Introduction
A hundred and thirty five years ago the great warlord Hroth united the disparate Haecomus of the central jungles. He built cities, cleared land, ordered that for the time his language be written down, and drove the Fulanti from our homelands.
But a dark cloud descended over Hroth’s Empire. His line died out and a destructive civil war nearly destroyed everything he sought to build. Today, a new Emperor reigns. In Haeka’s name he led the great men of the last generation beat back the anarchy that threatened the land. Ancient enemies of the Varican people have been vanquished and peace has returned to the land, for a time.
But now that time may be past. Old foes have rebuilt their strength and new enemies have emerged from the unknown lands beyond Varica. Many of the great men whose steady hands guided the Empire are dead and buried. A child sits on the throne of Varica, as fragile as his rule over the strongmen of the provinces.
Are there enough good men left loyal to the ideals of Hroth to hold Varica together? Will you be one of them? Or will you forge your own destiny and create something even greater than Varica? Your ancestors struggled long and hard to gather the strength you hold in your hands. It is up to you now. Will you squander their legacy, or a will songs be sung of your deeds long after your tribe is gone?
In this game you will take control of the king of a tribal confederacy in an alien world.Your confederacy is made up of tribes of Haecomus. The Haecomus are, for all intents and purposes, human. Their homeworld, Valdis, is in many ways similar to earth.
In this game, there is no such thng as victory. You decide what ‘victory’ means. It may mean having the largest richest cities. Perhaps you will be satisified the have the happiest people on the continent. Maybe you will be happy when you dominate Valdian trade. Some find satisfaction is creating stories, songs, poems, and chronicles that will be remembered for years. Some might not rest until the last wretched Fulanti has been purged from this world. Maybe, just maybe, your sword won’t be sated until it has tasted the blood of the false Emperor himself….
The Dawn of Haeka
Spoiler :
In the beginning, there were only stars. Each star had a name and each was granted the power to bring about life and happiness. But the stars were jealous of their light, and kept it all to themselves. They built homes in the sky, keeping their light in their hearths. What we see in the night sky are merely tiny specks of light escaping from the chimneys of the cruel homes of the stars.
One star grew cold and alone in his home. This star was called Haeka. Haeka lived in his star-home for untold eons. The light he had been granted kept him alive, brought what he thought was happiness to him. Like all of his star brothers, he spent his time gazing into his light, but it brought him no happiness. He had never known any different, so he assumed that what he did feel was happiness, but he never knew real joy.
That is, until one day, when there came a knocking at his door. Somehow, he could not know how, three star-children lay at his doorstep. Haeka was shocked. If no star ever left the light of their home, then how could two have joined themselves to produce these star children? A new emotion struck Haeka. One he had never known before. He could not abandon the foundlings to their doom, so he brought them into his home, to be warmed by his light.
Haeka gave unto the three children of his light selflessly, giving all that he had. New emotion swelled over him, and for the first time in his life, he felt true happiness. Haeka had discovered the secret of light. The joy that it could bring could not be found by keeping the light to himself, but by using it to nurture others. Haeka adopted the three as his own daughters. He gave them the names of Ptolos, Thea, and Sara. In the language of the Haecomus, these names mean radiance, starlight, and sunshine.
In time Haeka’s daughters grew and became to shine with their own light, a light that grew from within themselves. Haeka was filled with great joy, as were his daughters, and they lived for a long time together in their house.
But eventually the sisters grew restless. Out of the windows of Haeka’s home they had spied a home that had no light. They asked their father what it was, and he said unto them, “That is a land of darkness. There dwell many lesser peoples there, who should be spared from the light. They are not deserving of our love.”
The sisters were horrified at their father’s words, “Aren’t they all creatures of life and death, as we are? How are they less deserving of us, just because we have light and they have only darkness?” cried sweet, little, Thea. “How can you deny them love, father?” demanded the strong-willed Ptolos, “Have you learned nothing since the day we came to you?” Haeka was angry with his children, and scolded Thea and Ptolos.
Sara held her tongue, but not because she disagreed with her sisters.
“Come my sisters,” she urged, “We cannot deny these people the light we love, let us go alone, and breathe life into their home.” So the sisters left alone, while Haeka was asleep. They left for our world, Valdis. The three stood in a circle around Valdis, and with all of their power, gave their light to Valdis. This light gave birth to the races of Valdis. From the radiance of Ptolos was born the Sargothi, who, taking after her, were smart and proud and brave. From Thea were born the Haecomus who were as graceful and creative and kind as their mother. And from Sara came the Thune, who were great builders and scholars and craftsman, which their mother gave unto them specially, to keep them through darkness.
But there were many Sargothi and Haecomus and Thune, yet only three sisters. The Haecomus and Thune took gently of their power, taking it only for half of the day. The Sargothi however, craved more and more light. They took and took and took, until the three sisters were exhausted. Still the Sargothi took, until the sisters lay dying in the skies above Valdis.
It was then that Haeka woke from his slumber. He could find no sign of his daughters. He searched, and searched, and searched, but could find no trace. Desperate, he threw himself out of his home, and saw the horrible sight of his dying daughters.
At first Haeka was angry, and blamed all of his daughter’s creations for their doom, and an age of darkness befell the world. In that time the Sargothi fell upon their brother species, and stole their life force from them. Ages went by, for a millennium for us is but a split-second for a star. Haeka was quick to realize his mistake, and blasted the Sargothi from the land, leveling their cities and scouring the countryside of their villages. The world suffered for the sins of the Sargothi.
Then Haeka held each of his daughters, and wept deeply for each one of them. Some days he still weeps, remembering his lost children. On those days his tears rain down upon Valdis, purifying the earth and bringing life to the creatures his daughters made.
Haeka looked upon the world as he wept. At last, too late, he saw the error of his ways. He returned to his home, and took his light from out of his hearth. He set fire to his home, and wandered into the darkness, his light banishing the darkness. He shared his light with the surviving children of our world. Though his children might be dead, their memories would live on in their children. He built three mausoleums in the sky, and put in each a portion of his light, so that, even at night, when Haeka’s wanderings take him far from our sight, we would remember the sacrifices of his children.
The History of Valdis
Spoiler :
The Real History:
(This is out of character knowledge. You don’t know this and neither does anyone else in the game world.)
Four sentient races have existed on the planet of Valdis, but only two of them are natural. Eight thousand years ago, the Sargothi, huge amphibious creatures, dominated the planet. Their great sprawling cities dominated vast tracts of land. Their interstellar empire spread for thousands of light years.
The Sargothi raped worlds and devastated any other cultures they came across. They took slaves from the worlds they conquered and brought them back to Valdis for experimentation. It was from these experiments that the Haecomus and the Fulanti were born. Like a dozen other slave races across the Sargothi Empire, they were created deliberately to serve the Sargothi. Each race was specially created to fulfil certain tasks, but only the Haecomus and Fulanti served in great numbers on Valdis.
The Sargothi were not kind masters. Fulanti and Haecomus killed each other for the entertainment of the Sargothi. Others were forced into sex slavery or the backbreaking labour. As the Sargothi grew lazier and more decadent, they began to raise the cleverest of their slaves to positions of authority. Eventually, most of the day to day running of the Sargothi homeworld was done by slave races.
But the Sargothi could not rule forever. After two thousand years the Sargothi destroyed themselves in a vicious civil war. They may still survive elsewhere in the remnants of their shattered colonies, but none remained alive on Valdis.
Their cities were nothing but empty husks, where anything remained at all. The ruins were quickly overgrown by the rainforests of the south. In the north, and on the continent of Karagarada, the devastation of the war left nothing but vast deserts. Half of all life on the planet died, including most of their slave races.
Those who did survive fell into barbarism as they picked clean the bones of Sargothi civilization. After centuries of death, only two species remained: The Haecomus, based on primitive creatures taken from the Sol system, and the Fulanti, based on animals from the Juliaka system.
Just before the war, a species the Sargothi had ignored had just begun to use tools and develop a rudimentary language. They were the Thune, large rodents who lived in the vast savannah of the Karagaradan continent. The war ravaged their homeland and the newly developing Thune had to adapt to the vast deserts.
Known History:
(This is the history you know)
In the dark times before Haeka brought us light, the world was ruled by the Sargothi. They were giant demons who rode across the world in giant iron steeds and who built towers as high as the mountains.
They were cruel lords who knew only the darkness. In those days, the Haecomus hid. We hid in the jungles and the caves and the mountains. We hid from the darkness and from what the Sargothi would do to us if they caught us. Even the mighty Thune hid for fear of the Sargothi. We were lost and alone, not knowing Haeka’s light. The Sargothi set upon us lesser demons of darkness. The Fulanti. They hunted us and killed us for sport, for fun.
But Haeka’s judgement came. He came to free his grandchildren from the darkness. The towers of the Sargothi were destroyed by great balls of light. Soon, days would dawn and the Haecomus would stumble into the light.
The Fulanti were leaderless and the Sargothi destroyed. The time had come for the Haecomus to claim their birthright and purge the jungles.
It was also in this time that the Thune empires rose. They claim to come from the far east, from a land no Haecomus has set foot on. They built great cities on the coast and spread westward. Villages grew in the north as the Thune continued to migrate. But as the jungles and forests of the south grow northwards, the Thune begin to return to their homes. The days of the old empires are numbered. The grasslands to the north will be ours, just as the jungles are, and just as the whole world is meant to be.
Recent History:
The Haecomus were little more than barbarian tribes, warring with each other and living off the land. Some developed agriculture, but farms are difficult to carve out of the rainforests. Some went north to the grasslands to live amongst the Thune villages where farmland was good. South went south across the great mountains. Most remained in their homelands.
A hundred years ago a man rose who would change all of that. His name was Hroth. Hroth united the Varican tribes and drove the Fulanti once and for all from our lands. With peace established, he held onto power and set his great army to work on clearing land. He founded a mighty city at the confluence of the two greatest rivers: Varica. From Varica, he built more cities and cleared more land. He granted this land to his veterans whose ancestors still farm it today.
His most loyal supporters were put in charge of the lesser tribes. They would rule provinces in his empire for him, and bow only to he, the mighty Varican Emperor, and his heirs. These provincial lords were known as Kings. The lesser tribal chiefs would be known as Thanes.
Mines were built, trade routes established, and trade encouraged. The Haecomus had finally begun to produce at a level slightly higher than subsistence. An agricultural revolution was at hand. Along with it came the beginnings of a cultural transformation, from migratory to sedentary life.
Hroth’s children ruled for three generations until Hrothiya, pregnant with the last heir in Hroth’s line, died in childbed and took the children with her.
Twenty years of chaos resulted. Hroth’s empire fractured. A dozen-sided civil war ensued that broke apart much that Hroth had done. During the twenty years of war, some of Varica’s provincial kings joined in the civil war, but none could seize the capital. Whether they fought or not, all began to consolidate power within their provinces. Soon, provincial cities grew to rival Varica.
Meanwhile, other powerful tribes began to weld together their own confederations on par with the provincial Kings. These wild kings made attacks on their provincial neighbours and eventually, forced each king to build his own armies to protect their homelands.
In the end, one man stood victorious, a wily politician who had renamed himself Hroth, the fourth by that name to rule. But the Empire he ruled was a shadow of its former self. Hroth IV’s rule was established over Varica in AF 119.
The early years of Hroth IV’s rule were precarious. He found few allies among the Kings of Varica and none beyond its borders. The first threat to Hroth IV’s rule came from the Northern Tribes. Ancient enemies of the Varicans, the Northern Tribes were terrified of a united Varica and marched out against the new Emperor. Kingh Luci gathered the northmen and, with the mercenary Gamars behind them, marched south towards Varica.
Hroth IV called out for aid. The kings of the north answered his call. Adalbrandr, King of the Hrafn, Lord Thomas of the Gibral, and the child-king Haecadem II of the Werar answered the call. Together, the four allies defeated the Snerkitta so completely that they were forced out of Varica completely while the Gamars moved westward. While the north was secured, enemies came from other quarters to ravage Varica.
The south was consumed with alien invaders: the Sunta, wild hill men from the land of wheat and fish. The wars have lasted on and off for years now. The Tera fight hard against the Sunta and thousands of warriors have been slain on each side. Slowly the Tera have gained ground against the Sunta, but at a terrible cost. The greatest blow against the invaders came early in the war when the Huroto intervened and gutted the north of the Sunta domains, ripping away their only loyal vassal.
To the west, old enemies rose from the ashes. A successor state to the fallen Soltalan Empire (destroyed by Hroth IV before he became Emperor), the Nakar, began to expand into tribes bordering on Darium and Dolu. Most worrying was their treatment of the Fulanti as equals.
The Darians, the most powerful and remote kingdom, itself a recent conquest of foreign barbarians by ambitious Varican thanes, invaded the Dolu, arguably one of the weakest but most ethnically distinct kingdoms. Using the situation to tie the Dolu to the Varican throne, Hroth IV opposed the invasion, but could do little until the Northern Tribes were defeated. In the meantime, the Dolu kingdom burned.
Some tribes openly defied the new Emperor. The Oerdan looked elsewhere, forming close ties with the Thune cities of Tessilki and the Yirshian League. Some, like the Huroto, Rheni, and the minor tribes, simply ignored the Emperor.
While Hroth IV was away smiting the Northern Tribes, his finest general, Hronu, joined together with a demagogue calling himself Hroth V rose in rebellion. They were joined by the Vocci and Ferra, much of Varica’s garrison, as well as the kings of Darium and Oerdan. The Nakar and their Fulanti allies joined as well, hoping for revenge. However, the attempted coup was defeated by a joint force of the three north eastern kingdoms along with Validira.
Haergar II of the Oerdan submitted to the Emperor and other kingdoms, such as the Rheni, recognized the right of Hroth IV to rule. With his powerbase secured, Hroth IV marched north in 127 with his victorious allies to free Dolu from the Darian yoke.
The Battle of the Checka River was the decisive battle of the war in the north. The exhausted Darians joined together with the Gamars, Nakar, and Fulanti against a combined force or six Varican kingdoms and Hroth IV’s bodyguard. The Gamars switched sides halfway through the battle and sealed the fate of Darium.
Reinforced from the south in AF 129, the allies marched into Darium. The royal family was slaughtered by vengeful Dolu and a Hrothnani was put on the throne. Despite their greater numbers and experience, the Varicans were exhausted and the Nakar/Fulanti alliance held their own against the Varicans. After three more years of raids and skirmishes, led by the Werar, the Nakar and Fulanti were forced to abandon Tasnakari and move further into the plains to secure peace.
With peace finally achieved in AF 132, Hroth IV turned his attention to repairing his fragile kingdom. Hroth laid the foundation for a lasting peace in AF 127. He tied his house by marriage to two of his strongest allies. Adalbrandr, the closest ally of Hroth, married Hroth’s young cousin Jyanna. Hroth himself took Callista, the daughter of Validira’s King Matteo, as his first wife. Venci became his second wife in 135 as a means of cementing the direct vassalage of the Varathu tribe.
All over the Empire, the scars of thirty years of war began to heal. Those struck worst by war, Werhold, Dolu, Darium, the Nakar, Teral and the Sunta, were slow to build on this prosperity. Validira and the foreign Nimosans formed the backbone of the new trading economy. Early industries begun by the forward thinking monarchs of Werhold and Validira helped enrich their investors as these links grew.
Some tribes looked inwards. The three allies of the north east, Werhold, Assfell and the Gibraly Empire, retained the strong links established by their shared experience against their western enemies. Together with Varica, they colonized the land of the Northern Tribes. The Hrafn enjoyed a cultural golden age brought on by the epic bard Finoir. Assfell was grew to be recognized as the second city of culture in Varica. They supported the emergence of a new kingdom, the Romadi, to strengthen their power-block.
Others, like the Oerdan and the Huroto, looked outwards. The Oerdan fought valiantly beside the Thune city states and were rewarded with Thune knowledge. Meanwhile, the Huroto sent expeditions south over the mountains to the lands of wheat and fish. Knowledge of what lies south is jealously guarded, but the Huroto are using the goods they have acquired there, and their unrivalled river fleet, to challenge Validira for control of trade routes.
As the years passed and Varica grew in strength, so too did her neighbours. The Cirici-Yumin alliance made peace with Tessilki and her allies in 135, keeping three minor city states in the treaty and severely disrupting the balance of power in the city states. Many Haecomus from the Yumin Confederacy were invited to occupy the new land and formed their own tribe, the i’Vum-Yumin (Ever-Victorious-Yumin).
Also, in Thune lands, war has resumed between Tarnee and Tikeecee has resumed, this time due to Tikeecee aggression. No one can say why the Tikeecee have decided on such a suicidal path, but the rumours of farms burned and villages slaughtered in the north-westerly Drissili Freeholds might be the cause.
The Gamars have grown fat off of the prizes of their past treacheries. With fertile plain land finally in their hands, some Gamars have grown fat and complacent. The old King, Vagram of the West Gamars retired his throne after twenty years in AF 140 in favour of the East Gamar King Vaughan who is eager to earn glories of his own.
The first two years of Vaughan’s reign saw him war with the Seven-Star Fulanti. Accepting, the inevitable, the Seven-Star yielded their ancestral land to the Gamars. In exchange, they were granted safe passage to the lands south of the Nakar.
The Nakar took pride in their success as holding back the combined Varican armies. Today, they are stronger than ever. The Seven-Star Fulanti joined their coterie of bestial allies, quickly assuming leadership over their own Fulanti confederacy. This Fulanti nation could prove to be a powerful asset, a liability, or a dangerous foe depending on how the Nakar play their cards.
The Nimosans have gained in strength over the last two decade. Untroubled by war and culturally unified, this small trading nation is making a big impact on Varica.
Warmaster Kraal of the Sunta was slain in battle by the Tera in the many wars between them. The new Warmaster, Dhakaan, is a popular young warrior. He has chafed to regain the glory lost to the Tera and Huroto. Dhakaan has not made up his mind where he shall strike, but one thing is certain: where the Sunta are concerned, blood is inevitable.
Most disturbing are the rumours from the north and east. A strange force known as the Manische are making aggressive moves on the Haecomus Zostor tribes and Thune freeholds beyond the Varican Empire. As we speak, Adalbrandr has marched his army north to determine the truth about these strange men.
While threats abound beyond the borders of the Empire, a greater crisis has emerged in the heart of the nation. Hroth IV lies dead. After more than twenty years as Emperor, he passed peacefully in his sleep. His son, the eight year old Hroth V has been crowned Emperor. The reign of the boy child is fragile. The regent, an ancient court advisor named Taka, is trusted by many but at the age of ninety-four, may die himself soon, leaving the regency in contention.
The royal houses of the Xanfa and Hrafn are tied directly to Hroth IV’s house by marriage, while all other royal houses can trace a distant descent from Hroth I. Hroth IV’s thirteen year old daughter Jali and the infant litterbrothers Horsha and Hormung will likely have parts to play in the courtly battles to come.