Freedom Fortress

The characters stop for succor at a fortress, but the small garrison are actually escaped slaves masquerading as soldiers. They are desperate to keep their secret, and if it becomes apparent that the characters are aware of their true nature, some of the slaves may wish to make sure the characters never leave. They are warned by another faction within the runaways who do not countenance their murder. This latter group might wish to escape with the characters, or else use them to gain control of the fortress. The characters could use the situation to gain useful allies.

The Kingdom of Makuria is perhaps the most important of Nubia's kingdoms. It extends from the third to the fifth Nile cataract, and encompasses the heartland of lost Kush. Despite this, Makuria has not retained any Kushitic culture, unlike Nobatia to the north, but rather has a distinctive Greek nature. Makuria is a peaceful and prosperous realm with many towns and broad, fertile fields. Like Nobatia, the Makurians have begun to congregate in defensible towns with substantial stores of food, firewood, and water. This is partly due to the rapacious Bedouin tribes who have recently invaded the eastern desert.

Foreign trade is a royal monopoly administered through Nobatia, and as such, there is no money in circulation in Makuria. It is illegal for foreign traders to sell their wares in Makuria. They risk having all trade goods confiscated, even if they do not intend to sell here but are aiming further upriver.

The King of Makuria styles himself as megalobasilikos (Greek for 'great king') and his ministers and court share similar Byzantine titles. Each town within the territory of Makuria constitutes its own kingdom; in all thirteen vassal kings (called domestikoi; singular domestikos) pay tribute to the megalobasilikos. All these kings, including the great king, are priests as well as monarchs, and perform Mass for their entire kingdom. Should a king take a life, however, he is no longer able to celebrate the liturgy. The megalobasilikos has the power to reduce any of his subjects to the status of slave, regardless of whether the individual is guilty of a crime. Among the host of ministers, the king also takes council from the court of seven bishops. Makurian royalty follow matrilinear succession: male heirs of female relatives have precedence over those of royal males; so a king's sister's son is considered heir before the king's own son. Dynastic crisis is not uncommon when there is no clear heir.

Abu Hamad is a tent-city at the end of the mighty bend that encompasses much of Makuria. Its inhabitants are not Nubian, but Bedouin Arabs of the Ja'alin tribe who have arrived in Upper Nubia over the last fifty years from Arabia and Egypt. The population of this 'city' is constantly in flux; as one band of nomads pack up their tents and leave, another arrives. The tribesmen come here mostly to trade, but also to arrange marriages, hold festivals, and honor their dead. Arabic is the dominant language of the settlement.

Abu Hamad is the only Muslim settlement in Makuria, and is a thorn in the side of the Christian kingdom. The armies of the local domestikoi and those of the megalobasilikos have tried to dislodge Abu Hamad, but to no avail; the city just reforms from an influx of nomads. The last attempt was five years ago; all the tents were uprooted and burnt, and the population dispersed. That night, the megalobasilikos received a nocturnal visitor in his bedchamber, and since then has refused permission to any of his subordinates to repeat the attempt. There is clearly some sinister force at work at the nexus of Abu Hamad; Makurian spies have noticed that one set of tents at the heart of the camp are not affected by the usual ebb and flow of tents, but are a permanent fixture. They have never been able to penetrate this complex, and are ignorant of its inhabitants.

The Ja'alin

The Ja'alin are the tribe of Bedouins who occupy the region between Abu Hamad and Berber on both sides of the Nile. They have established a dozen or so tiny principalities called meks, each founded by one of the princes exiled with Hamad. Each principality now consists of around a hundred families of humans and twenty or so jinn. Each prince has an unGifted sahir of Hamad's line as a vizier, who also mediates between the jinn and the humans. The jinni are mostly allied to the Faerie Realm, and like their human neighbors are Muslim.

The Ja'alin are proud descendants of Abbas, the uncle of Mohammed and herald of Islam. Both men and women mark their faces with distinctive scars, taking a form similar to an 'H' or 'T' shape. They are herders of sheep and goats, and constantly on the move within their territory to find scant pasture among the arid land. They occasionally fight with one another for pasturage, but Abu Hamad is neutral territory, and disputes here are forbidden.

A frontier town between the Kingdoms of Makuria and Alodia, Atbara has remained fiercely independent of both and has the commercial success to enforce this neutrality. It sits at the confluence of the Atbara and the Nile Rivers, and controls any river traffic headed for the fifth cataract. Atbara is the terminus of the route from Pakhoras that bypasses Makuria entirely to bring trade to Alodia. It is also the end of the only safe road to the port of Sawakin on the Red Sea.

The Atbarans have a secret deal with the Blemmyae: the savage tribesmen do not attack caravans lead by Atbaran guides (who wear distinctive green turbans); in return the Blemmyae chieftains are informed of the route and the goods of the occasional rich caravan that, mysteriously, cannot be provided with an escort. Likewise, the Atbarans have allied with the Ja'alin at Abu Hamad to ensure that all trade caravans heading for their rivals do not make it to their destination.

Due to the uncertain allegiance of Atbara, Berber is considered the last Makurian town before the Kingdom of Alodia. It used to be the terminus of the Pakhoras trade route, but in recent times, caravans heading for Berber have been attacked by the Ja'alin, while those continuing to Atbara have remained untouched. As a result, Berber's fortunes have dwindled to almost nothing, and the population dwindled to match. Berber now has just one tenth of its former population. Many believe that the Atbarans pay the Ja'alin to keep Berber impoverished.