Asacar the Black (847-864 ST)
The son of Carshandar and a noble-woman of Enthyr, Asacar served for many years as a sirdar for his father, first capturing and then governing many cities and tribes in the rich land of Arir. His hazars jealously guarded its borders against both the sun-worshipping realms to the east: the Dara Happan Empire and the Kingdom of Darjiin.
Begins unprovoked war with Dara Happa. NB: Carmanians are allied to Darjiin against Dara Happa throughout this period.
First victory against Dara Happa. A trivial skirmish (raiding hazars against Lodrili spearmen), but psychologically important: allows me to describe the difference between Carmanian and Dara Happan technology and technique, and the fear this attack causes.
But Asacar knew no moderation, had not the balance which characterises the man of virtue. He had learned much from his dark mother, and turned altogether from the bright path of honour and noble action. Against the shining lands, he sought allies among the dark folk, who hid from the light in the shadowed passes of the Yolp Mountains.
Wintry attacks on Dara Happa.
Black Empire: After the days of the Lion Shahs were the Black Shahs. They realized that even the brightest day is overcome by night in the end. They aligned the Empire with trolls and bull hsunchen, their wizards summoned Subere's hungry, horrible children, and under them Carmania became the Black Empire. But even as every day is followed by night, so does every night end at the dawn. The Black Empire was defeated by the Lunar Empire and now we of Carmania live under the Red Moon which includes both light and dark within its cycles.
Here we bring in the White War / Black War thing: White War is chivalrous and noble, Black War is treacherous, underhanded and senselessly destructive. Asacar epitomises the latter in his warfare: excess seen as a bad thing (as always with the Carmanian world-view).
The Light and Darkness schism; civil war in late reign. This schism comes about because of early impressions of Dara Happan wealth and strength. Some are convinced this is virtue rewarded, the justly-awarded fruits of their service to the Light; others remembered that Kabash (Gbaji) the Deceiver came from a Bright Empire in Peloria, and determined to conquer them with a new wave of Darkness.
After the first Dara Happan contacts, a split develops among factions of magi who thought the Carmanians should serve one side or the other in the "War of Heaven and Hell".
Theological impact of fighting light with darkness: the victories of the light are more visible, but the dark advances nonetheless? Conquest & division of Baloris lands between Charg and Carmania.
Asacar was slain by a conspiracy of sirdars, outraged at the atrocities he had ordered them to commit upon the battlefield. They raised an army against him, and the Shah could not resist their onslaught. His body was thrown to be devoured by black dogs, taking his soul with them to Hell.
No dishonour was visited upon the family or associates of the slain Shah, save only for the death by burning of his Trollish allies -- but then, they were not human. His son Ammas, a man in the fullness of his strength, retained his position as commander of the armies.
His half-brother Carmandar, son of a princess of Darjiin and already a man of mature years, was anointed as the next Shah of Carmania.
Carmandar the White (865-872 ST)
In his youth, Carmandar had studied the secrets of religion. He dwelt among the viziers and the magi, and knew more splendid things than any other noble of his day. This was a great consolation to him in later life, when the sorrows of the world thrust themselves upon him.
The sirdars chose Carmandar as their commanding general, because he was of Carmanos' blood and known for his piety and purity. They were confident he would not have given the orders that had so incensed them. Yet he gave few orders of any kind upon the battlefield, being a man of much learning yet little craft. This too, in its way, was pleasing to the sirdars, who enjoyed the freedom to choose their own strategy and take destiny into their own hands.
The choice displeased many men of Spol, who had preferred the familiar rule of one who could trace his ancestry back to the Queen Maelola of elder days. They raised the ancient ox-head standards in revolt against their rightful ruler, and for a time the tribute of Spol was lost to the Shah.
Carmandar's first war was fought to defend his mother's kin. The Carmanian host marched to counter the Alkoth hordes, who raged against the citadel-crowned highlands of Darjiin. In battles beneath a sky turned black with thunderclouds and riven with white bolts of celestial fire, Carmandar turned aside the furious destroying mob, lifting their oppression from his gold-masked cousin, the Math-an-Oor of Darjiin. The slaughter was terrible, and the Shah wept for a day and a night to see the corpses of his friends and foemen heaped upon the fields of Darjiin.
Carmandar lacked good fortune on the battlefield. His early devotion to religion had made him less of a warrior than most Carmanian youths, and he suffered grievous wounds twice in battle. Fighting against the Spolite rebels at *, his left hand was maimed, and the doctors had to remove it. "It is no great matter," the Shah said when his healer-viziers reported the extent of the injury, "the left hand is the hand of deceit and impurity, and I am a better man without it."
Again, fighting the men of Alkoth, he was crushed beneath his horse when the Shields of Gold stood against the charge of his Hazars. He was carried off the battlefield, and his viziers discovered that the Shah had lost the use of both his legs. Never again could he ride or walk. "Though it is a dire wound," said the Shah, "my lower parts are the region of base urges and impurity, and I am a better man without them."
Carmandar was killed in darkness, struck through from behind. None knew who his assassin might be. On his tomb is recorded the epitaph he chose: "I was not wicked, nor a liar, nor cruel, neither I nor my family. I thought always of right and justice. Neither to noblemen nor to poor people have I done violence."
As he had no children, having emulated too far the ideal state of purity his mother had taught him in his youth, the succession passed to the eldest son of his older brother: the Black Shah's child Ammas, now one of the finest sirdars of Carmania.
Ammas (873-879 ST)
None know who the mother of Shah Ammas might have been: she is recorded in the Shah-nama only as a "Dark Woman". This may mean she was an unusually discreet Spolite heiress, but in view of the Shah's later achievements there are those who suspect a deeper secret.
On reaching the throne, he was expected to condemn the murder of his uncle, Carmandar. "But it is no great matter," said Ammas, "for he was struck from behind, and it is right that it should remain a mystery who dealt the blow. For what is behind us is ever a Mystery, and the wisest of viziers choose to leave such matters unexplored."
Dealings with Twice Blessed (explaining the first two blessings?) and Man of Five Stones, a "naked growling mystic". Challenged, we can use the line, "Your sticks and stones can never hurt me." "Then we shall contest with words." At this time, "winter chills, troll raids, and hungry monsters stalk Peloria" against the EWF and its Dara Happan allies.
The armies of the Shah needed a war-base for their campaigns against Dara Happa. In the south of Arir, he raised through his arts a black fortress, squat and dark. Its heavy walls crowded out the light; its passages and doors were built to proportions shorter and wider than the human norm. The Ebon City of Qabadash is there to this day, though none would willingly meet with its inhabitants.
Shah Asacar had been cruel, but at least his was a human cruelty. His son alarmed all by his pitiless search for ever greater methods by which he might wreak destruction upon his foes.
878 - EWF conquers Dara Happa.
Shah Ammas was cast out from his nation by the common revulsion of the warriors and priests, disturbed at his excesses. Driven from the cities and towns of civilised men, he made his way to the darkness of savagery and the gloom-shrouded cliffs of the Yolp Mountains to live the lonely life of an exile.
