Esan, Land of Desert and the Scorch

"*Our people are what made this land what it is. Those that live within their cities, hiding behind tall walls of stone, they know not the true majesty of Aenfirdas, the true beauty of the world. Their death will come, by my sword, and it will come swiftly. I will tear their cities apart, stone by stone!*"
—Mu'awi Auhktirat-Laha ibn-Muawi 'the Dancer', Patriarch of the Congregation, King of the Dunes
"*My fate is my own, and it has always been such. Praise Aenfirdas, for she has blessed my path to power - and in her name I will conquer the world. May the Paleskins quaver, for the true masters come!*"
—Atraxerxes ibn-Muawi Wajhaabaz, Thrice-Blessed Warmaster
   Great windswept deserts, pockmarked by small wellsprings of water - oasis after oasis, covered in civilization. Far to the South, just north of the lands of Arotir, lay the territories of a proud and young people - the Esani, born of Aenfirdas and her want to create, and born into a world that despises them. Given the last parcels of creation left alone by the other powers in the world, they quickly erected an Empire that would eclipse those seen in the South, and rival even the greatest hegemons of the East. The Saltanate's rise saw the decline of the tribalistic and divided nature of the Esani, seeing a fracturing of the fragile society - one into the bedouin nomad tribes known as the 'Kayaan' and the city-dwelling oasis-born known as the 'Waijan'. The Waijan would come to rule the Saltanate, and influence it's policy and direction in the world, while the Kayaan would retreat into the deserts and mountains. This would see the Kayaan conduct a millennia-long off-and-on conflict with the Waijan, never unifying enough to overcome them. Mu'awi, in the modern era, would come close; and yet, he would fail.

The Waijan saw the expansion of Esan as the highest priority, and so they expanded in all directions - they reached the Thyraic, the Kelen, and the Ovisdon. Ruling from rich floodplains that would soon make up the bulk of Esani population, to the southlands of the Sea of Slaves that saw Esani corsairs raid the coasts of Ovispron for fresh laborers and where the grand city of Khehim was erected on the Strait of Mikele - it's fabled port holding dozens of fleets of corsairs that would hound the coasts of the Ovispron, Rzians and Dokaali for centuries. And to the far south, nearest the southern edge of Ovispron and at the mouth of the Lake Xerises, the fabled port city of Nausem was constructed. It would, alongside Khehim, see millions of slaves pass through their gates and into the wider world of the Esani and beyond. Around the city of Nausem, however, were dozens of colonial ports constructed by the Ovisproni over the centuries, as well as Arotiric settlements that had begun to snake their way up the coast. In the Godswar, when the port city of Nausem had fallen, Magi who had defected from the wider Esani armed forces nearby, in clear disregard for orders, set off a magical explosion the likes of which would create the Ring of Kaesed, better known as the Desolation of Arash, the name for the region that the Esani had. Millions died in the explosion, and the magical exposure claimed the lives of the Magi who survived the initial explosion caused by their vast ritual, and the lives of all of those on the lone island formed out of the center of the explosion.

In the modern era, far detached from the woes of the Godswar and the days when the Sorcerer-Kings brought down the heavens, Esan still stands tall as the last remaining superpower in a world desolated by millennia of magical damnation and heavenly war. Esan's Waijan population stands united underneath the Saltan, while the bedouin nomads who were once united underneath Patriarch Mu'awi gather for another grand jihad against the Saltan and the Pillars that hold up the entire empire. They look to Atraxerxes as their savior, and watch as he passes into the shadow of Naros - into a land consumed by the Greenskins, for the false promise of safety.

*By coin or by blade, Esan means to rule the whole of the world. Nu Iiysan Ayndaras sal-shai nakir, shai'yaat.*

## Early Days of the Sons of Fire

1. ↑ *In the name of Aenfirdas Esan will rule eternal, eternal glory.*