Sumifa

Sumifa
Old Sumifa and New Sumifa
Information
Plane	Dominaria
Part of	Almaaz, Terisian Isles
Status	Destroyed (first city) Active (second city)
Formerly part of	Terisiare

Sumifa is the capital of Almaaz on the Terisian Isles of Dominaria. The first city of Sumifa existed until the Fall of Sumifa in 35 AR. A second city of the same name was founded in 1300 AR, and is now the oldest city of Terisiare still standing.

Old Sumifa

Sumifans had their tonal language, where one word could mean many different things, depending on the tone. The Patron God of Sumifa was Caelus Nin, the God of Time.

During the Brothers' War the songmages of Sumifa joined the war on the side of Mishra, to avoid the ruination of their homeland. The mystical language chanted by the songmages was reputed to be able, among other feats, to calm and even control savage beasts.

The songmages refused to answer the call of the Third Path. However, Mishra's slave Samor the Collector, created a secret Circle of mages himself. The purpose of the Circle was to shield Sumifa and Almaaz from the whims of Mishra, trying to protect the land from the worst effect of the Brothers' War until the circle was strong enough to put an end to the conflict. However, Porros the Raptor, the Sumifan royal heir, saw in the position of Samor a usurper of the sort and tried to wrestle control of the Circle from him to unleash a powerful cockatrice against the brothers and take back the kingdom of Almaaz from Mishra's influence by force.

Porros flew to Samor's study and slashed his throat with a piece of broken mirror, but a dying Samor cursed Porros into becoming a taloned sand wraith. Enraged, Porros summoned a massive desert twister over the city, burying it under tons of desert sand. The city's population, including Porros's two own sons, took cover in the nearby Nessian caves. After the Fall of Sumifa, Almaaz spiraled into a civil war, presumably between the member of the Circle and the Ninnites, the followers of the Raptor.

"New" Sumifa

Around 1300 AR, a new city of the same name was built not far from the first city's site. Sages and wizards from the School of the Unseen helped found the new city. The existence of the old city, however, was slowly forgotten, until around 3050 AR, when an excavation site would bring to light the ruins of ancient Sumifa.

The "new" Sumifa is a shining city in a wide, flat valley between the eastern desert near the Fallajian territories and the western Erg Desert, which merges with the scrubland controlled by the Wyrvil orc kingdom in the west. The Nantas River, a slow-moving ribbon of silt-laden water, turns the valley green during the winter months, but it dries up during the summer. A golden bridge brings one to Lion Gate, the main entrance to Sumifa.

Like its predecessor, only on a far larger scale, the huge fortress town is laid out in irregular concentric circles, each one with a gate of its own. The gates are staggered inside the city, no two aligned, like in a high, stout maze. According to the records following the Brothers' War, these walls had preserved the city from a siege by raiders and the assaults of thirst-crazed military tribes. However, unlike the old city, modern-day Sumifa also uses its ten-foot-thick, twenty-foot-tall basalt walls to divide one caste from the other. The walls stand between the poor, living in the Barca, and the merchant, living in the Mercanto; the Inner Ring stands between them and the Citadel, where live the Fascini, Sumifa's royals, and their courtiers.

Still standing in present times, "new" Sumifa is now the oldest continually existing city on Terisiare, 3200 years old at the start of the Mending Era.

In-game references

Associated cards:

• Disciple of Caelus Nin

Quoted or referred to:

• Runechanter's Pike (Retro Artifacts, #111)