YLARUAM (Emirates of)
Location: North of Thyatis, west of Rockhome and Darokin, south of Soderfjord.
Area: 54,180 sq. mi. (140,326 sq. km.).
Population: 208,000 (recent losses due to civil wars within the emirates).
Languages: Ylari (also known as Alasiyan).
Coinage: Dinar (gp), dirham (sp), fal (cp).
Taxes: 10% sales tax. Also a monthly head tax according to social rank (peasants 1 cp, townsfolk and nomads 1 sp, merchants 1 gp, nobles 10 gp). Heretics (those who refuse to follow the edicts of the Eternal Truth) pay double the monthly head tax. Foreigners used to pay the same rate as heretics, but they have recently been outlawed from residing within the emirates.
Government Type: Bureaucracy with administrative departments called voucheries (such as the Vouchery of Water Resources), under the supervision of the sultan and his grand vizier.
Industries: Textiles, horse breeding, mining, marble quarrying, glassmaking, and the cultivation of dates.
Important Figures: Hassam "the True" al-Kalim (Sultan, human, male, F9).
Flora and Fauna: Horses, camels and cattle are by far the most common animals found, followed by sheep and goats. In the wilderness of the desert, djinn, chimerae, dragons, undead, giant lizards, sphinxes, and manscorpions are all rumoured to be present. Fiends [AD&D: tanar'ri] recently released into the Prime Plane near the Emirate of Nithia are also a rare sight.
Further Reading: GAZ2 The Emirates of Ylaruam, previous almanacs.
Description by Omar-ibn-Chukri.
The emirates have undergone some harsh changes since the ascension of Sultan Hassam al-Kalim and the Kin faction that supports him. Where once this was a land open to outsiders, it has now become a realm where those who do not believe in the Eternal Truth laid out in the Nahmeh are not tolerated.
The Land
The Alasiyan basin is an almost endless stretch of sandy desert, broken only occasionally by rocky barrens and salt flats. Rarer still are the oases and irrigated stretches of arable farmland that barely support the desert's few settlements. To the southwest are rocky hills, barely settled and home to large groups of bandits that formerly plied the trade routes to and from Darokin. As these roads are rarely used any longer, the bandits have been forced to look further inland to support themselves.
The Emirate of Alasiya once covered the majority of this region, encompassing the city of Ylaruam and numerous tribal oases surrounding it. Since the rise of the new sultan, the capital of the emirates has moved further east to Abbashan, and the Emirate of Alasiya has been slowly whittled down from its former size.
The People
Once, foreign merchants, dwarves, and halflings were an occasional, if not common, sight in the city of Ylaruam. Now, with the closure of the Ylari borders, and the moving of the capital to Abbashan, the city has become a shadow of its former self. Population levels in the city and its suburbs have dropped dramatically, and show no signs of improving. The city itself yet maintains its position as a trade centre, playing host to caravans from all across the nation, but the new sultan works hard to cut in on this trade and further the importance of his chosen capital of Abbashan. Indeed, the town of Hedjazi has already been added to the Emirate of Abbashan, and talk is that the town of Tel al Kebir will soon be next.
Nomads of the wastes are well able to provide for their small tribes as they roam through the harsh environment, but their settled cousins have only recently begun to realise how important trade with outside nations is to the continued well being of the population. Unless the sultan makes some drastic changes to his policies of interaction with foreigners, however, the settled regions will continue to suffer.
Recent History
The Emirate of Alasiya is not the only region of Ylaruam to have undergone massive changes. The Emirate of Makistan, along the western border, has suffered from a severe lack of trade as well. This trade deficiency has been brought on by not only the exclusion of foreign merchants, but also the closing of the Rockhome border by the dwarves of that realm. Only Makistan's rich agricultural legacy has allowed it to survive through the trying economic period.
The Dead Place in northern Ylaruam, which allowed
massive numbers of fiends to enter the Prime Plane, has been
closed, but the damage it wrought is not easily forgotten. Many
fiends still roam the lands of Ylaruam, causing havoc wherever they
go. Rumour has it that the sultan is installing his own emir to
take over Nithia and bring the largely heretical peoples there
under his sway. There is also talk of a powerful fiend who is
attempting to form his own regime in the Emirate of Nithia. The
truth of these rumours is as yet unknown.