An expanded Har'Akir: More Modern Har'Akir?

[JasperWick]

So Har'Akir has been confirmed for van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, and I am excited to see what's been written for it. However, I WAS a little upset cause when it was announced I already had the framework for a rewrite of Har'Akir set up. Regardless, I'll post my idea for a different and more expanded take on Har'Akir to get your opinions on it. When the new Guide to Ravenloft book comes out I'll definitely see if I can match this up to the new version, if I still want to run this.
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Har'Akir, as written, is a society set in a bronze age society. It hosts a tiny village, a few locales, and the tomb where Anhktepot sleeps. Now, this is good at enforcing the theme of isolation, desolation, and ruination of something that was once great. Har'Akir is an empty desert full of ruins with a single tiny village.

This is perfect for a short game, but as a domain it's a little empty. The theme is that Anhktepot is a man who once desired immortality and once ruled over a great kingdom, but now he is left with a tiny fragment of his kingdom, and a cribbed immortality of undeath. I felt that this was a little lacking thematically, and I wanted to evoke the Mummy movie (Brendan Frasier and Boris Karloff versions). Thus, I had an idea of a larger Har'Akir that would expand upon Har'Akir's adventure potential while keeping the land tethered to Anhktepot and keeping the original charm of desolation.

THE STORY OF ANHKTEPOT
Anhktepot was a king of a vast kingdom, the Kingdom of the Sun. During his rule he was considered a great and noble king -- through his rulership and wise decisions he had made various trade alliances, made great public works, crushed his people's enemies, expanded their borders and brought about a golden age for the Kingdom of the Sun. He was nearing his twilight years when he realized that his children were unfit to rule as he did. He had raised them sloppily in his pursuit of a great kingdom, and they had become spoiled, arrogant, greedy, and unfit to rule as wisely as he did. Anhktepot KNEW that he was a great leader (For better or for worst), and he truly loved his people enough that he wished for them to continue living in a golden age. He desired more time.

A cleric of great standing among the gods, Anhktepot went to the temple and prayed for a way to prolong his life.

"My children are unfit to rule. Have I not brought upon us a golden age? Have I not served your kingdom well? I am dying... but I will not see the kingdom's prosperity die along with me. Give me one more lifetime, and I shall forge this kingdom further, and give you an empire. Give me ten more lifetimes, and I will give you a country! Give me one hundred lifetimes, and I shall gift to you the world!"

The gods were silent -- this was a ludicrous request of course, for no human should live forever. The priests argued that for his deed, Anhktepot had already been awarded a place of great honour in the afterlife, but this mattered not to Anhktepot as he was focused on immortality. Upset, Anhktepot scorned the gods, for he had done all this in their name. He defiled the temple and left. When he awoke the next morning, he found that in retaliation the gods had cursed him. When he embraced his family, he found that anyone he touched had died in no more than a day (Made no sense in the original why he'd KEEP TOUCHING PEOPLE IF HE KNEW IT'D KILL THEM IMMEDIATELY).

As his family was mummified and buried, Anhktepot mourned. Then, he set about researching this. He consulted with priests (from a different temple) on the nature of his curse. When all they could do was chalk it up to the gods, Anhktepot turned to sorcerers and those versed in the arcane, who told him that there was a possibility he could turn this around into a way to achieve undeath. Excited, Anhktepot gleefully retreated into his palace for weeks at a time, turning away from his kingdom's rule to research a way to prolong his great rule.

Unfortunately, both the cruelty of his research on people and his negligence of his people caused a great uprising. Anhktepot was overthrown, and made to be mummified and buried alive. He cursed his people for forgetting his great rule and betraying him, and prayed that someone save him and grant him his wish.

The Dark Powers answered.

ANHKTEPOT'S RISE

Anhktepot awoke after his mummification and reopened his sarcophagus to see he had been buried in his tomb, as properly mandated. He saw that he rose as an undead, and attempted to venture outside of his tomb. Unfortunately, he couldn't. With his spellcasting knowledge intact, however, Anhktepot took to scrying on Har'Akir. 100 years had passed and his name had somehow been forgotten. It seems the children of those who betrayed him never told of Anhktepot's greatness, and all his works devoted to him were destroyed. Anhktepot seethed with rage that his people had forgotten him, but he could not leave. All he had was the trophies of his victories in life in his tomb, and his deceased family, to keep him company.

Every century, he was allowed to leave his tomb. Until then, he could only reminisce and dream of what he and his kingdom had lost. He ventured outside Har'Akir to lay waste to Muhar, slaughtering its people and regaining his mortality for a long time. Through this he could prolong the amount of time he spent outside his tomb, walking as he once did in life. However, when Muhar was left almost empty, the land seemed to split -- the land seperating Muhar from the rest of Anhktepot fell, and a plateau of upper Har'Akir formed. This separates Har'Akir into two pieces -- the barren and empty Har'Akir whose map is unchanged, and the Har'Akir destined to grow.

MODERN HAR'AKIR

Har'Akir developed, almost as one of the happiest places in all of the Mists. They quickly learned trade through the ocean Mistways and started making trade with Hazlan and Pharazia. They quickly absorbed these cultures, and as the old rule of King Anhktepot and the Kingdom of the Sun was forgotten, they forged a new rule entirely, bringing it closer to the golden age of the Islamic World, where science and art flourished while Europe had its Dark Age. Trade with Lamordia, Dementlieu, and Mordent have also helped develop Har'Akir (I'm aiming for this to be between Medieval and Renaissance in terms of culture).

Har'Akir, every century, was beset by oddity. Every century, mass sandstorms, brutal thunderstorms, floods, and plagues would beset Har'Akir. They knew not the reason for this, but many would die in the early days. Nowadays as medicine and infrastructure have advanced, there is less of a death rate from this.

There is also worry over the matter of Har'Akir's geography too. Modern Har'Akir has forgotten most of its history, a few museums and universities keeping its study alive in secretive halls. Modern Har'Akir sits on the top of a plateau, overlooking a deep drop over 150 feet down. This lower desert seemingly holds nothing but rumors of curses, but when archaeologists from Har'Akir's universities climb down, they find an illusionary veil that reveals Har'Akir's ruins, blistering and unbearable heat, and death at the hands of wandering undead. There is worry over a town called Met Kanaah. It sat near the edge of the plateau drop, but last century, the plateau broke and Met Kanaah sunk down to the lower desert.

These are both causes of Har'Akir. Ankhtepot has full dominion over the lower desert and its weather, but can only affect upper Har'Akir once per century. When that day comes, he always rails against these Har'Akiri for having forgotten his greatness and daring to progress without him. The matter of the plateau falling is also due to Ankhtepot's cult -- a group of Har'Akiri who still know of Ankhtepot and his greatness, and seek to pull the full domain down to his rule.

Here's a link to the map, to help visualize it better
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... arAkir.jpg

HAR'AKIR's CURRENT SKETCH
Lower Har'Akir is nearly exactly the same as originally written. Upper Har'Akir is the point of interest though. The city of Al-Ibrahel, where Prince Farul Hashem al-Ibrahel rules and delegates trade with other domains through the mistways. From this city life bustles, but the focus of this city is the University of Har'Akir. Yasmeena Halabi is the head sage of the university, versed in the sciences and history, who sends archeologists and researchers all across Har'Akir (Sometimes even the lower desert) to collect more knowledge. Sadriyah and Qanuyah are smaller towns, the former less fortunate and further from trade potential, the latter more a centre of artisans and craftsmen over the industrialism of Al-Ibrahel. Met Khanaah was ruined and fell into the deep desert a century ago, and the University is still researching how this happened.

There are several groups functioning in Har'Akir. The Green Hand is still here, but instead of just being a group devoted to ensuring graves are not defiled and undead do not rise, they are also a small group of people in the know about Anhktepot, devoted to ensuring knowledge and worship of him do not spread. They believe Met Khanaah was destroyed because of the growth of knowledge of the Old King there, and as such it was pulled into the Old King's slice of the domain. Led by Yasmeena Halabi from the university, Heba Al-Anur in Met Kanaah (fallen), and Sayem Salemi in Qanuyah they are often scholars or unassuming folk who hide away knowledge of Anhktepot and the Kingdom of the Sun in their libraries. Is this censorship of knowledge good or bad? Who knows...

The Children of Anhktepot are located all across Har'Akir, from fallen Muhar and Met Khanaah to the hearts of Al-Ibrahel city. They also know of Anhktepot, but they revere him. They are disillusioned with the troubles of modern Har'Akir -- Prince Farul Hashem al-Ibrahel rules okay but issues like poverty and injustice still exist, and they believe that Anhktepot was SO GREAT of a king that he would do away with these issues (Likely Anhktepot and his scribe's over-inflated prose). They worship Anhktepot as a saviour and seek to spread his knowledge, hoping to bring all under his rule without knowing truly how far he has fallen to evil.

As his old schtick has begun to not work, as his name is still not remembered and the Green Hand does a good job of keeping him in the dark (Along with the Dark Powers), Anhktepot has a new plan this century. Is it ensuring that the Green Hand is destroyed through his children? Allying with some University researchers whose loyalties are shaky (Like Beni from the Mummy)? Maybe daring to send his mummies up to Upper Har'Akir? He has a few options, and none are good for Har'Akir.
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I know this was a long read, sorry about that! I wanted to make a Har'Akir that emphasized the fact that Anhktepot lost something. From Anhktepot's view, his people were ungrateful and the gods would not tolerate his rule forever, foolishly. He was forced to live on to see his people split into two -- those who knew of him and lived under his rule suffered in the lower desert among the ruins of great rule. Those who had forgotten him went on to forge a new civilization and live on fine enough without him. This tears at Anhktepot the Great King, to see his people forget him and his greatness... and to be better off without him in the end? Yikes.

Anhktepot's curse is to see his people advance without him. Any who follow in his way or even know of him risk destruction and stagnancy. He himself is also confined to his tomb most of the time, with nothing to do but dream of when days were better under his rule.

I also wanted to evoke more of the Mummy Movie with Brendan Frasier, as well as tying the Amber Wastes a little closer to the core for potential. A bunch of Core adventures just wandering into Har'Akir with guns and steel weapons to face a mud hut of 50 people felt a little off, so seeing some familiarity makes it a little easier to tie adventures to this domain imo.

Do you like this idea of Har'Akir split into two? Do you hate it? Any changes or suggestions you would make, or add-ons? Tell me below!

[onmyoji]

I definitely like it, but I haven't looked too deeply into Har'Akir since my crew are still on Feast of Goblyns. Gonna be a bit before I get there. So I don't really know how things are canonically to compare them to this, but it definitely sounds good!

What I *AM* going to do, however, is make Anhktepot actually have been Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten from real-life Egypt. He was a heretic pharaoh back them, and little is known about him for sure, so it wouldn't be too hard to craft his story to be fitting of Ravenloft. Especially since he's pretty famous for eschewing the Egyptian gods in favor of solar worship, that can be built into some sort of ego-related story fairly easily. I haven't figured out how I was planning to craft this yet, but it shouldn't be too bad.

The overall point being that it would be cool for my players to see a few darklords from fantasy domains since they'll meet up with several darklords in GC modules 1-4, so having one of them coming from real-life Earth could be a really neat opportunity for some narrative drama. Especially since Har'Akir is basically Egypt already, and they didn't bother to rename any of the gods.

Anyway, thanks for the writeup! This will definitely help as I move forward to ToD!

— onmyoji

[Hell_Born]

Har'akir in canon is basically in the same vein as Forlorn as a glorified wilderness encounter that really doesn't cut the mustard to actually be a full-fledged domain and would frankly go unnoticed if it was dropped entirely. So this? This is a very marked improvement over what we have in canon.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Har'akir in canon is basically in the same vein as Forlorn as a glorified wilderness encounter that really doesn't cut the mustard to actually be a full-fledged domain and would frankly go unnoticed if it was dropped entirely. So this? This is a very marked improvement over what we have in canon.

I disagree, Forlorn has a very well made backstory by Lisa Smedman, really creative and tragic, in my opinion one of the most tragic/gothic background stories for a darklord. The whole domain might seem like a backdrop wilderness full of goblyns but Castle Tristenoira is horrifying. Har' Akir on the other hand is cannonically a bit non epic and non tragic. More like a archeologist excavation themed domain with only Muhar being a place where PC's may interact with ctual people other than monsters. Full with ancient tombs and mummies, but then again one of the elements off Ankhtepot's curse is to be ruler of an insignificant village instead of the vast kingdom he had and of wanting to be human/alive again. A pathetic domain for a pathetic darklord, sleeping most of the timehaving nothing better to do.

[JasperWick]

Har'akir in canon is basically in the same vein as Forlorn as a glorified wilderness encounter that really doesn't cut the mustard to actually be a full-fledged domain and would frankly go unnoticed if it was dropped entirely. So this? This is a very marked improvement over what we have in canon.

I disagree, Forlorn has a very well made backstory by Lisa Smedman, really creative and tragic, in my opinion one of the most tragic/gothic background stories for a darklord. The whole domain might seem like a backdrop wilderness full of goblyns but Castle Tristenoira is horrifying. Har' Akir on the other hand is cannonically a bit non epic and non tragic. More like a archeologist excavation themed domain with only Muhar being a place where PC's may interact with ctual people other than monsters. Full with ancient tombs and mummies, but then again one of the elements off Ankhtepot's curse is to be ruler of an insignificant village instead of the vast kingdom he had and of wanting to be human/alive again. A pathetic domain for a pathetic darklord, sleeping most of the timehaving nothing better to do.

Mhmm. I agree on the non-epic and non-tragic part, but... what is Ravenloft if not tragic. Plus I appreciate the pathetic nature of the domain, but I was wondering how interesting would it be for Ankhtepot to only have TRUE control over his own slice of his OWN domain. The parts that he controls has either been ruined for a long time, or will eventually fall into ruin. All that is outside of his domain prospers and is better off without him. I figured that would sting the proud king more.

[Mistmaster]

My Har'Akir will be big and prosperous and Anktepot curse would be inability to leave his tomb and rule. He can leave only periodically and his attempts to take back the throne are doomed to fail by the hands of his own descendants. His minions try to help him escape and conquer back the nation but usually fail the second if not both.

[JasperWick]

My Har'Akir will be big and prosperous and Anktepot curse would be inability to leave his tomb and rule. He can leave only periodically and his attempts to take back the throne are doomed to fail by the hands of his own descendants. His minions try to help him escape and conquer back the nation but usually fail the second if not both.

Ooh I never even considered how his descendants would factor into this. Already I'm imagining - a lot wouldn't know until some ancestral curse, some might be in a culture devoted to him, and some might be in the green hand