Gurabad
Last updated 2026-09-09
Gurabad, also known as the city of brass[1] and City of Kings,[2] was an ancient city located in the southwestern part of the Desert of Hadramaveth in Sumeru.[3][4] It arose after Nabu Malikata's death and fell before King Deshret's forbidden knowledge incident.
It was led by Ormazd before his murder via Liloupar's machinations, after which it was ruled by Parvezravan.[5] Parvezravan himself was later killed by his son, Shiruyeh, and Liloupar's usage of Abyssal power caused most of the city to fall into a deep chasm while a plague claimed the lives of most of the city's population.[6] Afterwards, the city was abandoned and the few attempts to revive its former glory ended in ultimate failure.
Its ruins still lie in the desert, where a massive Ruin Golem (similar to the one found in Devantaka Mountain) is located. Sumeru Akademiya conducted an expedition to Gurabad in the distant past, which was mentioned in some of Zandik's notes.[4]
Story
History
Favored vassal of King Deshret
Gurabad was established after a shepherd named Ormazd gained the favor of King Deshret and the Jinni Liloupar, and used Liloupar's blessing to unite the desert peoples.[7] Although Gurabad prospered, Ormazd grew corrupt with power and perpetuated the slavery which Liloupar had expected him to abolish. Her sense of betrayal led her to plot Gurabad's downfall over the course of three generations, using her own children to perpetuate the city's destruction.
Liloupar's daughter with Ormazd, Shirin, was married to Liloupar's son Kisra — whom she had left as an orphan and was adopted by Ormazd — after Kisra had performed many great accomplishments for Gurabad. Ormazd bestowed him with the title of Parvez, making Kisra's name "Kisra Parvez."[5] Using an unwitting Shirin as her pawn, Liloupar had her daughter deliver poisoned honey to one of Ormazd's banquets, which resulted in the deaths of Ormazd and all of Shirin's other siblings. Shirin went insane upon realizing what had happened,[8] while Kisra took the opportunity to take the title of king for himself, adding the title "Ravan" to his name and becoming "Kisra Parvezravan."[5][9]
As king, Parvezravan turned to Liloupar for a method to gain even more power, and she gave him the idea of creating Jinn-powered machines. Parvezravan forced Shirin to create mindless Jinn to power these machines, which were then used to replace the slave labor that was used in Gurabad. These slaves, left without a means to make a living, were easily swayed into joining the "Brass Mask" rebellion led by Khorramdin — who was actually Parvezravan and Shirin's son, Shiruyeh, who had been banished from Gurabad by his father for being a potential threat to his reign. Liloupar gave Shiruyeh her support, appearing before disgruntled workers and former slaves under the guise of aiding them in their time of need.[6]
In those days, Gurabad suffered general decline, facing increasing desertification, shrinking oases, and declining harvests, all of which fueled the unrest, as well as long-term poverty in some areas such as Panjvahe. The Council of Nobles, a government body, refused to fund investment into infrastructure or welfare on the grounds that it would affect the well-being of the noble class, while the nobles themselves were corrupt and refused to assist prominent officials of lower status such as General Hibehrous. Meanwhile, the clergy simply blamed all of the problems on waning faith in King Deshret.[10]
Eventually, Shiruyeh amassed enough followers to launch an open rebellion, which became known as the Great Revolt and lasted for upwards of thirteen days.[10] The exact details of what happened afterwards are unclear, but in the end, Liloupar used the power of the Abyss as the final part of her revenge, causing Parvezravan to turn into a monster while much of Gurabad was swallowed into the earth, including Shirin and Shiruyeh.[6] Shortly afterwards, a plague arose from the chasm and killed half the inhabitants of Gurabad.[9]
Subsequent kings of kings
Following the fall of the original city and King Deshret's death, many rising political figures of the desert would restore and build new versions of the city and set it up as the capital city of their realm, with these details recorded on obelisks throughout the desert. These figures were seemingly driven to do so because of Gurabad's former status as Deshret's favored vassal, with each figure using this status to legitimize themselves as the "king of kings" over the desert.[11][12][13]
The earliest recorded reclamation effort was made some years after the original Gurabad's fall by Kavusbay, a man who claimed to be the rightful heir of Shiruyeh. However, a man known as Shah Ramshahr is implied to have usurped Kavusbay. He is afterward described as having plundered the citizenry to enrich his capital and then built seven great towers near seven cities, known as the Cities of the Seven Towers, three of which were Ay-Khanoum, Tulaytullah, and Saleh.[14] These towers may be the Towers of Betrayal, though the Towers of Betrayal may also predate Deshret's fall.
After Shah Ramshahr's death, his royal power would be transferred among the many states that soon broke free of his tyranny.[15] Initially, Ramshahr's son Artaxir ascended to his throne, but soon died under unspecified circumstances. Afterwards, Turan Khagan, the master of Saleh and a minister to Shah Ramshahr, became regent to rule in Artaxir's place. However, he was later ousted as a traitor and bandit (possibly due to accusations of involvement in Artaxir's death) and was executed along with his three sons. Humayun, king of Tulaytullah, succeeded Turan in assuming Shah Ramshahr's throne through a marriage with Ramshahr's daughter, but later died at Saleh in an event called the Jinn Uprising.[16]
Garshāsp, Khagan of Ay-Khanoum under Shah Ramshahr, ascended after Humayun's death, but broke away from his predecessors and chose to move the capital away from Gurabad. However, he eventually passed away under unspecified circumstances and his capital burned, with his people fleeing to Tulaytullah.[16]
After an unspecified amount of time, the young noble Goudarz of Tulaytullah came out victorious in a conflict against "rebels who falsely fly the flag of a Khagan." It is possible that these rebels supported the Khagans which had previously conquered Tulaytullah, and that a person living in Gurabad at the time who fled after hearing of the rebels' defeat, implied to be Goudarz's younger brother, was aligned with them.[15] For his victory, Goudarz was elevated to the status of king, changing his name to Saleb Dowleh. He then re-established Gurabad as the capital of his realm, inviting the people of the Cities of the Seven Towers to return there.[17] Through this act, he claimed dominion over the desert.
After ten years of peace, infighting erupted within Saleb Dowleh's own family following the death of his intended heir, Prince Hojir. Seeking allies, Saleb Dowleh summoned Muzaffar, a Dey from the city of Orghana; however, Muzaffar betrayed him and pillaged his way to Gurabad. In order to stop Muzaffar, Saleb Dowleh sought help from his younger brother "once more," and they reunited their forces. Meanwhile, Muzaffar's conquest to Gurabad brought about the destruction of many other desert cities, including Beit Raha.[18] At Gurabad, Muzaffar defeated the combined forces of both Saleb Dowleh and his brother, put their family to the sword, and let Saleb Dowleh witness Gurabad burning before blinding and killing him. Muzaffar then abandoned the city and built his own capital somewhere else in the desert, never returning to Orghana.[19]
To avoid a similar fate as Saleb Dowleh, Muzaffar instructed his son Zumurud to have as many heirs as possible. Zumurud is recorded to supposedly have had 99 children, including the princes Badanah and Muzzudin and the princess Hanzada Sultan, under all of whom the desert kingdoms of Sumeru entered something akin to a golden age.[20]
The tyrant Badanah
Amidst this golden age, Badanah came to power in Gurabad.[21] Badanah was a tyrant, and his reign was marked by violent conquests and sloth, seemingly with the goal of uniting the entire desert under him: during this time, Tulaytullah and Saleh were both known to have become his vassals.[22] To please him, the nobles and scholars of Tulaytullah gave him the sword-dancer Makhaira as tribute, and she became his concubine.[21] During this time, Makhaira met Faramarz, Badanah's son, and they ended up becoming lovers.[23][24]
Makhaira sought vengeance for what Badanah's predecessors had done to her ancestors, the Jinn, while possibly also harboring a desire for power. Faramarz agreed to help her with a plan to assassinate Badanah, and they set up his death as a hunting accident.[23][24][25] Faramarz succeeded Badanah's throne, while Makhaira became queen-regent of Tulaytullah alongside Balash, one of Faramarz's uncles and the master of Tulaytullah. However, as recorded by inscriptions, Faramarz's youth meant that Makhaira and other retainers controlled the actual matters of state, and later, Faramarz is recorded to have abdicated his throne to Balash and been moved to the Emerald Palace.[25]
Grand Tutor Goraz, another uncle of Faramarz, started a rebellion to dispose of Balash under the pretext of wanting to restore Faramarz to the throne. However, after he won, Goraz exiled Faramarz instead of returning him to the throne and took Makhaira as his wife. Goraz's reign did not last long, as the nobles of Tulaytullah rebelled, citing "vengeance for Balash;" this led to Goraz's death. Makhaira gave his head to the rebels in order to appease them, and it is suggested that she assassinated Goraz herself to maintain power. Faramarz was restored as king afterwards.[24][25]
Faramarz's subsequent reign was marked by instability which saw many rebellions and wars, including an uprising in Saleh which Makhaira pacified and competing claims to the throne from twelve of his other uncles. These conflicts left the desert kingdoms barren, with many citizens being reduced to refugees and slave-soldiers. Faramarz emerged victorious, retaining his throne; in the end, he even chose to assassinate Makhaira with a viper's venom because of her shifting loyalties with whoever served her interests best, despite still being her lover.[24][25] Afterwards, a final conspiracy between city dwellers and slave-warriors caused Faramarz to be deposed and exiled to the rainforest, where he supposedly lived to his last days.[26][27]
Legacy
Because Liloupar's machinations were unknown to the people of Gurabad — albeit suspected by her fellow Jinni Ferigees[28] — Liloupar is largely presented as a neutral figure in renditions of Gurabad's downfall, whereas Shirin was vilified despite having little to no awareness of her actions due to her insanity.[9] The fall of Gurabad and the plague that came after it was known as "Shiruyeh's Plague," and Shiruyeh himself was dubbed the Lord of Pestilence.[9] Ever since then, the name "Shiruyeh" came to be associated with cowards and exiles.[5]
Khaenri'ahn automatons,[29] including a Ruin Golem identical to the one in Devantaka Mountain, can be found in Gurabad. Zandik noted that the parts he found around Ardravi Valley could be used to repair the machines in Gurabad.[4] It is currently unknown why Khaenri'ah sent Ruin Golems to Gurabad and Devantaka Mountain specifically.
By the present day, Gurabad has been reduced to largely-abandoned ruins. Some Eremites still inhabit parts of the ruins, including those sent on expeditions in search of the city's treasures.
Trivia
- Gurabad is mainly inspired by multiple cities located in and around the Fertile Crescent, ranging from Babylon to Baghdad. Its destruction by Liloupar has major influences from biblical prophecies about the cities of Babylon and Nineveh, two great but wicked cities in the Hebrew Bible that had their destruction prophecised by various prophets, with the Book of Nahum being directly quoted in some dialogues during the World Quest Series Apocalypse Lost.
- Analogously, the story of The Nameless City in the Cthulhu Mythos, is referenced in two achievements related to Gurabad (Call of the Nameless City, The Nameless City's Past); a story whose author, H.P. Lovecraft, may have drawn inspiration from the Quranic story of Iram of the Pillars, a lost and powerful city or tribe that was destroyed by God due to the idolatry and arrogance of its people, it is mentioned in Al-Fajr (89:6-8).
- Gurabad's story is loosely based on many different sources of historical and mythological events from the Middle East, with a prominent one being the events and figures in the Shahnameh, a historical epic which recounts Iranian history from the mythical age to the fall of the Sasanid Empire and the Muslim conquest of Persia. Ormazd, Parvezravan, Shirin, and Shiruyeh all derive their names from influential historical Sasanian rulers.
- One main theme of the story — a ruler that would end slavery in the desert as per Liloupar's wishes, only to end up as a tyrant — likely takes some loose inspiration from God's promise made to the Israelites of a messianic king that would come and redeem Israel, a central theme of the Old Testament, and the criteria which king David (whom Ormazd partially bases his character on) himself failed to fulfill and instead succumbed to sin. In a similar manner to Ormazd's family, God's punishment for David mostly affected his own family.
- Slavery in Gurabad may be based on the practices of slavery in the different historical middle eastern societies that its story is based on. One might be the practice of slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate, as implied in the set of interactables Dogma of the Brass Mask, which is about Shiruyeh's followers philosophy during their rebellion:
- Mentions of slave markets throughout the records are noteworthy, as slaves markets were pre-eminent in the Abbasid Caliphate due to the importance of slave trade routes in the silk road, during which Baghdad was an international trade center of its networks.
- The emirs (Arabic: أَمِير ʔamīr, lit. "commander, prince") refers mostly to Muslim monarchs, a title adopted by many important historical people in islamic caliphates and cultures with Muslim influences.
- Shiruyeh's followers, having written those notes, are mainly inspired by the Khurramites; an Iranian revolutionary mouvement that had the purpose of diminishing the Abbasid Caliphate's influence in order to restore Iranian culture back to their land.
Etymology
- Gurabad (Persian: گورابه "City of Gur") is a reference to the ancient city of Gur, which was the original capital city of the Sasanian Empire and was built by the empire's founder, Ardashir I.
- Gur can also mean gôr (Persian: گور "grave"), in which case "Gurabad" would mean "city of the grave."
- "Shiruyeh's Plague" is based on the actual Plague of Sheroe, which killed Kavad II (Sheroe, also spelled Shiruyeh) two months into his reign and was a major factor in the downfall of the Sasanian Empire. The plague devastated the later Sasanian capital city of Ctesiphon and the entire western side of the empire.
See Also
- Port Ormos, originally known as Orghana, the city of the Twenty-Nine Deys
Other Languages
| Language | Official Name |
|---|---|
| English | Gurabad |
| Chinese (Simplified) | 居尔城 Jū'ěr-chéng |
| Chinese (Traditional) | 居爾城 Jū'ěr-chéng |
| Japanese | ジュラバド Jurabado |
| Korean | 구라바드 Gurabadeu |
| Spanish | Gurabad |
| French | Gurabad |
| Russian | Гюрабад Gyurabad |
| Thai | Gurabad |
| Vietnamese | Gurabad |
| German | Gurabad |
| Indonesian | Gurabad |
| Portuguese | Gurabad |
| Turkish | Gurabad |
| Italian | Gurabad |
Change History
References
- ↑ Quest Item: Mysterious Parchment
- ↑ Artifact, Desert Pavilion Chronicle: The First Days of the City of Kings
- ↑ Interactable: Zandik's Legacy, Ancient Work Log
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Interactable: Zandik's Legacy, Akademiya Investigation Team's Interim Report
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Book: The Tale of Shiruyeh and Shirin, Vol. 1
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 World Quest, Apocalypse Lost: Memories of Gurabad
- ↑ Artifact, Desert Pavilion Chronicle: Legacy of the Desert High-Born
- ↑ World Quest, The Dirge of Bilqis, Part 5: Dune-Entombed Fecundity: Part III
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Book: The Tale of Shiruyeh and Shirin, Vol. 2
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Interactable: Records of Gurabad
- ↑ Interactable: Vaguely-Readable Inscription, Mausoleum of King Deshret, North (Underground)
- ↑ Weapon Lore: Reliquary of Truth
- ↑ Event Ruins Exploration: Fieldwise Center Quest, Ruins Exploration: Act II, Part 1: Headlong Into the Sands
- ↑ Interactable: Vaguely-Readable Inscription Mausoleum of King Deshret, East (Underground)
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Weapon Lore: Reliquary of Truth
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Interactable: Vaguely-Readable Inscription Mausoleum of King Deshret, North (Underground)
- ↑ Interactable: Vaguely-Readable Inscription Mausoleum of King Deshret, East
- ↑ Interactable: Vaguely-Readable Inscription Mausoleum of King Deshret, North
- ↑ Interactable: Vaguely-Readable Inscription Mausoleum of King Deshret, West (Underground)
- ↑ Interactable: Vaguely-Readable Inscription Valley of Dahri
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Event Ruins Exploration: Fieldwise Center Quest, Ruins Exploration: Act II, Part 1: Headlong Into the Sands
- ↑ Interactable: Vaguely-Readable Inscription, Sobek Oasis (Underground)
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 Weapon Lore: Makhaira Aquamarine
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 Artifact, Deepwood Memories: Lamp of the Lost
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 25.3 Interactable: Vaguely-Readable Inscription, Khaj-Nisut
- ↑ Weapon Lore: Wandering Evenstar
- ↑ Weapon Lore: Light of Foliar Incision
- ↑ Interactable: Nameless Tablet (VII)
- ↑ World Quest, Vimana Agama, Part 3: Vimana Agama: Jazari's Chapter
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