| Category | Empires | ||||
| World | Bal-Kriav | ||||
| Region | Zythess | ||||
| Government | Oligarchy | ||||
| Capital | Furfar | ||||
| Population | |||||
| Races |
|
||||
| Alignment | |||||
| Deities | |||||
| Enemies | Dema'tira, Drowned of Mephilek | ||||
| Established | |||||
| Map | Honmin |
In the Year 65, a military coup overthrew the Rha'khar Republic. Orchestrated by Burrorolath, a charismatic general renowned for his victory in the First Dema'tira War, he was confident the masses would support his continued leadership of the military and the people. However, Burrorolath's assessment of the situation proved inaccurate when, after dissolving Mephilek's senate, the populace responded with fear and caution rather than acclaim. Drachdekai, a respected authority on Gimrune history during the First Epoch, notes that Burrorolath could no longer relate to the core tenets of gnomish thinking. He explains that this change was due to Burrorolath's harrowing war injuries, which had resulted in him becoming a half-clockwork. Consequently, Burrorolath compelled the Rha'khar populace to channel their creative energies and industry towards military applications. In a speech before his council and an audience of 20,000, Burrorolath issued his first decree:
We cannot afford to lose another city, not even one, to the demented contrivances of Dema'tira. We must bolster the military for the impending conflict and fortify the air forces for bombing runs against their clockwork factories and automatons.
Burrorolath, "First Speech"
This taking the fight to the Dema'tira was unfortunately delayed by a decade. This was because the thirty thousand drowned at Mephilek had created an undead problem. The undead that arose from the carnage and destruction of Mephilek were led by those who had made a death pact with the same deity worshipped by the Dema'tira. The sizeable and formidable undead armies, numbering sixteen in total, compelled Rha'khar to position her soldiers against what became known as the Drowned of Mephilek. This horde of undead was led by sixteen undead senator lords, each having pledged their allegiance in death to The Glutton. These undead senators sought nothing but revenge against Burrorolath and those who stood in their way. The Drowned Senator War continued for ten years, ending only when an enterprising Gimrune captured Burrorolath in a net attached to a balloon. He was then transported over the lines of the Drowned and dropped into one of the densest and darkest of the unnatural fogs. Having achieved their goal, the undead senators returned to the sunken ruins of Mephilek, with the captive Burrorolath in tow.
After the Drowned Senator War, the Rha'khar launched punitive bombing raids against the growing power of the Dema'tira. The balloon ship bombing runs of the Rha'khar were unconventional, involving the dropping of electrical munitions and mines on the enemy. The Rha'khar also dispatched long-range units into enemy territory. These units were equipped and trained to combat the clockworks and their half-clockwork gnome masters. They hunted the enemy while mounted on domesticated rust monsters. Raised like horses by a specialized military division, these beasts could be trained for war, though their insatiable hunger for iron could never be satisfied. As such, their riders wielded weapons forged of obsidian and crystals, and wore armor woven from the Vines of Núlananya. This led to the Second Dema'tira War, in the tenth year of which Lady High Tinker Abre'gah emulated the undead senators of Mephilek, pledging her soul to The Glutton. She sacrificed herself by drowning in the same waters that held the skeletal remnants of Mephilek. Rising as an undead lord, she then directed Mephilek's tireless guards southward towards the strongholds of Dema'tira, eventually securing peace.