Anok-Imaskar

Anok-Imaskar was an empire that existed in ancient Kara-Tur, under the reign of Emperor Kujawa. It was one of the three successor states of the Imaskar Empire after it fell in , the others being Deep Imaskar and Solon. Later historians would mark the Anok-Imaskar period as the First Age of Shou Lung, as it was a precursor to the later Shou Lung empire. Others would even call the empire Shou Lung as well, or even just the Empire.Ronin Challenge has Shou Lung settling the Shao Mountains and Tempat Larang, which is then destroyed in a volcanic eruption, but this is only "centuries" or "hundreds of years" before its setting date. However, The Grand History of the Realms later retconned this, inventing the much-earlier Anok-Imaskar, placing the settlement and destruction of Tempat Larang within its timeframe. Thus, in-universe, the various mentions in Ronin Challenge appear to be a mistaken conflation of the falls of Anok-Imaskar and the First Kingdom of Shou Lung. This article selects references to the early empire in Ronin Challenge and assumes they apply to Anok-Imaskar where they suit the retconned history. However, this retcon shifts events from centuries earlier to millennia earlier.
==History==
Unlike Imaskar's vassals, Durpar and Gundavar, which descended into barbarism, and the Raurin, which became a desert wasteland, the eastern provinces of Imaskar emerged relatively unscathed from the destruction of the western empire. The mountainous Khati province and the flatter Katakoro province were both protected from the Mulan rebellion by distance and the natural defenses provided by the Katakoro Shan. Within a year of Imaskar's fall, in , the surviving artificer Kujawa—who carried one of the False Imaskarcana, Dhonas's Shroud—claimed the Dragon Throne in the Khati city of Thakos (the former capital of Upper Imaskar). With that, he declared himself Emperor and founded a new realm, Anok-Imaskar.
Anok-Imaskar was prosperous and quickly spread east, north, and south across Kara-Tur. Eventually, circa , Kujawa decided to found a second capital city to better govern the new southern lands his nation had claimed, to be called Tempat Larang in the Shao Mountains. The emperor ordered the great Larang Highway be built along existing frontier outposts to the city. Many great magical scrolls and artifacts were traded from Tempat Larang to the empire during his reign. However, the southern empire was harassed by the Segara Sea Lords, powerful and far-ranging pirates of the Segara Sea. When Sangkal Chunbi, governor of Tempat Larang, issued warrants for their arrest, the pirate leader Chan Chiong tried to cut Tempat Larang off from the empire by seizing Sampar, the empire's only southern harbor. However, the canny Chunbi defeated Chan Chiong through a ruse and rehired the pirates, transforming them into a southern fleet for the empire.
Unfortunately, the nearby volcano Mount Bakos erupted in ,The Grand History of the Realms uses the name "Mount Bakos" but this name does not appear in any other source. However, Ronin Challenge tells that Tempat Larang was destroyed by the volcano "Mount Tengkorak", which is located near the ruins of Tempat Larang on the accompanying map. While it is likely that "Bakos" was the Roushoum name for the volcano, this cannot be corroborated. Nevertheless, for simplicity, this article assumes this is the case. covering Tempat Larang in ash and lava and in poisonous gases that slew the citizens. Over the following decades, the empire's southwestern lands were also abandoned. According to later accounts, the emperor thought this disaster was an omen from the gods, and hence abandoned his plans for the south, even erasing them from official records. Thus only vague legends of Tempat Larang survived.
Emperor Kujawa repeated the history of his former peers in Imaskar when he died fighting the celestial dragon T'ien Lung in .The Grand History of the Realms page 33 says Kujawa died in combat with "the celestial dragon T'ien Lung". However, a "t'ien lung" is a generic type of oriental dragon with a name meaning "celestial dragon"; this name may be in error. Ronin Challenge tells that the Immortal Nung Chiang opposed the empire's expansion into Tempat Larang, even triggering the Mount Tengkorak eruption. Furthermore, Nung Chiang manifests as a t'ien lung in the module, and is mentioned to also appear as a spirit dragon. Page 67 presents a story by Awagi Nukichi retelling the fall of Emperor Tan Chin (there called Joon Tsao Choo) at Kuo Meilan to an unnamed "spirit dragon" and appends a disaster striking Tempat Larang (presumably the volcano in the same book) a few years afterward. However, Grand History's retcon places Kujawa's death 170 years later, and Tan Chin's empire centuries after that, with Tan Chin defeated by Chih Shih as normal. Thus, in-universe, Awagi's story appears to be a mistaken conflation of Kujawa and Tan Chin and it's not clear what it might say about Kujawa and Anok-Imaskar, and who killed Kujawa. While it is possible that Nung Chiang is T'ien Lung, no source confirms that Nung Chiang killed any emperor. Page 33 of The Grand History of the Realms also notes that Chan Cheng was the first of the Nine Immortals, suggesting Nung Chiang wasn't an Immortal previously. His death caused the empire to collapse, dividing into a number of warring states, including Chu'ta Te, Kao Shan, Mai Yuan, and Ra-Khati.
One legacy of the empire was the Great Library of Perpustakaan, which survived in the Shao Mountains but was little known beyond the range.
==Geography==
At its height around , Anok-Imaskar covered much of Kara-Tur, stretching from the Northern Wastes and the Celestial Sea in the north to the Segara Sea and Southern Ocean in the south.
Among others, it included the lands of Khati (the realm that would later be known as Ra-Khati) and Katakoro (the later Katakoro Plateau); and a large portion of what was later Shou Lung and T'u Lung, including Chu'ta Te (later Chukei) Kao Shan, and Mai Yuan (which would all be provinces of Shou Lung); and the southern capital of Tempat Larang in the Shao Mountains.In order to cover such far-flung regions of Kara-Tur, Anok-Imaskar likely covered more lands than what is mentioned in Grand History (only a few are given as examples). However, these are as yet unknown.
==Appendix==
===Notes===
===References===
Category:Countries
Category:Empires
Category:Locations in Kara-Tur
Category:Locations on Toril
Category:Locations