History of the Caliphate

In the Beginning...

The Holy Divine set apart the earth and the sky, the fire below and the water at the edge of the Heavens. In each he crafted his servants, the mighty Elemental Princes, who were charged to bring order to the cosmos of his Creation. Each of the Princes believed his own domain superior to the rest and instead of order brought chaos in their pursuit of supremacy against the others.

Undaunted by their hubris, the Holy Divine created life upon the mortal plane by giving a part of his spirit to a mixture of all the elements. Of all of the living things, he created he loved Man the most and gave him the gift of will to seek him through prayer and devotion. The Elemental Princes became jealous of this gift and sought to subvert man and use him in their personal struggle amongst their kind.

It was so that the Holy Divine sent his angels from the Seven Heavens to guide Man, But the Elemental Princes used trickery and deceit to turn some of the angels against the Holy Divine and bring upon damnation upon themselves. These fallen were cast down to the mortal plane and became the Shaitun or Fallen Angels.

The Dark Age of the Shaitun

The Shaitun tricked man and beast into their servitude and they themselves worked as agents for the Elemental Princes. Their loyalties were flexible and unreliable thus no Prince ever managed to gain the upper-hand in their struggle. It was in these dark times that men lost sight of the Holy Divine and worshipped false idols given to them by the Shaitun.

Men became no better than corrupted beasts and some twisted in their blasphemy forming the fereng races that live in the far edges of the world.

The Ankivari Heresy

Of all the cursed fereng that fell foul and far from the pure love of the Holy Divine, none was more foul or cursed than the Ankivari who rose to be masters of the land for many ages before the Prophets set the people free. The Ankivari grew proud and powerful suckling on the dark powers of the Shaitun, mixing their own blood with the foul abominations and casting their dark magics across the world, enslaving the righteous and torturing the just.

Too long did their dark empire of necromancy spread across the land until the Prophets came and liberated the people.

The First Prophets

During the Ankivari Heresy, Five Prophets of the Holy Divine came to the people and broke their bondage and led them to the promised land of freedom which free men enjoy today.

The First Prophet was Fardur the Blind, who cast out the greatest of the Shaitun from the Akivari Empire and ended their Dark Age upon the mortal plane.

The Second Prophet was Darvasha the Great, who broke the bonds of slavery and led the people across the Azure Sea to freedom.

The Third Prophet was Cyric the Wise, who taught the people the Law of the Divine and trusted upon the muftis the education of the righteous way.

The Fourth Prophet was Maryam the Guardian, who built the great arcane towers that protect the people from the Ankivari necromancy.

The Fifth and Final Prophet was Kharish the Caliph, who united the sheiks and formed the Caliphate which finally drove the Ankivari to their ultimate destruction.

The Foundation of the Caliphate

The Caliphate was founded by the fifth and last Prophet, Kharish, who found his people spread across the land disunited and prey to heresy of agents of the long-banished Shaitun and the plots of the scheming Djinn.

The people were led by sheiks, some good and holy whilst others proud tyrants who put their pleasure above the needs of the people. Kharish brought the power of the Holy Divine down upon the cruel and merciless and liberated those who suffered. He rallied the sheiks who were just and true to the Law and for the first time mankind was united under one sovereign lord who worked to bring glory to the Holy Divine.

He built the Caliphate with blood and toil and ensured no sheik would enslave good people and no fereng would make prey of the righteous again. His rule of a hundred years was just and glorious. He founded the Jandicary to watch for heresy and instructed the Muftis to be strict in their teachings of the divine law as spoken by the Archangels to the Prophets. He built great towers and sea walls, fortresses against the raiders from the west and the monsters of the depths. He drove back the Darvaki to their mountain fortresses and set forth the peaceful accord with the T'chin that lasted to this day.

Under Caliph Kharish the people prospered but alas when the last Prophet died he left no heir to rule in his stead and the people feared a return to the civil strife of the past. Yet, the Prophet had not been idle or lacking in foresight and he had put in place laws and order with a promise through prophecy that when the high born of the people were ready, one amongst them would rise to be Caliph. Yet lest any seek to pursue power through the blood of the people, he laid a powerful curse on those who broke the peace.

To this day, some four hundred years since the passing of the Caliph, the Caliphate has remained at peace with itself and no sheikh has dared to bring the Curse of Kharish upon his household.