Ancient Times

The story of the rise of the Neandethali, or the Zoothaa in the Geopoooreen tongue, from their origins in the plains of Tethysigaust of the world of Gaust are similar to that of the Homo sapiens sapiens of the worlds of Jer and Gul. There were many peoples that migrated from Tethysigaust north to the frozen lands of Eropan, Espanagea and Giedogea, and these lived amongst each other, mingling their blood over time. Of these peoples, it was the ice dwellers, not the industrious Cros that came to dominate the north.

Unlike the mild climes of Jer and Gul, Gaust remained frozen and harder to inhabit, and only the steadfast survived. The life of these people remained unmerciful and short, there were few that lived beyond 40, and these were usually afflicted with the plagues of old age. Though simple industries were present from the beginning, there was little development and little prospect of improvement, while the ice remained.

The First Age

At a point some 60,000 years before present, the Zoothaa began to live longer, like their Cro counterparts in Tethysigaust, and the women lived to see their menopause. This was the beginning of what is usually referred to as a “great leap forward”, for now there was to be inter-generational memory. Almost from the start the industries improved, the migrations grew more planned, and the bonds of tribe and people strengthened. Zoothaa paid honour to an elder class within the tribe, and these in turn were able to recall the lessons of the past, and save their people from hardship. This “great leap forward” saw the beginnings of a pact between tribes that grew eventually to associations and cultural bonds. Inter-tribal marriages tempered by the stars and the totems of people drew tribes together and nations began to form. Migration within nations were made possible through a strong oral culture that mapped their lands with a precision that guaranteed survival for those that listened.

The Zoothaa were, nonetheless, a technologically conservative race, never spawning new industry unless dire necessity prevailed, they were more trusting of their lore than their Cro counterparts. The frugality of the Zoothaa proved to be a very successful strategy in Eropan, even while the same stategy proved ill for the Neanderthals on Gul. The Cros squandered their hunting grounds, using great industry, and they always had a mind for more. Over the following 20,000 years the Cros disappeared from Eropan and Espanagea, but remained for a time in the lands of Giedogea, Banahagaust and Tethysigaust.

In the time of dreaming there was no will to step aside and look at the world. The idea came upon us slowly as we began to listen amongst ourselves, and see with the eyes and aside-ness of others.

We began to first imagine the spirits around us, and we spoke to them, we made some our elders and we had those of our kind to consult them. We began to live longer and collect and collect as larger groups, but we built nothing during this time and we made no tools of metal.

The first age remains dim in our memories for it is our dream and we cannot put focus to it. But of the second age we can tell more.

The Second Age

For In the early times of this age, we remember the many heroes that walked the land and showed us the ways of the spirit world. Each story tells us of a trial of patience, a cunningness of thought, and a slow building of mind.

The second age is considered by all to have begun with the recording of history. This is a significant step for them, but the heraldry of this development, masks something that non-Zoothaa, would consider more significant: their unique powers of the mind. At a point nearly 10,000 years ago, the Zoothaa began to develop strong psychic powers in what could be seen as a second “great leap forward”. Almost everywhere at once, or in a very small period of time just before the close of the first age, the Zoothaa ceased to speak. Although many retained the ability for many years after this event, well before the close of the Second Age, verbal communication was well forgotten.

The phrase “great leap forward”, erroneously suggests a sudden transfiguration, but the development of the powers was slow and subtle. It began with things like: a knowledge that a loved one is alive and safe; an increase in length and variety of the non-verbal conveyance of thought; and the knowledge of ones mood before they were met. This had much to do with close inter-personal bonding, and could not be greatly distinguished as a demonstrative power until it grew sufficiently that other more obvious powers were demonstrated. It is with these secondary powers that the “second great leap forward” is manifest.

On the southern shores of Eropan, there lived a group of tribes, including the Horan People, whom were the ancestors of Hordu amongst others of great repute. These were amongst the first to completely abandon verbal communication, as it was said that their feelings and intentions spoke of them the better. Some of these people moved east in time and settled under the eves of the great glaciers.

There was also Arkaan who was a great hunter and in a time of drought, she sought to know the minds of her quarry. She had told her people to be patient for a time of plenty would come, and year after year they implored her to hunt. One summer, she gathered herbs from the risen lands, and she put a spell on those herbs. He then went to the banks of a shrunken river and crumbled the herbs into the water, watching the dry leaves at first float, before slowly sinking into the waters. The waters that touched these herbs put the animals that drank them, into a spell. From that point on all she had to do was to tell them to sleep and they did. Her tribe ate well through all droughts thereafter. These were the Pan people, and these passed mostly into Tethysigaust, and back to the lands of their deep ancestors. For a time the ancestors themselves lived around the Pan, for it is said that they remained to give counsel. In time, though, the decendants of the Pan came to inhabit all of Tethysigaust at the expense of the deep ancestors. After some time, the Pan teachings reached the shores of Eropan, following those that migrated or traded.

While all these feats were remarkable in and of themselves, they were most likely developing at the end of the First Age. It is the stories arising from the so-called Warring Storytellers that began our historical account, and mark the Second Age, and it was to their story that we should first turn.

In the lands east of Eropan, were many tribes, living in the shadows of the great ice fields of the north. These people could not find between them agreements, and they remained separate and hostile to each other. It was believed or realised by some from these tribes that a time would come when none would remain to tell their story and the times that their story lived in.

During the Year of the Sundering of the Lands, the ice advanced over the green fields and tribes were forced from their abodes to the inconvenience of others. There were those that sought to find peaceful solutions, but there were many that would have the displaced driven out for reasons of ideology, jealousy or pure greed. In one case, it was a family feud that erupted after a long slumber of years. Near to a generation before, the two sons of the dead king Hordo fought over the right to rule. The king had blessed his son Loko, but his other son Manu did not accept his father’s choice and sought to displace his brother. After two summers, it became understood that neither side would acquiesce, and so the tribe split into the supporters of each son. When Loko’s tribe got displaced by the ice many years later, Loko approached his brother for help, but Manu remained aloof and would not make provision. Anger welled in Loko for this poor treatment, and made war on Manu. Loko’s people were however defeated, and Manu took the Axe of Hordo, which carried the valiance and blessing of the king, but also his memory. Loko was dismayed at his loss and could not understand the jealousy of his brother. Most of all, he was now separated from his father and he had to build new reserves of strength to put this wrong right. Loko enlisted the help of the Pasor people, lead by Chaanu the Chased. After a bitter fight, Loko reclaimed the weapon from his dead brother’s hand and become once again the sole ruler of the people of his father. He never forgot the assistance of the Pasar and taught this debt to his heirs.

The Year of the Sundering of the lands is marked as the first year of the Second Age.

The Axe of Hordo is the first evidence of an enchanted weapon, but its main significance is that Zoothaa were capable of imparting their minds and their influence on and over inanimate objects. In a strikingly similar fashion to that displayed by the Three Stones of Jerrimoo, Zoothaa would commonly polish stones and tell their stories into them for others to know. The collection of stones strewn about Gaust, in total, account for our knowledge of the deeds of the Second Age.

The stories of this time, including those sampled above, give the impression that the Zoothaa were similarly quick to anger to the Cros, but they were slower to act upon it, and so we have less evidence overall of warfare. The familiarity bred through constant mental communication, itself could be a cause and preventative of war. There was less to fear, but things that were probably best left hidden were not.

As there was a marked beginning to the Second Age, there was also a reckoning of time, which improved over the span. Many structures were built for the reckoning of time and the study of stars. The most advanced of these were of the Krowkalaan of whom we will soon learn. The precision of the constructions were in themselves monuments to mathematics, but one may learn of their scaffolds not so much by careful study of their mechanism, but more by coming close to them, and hearing their story.

By the 4500th year of the Second Age, most parts of Gaust were marked by the memories of generations past. The traveller could learn all about the ways of the wilderness and the local tribes by listening to the stones, the trees and the earth. In many ways the Zoothaa were creating their own heaven on Earth. Subtle divisions or specialisations were developing in the people as the differing landscapes of Gaust dictated.

By the 4800th year of the Second Age many people crossed the bridge of ice from Polamagaust to the ice fields of Shegagaust, and there established the civilization that would later be known as the whale-callers. Shegagaust was an inhospitable land, where there was only one night a year, and it was long and cold, being for half the year. The sun and stars circled around the sky, and a city of ice was made at the centre of this circling, called Zanathar, or apex city in their minds. There were many miles between the city and food, for this was to be found only on the margins of Shegagaust. The people adapted to this constraint and became hardy travellers of the wastes, they would move in groups, moving supplies to their capital.

From the coastal clans, there were many that hunted for fish, seal, and penguin, but for the whales, they perceived a special quality. People had heard their songs for hundreds of years and thought that the whales carried the memories of their ancestors. They were speaking to each other over the vast submarine tracts that connected the lands of Gaust. The minds of whales were deep and mysterious and not easy to see into by those that first showed interest. There was no universal whale thought, and Humpacks were different to Wrights, whom were different again to Blues.

There were those of strong mind who began to see into the minds of their totem whales, and learnt the ways of their movement. At first the whales could bring the people Shegagaust the tales and deeds of people from other lands, they could learn of the weather of these places and currents of waters of the earth. Over time, and possibly as early as 4950, the whale-callers could bring whales forth with great horns of ice and hear news.

The whale-callers themselves began to change and had a liking for the chill waters in which their bretheren swam. After the 5000th year, there were those that rode the waves with the whales, sharing in their breath and riding far under the ice shelves to the buried shores of Shegagaust. Whale havens were made in this inner perimeter, and stairwells of ice arose from the deeps of these havens, such that riders could then walk the miles to Zanathar.

The stories of the whale-riders are long as is their history complex, both with wars and religion. The whales were not all of one mind, and so neither were the Shegagaust people. Of whales and men, we must turn away, for there is no room here to make full their telling.

At near to the same time as the whale-riders founded their civilisation, the people of the south of Giedogea moved down over the narrow straights and entered the desert continent of Banahagaust. Banahagaust was already peopled with a noble nomadic race of advanced thought. Their practice of medicine and the tending of land were of such high order that the new people from the north were much in awe. Although the process of the mingling of these people was not peaceful in many respects, it was not violent such that people were not sundered from each other without recall.

The new people brought with them gifts that were pleasing to the old. The powers of the mind and the telling of ancient memories were of more value than mere territory, even when the pickings from this dry, dusty and windswept continent were slim indeed.

Out of the pair of these people, the most advanced civilisation emerged that was ever seen in the Second Age. It was the people of Banahagaust that hastened the coming of the Third Age, thus soaring to the greatest heights that Zootha flew, but also to the greatest destruction and unwelcome visitation that they ever saw. From the 5100th year of the Second Age, several nations had established themselves over the continent, along with innumerable tribal groups that owed their allegence to one or other of their neighbouring nations. In this they arose a firmament of mind that was in most ways similar to that seen in the far continents lands of Gaust. Many great specialisations were seen such as the Beastherders of the inland sea, and the Boatbuilders of Hikaro. It was however the stone-builders to which much of this tale should turn, for it is they that forged the people of the continent into a civilisation, and a coherent history.

When Doran was not much more than a boy, he walked the lands with his father, and being the son of a teller, he heard the songlines spoken amongst the tellers of the tribes of the Koreyana. Doran’s father, though, was also a warrior, and he was anxious that his son be one for it was favoured in the tribe, and it was in his son’s lore that he would become a great leader. Only warriors become chieftains. Doran’s fascination, though remained with the telling, and was reluctant as a learner of war, and tired of the hunt easily. This caused many of the elders to become restless, and Doran’s father wrathful.

When the elder Lanna saw that Doran’s love of the arts had taken him beyond his peers in ways that she found mysterious, she bade that Doran be allowed to follow his heart. Lanna was certain that Doran could not be persuaded otherwise, but she could see a shadow in this path, while feint, it menaced her.

By his 26th year, and the year 5153 since the Year of the Sundering of the Lands, Doran could be counted as amongst the best of the tellers. He could read more from the lands and travellers than even the travellers themselves knew of. It has been recorded that at the time, Doran could read from the land itself as if it bore witness to the passings of people. Its fruits were laid bare to him such that he merely asked the land for water, before it was provided. In the reckoning of people, he was without rival by the time three summers had passed.

With the passing of his father, and despite his tender age, Doran became a part of the elder community. Lanna had more to do with Doran from this point and began to learn from some of his abilities. It is believed that Lanna, for a time, was intoxicated with the power of this learning, before she overcame herself much later. Doran had other students for his following grew as his reputation spread. By the time Doran, himself became a father, there were among his students elders from other tribes.

One of Doran’s students was a man of advanced age by the name of Balan, who learned the arts well and quickly, adding his own embellishments. Balan pioneered the use of stones to record the chants and images, and he connected the stones as cairns, often in rows or other patterns that spread for many miles. Each cairn would be a signpost to the next, telling part of the stories. He was quickly known as Balin Cairnbuilder. While Balin was counted as one of the wisest of his time, it was his nephew Loftoows who become one of great account for his deeds.

It was Doran’s daughter Liora who many years later formed ways for the stones to also remember the passing of people, and the capturing of their stories unbidden. Lanna on her deathbed deplored this development, predicting that it would sunder the Koreyana. That this was like a trespass, and it would mark the movements of friend and foe in a manner that would tempt those in leadership to wrongful rule.

Nonetheless Liora established many more cairns, and many well beyond the boundaries of the Gallena tribe to which Doran, Lanna and Liora belonged. This act raised the ire of the council of the Cordar people in particular, and they forbade Liora to enter their lands under pain of death. When she took council with her father, Doran was obstinate and pressed her saying that this construction was for the good of all, and asked since when did people selectively listen to the messages of the land. Liora thus disregarded the order of the Cordar, and as recompense the warriors took her life.

Doran became very wrathful when he became aware of the killing, and he declared war on the Cordar. Now the Cordar were at least as strong as the Gallena and had many allies in the tribal compact that the two belonged. The wars the beginnings of an inter-generational feud that sundered the people along a north-south divide in the desert. Doran himself was to have other children, and amongst them was Porenuu, who growing up with the righteous anger of his father in his ear took to using the cairns to spy. He discovered his own prodigious talent and he often woke at night when Cordar warriors passed the cairns that he knew. Plans began to form in Porenuu’s mind to shape stone and construct songstones much more precisely. Within a few summers, a new caste in the Gallena tribe had emerged these were the stonebuilders. Over many years, geometric patterns of carved stone appeared over the surface of the land. At the centre of this, a ring of stones slowly became a dome and at the top of this dome was carved a life size and life like image of Liora. Into this image, Porenuu poured all of his memory of Liora, and bade his father to do likewise.

As the stonework matured, the information it provided deepened, and Porenuu became more and more, a part of it. He slept less and it seemed like he did not age. Doran, for his part, was already 70, but seemed no more than 50. The stoneworks beguiled the people of the Gallena tribe, and they became more the worshippers of their elders. There were many amongst them that learned the techniques of stone reading. Before the Gallenas the elders of friendly tribes swore their allegance, and their people became part of the Gallena compact. There were tribes that were conspicuously absent and to the Cordar they took their knowledge.

Sometime after the death of Doran in 5249, the Cordar began their own stoneworks. To hide this for a time, a great fence of stone was constructed, which blinded Porenuu in their direction. He resorted to beguiling animals into acting as his spies, as he could stand blindness little. He soon learned that the Cordar were knowledgeable in stonebuilding. Several sorties were carried out by the Gallena against their neighbours, but they did little to deter the Cordar from their plans. Spiral patterns developed over the years that ran against the Gallena stoneworks, the fence was left to slowly weather away.

For many years after this, the wars went ill for Porenuu, and he was at labour with his council to discover why. There were those in the council now wise in the ways of stonework that concluded rightly that the Cordar had somehow made a stoneworks that could see into the Gallena stoneworks for the spying. Porenuu knew that unless he acted, it would be a few years before he himself would be the thrall of the Cordar and their cleverest witch, Loftoows. His own stoneworks, his invention, was at last to be used against him. He became very wrathful and bent his mind on the Cordar council members. For a few brief moments his thoughts travelled along the stones and into Cordar where they found the throat of one of the Cordar council, and he throttled it from afar, he then willed another to death with the look of his eye. From that day in 5291, Porenuu needed no stoneworks or nation for his power. Loftoows understood this at once, and did not attack Porenuu fro a time. The Gallena stoneworks themselves never degraded with time, seemingly repaired from within. It was said by the council of Gallena that Liora lived the silent life of the stones and kept them new.

The warring nations of Gallena and Cordar grew in stature and power, and radiated their stoneworks out. Through more feuds and changes of allegiance, other stonebuilders began work, and so at the centre of the dry continent, there came to be many stonebuilders that made their libraries out of the rocks. Vast geometric patterns emerged from these constructions, and people travelled along them. The songlines were forever told through these parts, some frequently for they were of lands and game near at hand, whilst others were from afar and told rarely.

Regardless of all the stonebuilders recorded all, and there arose amongst them great priests that could read all of the stones in one stroke and perceive the mood of all the people that dwell in the sung lands. As tales meshed within tales the stoneworks gathered in number and grew dense and, eventually overgrew each other. Veins struck forth over the wide lands. These gathered and sent messages. Bonds emerged between the farthest tribes. The Stonebuilders, though grew in their knowledge and power and came to know and command the thoughts of many throughout the land.

Like with Porenuu, desire for power overtook that of knowledge within some of the rival powers of those early days, and war was commonplace. It became necessary for people that were not the thralls of these necromancers to form kingdoms, which they called fathindar or tribes that stand still. Great kings of Zoothaa rose, particularly out of the south. More than once, a necromancer was dethroned, often with the aid of another.

Both Loftoows and Porenuu became counted amongst the most powerful witches, and their influence could be felt from one end of the continent to the other. Porenuu was well-known and often depicted as looking over his shoulder, one eye wider than the other in some cases. Loftoows is sometimes depicted as far seeing, his head and nose raised, while at other times, he is represented by a tower. Other witches emerged of great power, though and by 5500 a witch from the south, known as Foraanis Earthreader emerged as council to the ruling kings. She operated through others, but account of hers is generally positive, being less given to wrath and vengeance. At times though, she earned the enmity of both Loftoows and Porenuu, for she was very powerful and undid their designs more than once.

The emergance of another witch was heralded not so much by deeds but by portents. The movements of planets and starts told of her arrival, and it seemed that drought or floods would be summoned at times favourable to some and not others. She was rarely seen by people, although there was a time when she was among people and a stonebuilder herself. But she turned her builds to the study of the cosmos, and contacted her fellow elders more and more rarely as the years rolled on. Nonetheless they did come to see her at times of need and it is said that she would change the weather for them, or thrall enemies, or make game plentiful.

Possibly the most powerful witch emerged sometime after 5700 from the east of the continent. Again this was a stonebuilder but after a time, Slaadaan Mountainbuilder turned his stoneworks from ribbons of rock to the mountains themselves, over 1000 years he gradually reshaped the land in an image to bring rains and plenty to the land. He rarely gave allegiance to any, but rather supported all. There were those that implored him to destroy the stoneworks of greedy witches but he refused, saying that it was in kingdoms to do that sort of thing. There was, though one case where he joined the war against Loftoows, who was by the turning of the year 6000, called Balaar, which means the demon.

There were and are many other spirits residing in Banahagaust, and still others that have left its shores. Since the defeat of Porenuu, and the coming of his vengeance, Loftoows was content to spread his stoneworks over the land, swallowing and surrounding those of the Gallena. In time, the Gallena all but disappeared, and the stoneworks grew together as Loftoows had designed. The power and influence of Loftoows had grown with this, and before him was a great army of followers.

One by one, the peoples of Banahagaust came under his influence and turned against their neighbours. To the south and to the east, these designs were thwarted somewhat by the coming of droughts, floods and earthquakes, the likes of which had not been known before. Loftoows sought out Porenuu to determine his mischief, but found that he was blameless in the affair. Loftoows then looked west and saw that great mountains were rising. It seemed as if the hills themselves grew with each year, and overran his stoneworks, and for an aeon, he could not build there.

Immediately to his south, an inland sea was forming, which drowned the stoneworks there. All around him the land seemed to be changing. Porenuu travelled south-east to the lands of Espartama, where the ice flowed from the mountains, and the mood of the Mountainbuilder was quietest. From this vantage, Porenuu could see the designs of Balaar, which it put in him a great urgency, and he resolved to build a civilisation. The Espartamas rose quickly from the unkinged tribes of the region. Within each of the Espartama elders the mind of Porenuu was present, and he saw all things through them. The Espartama warriors grew in stature, such that they were giants among men, their lives lengthened, so that they became more skilled in war, and broader of vision.

By the year 6250, the influence of Porenuu had reached the inland sea, and bordered on the desert people of the south, that were said to look at the stars. Porenuu suddenly grew in might for he found the stoneworks of Balaar under-the-sea, and also the works of Chalaad to the west. For the first time Porenuu could see the mind of Balaar clearly, and his thought was ever bent on domination.

News of the warriors from the southeast reached Balaar, and he saw at once the hand of his old rival. In a moment of hot temper, Balaar decided upon genocide, and he emptied his lands of armies and sent them east past the inland sea, and bade them to take the lands known as the Downs. These grassy lands lay on the north border of Espartama, and it was here that Balaar wanted to meet Porenuu’s armies. But Porenuu did not take the bait, for he knew that the advantage of the plains belonged to Balaar.

Several seasons passed before Balaar grew impatient and marched his armies into Espartama via the plains. The armies crossed the great rivers, but Porenuu just fell back. The armies then moved toward the ranges where it snowed and Porenuu still did not meet them. It was only when the 14,000 strong armies marched upon the mountains in three fronts that Porenuu struck. There were many battles fought in this time, and many passes that were taken, then retaken, but of it there was mainly Balaar’s defeat, which is of great account here: very few of his warriors returned from those southern lands.