Jhaamdath

Jhaamdath, also known as the Twelve Cities of the Sword, was the first and only psiocracy in the history of the human nations of Faerûn. It was a confederation of twelve city-states with shared military and mercantile interests in south and central Faerûn during the Founding Time, thousands of years before the Era of Upheaval.

Geography


During the peak of its influence, Jhaamdath extended across the lands along the southern shore of the Sea of Fallen Stars,

Government
The empire's governing body was the Realms first psiocracy — a ruling council of influential psions and psionicists known as bladelords. This form of governance remained for nearly the entirety of the empire's history, until it was supplanted by a single individual some 20 years before its collapse.

Society
The Jhaamdathans were renowned for their swordsmanship.

Founding of the Twelve Cities
Jhaamdath was founded in when a tribe of human warriors led by the psionic warrior-king Jhaam united the human settlements north of the Nikerymath. The First City of the Sword, Dhinnilith, was founded soon after, in.

In less than thirty years, the citizens of Naarkolyth began manifesting a new kind of innate mind magic, which equally expressed itself amongst peasants and nobles. These psions, as the practitioners of the Invisible Art came to be known, were said to be favored of their god, Auppenser. Jhaamdath thus became rigidly organized into a caste society of psiarchs, soldiers, scribes, and commoners, with worship of Auppenser established as the state religion.

In the beginning of Jhaamdath's second century, the country underwent a cultural transformation. The governing oligarchy was supplanted by a psiocracy: a ruling body of powerful psions and psychic warriors known as bladelords. Throughout the next 5 and a half centuries, Jhaamdath expanded into a confederation of twelve city-states. The people of Jhaamdath became well-known between the southern reaches of the Sea of Fallen Stars and the Shining Sea for their swordsmanship; this fame formed the basis for calling the confederation the Twelve Cities of the Sword.

By, continuous expansion saw six of the empire's great cities built across its lands. Some three centuries later, Jhaamdath entered into a great conflict with the newly-formed nation of Mir over the lands surrounding the Lake of Steam and delivered unto it a devastating loss. Mir forced Jhaamdath into abandoning its ambitions when it aligned itself with Coramshan, halting Jhaamdathi expansion in the south and forming the nation of Calimshan in. The remaining cities were founded and constructed over the course of the next five hundred or so years, culminating with the Twelfth City of Corrant in the.

Imperial Jhaamdath
In, a new and dominant force emerged in the realm, as powerful metamind carried out a savage coup against the nation's bladelords and declared himself emperor of Jhaamdath. The imperial Jhaamdathi forces aggressively expanded their reach, rapidly moving south, west, and north in the lands around the Sea of Fallen Stars. Jhaamdath rapidly expanded its navy with the construction of a great many ships, utilizing tons of timber stripped from the forests of the Chondalwood. The Jhaamdathi military was ruthless against those they opposed; the imperial navy earned a great victory sinking the fleet of Westgate in a naval engagement near the island of Prespur. while its other forces hunted down and slaughtered the elves of the forest that dared oppose their expansion, namely those in Nikerymath that bravely and desperately fought to defend their forest home.

Desperate in the face of utter annihilation, the elves of the region turned to elven High Magic to rid themselves of their psionicist oppressors. In the, they called forth a cataclysmic tidal wave from the Sea of Fallen Stars instantly destroying all of the Twelve Cities of the Sword. This event reshaped the face of Faerûn, forming the body of water known as the Vilhon Reach, after which the greater region was named.

While some isolated towers and keeps built atop higher ground escaped the destruction, they eventually sank due to the altered seascape. The only remnants of Jhaamdath that survived untouched were those graveyards and outposts built far from the Twelve Cities.

The basin floor beneath the Vilhon Reach was littered with the ruins of Jhaamdath. Psionic power slowly leaked from the countless number of psionically enchanted magical items, corrupting local flora and fauna and creating new oddities such phrenic creatures. The sunken cities came to be inhabited by koalinths, sea hags, and scrags who, along with the depth of the Reach, prevented most exploration.

Era of Upheaval
Over a thousand years later, following the catastrophic events of the Spellplague in the, the landscape of what came to be known as the Vilhon Wilds changed drastically. As water levels in the region receded, the spires of the Twelve Cities emerged above the sea for the first time in over a millennium, and the ruins of Jhaamdath were once again accessible to those that sought them.

Settlements

 * Jhouram, a robust trade city built amid the hills south of the Eyes of Silvanus.
 * Dhinnilith, the imperial capital of Jhaamdath.

Notable Inhabitants

 * Gorthalylaug, the old red dragon that laired within the Aphrunn Mountains.