Baal Hamazi is the region that is farthest to the northwest of the developed area of the Dark Fantasy X setting. About five hundred years ago, it was a desolate and primitive land of tribal hunters, pastoralists and homestead farmers. This isn't to imply that the place was peaceful; rather, low-grade conflict, raiding and theft of animals, women and occasionally slaves was commonplace, but there were no state actors and therefore no large-scale war.  Then, that all changed over the course of just a few short years.

According to the founding myth, the Empire of Baal Hamazi started when the Awan tribe of human hunter-gatherers claim to have been contacted in an intimate fashion by the Daemon-god Czernovog, the Black Prince. Hutran Kutir was the first of the kemlings of the tribes of the northern drylands, and was the first Prophet-King. According to myth, he was a chief's son of the Awan tribe, and he disappeared into the maze of the Gorgelands for five years. When he returned, he was a full-blown kemling, with obsidian-black skin and hair, glowing yellow eyes, and six horns on his head like a crown, not unlike the descriptions of Czernovog himself. He came back bearing the knowledge of "advanced civilization"; building massive stone buildings, writing, and social organization that was the foundation for the Baal Hamazi empire. He supposedly had 100 wives, over 500 children, and all of them were full-blooded kemlings. Today, most kemlings still claim Hutran Kutir as their semi-mythical ancestor.

Other accounts told throughout what is the former territory of Baal Hamazi have different stories. The scholars of Simashki believe that the legend is inherently unlikely, and that Hutran Kutir, if he actually existed at all, was probably born a kemling the same as all of the rest of them. Because this was a time when the kemling race wasn't common or true breeding, but rather an atavistic or recessive trait for humans with a touch of daemon blood in them, this was usually seen as a great curse on the family that birthed a kemling, but Kutir was born in a position of some power and influence. He probably learned complex architecture, social structure and writing from some of the early neighbors of the region, and most scholars actually favor time spent in Tarush Noptii, the predecessor kingdom of Timischburg. Possibly Kutir returning to the region with a vampiric advisor, even. Kutir was able to quickly conquer and marshal the resources of the Awan tribe, as well as many neighbors, forging them into the force that would found the Baal Hamazi empire, and using imported or captured slave labor to build the first city in the region, Baal Hamazi, deep in the Gorgelands.

In either case, from its heartland in the Gorgelands, his rule spread throughout the so-called drylander tribes, founding other outposts which grew into major urban centers: Nashur, Baal Hishutash, Tahrah, Simashki, Ishkur, Baal Ngirsu, Shushun and Isin. Between these urban centers, much of the wilderness that separated them was also pacified; the legendary Pax Hamazi.  As the empire grew, so too did the population of the kemlings, a now true-breeding race that resembled their mythical founder and his daemonic ancestor: jet black skin, golden eyes, and a cluster of small horns on the tops of the head and forehead. It became fashionable to remove all hair from the head to show off these horns at one point, and that style remains in some of the successor states. The kemlings became a privileged caste. Ultimately, some believe that the growth of the kemlings was what foundered the empire. After nearly four hundred years of relative peace and growth, there grew to be too many kemlings living in indolence, and the resources of the empire started to become strained. The humans of the region were forced to live in poverty supporting their kemling overlords. Rebellions were becoming commonplace, and the bloody reactions to them only led to further seething tension and hatred. Nomadic drylander warriors and the dark Wendaks became a major thorn in the side of the administration, waging guerilla warfare from the bush that consumed the coffers of the empire at an accelerated rate. Diabolists of various types had also always been tolerated, and sorcery was not illegal (at least not for kemlings).  Their rule was, as a result, often somewhat chaotic as having those with significant power go dangerously insane from time to time; not to mention the consorting with daemons, meant that the stability of their society was limited. This, combined with massive unrest created a situation ripe for collapse.

The sequence of events about 150 years ago that caused the fall of Baal Hamazi is confused and fraught with a number of obviously false theories, conspiracy theories, and wild speculation, but fall it did, and in the process, the land was wracked with arcane storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other earth-shattering impacts that left much of it uninhabited and uninhabitable. The capital city of Baal Hamazi itself was buried under a sandstorm.  The rest of the area erupted into full-scale revolt. Nearly every major city was under siege, much of the army had deserted, and even the heir to the king was unable to muster enough support to unite more than a small area under his banner. The capital city was abandoned, and the heir moved his court to nearby Nashur, where his descendants still claim sovereignty over the entire region, and they still claim to rule in "the Old Ways" as Baal Hamazi did in the golden age. This is just posturing, though, and the kings and queens of Nashur have seen a gradual erosion of their power to mere figure-head status. Today, a militaristic warlord rules openly, and is the fourth such warlord to openly run the government.

A few of the rest of the major urban centers eventually emerged intact, although independent. Few kings or chiefs of any stripe have managed to hold onto any power that wasn't local for long. Today, most urban centers are effectively city-states; ruling within their walls, and the surrounding fields and lands, but no further. Most of the territory between the city-states is desolate land, thinly inhabited by tribes who scorn any claims of sovereignty pressed by the city-states. Throughout most of the area, the kemlings have been forced to integrate more with the human castes as well; no longer can they be supported by humans kept in slavery. That was the one nearly universal outcome of the many rebellions. Only Nashur in the far north has managed to keep its humans firmly under the thumb of the kemlings. Given the disaster that befell the capital itself, many kemlings have also consciously reverted to the "uncivilized" state, living as their ancestors in hunter-gatherer tribes. Some  of them have relocated to the inhospitable Gorgelands, where they guard the ruins of Baal Hamazi as cursed and forbid anyone to enter. It's a hard life, but the are trying to reconnect with the ways of their ancestors in the hope that they can win back the favor of their daemonic patron.

Many others live in smaller villages, attempting to put the past behind them. They are, in fact, somewhat embarrassed or even openly ashamed of the daemonic and sorcerous excesses of their forebears, like they have something to live down. They are not very centralized, but live in fortified towns and villages in the more fertile parts of the steppes, hunting semi-domesticated antelope, deer, buffalo, and horses as well as growing what crops they can; often shrubby little things like huckleberries and very hardy grains. Those close enough to the coast also fish and hunt seals and walruses as well as the occasional whale. The reality is, though, that the kemling population has suffered a massive diaspora, and while they still make up a significant plurality in the region, they no longer control it. They barely even control themselves, and there are many individuals who quietly pick up and leave the town life either to join one of the barbarian tribes, if they can make themselves be accepted, or just leave the area altogether, looking for greener pastures elsewhere. And the call of their daemonic blood occasionally means that an entire village, town or even larger area falls prey to the sway of some charismatic cult leader who leads them into strange evil practices.

The larger tribes of Drylanders who wander the region have few if any kemlings living amongst them. These tribes continue to grow, because they are (usually) accepting of their cousins, the urban drylanders, who often flee life in the cities where many of them are second-class citizens, to join the tribes which are more friendly to their ethnic group and more meritocratic in general. Many such former urban tribesmen have in fact risen to positions of great wealth and prominence amongst the tribes, and while many more have died ignobly and in poverty, some dissatisfied drylanders are always willing to take the chance and see if they can make it amongst the tribesmen.

A number of daemons still live here as well, making life especially dangerous. The fact that they do, as well as the lost treasures of forbidden knowledge (not to mention just good old-fashioned treasure) lurking in the ruins of daemon-haunted former Imperial cities brings many unsavory, evil, or insane people to the land. Few of them leave. The natives have little patience for most of these, and project a stoic culture of containment on the evil of the wasteland, allowing few safe passage, and rarely trusting the motives even of their own people. Not all of the territory is as inhospitable as the Gorgelands; much of it is comparable to the Badlands of the Dakotas,  and much of the rest of it would be classic cool prairie. That said, there are vast fields of twisted, hardened lava rocks like obsidian and basalt, cooled lava flows and rolling plains of grey volcanic ash over much of the area. Ruins dot the landscape as well, including sometimes half buried in ashfall or hardened lava flows. Most of the inhabitants avoid these areas and consider them cursed, but considering how many people of evil disposition if not outright insane philosophies and personalities live in the area, you never know when you'll find some sorcerer searching for secrets of the past, or a gang of bandits or worse making shelter in these areas, in spite of the haunted nature that many of them clearly have.

Powerful Daemon-lords called the Ash Monarchs are buried and sealed under much of the detritus of what was once Baal Hamazi, exerting their influence as they can through proxies, but unable to enter the realm of mortals. These fiendish overlords from the past are much greater than just about anything in the monster list; equivalents to Cthulhu himself, and would be apocalyptic if released, but most of the other daemons in the monster list can have a place in Baal Hamazi. Servitors and imps make up the majority of these, but succubae rule over them, and more powerful daemons like baal-rogs are the champions of the Ash Monarchs. Others like typhons and nosoi tend to be more solitary and simply rage against whatever weaker creatures that they come across. Nizrech Heresiarchs are rumored to hide in some territories; powerful undead or immortal witches who transcended their humanity in ages past. They aren't necessarily as overtly hostile as you may think, though—the Graeae of Greek mythology or the Norns of Norse mythology could be a good analog, which as in the case of Perseus needing a method to defeat the Kraken, means that occasionally the desperate will petition them for their knowledge or wisdom, although the cost is usually shockingly prohibitive.