Karum is a prefecture located on the east coast of Khamhara and separated from Akyrra by a narrow strait known as the Gates of Vortigern. It was one of the founding provinces of the Imperial Confederacy, and the - current - Fourth Empire, although it retained its autonomy longer than the other four.
Karum is drier than the rest of the Confederacy lands, and is comprised mostly of semi-arid savanna and rocky scrub. Further west, the land rises up toward the altitude of the Salandrasar and becomes drier, with increasingly less vegetation.
Throughout its history Karum has always been a crossroad of sorts between the tribes and desert kingdoms of the West and the "civilized" powers of the East. This position has at times put Karum in positions of great power, and at other times in dangerous predicaments.
History[]
Karum was originally populated by semi-nomadic peoples of Bak descent, who were displaced and driven into more marginal regions by an influx of sedentary refugees from wars in the river kingdoms farther west.
Under the rule of these emigrants, Karum (then known as Qarm, Bak; lit. Edge), prospered and flourished, with territorial possessions on both sides of the Gates, it formed a bridge between the East and West, connecting merchants from the - then powerful - kingdom of Urtasht with markets in the deserts and river valleys of the west. Around I-2000 the king of Qarm; Shal-hak; died in battle against the tribesmen who constantly threatened the country's northern border, and his three sons fought over the crown.
This civil war was essentially fatal to Qarm as a unified state. After the youngest brother was assassinated, the country was torn apart between the other two, while the forces of Urtasht marched in from the east, annexing Qarmian lands as they went. By the end of the war the old nation now remained only in pieces: two competing princedoms on the Khamharan coast, a huge tract of land under control of the king of Urtasht, and two small, independent city states on the west coast of what is now Akyrra.
After the collapse of the Second Empire, Karum and Akyrra largely survived the ravaging inflicted on the eastern areas of the Empire, and indeed continued to grow in strength as an independent, unified state under the rule of a Prince.