The Empire of Taarakand and Its Seas

Taarakand stretches like a jewelled crescent between the Sapphire Gulf of Ishtar and the Stormbound Sea of Baal, its lands a tapestry of burning deserts, emerald oases, and mist-veiled highlands. The empire’s heartlands lie across vast steppe-plains and fertile river valleys nourished by the twin arteries of the Aramesh and Naharun rivers, which spill into deltas of gleaming salt marshes and mangrove labyrinths alive with ibis, muddragons, and reed-serpents. To the west rise, the Zirav Mountains, snow-crowned and cut with citadels of black basalt; to the east stretch the Amber Wastes, rolling dunes that show mirages to the foolish and whisper ancient songs beneath the wind. The air is perfumed by saffron, sandalwood, and myrrh, the scent of empire carried upon the trade winds that sweep from port to port.

The coasts of Taarakand are wild and alive — coral palaces and sunken forests where the turquoise waters host schools of silverfin, skyfin rays, and the great copperback turtles that glide like molten coins through shafts of sunlight. The Sea of Baal, vast and unpredictable, is both a giver of life and a devourer of ships. It is said that storms here breathe with intent, their lightning forming the shape of bull horns across the sky — the divine signature of Baal himself. Farther south, the waters deepen into the Trident Abyss, a trench of fathomless blue where the Leviathans dwell, the unseen rulers of the deep. Sailors speak of phosphorescent waves that glow with emerald fire, luminous jellyfins, and echo-sharks that sing beneath the hulls at night.

Taarakand’s people have always lived in reverence and defiance of these elements. Theirs is a culture that thrives on contrast: the silk and the sword, the scholar and the mystic, the oasis, and the storm. The seas are not merely borders but arteries of faith and commerce; every harbor city — from Velat, with its alabaster domes, to Therabad, with its basalt piers and flame-lit watchtowers — beats with the rhythm of the tide. Fisher-priests cast offerings to Ishtar at dawn, and sailors whisper invocations to Baal before every voyage. To live in Taarakand is to live at the meeting point of heaven, earth, and sea — where storms are sacred, beasts are divine, and even the winds bear the weight of history.