Ashran

Ashran, Land of Flames

The Lands of Asharan are a volcanic landscape and home of Domara people. The Domara are larger humanoids with ashen skin, and as they grow older, they get stony calluses on their bodies. From birth, their hands will become more rocky than the rest of their body. As they grow older, typically one arm becomes more magma like allowing them to have great strength and the natural ability to control fire. Some even have this occur on both arms, and are considered special.

Their society is clan based, but a few notable strong clans lead and do most of the controlling of the land. Most of the time the clans work on building up their own strength to not be overpowered by other stronger clans. Every so often a clan will dominate the others, or some clans will unite with a unified goal. When this happens it usually spells war for the other neighboring nations. When a Grand war is about to be waged, they unite under a warchief with the guidance of a high shaman.

They worship in the great flame god Golesh, who slumbers under the biggest volcano. It is believed that whenever he awakens from his slumber, he will rage across the world, and only the strong and devoted will survive. To this end, the shamans of the clans try to commune and awaken their god. They believe that there may be a few things that contribute to this cause, such as waging great wars, finding strong flame disciples, and sacrificing slaves. To help in finding strong flame disciples, different clans will have regular contests. These typically culminate into a tournament to determine who shall be the High Shaman. Most of the clans practice slavery as means to make their clans stronger and use them as sacrifice from shamans to increase their magical strength and devotion. Usually slaves are humans and elves as those are neighboringraces. Sometimes a slav ecan become one of the clan by displaying martial strength and solidarity. Because of this, it is not uncommon for humans to be members of the tribes as well.

Because they allow slavery, one of their few ‘allies’ are the vampires, as most other nations in the region condone slavery. In terms of other aspects of their economy, they have a very rare and unique metal in the region called Veldspar. This metal is not as strong as some of the other metals, however, its most important property comes from it being very powerful with enchanting. They trade with various nations when not in a heightant stage of war. If trading stops, this is a precursor to a potential conflict.

Not all is well with the Domara people though. The Domara people have a chance to be afflicted with a disease known as “Stone Scale”. The stone calluses on there body grow out of control like a tumor and slowly petrifies the body, usually starting from the arms and slowly creeps across the body. There is no cure, and if progressed far enough it can lead to death. This occurs in about 1 in 4 Domara and usually becomes fatal by late 30s, early 40s. This disease also contributes to the warring culture of the land. Better of to die in battle than in bed from a disease.