Ojaum

Ojaum is the land around the northern and eastern shores of the Sunken Sea in southwestern Orithea. It is part of the larger Druune Basin, and like the rest of the basin, much of it lies below sea level. Like the Kelimarian plain to the west, Ojaum is thickly forested and experiences ample rainfall. While some has been cleared for farming over the centuries, much of the forest remains untouched.

The region's human inhabitants, the Ojaumites, are mostly of mixed Dranur and Kelim stock, although there is also a population of Jairavarda or “lowland Vards,” apparently the descendants of Vardic highlanders who migrated down into the basin from their ancestral homeland of Varadeska long ago. Ojaum is also home to a sizable halfling population, and pockets of wood elves and wild elves exist in the deep reaches of the forest. Rulership of Ojaum is historically fluid; various parts of the region have, at various times, been controlled by the Kelimarian sultans to the west, Dranurians to the east, the now-destroyed Sularian kingdom of Chaleban to the south, assorted local potentates, and, for several centuries, a particularly huge and powerful dragon.

Thus, despite its verdant landscape and balmy climate, Ojaum has had a particularly fraught and violent history. In centuries past, the Ojaumites were notorious for feuding viciously amongst themselves and for long, bloody grudge-wars between various local rulers or chieftains. [Insert pre-Shekondar history here]. From 745 to 1168 CV, it fell under the domination of the dragon Shekondar, who persistently terrorized the region and crushed any number of attempts to challenge his power (as well as encouraging a prolonged upswing in the activity of various draconic cults). This unhappy state of affairs persisted for over four centuries until the dragon was finally slain by the Tefranite templar Zhallu Nine-Spears; but her subsequent attempts to bring order to Ojaum ended abruptly with her assassination by XXXXXXXXX agents (probably seeking Shekondar’s hoard) a short time later.

The area was then wracked by a series of wars between the Kelimarian sultanate and the allied kings of Dranuria, both seeking to bring it under their suzerainty in the aftermath of the dragon’s demise (and, at least initially, to lay claim to the wealth of the hoard, which the XXXXXXXians never managed to abscond with). The conflict dragged on inconclusively and both sides eventually found excuses to disentangle themselves. In this, they were probably encouraged by the fact that the hoard had been split up into smaller shares over time and much of the plunder had found its way into both Kelimarian and Dranurian treasuries anyhow, only to flow back out to bankroll the ongoing war. What followed, however, was an even more prolonged period of sporadic but vicious warfare between the patchwork of mercenary commanders, petty warlords, adventurers, and independent local margraves left scattered across the disordered landscape in the aftermath.

[Matters were just settling down under the influence of priestly intervention, a Banisyra truce, when Gol Garga appeared on the world stage… orcish horde passes through Ojaum, causes much damage and leaves many stay-behind elements to infest the region for generations to come (especially the great green-skinned forest orcs from the far south of Orithea, a large force of whom were sent into Ojaum by Gol Garga specifically because of their familiarity with such terrain).]