Introduction
1. In The Beginning…
Before the first races became the Dwarves, Elves and Humans a battle raged, a battle of Gods.
The Gods, Chaos, God of War, a 20ft fire-breathing Minotaur with black leathery hide; Charisma, Goddess of Nature, a Wood Nymph; Serena, Goddess of Peace, an Air Elemental and Phoenix, God of Healing, a great flaming bird were natives of the world called Tau Kraka, but there was also Xycho. Xycho was a member of a great spacefaring race and therefore saw himself as more superior and more powerful than the others. So when the Gods decided that they should rule equally rather than just one of them being a single all-powerful deity, Xycho disagreed.
To prove his superiority Xycho called forth a great mountain to erupt and took Phoenix and threw Him into the crater.
Chaos, Charisma and Serena join forces to rid the land of Xycho.
After aeons of battle Serena fell and as she lay dying Chaos and Charisma managed to summon enough power to banish Xycho beneath the surface.
As Chaos and Charisma took their fallen comrade and prepared to leave the mortal plane the volcano erupted again and out sprang Phoenix, reborn from the flames. He touched a gentle flaming wing to Serena’s forehead her eyes flickered open and she woke.
Chaos vowed to return when Xycho reappeared to defeat him in the final battle. Serena vowed to stay behind to ensure the peoples of Tau Kraka didn’t waste their energies on fighting each other, so they could be ready for Xycho’s return. Charisma planted the seeds that would start life on the world and vowed that the plants that She nurtured would spring forth all that the peoples will need.
And so it was that Chaos and Phoenix left Tau Kraka and Serena and Charisma went about their tasks.
2. The Land Splits…
For hundreds of years the world of Tau Kraka suffered from prolonged tectonic activity. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions tore at the planet. In the centre of the main land mass sat what would later be known as Phoenix Mountain as it was the volcano that Phoenix was reborn from. The activity culminated in a number of large eruptions at Phoenix Mountain, which triggered earthquakes all along the fault line that stretched the length of the land from west to east. With the eruptions at Phoenix Mountain and the series of earthquakes the land begins to split, to break along the fault. The oceans east and west of the land rushed into the canyon left by the split dividing the land into north and south and in the centre of the waterway, which will be called the Straits of Thunder, lay an island, which will be called Sunda Island on which sits the now dormant Phoenix Mountain.
3. Wars of Elves & Dwarves…
The Northern land was where the races of Dwarves and Elves lived. Through the centre of the North land running north to south was a range of mountains, this is where the Dwarves dwelled. To the west of the mountains the Elves lived in the forest. At that time no one lived in the east.
In the south lands cut off from the north by the Straits of Thunder the dark creatures who would fight Xycho’s war and then join Him when he returned from his prison many miles beneath the surface of the planet ranted and raved continuously in their frustration.
The volcanic activity had left fissures and tunnels in the mountains where the dwarves lived, it was in these fissures and tunnels that the dwarves set up home and developed the skill of mining. It wasn’t long before they found metals and developed smelting skills. Soon they where making stone War hammers and mighty Battleaxes. The God they worshipped was a God of War and was Chaos in an alternative form.
Meanwhile in the forests the Elves were utilising everything that the forest had given them. Their God was a Goddess of Nature who was in fact Charisma in an alternative form. They developed the Long Bow and simple spears as well as poisons and potions made from certain roots, leaves and flowers.
When the Elves and the Dwarves first met they began trading. The Elves gave the Dwarves wood, fruit and some potions. In return the Dwarves gave the Elves metals and other useful minerals.
The Elves had used the metals they had gained from the Dwarves to improve their weapons, adding metal tips to their arrows and spears. The Dwarves had likewise been productive; using the wood they had gained in the trading to develop the crossbow. After many years of peace the Dwarf King decided that the deal they had with the Elves was rather one sided and that the valuable metals and minerals they traded with the Elves where worth more than some wood, fruit and potions. This disagreement lead inevitably to the first war.
So the Dwarves descended into the forests from the mountains their superior weapons made short work of many Elves. The Elves had also decided that as they had lost so many in the first attacks that they should attempt to balance the numbers. They developed a poison and poisoned some of the Dwarf water supplies. The rivers in the mountains ran green with the poison and into the Dwarf caverns, many became sick and died.
At first the Dwarf King was angered by the Elves use of poisons and accused them of being a race of cowards. In his fury he decided to lead his forces himself vowing to kill a hundred Elves for every Dwarf that fell to the poison.
But his berserk rage made him careless and in only his third battle at the lead of the charge he was felled by an Elven poisoned arrow. When the Prince went to his father’s body he didn’t allow anger to dictate his actions and instead called for a truce and entered into peace talks with the Elves.
Peace reigned for many generations, and then an Elven scouting party came across something unexpected. On the plains and grasslands of the west they discovered the Tribes of Man, humans living in peace and seemingly ignorant of the existence of their Dwarven and Elfish neighbours.
The Humans enjoyed profitable trade with the Elves, though they found the Dwarves much more difficult to deal with. The Dwarves did not trust these Humans, the ancient hatred between the Dwarves and Elves made them suspicious of the friendship between their old enemy and this new race.
The Human numbers grew rapidly, some moved into the east and soon the entire Northern land was covered in Human settlements.
The greed of the Humans lead them eventually to war with their neighbours attempting to take forest territory from the Elves and mountain territory from the Dwarves.
The Human’s greed made them a formidable foe and the war lasted for a hundred years before it was agreed for all the races to try to live together in peace.
There were a few generations still filled with mistrust and small skirmishes broke out but everything settled down and the races of Human, Elf and Dwarf could begin their preparations for Xycho’s return.
4. Building the World…
The Dwarves had a great talent for engineering so when trade began between the races the Dwarf engineers began building trade routes between major cities. In the north they built the Great Northern Trade Route between Viandra to Tyrana, the Arabican Capital. In the south they built the
Great Eastern between to port town of Seaford and the Arabiyan capital, Rahdi. After completion of the first stage of the construction of the Great Eastern the Arabiyan King and the Orient Emperor extended the trade route, so the Great Eastern was extended from Rahdi to the Orient Capital, which at the time was called TsangTsu as the Orient capital was always named after the Emperor of the time. The Dwarves had not only built the roads but as they had dug down creating the foundations of the roads they installed clay piping that would connect up to carry water to the cities and towns on the trade route.
A human Water Miner named Henry Samuelson worked with the Dwarves designing and constructing the cavernous water ways under the cities and towns providing fresh water from the underground rivers some miles away up to the wells on street level. The material taken out of the ground to create the water ways and the road foundations were used to make the road surface except the last hundred yards approach to cities where the Dwarves laid great slabs of rock hewn from the mountains.
Later Human engineers extended the Great Northern west to the city of Serenas in the Western Mountains which is known as the City of Serena and also The City in the Clouds as it is the highest city in the Northlands.
As sea travel and sea trade began to grow the Orient Emperor Tong had the Great Eastern extended again from his capital Tong to the expanding coastal port town of HikUng.
5. Conflict Continues…
Despite the trade agreements and the seemingly friendly relationships many of the old animosities and hatred ran deep.
Many more skirmishes took place between the Elves and the Dwarves, but on the plains disagreements ran rife amongst Human tribes.
It became more and more difficult to find ways of bringing the peoples of Tau-Kraka together.
Xycho will return and the people need to be ready to defend their homes and they will only be able to achieve this together.
