History of Jistka Imperium

See also: Jistka Imperium

History of Tiandra

In the late years of the Age of Darkness, when the first humans began to re-emerge from their caves, to walk once again the ash-strewn lands of Golarion, only those human tribes dwelling near the equator could stand the constant chill of a land without a reliable sun to provide light and heat. Among these tribes was the tribe of a clever and ruthless hero named Tiandra. Tiandra managed to convince her disorganized and pastoral tribe to exact revenge against a crooked and decaying Azlanti citadel that still stood on the nearby shores of the Arcadian Ocean, in defiance of the disaster brought by Earthfall. The starving and demoralized Azlanti survivors were swiftly slaughtered by the superstitiously enraged tribe. Tiandra ordered her people to gather the few remaining relics, including books and whatever else they could carry off, before burning the building down. Tiandra hid the relics in a cave complex sacred to the Ancestors, a small group of primitive hero-figures of her people. However, the Ancestors were illiterate and even the wisest of them could not read the "magic scratches". The relics and writings of Azlant were quickly forgotten, with generations passing before someone saw them again.

History of Arustun

According to Jistkan hagiography, Arustun and his older brother Ejanos rediscovered the Azlanti treasures in the Cave of Tiandra in approximately -4160 AR. Ejanos wanted to burn the strange scrolls as fuel but Arustun, knowing that these relics were important, contested his brother's claim to them and inadvertently killed him. With Ejanos' death, Arustun suddenly gained the ability to understand the writings and quickly absorbed these sparse treasures of Azlanti lore while in the cave.

Arustun, with his friend Venistos, and his wife Mirnura crafted a ship for himself and his favored companions and traveled the Inner Sea for years from shore to shore searching for knowledge that could enhance what he had learned from the Azlanti relics in the Cave of Tiandra. His travels took him far across the lands of Avistan and Garund, from the shadow-bound warrior-lords of ancient Nidal to the magnificent Sky Citadels of the dwarves. Arustun recruited numerous allies in his quest of civilization, and recorded everything he saw and learned in his extensive journals, later to be collectively known as the Poleiheira. After his journeys around the Inner Sea, Arustun using the forgotten magic of fallen Azlant and Thassilon he had learned, managed to travel the planes, most notably the Eternal City of Axis. While he was in Axis, Arustun finalized his plans to found the empire he envisioned. He returned home from his odyssey in -4120 AR with many foreign associates and allies. He founded the Jistka Imperium and named the capital Mirnura after his beloved wife who had remained behind for all the years of his absence helping their people.

Early period of the Jistka Imperium

The government of the early Jistka Imperium was based on the Poleiheira. It was an imperialistic monarchy focused on expansion and technological advancement. The emperor of Jistka was called the inperantike and Arustun was considered the first inperantike. Subsequent inperantikes were selected from among the most dignified Jistkan military officers or members of the faction of magistrates and the individual was ratified by the Honorat, the eldest and highest-ranking officials of the Imperium.

Jistka was home of powerful magistrates who made pacts with outsiders, mainly with genies, to guard the Imperium's borders and infamous artificers who crafted elaborate mechanisms and golem guardians, using summoning magic to call forth elementals and bound their spirits to their constructs.

Middle Period of the Jistka Imperium

The magistrates and artificers struggled for power during the middle period of the Jistka Imperium. Artificers concentrated on the manufacture of golems and other powerful war machines. As the Jistka Imperium expanded, the artificers built most of their golemwork factories in the Jistkan territories of southern Avistan. The magistrates relied on their extraplanar allegiances and established their most prominent holdings in northern Garund where the genies were prevalent, often putting powerful ifrits and jabalis at the command of their impressive armies of Jistkan legionnaires.

Third period of the Jistka Imperium

The Jistka Imperium ca. -3600 AR spanned from the modern regions of southwestern Cheliax to the southern reaches of Rahadoum and Thuvia.

In the third period of the Imperium, the constant clash of the factions of magistrates and artificers, as well as the corruption in Jistkan high society, reaching even the inperantike itself, had profound effects. The rulers started to name their successors, keeping their family in power. Politicians and military officers married into an increasingly entangled web of genealogies called the Imperial Houses and assassination and forged testaments were the main tool of ascendancy to the throne. Scholars warned the leaders that given such level of corruption and the rapid territorial expansion, the Imperium could not possibly support its people for long, but none of the rulers was willing to halt. At the same time, signs of civilizations to the east began to hinder Jistka's trade with distant partners.

Around -3470 AR with the emergence of Ancient Osirion to the east, Jistkan rulers realized the danger. The Imperium genies began to betray the Jistkans both of their own accord and after being enslaved by Osirion's necromancers. In -3300 AR betrayal of powerful outsider allies and raids from desert nomads weakened Jistka and in -3250 AR the Tekritanin League was formed by the desert nomads. Artificers and magistrates put aside their differences and cooperated. Artificers fueled their golems with the spirits of daemons, devils and demons and they became able of making the notorious fiendish behemoth golems that could stand against Osirion's divs and elemental outsiders. Magistrates built towering fortresses including wonders such as the Jaizun Citadel to focus the power of their elementalists and extraplanar allies.

In -3064 AR the necromantic followers of the Osirion Pharaoh of Forgotten Plagues, the Usij, captured a Jistkan ifrit commander and transformed him into a ghul. They infected him with the terrible disease of Night Plague which the enslaved ifrit traitor took back to his homeland. The deadly Night Plague specifically affected only members of Jistka's royal houses. When the nobles were beset with the plague, it was only a matter of time before their previous feuds re-emerged amid the chaos. Over the next three centuries the Imperial Houses eroded further into infighting which finally spelled the empire's ultimate doom in -2764 AR. The rulers of Osirion, with the help of their new allies among the Tekritanin League, either absorbed or obliterated the Garundi holdings of Jistka. Cities were burned to the ground and countless acres of farmlands were destroyed in their efforts to wipe the empire from the history books.

Many of the ruins that remained after Jistka's collapse were used by the Ancient Osirians to build their own cities, which would later become Rahadoumi cities, millennia afterwards. The Jistkan holdings in southern Avistan were abandoned by the artificers and a series of earthquakes near the end of the Imperium buried the cities and their mighty temple-forges beneath tons of dirt and rock.