KHITAI
KHITAI
(Large Kingdom) -- The ancient empire, stronghold of the world's
greatest
wizards and masters of the eastern world, Khitai has a powerful army
and a sound leadership based in Paikang, Shu-Chen and Ruo-Chen.
Khitai is forever at war with Kambulja to the south whose god-kings vie
with them for supremacy in the arcane mysteries of the scarlet circle.
NATIONAL HISTORY
Listen, my Lord, the origins of Khitai, the land of the dragon. Long,
very long ago, our esteemed ancestors lived in great, shimmering cities
on the shores of the Eastern Ocean. In that ocean there dwelt a savage
race, the Lemurians, who lived on a chain of islands and excelled too
well in warfare. Far to the west were the great empires of Valusia,
Commoria, and their sister states. To the south dwelt the Kambuljans,
deep within their jungles, an ancient and decadent people even then.
It was over five thousand years ago that our histories record the Great
Cataclysm which shook the entire earth like the whipping of a dragon's
tail, utterly destroying the western empires and changing the face of
the earth. One of these mighty changes was the sinking of the islands
of the Lemurians. Many of the Lemurians survived the Cataclysm and
gthrew themselves on our mercy. We were merciful, and though they were
barbarians, unworthy of attention, our ancient fathers allowed them to
be our slaves, and used them to rebuild our own broken cities. We
rebuilt our empire, and the Khitai culture reached heights which have
never been scaled again.
Meanwhile, the Lemurians proved to be poor slaves, warlike and
unable to learn civilized ways. We were forced to be harsh masters, and
still they could not learn. For two thousand years we ruled over the
Lemurians, and became the greatest civilization the world would ever
know. And then that golden age came to a senseless and brutal end. We
had come to view the Lemurians as subhuman; they never talked and went
about their tasks in a stupid trance. But without warning they
turned on us, a mad bestial horde! We slew, and slew, and did not stop.
But at last we were pulled down, our fabulous kingdom in ruins, and
those who remained were hunted day and night by howling Lemurians. Only
one in twenty emerged form that terrible slaughter.
Those of our ancestors who survived fled in two bodies. First many
marched west, thousands formed around our few remaining armies,
sweeping like a windblown grass fire to the western sea. There they met
and crushed a race of snake men, and in time established the great
empires of Acheron and Stygia. Our own fathers were of the second
group, who fled south to live in exile among the Kambuljans. As the
barbaric Lemurians began streaming slowly westward, we fought back into
our homeland, armed with Kambuljan weapons, and defeated what Lemurians
remained on the eastern coast. To our surprise, some of these proved to
be civilized, and we allowed them to join our young kingdom.
Still there roamed the unregenerate Hyrkanians, as the lemurians now
called themselves, to our west, and we were forced to erect huge walls
for protection. As the years rolled on, the Hyrkanians flowed ever
westward, and we built more walls behind them, for they would rais
unceasingly had we not.
Our time in Kambulja taught us the value of arcane lore, and now our
wizards are indisputably the greatest in the world. We have built upon
the Kambuljans' Secrets of the Scarlet Circle an impregnable defense of
magic.
In recent years we have been racked by internal rivalries. This has
slowed our expansion and allowed our neighboring Kambuljans to believe
that they can match us. This thou must change. Ours is the only true
empire born to rule on this continent. Before our iron-shod armies and
supreme wizards no mingdom may stand! Hear now my words, and I will
report to thee in full on the present state of thy kingdom.