Doomed Vakra (VAK-rah)
Vakra was a realm founded by the lost people, the giants who called themselves Vashdeg.
The realm of Vakra covered what is today known as the Kharian Basin. However, during the era where Vakra rose and thrived, this region was a fertile plain on the northern coast of the Marikhor Sea that gently rose north into the Kay Vyk Higlands and west into the Vyird Mountains. During this age, the entire plain was known as the Vakran Flats.
Contemporary with the first mortal realm on Fahr Ryasc, Hming-Xia. Vakra is responsible for developing the techniques used in practicing sorcery. It is also the realm which brought the Great Old Ones to Fahr Ryasc and creating the Kharian Basin with it's Doom.
Most learned people know of Doomed Vakra, especially anyone who has studied magic and sorcery. It's legacy persists through the Old Xjinn Empire to the current Irex city-states. Vakra has created the people known as Tralfolk and indirectly, the Bryndffolk. The ancient Zàqu empire of the Síoraí exchanged a great deal of culture and trade with Vakra.
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
Vakran. The language of the old kingdom of Vakra. Though Vakran is now a dead language and is only learned by sorcerers and sages, it forms the basis for the Tralspek family of languages, it's influenced the northern Zàqu realms, especially the dialect of Vaklàno. It's also the language from which several places and things are named, such as the Kygket lakes in the Kharian Basin.
Vakran is also the language that the Vyird species use to communacate with motal people.
Culture and cultural heritage
Vakra had a segregated culture. The Vashdeg were citizens by birth, and hereditary citizenship was granted to non-Vashdeg residents that pleased the citizenry or nobility. There were non-citizen residents who could be permitted tenancy on the estates of citizens, usually in exchange for service or work that citizens considered beneath them. Finally, there was a cast of thralls who were the property of citizens and forced to do the work that tenants could not be persuaded to do.
The majority of Vakran citizens devoted themselves to intellectual pursuits. Philosophy, artisanship, magic. The nobility pursue similar interests but with more esoteric flavor, studying the skies, debating with entities summoned from Beyond, and refining their magical arts to a magnificent degree.
Average technological level
The realm of Vakra was very similar to Rome of Earth in it's technology. A late-iron age culture verging on discovering advancements in science and engineering that would bring the next great era to Fahr Ryasc. However, the technological advancements were stalled due to Vakra's mastery and development of magic and sorcery.
Vakran magic was wonderous to behold, at least in the myths and stories. Flying sailed ships, living statues forged of iron and bronze, stone, even carved of living wood or stitched flesh. Artifacts of terrible power, and entire towers and palaces that were awake and living. Even the weather itself was commanded by the Arch Magi of Vakra.
Art & Architecture
The legends say that Vakra's palaces were living constructs. Bound concerts of elementals that catered to its master's wishes and whims. From the ruins that still hide sunken in the marshes of the Kharian Basin, they made vaulted, open buildings with ornate columns and arches. Tall spired towers from which the very heavans themselves could be observed. It is deduced that pacts with Tkoamkah the Stone King, ruler of the Stone Elementals provided otherworldly stone building material for their structures.
Common Myths and Legends
Vakra never, as a realm, promoted worship of any particular deity or church. Vakra's relationship with detities was transactional. Vakra formed pacts with the Gods, exchanging service or sacrifice for power, knowledge and protection. Initially, these pacts were made with elemental nobility and the sovereigns of the Elemental Court.
The Arch-Magus Gal Vok Tet discovered the Great Old One called "Mathaq" and was the first Vakran to form a pact with one of the deities of Cosmic Chaos. Gal Vok Tet's sorcerous might quickly became unrivaled among the Magi of Vakra, or those from Hming-Xia. Soon, the eight Great Old Ones had formed pacts with most, if not all of the Vakran sorcerers, and the golden age of Vakran Magic had dawned.
Vakra met it's doom over two thousand years ago. The particulars are lost to time, only that the Vakra, in her hour of greatest might grasped too far and too greedily, and the Gods punished her by sinking her into the Marikhor Sea, creating the Kharian Basin. Another myth says that Vakra, at the peak of her power tried to ascend to join the Gods themselves, but failed, and their land fell back to the world, filling the bay and creating the Kharian Basin. Yet Another myth states that Vakra turned from forging pacts with the Great Old Ones and sought new pacts with demons of the underworld. Yet, the demons were deceitful and betrayed Vakra, pulling the realm down into the underworld where they imprison the Vashdeg as slaves for eternity. Some truth may be found in these ancient stories, but it has proven nearly impossible to sift truth from legend.
Historical figures
Major organizations
The Vak Kou Tah. An organization of households that ruled Vakra. The households were each an extended community of obligation and marriage that served as towns among the Vakran Flats. The Vak Kou Tah formed a governing body of noble families who each ruled a household. The resulting parlaiment numbered in the hundreds.
The Goa Dug Xek. This was the Vakran council of magi. The Goa Dug Xek is an advisory body to the Vak Kou Tah. It's authority was primarily in the enforcment of the Pacts the sorcerers of Vakra made with the Elementals and Great Old Ones.
A Word about Thralldom
The author is aware that the term "thrall" is a synonym for "slave" and the practice that creates thralls is much the same as slavery. However, the author has used the term thrall very deliberately.
Slavery, especially in the author's country of origin, the United States, is a dehumanizing institution that, sadly continues to affect real people in our real world today. The author does not wish to promote the institution that has caused so much pain to living real peoople, even in association with a work of fiction, whose characters are works of fiction. Slavery happened in "the land of the free and the home of the brave", as the song goes.
Thralldom is also a real injustice that happened to real living people. It's legacy is evil too. But the author believes the use of the word thrall is a step removed, and represents a lessening of chance that Vakran Thralldom would be perceived as a veil for the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Within the present day of the Fahr Ryasc setting, Vakra has been gone from the world for over 2000 years. The Vazdeg, the beneficiaries of the instiute likewise are gone from this world, destroyed by their own hubris. Their thralls, those who survived the fall of Vakra, have forged their own nations and their own cultures.
The author hopes, xe has written a fictional history which tells a hopeful story. Xe also encourages, if this has seeded curiosity in the reader, to read the history of our real world, and to be kind to one another. The legacy of the slave trade is one of cruelty, please fight that legacy with education and kindness..
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