Despite the great physical destructiveness of the Cataclysm, civilization
was not totally extinguished on the South Plains of Minaria, thought the
deadly strike of the Punishing Star destroyed all life between the sea
and the Dry Mountains. Beyond that, the land turned from humid to
arid and only those towns located beyond these mountains survived.
The most important cities of earlier days often perished or shrank to half-deserted
ruins, while small town and villages near oasis survived, including Adeese,
Jipols, and Khuzdul. Even the giant lake of Cephallen shrank until
it became the bitter, land-locked Sea of Zett.
Khuzdul was the first city to start on the road to recovery. Out of the
wasteland came the Immortal Lord ?? an unconquerable soldier and peerless
leader of men He laid claim to the city, and ruled wisely Elsewhere, agrarian?based
democracies predominated Alas, as the population grew and the barbarians
became more menacing, the need for better organization was felt.
Finally, the democracies were supplanted by military leaders ?? kings ??
on the pattern set by the Immortal Lord of Khuzdul.
Each of the great city?states preserved its own history in chronicles beginning
shortly after the Cataclysm. One of the most Important sources for
the early history of the South Plains is Maiko's Ecclesiastical Chronicle.
written in the sixth century but utilizing earlier records which are no
longer in existence
Maiko states that the vast majority of inhabitants of the city?states were
tillers of aristocrat?owned land. A military feudalism suited the
conditions of the time??a general shortage of food and other essentials,
and the constant threat of barbarian attack. As time wore on, a semi?divine
kingship came to be the norm. But after half a millennium this political?economic
system was showing signs of wear.
As the monarchs succeeded in suppressing barbarian attacks and baronial
strife, the ensuing peace allowed farmers, herders and craftsmen to work
more effectively and create a surplus of goods. It was found that
these commodities could be carried between cities and sold at a profit.
The peddlers who carried the goods accrued great wealth, to the point where
some could afford to live like noblemen.
Trade soon extended to the small oasis villages beyond the cities and then
to the tribal peoples of the coasts and plains. Trade allowed new
cities like Parros and Zefnar to be founded on the ruins of the Cataclysm.
They first prospered as fishing ports, sending their ware inland, but thrived
even better after they converted the net fleets into merchandise haulers,
seeking over the sea for merchandise to feed into the trade cities of the
interior.
By the beginning of the seventh century, Zefnar was in commercial contact
with the Mivioran town of Colist. Shipbuilders experimented with
new designs, and soon many trim galleys were plying the coasts of the Sea
of Drowning Men.
Meanwhile,the merchant class of Adeese had grown numerous enough and rich
enough to demand a say in the ruling of their city. The king replied
with repression, until a revolt expelled both him and his aristocratic
supporters. Events were much the same in Parros, Zefnar and Khuzdul.
Only conservative Jipols continued to maintain a type of monarchy.
Life was never so secure on the Barbarian Frontier as it was farther north.
Accordingly, the king kept his throne in Jipols, in exchange for a charter
guaranteeing political rights to the newly powerful merchant class.
The city?states of the South Plains prospered under merchant rule.
Says the historian Shakaid of Zefnar: "The great gods placed their blessing
upon the South Plains; peace and bounty was the portion of all men everywhere,
rich and poor alike." Art and literature knew a renaissance under the plutocrats,
while the political sway of the cities spread widely. Drawing soldiers
from among the huge ranks of their agrarian yeomen, the cities seized great
tracts of land. Adeese, the mightiest of the city?states, held sway
from the Spires to the Sun to the Altars of Greystaff. Then, not
content with this dominion, the city attacked ancient Pon and annexed its
tin?rich mountains.
Despite outward appearances, the city?states were already past their peak
of health by this time in history. As the generations passed, the
yeomen freeholders lost their lands, which the plutocrats turned into vineyards
or livestock pastures. As the countryside emptied of people and the
cities burgeoned with unwarlike clerks, merchants, scholars, craftsmen
and dispossessed paupers, the state militias could not meet their recruitment
quotas. By 766, Adeese was forced to hire outside mercenaries when
it went to war with Khuzdul over mining rights in the tin?rich Dry Mountains.
Later, when Zehr?hu?Pon was invaded, the Black Knight's army was more than
half composed of mercenary soldiers.
The danger of collapse of the civilization was slow to become apparent.
Men admired the great aqueduct that was built from the Wanderer to the
fields of Adeese??but, ominously, the well watered fields were worked only
by slave gangs. Slavery increased in the cities themselves; hosts
of slaves mass?produced goods at a cost that could undersell the goods
of free craftsmen. The craftsmen subsequently joined the descendants
of the yeomen in pauperage. In Zefnar, the capital of the slave trade,
bondsmen and bondmaids were taught music, scribing, poetry, dance and cuisine.
The spread of such "specialized" slavery threw thousands of free artists
out of work, the same way the craftsmen had gone. Prosperity, once
general, was now the privilege of very few.
Where this malaise was leading became manifest at the end of the ninth
century. Then the Wisnyos, conquerors from the Barbarian frontier,
seized Parros, Jipols and Zefnar and threatened even mighty Khuzdul.
Wisnyo rule brought back the worst abuses of the Age of Kings. Repression
and taxation by the rulers and their representatives ground down the merchant
class while doing nothing to stem the widespread poverty and unemployment.
Fortunately, the Wisnyo misrule was brief. The Wisnyo warriors took
to quarreling and surrounded themselves with enfeebling luxury. Their
second generation was a lazy, drunken and vice?ridden lot. When the
terror of the "abominations of the land and the horrors of the air" threatened
Zefnar ever so slightly, the reigning Wisnyo king, Kanin, lost heart and
fled toward Parros. He was slain by his guards on the road, for the
treasures he carried. After Kanin's death, Wisnyo rule collapsed
and the city?states established a variety of weak, civilian governments.
Adeese also declined over the latter tenth century. Its southern
frontier crumbled, and it was unable to keep up with the increasing cost
of maintaining its mercenary army. Squadrons left their posts and
marched on Adeese, demanding back pay. Unfortunately, one mercenary
leader, Esheq of the Guinni tribe, turned the demonstration into a coup
and set up a strongman rule. During the disorders that followed the
usurpation, the great aqueduct was destroyed and the last vestiges of Adeesi
control in Pon were lost.
Taking a lesson from Esheq, the mercenaries in the cities of the former
Wisnyo Empire rose up and ended civilian rule. Eventually, even the
oligarchy of Khuzdul fell??ordered to disband by Pollo, a mercenary captain
from Beolon.
For more than two hundred years the city?states remained in the grip of
various tyrants, who often had violent and short careers. Though
they were certainly devious, ambitious and unscrupulous, many of the tyrants
were also intelligent and cultivated men. Occasionally they helped
their cities prosper, reviving arts and letters by their patronage.
The Age of Tyrants was characterized by warfare between the city?states,
in which military adventurers sought to establish empire and dynasty.
The Black Knight of Stubstaff Keep has left us a vivid picture of these
times in his memoirs??especially his The War of the Three Tyrants.
Continual warfare and political instability sapped the city?states of their
potential during the period of tyrannic rule. Gyharan refugees from
beyond the Barbarian frontier conquered Jipols in the early twelfth century,
while the pirates of the Westward Islands humiliated the tyrants of Zefnar
and Parros.
Meanwhile, in the savannas of the far south, a different kind of turmoil
was disturbing the cattle and horse?breeding tribes that dwelt there.
Even in the best of times, their lives tended to be turbulent. Warfare,
plague, and famine sometimes drove the excess population of the savannas
out of their homeland??as when the migrating Yanna tribe invaded and overwhelmed
the Gyhara Confederacy, founding the hybrid state of Yannagyhara.
In the early thirteenth century it was the turn of the Shucassami people
to leave the trouble?beset savannas and take their herds and families north.
The Shucassamis were intelligent and warlike??as a cattle?raising people
must be, to safeguard their herds against raiders. The generation
that left the savannas was illiterate, but they have left songs and stories??collected
by scholars such as Bakufar of Hio??that allow us to reconstruct their
past.
To the Shucassamis, trade was regarded as less honorable than armed robbery,
and was resorted to only when violence failed. Their dominant interests
were war and the acquisition of cattle and horses. Their young men
were skilled m many weapons??spears, swords, axes and the bow. The
wealthy families were the aristocrats, but bards, smiths and women had
good social positions.
The most generous family head attracted the most relations and, hence,
the most manpower and status. Parsimony was the most despised vice
with which a Shucassami noble could be charged. Kinsmen who attached
themselves to the chief comprised his bodyguard in battle and, if he were
slain, they were duty bound to die with him.
The Shucassami attitude to the supernatural was not sophisticated.
Priests were supported in noble households, but their social standing was
low. Worship centered on a vague concept of "Sky?borne Ones." It
was believed that Fate was superior to both man and gods. This idea
made the Shucassami hero resigned to ill fortune, while justifying him
in his belief that he might win through against any obstacle, even against
the hostility of the gods themselves. Such men??willing to take any
risk??made fearsome foes. Other Minarians, with their elaborate rituals
and pantheons could find little of substance in the Shucassami faith and
called the invaders "the people without gods."
This describes the people who burst upon the South Plains. The city
chronicles have preserved the military aspect of the invasion, and the
legends of the Shucassami recount the marvels they witnessed in the new
land.
The clan of Ombos, for example, sent scouts ahead to locate water for the
crossing of the Withering. The riders explored the arid landscapes
until a beautiful piping music wafted to their ears. In hopes of
finding a village or a foreign herder to rob, they followed the sound until
they arrived at a small oasis. It was deserted, but the men were
pleased to have found the water their people needed. As the sun was
setting, the warriors ate their supper, reveled in their good fortune for
a while, and lay down to sleep beside the pool.
Alas, only one of their number would ever wake again??and he would be a
madman ever afterwards. Dhonn, the madman, told a tale of strange
music that filled his dreaming mind. The warble seemed to lift his
spirit from his body and guide him up into the starlit ether. As
he opened his sleeping eyes, he saw his comrades similarly adrift in space.
While he floated on, as if moved by a breeze, something else came into
view of Dhonn's astonished eyes??a vast, formless mass with many tentacles
of flowing mist. Around the mass danced and piped a myriad of hideous
jinn, grasping the soul?bodies of the Shucassami as they drifted close
and hurling them into the chaotic abomination. Dhonn screamed in
horror and thrashed like one fighting his way out of a nightmare.
Suddenly he found himself back on the sands of the oasis. He threw
himself on his brethren and tried to rouse them, but they were dead to
a man. Dhonn remembers nothing more that happened until other scouts
found him wandering alone in the desert.
According to another legend, a warband of Shucassamis attacked a monastery
on the edge of Blasted Heath. The barbarians rounded up the brothers
and looted the temple of the god Naashu Pinboh. The monks invoked
their deity for deliverance and, lo, the raiders were stricken with leprosy.
Griefstricken but acknowledging the power of Naashu Pinboh, the Shucassamis
remained at the monastery and joined the holy order. The god rewarded
their conversion by making them the most feared of all men. When
the raiders went to war in later years in the name of their Shucassamite
sovereign, they found few enemies willing to stand their ground before
the dreaded Lepers.
There are many such stories of peril and disaster which befell the Shucassami
invaders, but the conquest of the South Plains progressed steadily nonetheless.
The horsemen spread their influence widely, taking Jipols by a ruse and
letting the inhabitants live to add their civilized skills to the victors'
uncouth bravery. Raiders even ranged as far north as Muetar, until
Emperor Egalon repulsed their bold forays.
Proerno, the duke of Heap in the Hills, chose this troubled time to attack
Adeese, then being ruled by the tyrant Yoritom. The ruthless Yoritom
ordered that a large group of country people be gathered together and driven
to the Altars of Greystaff. Their sacrifice brought a firestorm down
upon the army of Proerno, defeating the warriors. The duke himself
fled toward Pon, but Shucassami raiders chanced upon him and butchered
him in an obscure part of the wasteland.
Two years later, when Shucassamis surrounded the city, Adeese fared less
well. The tribesmen controlled the entire countryside, cutting off
all relief and supplies. After a few months of isolation, starvation
broke the will of the mercenaries in the city. Beniyan, the ataman
(chief) of the Shucassamis, traded the sellswords their lives for the surrender
of Adeese. The year was 1252, the official founding date of the Shucassamite
kingdom.
From captured Adeesi engineers, the Shucassamis learned more about the
art of siege warfare and applied the new tactics to Khuzdul. After
a long investment trying to withstand the siege, the tyrant of Khuzdul,
Shiror, committed suicide and the city fell.
After taking over Khuzdul, Beniyan consolidated his power for more than
a decade, then turned his military machine against the port cities of Zefnar
and Parros. These cities entered into an alliance with Queen Daring
of Rombune, and the ensuing struggle was long and hard. Finally the
queen accepted a political settlement, giving Shucassam special privileges
in Zefnar, while reserving Parros for Rombune. The "special privileges"
soon became an outright annexation.
Within his lifetime, Beniyan had seen the Shucassamite state grow from
a dream to its vast present?day borders. Beniyan, a desert chief's
son born in a leather tent, lived his old age in splendor, entertained
by dancing girls who had been the daughters of great tyrants. As
a signal that his work was done, Beniyan expired in a peaceful sleep.
What Beniyan had accomplished had never been done before. For the
first time, all the city?states of the South Plains stood united.
The union forged a commonwealth fit to defy even the power of resurgent
Muetar and Mivior. Under the patronage of the royal scepter, Zefnar's
decrepit fleet was rebuilt and did frequent battle for trading rights along
the Minarian sea lanes.
The transition from nomad to urban aristocracy was not easily made by the
Shucassami nobles. Native merchants revived trade on the South Plains,
but the Shucassami took little direct part in it. Their noblemen
could neither trade nor work the land without losing status. One
might act as a patron of the arts and sciences, but was not supposed to
dabble in either endeavor himself. About the only gainful pursuit
left open to the noble was the breeding of horses and cattle. Despite
his power and wealth, the Shucassami noble was poorly educated; his tutors
were more interested in lessons of character?building than practical knowledge.
The poorer members of the conquering Shucassami disdained city life and
either managed the herds of wealthy nobles or tended their own small flocks.
Sons of nobility were often sent to work with their brethren in the country.
There they learned horsemanship and were prepared for a later career of
soldiery. The Shucassamite cattle?tender is known as the gajoen (herd?man).
His type figures as a hero in many a Shucassamite song and story.
To the present day, the gajoens form the hard core of every Shucassamite
army. Without these daring, hard?riding men, the army??mainly conscripts
f rom native stock??would be far less effective in battle and pursuit.
The cities of the South Plains have every reason to be grateful to their
Shucassami conquerors. The decay of the Age of Tyrants has been reversed
in a century of their rule. The learned disciplines have rallied
and scientists, magicians and poets en joy the bounty of both royal and
noble courts. The cities glitter with new gardens, palaces and libraries.
Their ancestors often suffered through invasions and the turmoil of war,
but the present?day Shucassamite subjects benefit from the protection of
one of the finest and most effective armies in Minaria.
The expense of rebuilding the civilization of the South Plains was immense,
but the unification of this vast area makes it lucrative for Shucassam
to control the trade routes running between Minaria and the subcontinent
of Girion. Caravans can avoid Shucassamite taxes only by expensive
sea routes, or by the roundabout way through the lands of Pon.
Shucassam has fought sharp encounters with most of its neighbors, but the
longest and most bitter conflict was waged against Pon. The Shucassamites
hoped to close the trade routes which were enticing too many caravans away
from their king's toll?stations, going instead through the heart of Pon.
The invaders did considerable damage, but Archduke Phalor of Pon kept his
defending troops in the mountains and rough country, where the Shucassamite
cavalry was at a disadvantage. Finally, King Metchu could no longer
justify his country's losses. The Shucassamite army withdrew and
the stubborn mountaineers kept their trade routes.
The government of Shucassam is one of the youngest in Minaria. It
is yet too soon to tell if the king in Adeese will be able to maintain
the hard?won unity of the realm, or whether it will fall victim to the
decadence that has undone earlier barbarian conquerors. The son of
Metchu, Zanwee, begins his reign with the blessings of his diverse and
far?flung subjects. Whether he can live up to the great tradition
set by his ancestor, King Beniyan, only time will tell.