Osirion
One of the oldest continuous human civilizations in the Inner Sea region, Osirion is steeped in the legacy of its past. Though the era of Ancient Osirion is long gone, and the magical god-kings who once commanded armies of bound outsiders have been laid to rest in treasure-filled tombs across the nation, its legends continue to inspire and influence its modern incarnation. Not even millennia of Keleshite occupation could quash the traditions and stories of the Garundi. Since throwing off their colonial shackles in 4609 AR, Osirion has overflowed with patriotic pride and a renewed connection to the lost pharaohs through the guidance of the powerful Khemet dynasty.
Osirion’s settlements have always relied on the annual flooding of its rivers, bringing life and nutrients to otherwise pitiless desert sands. Located at the mouth of the River Sphinx, the nation’s capital, Sothis, is the center of trade in the region. Its sprawling districts spread out from the Black Dome—the shell of dread Ulunat, a beetle-like Spawn of Rovagug slain by the nation’s first pharaoh. Upriver the Pharasmin necropolis city of Wati joins Tephu, City of the Reed People, and An, City of Triangles, at the swampy merging of the Crook and Asp Rivers. All are protected by the militia at Ipeq, a bastion constructed by enslaved djinn and efreet and equipped with a fleet of magical scorpion boats. A few oasis cities such as Eto and Shiman-Sekh manage to survive along trade routes in the desert. Even here the touch of ancient magic can be felt in the lotus-shaped pools of the Golden Oasis and the black glass labyrinth recently discovered beneath Shiman-Sekh, sealed by multiple pharaohs and said to contain something called the “Seraph of Destruction.”
Despite the nation’s bustling industries and magical and military might, Osirians are constantly reminded that they live in the shadow of their former glory, and Osirion’s landscape is thick with the ruins of the past. Here, the Slave Trenches of Hakotep, recently revealed to be a vast elemental engine. There, the ruins of Tumen, Osirion’s former capital, buried by sandstorms after the death of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension. For every known site of legend, a dozen more lie undiscovered. Upon taking the throne, the Ruby Prince, Khemet III, briefly invited foreign scholars and archaeologists to explore these sites, advancing his goal of raising Osirion’s profile while learning more of the secrets behind the ancients’ miracles. But after both the disastrous return of the Sky Pharaoh a few years ago and uncovering the secret machinations of the Night Heralds hidden among the area’s sites, the prince has attempted to restrict access once more, succeeding only in driving the thriving tomb-robbing business underground. The elites of other nations now have developed a desire for Osirian relics. For those bold enough to face trap-filled corridors, undead guardians, and ravenous monsters, the threat of government punishment does little to keep them from launching expeditions in search of priceless artifacts. And if in the process they end up releasing horrors that prey upon the surrounding cities-well, that just means more work for anyone with a sword or a spellbook.
Osirion’s settlements have always relied on the annual flooding of its rivers, bringing life and nutrients to otherwise pitiless desert sands. Located at the mouth of the River Sphinx, the nation’s capital, Sothis, is the center of trade in the region. Its sprawling districts spread out from the Black Dome—the shell of dread Ulunat, a beetle-like Spawn of Rovagug slain by the nation’s first pharaoh. Upriver the Pharasmin necropolis city of Wati joins Tephu, City of the Reed People, and An, City of Triangles, at the swampy merging of the Crook and Asp Rivers. All are protected by the militia at Ipeq, a bastion constructed by enslaved djinn and efreet and equipped with a fleet of magical scorpion boats. A few oasis cities such as Eto and Shiman-Sekh manage to survive along trade routes in the desert. Even here the touch of ancient magic can be felt in the lotus-shaped pools of the Golden Oasis and the black glass labyrinth recently discovered beneath Shiman-Sekh, sealed by multiple pharaohs and said to contain something called the “Seraph of Destruction.”
Despite the nation’s bustling industries and magical and military might, Osirians are constantly reminded that they live in the shadow of their former glory, and Osirion’s landscape is thick with the ruins of the past. Here, the Slave Trenches of Hakotep, recently revealed to be a vast elemental engine. There, the ruins of Tumen, Osirion’s former capital, buried by sandstorms after the death of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension. For every known site of legend, a dozen more lie undiscovered. Upon taking the throne, the Ruby Prince, Khemet III, briefly invited foreign scholars and archaeologists to explore these sites, advancing his goal of raising Osirion’s profile while learning more of the secrets behind the ancients’ miracles. But after both the disastrous return of the Sky Pharaoh a few years ago and uncovering the secret machinations of the Night Heralds hidden among the area’s sites, the prince has attempted to restrict access once more, succeeding only in driving the thriving tomb-robbing business underground. The elites of other nations now have developed a desire for Osirian relics. For those bold enough to face trap-filled corridors, undead guardians, and ravenous monsters, the threat of government punishment does little to keep them from launching expeditions in search of priceless artifacts. And if in the process they end up releasing horrors that prey upon the surrounding cities-well, that just means more work for anyone with a sword or a spellbook.
History
Easily one of the most expansive—as well as powerful—empires to take hold of the Inner Sea region after the devastation of Earthfall, the kingdom of Ancient Osirion was renowned for its advances in social structure, technological ingenuity, and epic conquests. The pharaohs of this desert empire were responsible for the obliteration and acquisition of both the Jistka Imperium and the neighboring Tekritanin League, and their influence can be felt even now throughout nearly all of northern Garund. The sheer length of time that Ancient Osirion dominated the southern shores of the Inner Sea serves as testament to its glory, and the relics of this old empire can still be found in the towering pyramids that dot the scorching deserts, along with mummified god-kings, beasts of the sands, and mysterious curses few would-be treasure hunters can withstand.
HISTORY OF OSIRION
The history of Ancient Osirion is incredibly lengthy, as the desert empire has existed in one form or another for over 8,000 years now. Osirionologists agree that the kingdom was founded in –3470 AR by a tribal leader known as Azghaad I, but from there, details become a bit more complicated, and theories among scholars vary. Unbeknownst to most, Azghaad himself was merely the pawn of a much greater power—a mysterious man who came from the west and called himself Nethys.
Azghaad knew to trust—or at least fear and respect—the stranger as soon as he first saw him, for Nethys’s skin was of an unnatural violet hue, and his eyes appeared to be made of solid gold, lacking both pupil and iris. He bore riches the fledgling tribal leader could scarcely fathom, and his entire being surged with both divine and arcane might. When Azghaad asked the stranger where he came from, Nethys responded in cryptic riddles, and when Azghaad asked the stranger what he was, Nethys only said, “Your god and your king.”
It was through Nethys that Azghaad gained all of his magical powers, and so he heeded his newfound master’s wishes without question. Nethys commanded that Azghaad keep the god-king’s identity a secret from his comrades, and he instructed him on the method he should use to unite the warring tribes around the River Sphinx. With Nethys’s help, Azghaad showed his people the true meaning of power by laying low the mighty Ulunat, Spawn of Rovagug, channeling the power of Nethys through his own body to destroy the behemoth. This terrifying display of magic was more than enough to unite the tribes under a common banner, and Azghaad soon founded the city of Sothis around Ulunat’s shell, in no small part thanks to Nethys’s secret interventions. Azghaad came to rely on Nethys for all matters pertaining to his fledgling kingdom, but after Sothis had become self-sustainable and Azghaad had grown old as its king, he found that his divine master had left him, and would no longer answer his summons. Nethys had somehow risen to divinity. To repay the god of magic for his deeds, Osirion’s First Pharaoh commissioned construction of a magnificent temple to the All-Seeing Eye, solidifying Nethys’s godhood by instating him as Osirion’s official patron and marking the beginning of the First Age of Osirion. The First Age of Osirion From his otherworldly realm of wizard towers in the Maelstrom, Nethys gazed down upon the empire he had helped to fashion. It was through his hand that Azghaad’s successor, a queen known as the Naga Pharaoh, rose to power in –3412 AR. Through this scion, the All-Seeing Eye would let all know the fickle power of magic, haunting the Naga Pharaoh with violent visions and nightmarish prophecies until he had instilled within her a destructive rage that would send the empire he had created spiraling into oblivion for a small time, and it was the first time Nethys’s temple would see destruction at the hands of one of his chosen leaders, who set the monument on fire in protest against her haunting visions.
Thankfully for the still-young kingdom, Nethys chose to take a more hands-off approach to the management of his empire in the coming centuries. After the Naga Pharaoh perished in the temple fire wrought by her own hands, the people of Sothis rebuilt their church to Nethys the All-Seeing Eye, this time implementing a glorious spire to their nation’s founder, Azghaad I, in hopes of cementing his place in history and supplanting the memory of his destructive successor’s. For several centuries, ambitious pharaohs ruled over Sothis and commissioned the construction of countless settlements and tombs to their own honor, carving out their marks all over northeastern Garund and beyond in the form of titanic pyramids, monolithic spires, and sprawling underground crypts rivaling the size of cities.
Few rivals posed any significant threat to Osirion during this time, and those that did were swiftly vanquished at the hands of the kingdom’s mighty godkings—pharaohs who adopted the term in reverence to their favored patron, Nethys. Their impact on the world around them could be felt even thousands of miles away, as was the case with the Pharaoh of Forgotten Plagues, who with the help of his necromantic advisors—the Usij—and Ahriman, lord of divs, effectively brought about the end of the Jistka Imperium to the west, unleashing the deadly Night Plague upon its royalty and bringing the once-mighty nation of golem-workers to its knees.
Shortly after the Song Pharaoh destroyed the Pharaoh of Forgotten Plagues—banishing Ahriman from the Material Plane and confined his div followers and the cultish Usij to the nigh-endless deserts to the west—Osirion reached the peak of its power in the First Age. The establishment of the city of Shiman-Sekh heralded an unprecedented boom in the arts, technological advances, and cultural milestones. Osirion controlled vast territories throughout much of northern Garund, and with the help of the Tekritanin League, which essentially remained a collection of servitor states to Osirion during this time, its realms spanned the Obari Ocean to the Arcadian Ocean, with large cities and fortress-settlements like zealous Magarai, lawful Deromas, and distant Erspurn dotting the land between.
Unfortunately, the splendor of Osirion’s First Age was not meant to last. When the benevolent and wise Song Pharaoh’s rule came to an end at the edge of a dagger wielded by her assassin-successor Jetrieti I in –2999 AR, the killer effectively ended the national prosperity the Song Pharaoh had instigated. Jetrieti was merely the first in a long line of cruel and decadent rulers, whose gluttonous appetites and dim-witted advisors contributed extensively to the empire’s decline. During Jetrieti V’s reign from –2885 AR to –2866 AR, the Insatiable Pharaoh ordered his legions to raid no fewer than half a dozen of Osirion’s previous emperors’ familial tombs, irreligiously bedecking himself in all manner of pillaged jewels and throwing the mummified corpses of his forebears on massive pyres in Sothis. Some Osirionologists believe that it was during Jetrieti V’s reign that some of the first vengeful spirits of Osirion’s deceased god-kings stirred awake and to undeath, angered at the hubris and dishonor of this new breed of pharaoh. When the pharaoh’s body was found mutilated and bound to Azghaad’s Spire in Sothis one morning, few were surprised at the slaughter, and it was only with hesitation that Jetrieti’s eldest son took the throne later that week. Needless to say, the rule of Jetrieti VI was marked with slightly less arrogance than that of his father.
For more than a millennium afterward, Osirion continued to sink into disrepair. Successive pharaohs’ knowledge that their forefathers might be watching them in the forms of undead mummies and angered spirits did little to dissuade future generations of rulers from their capricious ways, though. Instead, it only inspired a fatalistic ideology in pharaohs’ minds, causing them to think about their roles in the afterlife even more than they did their existences on the Material Plane. Osirion’s pharaohs quickly became obsessed with the idea of life after death, as well as what station they would occupy after their spirits had left their mortal bodies. Though all Osirian pharaohs from this point on took great care to inscribe their tombs with messages to whatever psychopomps came to claim them and filled their burial chambers with heaps of accumulated wealth, perhaps none have left their mark so brazenly on Osirian history as the infamous Incorruptible Pharaoh, An-Hepsu XI, who maintained his throne via well-hidden lichdom for nearly 4 centuries. It was under the foul lich’s rule that Osirion reached its most decadent and unstable condition since the nation’s founding, but it wouldn’t be long before a group of wise and powerful god-kings took the throne and brought prosperity to the desert empire once more. The Second Age of Osirion By the fifteenth century prior to the founding of Absalom, Osirion was in a truly dire state, as its people had been effectively split into four separate factions, each aligned to one of the four dynasties contending for rulership of the empire. As the region stood on the brink of civil war, the main contenders of the dynasties struck a deal, and came to jointly rule Osirion as the Four Pharaohs of Ascension in –1498 AR. Rightly paranoid of betrayal, the four made a powerful pact that sealed their fates together, ensuring that should any pharaoh betray the others, it would spell the downfall of all four of them.
Under the rule of these four powerful god-kings (including Hetshepsu, the Fiend Pharaoh; Ankana, the Radiant Pharaoh; Anok Fero, the Cerulean Pharaoh; and the Pharaoh of Numbers, whose true name has been lost), Osirion flourished and rose to a new state of prosperity, bringing about the nation’s Second Age, also known as the Age of the Black Sphinx. Among their many accomplishments were the construction of Tumen—which they named as Osirion’s new capital—as well as the destruction of the neighboring Tekritanin League, which had served as a useful vassal nation in past centuries, but proved much more valuable when conquered and absorbed into the Osirian empire.
The downfall of the Four Pharaohs in –1431 AR, however, brought about the end of the Age of the Black Sphinx, issuing in once again an era of decline overseen by self-righteous and incompetent pharaohs. Tumen was swiftly abandoned and Sothis reinstated as Osirion’s capital. The recently conquered lands of the now-defunct Tekritanin League fell into barbarism shortly after the pharaoh at that time, Yafeha I, failed to replace the region’s assassinated governor in –841 AR. So it was that, with little more than a whimper, Osirion succumbed to its own hauteur and wastefulness once again.
In 1532 AR, Osirion felt the sting of its self-neglect most clearly when Qadiran operatives—seeing an opportunity to establish their ruling empire of Kelesh in the dying nation—infiltrated Osirion and overthrew the ruling Pharaoh Menedes XXVI, establishing the first in what would come to be a long line of foreign rulers in the desert nation. It wouldn’t be until Osirion entered its Third Age in 4609, when Khemet I claimed the throne, citing a lineage traceable all the way back to Azghaad I, that Osirion threw off the shackles of its Qadiran and Keleshite masters and achieved independence once again. Now, under the rule of Khemet’s youthful and mysterious grandson, the Ruby Prince, Osirion’s fate is uncertain as its citizens come to terms with their still relatively newfound freedom and what possibilities it might entail.
Azghaad knew to trust—or at least fear and respect—the stranger as soon as he first saw him, for Nethys’s skin was of an unnatural violet hue, and his eyes appeared to be made of solid gold, lacking both pupil and iris. He bore riches the fledgling tribal leader could scarcely fathom, and his entire being surged with both divine and arcane might. When Azghaad asked the stranger where he came from, Nethys responded in cryptic riddles, and when Azghaad asked the stranger what he was, Nethys only said, “Your god and your king.”
It was through Nethys that Azghaad gained all of his magical powers, and so he heeded his newfound master’s wishes without question. Nethys commanded that Azghaad keep the god-king’s identity a secret from his comrades, and he instructed him on the method he should use to unite the warring tribes around the River Sphinx. With Nethys’s help, Azghaad showed his people the true meaning of power by laying low the mighty Ulunat, Spawn of Rovagug, channeling the power of Nethys through his own body to destroy the behemoth. This terrifying display of magic was more than enough to unite the tribes under a common banner, and Azghaad soon founded the city of Sothis around Ulunat’s shell, in no small part thanks to Nethys’s secret interventions. Azghaad came to rely on Nethys for all matters pertaining to his fledgling kingdom, but after Sothis had become self-sustainable and Azghaad had grown old as its king, he found that his divine master had left him, and would no longer answer his summons. Nethys had somehow risen to divinity. To repay the god of magic for his deeds, Osirion’s First Pharaoh commissioned construction of a magnificent temple to the All-Seeing Eye, solidifying Nethys’s godhood by instating him as Osirion’s official patron and marking the beginning of the First Age of Osirion. The First Age of Osirion From his otherworldly realm of wizard towers in the Maelstrom, Nethys gazed down upon the empire he had helped to fashion. It was through his hand that Azghaad’s successor, a queen known as the Naga Pharaoh, rose to power in –3412 AR. Through this scion, the All-Seeing Eye would let all know the fickle power of magic, haunting the Naga Pharaoh with violent visions and nightmarish prophecies until he had instilled within her a destructive rage that would send the empire he had created spiraling into oblivion for a small time, and it was the first time Nethys’s temple would see destruction at the hands of one of his chosen leaders, who set the monument on fire in protest against her haunting visions.
Thankfully for the still-young kingdom, Nethys chose to take a more hands-off approach to the management of his empire in the coming centuries. After the Naga Pharaoh perished in the temple fire wrought by her own hands, the people of Sothis rebuilt their church to Nethys the All-Seeing Eye, this time implementing a glorious spire to their nation’s founder, Azghaad I, in hopes of cementing his place in history and supplanting the memory of his destructive successor’s. For several centuries, ambitious pharaohs ruled over Sothis and commissioned the construction of countless settlements and tombs to their own honor, carving out their marks all over northeastern Garund and beyond in the form of titanic pyramids, monolithic spires, and sprawling underground crypts rivaling the size of cities.
Few rivals posed any significant threat to Osirion during this time, and those that did were swiftly vanquished at the hands of the kingdom’s mighty godkings—pharaohs who adopted the term in reverence to their favored patron, Nethys. Their impact on the world around them could be felt even thousands of miles away, as was the case with the Pharaoh of Forgotten Plagues, who with the help of his necromantic advisors—the Usij—and Ahriman, lord of divs, effectively brought about the end of the Jistka Imperium to the west, unleashing the deadly Night Plague upon its royalty and bringing the once-mighty nation of golem-workers to its knees.
Shortly after the Song Pharaoh destroyed the Pharaoh of Forgotten Plagues—banishing Ahriman from the Material Plane and confined his div followers and the cultish Usij to the nigh-endless deserts to the west—Osirion reached the peak of its power in the First Age. The establishment of the city of Shiman-Sekh heralded an unprecedented boom in the arts, technological advances, and cultural milestones. Osirion controlled vast territories throughout much of northern Garund, and with the help of the Tekritanin League, which essentially remained a collection of servitor states to Osirion during this time, its realms spanned the Obari Ocean to the Arcadian Ocean, with large cities and fortress-settlements like zealous Magarai, lawful Deromas, and distant Erspurn dotting the land between.
Unfortunately, the splendor of Osirion’s First Age was not meant to last. When the benevolent and wise Song Pharaoh’s rule came to an end at the edge of a dagger wielded by her assassin-successor Jetrieti I in –2999 AR, the killer effectively ended the national prosperity the Song Pharaoh had instigated. Jetrieti was merely the first in a long line of cruel and decadent rulers, whose gluttonous appetites and dim-witted advisors contributed extensively to the empire’s decline. During Jetrieti V’s reign from –2885 AR to –2866 AR, the Insatiable Pharaoh ordered his legions to raid no fewer than half a dozen of Osirion’s previous emperors’ familial tombs, irreligiously bedecking himself in all manner of pillaged jewels and throwing the mummified corpses of his forebears on massive pyres in Sothis. Some Osirionologists believe that it was during Jetrieti V’s reign that some of the first vengeful spirits of Osirion’s deceased god-kings stirred awake and to undeath, angered at the hubris and dishonor of this new breed of pharaoh. When the pharaoh’s body was found mutilated and bound to Azghaad’s Spire in Sothis one morning, few were surprised at the slaughter, and it was only with hesitation that Jetrieti’s eldest son took the throne later that week. Needless to say, the rule of Jetrieti VI was marked with slightly less arrogance than that of his father.
For more than a millennium afterward, Osirion continued to sink into disrepair. Successive pharaohs’ knowledge that their forefathers might be watching them in the forms of undead mummies and angered spirits did little to dissuade future generations of rulers from their capricious ways, though. Instead, it only inspired a fatalistic ideology in pharaohs’ minds, causing them to think about their roles in the afterlife even more than they did their existences on the Material Plane. Osirion’s pharaohs quickly became obsessed with the idea of life after death, as well as what station they would occupy after their spirits had left their mortal bodies. Though all Osirian pharaohs from this point on took great care to inscribe their tombs with messages to whatever psychopomps came to claim them and filled their burial chambers with heaps of accumulated wealth, perhaps none have left their mark so brazenly on Osirian history as the infamous Incorruptible Pharaoh, An-Hepsu XI, who maintained his throne via well-hidden lichdom for nearly 4 centuries. It was under the foul lich’s rule that Osirion reached its most decadent and unstable condition since the nation’s founding, but it wouldn’t be long before a group of wise and powerful god-kings took the throne and brought prosperity to the desert empire once more. The Second Age of Osirion By the fifteenth century prior to the founding of Absalom, Osirion was in a truly dire state, as its people had been effectively split into four separate factions, each aligned to one of the four dynasties contending for rulership of the empire. As the region stood on the brink of civil war, the main contenders of the dynasties struck a deal, and came to jointly rule Osirion as the Four Pharaohs of Ascension in –1498 AR. Rightly paranoid of betrayal, the four made a powerful pact that sealed their fates together, ensuring that should any pharaoh betray the others, it would spell the downfall of all four of them.
Under the rule of these four powerful god-kings (including Hetshepsu, the Fiend Pharaoh; Ankana, the Radiant Pharaoh; Anok Fero, the Cerulean Pharaoh; and the Pharaoh of Numbers, whose true name has been lost), Osirion flourished and rose to a new state of prosperity, bringing about the nation’s Second Age, also known as the Age of the Black Sphinx. Among their many accomplishments were the construction of Tumen—which they named as Osirion’s new capital—as well as the destruction of the neighboring Tekritanin League, which had served as a useful vassal nation in past centuries, but proved much more valuable when conquered and absorbed into the Osirian empire.
The downfall of the Four Pharaohs in –1431 AR, however, brought about the end of the Age of the Black Sphinx, issuing in once again an era of decline overseen by self-righteous and incompetent pharaohs. Tumen was swiftly abandoned and Sothis reinstated as Osirion’s capital. The recently conquered lands of the now-defunct Tekritanin League fell into barbarism shortly after the pharaoh at that time, Yafeha I, failed to replace the region’s assassinated governor in –841 AR. So it was that, with little more than a whimper, Osirion succumbed to its own hauteur and wastefulness once again.
In 1532 AR, Osirion felt the sting of its self-neglect most clearly when Qadiran operatives—seeing an opportunity to establish their ruling empire of Kelesh in the dying nation—infiltrated Osirion and overthrew the ruling Pharaoh Menedes XXVI, establishing the first in what would come to be a long line of foreign rulers in the desert nation. It wouldn’t be until Osirion entered its Third Age in 4609, when Khemet I claimed the throne, citing a lineage traceable all the way back to Azghaad I, that Osirion threw off the shackles of its Qadiran and Keleshite masters and achieved independence once again. Now, under the rule of Khemet’s youthful and mysterious grandson, the Ruby Prince, Osirion’s fate is uncertain as its citizens come to terms with their still relatively newfound freedom and what possibilities it might entail.
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