>Apart from an off-hand reference in KoS, is there any information about
>the "Mad Sultanate/Satrapy of Tokay"? It's described as being a very
>Chaotic place, filled with Madmen, Demons and Werewolves, whose borders
>have a disconcerting habit of being rather fluid.
Yup. The Pass was melted through the mountains by a chaos army in the great darkness and has always been associated with Chaos.
The Mad Sultan was a lover of the Goddess who went insane, along with a large number of his followers, after seeing the Crimson Bat for the first time. They were a major terror in Jarst and Garsting in the early years of the Lunar Empire before Jannisor Moonchaser made a great spell that imprisoned the Mad Sultanate and his army there. Nobody could leave until somebody passed through the Crimson Glow that marked the Sultannate's borders. But since nobody wanted to visit the Mad Sultan or Tork anyway most people were quite happy with this. A slight problem is that its borders wax and wane with Lunar phases.
Fast forward to the Red Emperor versus Sheng Seleris. The Red Emperor is in hiding from Sheng Seleris and seeking to cause as much trouble as he can. So he casts a spell suppressing its glow on the grounds that any havoc and destruction caused is a Good Thing as it will only damage Sheng's Empire. It is easy to condemn the Red Emperor but he's already tried playing nice against Sheng Seleris and it has gotten him nowhere.
Unfortunately for the Red Emperor, there's a Tarshite army in the vicinity which he doesn't know about and it blunders across the borders of the Sultanate and is immediately devoured by Madmen. So before the Red Emperor can get away from the area, crackling insanely in the way only a master villian can, the Mad Sultan shows up with a horde of howling fanatics in tow.
Beyond the Red Emperor saying "oh shit" when he sees the Mad Sultan, nobody really knows what happened next. Some people say that he was killed and the manner of his death allowed him to escape Sheng's curse that was crippling him and reappear alive and whole at Kitor to defeat Sheng Seleris for once and for all. Others whisper that he was devoured utterly and the people who now claim to be Red Emperors are imposters. A few claim that the Red Emperor was maimed so that he could never again be an Emperor and that Sheng caught him and secreted him in some hidden place to prevent him from advising others how to be the perfect emperor that he was.
What happened to the Mad Sultan is better known. It marched into barbarian-held Kostaddi (barbarian meaning horse nomad rather than Orlanthi) and was turned south by Sheng Seleris after having caused major havoc and destruction that "was far greater than all the victories of the Empire against Sheng Seleris" according to the Lunar Wane Chronicle. However elsewhere the same document says that Sheng Seleris "turned the invading horde from his lands with minimal losses". Who do we believe?
When Sheng sent the horde south from Kostaddi, it reached Lakrene (in Talastar) where it ate the good people of Urnandle for morning tea. Jojo the Bojo then invited the Mad Sultan to dinner on some barges. While the Sultan was still feasting, Jojo invoked special magics to send the barges upriver into Dorastor (and the horde followed along the shores). The sight of the chaotic Mad Sultanate send Lunar goodwill among the Talastari plummenting and it still has not recovered.
The Mad Sultan is alive and well in Dorastor. According to D:LoD, he thinks that he is the King of Dorastor and believes it to be a thriving, prosperous place. Rather like Neil Hamilton believing that he is not corrupt or Bill Clinton believing that he did not have sex with that woman, if you ask me.
D:LoD also tells us about some of his followers, the greyskins, although it thinks they are found only in Dorastor and are all that is there of the mad sultan's followers for some unconvincing reason.
>The reason I ask is that I have a campaign situated there.
*boggle*
>The players -
>through no fault(?) of my own - have adopted the attitude that where
>they live is normal, safe and sane, and that it's everywhere else that's
>"Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know". Which I think is rather good, even
>though it was unintended by me.
Your friends are partially into the spirit of things which is a good start. Personally I think Tork is a slavering hellhole that rivals Dorastor.
One of the foundations of the Lunar Way is its philosophy of all-inclusiveness. The Lunar must accept that everything that exists is worthy of inclusion. The Mad Sultan's error was to deny that the Crimson Bat was worthy and so by twisted Lunar Logic, he came to believe that only evil was good.
Your friends share this delusion. Tork to them appears to be "normal, safe and sane" because it manifestly is not. The cultured city streets are actually crazed mazes of ugly lanes inhabited by festering chaotic fiends. Its green and pleasant fields are actually bare rock and only the greyskins can extract substance from them. Everybody else sees the Greyskins as sheep, cattle, goats etc.
Tork believes that the Mad Sultan became the Emperor and defeated Sheng Seleris.
>Maybe it has something to do with the prevalence of Zorak Zorani and
>StormBullies in the Big Wide World: or that geography near the borders
>doesn't match their maps (except on alternate Windsdays).
These Zorak Zorani and Storm Bullies are actually innocent people who have blundered across the borders. The people they have "killed" have been released into the wide world and invariably die while trying to combat that which is "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know" (ie other innocent people).
>As for Chaos - it's respected and feared, but not anathema. Heck, almost
>a majority of the population is technically tainted by chaos, but only a
>very few have 2 heads, tentacles etc.
The people of Tork practice a philosophy that to them seems to make their chaotic nature more acceptable to the cosmos. People with two heads or tentacles can wake up only to find a single head or normal limbs, a miracle that contradicts everything known about chaos elsewhere.
The truth is cruel. The least chaotic seem the most chaotic to the people of Tork. Their philosohy actually allows them to accumulate more chaotic features so that they seem less chaotic. Your friends are broos, the most chaotic of all, for they do not think of themselves as chaotic. If they do try and obtain a chaotic feature, then mysteriously they cannot.
>"Live and let live" is the norm,
>with retribution reserved for anyone (Cacodemon cultists mainly, but
>also Chaos-haters, over-enthused Vivamortists, Malia-ites, Theddists
>etc, and Fanatics of every stripe ) who rock the boat.
These boat-rocking cultists are actually the least chaotic people around. By refusing to embrace chaos, they appear to be hideous chaotics.
>It's not unusual
>to see Chalana Arroi shrines issuing certificates of cleanliness to
>Broos, registered Ghouls going in to their "special shops" for supplies
>much as registered drug addicts go in for a prescribed fix in many parts
>of Europe, etc.
The Chalana Arroy shrines are actually malian cultists infecting ordinary people with new and loathsome diseases. By being infected, people will appear to be in the prime of health. The ghouls actually eat ordinary food which appears to be human corpses to most of tork.
>Yes, it's run behind the scenes by the Illuminati, what else?
The Illuminati have seen through the veil of illusion that clouds others and seen Tork as it really is. Nobody ever sees them because they make sure that everybody sees them. They understand the affliction that plagues Tork but do nothing for the immense woe and suffering that occurs only makes them stronger.
Your friends will discover the true nature of Tork and seek to alleviate it. For this reason, they will be seen as evil by everyone.
>Though the
>names "Nylasor" and "Gbaji" will just bring puzzled frowns, most people
>either don't know of their existence, or consider the names to be as
>remote and relevant to everyday life as Thomas Aquinas or Thomas
>Jefferson are to us.
The mystery of Nysalor and Gbaji is immensely relevant to the delusions that plague Tork. Because of its relevance, most people repress their knowledge.
Just a suggestion...
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