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Syharhalna

The Scorpion empire of the Meanders of Darkness — the nation that grew the orcs in a tank.

A human empire of the Meanders of Darkness under the Scorpion totem — "the Syhars." Syharhalna is one of the four official embassy powers and the most scientifically feared of them: its alchemists and technomancers lead the continent in mutagenics, far beyond anything Cadwallon's own omnimancers have managed. Its presence in the Free City is the uneasy, necessary tolerance of a Darkness power everyone does business with and no one trusts.

Its darkest achievement is also its most consequential for Cadwallon. The orcs of all Aarklash were created in Syharhalna's cloning tanks — in 808, in the capital of Shamir, by crossing goblin and human stock. The Khorda clones (the orcs' first name) came out cleverer and stronger than their makers intended, and in 852 they rebelled, butchered their way to freedom, and fled to Bran-Ô-Kor and the Behemoth Mountains. Orc blood still carries the stigmata of those manipulations. Syhar is also one of the three tongues that most shaped the Cadwë language.

Our table: New Shamir

This campaign reflavors Syharhalna as New Shamir — see World Homebrew for the override. Everything below is the PHB baseline the reflavor sits on.

In Cadwallon

  • Embassy in The Embassies district of Den Azhir — one of the four official seats, and the city's standing proof that a Darkness power and a Light power can negotiate at all.
  • Guild dealings — as a Meanders of Darkness nation, Syharhalna falls under the Usurers' umbrella alliance with all the peoples of the Darkness; Syhar alchemists also deal quietly with the Thieves, who broker black-market mutagenic supplies and host discriminated Darkness-aligned visitors.
  • The orcs — Cadwallon's orc community, the second-largest on Aarklash, are the distant descendants of Syharhalna's creation, now a Cadwë people in their own right (Jackal culture, Paths of Destiny — they rejected their makers' alignment).

Relations

  • The orcs — the abandoned creation; their existence, rebellion, and spread all trace back to Shamir. See Cultures and Kal Rajghur, the orc Constable.
  • Akkylannie & Alahan — the Light empires Syharhalna opposes; meetable only in Cadwallon.
  • Guild of Usurers — guild ally under the Darkness umbrella.
  • Guild of Thieves — black-market trade in Syhar mutagens.
  • Dirz — the other Scorpion-culture alchemist power of the Darkness; the PHB lists the two separately, both bioscience-obsessed, so keep them distinct at the table.

Canon & scope

Drawn from the Cadwallon PHB. Syharhalna's geography, government, the city of Shamir itself, and its place in the wider Darkness alliance belong to the Confrontation / Rag'narok line and aren't table canon until we adopt them; our New Shamir reflavor is where table-specific detail lives. What's above is the Cadwallon-facing Syharhalna: orc-makers, mutagen-masters, embassy power, one of the three roots of Cadwë.

See Also