Sultai Brood

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Sultai Brood
Fang of the Dragon
Lore Information
Dragon Aspect	Ruthlessness
Khan	Tasigur (bef. 3279 AR-c. 3282) Kotis (c. 4562-Present) Sidisi (Original timeline)
Game Information
Colors
Mechanics	Delve (Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged) Renew (Tarkir: Dragonstorm)
Creature Types	Humans Naga Rakshasa Zombies
Scryfall Statistics
references
watermarks
artworks

The Sultai revealed

One of the five Clans of Tarkir, the Sultai Brood (/sʌltaɪ/ SUL-teye) admires the dragons' aspect of ruthlessness. The fang of the dragon is its symbol. Their color wedge is black (focus color), green and blue.

History

The clan was originally ruled by humans, but due to the actions of their khan at the time, it fell from grace.

Original timeline

The Sultai Brood was a decadent and merciless clan that lurked in ancient palaces in the steaming jungles of the Gudul delta. Having been taken over by the nagas and the demonic Rakshasa, they employed necromancy to fuel their schemes of dominating the other clans. The clan ruled from Kheru Temple, deep in the jungles. The Jeskai khan Shu Yun regarded them as the protectors of the other Clans from the horrors that lurked within the jungles and swamplands.

Humans were second-class citizens to the naga, who claimed ancestry from the dragons. Only the humans' access to green ancestral magic kept them from being culturally dominated. Humans, in general, worshipped the power of the lands and many were secretly attempting to contact their ancestors, who lived in a time when humans ruled the Sultai.

Current timeline

In the current timeline created by Sarkhan Vol saving Ugin, Tasigur was manipulated by the rakshasa and naga into a series of events that eventually led him to offend them, causing their defection. Without means to control the clan's zombies and defenseless from attacks by dragons, Tasigur was forced to make a deal with Silumgar's brood, leading them to attack the Khan meeting that took place several years later. Following this, Tasigur survived and the naga returned, but the Sultai were utterly enslaved by the dragons, ending their identity as an independent Clan. The rakshasa tenuously hold a position in the Brood, as powerful allies but dangerous rivals.

The remaining living humans and naga were reorganized into a new Clan, where dragons ruled. Humans were generally given high positions and the naga were marginalized, their prior claims of ancestry now worthless. Tasigur's deal keeps the humans in the upper class, and with the power of the dragons to invoke they dismissed their ancestral magic.

Revival of the Sultai

Discontent under the oppressive rule of Silumgar, his subjects were some of the first in Tarkir to foment resistance against their dragonlord. Supported by the necromantic prowess of the dissident naga, they created a rebel movement. In the aftermath of the Stormnexus Ritual, when Silumgar's forces had been weakened by the New Phyrexian Invasion and the rebels had gained the aid of the Spirit Dragon Teval, they fought and defeated the dragonlord, installing themselves in power.

Embittered by Silumgar's cruelty and extravagance, the Sultai rejected these aspects of their history, seeking to forge for themselves a new cultural identity. They found this in the counsel of the ancient zombies raised during the rebellion, who spoke of a time before the pacts with the rakshasa. The modern Sultai are a nation of agrarian communities and merchants, with a strong cultural belief in the Abiding Harvest, the sacred cycle of life and death.

Geography

The majority of Sultai territory is in the massive Gudul delta, located in the south of the continent. The climate of the Sultai territory is primarily tropical, humid, and warm almost all year round, with larger storms in the winter. The dragonstorms have resulted in rising water levels throughout the Sultai territory. They have leveraged this to their advantage, building raised cities on stilts over flooded ruins, letting nothing go to waste. Sultai mages will also adapt the jungle to the storms, manipulating plant life to direct the rains, watering crops and protecting homes. Sultai territory directly borders that of the Mardu, Abzan, and Jeskai clans.

Culture

Civilians within the Sultai live primarily agrarian lifestyles. Agriculture and farming are central to the day-to-day life of many Sultai citizens, their years and days dictated by the growing seasons and needs of crops. The Sultai are known for their pursuit of beauty and elegance within horticulture, breeding animals and plants for their aesthetics, such as designer pets like albino reptiles and bright-plumed birds or plants of extreme size. Additionally, they built beautiful gardens and landscapes within their lush cities and villages.

Artists and craftspeople are also highly respected within the clan, including shipwrights, weavers, and smiths. The Sultai place high value on ordered beauty, and many artistic pursuits are common within the Sultai, such as silverwork, goldsmithing, and crafting exquisite jewelry and other adornments. The Sultai are also highly skilled at textile weaving and dying, producing vivid silks and cottons coveted by other clans. On a larger scale, their artisans create huge, dramatic, and elaborate stone sculptures to adorn their cities. A small but powerful merchant class, the Panjasi, sell these goods and materials to other clans and often act as spies as part of the larger Sultai information network.

The Sultai also have accomplished dancers, highlighting the elegance and grace of the Sultai way of life. Large-scale performances are popular forms of entertainment, and dance is often incorporated into harvest festivals. A variety of sports are communal pastimes for the Sultai. Friendly competitions are used as an outlet for individuals' ambition and competitiveness, including the popular Dusan boxing; most commonly, matches consist of a one-on-one fight without weapons where both individuals have rope wrapped around their fists and forearms.

Military

The Sultai prefer to use espionage and diplomacy over brute force. Because of this, the Sultai maintain a smaller standing military force than the other clans, called the Lasyd. They are highly trained and skilled warriors, experts at fighting in the dense terrain of the jungle and using their adaptability to outmaneuver the larger and less flexible forces of other clans. Also within the ranks of the Lasyd are spies, scouts, and assassins who move nimbly throughout the plane to ensure the safety and security of the Sultai.

The Sultai are known to occasionally employ larger forces, using siege weapons including ballistae against entrenched Abzan cities. Projectiles are imbued with necromantic magic to cause further destruction to their targets. The Sultai have even developed steam engines, which are used to power riverboats.

Religion

The Abiding Harvest is the core belief of the Sultai: All living things die. Their essence nourishes the land and enables the next harvest. After death, a person's life energy is returned to the larger pool of life force in the earth and returns as new life. For the Sultai, this is not believed to be the same person or consciousness returning but rather an essence or energy of a person. Like water mixing into a larger pool and being poured out, no two cups of water will be the same, and the pool must be constantly refilled, or it will run dry.

Festivals

The mild year-round climate and highly organized agricultural system mean the Sultai have two annual harvest and planting seasons staggered from each other, the Spring Rotation and the Fall Rotation. The combined harvest and planting event is a highly anticipated clan-wide activity, marked by a religious festival. The rotations often include large feasts with various performances and a ritual ceremony performed by a priest to ensure a good growing season.

Sibsig

Sultai undead are referred to as sibsig and have an honored status within the clan, given the honor of being removed from the cycle of life and death. The returned sibsig retain a sense of self and memories of their life before return, but there remains some question if they are wholly the same person. Most sibsig will still consider themselves the same individual and continue in the same role, often with an elevated status. Though there are examples of returned individuals having different personalities from whom they were in life or having memories that do not seem to be their own, some may pursue entirely different roles within the Sultai after their return. Animals may also be raised by necromancers and are given similar respectful treatment. Some exceptions are made for self-preservation: a necromancer is allowed to quickly raise a non-sentient creature for their defense.

Rite of Renewal

Raising of the dead is done through the sacred Rite of Renewal. The offering of the deceased is typically done by next of kin or through a will made in life that denotes they should be offered. Under the old regime, raising a person as sibsig had been used as a form of punishment to garner the loyalty of the masses through fear and intimidation. The new Sultai view this practice as symbolic of the cruel and wasteful decadence of the ruling classes and have outlawed the raising of unwilling individuals. Beloved leaders, skilled artisans, and venerated warriors are the most common people to be returned. Being returned is now viewed as an honor and is a fate many covet as a symbol of their value to the larger Sultai community.

The ritual starts with the preparation of the corpse, a meticulous and delicate process involving necromantic magic alongside specially prepared poultices and serums. The corpse is repaired if needed, fine jade and gold prosthetics are made to replace limbs, wounds are sewn up, and other decorative elements may be added. The corpse is then dressed in ritual garments and placed on a raft that floats in a bath within the temple. The priests will then use necromantic magic to draw energy back into the body, returning the body to life. However, not all who are offered are successfully returned through the ritual. In these instances, it is believed the individual's energy is needed to remain in the land.

Funerals

Sultai funerals are elaborate and festive; proper burial is very important among the Sultai. The process is intended to facilitate the deceased's body and energy returning to the land and completing the cycle of life and death quickly and efficiently while celebrating the life lived. Bodies are minimally prepared: wrapped in cloth, they are buried without possessions in shallow watery marshes. There, they quickly decompose, and the water is used to irrigate the abundant Sultai farmland. Specialized priests will watch over these grave-sites, weaving necromantic magic to ensure the bodies decompose properly.

Common funeral activities include preparing a feast of the deceased's favorite foods and a "gifting" where the worldly possessions of the deceased are given out according to their will. After someone's passing, friends and family members will often carry a possession of the deceased on them for a full harvest season. This is a reminder of their passing and aids in their energy returning to the cycle.

Government

After Silumgar's leadership, many Sultai are hesitant to follow a single leader. As a result, power within the Sultai is largely decentralized. The Fangkeeper is considered the ruler of the Sultai but takes on a minor role in day-to-day life. Their primary responsibilities involve the management of relationships between Sultai villages, acting as a more impartial judge alongside Teval, and managing the standing army of the Sultai and its defenses against the other clans. Within each village, elected mayors make most decisions alongside a lead necromancer priest who commands respect from the community.

Khans

• Tasigur, a human khan of the past. After betraying the other khans to the dragons, Tasigur was rewarded for this by becoming Silumgar's slave, his trophy of war. His preserved corpse is later seen as part of Silumgar's necklace.
• Kotis, a formerly human Sibsig and the Fangkeeper of the clan. He is called upon to moderate disputes between villages and command the standing army of the Sultai.

Original timeline

• The naga Sidisi considered herself the queen of the Sultai and aimed to gather all the clans under her banner. In the new timeline, however, she is reduced to one of Silumgar's undead underlings.

Other members

• Dauna, Chief necromancer of the new Sultai. An exquisitely alluring woman, tall with olive skin and raven hair, drawn into a bun.
• Ebirri, a rakshasa with whom Taigam made a pact.
• Feyomsi, a rakshasa sorcerer and necromancer that personally taught Sidisi. He governed the necropolis of Ukud.
• Ikra Shidiqi, a naga advisor to Tasigur who became Silumgar's dragonspeaker.
• Khudal, a rakshasa ally of Tasigur.
• Taigam, the human known as Sidisi's Hand, was the personal enforcer of the Sultai Khan in the original timeline.
• Teval

Creature types

• Humans
• Naga are some of the most powerful magic users on the plane, and they are experts at wielding and manipulating life essence to harm and to help. Many villages within the Sultai have a naga protector; separate from the mayor or lead necromancer, they guard the village and surrounding region against threats both within and outside of the clans, passing judgment and punishment in the form of blessings or curses.
• Rakshasa and Sidikur (Demons) are now shunned in Sultai society, and those who make pacts with these demons are exiled or killed. Rakshasa are considered enablers of the cruelty and exploitation of Silumgar and the old Sultai, and they're hated for their role in the great traitor Tasigur's betrayal of the ancient Sultai.
• Vampires
• Zombies
• Snakes
• Crocodiles
• Apes
• Horrors

Classes

• Assassins
• Shamans

Magic

Necromancy is a core part of Sultai life, and Sultai magic primarily revolves around the manipulation of life essence, using it to weaken or strengthen, to heal or harm, as desired by the wielder. Magic users are also adept at divination, through speaking with the essence of the dead and interaction with remains. Most mages undergo formal training under the most skilled necromancer in their village. Particularly promising mages may travel to the Kheru City to train under the most powerful of the Sultai, including naga teachers. Necromantic magic generally takes the form of snakes.

Relationship with the dragons

The Sultai admired the brood of Silumgar, who were native to the swamplands. Since their sibsig slaves were unaffected by poison, the Sultai specialized in brewing poisons and toxins strong enough to kill even a dragon. Using the environment to their advantage, nets and thorny barriers were used to bring the dragons down to the ground. Then, combatants equipped with spears and crossbow bolts that dripped with venom would engage the beast. Human and naga dragon slayers used stealth to approach within firing range and then retreated into hiding until the poison from their weapons took effect.

Dragon hunts

The Sultai maintain a wide network of spies and scouts who relay information to aid the clan in predicting the timing and location of the next dragonstorms. Many scouts are trained to observe subtle weather changes that indicate storms are approaching, while others spy on the activities of the clans to predict their movements. When capturing wild dragons, the Sultai will often arrive in much smaller numbers than the other clans and wait for another clan to subdue the dragon before launching an ambush to pick off the now-weakened forces and take the dragon for themselves.

Clan dragons

Designated warriors and mages care for most dragons. Many participate in religious festivals and act as guardians of villages alongside the naga. They tend to select Sultai dragons for their lithe and adaptable builds, allowing them to live in the dense jungles where prolonged flight can often be challenging. Sultai dragons tend to be skillful ambush hunters. The Sultai select some dragons purely for their beauty and grace, though that does not stop them from being just as deadly. Sultai dragons wield a noxious poison-breath weapon that envelops their enemies and often suffocates them before they die from the toxins.

Inspiration

The culture of the Sultai Brood is loosely based on the Khmer Empire and other groups of Southeast Asia. The working name for the Sultai was "The Sultanate" and the developing mechanic was "oppress". It is likely that Sultai is etymologically derived from sultanate. The flavor may have had, at one point, more Indonesian and Malayan influences as a Muslim nation than the Cambodian stylings of the Buddhist-Hindu Khmer Empire.

Mechanics

• In the original timeline, Sultai cards featured delve, a mechanic that allows them to manipulate resources. Originally featured in Future Sight, it enables players to exile cards from the graveyard to reduce the cost of spells.
• Under Silumgar, the Sultai used exploit, letting players sacrifice expendable creatures for powerful enter-the-battlefield abilities.
• After the revolution, the Sultai mechanic is renew, a mechanic that repurposes the dead for the benefit of all. Renew abilities can only be activated by exiling the card with the ability from the graveyard, and they grant other creatures Counters.

Trivia

• The Sultai Brood was conceptualized by Brady Dommermuth's Creative team as an extra to the four factions requested by Mark Rosewater, leading to a change in how the factions were distributed among colors.