Suggestion: add Zakhara as canon lore and available background region.
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 3:42 pm
Hello, everyone!
I wanted to bring up here to the forums a topic for discussion that arose in Discord a few days ago. Basically: Zakhara.
Just a small briefing for those who don't know of it (and anyone who's more lore-savvy please correct any mistakes I made - I'm not the best-versed on the topic): Zakhara, or the Land of Fate, is a FR-canon region, existing to the south of Faerun, and is similar to Kara-Tur in a sense that it has its own regional Pantheon of deities, and is part of the same super-continent that holds Faerun. If you want a reference for it in terms of culture, architecture, language, peoples, etc. take Calimshan. The Calimshani and the Bedine came from Zakhara, originally. If you're looking for a real-world theme or inspiration for Zakhara, it would basically be the old A Thousand and One Nights tales, with viziers, caliphs, djinn living in the lands alongside people, and so on.
Recently, it came up as a topic on Discord about adding Zakhara as a proper, recognized region to the server's lore and canon, especially - as some remarked - since we already have an even more remote and less-contacted region, Kara-tur, already with some clear presence on the server, in the forms of characters originating from Kara-tur, and so on. Basically, the discussion was about including Zakhara in the same manner, having people play characters originating from Zakhara and so on.
A point was raised that these discussions are usually carried out in the forums, not on Discord, when it comes to trying to bring up an actual suggestion for something new to be included on the server. So, I wanted to bring the topic here for discussion. There was lots of back and forth on Discord, both in favor and against the idea, and I was hoping to just bring that discussion here, with my own suggestion in favor of actually including Zakhara itself.
I'm aware that there are some callenges with including Zakhara, especially with the new Pantheon of deities that will be included, which seemed to be a point a lot of people touched on. However, a lot of it can be written around or adapted, especially as it's the same thing with Kara-Tur's Celestial Bureaucracy - especially as Zakhara is a decently-developed region with tens of different sourcebooks on it. On the flip-side, I think there's a whole lot to be gained by just giving players more options to play more unique and exotic characters and freedom, and to bring to the server and the setting a spice of something new - I even know people who'd love to come give the server a try if they had the option to play a Zakharan character.
I wanted to bring up here to the forums a topic for discussion that arose in Discord a few days ago. Basically: Zakhara.
Just a small briefing for those who don't know of it (and anyone who's more lore-savvy please correct any mistakes I made - I'm not the best-versed on the topic): Zakhara, or the Land of Fate, is a FR-canon region, existing to the south of Faerun, and is similar to Kara-Tur in a sense that it has its own regional Pantheon of deities, and is part of the same super-continent that holds Faerun. If you want a reference for it in terms of culture, architecture, language, peoples, etc. take Calimshan. The Calimshani and the Bedine came from Zakhara, originally. If you're looking for a real-world theme or inspiration for Zakhara, it would basically be the old A Thousand and One Nights tales, with viziers, caliphs, djinn living in the lands alongside people, and so on.
Recently, it came up as a topic on Discord about adding Zakhara as a proper, recognized region to the server's lore and canon, especially - as some remarked - since we already have an even more remote and less-contacted region, Kara-tur, already with some clear presence on the server, in the forms of characters originating from Kara-tur, and so on. Basically, the discussion was about including Zakhara in the same manner, having people play characters originating from Zakhara and so on.
A point was raised that these discussions are usually carried out in the forums, not on Discord, when it comes to trying to bring up an actual suggestion for something new to be included on the server. So, I wanted to bring the topic here for discussion. There was lots of back and forth on Discord, both in favor and against the idea, and I was hoping to just bring that discussion here, with my own suggestion in favor of actually including Zakhara itself.
I'm aware that there are some callenges with including Zakhara, especially with the new Pantheon of deities that will be included, which seemed to be a point a lot of people touched on. However, a lot of it can be written around or adapted, especially as it's the same thing with Kara-Tur's Celestial Bureaucracy - especially as Zakhara is a decently-developed region with tens of different sourcebooks on it. On the flip-side, I think there's a whole lot to be gained by just giving players more options to play more unique and exotic characters and freedom, and to bring to the server and the setting a spice of something new - I even know people who'd love to come give the server a try if they had the option to play a Zakharan character.