The Lands of Achra
O Seeker! Heed!
An abyss of time divides the old Achra from us. All said and shown hereafter is subject to the distortion of ages that nothing evades.
In the age of the First Receding of Waters, there were many powers and cultures on the old Achra, and gods yet held great power and commanded great esteem. This page purports, to the limit of our ability, to offer a recollection of that time, based on what little remains of that mytical age... be it tablets stored by the Naqui-folk in their stone towers, or surviving histories and odes of lost Shuppurak -- all fragments. To us Void Scholars, nothing can be more precious. Some of us, with but a simple inscription and textual evidence, have even endeavored to envision the shape of the lands, creating a map that charts all that was on earth, below the earth and above it. We must note that such attempts bear a seal of their creators' own imaginations and do not pretend to objectivity.
Nations
The ancient land was not ripe with nations, united by surpassing martial might and leadership; too dry and riven by disasters in most places. And yet, history remembers a few that stood, despite the tribulations, and rocked the world before their inevitable fall.
- Mardok's Stone City of Beasts , where horned phalangites first exposed their bodies to glory.
- Lost Shuppurak, where many histories were kept, and where the Wandering King rose to prominence.
- Gate of Death, where armies of the dead swelled under the command of blight-princes.
- The Burning Lands, where the war-queen set fire to the fertile plains before her ascent to the marble palace.
- Slagh Horde of the deep forest, who journeyed up in the age of Flood, led by their Astromancer, a star-dancing vizier.
- Clay Polis, where the Shesha watched in the muck.
- Crystal Warren, where knights and sorcerers guarded the secrets of introspective mediation.
Lands
Most peoples of Achra were not united to power, but squatted as tribes, bound to their spiritual inspiration flowing into local beliefs. Many people are said to hail from a land as opposed to a nation or culture, after all, at that time, it was said, lands themselves were colored.
- Astral Wall, the first creation of the Divine Gaze, where paths of shining stars would glimmer in the night.
- Path of Achra, the spiritual center, the terminus between the stars and the earth.
- High Glacier, a land guarded by Mehtar, which encircled the world, protecting it from the void.
- Crevasse-Lands, a frozen waste that was home to the Arjana, Albaz and Granga.
- Mountain Temple Lands, a land of many pillars and temples, home of the Naqui, close to the sky.
- Deep Forest, where the law of violence reigned supreme.
- Dawn Marshes, where Keliots carried out their unending hunt.
- Filth-Valleys, where diseased mist choked the horizon.
- Salt-Waste, where the old Yellow Church stood and the wracked heliots crept.
- Eastern Desert, where Tengri rushed through the sky and Strani nomads traveled.
- Desert of the Gods, where pious Alhaja quested for inspiration.
- Island of Giants, a rumored land of men and beasts of great stature.
- Underground Tunnel-Lands, where blood-revered things crawled in the shadows.
- Nameless Chasms, where unspeakable horrors writhed in the darkness.
- Infernal Plane, the bottom of the world, juxtaposed to nonexistence; grey plains of ash.
Religions
In that time, there was no folk without a god, for everything was a god. People would as readily flock by a priest's guidance as by a warlord's command. The vivid colors of the lands gave rise to many religious orders, though not as powerful or populous as nations, but possessing of great and maddening magics. Many Prestige Classes that the Pilgrim can assume are embodiments of the greatest arcane prowess of Achra's many religions.
- Lochra Priesthood
- Flame Cults
- Storm Temples
- Yellow Church
- Apostate Death-Cults
- Grove Priests
- Gore Cults
- Secret Tunnel-Church
Cultures
While names are often the first to be served during distortion's red feast, names of people going the earliest, then names of tribes and families, history kept the names of some cultures that lived during that time. The term, 'culture', was brought up in attempts to roughly unite the different peoples based on their bodily appearance, the nature of their beliefs and the places where they lived at the time of the Flood.