Crown of Uruk

Nadanna inherited her father's warrior heart and fiery crown, but she desires control of his entire Dominion and will happily kill her half brothers and sisters to secure it. A powerful and proven warrior-mage whose bloodlines trace back to the Urugal and Gudanna Ancient Ones, Raga (Princess) Nandanna has already drawn several of the Empire’s key regiments to herself. She has mobilized them in her efforts to protect the Dominion and to eliminate any rivals for its throne. Jahnu, Great Khan, fathered over 100 children by almost as many wives, but left behind only 4 wives and 27 children - 26 of which Nandanna will need to cow or destroy in order for her to occupy her father’s Saddle Throne.

Negotiations
Excerpted from “The Unlikely and Fanciful Boasts of Master Ranqay, the Ever Humble,” as Recorded by Urtu the Scribe

On the edge of the Great Waste, south of the ul-Napur Mountains, squats the miserable Durani outpost of Tel Najar. To visit Tel Najar is to yearn for another place. During the day, the sun heats the streets until they very nearly glow. At night, the strange predators of the Waste hunt the alleys for the unwary. Always the wind blows. Windblown sand from the Waste scours all of Tel Najar. The sand gets in one’s boots and one’s food; it settles in the most unpleasant places in one’s breeches.

Yet rising above Tel Najar’s squalid, huddled streets is the mighty domed tower called the Great Beacon. At the top of the Great Beacon is the treasured Great Map Room of Aistika, an enduring vanity of the third Raja of the United Empire. The main floor of the Map Room is covered in a beautiful map of Eretsu, fastidiously illustrated by Durani mages in rich lapis and polished jade. Around its borders sit low-backed chairs meant for the scholars who, I am guessing, took one look at the map, got up out of their chairs, and left Tel Najar for someplace better.

Above the glorious map are three large, open floors that look down from behind a tall colonnade. Each of these higher floors is lined with deep shelves full of rare illuminated maps, each one a treasure that a scribe gave years of his life to complete. On the top floor, in the Map Room, in the recently conquered offal pile that is Tel Najar, in the dry shadows, I hide.

And I am very bored.

- Original written by Chris Rogers - Read the full story here

The Symbol of the Crown of Uruk
The symbol of the Crown of Uruk appears as a white skull with a red crown combining the Gudanna symbol and flames.