Outremer

A sun-bleached wasteland, Outremer lies on the other side of the Dragonback Spine, furling out as far as the eye can see towards the distant horizon and the wavering edge of the Mountains of Mourn. They are the only reliable landmark for 4000 miles.

Geography
Despite making up half of Ur Outremer is only thinly populated. It is a dry land - the water is locked away deep underground in aquifers. Despite its popular image Outremer is not just dunes and dead seas. Its fluted, smooth-worn canyons were carved by flashfloods as much as by the scouring desert wind. These floods still happen during the warming Thaw.

Outremer was not always a wasteland. Long ago it was a lush and fertile place, transformed by the Amaranthines hwo dug ambitious canals and planted forests of oak and cypress. Where the rivers and canals flooded their banks animals gathered - deer, desert hares, wild horses, crocodiles, etc. and farmers planted their crops. Unfortunately the desert crept back gradually, too slowly for the Amaranthines to notice, and swallowed whole cities.

History
Outremer's people, the Akin tribes, are descended from followers of Prince Remer the Lion, nephew of Xander who fled Yavanna and died in Amaranth (some say of a broken heart). Remer succeeded his uncle and established Amaranth as a promising state, a hydraulic empire that might one day rival the splendor of the Summer Court. He exploited artesian wells, mined aquifers, and dug a spiderweb of canals that greened the desert (unfortunately, in a thousand years these wells would begin to run dry). However, the Lion was betrayed, poisoned by his own mother - Queen Scherazade.

The Akin - farmers, herdsmen, court philosophers, engineers, etc. who had served Prince Remer helped the Good Masters usurp Scherazade. However, they were ultimately enslaved and put to work on "greater" projects - like the Ziggurats and the Stone Gardens. Many escaped into the canyons and the deep sands, hiding in caves. Over time they grew into a very beautiful, nuanced society, driven to free slaves and possessed by wanderlust, seeing the desert itself as a kind of god.

While the desert is harsh and unforgiving its people are quite hospitable, going out of their way to help travelers and breaking bread with every stranger they meet. Wherever they set camp a man can find comfort and warmth for a night, even in the Deep Sands.

During the War of the Long Thirst between Tiberium and Amaranth the Akin initially sided with the Tiberians, who claimed to be there to abolish slavery. But in reality their true purpose was securing trade with Yavanna, in preparation for a grand invasion. To reach Yavanna they knew they would need to cross the Mountains of Mourn, and would need water to march armies - wells belonging to the Akin. Ultimately the Tiberians dammed the River Thoran, flooding the canyon homes of the Akin and strangling Amaranth.

When they withdrew from Outremer the Amaranthines tried to take down the damn, but the Akin retained control over its flow and could now hold the city at ransom.

Description
They are nut brown and swarthy, with dark eyes, white teeth, and blue-black hair. Men and women wear concealing sandsilk robes and veils to ward off the Sun and sand, and rarely show their faces except in private. They wear all their worldly wealth on their person (usually coins woven into their veils, gold arm bands, diamond studs, etc.).

Culture
Women, elders, and children are usually kept in hidden sanctuaries and camps, deep in the canyons. Women look after domestic life and guard the wells while men range out across the Deep Sands. However, younger daughters can assume masculine roles at a young age (so long as they put aside all traces of femininity and live as men do; they are also expected to marry widows and adopt orphaned children). They see a woman's ability to carry children in such a harsh environment as a holy thing, so inheritance is matrilineal (a stark contrast to the patriarchy Xandar the Unmoved represented). A man's role, however, is fixed, though they are not pressured to have children.

Sexuality is strictly controlled, because resources are so scarce. Non-vaginal sex is encouraged.

Hawks are their constant companions, and lead them across the desert to distant oases. They're also reputed to scare off dragons.

If a man dies on the road he is wrapped in a shroud and buried in the sand.

Warfare
The Akin rarely go to war, seeing it as an incredible waste of life and resources. Usually they have been the victims of war, and fiercely guard their wells and canyon homes, keeping their locations a jealous secret. When they travel in the open they are heavily armed with wicked scimitars, lances, and javelins; they wear copper scales under their sandsilk robes, and wrap their helms in silk.

Some, however, are cruel raiders (likely because they don't have wells of their own), and tend to ambush caravans when they are far from water and civilization, at dusk, or when a sand storm approaches.

Ghul Wraiths
In the tongues of the Akin  Ghul  roughly translates to "demon" or "death-dealer". It is a fitting name for these supernatural warriors, men who have surrendered their bodies and souls for the sake of vengeance.

They appear when they are least expected. Every account describes them as emerging from the desert mirage, disguised in black robes. On close inspection they appear insubstantial, like a silhouette or heat wavering off the desert floor. A Ghul does not conceal its intentions for as soon as it is seen it flits across the desert like a shadow, a spinning dervish of black cloth. Some stories claim that they call down sandstorms on their victims or that their wailing screams paralyze men with fear. But anyone who has lived through such an encounter knows they make no sound at all - the screams are only your own.

A Ghul's enemies are chosen deliberately; they are always guilty men who have escaped justice, often murderers or traitors. They can smell guilt the way a shark smells blood (note: if you don't feel any guilt at all they might not be able to detect you). All other bystanders are spared unless they stand in their way. Incredibly there are never any wounds on the bodies; instead their victims appear to have simply died of fright!

The Akin tribes believe the Ghul are the guardians of the desert, vengeful wraiths who can only take shape when the Sun is strongest. To seek them out you must travel alone, unarmed, by foot, and without water into the Deep Sands. Only when you are exhausted and vulnerable do they appear as if from nowhere. They do not speak, only hearing your request. If it is worthy (only a demand for justice is acceptable) they will give you the choice of joining their number, or being left to die on your own.

It is hard to say whether this experience is actually real or merely a hallucination. Perhaps it is both, for all things are real in the mind.

Their test is simple. Without warning they attack all at once. The outcome of the fight is inconsequential because really you are only fighting your own demons. Should you vanquish them your sense of self will also be destroyed. In your place there will only be a shadow of a man, burning for vengeance. Burning for justice.

Influences
its native peoples, the Akin, resemble Bedouin (sandsilk robes and veils, nomadic lifestyle, desert hospitality), Pueblo Indians (adobe cities in hidden canyons), and Gypsies (wandering exiles from out of India, wear all their worldly wealth, are generally distrusted by established states like Amaranth who see them as, at best, thieves and swindlers, and at worst as raiders. Their eternal, self-imposed wandering in the desert are evocative of Ancient Israelites. They also have traces of the Islamic Golden Age - they are great astronomers, natural poets, and their oasis communities are strongly inspired by fractal, Cordoban architecture.