Editing Other kingdoms (section)

===The Sandstone Empire===

As is commonly known, the Sandstone Empire was formed from a series of bordering regions and Kingdoms set between the Spice Kingdoms to the South, and the Twin Cities to the North. While many of the neighboring peoples submitted or were aligned to one of the two spheres of influence, it was the Sandstone region that developed the strange system of a militarized mode of life, and the selection of the majority of it's population for the pursuit of war, and eventually conquest. 

The origins of it's founder, a man whose name is lost to history, can be traced to around 600 Years post Darkness. It is known he commanded a group of refugees from the West, a group of soldiers who claimed to be remnants of a large force from the Far West, across a sea, where monuments of stone stood over a city of sleeping elders, dead kings and courts held in perfumed wrapping and served for all eternity, and a great city grew, the largest in all the world, a paradise that faced cataclysm, as the very earth rebelled against them. The strangers swept aside opposition as wheat before a sickle, and subdued the villages and towns of a wide swath of territory, wearing scales of strange metal, in wheeled carts pulled by strange beast. 

They enslaved all around them, and expanded their holding with each harvest, more and more land and water beneath there banners, more sons and daughters toiling to create the stone temples where they lay there dead, to sleep until their city rose again. The cities were placed in the dry west, where the earth turns to dust, and sand becomes stone, stone sand. The slaves watched well however, and the helot revolts began first in their lands. All the master's were slaughtered in their beds, their legions of overseers and slave soldiers united in a vision of equality, one night of blood wiping out their rule in the Night of Bitter Waters. 

The resulting state, called the Second empire, and the Beggar's empire, was founded on a view of equality through work, a collective society where children and property were to the state, all males were trained to be warriors, and wars were fought to free helots and slaves of the master's lash in all directions. This led to the misguided policy of attacking all slave owners, and getting involved in providing sanctuary and arms in foreign entanglements. The collapse of the 2nd Sandstone Empire in the South can be linked to alliances with the barbarian peoples and complicity in the helot revolts in The Twin Cities at 300 years post shattering. The resulting collapse of the Beggar's Empire, as it was known at the time, and the decree to purge it's mention from from all records following it's cleansing during the second crusade, as well as serving as the sight of the larger battles of the barbarian wars, led to it's decline to it's current state.

Now a poor region of dry lands, burnt and looted ruins of cities, and mud walled sullen villages where the proud decedents of the survivors of that time still scorn the civilized peoples. The are rumors that the so called Seven Legions, who fled west rather than be enslaved again, and who are said to have created a refuge for escaped slaves and helots. Many whisper that the day may come when helots go west, to a new city, where all men walk equal before the other. The bleached bones of that path are well known, so only the truly down trodden make the attempt.

-- by stephen_dean