Anok-Imaskar

Anok-Imaskar was an empire that existed in ancient Kara-Tur. It was one of the three successor states of the Imaskar Empire after it fell in −2488 DR, the others being Deep Imaskar and Solon. Later scholars would mark the Anok-Imaskar period as the First Age of Shou Lung, as it was a precursor to the later Shou Lung empire.

History
Unlike Imaskar's vassals, Durpar and Gundavar, which descended into barbarism, and the Raurin, which became a desert wasteland, the eastern provinces of Imaskar emerged relatively unscathed from the destruction of the western empire. The mountainous Khati province and the flatter Katakoro province were both protected from the Mulan rebellion by distance and the natural defenses provided by the Katakoro Shan. Within a year of Imaskar's fall, in −2487 DR, the surviving artificer Kujawa—who carried one of the False Imaskarcana, Dhonas's Shroud—claimed the Dragon Throne in the Khati city of Thakos, the former capital of Upper Imaskar. With that, he declared himself Emperor and founded a new realm, Anok-Imaskar.

Anok-Imaskar was prosperous and quickly spread east, north, and south. It traded with its fellow successor state Solon to the west. Eventually, circa −2300 DR, Kujawa decided to found a second capital city to better govern the new southern lands his nation had claimed. He built it on a mountain plateau further south in the Shao Mountains, east of the Sempadan Forest. The new capital was called Tempat Larang.

Unfortunately, the nearby volcano Mount Bakos erupted in −2113 DR, covering Tempat Larang in ash and lava, and the city had to be evacuated. Over the following decades, the empire's southwestern lands were also abandoned.

Kujawa repeated the history of his former peers in Imaskar when he died fighting the immortal Nung Chiang, in the form of a t'ien lung dragon. in −1943 DR. His death caused the empire to collapse, dividing into a number of warring states, including Chu'ta Te, Kao Shan, Mai Yuan, and Ra-Khati.

Geography
At its height around −2300 DR, Anok-Imaskar stretched from the Celestial Sea in the north to the Segara Sea in the south (a large portion of what was later Shou Lung and T'u Lung). It did not spread west, owing to claims by Solon on the lands south of the Raurinshield Mountains.

Among others, it included the lands of Khati (the realm that would later be known as Ra-Khati) and Katakoro (the later Katakoro Plateau); Chu'ta Te (later Chukei) Kao Shan, and Mai Yuan (which would all be provinces of Shou Lung); and the southern city of Tempat Larang.