Crowns Broken by Conquest, 1200–1260
Mhurak Stone-Blood gathers rival orc tribes into the Great Muster, ancient crowns fall and the conquered world learns that no wall, dynasty or inherited title is beyond destruction.
The Fortified World Is Broken
Between 1200 and 1260, Constantinople is sacked, Mhurak Stone-Blood raises the Great Muster and conquest overturns kingdoms across northern and central Eurasia. Yet the world does not become one story. Mali rises, Great Zimbabwe flourishes, Delhi becomes a great northern Indian power, Southeast Asian kingdoms contend for land and sea, American societies follow their own transformations and Polynesian voyagers establish permanent communities in Aotearoa. The period ends at the Battle of the Hidden Springs, where catfolk Kemet stops the south-western orc advance and the Great Muster passes into the hands of rival successors.
| Period | 1200–1260 CE |
|---|---|
| Parent age | The Age of Severed Crowns |
| Principal conqueror | Mhurak Stone-Blood |
| Orc coalition | The Great Muster, a vast tribal confederation held together by Mhurak’s personal power, victories and reputation |
| Wider world | Mali, Great Zimbabwe, Delhi, Kamakura Japan, Singhasari, Maya kingdoms, Mississippian societies, the Chimú realm and Polynesian Aotearoa |
| Closing event | The Battle of the Hidden Springs, 3 September 1260 |
| Next period | Successor Empires and Connected Worlds, 1260–1346 |
The World in 1200
Many powers later remembered for their fall still appear ancient, wealthy and secure. No single kingdom commands the connected world, and the eastern grasslands contain no united orc realm.
Constantinople remains the fortified capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, rich in palaces, workshops, libraries, relics and accumulated ceremony.
Song China remains one of the wealthiest and most technically accomplished states on Earth, while Jin and Western Xia command powerful northern kingdoms.
Orc tribes of the eastern grasslands feud over herds, pasture, water, trade, marriage, vengeance and prestige.
Baghdad, Ayyubid courts, Seljuk successors, oasis cities and regional dynasties shape the political world of western Asia.
Along the Nile, catfolk rule Kemet through ancient cities, temple estates, farming communities and military traditions adapted to their own bodies.
Delhi is becoming a new northern Indian centre while Rajput rulers, Bengal, Himalayan states and southern kingdoms retain independent power.
Angkor and Pagan command great river worlds, while Java, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula remain contested by maritime courts and sea peoples.
Kamakura’s warrior government grows stronger in Japan beside the imperial court, provincial families and Shinto shrine networks.
Great Zimbabwe is growing into a major inland centre linked to cattle wealth, gold, craft and the Swahili coast.
Manding communities, Sosso power and trans-Saharan commerce prepare the ground from which Mali will rise.
Cahokia is contracting, but Mississippian towns, mound centres and river networks remain active across North America .
Norse Greenland and Vinland preserve permanent communities and northern Atlantic routes, while Polynesian voyagers cross the Pacific towards Aotearoa.
The Character of the Period
This period destroys confidence in the permanence of walls, crowns and inherited prestige. Constantinople falls to western invaders. Northern kingdoms are broken. Central Asian cities are ruined. Rus principalities are defeated. Baghdad is captured.
Conquest never creates one uniform world. Song China survives in the south. Forest, mountain and desert communities remain difficult to control. Defeated cities preserve families, crafts and sacred traditions beneath new rulers. Kingdoms that suffer catastrophic invasions recover through relocation, submission, alliance and patient resistance.
The Great Muster is the age’s largest military transformation, not its only history. Mali, Great Zimbabwe, Delhi, Kemet, Kamakura, Angkor, Pagan, Singhasari, Maya kingdoms, Mississippian communities, Andean states and Polynesian voyagers follow paths shaped by their own lands, ambitions, rivalries and beliefs.
The supernatural gathers around consequence. Mass graves breed hauntings. Desecrated sanctuaries lose protections sustained by living custodians. Refugees carry relics, rites and dangerous knowledge into new lands. Mortal greed, ambition, courage and cruelty remain the causes that set those forces loose.
Mhurak and the Great Muster
The Age Finds Its Conqueror
Mhurak Stone-Blood rises from the struggles of the eastern grasslands. He does not create the orc people, erase their tribes or replace their histories. He wins because he understands their ambitions and proves stronger than the chiefs who oppose him.
The Great Muster is a vast tribal confederation held together by Mhurak’s victories, reputation, generosity to useful followers and readiness to destroy rivals who threaten his command. Chiefs who despise one another ride together because he offers victories none can win alone.
Families and Settlements
Orc life includes mobile herding households, permanent villages, river settlements, upland strongholds and mixed farming communities.
Children, elders, cooks, healers, hunters, fishers, traders and craftspeople travel beside or remain connected to the fighting hosts.
Work and Appetite
Orcs herd, farm, forge, tan leather, trade, hunt, sing, gamble and compete. Success is celebrated through food, animals, weapons, jewellery, stories and gifts.
A warrior may seek wealth, pleasure, fame, revenge, land for a family or the admiration of companions.
Affection and Loyalty
Orcs raise children, mourn parents, love companions and remember generosity for generations.
Those loyalties are often fiercely partial. Devotion within a household may coexist with indifference to the suffering of outsiders.
Ambition and Rivalry
Chiefs follow Mhurak because he repeatedly wins and makes refusal dangerous. Every important leader also measures what part of his power might eventually be seized.
Feuds continue beneath the shared campaign and return to the surface whenever Mhurak’s attention weakens.
Conquest and Cruelty
Cities that submit may preserve markets, workshops and local leaders. Cities that kill envoys, revolt or become symbols of defiance may be starved, burned or emptied.
Captives face enslavement, sale, forced service, sexual violence, ransom or removal far from their homes.
Borrowed Knowledge
The Great Muster keeps captured and hired engineers, miners, physicians, interpreters and artisans alive when their abilities make further victories possible.
Useful institutions may survive conquest, but they do not turn the Great Muster into a bureaucratic state.
Personal Power Is the Great Muster’s Strength and Weakness
Mhurak can make rival tribes act together because his judgement, rewards and punishments carry more force than their private quarrels. The confederation possesses no separate authority capable of replacing him. Every victory enlarges his command and increases the inheritance over which his followers will later fight.
Chronology, 1200–1260
Great Zimbabwe Flourishes
Great Zimbabwe grows into one of southern Africa’s greatest political, sacred and commercial centres. Cattle wealth, gold, skilled craft and exchange with the Swahili coast support a network of settlements connected to Shona rulers, lineages and regional authority.
Its stone enclosures are living places of residence, ceremony, labour and political display. Foreign merchants may enter the wider exchange network, but the heart of Great Zimbabwe belongs to the communities whose ancestors raised its walls.
American Kingdoms and River Worlds Continue
Mayapan becomes a major northern Maya centre while Maya courts remain active throughout the highlands and lowlands. Trade, warfare, writing, dynastic marriage and sacred calendars continue to shape political life.
Chimú power expands along the northern Peruvian coast through Chan Chan, irrigated valleys, fishing settlements and specialised workshops.
Cahokia contracts, but its people, crops, ceremonies and political memories continue through other Mississippian communities.
The War of the Broken Eagles
A western expedition entangled in debt, Venetian ambition and Eastern Roman dynastic conflict turns upon Constantinople and subjects the imperial capital to sack.
Relics, manuscripts, treasury objects, metalwork and captives are carried west. Craftspeople and displaced families scatter across the Mediterranean. Roman successor states survive at Nicaea, Epirus and Trebizond.
Stolen regalia and violated sanctuaries weaken parts of the city’s ancient protection. Hauntings and minor planar wounds gather around massacre sites, but mortal debt, greed and betrayal brought the invaders through the walls.
Mhurak Stone-Blood Raises the Great Muster
Mhurak defeats the strongest chiefs of the eastern grasslands, draws others into alliance and compels wavering tribes to choose between submission and destruction.
He does not erase the tribes. Each retains its families, leaders, possessions, customs and grudges. Mhurak makes those divisions serve him.
A chief who brings warriors, animals and useful knowledge gains a share of victory. A defeated rival who bends early may retain followers and reputation. A leader who hides captured wealth or abandons the host at a critical moment may be killed and have followers absorbed by rivals.
Delhi Becomes a New Centre of Power
After the death of Muhammad of Ghor, Qutb al-Din Aibak establishes an independent kingdom centred upon Delhi.
The new power combines Turkic military traditions, Persian court culture and Indian systems of landholding, taxation and local negotiation. Rajput rulers, Bengal, Himalayan states and southern kingdoms retain independent authority.
In SpiralWorlds, capturing a fortress or treasury does not automatically transfer the recognition of Hindu, Jain, Buddhist or regional sacred powers to the conqueror.
The Northern Wars
Mhurak turns against kingdoms east and south-east of the grasslands. His armies strike rival orc confederacies, northern river rulers, frontier fortresses and states controlling rich agricultural country.
The campaign never becomes one clean march. Some clan-hosts pursue enemies into forests and uplands. Others raid farming districts, surround cities or abandon one war when a richer target appears elsewhere.
Captured and hired miners, carpenters, metalworkers and engineers teach the Great Muster how to break fortified cities. Several northern capitals fall, while others surrender, change allegiance or remain too costly to pursue.
Magna Carta Limits an English King
English barons force King John to recognise obligations concerning taxation, inheritance, judgement, debt and royal conduct.
The charter chiefly protects established elites, but it preserves a dangerous political fact: organised subjects can compel a king to admit that his will is not the only source of law.
The Wars of the Rivers and Walled Oases
Raids, murdered envoys, disputed trade and appeals from exiled rulers draw Mhurak westwards. He treats each insult as an opportunity to break several enemies at once.
The Great Muster strikes river kingdoms, oasis cities and fortified centres across Central Asia and parts of the Iranian plateau. Mhurak destroys rulers capable of raising major resistance and leaves lesser settlements beneath leaders willing to feed or assist the host.
Some cities surrender and survive. Others resist until hunger, betrayal or broken walls decide their fate. Canals collapse, herds are driven away and farming communities scatter.
Orc songs remember vengeance, feasts and fortunes founded during the western wars. The conquered remember empty homes, stolen children and the long work of bringing water back to ruined land.
Warrior Rule Hardens in Japan
The Jōkyū conflict ends in victory for the Kamakura shogunate over forces associated with the retired emperor Go-Toba.
Warrior government gains greater control over estates and appointments, while the imperial court, provincial families and Shinto shrines retain other forms of authority.
The settlement creates a harder military world that will face foreign invasion during the following period.
Singhasari Rises in Java
Singhasari emerges as a major Javanese kingdom. Its rulers compete for fertile country, ports and influence within the maritime world connecting Java, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and the surrounding seas.
Southeast Asia remains a region of courts, sea peoples, merchant communities and rival harbours rather than one permanent oceanic empire.
Mhurak Stone-Blood Dies
Mhurak dies before the Great Muster reaches any agreed frontier. The cause and exact year remain disputed. Every important family preserves the account that best serves its own claim.
The conquests continue because victory still brings land, wealth, captives and honour. No chief wishes to be remembered as the first to abandon Mhurak’s work.
Obedience nevertheless changes immediately. An eastern chief delays answering a summons to protect a captured city. A western leader sends too few warriors to influence a distant campaign. Another arrives only after rival clans have suffered the most dangerous fighting.
No one declares the Great Muster ended. Each powerful chief simply begins deciding which commands are worth obeying.
A Northern Dynasty Falls
The historical Jin dynasty falls after prolonged war involving Mongol and Southern Song forces. Southern Song rule survives.
In SpiralWorlds, eastern orc hosts and regional allies destroy one of the great northern courts without conquering all China. Surviving commanders, refugee communities, fortified cities and southern rulers continue the war.
Orc families settle among the cities and farmlands won during Mhurak’s campaigns. Some embrace permanent homes, markets and manufactured luxuries. Others accuse them of becoming dependent upon conquered peoples.
Sundiata and the Rise of Mali
Sundiata Keita defeats Sosso power and establishes the foundations of Mali.
Manding agriculture, river transport, cavalry, gold, trade and assemblies sustain the new realm. Sundiata succeeds through alliance and political judgement as well as victory in battle.
His exile, disability, return and encounters with dangerous powers survive through living epic performance. Griots preserve genealogy, history and moral argument while giving different weight to ancestors, rivals, nyama and divine aid.
Western Hosts Enter the Rus Lands
Western orc chiefs launch campaigns into the Rus principalities and the grasslands around them. They claim the inheritance of Mhurak while competing over command, territory and the right to receive submission.
Rus princes fail to sustain a common defence. Some try to direct the invaders against neighbours. Others remove families and treasures, retreat into forest country or seek allies farther west.
Major cities fall. Several hosts advance into Poland, Hungary and neighbouring regions, winning great battles without turning every country crossed into a permanent possession.
Forests, marshes, fortified towns, supply difficulties and arguments among chiefs slow the advance. Some leaders turn back because securing what they have already taken matters more than increasing a rival’s glory.
Permanent Settlement Expands in Aotearoa
East Polynesian voyagers establish permanent communities in Aotearoa through several voyages and kin groups rather than one founding fleet.
Communities adapt cultivation, housing, fishing, hunting and seasonal movement to colder islands and unfamiliar ecologies. Iwi, hapū and local identities develop through particular ancestors, marriages, journeys and conflicts.
Atua and ancestral powers travel with the voyagers, but Aotearoa has its own mountains, forests, coasts and presences. New homes require new relationships rather than simple possession.
Resistance Learns to Endure
The principal orc hosts remain terrifying, but they no longer choose one common enemy.
Southern China builds defence around rivers, fortified depth, ships and agricultural wealth. Rus rulers preserve surviving cities through submission, relocation and renewed alliances. Mountain and forest peoples attack isolated groups while refusing open battle.
Conquered cities bargain with whichever chief is nearest. Merchants, interpreters and soldiers attach themselves to particular hosts whose interests no longer match those of distant relatives.
Kemet watches the south-western advance through reports carried from Iran, Mesopotamia and the Levant. Its catfolk commanders study the orcs without attempting to imitate them.
Samalas Erupts
Samalas on Lombok erupts with extraordinary violence. Pyroclastic flows destroy nearby settlements, while sulphur thrown high into the atmosphere contributes to cooling and unusual weather far beyond the island.
The consequences are unequal. A kingdom with full stores may endure a poor harvest that ruins a weaker neighbour. Cold, rain and hunger deepen existing disputes rather than producing one identical disaster everywhere.
Hauntings gather afterward around buried homes, abrupt death and funerary duties that no survivor could complete. They do not cause the eruption.
Baghdad Falls
A coalition of south-western orc chiefs captures Baghdad after years of war through Iran and Mesopotamia.
Districts, estates, libraries, workshops and waterworks suffer catastrophic destruction. Scholars, craftspeople and officials are killed, displaced or carried into the households of new rulers.
The victors enter Baghdad together but do not possess it together for long. Chiefs whose clans suffered the heaviest losses demand the richest rewards. Others preserved their own warriors and now claim equal shares through ancestry, threat and alliance.
The conquest makes the south-western coalition wealthy enough to act independently of every other inheritance of Mhurak. It also gives its chiefs more reasons to hate one another.
The World Beyond the Great Muster
Mhurak’s wars dominate the memory of the period because they destroy so much so quickly. They do not define every society alive between 1200 and 1260.
Africa
Great Zimbabwe grows through cattle, gold, craft and Indian Ocean exchange. Mali rises through Manding alliances, agriculture, river power and trans-Saharan commerce.
India
Delhi becomes a major northern capital while Rajput rulers, Bengal, Himalayan states, forest communities and southern kingdoms preserve competing traditions of rule.
Southeast Asia
Angkor, Pagan and Singhasari contend over rice-growing lands, river valleys, temples, ports and sea routes.
Japan
Kamakura warrior government becomes stronger without replacing the imperial court, provincial families or Shinto sacred authority.
The Americas
Maya courts remain active, Chimú power expands and Mississippian societies reorganise after Cahokia’s contraction.
Atlantic and Pacific Worlds
Norse communities remain in Greenland and Vinland while Polynesian voyagers establish permanent communities in Aotearoa.
A Global Period without One Global Story
The Great Muster connects distant histories through conquest, refugees, merchants and rumour. Across most of Africa, the Americas and the Pacific, people never see an orc warrior. Their societies remain active worlds with their own rulers, conflicts, sacred obligations and transformations.
Mhurak’s Empty Place
No One Inherits Mhurak Whole
Mhurak’s descendants possess famous blood. His oldest companions remember standing beside him before the first great victories. Powerful chiefs command warriors, families and conquered territories of their own. Each holds only part of the loyalty Mhurak once gathered around himself.
The Great Muster does not divide neatly on the day of his death. It remains a shared memory, a source of legitimacy and an occasional reason for cooperation. In practice, its leading hosts increasingly choose different wars and refuse sacrifices that benefit distant rivals.
Eastern chiefs are tied to northern Chinese cities, farms, workshops and unfinished wars against the south.
Western chiefs possess new grasslands, river settlements and influence over surviving Rus rulers.
Central tribes compete over pasture, oasis wealth and mountain approaches between the great regions of conquest.
South-western chiefs hold Iranian and Mesopotamian lands rich enough to support ambitions independent of every other heir.
Mothers promote their own descendants, brothers count each other’s warriors and old companions place service beside Mhurak above younger blood claims.
Conquered cities, displaced rulers, merchants and interpreters exploit the quarrels by offering knowledge and support to the nearest useful claimant.
1260 CE — The Battle of the Hidden Springs
The historical Mamluk victory at Ayn Jalut provides the surrounding chronological frame. In SpiralWorlds, the decisive confrontation occurs at the Hidden Springs, where catfolk Kemet meets the south-western orc host on ground chosen for Kemetite warfare.
Kemet Fights as Kemet
The Hidden Springs lie among dry channels, scrub, broken slopes, ruined walls and pools concealed beneath stone. It is poor ground for a great mounted host and excellent ground for warriors who can see in dim light, climb quickly and move across narrow ledges without losing balance.
Kemet’s catfolk carry powerful bows, throwing spears, long thrusting spears, khopeshes, maces, axes and daggers. Their weapons belong to Kemetite military tradition; their bodies and senses determine how those weapons are used.
The War-Prides Take the Heights
Catfolk archers occupy broken ledges and ruined walls. Spear fighters wait in narrow approaches. Khopesh and mace bearers remain concealed for the sudden violence of close fighting.
Catfolk sight remains effective in the dim light while the approaching orcs struggle to judge distance, numbers and movement among the rocks.
The Host Is Drawn Apart
The first arrows kill scouts, messengers and chiefs whose pride draws them too far forward. Small catfolk groups appear in the half-light, strike and retreat through gullies prepared for ambush.
Orc leaders commit their own clans against targets they believe they can destroy. Each wants the first victory. Rivals hesitate to abandon favourable ground to rescue a competing chief.
Kemet Closes upon the Separated Clans
Spear fighters pin isolated groups in narrow ground. Khopesh and mace bearers descend in short, violent rushes. Archers move between ledges and ruined walls, firing from positions the orcs believed abandoned.
The catfolk do not hold one continuous front. Each pride knows its purpose, its ground and the movements of neighbouring groups. Calls, gestures and visible motion carry decisions across the field.
The South-Western Host Breaks
The orc host becomes several separate battles. Chiefs can see allied clans fighting beyond the rocks but cannot reach them without exposing their own followers.
Kemet’s strongest prides descend only after the invaders have lost the ability to act together. The survivors force a withdrawal north, each chief carrying home a different accusation of pursuit, cowardice or deliberately withheld support.
The First Great Limit
The Battle of the Hidden Springs does not destroy the south-western orc power. It saves Kemet from immediate conquest and proves that the heirs of Mhurak can be defeated when pride divides them faster than command can gather them.
The World at the Threshold of 1260
What This Period Changes
Walls Lose Their Certainty
Constantinople, northern capitals, oasis strongholds, Rus cities and Baghdad demonstrate that stone cannot save a kingdom whose armies, food supply or political unity have failed.
The Orc Tribes Gain a Shared Conqueror
Mhurak gives rival tribes the memory of victories achieved together. Every later orc ruler must live beneath the shadow of what he accomplished.
Conquest Creates New Orc Worlds
Some tribes remain mobile. Others settle near cities, rivers, farms and mountain passages, adopting local foods, tools and habits without becoming one uniform people.
Survival Becomes a Form of Victory
Defeated peoples continue through families, workshops, sacred traditions, displaced courts, hidden records and rebuilt settlements.
Resistance Learns the Enemy
Rivers, forests, mountains, concealed food, prepared ambushes and rivalries among chiefs become recognised weapons against the successor hosts.
Kemet Wins as Kemet
The Hidden Springs victory grows from Kemetite weapons, catfolk senses, agile movement and cooperation between separate war-prides.
Personal Power Leaves a Dangerous Inheritance
Mhurak leaves no throne that one heir can simply occupy. He leaves families, tribes, conquered cities and several rulers powerful enough to claim that his victories belong to them.
Global History Remains Plural
Mali, Great Zimbabwe, India, Southeast Asia, the Americas and the Pacific change through their own causes rather than becoming footnotes to orc conquest.
Historical and Mythic Context
This page combines documented history, archaeology, oral tradition and approved SpiralWorlds campaign canon. The Fourth Crusade, Delhi Sultanate, Magna Carta, fall of the Jin dynasty, rise of Mali, Great Zimbabwe, Kamakura Japan, Singhasari, Cahokia’s contraction, Chimú expansion, Māori settlement, the Samalas eruption, Baghdad’s fall and the Battle of Ayn Jalut provide the principal historical frame.
Mhurak Stone-Blood, the Great Muster, catfolk Kemet and the Battle of the Hidden Springs belong to SpiralWorlds canon.
Historical Mongol evidence remains valuable for understanding thirteenth-century mounted warfare, siegecraft, communication, conquest and continental exchange. It does not determine the names, institutions, borders or exact campaigns of the Great Muster.
The historical Battle of Ayn Jalut remains part of the human past. The Hidden Springs is a distinct SpiralWorlds confrontation built around catfolk Kemet, Kemetite weapons and a battlefield suited to catfolk senses and movement.
Supernatural danger follows mortal catastrophe. Hauntings, weakened sanctuaries and displaced relics arise from war, massacre and broken custodianship. They do not replace political ambition, military decisions, environmental conditions or mortal responsibility.
Great Zimbabwe, Mali, Cahokia, Maya kingdoms, Andean societies and Aotearoa must also be understood through archaeology, oral tradition and descendant knowledge rather than solely through chronicles written by Eurasian courts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Mhurak Stone-Blood?
Mhurak is the mortal orc conqueror who gathers rival tribes into the Great Muster during the opening years of the thirteenth century. He unites existing peoples; he does not create them.
What is the Great Muster?
The Great Muster is the immense tribal confederation created through Mhurak’s victories, reputation, rewards and coercive authority. It contains many tribes, families and regional traditions rather than one uniform orc society.
Is the Great Muster a renamed Mongol Empire?
No. The historical Mongol conquests provide part of the century’s background. Mhurak, his tribes, their political relationships and the geography of their wars belong to SpiralWorlds.
Why does the Great Muster divide?
No heir possesses Mhurak’s authority over every chief. Powerful tribes become attached to different conquered regions and increasingly refuse to sacrifice their own families and warriors for distant rivals.
Is Kemet a human Egyptian kingdom?
No. Kemet is an ancient catfolk civilisation whose weapons, politics and military traditions have developed through its own people and landscape.
How do Kemet’s catfolk fight?
Kemetite warriors use bows, throwing spears, long spears, khopeshes, maces, axes and daggers. They combine those weapons with low-light sight, balance, climbing ability, sudden movement and coordinated action by separate war-prides.
Why does the period end at the Hidden Springs?
The battle halts the south-western advance and exposes the divisions among Mhurak’s heirs. It marks the point at which the conquered world begins facing several rival orc powers rather than one Great Muster.
Selected Historical and Archaeological References
Use of Historical Sources
These sources support the documented chronology surrounding the campaign setting. Mhurak Stone-Blood, the Great Muster, catfolk Kemet and the Battle of the Hidden Springs are SpiralWorlds canon.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Byzantium, c. 330–1453
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Crusades, 1095–1291
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Legacy of Genghis Khan
- British Library — Magna Carta, 1215
- Smarthistory — Delhi and Deccan Sultanates
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Trans-Saharan Gold Trade
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Sunjata in West African Epic Tradition
- UNESCO — Great Zimbabwe National Monument
- UNESCO — Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site
- UNESCO — Chan Chan Archaeological Zone
- UNESCO — Angkor
- Te Ara — Māori Arrival and Settlement
- Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program — Rinjani and Samalas
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Battle of Ayn Jalut