Dtang Ma

For many years Lung Wa coveted the lush jungle forests of Dtang Ma, a land renowned for its exotic birds, fine timber, rare spices, and natural perfumes. The empire was foiled time and time again by Dtang Ma’s powerful sorcerers, but these defeats only further inf lamed Lung Wa’s desires to control the idyllic nation. Eventually, after a particularly devastating war that lasted 7 years and cost Lung Wa dearly, the nation of Dtang Ma was conquered, and thereafter its proud people played a subservient role to their conquerors, wary of further angering their oppressors and content to wait out this unfortunate turn of events. As it happened, they had to wait only 2 decades. Dtang Ma reclaimed its independence with Lung Wa’s fall, yet it has still not fully recovered from the overwhelming defeat so many centuries ago, and only recently have members of the four sacred bloodlines risen to power enough to rule once again.

The strange feudal confederacy that rules Dtang Ma now is the same that ruled the land for well over a thousand years before it fell to Lung Wa. This confederacy is closely tied to four traditions of sorcerous power — magic from storms, magic from the fey, magic from music, and magic from the stars themselves, with a fifth supreme lord (kamraten) sitting on the Cinnamon Throne in the capital of Ramparassad, to whom the others owe unquestioned fealty. The Cinnamon Throne itself grants the kamraten unique powers, effectively combining the four bloodlines into a fifth complex crossblooded line. These five lords of surpassing prowess assume their offices together, selected via a complex process that takes place in the catacombs beneath the royal palace in Ramparassad. Every 10 years, one of the provincial lords ascends the Cinnamon Throne, while the former kamraten joins the three other lords in governing a single province. This eccentric succession continues until one member of the Five dies, whereupon the surviving lords work together to select a replacement from Dtang Ma’s most powerful sorcerers.

The rulers now governing Dtang Ma today are the Lord of Bats (stormborn bloodline), Lady of Flowers (fey bloodline), Walker of the Autumn Moon (starsoul bloodline), and Sister Minivet (maestro bloodline). The current kamraten, formerly known as the Tiger Prince, has held the throne for only 2 years. He followed the unprecedented 11-year rule of Tok Wayra, now the Lord of Bats, who managed to avoid relinquishing his hold on the throne for a full year through political manoeuvring and underhanded manipulation that scandalized the nation.