Chardok & the Sarnak

Atrebe’s experiments

Atrebe became king of the iksar after the dragons sank his father Rile’s warship with a storm. He was reclusive and devoted to the dark arts, and everyone feared his use of the Shissar’s magic and of his grandfather Venril Sathir’s. His experiments joined a dragon with an iksar to make the sarnak, a race of intelligent dragon-men, and a dragon with a froglok to make the sokokar, flying mounts that made his armies deadly.

A war in the air

For half a century dragonkind fought the iksar’s airborne armies. Atrebe’s son Ganak, a gifted warrior, ended it in an aerial duel over the Field of Bone with Jaled-Dar, then leader of the Ring of Scale. Both died, burned by magic and fire. The dragons retreated, but first they destroyed the imperial palace and every one of Ganak’s hatchlings.

The bastard race

The empire collapsed; the sarnak survived it. They are seven to eight feet tall and around 500 pounds, with curling horns and tails up to six feet long. When the iksar empire fell they fled to the Burning Woods and built a nation the iksar thought had died out: the Sarnak Collective, which means to conquer the iksar, the dragons and eventually all of Norrath. It is run by proven warlords, oracles and spellcasters, though some rebel bands have left Kunark to seek weaker rivals. The iksar guide Vanusk calls them a “foul bastard race” and warns travellers away from the Frontier Mountains, where they keep outposts for breeding goblin and froglok slaves.

The imperial city

Chardok lies deep inside a mountain of the same name in the Burning Wood, hidden in an endless haze of ash, smoke and fog. It is the imperial city of the sarnak, ruled by the Di’zok family under Overking Bathezid, and it runs on slave labour. Homes range from fine stone to simple burrows, and much of the city is built of petrified wood brought in from outside the gates.

Palace, archive and mines

The Palace of Di’zok is decorated with plunder, and its library, Bathezid’s Archive, is a cluttered mess of tomes on Kunark lore. Slaves work the mines beneath the city, and water comes from the underground waterfall and lake called Nak’azar’s Falls.

The court has its intrigues. Prince Selrach warns his father about the inquisitor Korucust’s “terror and false accusations.”

Queen Velazul

By the time of Empires of Kunark in 2016, the sarnak were stronger than ever. The King had left Chardok, and Queen Velazul Di’Zok had united every sarnak under her rule, ending their feuds. They rallied around Atrebe Sathir himself. A master of elder magic, he had vanished after an explosion destroyed his laboratory in the days of the Sebilisan Empire, and many had taken him for dead.