DELETE Royal Court of Suzerain

Members of the Royal Court

Suzerain is ruled by Sultan Afzal ibn’Jusmi-Zafiri of the house of Bakr. He does not rule alone, however, and this has been very much to his benefit during his quarter century as Sultan. Afzal is the third man in his family to rule over the City of Trade. His father, Sheik Ali ibn’Haad-Zafiri and his grandfather, Sheik Kori ibn Zafiri preceded him. Unlike his predecessors, who showed a pragmatism and wisdom borne of their hardscrabble, nomadic upbringing, Afzal is different. He was born into and raised in the lap of luxury. And he was asked to lead at an especially young age when his father died before his time.

Even though he's grown a great deal in his time as Sultan, Afzal is still given to fits of impetuousness and uncertainty. Fortunately, he's been surrounded by counselors who have served him well from his very first day as ruler of Suzerain. Indeed, the two decisions of most import that came from the Sultan's palace during his rule were not really his. It was his court that convinced him to keep Suzerain out of the Horde Wars. The very same advisors went in the opposite direction when the Grand Caliph of Al Qadur moved to invade the Al Hatal and the Free Cities following the end of the Wars.
One of those advisors is Afzal's half-sister, Sheera Altanar. She is the product an affair that Ali had with an elven enchantress named Allanah. Sheera was raised by her mother in Tajiq but she came to Suzerain when her father took the throne and has lived there since. She is Afzal's elder by nine years but it might as well be ninety for the over-abundance of patience she seemingly has, especially relative to her brother. Sheera is said to be the brains of the Royal Court and she rarely makes a statement of advice to the Sultan without considering all the options first and then reconsidering them twice more.

When their father died, Sheera kept her place as closest advisor to Suzerain's lord. She counseled her brother on avoiding war with the Horde and was the most ardent of his advisors in favor of coming to the Free Cities' aid after the wars.
A couple of years before Sheik Ali's death, a young wanderer named Dulcet Riqqiyah came to Suzerain. Dulcet was a rawun; a desert bard or lorekeeper and her songs and tales became favorites of the Sheik and his family. Before his death, Ali asked Dulcet to become an advisor to his children and the rawun accepted. Sheera and he were very close to Dulcet by then so Afzal asked her to stay on as an advisor when he became Sultan.

Dulcet is often referred to the conscience fo the Royal Court because of her tendency for temperance. It was Dulcet who convinced the Sultan to show clemency and kindness to the downtrodden people of Suzerain whose protests and rioting lead to the Night of Emerald Sorrow. And it is Dulcet that remains most vocal in favor of the plight of these people to this day.
If the two women in the Court serve to soften the Sultan's rough edges, the other advisor that dates back to his father's time as ruler hardens them. Khemal el-Qarim was already the functional head of his family's very influential merchant house when then Sheik Ali asked him to join his court as an advisor. When Ali died, Khemal stayed on with the new Sultan and his influence grew as the years passed.

To those not in the know, it may not seem that Khemal can possibly have any influence over the Sultan. The merchant is Afzal's fiercest critic and it is not uncommon for the two to engage in vigorous arguments on some topic or other. On the subject of the unrest in Suzerain in recent years, Khemal is the most militant of the Sultan's advisors. He believes that anyone found to be committing certain perceived offenses such as incitement or insurrection should be immediately expelled from the city and he is quick to remind the Sultan every chance he gets.
Two members of Afzal's Court that should come as no surprise are his military commanders. Qayid Faisal ibn-Mahar is the commander of the city guard of Suzerain, the Haris Zamar. He's just a couple of years older than the Sultan and in his earliest years with the guard, Faisal was assigned to the young Afzal as a tutor and sparring partner. And the dwarf, Daruq Stonecrusher, is the leader of the Palace Guard and also a close advisor to the Sultan.


The Haris Zamar commander is fiercely loyal to Afzal. The two became close friends in their youth and they remain so. Moreover, the soldier and officer has always been grateful to his friend for keeping the city out of the Horde Wars. Faisal's loyalty to Afzal is unfailing. The dwarf is more skeptical however. He served Afzal's father and grandfather and he finds the current ruler of Suzerain to be a poor facsimile of his predecessors. Still, Daruq is loyal to his duty above all else and he takes his job as both counselor and bodyguard to the Sultan very seriously.
The most recent addition to the Sultan's inner circle of advisors is the Bright Mosque's Reverent Brother Drom al-Jabali. A native of Suzerain, Brother Drom has traveled the world and seen many amazing and awe-inspiring things. He returned to his homeland to spend the rest of his life in service of the church but the Sultan convinced him of the alternative of service to the Palace.
The holy man may not have wanted the job of a close advisor to the Sultan but Brother Drom took to it very quickly. He reveled in being a sounding board for the Sultan and his other advisors and his tendency to worry and penchant for pessimism actually served him well. He could deliver counterpoints to the Sultan's more questionable ideas without the acerbic delivery that made the merchant, Khemal no friends in the palace.
Another pair of close advisors to the Sultan are his jann bodyguards, the djinn Jo'hana and the efreeti Fazzukh. The two genies were indentured in service to Afzal as a first birthday gift from a distant cousin of his father. Though Suzerain generally outlaws slavery, out of worry of insulting the relative who was a very influential nomadic tribe's Sheik, Afzal's father was forced to keep the gift. However, he made his son promise as soon as he was old enough to understand that he would free the jann the moment it would no longer be an insult to their cousin.
When he became Sultan, Afzal kept his. When the cousin who bequeathed the unsavory gift died, Afzal gave Jo'hana and Fazzukh their freedom. However, both chose to stay in the palace as the Sultan's bodyguards. Afzal had long since been relying on them for their counsel and this kindness did not go unnoticed. To this day, the Sultan depends on the two jann for the unique perspectives that only they can offer.
Though Afzal keeps a very small group of close advisors already mentioned, he does not rely solely on them. Afzal is said to be keenly aware of his own limitations and, as such, he likes to hear what smart people have to say. So he will often sit in discussion with any number of dignitaries and influential personalities. Some of these, like the known, high-ranking operative of Shadowfayne, Tessa Malbane and the so-called Pirate Queen of the Corsairs, Amberlee Amberjack bring much consternation to the rest Afzal's Court. But there are others that are genuinely welcomed by all.
The Royal Court is relatively small by Afzal's design but some of his advisors counsel him to change that. They encourage him to expand the Palace's relationships with the city's other churches and to bring in more perspectives from the merchant class. Additionally, some have even pushed him in recent years to engage more directly with the common people of Suzerain. Dulcet goes so far to remind the Sultan that he would have a better understanding of the difficulties assimilating of Suzerain's most recent arrivals, the many of denizens of the vanquished Horde that now call the city home, if he brought a representative of these into his inner circle.

Current Business of the Royal Court

Unrest in the City

WIP

Mending Alliances

WIP

New Power Dynamics in the South

WIP

Cultural Renaissance

WIP

Line of Succession

Though he is fast approaching his 50th birthday, the Sultan remains unmarried and this is a sore point with the Royal Court and other influential people and groups in Suzerain. Indeed it is a matter of concern for all citizens of Suzerain. Many of those closest to the throne harbor the belief that Sheik Ali's greatest mistake was not naming his daughter, Afzal's half-sister as his successor. They always preferred Sheera's level-headedness and maturity to Afzal's youth and uncertainty. To some extent, some still prefer the bastard daughter to the son born with the legitimate claim to rule.
Sheik Ali's only wife died giving birth to Afzal and he never remarried or sired another male heir. And, for all his pragmatism, Ali was a traditionalist and just couldn't come to grips with naming a woman to the throne before he died. Those who are critical of this now worry that something will happen to Afzal and the city will be left without a leader. And, most of them know that somewhere, descendants of Ashaak Al-Jabali still live and they have a real claim to Suzerain's throne.
For his part, Afzal doesn't seem bothered by these concerns. His view on the subject of marriage has been rather cynical for a number of years now. And he doesn't believe it a dereliction of his duty to Suzerain that he hasn't produced an heir. Afzal made the decision some years back to pass the throne to his sister if he does not have an heir of his own. He believes, rightly so that his sister will, courtesy of her elven ancestry outlive him by decades. He firmly believes that his city will not be disadvantaged in any way if Sheera is to be its next ruler.

Sibling Rivalry

Afzal himself might have become jealous of his sister if he ever believed there was any real chance she'd replace him as the heir to the throne. But he didn't and he grew to accept and eventually, trust and genuinely adore his half-sister. It wasn't much later that Afzal grew jealous of his sister and for a very different reason.
When Dulcet first came to Suzerain, little was known about her past yet she was still quickly accepted into the Palace. Sheik Ali had tasked her with teaching his children about the history and traditions of their land but the trio's relationship quickly became more than scholarly. They became the closest of friends. Their strong bond helped them weather the tumultuous time following Ali's death. However, those closest to the Royal Court know that their relationship has cooled significantly from what it once was.
They do all they can to maintain an outward façade of being united only by their shared stations as advisors to the Sultan. Yet, that Sheera and Dulcet are much closer than that; that they are, in fact, lovers is widespread knowledge among Suzerain's elite. It is even whispered among the common folk of the city. Many suspect that their relationship was the source of the strain in the trio's friendship. Some even suggest that it is because of the emotional strain borne of his unrequited love for the rawun that the Afzal has yet to marry.
These things may all be true but what's also fact is that the underlying animosity was at its height in the years immediately following the Wars but has been tempered in the decade and more since. Still, the handful of persons who've been around long enough to remember their bond when Ali was still ruler know that things are different now than they were then.

Type

Court, Royal

Capital

DELETE Suzerain

Government System

Monarchy, Absolute

Power Structure

Autonomous area

Divines

• Squall Longtooth

Notable Members

• Squall Longtooth