the desert he had created, he did not account for how many would die of heat on the way, not sharing his divine immunity to such mortal weakness. So when he arrived in Halasphora he managed to raze the city of Jorean but could not pursue into there lands further as they didn't have enough men to hold any of the cities, it is said they attempted to march on the capital Dacacy, but the King of Halasphora named Rudah shot Akar with a arrow which pierced his leg causing him to flee. And so they marched home to Ak, and halfway there his troops were so demoralized and heat addled that they began to question why there supposed god would flee from battle, and why he could bleed. Akar grew so furious of these whispering that not far off from the site of his first awakening, his hair came alight one last time and he reduced his own host to ash, adding them to the vast sea of sands. And so Akar wandered the great Amber sea alone again bound for his home.

When he returned to Ak he purged anyone who dared question why he had returned without conquest of Halasphora in his fire. Eventually one courageous servant, a lowly slave who tended the kitchens of Akar had the courage to enter the gods bedchamber deep in the night and slit his throught in the night. He awoke as the life drained from him, and he burned the servant nearly to death and intended to burn down the palace, but as is hair began to ignite it died back down to cinder, and then at last, the fire died.

Akar had ruled the Akian Empire as its sole ruler for 250 years. When word of his death reached the east and Halasphora they both sent forces to attempt to claim the scraps. and while Sanjuf and the Heesan tribes of the west reclaimed independence, the slave who had killed Akar managed to unify the Akians and assured the defenses and managed to save the city of Ak and Jalaf with what little host he could. after the dust settled the people called the slave Mufias king and denounced the old way of Akar, renaming the kingdom to Moof and consolidating support for Mufias to establish a dynasty that would last another 600 years of Moof being a prosperous and peaceful nation. Such is the history of early Aeophora, of Moof and Akar.

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Centinuus
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