Syrkarn
Five thousand years before the arrival of the Inspired and the present age, the nations now known collectively as Syrkarn were the jewels in the imperial crown of old Sarlona. Today, only ancient stonework and half-forgotten legends mark the fall, passing, and rebirth of this land. Still, to those who have inherited this seemingly inhospitable kingdom, Syrkarn offers a gift denied to both the warring nations of the past and the Inspired-dominated lands of the present. To its people, Syrkarn is the promise of freedom.
LAND OF THE FAR HORIZON
Syrkarn is an arid landscape of harsh deserts, lush grass lands, and endless steppes sloping up from the southern extent of the Sea of Rage. Its population consists of an almost equal mix of Sarlonan human clans and tribes of eneko—the mongrel ogres who trace their lineage back to the nation of Borunan.
Though the climate and the isolated life of this land are never easy, the coastal steppes and inland savannah of Syrkarn offer limitless range for animals and agriculture. Herds of wild bison and domesticated goats, deer, and horses roam the grasslands, while cultivated fields of oat grass and flax spread across the Itzaina plains and the steppes of the Lamecha lowlands. The natives grow a range of vegetable crops, including the gnarled root known as sepse, native to Sarlona and prized for its high nutritional value. Exotic spices found nowhere outside Sarlona thrive in the heat of the savannah, as does dreamlily. Use of the drug is rare among the Syrk humans, but the eneko (who are immune to dreamlily's narcotic effects) grow it for its medicinal value. Harvests are hard in some years, but the clans and tribes of Syrkarn know bounty more often than not.
Though the ruins of great cities dot the landscape, modern-day Syrkarn is predominantly a land of hamlets, villages, and nomadic town sites. The remnants of human cities are common in the former lands of Mae Khree, Sunyagir, and Lamecha, but the plains and savannah that were once Khunan are marked exclusively by the ruins of the yuan-ti. Shulassakar and Serpentfolk ruins are especially common on the Hailana Islands, said to be the site from which the yuan-ti launched their desperate voyage to Argonnessen and left their homeland behind.
Planar Elements: Wild zones linked to Fernia, Risia, and especially Lamannia are found throughout this land. Like all of Sarlona, Syrkarn is beset by storms whose force borders on the unnatural, and planar disturbances flare and flood across the steppes like unnatural wellsprings. Still, these rifts are seldom as haunting or destructive as the reality storms of the Tundra. The prominent planar connection in Syrkarn is the Whitewater, the crystal-clear lake believed to mark a manifest zone linked to Lamannia. The rocky land surrounding the area remains wet and cool year-round, even as the sands that give the lake its name burn white beneath the equatorial sun.
Religion
Derived as it is from Riedran refugees and their descendants, Syrkarn's human population is uniformly contemptuous of the Path of Inspiration. Nearly half of all human Syrks follow no gods at all, instead placing their faith and devotion in the land itself. For Syrk clerics, the spirit of Syrkarn is treated as a neutral force that provides access to the Animal, Healing, Plant, Sun, and Travel domains. Its favored weapon is the sickle.
In much of Syrkarn, humans have reclaimed the worship of the Sovereign Host from contact with Lhaazarites. At the same time, the eneko have always invoked aspects of Arawai and Balinor, naming these Rowa of the Enduring Trees and Banor the Bowhunter. Human Syrks thus focus their own worship on Arawai and Balinor, with this accidental meeting of traditions underpinning the long-term social stability in the region.
Among the eneko, some worship Karrak the Final Guardian. No analogous faith exists among the humans, and Karrak's sects are among the few eneko-only enclaves in Syrkarn.
Foreign Relations
FOREIGN RELATIONS
Syrks are content to leave others alone and hope for the same in return. For all intents and purposes, Riedra is the nation's only neighbor, and the monolithic and isolationist bent of that land means that Syrks frequently define themselves as its antithesis.
Riedra
The Inspired in Riedra clearly have the resources and the military might to take Syrkarn in a heartbeat, driving its people into the sea if they so chose. Although desert and mountain marks much of Syrkarn's inland frontier, unlike Adar, no natural or mystical defenses protect this land from invasion.
The fact that the Inspired have chosen not to invade suggests that they have strong reasons to leave Syrkarn as it is. The Thousand Eyes has agents throughout the land, but these seem primarily focused on maintaining the status quo among the tribes and clans. Isolated skirmishes are sometimes made against the human exiles, but clear benefits can be seen in Riedra's allowing the exile clans to survive as a beacon to the like-minded. No matter how many exiles swell its population, vast Syrkarn will never have the resources or the population to challenge the Inspired. Better to have those who oppose Inspired rule flee for the "freedom" of the barbarian frontier than to disturb the Riedran peace.
Riedran agents harass the mongrel ogre tribes with greater frequency than they do the human clans. Some speculate that this behavior marks a fear that the ogres are more apt to pursue dark magic, as has been seen in the recent rise of the Karrak cults. It is known that the Horned Shadow has sought to recruit both half-giants and eneko from Syrkarn in recent years, but whether any connection exists between the rebellious ogre mages and the cults remains to be seen.
More than anything else, Inspired agents seek signs of magic use in Syrkarn. They are especially watchful for any sign of the Heirs of Ohr Kaluun in the steppes and the yuan-ti ruins. When it is found, the arcane is exterminated. Riedra is intent on seeing that Syrkarn's lost lore stays that way.
Sharing a desert border as it does with Borunan, Syrkarn has a more open relationship with the former ogre kingdom than with the other Riedran provinces. Just as the ogres made their way south centuries ago, more than a few eneko make the trek north today. The eneko in the Savage Legion are drawn from the ranks of such Syrk exiles.
Adar
The lands of the mountain refuge border Syrkarn to the southeast, and the outposts of that frontier are firmly in Inspired hands. For the Syrks of the border territories, the land along Jathara Sound, guarded by a series of coastal forts, is merely another part of Riedra, and that nation's business with the folk of the distant mountains is none of their concern.
However, for those Syrks who actively oppose the rule of the Inspired, the Adarans are brothers in arms. The treacherous seas and inhospitable cliffs of Adar channel those seeking to enter the mountain refuge to Syrkarn, where they land at Ardhmen or the smaller fishing villages of the western coast. They then make their way inland, crossing into Adar between Riedran outposts and patrols.
Syrkarn is also the departure point for the goods that Adarans trade to Khorvaire, and a steady flow of couriers passes along the Summit Road throughout the year.
Other Nations
Outside of academic circles, few non-Sarlonans even know of the existence of Syrkarn. Unlike the Adaran monks and the kalashtar who have established enclaves on Khorvaire, Syrks have little reason to leave their land.
Since the end of the Last War, Lhazaar traders have made their way to Ardhmen in order to barter for spices and dreamlily. However, with the Inspired now actively directing trade between Riedra and Khorvaire, Syrk merchants are seeking contacts among the Riedrans, hoping to broker more profitable trade in mainstream Khorvaire. The merchants of the Lhazaar Principalities have largely turned their own trade to Syrk art, antiquities, and textiles—their quality as high as Riedran goods, but their design incorporating an old-Sarlonan aesthetic lost to Riedra.
Infrastructure
Because Syrkarn has never been subject to Inspired rule, it has been spared the cultural purges the Inspired used to build monolithic Riedra over the nations of old. Syrkarn is thus one of the few places in Sarlona where a significant portion of the architecture of the past survives. Across this land, derelict castles stand atop wind swept tors, their stark lines seemingly thrust up from the living rock. Where the villages of the mongrel ogres have been built on the central plazas of the ruined cities that came before them, ancient avenues and neighborhoods (called "corners") still radiate out through the surrounding grasslands like ghostly spokes. Along isolated mountain passes and long-lost wayroads, fortresses stand whose foundations are as solid as when they were laid two thousand years before.
Dominated by columns, straight lines, and square arches, the architectural style of old Sarlona still affects this land and its people. Even the most utilitarian structures are built to a standard of stark beauty, and whether of wood or stone, are typically buttressed, arched, and reinforced to last a lifetime. The nomadic tribes are no less inventive than their brethren in Syrkarn's fixed settlements, building their mobile homes from elaborate frameworks of interlocking poles and light beams over which decorated hides are stretched and sealed.
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