The Rise of the Zartarians
Once the civilizations of the early ages were no more, a vacuum in power was left to be filled. The race of humans were one of the first to form communities and a group of them decided to occupy the ruins of a former advanced civilization. It didn’t take long before some of them tried to decipher the secrets those beings left behind.
These men and women called themselves Zartarians, and they were the first of our species to meddle with the sinister art of sorcery. This was instrumental to their dominance of their territories and the subjugation of other cultures they came in contact with.
The Zartarian, learning from their long gone masters, used their acquired power to expand their territories and to slave other people.
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The Rise of the Zartarian
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The Zartarians captured many powerful sorcerers of the early races and tortured them until they revealed all their secrets. Rumor has it some of these prisoners are still alive in the underworld left by the Zartarian ruins.
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Even though the Zartarian looked like humans, they came from another word and used their alien knowledge to dominate the local population. The time for the second wave of coloners to arrive is soon approaching.
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The Zartarian wasn’t really a race of humans, but were created when humans were corrupted and transformed by the chaotic energies residing in the ruins of a bygone sorcerous civilization. A current league of surviving Zartarians want to recreate this event.
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The Zartarians were the most prized slaves of a powerful race of alien sorcerers, living too close to be noted by their former masters. They learned sorcery slowly, but were quick to act when the conflict between the ancient civilizations weakened their lieges. Today, they await the same opportunity to take over our world.
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The surviving Zartarian of today are merely shadows of the original ones. Their blood has been diluted over centuries due to miscegenation and lost contact with their origins. A Zartarian necromancer, however, seeks to consume the blood of other Zartarians to empower his own and become a Sorcerer-King.
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The Zartarian strategy to dominate other cultures of that time involved the use of an alien artifact capable of dominating the minds of hundreds of people at once. This object is now lost, but there are many evil sorcerers seeking this relic today.
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The first Zartarian cities were peaceful centers of knowledge and cooperation among many cultures. The arrival of an alien parasite changes everything when it attached itself to one of their leaders and made him discover the corrupting power of sorcery. If one can go to its alien homeword and bring the cure of this blight, the current Zartarians can be healed of their curses.
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An alien race, the one who came to destroy all their enemies, took the Zartarians as apprentices as long as they would swear fealty to their extradimensional lieges. That’s why they achieved so much progress is so little time. These alien master will soon return to demand the price for their tutelage.
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Old Zartarian legends claim they were guided by the first priest of X’Zagoth in a holy trance. Their amphibious god lead them to the ruins of an old City-State, mostly intact, with all their secrets ready to be learned by their people. X’Zagoth has been silent for centuries, but he will awaken sooner or later.
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The Zartarians were able to form the first unified society of humans thanks to a strong charismatic leader who possessed inhuman sorcerous powers. This person was known as the First Sorcerer-King. This king ruled the Zartarian for thousands of years, until he parted to the stars. This fallen star you see tonight is his vessel, returning home.
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The first Zartarians erected great Obelisks on the site of their most important cities. These objects serve as great conduits of the chaotic energies that fuel the art of sorcery. If a great ritual is conducted at the same time in all seven obelisks, no one can tell what can be accomplished.
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To achieve the power they had in the subsequent ages, the Zartarians attracted thousands of other people with false promises to their cities and offered their souls as sacrifices to the powerful god X’Zagoth. The vengeful ghost of these early victims now haunt the ruins of these ancient cities.
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