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Thread for A Simple History
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Peanut
4:48pm, March 14, 2010
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[Delete] | It has not always been so dry here. It has not always been so simple here, either. Dakkarta, and the lands beyond it, defined by rough borders where few laws apply and very few risk to travel, lush lands flourished in the era of Gods. Parshta and Grimslaine were once among us, and they laid with us, and their children were many, and greatly powerful.
Hm..but men are prone to jealousy, and violence. God's children, being half-men, are equally prone to these foibles born in our blood. The world was a soup of discontent: half-gods jealous of their brothers and sisters, jealous of men in their simplicity and their complexity; and men, jealous of power beyond their reach, not content with mere worship or as playthings for the powerful. The children of Parshta the Brilliant and Grimslaine the Shadow could do all things but one, you see, and it was this one act denied them that laid the seeds for war. Their parents, though whether wisely or not, denied them the ability to create. Their own births would be the last they were ever familiar with, for no demi-god could lay with a human and produce a child. They were all of them sterile, and this infuriated them. Decades passed, and their resentment festered while around them the seed of humankind flowed and we became many. Why could they not be many? they asked their parents. Why can we not know creation, we, who can command the elements, control the stars - we who taught them how to sew the land as they sew the womb and rise up in greatness?
Whether wisely or unwisely, their parents said little on the matter, and only shook their heads when their children's questions became angry demands to be altered, and these demands became threats, and those threats became action. If they, the children of gods, could not create, then they would deprive the world of those who could, and rule it absolutely. Parshta and Grimslaine did not forsake their human creations when the war came, when kingdoms united and amassed for the sake of survival. Grimslaine gifted them with the knowledge to craft weapons that would pierce the armor, and the hearts of Her children. Parshta came to them in their training rings, and he taught them a form of battle never before known, in order to defeat His children. These things did the parent-Gods give us, to survive the onslaught.
Survive we did, though not as we had been. And we did kill them, all of them; our Champions were as diverse as our kingdoms, and they did indeed destroy those who had sought to destroy us. After the Halfling War, the parent-Gods retreated, with simple commands to be held in their wake: become great, grow dense, and always hold Our vigil, those who gave you the tools and the will to survive.
They left destruction in their wake as well, however. Their children had scarred and changed our lands so that no kingdom was as it had been, no home was untouched by the great taint of the godling's magics. We forsook the chains of royalty and servitude, unbound our slaves and our merchants and we migrated to the few strongholds which survived, which could support us. Our Champions came with us, but they were wise: they refused to be exalted and held on high - they returned to their farms, their weaving, their forges. Four alone chose to establish schools based on the great skills the parent-Gods had given us to survive the Halfling War. A priestess of Grimslaine and a priest of Parshta rebuilt the temples, and took into their fold those humans who had hearts full of fidelity and love, and they learned the ways of the Gods and keep them, and from them come our Elders. A blacksmith of Fjornland from far north kept the knowledge and the craft of the Champion's steel that Grimslaine had given us, and to that day every city has a Champion Forge, and every city a Champion, chosen by the weapon itself. A great warrior preserved the form of battle Parshta had bestowed on us, and in each city there is a school that teaches those found worthy the Dance of Light, and from them come our Bright Guard.
This is how we came to be a Republic. City-states seen over by a Guardian Council with two Elders to preserve the wisdom of the Gods in our lives, and two others from every corner of our society: two merchants, two farmers, two weavers, two shepherds, two city guard, two crafters, two Guard, two Forgers, two Teachers - and so on, and so forth, elected every year by the people, chosen to represent them. Trade flows through the gates of the world's surviving cities like water, and the land outside the walls, deformed and scarred still from the Halfling War, is one few simple people care to travel. Thank Gods for the brave few who know the land, and travel it to preserve cultures and language, to preserve commerce.
- From, "A Simple History," by Teacher Advar Floronz, New Grimvald, a.w. 1090.
[All content on this thread is copyright A.L. Corbin, 2010.)
Edited 6:39pm, March 14, 2010 by Peanut, author. |
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