Bael Turath
With giants controlling the elemental extremes, dragons playing lord in the mountains and steppes and elves ruling scattered lands wherever they dare, the mortal world is not a safe place for mere humanity. It should not be a surprise, then, that some desperate human lords sought what surety they could and swore pacts to devils, often on behalf of their entire families, in exchange for the power to combat their enemies and conquer the world. So did some human nobility become the first of the tieflings, and those tieflings in turn spawned Bael Turath, the Hell-Born Empire. Continental in scope and belting the center of the mortal world, and with greasy fire-pits opening to Hell in every one of its cities, Bael Turath is now one of the major players on the stage of history and, nominally, the lands of humanity; a strange irony, considering that its rulers of are exclusively noble-born Tieflings, a small minority in their own lands.
A character knows the following with a successful History check:
- DC 20 - Bael Turath's economy thrives on territorial expansion, and the army has brought many new provinces under imperial control in recent years, including such independent zones as the Gnoll Highlands. But these volatile places along the frontier are fiercely independent and have not yet been fully subjugated, making them dangerous ground and no safe haven in the new war with Arkhosia.
- DC 25 - Nominally, an Emperor rules Bael Turath. But the emperor serves many masters, including both the devils who give him his arcane strength and the fractious tiefling noble families without whose wealth and influence nothing in the empire would get done. Worse for the Turathi, the noble families hold old enmities between them, often seated with their devilish patronage, and their struggle for influence (and, indeed, the imperial throne) makes the Turathi aristocracy fractured and unstable. The fact that the Emperor currently has no male heir only adds to the tension, and the end result is that Bael Turath is as much in danger from within as without.
- DC 30 - Pacts with devils are not strictly an artifact of history. Indeed, the Lords of the Nine Hells are happy to make their tiefling bargain anew with anyone who has power sufficient to summon them (away from the prying eyes of the Turathi secret police, of course) and ambition enough to offer them a good deal. A newly-made tiefling must be very careful indeed, though, as the older powers will be only too happy to secure their place by seeing to it he pays his devilish masters much sooner than he had planned.
perfectly.
It informational resource, I'll bookmark it and visit it again!
Vor Kragal
The dark capital of Bael Turath, seat of the Imperial throne.
A character knows the following with a successful History check:
- Ruled by three Tiefling houses - the Barikdral, Kahlir and Zalfura
- Locations: Charspire, Vein Maze, Hellforge Crucible, Tower of the Mirror King, Pyramid of Lost Tales, Bliss
