Lore · Cities & Peoples

Cabilis and Emperor Vekin

The iksar never stopped thinking of themselves as an empire. When the scattered lizardfolk of Kunark finally gathered again, they did it in a ruined city on the moors and gave it a name that said exactly what they meant: New Sebilis.

Painting of a walled lizardfolk city on misty moors with ancient reptile statues and an arena of tents

Why not Sebilis

The iksar first wanted to go home. Their ancient capital was Sebilis, and the plan was to reclaim and rebuild it. Trakanon, the Poison Dragon, ended that plan quickly. His hatred for the whole iksar race had not faded, and Sebilis stayed in his claws.

So the iksar chose a lesser ruin. Cabilis had been a mid-sized city of the old empire that fell during the slave revolts and sank into the moors northeast of the Lake of Ill Omen. There, behind new walls, they began building a city worthy of a people whose history runs back thousands of years.

A city of two eras

You can see the two ages in the stone. New construction sits directly on top of old ruins, and the styles and materials do not quite match. The moors left water everywhere, so parts of the city are joined by canals instead of streets.

The clearest meeting of old and new is the Gauntlet, the city’s arena. It is framed by statues of iksar heroes and generals from the Empire of Old, carved with a stern command that the swamp has damaged but not erased. Much of the rest of Cabilis was still unfinished when players arrived: tents and hovels stood among the halls, and the whole city depended on a sturdy stone wall that surrounds it on every side.

Emperor Vekin

Cabilis is ruled with an iron fist by Emperor Vekin from a palace in the centre of town. A 2006 developer post calls him the first ruler of the Cabilisian Empire, the man who resurrected the iksar nation after the End Days. He was a born warrior who united scattered iksar bands during the Age of Turmoil, and his tribe was rumoured to descend from the elite of the Army of Ik, a sadistic torture unit.

His palace was never finished either. Froglok slaves work on it at a constant pace, and the complex includes a single grim building that serves as prison, torture chamber, barracks for the city guard and the pit where the slaves are locked up when each shift is spent.

East and West

East Cabilis is the cultural and military heart of the city, home to most of the iksar community and to every caste guildhall except one. Its north gates open onto the Field of Bone, where masters train their young, and the southeastern gates lead to the Swamp of No Hope, where the iksar gather froglok slaves.

West Cabilis belongs to the necromancers. It is just as young, built on the same sunken ruins, and its Tower of Death made the west wing the darker half of a city that was already dark. The iksar are deeply xenophobic, and only proven allies are allowed inside at all; for anyone else the city is a deathtrap.

The castes and their summons

Every iksar who started in Cabilis joined a caste. The Scaled Spiritists trained beastlords, the Court of Pain trained monks, the Tower of Death trained necromancers, the Temple of Terror served Cazic-Thule with shadow knights and shamans, and Fortress Talishan trained warriors.

Their welcome notes give the city its voice. Some call new hatchlings the Crusaders of Greenmist, some name Arch Duke Xog, and others speak of an Age of Rebirth. The warriors report to Drill Master Vygan and the Legion of Cabilis, and the note warns that failure to report is punishable by impalement.

Legacy

Cabilis was the promise of Ruins of Kunark: a playable evil race with a whole lost empire behind it. Its town crier, the Cabilis Examiner, even carried news from the wider world, including a report that the Wayfarers were going to build a ship.

Every iksar story on the site begins with the empire Cabilis is trying to rebuild. For the old empire and its fall, read the rise of the iksar; for the dragon who kept them from Sebilis, read Trakanon.

Where the sources disagree

The developer history of Vekin as founder comes from a 2006 post; the zone texts only say he rules Cabilis and do not give his origin.

Sources

[1] Library of Erudin: Cabilis (zone) · [2] EverQuest Lore Fandom: Cabilis