The Padashahi Aram
Years ago, I started a game of Minecraft with the goal of making a railway long enough to get an achievement. Since then it has turned into something completely different. In this new series, I will share stories about the Kingdom, as my family and friends have come to call it. I have decided to share them here. I hope you all enjoy them.
My name is Ergan Emir, best salesman, ship captain, dancer and bard to ever exist. In my time I have fought the sea people with all manner of folk both man and mer. I have traveled the lands of Gog and Magog from the northern frozen wastes where the Ice giants dwell and at night the sky fills with the ghostly warriors of heaven as they in their ranks and file of green and violet take arms to fight for control of the heavens as the stars twinkle through the swirling colors like bursts from so many Peking fireworks.
In my time somewhere north of the Caspian I was traveling with a crew after completing a perfect and flawless expedition to find treasure on the high seas in which no one needlessly died. Yes everyone died for a reason. But we’ll get back to that in a second.
I have found myself in the service of the Caliph of Baghdad after finding myself captured at the border only months ago. I had been trying to sneak into town to surprise my favorite mayor and certainly not because there was a bounty on my head and I wanted to flay the local qazi alive if given the chance. I was captured by a border unit on a month-long patrol of the northern border and I was press ganged into service along with the unit for the term of their patrol.
Along with digging their latrines, fetching their water and other sundry tasks I was their main source of entertainment as I told them of my travels through the Taiga and Tundra, along the plains of Eurasia to the Ural Mountains and then down to the Caucasus region. It was there, while attached to a local border patrol unit I found myself in a new place unlike any other.
Upon hearing word of the wonders of this kingdom the captain of the guard ordered me to record my stories for the caliph’s benefit. As such I have endeavored to write a record of my travels and the people whom I met along the way.
I came through a blizzard in the mountains and fell into a river. I was swept down the river and spat out on the bank at the edge of a roll plain of sunflower fields. I followed the river hoping to find some civilization. I found the easternmost border of a kingdom most peculiar.
The most Serene Kingdom of East and West, hereafter referred to as the Padashahi Aram, Serene Kingdom, is bordered on its north and south by lakes which are at least 1 farsang (6 kilometers) in length and up to ⅓ of a farsang (2 kilometers) wide at their widest points. Mountains flank its western border for 2 kilometers and a final kilometer is plains spotted with woods which turns into desert along the southern coast.
In the southern lake there exist many islands. Most are sandy hills rising from the water. Others are green and pleasant. One which is about 2 kilometers to the west has a peculiar flora and fauna. There are no trees there but the mushrooms which grow there are massive. They stretch up into the sky from purple mats of mycelium.
In the northern ocean there is a large island about a kilometer long on which dwells pirates. There are three villages which support the pirate Shah who lives and raids from that island.
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Most travelers will come in from the mountains which guard the north and south flanks of the Dasht-e Aftabgardan, the Plain of Sunflowers, in the local language. To the East lie vast swamps and a small inland lake. To the north the unforgiving cold of Qishlaq where the Turkic people dwell. They line their roads with trees to keep them free of snow and guide the way in blizzards.
To the West we find a birch forest which stretches between the desert and the planes running north and south which creates a defensive barrier. It is here we find Marz-e Dasht, which was originally called Bjarkenstrond or the Border of the birches in the local language. It was also called Aram after the Shah Aram the Kind, who repopulated it. This town has a Shimali style town hall with a small library and craftsmen inside, a police station, a store house along with about a dozen houses in the Shimali style.
The original inhabitants of the town were Shimali, Nords, however they died as a result of the original cactus wall the Shah built to defend against jangjuyan. It was a similar wall along the route which is now known as East West 1 which took the life of an Iron Golem as it went down the rail in a minecart. The town was repopulated with Persian settlers from Paitakht, the Capital, and Sepurdeh,. It is administered directly by the crown and the Shah maintains his original tower home in the South West corner of the inner town.
To the north of Marz-e Dasht is Gandomi, or Hveiti Borg. It sits nestled beneath a Mesa on the edge of a mesa savannah and the desert to the south. When it was discovered there were many treacherous ponds and other hazards which claimed the lives of all but one native. His name was Nuh Ayubi and as he was the only one left in the village he held many positions in his time. The town was repopulated by sending Persian settlers from the children of those who settled Marz-e Dasht. The ruler of this town is the Shah’s son Sartip Zahal, Minister of Agriculture. The Sartip has turned the sandy desert into a golden field of wheat and is working on methods to harvest and sort the wheat as well.
In the town of Gandomi there is a great museum, In which the historical treasures of the kingdom are kept. It has four great wooden walls made of aromatic hardwoods. The heat of the desert preserves the wood and fills the air with the scent of the building’s materials. Cedar, Sandalwood and fir fill the air on hot days. It is supported by columns of beautiful shining granite and turquoise. At four stories tall, making a perfect cube, atop which there is a grand glass dome which is used for observing the stars. Inside the dome are two reflection pools made of obsidian to track the stars movements. Each floor has red and yellow checked patterns and open varandas with alabaster arches supporting the floor above it. On each floor, are enclosed galleries made of wood and metal arches, six each, thirty by twenty meters.
According to the local historian the town’s dryness as a result of the desert and the mesas and mountains around it is both hot and dry. This causes it to be a great place to preserve things of importance as they are less likely to weather. This is also why the king gave this land to the minister of agriculture to begin the band-e sabz project and the reclamation of the desert in the middle of the country for the use of the padashahi.
To the east Marz-e dasht a wide highway stretches north and south. This road runs in a ring around the padashahi and is level the entirety of its length. It passes through mountains and hills rather than around them, an odd feature of the people of this area is their disregard for obstacles. They have a path set in their mind and they proceed on that course until they reach their destination. Obstacles to them are as rain is to the locomotive, simply a feature of the environment, but nothing which will inhibit progress.
To the North of Gandomi is the Lokht posht-e zamard, the Emerald turtle, which is a pavilion made of emeralds where the finest craftsmen, scholars and priests of the realm gather. There the Shah Banu has built many dwellings in the name of friendship between all in the royal family.
North from there we find the Shimali settlement Bandar-e Sang, or Steinvik in the local Nord tongue. They are ruled by a Jarl who is the Shah’s sister and minister of finance in charge of assessing and collecting taxes. She and the Shah were both raised as Shimali however where the Shah has adopted the ways of the locals here In Padashahi Aram whereas his sister has retained her title as per her tradition. This town sits on the Lesser North Sea in the south and stretches to the Shimali Darya, or the Norseman’s sea, in the north. It is here that the Jarl has built a large lighthouse as part of the wall. When the Shah discovered the town It was a collection of small houses around a cave riddled hill on the bay. The Jarl, with some help from the Shah, sealed the hill and built a mighty longhouse upon the hill. It dominates the town. A small salt pond adjacent to the bay was formed into an inner harbor for the town this is home to a port inspection facility run by the Nazaran, the watchers, who are under the command of the Shah’s son Sartip Khushhal Khan. who rules Sahel-e Gech,Turkic name, in the south along the Eastern coast of the Darya-e bozorg-e Janub Great Southern Sea. Formerly this town was the Easternmost limit before the Shah and his son Massoud, explored Qishloq during the copper rush of 17
Sahel-e Gech, a town named for rivers rich with clay. Sartip Khushhal Khan, during his travels before becoming Sartip, had contracted leprosy and now looks similar to a zombie. If that zombie is much more alive. He seems to have brought or harnessed some ambient magic in the area of Sahel-e Gech to bring his mushroom-esce buildings alive. Sahel-e is one of the more isolated towns, but the stretch of rails leading to it is a beautiful road of changing scenery.
From here to the capital stretch many towers which are all within sight of the next. A beacon fire burns atop each tower to show the southern border of the padashahi. Inside each of these is armor and weapons for the Shah’s subjects to defend their shores.
In New Castle some Inglistani men had been settled by the Jarl. The town was originally Persian but the local Jangjuyan tribe held them at knife point. The king burned their tower, built his own across from it and then began building towers along all roads every 200 yards so that travelers could hide and be armed at night. The town is now home to a complex of castles surrounding the Kuh-e Nur or the Hill of Light upon which the Shah has built a complex of government buildings in the Turkic style.
