Before the Cataclysm, the Miviorans' ancestors dwelled upon the citied inlets of distant Reiken. In those early times, the these people belonged to a mighty state called Skarabrae. The shock of the Cataclysm ruined the nations of Reiken as surely as it did the Lloroi Empire and the sources bearing on the early post-Cataclysmic period are dim, forcing the historian to conjecture events from the mythic cycles of that troubled age.
Before the disaster, there existed in some of the states of Reiken a secret society called the Luwamnas ("Black Souls"), worshipers of the gods of Chaos. They gathered into covens dedicated to mad teachings, i.e. that virtues were not sanctioned by the gods, but each man was free to live by the standards of his own conceit and vanity; that spoken language had no fixed meaning whatsoever, and so all those who called the Luwamnas liars and deceivers were naive; that tradition was to be condemned, that fads of behavior should prevail, and all who objected were hate-criminals to be destroyed. The Luwamnas especially attacked the prevailing peace and plenty, denouncing any who prospered by their own hard work as thieves and exploiters. Worse, they subverted the practice of all the ancient religions, haranaging the people to instead worship terrible beings which their vicious and blasphemous wizards-priests had discovered. And always they predicted terrible doom for the world if people did not accept Luwamnas leadership.
It seemed that these baleful prophecies had come true when the Cataclysm shattered the civilization which they detested. In the confused aftermath, the Black Souls' tightly-organized covens seized power in many devastated towns. But to them power was the license to destroy whatever still lingered from earlier days, and to their brother Skarabraens.
But each coven in the shattered land soon came to demand supremacy for itself, and so attacked other towns where Luwamnas held sway. The strife allowed the traditional believers to rise and cleanse Skarabrae of their fanaticism. For many years afterwards the public gallows was known as "the Luwamnas' tree."
Over a few generations, the Skarabraens recovered some sort of order, rebuilding their basic agriculture and hunting seals and other sea creatures from their long ships. But the country failed to unite itself as in days of old, and each city was governed by a different council of elders, called "archons." Nonetheless, in the challenge of rebuilding, city states seldom warred upon one another, and, besides, united in the worship of the god Tukultae who had replaced many of the gods of earlier days.
Suddenly, when it was least expected, the power of the Luwamnas manifested itself yet again. The surviving covens which had fled to the wilderness had gathered about them wretched survivors of the Cataclysm, persons who only too well respected the powers of Chaos. The newly-introduced faith swept the borderlands and soon howling mobs of fanatics were violating civilized borders and sacking town after town, immolating their captives on basaltic altars for the glory of the god Huisinga.
From all the ravaged corners of Skarabrae came desperate leaders and priests to take council together. The different city states quarreled endlessly, some urging trust in the gods, some advocating dogged resistance, some counseling passive surrender. At length, the councils dispatched an embassy to the most respected oracles, to receive Tukultae's own instructions.
Said an entranced priestess: "Seek ye the eastern ocean, and a land beyond it where no man dwells nor any city has ever been raised."
The gods' command dismayed the Skarabraens and some cried "False prophecy!" Many in fact clung stubbornly to their varied, but futile, predilections, but wiser heads listened gravely.
Says a fragment of an ancient chronicle preserved by the mythographer Sarsissae in his Saga of Petitinu: "In the end, the men of Kinalua and Tarmetana were the only Skarabraens who preferred voluntary exile to the prospect of slavery; the others remained where they were and fought the Luwamnas as best they could. But in spite of individual acts of courage in defense of homes and family, they were defeated piecemeal, their towns taken, their daughters debauched, and themselves forced to yield up their sons to immolation."
Upon the sea, the refugees discovered that the charts of old had been rendered meaningless by the Cataclysm, so changed were the stars and the islands of the sea. Many refugees perished of hunger and scurvy before the lookouts spied the swirl of seabirds, a harbinger of landfall. The refugees poled eagerly to shore, but no sooner were the boats drawn up on the desolate beach and foragers dispatched than a war party of gigantic Ogres thundered from the woods, wielding great war clubs and slaying many before the exiles could push off into the sea.
From Ogreland the bruised and despairing flotilla made its way southeastward, occasionally stopping for provisions, but always discouraged by the presence of savages or the ruins of ancient towns ?? a certain sign that these were not the good lands promised by Tukultae.
Finally the refugees spied a school of kartika fish off the shoals of a broad-beached island, beyond which loomed a mountainous coast. Landing parts found evidence that the isle had only lately been reared up from the sea bottom and, truly, it had never before known man or his works. The priests of Tukultae noted the omens and declared this island to be the land of promise. The exiles settled there, which they named after the sacred holiday on which it was sighted, Boliske. It, with the coast beyond, they called collectively "Mivior" (Mivae = promise, Ior = great), the "Great Promise."
The refugees chose a leader whom they called the "archon." One of the early archons, Wilusar, recognized that security on the fishing grounds was not enough. They were people of proud tradition, but already he was one of the last who remembered life in distant Reiken. He feared that even his people's written language would soon be forgotten, so he charged the priesthood to become the keepers of culture, to combat illiteracy among the acolytes, and remind their congregations of the goodness of the god who had delivered them from death and slavery.
For the next two centuries, Boliske supported the small Mivioran population, but 452 years after the Cataclysm, colonists from Boliske moved to the mainland and built the fort of Boran on the Moor, also a land from the seabed and only lately becoming fertile. The frequent earthquakes earned the cordillera of Mivior the name of Shaker Mountains. Unfortunately, Boran ?? ringed by mountains and forests, inhabited by hostile Trolls, always enjoyed a troubled growth. Despite the hopes of its founders, future events would render it a minor fortress in a cultural backwater.
Settlements continued to spread out from Boliske, and they especially prospered on the southern extremity of Mivior, called Cape Parlanda (God's Hand). A splendid harbor on the eastern side attracted a village that was before long christened Colist (Golden Cove).
Until the mid sixth century, Miviorans had little direct contact with foreign peoples, and none who were so civilized as themselves. In the days of the archon Linir, the search for new fishing grounds encouraged adventurous young sailors to proceed from Kartika Bay east to where they discovered the city of Zefnar. The visit of semi?civilized men from the west intrigued the Zefnarites. The Miviorans were likewise impressed by a town that reminded them of the Skarabrae of legend.
Over the next generation, several Zefnarite trading calls were made
on Mivior, first to Colist, and later to Boliske itself. The Mivioran
products were crafts, fish, copper, wine, and resins, items marketable
in Zefnar. But the commerce was minor, for Zefnar's merchant fleet
was still rudimentary. It did, however, widen the horizons of the
Miviorans who especially admired the superior ships of the Zefnarites since,
alas, the manner of making the long ships that had carried them from Reiken
had been long forgotten.
Zefnarite visits took on a sinister aspect when slaving vessels began to
raid Mivior's coastal villages. The archon Barnas attempted to garrison
likely targets, but the Zefnarites always struck when the defenders were
elsewhere.
Driven to stiffer measures, Barnas gave orders to seize the next Zefnarite
ship to enter Boliske. It was an honest trader, but Mivior had suffered
enough to feel justified in forcing the crew to remain in Mivior.
The sailors were given wives and treated well, but were induced to teach
Mivioran soldiers and fishermen the skills of modern seamanship, while
carpenters studied the vessel's construction.
By means such as this, Mivior eventually outfitted a large fleet of sailing
vessels fit to carry both cargo and marines. After a couple of decades
of vigorous shipbuilding, Zefnarite raiders started to avoid the Mivioran
coast; its stockades and warships gave them harder fights than they wanted.
Soraskier (ancient Hothior) to the east, with its many disunited tribes,
offered easier prey.
By the early seventh century, Mivior was moving out of its parochial ways.
Its seamen carried the goods of their own country and points north to the
foreign merchants in Colist and, later on, directly to the trading cities
of Zefnar and Parros. The wealth generated in turn supported a larger
navy and an increasingly formidable army.
Overpopulation around Boran and Cape Parlanda led Mivior into an expansionist
war east of the Shaker Mountains. The weak local tribes scattered
at their approach, but resistance stiffened as the expedition neared the
Bad Axe Forest. Warnings from the powerful Milkyaten confederacy
deterred the Miviorans from immediate advance. That the border of
the Bad Axe would, in fact, remain a permanent frontier with Soraskier
and, later, with Hothior.
In 661 a powerful earthquake struck Boliske, slaying the archon in his
castle. The moving of the capital to the trading center of Colist
was a public acknowledgement of what had become the overriding fact of
Mivioran society -- that the rich and adventurous merchant class had supplanted
the old burgher faction as the elite group. The next archon, Nahonnon,
was merchant born and bred, dispensing many favors and titles to members
of his class.
Mivior remained a relatively free and open society, but property holdings
were a prerequisite for social status. The well?born wastrel who
lost his inheritance usually fell back into the vulgar ranks, for titles
were not hereditary. Likewise, a common sort with enterprise might
take to trade and become a wealthy man; his son might be dubbed a count.
At the end of the seventh century, the Miviorans observed with consternation
that the Zefnarites had built a permanent market town in Soraskier, at
the head of Kartika Bay. Over the next few reigns, Mivioran governments
intrigued against Zefnarite influence there, even fighting the Soraskier
War, which was almost wholly naval. At length, both parties realized
the war was ruining trade and signed a truce, but cutthroat competition
went on in the economic sphere.
When Zefnar tried to solidify its position in Soraskier by force of arms,
Mivior provided the natives with arms and advice. Their uprising
banished the Zefnarites and established a native state with which Mivior
remained on good terms for a long while.
In the ensuing centuries, Mivioran ships ranged widely, far to the northwest
and the south, below the Golkus. But wherever they went, they kept
their discoveries secret, publishing instead frightening tales of Ogres,
cannibals and burning seas. Especially did they shroud in secrecy
their eventual return to Reiken.
One of the few sources for information of these convert explorations is
The Westward Voyages by Arnult, a former clerk in the royal trading office,
who read the secret reports and wrote down what he memorized. He
had to go into voluntary exile and settle in Parros to escape the vengeance
of his own government.
The first successful voyage to Reiken occurred in the mid ninth century.
It had taken a new?model, deep?draft ship to cross the storm?tossed ocean
safely. The sailors discovered a blighted coast whose people were
kept in an abysmal dark age by the degenerate descendants of the Luwamnas.
Driven to rage by the threats and insults of their ancestral enemies, the
Mivioran seamen rioted and slew the Luwamnas lord whose fief they were
visiting. Though a feared wizard, he had been too debauched and lazy
to study the defensive spells of his ancestors, the religion of the Luwamnas
having become only an excuse for power-grasping. The enslaved Reikenites
welcomed their liberation and declared a new state, Haliyas. They
sought arms and counsel from the Miviorans to defend their lately-won freedom,
for other Luwamnas lords were watching their rising with alarm.
A secret crusade began in Reiken, of which Minarians received only garbled
hints. Many of Mivior's devout men and propertyless younger sons
were drawn to Reiken. On one side of the struggle was righteous zeal
and a good navy; on the other was yet?potent magicks and large mobs of
unthinking slaves. Gradually the revolt spread and other small independent
states were formed and joined cause with Haliyas.
At home, meanwhile, a new wave of land?hunger possessed the Miviorans.
Accordingly, an expeditionary force landed north of Serpent Bay and dispersed
the barbarian peoples who occupied it. In a surprise second?stage
attack, they moved in on Troll Land from north and south, sacking Stone
Face and annexing the whole shore of Serpent Bay.
The northern aggression embroiled Mivior in a war with Elfland, which held
the coast sacred to its pilgrims. Routed, the Elves eventually made
a surly overture for peace and the archon Tabal offered them generous terms,
hoping to cozen the Elves into a normal trading relationship ?- with limited
success.
During the first half of the tenth century, Mivior suffered through a gloomy
time economically. Pirates based on the Golkus had become strong
enough to harry merchantmen working the waters south of Colist. Furthermore,
trade with the coastal cities was interrupted by their domination by desert
conquerors, the Wisnyos. Matters became worse when even Hothior all
but succumbed to their lightning attacks.
Ruthless amphibious attacks on the pirate bases and the decay of the Wisnyo
dynasty improved matters somewhat, but a far worse catastrophe lay in store.
Officially, the invasion of the "abominations of the land and the horrors
of the air" goes unexplained. But a parchment in Parros, written
by an unknown hand, gives a strange explanation:
In Reiken, the Luwamnas lords began to fear that their cause was lost and
in desperation delved into horrific magicks. They came upon a spell
too terrible to unleash in Reiken, but saw in it the means to avenge themselves
against Mivior.
In the mid tenth century, a huge black and gold barge anchored off Cape
Parlanda. From its deck powerful Luwamnas magicians howled their
invocations to the Gods of Change. By their dimension?warping spells,
they rent a portal into a ghastly plane and out of it poured hellish fiends
of every size and description.
Thousands died and thousands more raced in fear to the strong castle of
Colist. The pursuing abominations gripped the lofty battlements in
scaly tentacles, beat upon the towers until the mortar cracked or, indeed,
vaulted over the walls on membranous wings to slay the crowds in the teeming
streets. By a secret way, the archon Chalybes fled the city and plunged
into the Shaker Mountains.
Weeks later, the warlocks and witches aboard the black barge were watching
the havoc being wrought on the west shore of Kartika Bay, when an azure
sail appeared to the north. The priests of Huisinga, who had destroyed
many enemy ships before, laughed at the approach of still another.
As the vessel skimmed into range, the Luwamnas let forth a burst of sorcerous
fire, but to their astonishment it was dispersed harmlessly. Next
they summoned a hurricane to tear timber from timber, but the violent winds
fell still and the ship glided swiftly through. Now the grappling
lines struck the barge and a hundred armed men came screaming over the
sides, wild for vengeance. At their head charged Chalybes, the Talisman
of Dispel swinging on his throat. He had made the hazardous trip
to the distant Temple of Kings and had been rewarded with a gift from the
Gods of Fate.
With the magicians massacred, the door to the abominable plane drifted
out of control and touched upon Hothior. Its denizens destroyed that
country and the territories beyond before the spell waned, closing the
portal for all time. Fortunately, the creatures which had come through
could not breed in an alien dimension and perished within a half?century.
Chalybes set sail for Boliske, but a tempest wrecked the boat and only
a few men escaped the sea to tell a tale that could not be confirmed.
For the next century, Mivior lay prostrate. Abominations left the
south ruined, while a tribe of Ogres, the Goleuddydd (Skull Crushers),
made a rare raid into human lands, destroying Addat. The Trolls chose
this for the hour of their vengeance. They besieged and pillaged
Boran and took back the eastern shore of Serpent Bay. Wars in later
generations failed to regain this last conquest.
Fortunately, Boliske stood as a nucleus of Mivioran civilization and when
the time of invasions was past, men rolled up their sleeves and set to
work. They rebuilt Colist, Addat and Boran as naval bases, since
Rombune, Zefnar and Parros were mounting slaving raids along Mivior's long
coast. A revitalized navy put an end to the menace, and Mivioran
trade revived.
By the beginning of the fourteenth century, the last of the great Luwamnas
lords or Reiken had fallen, and the lesser of their breed had fled or gone
underground into persecuted covens. Some of the liberated countries,
including Haliyas, Zir and Datassa, dispatched consuls to Minaria.
Exactly when Mivior believed itself strengthened by these alliances, their
Reiken friends began exploring trading possibilities with other states
(much to Mivior's disapproval).
But this was in the future. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
a monopoly on Reiken trade let Mivior resume its old greatness. Of
its possible rivals, Rombune preferred to work the distant south, while
Zefnar and Parros were frequently enervated by barbarian problems.
Moreover, Mivior continued to enjoy several advantages in the Reiken trade
?? especially its history of shared struggle, its exclusive treaties and
its secret charts of a treacherous ocean.
These years held many clashes with Mivior's rivals, in defense of its trading
rights. At home Mivior suffered several strikes, as the plebeian
classes protested their exclusion from the governing circles. A temporary
seizure of Boliske by an insurgent party convinced sage heads that reforms
were necessary. Only a state with so mobile a society as Mivior's
would have suffered the problem, or dealt with it as sagely. Representation
was given to the more important elements of the masses and the strength
of the nation was accordingly enhanced.
Trade with Elfland had waxed and waned for many years. The ascent
of one Boewenn to the High Princeship turned relations hostile and precipitated
an Elven attack. Addat was destroyed and many Miviorans massacred.
Fortunately, the archon Netros made common cause with other invaded kingdoms
and turned the Elves back, even to join in the sack of Ider Bolis, Boewenn's
capital.
After the war, Mivior rebuilt and prospered. Although forced to cast
a wary eye on the Ogres, who were slowly extending their territory east,
tensions relaxed on the Trollish frontier. In fact, after the translation
of some of the Trollish battle and love sagas into Mivioran by the scholar
Mosinon, they became popular as acted out on the stage. Trollish
crafts became a fad.
Upon the death of the archon Mozuel, the electors debated and after a few
days named a young count as his successor. This was Nualt, whose
father had founded the great Nikalmati Shipping House, and whose grandfather
had been a cook upon the high seas.