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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Well I think I have this Kara Tur place figured out now.

Its all to do with spirits, but in the same way as Rashemen, these are not undead spirits, they are fey spirits.

Now I already did some work on fey spirits for my Spirit Realms thread and I think it applies to Kara Tur as well.

For whatever reason (probably the same as in Faerun) in the ancient past the land of Kara Tur was very strong in fey creatures. These fey being dabbled a bit in binding animals and other creatures of the land (essentially trying to draw power from them and use aspects of that creature - so a wolf would heighten your senses and make you good at tracking).

When these fey and the animals died they became fey spirits. These spirits are called Telthor in Rashemen but really they are just a fey creature that takes the form of whatever animal it represents.

These spirits over time are absorbed into the land (which can cause the creation of place spirits like akira island), and whenever something dies in this spirit infused land there is also a chance it will become a fey spirit.

Now on Faerun these spirit strong areas were exorcised by religion. In order to consecrate a place and make it holy to a god the spirit energy was removed (maybe the divine and spirit energies are similar but antagonistic). However in Kara Tur this spread of religion never occurred. It looks like humans in Kara Tur died out long long ago and were replaced with mountain and river spirit folk and korobokuru, all fey creatures.

The only humans to arrive in recorded history were the Imaskari and they were rabid god haters.

I think the fact that the highest form of the celestial bureaucracy is a dragon form. So at some point a dragon must have died in Kara Tur and became a fey spirit. And this first dragon spirit was probably the Celestial Dragon.

So the Celestial Dragon and his fey bureaucracy exist for many millennia (Monkey and black leopard are remnants of this old fey empire).

THen the Imaskari arrive and it states that emperor kujawa died fighting the celestial dragon. I reckon the emperor didn't die, he merged with him deliberately.

Then this new celestial dragon/human hybrid starts working in favour of the humans. He evicts the old bureaucracy and sets about creating a new one from mortals that become powerful fey spirits (the path/way of enlightenment must be the means to achieve this and retain your sense of self). The Nine Immortal Travellers are the first and most powerful.

Tan Chin must have at some time attempted to become one by trying to steal the power of the nine immortal travellers (he kills one of them). He seems to have a dual personality almost of trying to kill the travellers and enslave the population of Shou Lung while at the same time eliminating outside threats to the land (creating the dragon wall). So I reckon he was an evil swine but he was also a contemporary of Emperor Kujawa and was trying to figure out what the emperor did so that he could steal his power. Unfortunately the emperor was far more powerful than tan chin realised and curse him into the spirit form he now possesses.


Anyway that just the angle I am going to be taking with Kara Tur/Shou Lung. Its what would have happened to Faerun if the creator races and the humans had never existed.

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