The Ruins of the Nuwapians

The genies were not the first civilization to rule over the deserts of Quel'Ahma. Long before the rise of Vardessy, before the Way of the Four Elements held sway, Quel'Ahma was ruled by a great empire of a bygone age, one remembered only by the eldest of the genies of Tasshen. This was the age of the Nuwapian Empire - one of the greatest of its day, and one that saw rise to great advances in the mystic arts - and one that lives on, in its own ways.

There is much that remains still unknown about the Nuwapians. There are many ruins and artifacts yet to be unearthed, and many inscriptions that have yet to be decoded. The Royal Archaeological Society of Quel'Ahma has made it its mission to retrieve as many Nuwapian artifacts as they can to better understand these mysterious people. What is known is that the Nuwapians came from a land far over the sea, settling Quel'Ahma, and there they established a great empire that stretched across the desert sands and as far as into Golnir, ruled by an emperor who was perceived by the people to be a living god, and they held power over the lands for more than three milennia.

The emperors of the Nuwapians were esteemed sorcerers, always seeking to further their power and rise above the common men they governed. It was through their magical aptitude that they cemented the legitimacy of their reigns, and earned fear and admiration from the lower classes. Through magic, the Nuwapians sought to surpass the limits of mortal men; to become stronger and more enlightened. Their ultimate goal was to conquer death itself - and of the ruins that remain among the deserts, there are many great mausoleums where the bones of ancient kings are buried amidst their wealth and the bodies of their retainers, in the hopes that they may one day rise from the dead and make use of such riches.

But perhaps the greatest achievement of the Nuwapians came when finally they managed to unlock the secrets of immortality.

By all recorded accounts, it was the Nuwapians who were the first to discover the secrets of lichdom - the process by which the mortal soul could be separated from the body while still keeping the life force that sustained consciousness, allowing one to live forever. At the height of the empire, the Nuwapians' greatest emperors and nobles were liches, who underwent this process to transcend the very boundaries of mortality, and to become as gods, whose reigns could go untested by time or the sword. With this power, the Nuwapians sought to extend their reach even further, and realize their destiny as the masters of reality.

Ultimately, though, this would not come to pass. Over time, the once-great empire dwindled to a collection of warring city-states and petty kingdoms, before those too vanished. The downfall of the Nuwapian Empire is steeped in as much mystery as its rise. Some say that the emperors, in their pursuit of eternal life, overstretched themselves and lost sight of more earthly concerns, allowing their empires to fall into ruin right under their noses. Some say it was the people who rose up against their masters, tired of being at the whims of such powerful beings. Some even say that the fall of the Nuwapian Empire was an act of Morthanos himself, who sought to punish mortals for their hubris in evading his reach. In the end, the great cities and temples of the Nuwapians fell silent, and were buried beneath the desert sands.

Still, the influence of the Nuwapians was not lost. Their discoveries became a part of the canon of magic and mysticism, and many of their spells and rituals have been passed down and perfected over the ages. So too, the spirits of many great sorcerers of the Nuwapians live on, still standing guard over the ruins of the palaces they ruled from in life. Many Nuwapian ruins mark the burial places of ancient liches, resting in their sarcophaguses until the day comes that the Quel'Ahmans fall and they may once again reclaim their birthright. The traps, guardians, and mystic wards these magicians prepared to safeguard their phylacteries still stand against intruders to this day. And if any of these bygone emperors are released from their slumber, they are not likely to react well to the strange new worlds they discover...