SETAEI ×

RealGram presents

SHAHNAMEH

The Book of Kings

by Hakim Abu'l-Qasem Ferdowsi · completed c. 1010 CE

Watch the intro film in full 4K

Scroll down

✦

Myth glimpse

Where this unbroken line actually starts

Before Ferdowsi's own life, before Rostam's much older Age of Heroes — there's Daqiqi's fragment: roughly 1,000 surviving verses about a prophet and two kings, the exact seam where the Shahnameh's myth first touches documented history.

Zarathustra

The teaching

A new faith takes root at the fire temple in Balkh.

Gashtasp

The conversion

The king adopts the faith — the act that makes it a kingdom's religion, not just a teaching.

Royin Dez, Arjasp's fortress on the steppe

Arjasp of Turan

The war

Gashtasp's conversion pulls Turan into war from the fortress of Royin Dez — the political core of what survives of Daqiqi's verses.

Ferdowsi's own family story below, and Rostam & Sohrab's much older tale further down, both connect back to this same unbroken line — everything on this page starts here.

The poet

The man who wrote his people back to life

Hakim Abu'l-Qasem Ferdowsi was born around 940 CE in the village of Paj outside Tus, in Khorasan — northeastern Persia. He came from the dehqan class: landowning Persian gentry, seen as carriers of an "authentic," pre-Islamic Persian identity at a time when that identity was under pressure.

He was no cleric, no courtier. A modest, unassuming life — and a task he began at 37 and didn't put down until he was around 70. By then he had written roughly 50,000 verses: the Shahnameh, "the Book of Kings" — likely the longest epic poem ever completed by a single person.

To be honest: no surviving contemporary portrait of Ferdowsi exists. The face you see here — and in the intro film — is our interpretation, built with AI from what the sources actually describe about class, dress, and age. Not a claimed likeness, just an attempt to give a real person a face.

Six angles of the Ferdowsi character, generated for production

Character sheet — six angles, one identity through the whole film

Close-up of the reed pen against parchment

Reed pen and parchment — his signature objects, the way the mace is Rostam's

Why he started

A language on the verge of vanishing

When the Arabs conquered Persia in 651 CE, more than a new government arrived — Arabic took over as the language of administration and literature. Over the generations that followed, Persian written culture and pre-Islamic history began to fade.

In the 900s, the Samanid dynasty in Khorasan led a deliberate revival of Persian as a written language. A poet named Daqiqi had begun turning the old Sasanian royal chronicle — the Khwaday-Namag, "Book of Lords" — into verse, but was killed before he got past the Zahhak chapter, around 1,000 lines in.

Ferdowsi picked up where Daqiqi left off, in 977. Not for a court, not for payment that ever arrived as promised — but because someone had to finish it: to give a people their own history back, in their own language, before it was gone for good.

به نام خداوند جان و خرد

"In the name of the Lord of soul and wisdom"

— the opening line. The first of roughly 50,000 verses.

✦

The world's oldest continuous story

From creation to the start of history

The Shahnameh doesn't open with history, but with myth — and slides, era by era, into documented history. Three great ages. One unbroken line.

Pishdadian era

No fixed date — deliberately mythic time

Keyumars — the first man, the first king

No calendar date exists for this era — deliberately so. The text doesn't count in years before any epoch, it counts in reign-lengths, and they're not meant to be historical: Zahhak's own tyranny alone is said to last 1,000 years. That's symbolic mythic time, not a chronology anyone can map onto a BCE date — so we don't invent one. Jamshid's golden age and fall, and Fereydun's fatal division of the world, unfold in this same dateless age.

Kayanian dynasty

Legendary — usually placed before c. 700 BCE

The Age of Heroes

Generations before Cyrus the Great — Manuchehr, Kay Kavus, Kay Khosrow. A heroic age older than the Persian empire most people know from the history books. This is where Rostam and Sohrab belong.

Ashkanian & Sasanian

c. 247 BCE – 651 CE

From legend to documented history

The story slides into Parthian and Sasanian history — well documented, spanning centuries down to the Arab conquest of 651 CE, exactly where Ferdowsi's own project begins.

One man. About 30 years. One unbroken line from the creation of the world to his own lifetime.

✦

The process

How SETAEI built his character with AI

Before anything is generated, we build a character bible: physique, dress, personality — all drawn from actual sources, not invented. It becomes a fixed "Soul Cast" prompt we reuse again and again, so Ferdowsi is recognizable in every scene.

Contact sheet from production: Ferdowsi six angles

A genuine excerpt from our own production process — not a curated highlight, a working sheet.

We don't settle for a "good enough" first draft

The first generation had a real problem: loose strands of hair broke through the turban in profile, even though the prompt explicitly forbade it. Noted, not hidden — and fixed the next round.

Real film, not a smooth AI face

Our own feedback after the first version: "it still doesn't look like a real human." The next iteration pushes hard toward real skin texture, film grain, and documentary light — practical filmmaking, not a polished render.

Direction, not just image generation

We asked for a specific performance: hesitate, reread, discard, start over — a perfectionist at work, not someone writing fluently. That's direction, not prompting.

The village of Paj at dawn, Ferdowsi's birthplace outside Tus

Real geography

Paj, at the foot of the mountains outside Tus — a real place, not an invented fantasy landscape. The coordinates are known (36.4767917, 59.6715842); the house shown to tourists there today was actually built around 1920, not Ferdowsi's own — but the landscape, vineyards, and orchards around it are real and undisputed. Sistan, Rostam's homeland, still sits on the map today, split between Iran and Afghanistan.

✦

The house itself

Same architecture, aged down — not four different buildings

Per the production's own rule: the next stage of decline keeps exactly the same architecture as the established house, shown with less upkeep — never a new building. Three rooms, each across the phases that matter most.

Phase 1 — comfortable (c. 970–978)

The courtyard

Phase 1 — full fountain, lush plantings, bright warm light. Phase 3 — lower water, overgrowth starting, dimmer. Phase 4 — dry fountain, heavy decay, the darkest of the three.

Phase 1 — comfortable (c. 970–978)

The workroom

Phase 1 — bright and organized, full shelves. Phase 3 — dimmer, books stacked in piles, visible mending. Phase 4 — minimal light, only the essential manuscripts left, worn furniture.

Phase 1 — comfortable (c. 970–978)

The children's room

Phase 1 — bright, many toys, good textiles. Phase 3 — fewer, simpler toys, faded carpets. Phase 4 — almost nothing left but patched carpets — childhood's memory preserved in what remains.

✦

The city outside

Tus declines with him

The same rule as the house — real place, not invented — extended to the marketplace itself: a knot of trade and craft in his early years, quieter and harder by the time he finishes.

A family history first — not just kings and monsters

Every face on this page starts the same way: real sources first, invention labeled as invention.

✦

Four phases, one man

Drag the line. Watch him age.

Instead of a simple before/after: drag the slider through Ferdowsi's four life phases, from the young dehqan in 970 to the exhausted, finished poet in 1020. Same house, same family, one long decline — not a late wealth peak, but a gradual road to poverty, documented in the continuity sheet the production was built on.

Phase 1 · c. 968–978 · age 28–38

The young household

Family: newly married, Mehrak 0–8 years old, Roshanak born toward the end of this phase.

Wealth: comfortable dehqan prosperity — not poor, not rich. The courtyard fountain runs full, the orchard is young.

The man himself: ambitious and curious, still light-hearted. The Shahnameh hasn't started yet — that begins only in 977, when he is 37.

Phase 2 · 979–995 · age 39–55

The household's cultural peak

Family: in 987 — Ferdowsi 47, Mehrnaz 42, Mehrak 17, Roshanak 11. The most alive the household ever gets.

Wealth: the richest and most culturally developed point in the family's life — many guests, many manuscripts, still solid finances.

The man himself: the most productive and driven Ferdowsi. Strong belief in the task, demanding of himself, a warm but often absent father.

the house at its richest

Phase 3 · 996–1008 · age 56–68

The decline begins

Family: Mehrak dies c. 1006–07, age 37 — documented by Ferdowsi himself in his own elegy inside the Shahnameh, not legend.

Wealth: early decay. Lower water in the fountain, overgrowth in the garden, dimmer rooms — same architecture, less upkeep.

The man himself: complained of failing eyesight and leg pain, but kept writing anyway. Grief and self-blame after his son's death color the rest of the work.

Ferdowsi, Phase 4, finishing the Shahnameh

Phase 4 · 1009–1020+ · age 69–80+

The finished work

Family: Roshanak the only surviving child, now carrying the household and later the manuscript itself.

Wealth: heavily worn — the driest fountain, the deepest decay of all four phases. No late riches, just a finished work.

The man himself: dignified but exhausted, afraid the text might be lost or destroyed — yet still clear-voiced when reciting it. Roughly 50,000 verses, about 30 years.

same house — three phases

Phase 1 · 28–38 Phase 2 · 39–55 Phase 3 · 56–68 Phase 4 · 69–80+

Drag the handle, or tap a point — arrow keys work too

✦

The characters

Real history, source-researched — not invented fantasy

Every card below is built from one knowledge base with three tiers: documented history, popular legend, and, where the sources go quiet, a deliberate project choice — always labeled as exactly that.

Documented history

Ferdowsi

The poet · c. 940–1020

Dehqan class from Tus. Wrote for roughly 30 years. No surviving contemporary portrait exists — the face is our interpretation from class, dress, and age, not a claimed likeness.

Project name

Mehrnaz

The wife · c. 945–

Ferdowsi's wife isn't known by name. The sources suggest she could read and play the chang — a reading of the woman in the introduction to Bijan and Manijeh, uncertain but plausible.

Naming research: see the dedicated box below — no name survives in Ferdowsi's own verses.

Documented history

Mehrak

The son · born 970, died c. 1006–07

The son's birth year and age at death — 37 — are documented. Ferdowsi mourned him in his own elegy, written directly into the Shahnameh. The name is the project's own.

Popular legend

Roshanak

The daughter · c. 976–

The story that she refused Sultan Mahmud's late reward of gold belongs to the later biographical tradition — treated as legend, not confirmed event, but too good to leave out.

Documented history

Daqiqi

The predecessor · d. c. 977

Began turning the Khwaday-Namag into verse but was killed after only about 1,000 lines — the Zahhak chapter. Ferdowsi picked up the work that same year.

Religious-historical tradition

Zarathustra

The prophet

The fire altar and radiant light are drawn from real Zoroastrian iconography, not from Ferdowsi's text itself — the text describes the conflict around him, not his face.

Corrected once: the first draft was illuminated-manuscript style; swapped to the same photoreal register as the rest of the cast.

In Ferdowsi's text

Gashtasp

The king who adopted the faith

The king whose conversion to Zoroastrianism — and war with Arjasp of Turan — is the actual content of Daqiqi's roughly 1,000 surviving verses.

Corrected same day: the first image was painterly/enthroned; swapped to a photoreal six-angle portrait the same day it was flagged.

In Ferdowsi's text

Arjasp of Turan

The opponent

The war against Gashtasp and the faith is the political core of Daqiqi's fragment. Photoreal six-angle portrait, locked the same session as Gashtasp for visual consistency.

In Ferdowsi's text

Rostam

Jahan Pahlavan — "World's Champion"

Superhuman strength from birth, the babr-e bayan (leopard cloak) as his own battle garment, the bull-headed mace — all textually grounded; the face itself is manuscript convention.

In Ferdowsi's text

Tahmineh

The princess of Samangan

Seeks Rostam out herself — unusual initiative for a Shahnameh woman. Raises Sohrab alone for 20 years and tells him herself who his father is.

In Ferdowsi's text

Sohrab

The son who never met his father

Just as strong as Rostam despite his youth. Wears the armband from his mother — proof of who his father is — but neither of them thinks of it until it's too late.

Process note: why "Mehrnaz"? We searched Ferdowsi's own verses for a real name before choosing one — read the naming research →

Every hero needs his kit

Six objects, locked once, reused in every scene — never redesigned from scratch.

✦

Rostam's armory

Six objects, one man, across every fight

A full battle kit has to look like the same object in every scene it appears in — not redesigned from scratch each time. Below is both the reference and the process note for each piece.

Rostam's lamellar armor and leopard-fur helmet, full turnaround

Locked

Armor & helmet

Scale-and-leopard-fur battle dress — the same babr-e bayan (leopard cloak) described in Ferdowsi's text. Body armor from four angles, the leopard-head helmet from five.

Locked

Gorz-e gāv-sar

Bull-headed war mace. Textually grounded — named after its shape in Ferdowsi's own text.

Two takes

Bow & quiver

Five-angle bow turnaround, a dedicated quiver turnaround, grip and fletching details.

Locked

The dagger

Gold and leather, engraved — the same material language as the rest of the set.

Locked

The shield

Iron/bronze, an embossed boss, rivets along the rim — front, back, and grip detail.

Set complete

The sword

Straight blade, cross-guard, gold fittings — the final piece. The battle kit is now genuinely complete.

Process note: the bow that was requested as a spear — read what happened →

✦

Other objects

The objects that carry the story forward

Not weapons, not faces — but the things that follow the family through every phase and make the grief and continuity visible without a single word.

The chang

A triangular frame harp — the standalone object reference, locked to its correct shape.

The wooden horse

Mehrak's toy as a child — becomes a keepsake in the document chest after his death.

The writing tablet

Roshanak's own, from childhood — the same tablet she uses as an adult to sort and preserve her father's manuscript.

The document chest

The family archive across all four phases — fewer, more precious objects with each passing year.

The manuscript

Roughly 50,000 verses, bound together — the physical end product of 30 years of work.

The armband

Rostam ties it around Tahmineh's arm; he recognizes the same band on Sohrab's arm in the duel. Locked to real measurements now — 280mm band, 18×13mm stone — so it reads consistently small in her hand and snug on his upper arm, not two different props.

The barsom

The bundle of twigs held during Zoroastrian ritual — real liturgical iconography, standing in for Zarathustra's teaching the way the fire altar does.

Inkwell and reed pen

Ferdowsi's signature object across every phase, the way the mace is Rostam's.

Faravahar

The Zoroastrian symbol, drawn from real relief iconography — not from Ferdowsi's text itself.

✦

The journey

Eight real places, Ferdowsi's own story

From Daqiqi's interrupted verses in Bukhara to Roshanak turning away the gold at Tus' gates — real geography where it exists, clearly labeled where it doesn't. Rostam and Sohrab get their own places further down, in their own chapter.

STOP 1 · BUKHARA

The Samanid court

Where the deliberate revival of written Persian begins in the 900s — and where Daqiqi starts turning the royal chronicle into verse.

STOP 2 · PAJ, NEAR TUS

The birthplace

Ferdowsi is born here around the year 940 — a real place with known coordinates, still inhabited today.

STOP 3 · BALKH

The fire temple

Where Daqiqi's fragment takes us — Zarathustra's teaching, Gashtasp's conversion, the glimpse of myth inside history.

STOP 4 · ROYIN DEZ

The fortress on the steppe

Arjasp of Turan's base in the war against the new faith — the political core of Daqiqi's remaining verses.

STOP 5 · THE ROAD TO GHAZNI

The finished work, on its way

Ferdowsi, old now, with roughly 50,000 verses complete — heading toward a court that never paid as promised.

STOP 6 · GHAZNI

Sultan Mahmud's court

The story of underpayment and insult belongs to the later, disputed legend tradition — flagged as exactly that.

Ferdowsi's grave in the orchard near Tus

STOP 7 · TUS

The orchard, the grave

Where the journey ends for him — in the landscape he wrote from, not some distant palace.

STOP 8 · THE GATES OF TUS

The gold arrives too late

The sultan's reward arrives just as the funeral procession leaves through another gate. Roshanak turns it away — legend, not confirmed history, but the journey's natural ending.

✦

Mythology & animals

Not just humans carry this story

Rakhsh

Rostam's horse — the only one that held steady when he pressed his hand against their backs during the selection at Kabul. Ferdowsi describes the coat as "rose petals scattered on a saffron ground." In other tales, Rakhsh fights a lion alone to protect a sleeping Rostam, and senses the trap that kills them both before Rostam himself does. His own Soul ID, his own turnaround — as consistent through the film as Rostam himself.

Simorgh

The mythical bird that rescues and raises Zal — Rostam's father — after he's abandoned as an infant for his white hair. Simorgh later gives Zal one of her feathers, burned to summon her in a crisis. Peacock-eyed tail feathers over a raptor's build — a gap in the mythology collection until this turnaround.

✦ A separate story, a separate style

An open production — same principle as Higgsfield's own reference films. Higgsfield built the Global Film Festival around films like Hell Grind and Zephyr being fully open-sourced — every prompt, every asset, the whole pipeline, public. We're building this the same way: full shot list, every shot-for-shot prompt, the complete character/location/prop reference library, and the production methodology below are all public before the film itself is finished, not after.

A parallel story

Rostam & Sohrab — Jahan Pahlavan, "World's Champion"

We deliberately break from the rest of the page's manuscript palette here. Ferdowsi's own life is told in gold and parchment — Rostam and Sohrab's tragedy gets its own night-sky register, darker and more epic, because that's exactly how it feels in the text: a story inside the story, with its own tone.

Iran's greatest hero, from Sistan/Zabulistan. Legendarily huge, known for the leopard-skin cloak — babr-e bayan — said to be impervious to fire, water, and weapons.

Sistan / Zabulistan Kayanian era King Kay Kavus

Rakhsh already has his own spotlight in Mythology & Animals above — not repeated here.

ROSTAM & SOHRAB · PLACE 1

Samangan

Where Rostam meets Tahmineh — and Sohrab is conceived, without his father ever knowing until it's too late.

The handoff — the scene that sets the whole tragedy in motion

The setup

Tahmineh — the princess of Samangan

One night, many years before the battlefield. Rostam is heading home when Rakhsh is stolen in Samangan. The king there offers his daughter Tahmineh in marriage for one night — and Sohrab is conceived that night.

Before Rostam rides on the next morning, he ties an armband around her upper arm: "If you have a son, bind this to his arm — so I can know him, the day fate brings us together."

Rostam

Tahamtan — "the mighty-bodied"

Proud, short-tempered, unshakably loyal. Speaks back to kings without fear — and saves them anyway, every time.

Sohrab

The son who never met his father

Just as strong as his father despite his youth. Driven by love for a man he knows only from his mother's stories.

Tahmineh

The princess of Samangan

Raises her son alone for twenty years. Ties the armband to his arm herself, the day she sends him out to find his father.

His own kit — a leaner echo of his father's, not yet battle-worn

The sword

Straight blade, engraved bronze fittings, scabbard slung at the hip.

The spear

Damascus-patterned head, leather-wrapped shaft — his reach weapon before the grapple.

The helmet

Open-faced, horsehair crest — built for a young warrior, not yet a veteran's full-face guard.

ROSTAM & SOHRAB · PLACE 2

The battlefield

Two armies on a dusty plain. Neither father nor son knows who the other really is.

Two armies meet on a dusty plain. A young warrior rides out alone and calls to the stranger who meets him: are you Rostam, son of Zal? The stranger hesitates a moment too long, and denies it. They fight. Neither knows they are fighting their own blood.

It's one of the most-quoted scenes in Persian literature — and the one we're building first, as our own short film.

Why "the stranger" is unrecognizable: Rostam rides out hiding his identity — armor and the tiger-pelt cloak both covered by a plain, dirty soldier's cloak, no banner. See his gallery above for the reference: full armor for the fight itself, this disguise for the ride out and the "I am no one you know" beat, before the cloak comes off at the recognition.

Script excerpt — Rostam & Sohrab

SOHRAB

Tell me your name. Are you Rostam, son of Zal?

(a beat too long before he answers)

ROSTAM

I am no one you know.

Sohrab studies him a moment longer — searching, hopeful — then lowers his spear.

SOHRAB

Then let's see what "no one" is made of.

The climax

The armband is visible on Sohrab's upper arm — the same clasp, the same black onyx stone as in the handoff scene. The recognition happens in the image, not just the text.

The script is fully developed down to the shot list and shot-for-shot video prompts — read the full manuscript (30 shots, 4:23, every prompt) or the camera & visual language notes. The goal: the Higgsfield Global Film Festival — opened August 10, submission deadline September 3, 2026.

✦ How this actually gets built

The pipeline, not just the pitch

Higgsfield's own open-sourced films — Hell Grind, Zephyr, Mork — ship with the reasoning behind each technique, not just the finished cut. Here's ours, in the same spirit: what actually keeps a character's face, a location's light, and a prop's identity consistent across dozens of separate AI generations.

Locked reference sheets, not re-described characters

Every character (Rostam, Sohrab, Tahmineh, Ferdowsi across four life phases) has a fixed turnaround/pose sheet generated once and referenced by every later shot — never re-described from scratch. This is the single biggest lever against the "AI face drift" a jury notices instantly.

One through-line prop, tracked across every appearance

The armband exists as its own isolated reference sheet (clasp, stone, worn-on-arm scale) and appears identically in the gifting scene, the departure scene, and the death scene — the recognition has to work as an actual visual match, not just as a line of dialogue.

Location sheets before character sheets enter them

Samangan, the two war camps, and the battlefield itself are generated as clean environment plates first — then characters are placed into them, and the same plate is deliberately reused across shots (e.g. the wide battlefield shot opens and closes the duel) instead of regenerating similar-but-different terrain each time.

A shared avoid-list, not per-shot guesswork

Every shot's prompt carries the same negative-prompt discipline — no glowing/magical effects, no oversized moon, no readable on-screen text, no loose hair breaking Ferdowsi's turban. Collected once on the camera page so it's a system, not a memory test.

Fact-tiered research before a single prompt is written

Every character/location claim is tagged against what Ferdowsi's text actually says, what's later artistic tradition, and what's this production's own creative choice — so the film can say honestly which parts are Shahnameh and which parts are us.

Budget re-generation by emotional weight, not by shot count

The recognition, the dagger strike, and the closing pull-back are marked "never cut, spend the most re-generation budget here" — a jury forgives an imperfect crowd shot far faster than it forgives a hollow face in the one moment the whole film is built around.

None of this is claimed to match Hell Grind's own 95-minute, crowd-scale pipeline exactly — it's the same underlying discipline (locked references, tracked props, shared constraints) scaled to a 4:23 short. Full detail: manuscript · camera notes.

✦

Where we are now

From manuscript to game

Built

50 chapters, one aging face

Ferdowsi's own chronicle follows him from 37 to 77 across the whole game — each era with its own color palette.

Tap-to-earn Zar economy

Real, server-synced earnings tied directly to play — not a decorative number.

REAL token & wallet

Its own token economy, connected to your RealGram account.

Source-researched knowledge base

18 documents, three source tiers (documented/legend/project choice) behind every character and scene.

In progress

The Ferdowsi intro film

Realism iteration underway — from "AI-smooth" to a practical film feel.

The Rostam & Sohrab short film

Full script and shot list ready. In production against the film festival deadline of August 31, 2026.

More chapters

The knowledge base is written for easy expansion — more of the Shahnameh's ~50 royal reigns are waiting.

More characters, same rigor

The same source-researched process Ferdowsi and Rostam already got.

✦

The game lives inside RealGram

One network. VPN, game, token, and messaging.

Shahnameh isn't a standalone app — it's one layer of RealGram: free VPN, its own token economy, and a messaging service, bound together by one principle — the more people connect, the stronger the network gets for everyone. Real player rankings and the live REAL token price both live in the app itself, not as static numbers here.

Explore RealGram