Factions
Sarnak Empire
The Kunark sarnak military faction. Lake of Ill Omen and Old Sebilis-area, dominant evil faction opposed to Iksar.
Sarnak Empire is the post-Iksar sarnak military faction on Kunark — the artificial reptilian race created by Iksar magic, freed during the empire's collapse, and now organized as a standing political and military force in opposition to its former masters. The Empire's primary visible presence is at the Sarnak Fortress on Lake of Ill Omen, with secondary presence at Chardok (the inner sarnak capital) and patrol activity through the Burning Woods and Old Sebilis approaches.
The Empire's core political project is the standing military campaign against the Crusaders of Greenmist and the broader Iksar empire — a generational fight rooted in the Iksar's original creation and enslavement of the sarnak people, and now expressed as open warfare across the Kunark frontier zones.
Lore
The sarnak were created by the Iksar empire as a slave race during the height of Sebilis, engineered through reptilian magic from existing Norrathian stock. When the empire collapsed, the sarnak survived in sufficient numbers to organize, and they took the only path that made political sense: they militarized, established a hierarchy, claimed defensible territory at Chardok and Lake of Ill Omen, and turned the Iksar's own techniques against the Iksar's surviving remnant.
The Sarnak Empire today is a functional military state. The Sarnak Fortress on Lake of Ill Omen serves as the forward operating base — the closest sarnak position to the Cabilis-held Iksar territory, and the primary contact point for sarnak patrols striking into Field of Bone and Warsliks Wood. Chardok is the inner capital — a dungeon-tier zone holding the sarnak nobility, the elite military caste, and the raid-tier content that includes the Royal Quest line.
The Empire's standing political fight with the Crusaders of Greenmist is encoded into Kunark's geography: every Sarnak kill on Lake of Ill Omen gives Greenmist gain, and every Iksar kill in the same zone gives Sarnak Empire gain. The two factions exist in standing mutual opposition, and the kill loop between them is one of the cleaner faction grinds available in the Kunark tier.
Why grind it
For evil-aligned characters who want to use Chardok as a content destination — particularly the Royal Quest line and the deep raid-tier — Sarnak Empire standing is the relevant faction. The Royal content gates on Empire standing, and the deeper Chardok progression assumes unaggro'd movement through the outer dungeon. Without the standing, Chardok is a fight-the-zone-itself situation rather than a structured raid clear.
The Sarnak Fortress on Lake of Ill Omen also has questline rewards and Empire-aligned task chains that don't appear elsewhere. For non-Iksar characters who want a Kunark evil-aligned foothold without the Cabilis politics, Sarnak Empire standing is one of the cleaner unlocks because the Empire is transactional with non-Iksar outsiders rather than ideologically hostile to them.
Notable NPCs
- Lord Doljon — sarnak military leadership figure tied to the Empire's overall command structure
- Sarnak Fortress commanders — running the Lake of Ill Omen forward operating base
- Chardok royal court — the inner sarnak nobility holding the Royal Quest and raid-tier content
- Sarnak captains and lieutenants — the named officer tier across both Sarnak Fortress and Chardok
- Burynai allied bands — sarnak-aligned bear-folk auxiliaries operating the Warsliks Wood approaches
Faction path
+faction
- Killing Iksar guards and Crusaders of Greenmist patrols on Lake of Ill Omen
- Killing Cabilis-aligned NPCs in Field of Bone and Warsliks Wood
- Sarnak Fortress hand-ins and Empire-aligned task chains
- Chardok Royal Quest progression steps that flag Empire-positive
-faction
- Killing any sarnak in Lake of Ill Omen, Chardok, or the Burning Woods patrols
- Crusaders of Greenmist hand-ins (these explicitly tank Sarnak Empire standing)
- Aligning with Cabilis Iksar nobility against Empire interests
The Last Camp any-race-class adjustments
Under The Last Camp's any-race-any-class doctrine, an Iksar Wizard or a Wood Elf Necromancer can pursue Sarnak Empire standing identically to any other character — the Empire's checks are faction standing only and don't gate on race or class. The Iksar wrinkle, as with the Ring of Scale, is the historical default standing: an Iksar character begins Empire-hostile because of the slave-revolt history and the standing climb requires more committed grinding to overcome the baseline. Non-Iksar characters can grind Empire faction from a more neutral starting point.