(Selected Excerpts from the Yodotai section of the LBS RPG)

The Yodotai originate from a land far to the west of the Emerald Empire. The Yodotai Empire is a vast and powerful nation intent on the idea that they are directed by divine mandate to rule over all lands that exist. Over the past thousand years they have slowly but steadily moved closer to the Emerald Empire. They have met hundreds of cultures in their inexorable march and have conquered them all. The Yodotai are merciful and just in their rule, but they demand complete and utter subservience from their subjects. All must submit to the Yodotai Empire, or die.

The Yodotai armies swell with well-trained troops, filled with the military knowledge of a hundred cultures. The Yodotai do not use magic; instead the spirits of their fallen fight on the battlefield, killing their enemies and blocking the effects of spells. They are a dangerous and highly capable threat that cannot be ignored.

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(Selected Excerpts from the Assassin section of the LBS RPG)

The Jewel of the Desert is a place of sublime beauty, but beauty often conceals a heart of terrible violence. For over three centuries, the Children of the Mountain have served as a constant reminder of this truth. Few residents of Medinaat al-Salaam rivaled the Immortal Caliph in notoriety, but one man came close: Hassan al-Alamut, The Old Man of the Mountain, the Swift Dagger of Night, the Sinister Hand of Death Himself. He was a figure both feared and admired, a killer cursed with long life, and he waged a war of revenge for centuries. While the trademark daggers of his order are immediately recognizable, the primary tools of the Old Man were far more dangerous than steel: beauty and terror. Now, his children fight a silent war across the streets of the city, a feud that has been carried out since one of their own took the very position of power they once sought to overthrow.

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(Selected Excerpts from the Ashalan section of the Legend of the Burning Sands RPG)

Long seen as both protectors and progenitors by the people of Medinaat al-Salaam, the Ashalan are an enigma to the people of the Burning Sands as well as to those of the Emerald Empire. A long-lived race whose nature borders on the paranoid and whose skill at deception can draw parallels to the Kolat or the Shadow, the Ashalan have seen a great deal over the centuries, and know more than most races in either the Jewel of the Desert or the Emerald Empire.

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(Selected Excerpts from the Ra’Shari section of the Legend of the Burning Sands RPG)

Outside Medinaat al-Salaam, observers occasionally see a small parade of wagons, drawn by horse, camel, or both, seemingly poorly adapted for a nomad’s life in the desert, but still rolling in from the deep desert, narrow banners tugged by the desert wind. Sometimes, shoppers in Peddler’s Row encounter an unusually vibrant display of wares, breaking up the monotony of the gray-brown Maze. Every so often, the great thinkers of the Qabal and the theologians of the Jewel can be seen speaking to the impresario of a ring of wagons as they prepare to make a carnival for the evening. While rarely trusted, the nomads known as the Ra’Shari are always watched, because wherever they go, fortune, good or ill, follows.

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(Selected Excerpts from the Jackals section of the Legend of the Burning Sands RPG)

Until the Awakening and their ill-fated alliance with the jinn Kaleel, the Jackals relished their reputation as the terror of Medinaat al-Salaam. A cult originally formed from would-be members of the Order of the Ebon Hand who had failed the Test of the Stone, the Jackals called the sewers of Medinaat al-Salaam their home, emerging to strike at the world above in pursuit of a dark and brooding agenda. The Ebon Stone of the Ebonites was in some ways the center of their existence, for they worshipped the god they believed resided in the Stone, yet also feared it for the horrors it would bring about if it were ever released.

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