Akembe

Akembe is a male human Umani in the Om campaign.

Akembe is the cousin of Queen Aziza and when her father died made a claim for the Throne of Socortia. Backed by the Brotherhood of the Coast, and later Orlesea, he led a civil war on Aziza and freely sold any Umani loyal to Aziza into slavery to the Brotherhood and Orleseans.

## Background

When the King of the Umani died, all expected that his daughter Aziza would inherit the throne but Akembe, backed by Silas Thatcher and the pirates of the Brotherhood of the Coast, instead claimed he should rule and initiated a civil war among the Umani.

With the weapons, manufactured supplies and extra men that the pirates supplied the war initially went well for Akembe. He had a sizable following among the Umani, in spite of selling his captured enemies to the Brotherhood as slaves to toil away in the emerald mines for the pirates. Aziza held on, controlling a large amount of loyal followers herself, though the impending alliance between the pirates and the Kingdom of Orlesea seemed that it would make Akembe's victory a foregone conclusion.

## Raid on Darsah

In Dragon of 465 the pirate stronghold of Darsah, which was also Akembe's capital, was raided by a small group of Gildornian agents known as the Royal Explorers. The agents freed several slaves captured by pirate raids on sailing ships, burned parts of Darsah, and stole one of the pirate's best ships while torching all the rest.

When the same Gildornian agents soon freed the shaman Wyzad from his enslavement in the emerald mines, Akembe and the pirates gathered their forces and made haste to the Temple of Shadow and Light, as they anticipated they would head there next to perform the ceremony to affirm Aziza as queen.

## The Battle at the Temple of Shadow and Light

Akembe led a force of Umani loyal to him and pirates to the Temple of Shadow and Light to attempt to deny access to Wyzad and any forces loyal to Aziza. They took up position to block the causeway, and the only safe access to the temple. As expected, they were attacked by a force of Umani warriors and former slaves who the Royal Explorers had freed from the emerald mines. However even with the surprise addition of a small force of Centaurs to help Aziza's forces, Akembe still had his enemy badly outnumbered.

Akembe engaged Aziza's forces, however as the battle raged the Royal Explorers and Wyzad were somehow able to access the temple from an alternate approach and perform the ritual in Aziza's favor. Worse, the Royal Explorers were able to delve into the temple and emerge in control of five powerful golems that immediately began to tore into Akembe's forces. His army caught between two angles, the lines crumbled and many of his warriors and pirates were slain, the rest fleeing for their lives.

## The Back and Forth of War

With the golems in hand, and the momentum of the victory at the Battle at the Temple of Shadow and Light propelling her, Aziza was able to defeat Akembe and the pirates in a number of small engagements and push them ever closer to Darsah, the pirate stronghold and Akembe's capital.

However, as time went by the golems began to grow less effective and reports indicated that two of them had simply ceased to function. Even better, by this time Silas Thatcher had secured an alliance between his Brotherhood of the Coast and the Kingdom of Orlesea, meaning that Orlesean resources and solders began to flow into Socortia in favor of Akembe's claim on the throne. With these new troops and resources Akembe's faction began to gain ground again, taking back territory it had lost.

## The Battle of Socortia

Things were beginning to look quite promising again for Akembe, however that all changed in late Gatekeeper of 465. A squadron of Gildornian ships commanded by Commodore James Upton arrived at Socortia and were able to secretly smuggle a small force to Aziza so she could sign an alliance with the Kingdom of Gildorn and officially request their aid.

With this in hand the Gildornian fleet launched a surprise attack on the Orlesean and pirate ships in harbor and patrolling around Socortia. The resulting battle was a total disaster with several Orlesean ships sunk or captured, and the total withdraw of the allied fleet.

The Gildornians began landing troops on the island, and took Darsah in record time. Akembe, his surviving followers and the pirates and Orleseans who were not able to flee the island were pushed into the jungles where they were being persistently hunted by Gildornians and Umani loyal to Aziza.