#old bur

Old Bur was a thriving city and capital of the first and second Burri empires. It was a massive complex, home to over a million people (a number which no human city has even approached since). It became a victim of its low elevation and ideal coastal location when the global sea level experienced a (relatively) rapid rise. Much of the city was flooded (and its surrounding farmlands rendered barren due to high salinity) in under a century.

The flooding and the resulting population exodus was a contributing factor to the fall of the Second Burri Empire (which occurred ~800 years BP). This was a partial societal collapse that divided the Burri empire into warring eastern and western halves, the east of which (what is now the Wardin region) collapsed entirely into separate city-states and tribes.

What was once the greatest city in the human world is now mostly inhabited by wildlife. There is a small community of people still living there, who build upon the ruins and fish the flooded streets. The ruins are also known to attract pirates and smugglers, treasure hunters and outlaws, and rumored to be filled with ghosts and evil spirits. They are considered best avoided. 

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The religion of Bur is polytheistic, with a pantheon of hundreds of gods (many of which were absorbed from conquered peoples or brought by immigrants to the empire). Its core creation story is shared with the Seven Faced God religion of Wardin. In both religions, a primordial deity in the form of an aurox or bison called Od is sacrificed by its own scions, and its body parts and fluids used to create the lands and waters. 

The Burri variant of the story holds that the material universe started as a cosmic ocean under infinite sky. This ocean was itself made by a primordial set of entities as a birthing ground of creation (being a recreation of the Pregnant Void from which all existence hails). All physical matter existed as potential in the cosmic ocean. The divine ox Od was born from this ocean, and surfaced with the world in his horns. His semen fell into the waters, causing seven new beings to be born. They join together to kill their own father, and use his flesh and blood to shape the world into its present form.

In the Wardi religion, these seven children are aspects of Od (which in this case is the chief and sole deity, with Od being translated as capital G 'God'), the supreme being that sacrificed its body to create the world. In the Burri religion, the divine ox Od dies and its children are distinct individual deities. The seven divide rulership of this new world among themselves, becoming the first Gods.