The Dead City of Sai

The Legend of the Dead City of Sai

In hushed tones, the crones of the Hajjarad will sometimes tell the legend of Sai, The City of the Dead, to their wide-eyed grandchildren. It is said that, long ago, there was a great warrior King known only as Sai, who ruled a great city in the north of the Gadantha Desert. His city was unrivaled in trade and craftsmanship, trading in fine garments, silks, and spices the world over. Lavish towers and halls of solid gold stretched to the sky, and even the average artisan wore silks stitched with diamonds and rubies. So too was the city-state strong, with their warriors riding on the backs of giant sand dragons. None could challenge Sai's great power and wealth, and soon Sai grew from a city-state into a vast empire, stretching across much of Ibanfall. The nation worshipped no god but Death itself, and quickly grew as hedonistic as it was powerful, with men marrying dozens of wives and frequent human sacrifices taking place to ensure the further prosperity of Sai. 

But it came to pass that a great plague fell over the Kingdom. Sai himself looked on with horror as his subjects writhed in agony, covered with sores and blackening flesh. Within a week, half the men, women, and children in the city lay dead, and the King was filled with a deep sorrow for his people and their suffering. So deep was his anguish and fear of his own death that he sacrificed his wife and two sons to Death, pleading for deliverance for his people. In that moment, the High King was granted a terrible power: the ability to reclaim his people from beyond the veil of death. Happily, the King began raising his subjects lost to plague, until it occurred to him that he could merely neglect to raise those subjects who had questioned him in the past. Thus, eternal life became the fate of all faithful citizens of Sai, with their ruler taking on the role of God-King. Some cults across Ibanfall still worship a Lich King known as Saxhor Oulud, believed to be a related legend to Sai. 

Once Sai had conquered death, the society turned from hedonistic to macabre. women were "unfleshed" after menopause, and men's bodies slowly decayed into deathless skeletons as the centuries passed. The God-King Sai ruled over his empire as more of a deity than a King, doling out Final Ends to all who met his ire. The blood of newborns in the Empire became the preferred drink in the Capital, and older "unmen" would gamble their remaining bones in games of dice. Some particularly old citizens of Sai lost every part of their physical bodies and became malevolent spirits, possessing children and animals across the empire. Many who wished for death were denied it, as the God-King wished for the infinite growth of his empire.

Legends conflict on what became of the Dead City. Some stories claim that Ibanian clerics in the north learned to "turn" the undead of Sai, and slowly dismantled the empire. Others argue that the Goddess Ilar herself intervened, casting the great city asunder in a sandstorm that blocked out the sun for a generation. Others contend that the God-King Sai simply grew tired of immortality and broke his own enchantments, sinking the city miles deep beneath the endless dunes of the Gadantha. We may never know if such a city ever existed and, if so, what became of it. But it remains certain that the tale still strikes fear in the hearts of child and grave robber alike.

The Order of Unflesh

In the third age, small groups of aspiring necromancers have cropped up, claiming to have uncovered the secrets of the Dead City. The most notable of these cults is the Order of Unflesh, who claim to have found the ruins of Sai near the border of Taesir and Fafdor. The cult is known to believe in unfleshing as a means of cheating death, and brief encounters with horrible man-skeletons have been reported by what few locals live in the region. The nearest major city, Foldos, has deputized a small task force of 5 Daerydds, who are much more capable travellers of the North Gadantha than humans or even many sand elves. They are tasked with tracking the Order of Unflesh and disrupting their activities whenever possible.