B o r i l l i s k

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This empire was formed by the Tragarans of Lanirûk. For centuries from the Hedrac and Barândîr valleys, these tough highlanders raided the lowlands as far as Woad. They raided the minotaur holdings of Imrabêl and those of the Khazarkar as they spread north from Akann'ndâb. During the formation of the Khazarkar city-states (those that would become the First Khazarkar Empire), the Tragaran highlanders were often employed as mercenaries. When not serving as swords for hire, some groups would return to raiding the Khazarkar frontier. The hostility was not limited to plunder raids, as the Tragaran city-state Lanirûk and Khazarkar Akann'ndâb were in and out of conflict with disputes over territory and resources.

By the time of the founding of the Khazarkar city-state Chal-Kazod, Gulimbor's southern Tragarans found themselves hemmed in by a chain of defenses limiting their movement to Messu-Nora, Hedrac, and Barândîr. Ideas of population spreading south of the Siganbul mountains were nullified by the threat of Hive Swarms and the unforgiving landscape of the Hive region. After a six year war between the neighbors, peace was signed in 221 with the Treaty of Alêth. This defined the borders of the Khazarkars and the Tragaran highlands and gave rights of transit for seasonal hunting and foraging.

The Tragarans of southern Gulimbor were the first human civilization to practice psionics on a widespread scale. They learned psionics from the hags of Messu-Nora and from exploration of the Auhtai ruins south of the Rônnahar wastes. The hags taught their minions, usually those captured from the Tragaran tribes, or to those brave souls that sought them out. A few of the less evil hags would train Tragarans in psionics in exchange for manufactured goods, jewelry, and food. When the Purging of the Hags happened, the Tragarans were sufficiently skilled in training others, yet some belief that driving off the hags led to possible loss of potential psionic knowledge. One of the largest places dedicated to psionic learning was Mîras-Sûr. Today, this place is a dangerous ruin plagued with psychic terrors.

In 790, the highlander settlements of southern Gulimbor established the Borillisk Empire. It was a necessity, competing amongst themselves and the growing might and commercial influence of the First Khazarkar Empire was setting them behind.

In 996, the First Khazarkar Empire declared war on the Borillisk Empire, beginning the Hedrac War.

In 999, suffering from the Gulimbor Cataclysm (996 - 1203) and refusing to become a vassal state of the First Khazarkar Empire, the people of Borillisk join the Great Exodus (998 - 1017), a million people on the move. Nearly half of Borillisk's population went west, eventually becoming citizens of the Ba'lith Empire. Those that went north passed into the lands of the Cal-Thaoun Dynasty, joining a multitude of people boarding ships for new lands. On Cal-Thaoun and foreign friendly ships, they were taken to their new homelands. Borilliskins went to Sahuld, a small island of the Necrocrypt region. For the next nine years, they adhered to the Hedrac Treaty, becoming what many considered stooges to the Khazarkar Empire.

In 1131, a powerful band of adventurers made it into the interior of the nearby island Gathrot. Half of the group returned to Cerebrum to tell the tale. They gave reports of ancient Abâthigûran ruins, encounters with numerous undead and unspeakable horrors from other realms. One told a tale of a haunted area that felt like their life forces were being drained away. The adventurers had unknowingly entered a great hall that had witnessed the rise of the evil god Thasmudyan; a place that would some years later become known as the Basilica of Thasmudyan. The survivors, returned from Thasmudyan's birthplace, carried a virulent disease back to Sahuld. In the capital city Cerebrum, this disease spread quickly to other hosts and then out of control. The virulence of the disease was such that it was resistant to priestly, wizardly and psionic arts. By courier pigeons, they sought aid from Kal-Oni and other empires. Unfortuanetly, word had got out of the dangers of the disease, so to prevent the spread of the killer plaque, their island home was blockaded by the Kal-Oni. Unable to break this blockade, most of Borillisk's population perished. During the plague, the empire's chief alchemist Godhead worked on powerful elixirs to cure and possibly save some of the people. One of these elixirs failed, creating a cursed fleet of the dead called the Armada of the Damned. The Borillisk empire fell within a year.