#askbormek

Yes, I think that's highly likely. Of course that was a very long time ago and she would have outlived them all by now anyway, but I imagine they all died in that big battle she had with Hulushka and his tribe before they became divines. Every one of Okatogg's kids was probably a soldier, a career she pushed them into because she valued military might above all else.

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Lore Masterpost

Good question! This region is often called a "wasteland" because it was once highly urbanized, but since the Nymph War, these once grand cities are now ghosts of their former selves. These are vast areas of crumbling skyscrapers, collapsed highways, derelict rails, and skeletons of towns overgrown with weeds.

These are not beautiful natural landscapes, nor are they impressive urbanscapes. The Bormish Ruins are something in-between: like decaying corpses, bones that have not yet returned to Gaia. They are eerie, unstable, and very unsafe places for peoples to be. So, peoples call them "wasteland" or "the wastes".

Only nymphs and brave nomads inhabit these areas today. Most of the Bormish's descendants now live in compact fortresses dotting the landscape. Their civilizations used to sprawl carelessly across the land, but now these people are forced to pack themselves into tight communities to stay safe from the nymphs and collapsing ruins.

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Lore Masterpost

Pictured: Bormish school bus

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Lore Masterpost

Yes, Okatogg and Hulushka were terrible rulers. So terrible, in fact, that they are infamously known as "The Worst Great Leaders on Looming Gaia".

So far, theirs is the first and only Great Kingdom to experience total collapse. This collapse is attributed directly to their poor decision making.

Their main problem was their sheer hubris. They had way too much confidence in their divine powers and believed that they were immune to negative consequences. The Bormek Commonwealth developed at a breakneck pace, growing from a few straw huts to a mechanical megalopolis in less than a century.

Okatogg and Hulushka became obsessed with growth. For some time, their kingdom was the richest and most powerful one on Looming Gaia, but that wasn't enough for them. They wanted more. They wanted to conquer all of Looming Gaia and dominate the planet itself, so that nothing could ever oppose them.

What they failed to understand is that growth cannot continue endlessly. At some point growth becomes cancerous, and their Great Kingdom was starting to become a cancer upon Gaia's body.

One fateful day, they declared war on nature, intending to force every last nymph to submit to them.

We all know how that went...

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Lore Masterpost

I'm making a minor change to the spelling of Burmek. It's now "Bormek". I will do my best to update all past materials, but if I miss anything, we'll just say that "Burmek" is an in-lore alternate spelling. ;)

I've already updated the tags to all questions related to this kingdom. You can find them under the "Ask Bormek" tag.

I made this change to distance this fictional civilization from the real-world Burma and Burmish languages. I don't want to cause confusion for anyone who is new to the Looming Gaia series, and I want to make it clear that this kingdom is not related to any real-world culture.

Anyway, I'll be posting some content related to the Bormek Commonwealth shortly, so check back soon!

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Lore Masterpost

Ironically, Burmek was once known as the "Mighty Kingdom" in its heyday.

For a while, it seemed Burmek was on top of the world with all its wealth, advanced technology, and sprawling infrastructure. This civilization was on a sharp upward trajectory for quite some time before taking a sudden, even sharper downturn.

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Nope, Burmek is the only civilization that has ever made it to Great Kingdom status before collapsing. However, Yerim-Mor Kingdom is currently teetering on the edge of collapse and many believe it will soon become the second. Only time will tell!

Generally by the time a civilization reaches Great Kingdom status, it's already "too big to fail". It takes some really shitty luck or serious mismanagement to destroy kingdoms this powerful. In Burmek's case it was mismanagement, and in Yerim-Mor's it was misfortune.

There are some large independent civilizations that aren't affiliated with any Great Kingdoms. Kirkmar, Laraine, and Taybiya are a few that have shown up in the series so far. They're big enough to be a problem if a Great Kingdom provoked them, but not big enough to earn Great status.

When independent civilizations become large like this, it's usually for these reasons:

A) The land they're sitting on isn't worth the effort of conquering it. (Laraine)

B) The location is very remote or otherwise inconvenient. (Kirkmar)

C) This civilization acts as a buffer between two hostile nations, which makes it harder for them to mess with eachother. (Taybiya)

D) This civilization acts as a breeding ground for potential slaves for nearby kingdoms to exploit. (also Taybiya)

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Minute by minute? Well, I don't want to write a whole novel, so how about a general overview?

The Burmek Commonwealth was founded and ruled by two divines, Okatogg and Hulushka. They used their divine influence (and brute force...) to wrangle all the scattered tribes of northern Wokina together into one big government.

The Burmek Commonwealth grew into a major world power very, very fast due to its abundant resources and divine leadership. Before long, it had not only become a Great Kingdom, but one of the more advanced ones at that. Other Great Kingdoms had gotten heavily involved in its economy which only helped it thrive more.

Zareen Empire became the Commonwealth's greatest ally and traded a lot of its tech for Burmish resources.

Burmek was on track to become as advanced as Zareen. However, this kingdom had grown way too fast and did not build a stable foundation beneath its greatest holds. Its military and infrastructure were spread way too thin.

As the Commonwealth's technology advanced, the local nymphs began to push back hard. Okatogg and Hulushka retaliated by waging war against nature itself, planning to beat all the local nymphs into submission the same way Zareen had so they would have the freedom to advance indefinitely.

Due to poor planning and the lack of foundation I mentioned above, this war went really bad for Burmek really fast. The nymphs rose up and obliterated them pretty much overnight.

The Burmek Commonwealth collapsed and disappeared just as soon as it popped up. Zareen said "fuck that shit lol" and pulled out of Wokina altogether. Meanwhile, the enraged nymphs fortified the land with hostile flora and fauna so that foreign kingdoms couldn't colonize it even if they tried. This is how the gull-snatcher population got so out of control: the nymphs started feeding them sacrifices regularly.

Okatogg and Hulushka have been trying to raise their kingdom up from the ruins ever since with no success. Because one, everyone hates them for plunging the kingdom into ruins in the first place. Two, they're total idiots who just happened to get lucky the first time.

TL;DR: Burmek picked a fight with nature, then brought a knife to a gunfight.

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