An ancient civilization that flourished in the Elder Wilds during the early Third Eon before vanishing without historical record. Their ruins—step pyramids, carved faces, and canal systems—dot the eastern peninsula of Aboyinzu, with the highest concentration in the region now called Bygos Shemazari ("Old Shemazari" in corrupted local dialect).
What They Built
The Shemazari constructed in pale stone that the jungle has since stained green and black. Their architecture shares distinctive features:
Step Pyramids: Flat-topped structures rising from the jungle canopy, often found near river confluences. Most are partially collapsed, their upper levels crumbled into rubble. Those that remain intact suggest chambers within, though most have been looted or sealed by time.
Carved Faces: Serene or anguished expressions worked into cliff sides, boulders, and free-standing megaliths. The largest are thirty feet tall. They appear throughout the Elder Wilds, suggesting the Shemazari controlled territory far beyond their central lands.
Canal Systems: Sophisticated water management, now flooded and integrated into the natural waterways. The Aphenlein's moat-like channels between trees may follow original Shemazari construction.
Underground Chambers: Beneath many pyramids lie networks of rooms and passages. Purpose unknown—storage, ritual, burial, or something else. Most are collapsed, flooded, or otherwise inaccessible.
What They Left
The Shemazari left no decipherable writing. Their inscriptions appear throughout the ruins—geometric patterns, stylized figures, symbols that might be language or might be purely decorative. No modern scholar has cracked the code, if code it is.
They left no clear descendants. No culture in modern Alaria claims Shemazari heritage. No legends tell of their fall. They existed, built extensively, and then... stopped.
What Happened
No one knows. Theories include:
- Plague that killed too quickly for survivors to leave record
- Internal war that consumed both sides completely
- Ecological collapse as the jungle shifted
- Magical catastrophe connected to the leylines or the Anchor Trees
- Departure—voluntary or forced—to somewhere else
The Gamori of L'Coth D'hari claim the Shemazari "went into the trees." They do not explain what this means. Whether it's metaphor, myth, or literal truth—whether the Shemazari somehow became part of the forest itself—remains unknown.
The Anchor Tree Connection
Adventurers who explore Shemazari ruins often note that the oldest Anchor Trees stand near their sites. The relationship is unclear:
- Did the Shemazari worship the trees and their titan dead?
- Did they tend the trees, somehow causing their growth?
- Were they destroyed by whatever consciousness the trees harbor?
- Is the proximity coincidence, or does it suggest the Shemazari understood something about the Anchor Trees that modern people don't?
The trees aren't talking. They operate on timescales that make even ancient civilizations seem momentary.
The Runeglades Markings
In the Runeglades, markings appear on certain trees and stones that may be Shemazari in origin. During the annual floods, some of these marked surfaces glow faintly beneath the water. The glowing suggests ongoing magical function—something the Shemazari built that still operates, even now.
What it does, no one has determined.
See: Elder Wilds - The Shemazari Ruins | Bygos Shemazari