by Max Barry

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by New totzka. . 54 reads.

A History Of Totzka (WIP - 3,000 years to go)


A brief overview on Totzkan geography



In his 1689 book “A History of the Eastern Dominions” Patrício Cleto Delgado claimed that “in Old Tsuhka [archaic name from the Totzkan landmass] all life drinks from the Rio Ouronna”. There is merit to his argument, Totzka’s earliest civilisations sprung upon its shores and the river had an undeniable effect on the culture and history of the ancient Totzka. The Rio Ouronna, or the Tortz as it was once known, runs the width of the Totzka; sourced in the mountain lakes of Terras Das Picos it cuts its path westwards through the rocky costal hills of the south-east to water the crops fields of the west, finally emptying itself into the Parazine basin. To the river’s north lie the aforementioned mountain ranges of Terras Das Picos, the great Yhai steppe and forested hillsides of the Pamil peninsula.

The Rio Ouronna at sunset

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The settlement of Totzka (3000 BCE – 1700 BCE)
Although there is evidence of human habitation of Totzka dating back to the Upper Palolithic period large scale migration to the landmass began in the third millennia BCE as the first waves of Argeans began migrating from central Argus to Raedlon and settling along the southern coast of Totzka. Modern Totzkan archaeologists refer to these early settlers as members of the Piroga Culture, after the fossilised canoe found near Totzkan shores. Many of these canoes were used as coffins, buried with the corpse lying in them, suggesting the Pirogas had a strong cultural connection to their marine heritage. The Pirogas likely lived a basic hunter-gatherer lifestyle primarily sustaining themselves on the Rio Ouronna’s and Mesder Sea’s fish stocks. By end of the third millennia BCE the use of canoe graves had largely been replaced with burial mound style mass graves which some historians have interpreted to be indicative of a transition to a more collectivist and egalitarian society.

In the mid 19th century BCE the first Ipachi arrived on Totzka’s shores, having travelled thousands of miles across the ocean from their homeland in the Eterna sea, bringing with them their knowledge of navigation and agriculture, their scripts and their beliefs. They established a modest settlement on the south east coast, near where Sao Tiago lies today, and quickly expanded, rapidly assimilating the pre-existing Piroga society. As the Ipachis took advantage of the untapped arable land in the south-west, growing vast fields of rice near along banks of the Rio Ouronna, their population swelled while the promise of good soil and available farmland attracted more Ipachi to make the long journey to Raedlon. The population of Totzka is estimated to have reached 1 million by 1900 BCE. The agricultural states created by the Ipachi were still primarily tribal and disorganised in nature, with the legitimacy of leaders deriving from ad hoc elections, heritage, charisma or strength. The prevalence of mass graves around natural borders, whose creation coincides with historical periods of hardship such as drought or famine, demonstrates the settlers were not above raiding one another. The Ipachi never lost their sense of inquisitiveness and adventure and many undertook voyages on both foot and by sea, returning laden with goods and items from other lands. Like many tribal societies a chief’s prestige was measured by what they were buried with and in graves dating from this period items from the Tupinabás of eastern Raedlon (Dragao do mar), the Mihenna of Central Argus (Menna shuli) and the Xrevarans of Northern Argus (Athara magarat) have been found buried in ancient Totzkan tombs.
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A sculpture of a female found in a bronze age
Totzkan tomb.

The building of a nation (1800 BCE – c.1610 BCE)
The discovery of tin in the eastern hills of Totzka was perhaps the most important discovery of ancient Totzka and marks the onset of the Totzkan bronze age which forged (heh) these many proto-tsuhkic agricultural communities into a single kingdom. Artefacts from the period demonstrate the Ipachi settlers in Totzka had already been using copper products mined in northern Argus by the Yaxa, or Xrevaran people, of northern Argus (situated in modern day Athara Magarat and Keomora) but it was not until the discovery of tin, along with advancements in metalworking techniques, that the great Totzkan bronze rush of the early second millennia BCE began. Thousands of bronze tools, weapons and other bronze items dating from mid 17th century BCE onwards have found throughout southern Totzka, suggesting the bronzeworking trade quickly became widespread. The Rio Ouronna was vital to the success of the economy of south Totzka as ships loaded with bronze, mined and smelted in the east, headed downriver and returned with crops and meat from the farms and plantations in the west. This economic alliance between the miners of eastern Totzka and the farmers of western Totzka would form a backbone to the developing nation-state. Trading posts along the Rio Ouronna would grow becoming the cities of Nirapanza, Osmara and Milavice and Parazina. Of these Nirapanza alone still stands, having been continuously inhabited for nearly 4,000 years (more modern cities, including the capital Parazina, bear the names of the others). Nirapanza contains the Great Ziggurat of the West (as described by 3rd century BCE Totzkan historian Prasanna) the oldest temple in Totzka. The glyphs engraved on the walls of its earliest rooms, dedicated to a deity called Ezęnsa which is thought to be a corruption of the Mihennan deity Atęn, give us an understanding of the culture of the bronze age Totzkans. Due to the engraved glyphs similarities with other Ipachi scripts linguists have translated almost 40% of the walls.


A modern depiction of the Great Ziggurat of Nirapanza

By the time the Ziggurat’s walls were engraved in 16th century BCE, the land had already been carved up into vast estates owned by a few wealthy individuals. These may have been prospectors to the eastern tin mines who staked their claims early or the owners of vast swathes of farmland in the west, the descendants of chiefs of the Ipachi tribes that first settled there. The temple’s patron apparently inherited “the valley by the Tortz’s [Rio Ouronna’s] northernmost fork and the 20 leagues beyond that, to the cairn at the [untranslatable] peak.” This landowning elite employed staff; enforcers and secretaries to police and manage their estates. It is these secretaries we must thank for leaving behind as many clay writing tablets as they did that describe this period. As there is no mention of any authority superior to that of landowners in this early period most historians believed they existed in a state of semi-peaceful anarchy and thus private armies must have been essential to keep the order in this period. There were also labourers, who worked primarily as miners, smelters or farmhands, and traders who sailed up and down the Rio Ouronna on riverboats providing tin for the farmers and food and fur for the miners. The legal status of the labouring class remains in dispute. The engraved walls at Nirapanza, along with other sources, distinguish the river merchant class seemed to be distinguished by their apparent freedom, being repeatedly described as the “free families of the Tortz” which some historians have used to suggest that the labourer class where in servitude to landowning elite.


The contrasting landescapes of Totzka from left to right: South Totzka, Pamilya,
Terras Das Picos, Yhaiva

During this era there was also a mass migration by, judging by the lack of tablets found, a largely illiterate people from south Totzka into the Pamilya and Terras das Picos regions. This migration is hypothesised to have been conducted by the labourer class in an attempt to leave behind servitude to southern elites and seek their own fortunes on these largely unsettled lands. Some even took their herds east in to great Yhaivan steppe. Those who headed into the peaks and valleys of the Picos Das Terras would have scratched a harsh life as goat herds on the mountainsides for there was little tin ore to be found here and we known next to nothing of those that went east into Yhaiva save that their culture did not survive the arrival of the modern Yhai in the second and third centuries AD. Those who settled south Pamilya must have fared better as records indicated that 300 years later the Cheusa League was able to draw up a sizable army from these lands.
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The Ouronnan Kingdom (pre-Tétzūzka period) (c.1610 BCE – 1509 BCE )
Engraved on a stone steele, constructed in 1610 BCE are the words “Here we mark the coronation of Itbūa-Zténa, daughter of Zténo and student of Hūzto-Niékzo, as the master of the Tortz, superior to all other authority, and the first year of her premiership.” This steele is often used to mark the beginning of the bronze age Ouronnan Kingdom. While its theoretically entirely plausible and arguably quite likely that there were monarchs within the region prior to the stone’s engraving but if so, there have been no mentions found of any monarchs preceding Itbūa-Zténa. The steele itself was preserved and kept by the various rulers of south Totzka as a symbol of continuous rule including by the warlords of the Samratton period, the Hangs of the Tamuwan and the viceroys under the Portuguese empire. A reconstruction of the steele sits in the Pirâmide, the official residence of the President of the Totzkan Union, as the original went missing during the Totzkan revolution.


The Itbūa-Zténa steele,
photographed in 1921

While historians are unsure as to why a monarchy emerged in south Totzka when before the landowners had previously existed in a state of anarchy, most believe that the creation of the institution followed a period of increased violence over competition for land and a desire for a central authority to act as arbiter when disputes arose between the landowning elites. There almost no contemporary records dating from this period about the governments of these early monarchs, what records do exist mostly concern decisions made regarding the moving of boundaries between estates adding credence to the theory the monarch existed exclusively to arbitrate the landowner’s quarrels. Historians cannot even agree on the reigns of the early monarchs. We know Itbūa-Zténa ruled with 12 years until her death in 1598 BCE (she is supposedly buried in the great Ziggurat of Nirapanza) and was followed by Atbéto-Hūzto but following his death in there is a disputed gap of 18 years until Aromazko is coronated in 1580 BCE . Aromazko either died in 1571 BCE to be succeeded by Hūzto-Ati or reigned for another 20 to 30 years and died sometime during the 1540s BCE. This early era (from 1610 BCE to 1521 BCE) of historical uncertainty is referred to as the pre-Tétzūzka period.

Some historians have argued that the early Ouronnan Kingdom should not be regarded as a monarchy but as a plutocracy. As the monarchy was a relatively new institution in this period it lacked the prestige or respect held by the landowning elites. For example, while there is plenty of archaeological evidence of the mansions constructed by the landowners there is no evidence to indicate that during the pre-Tétzūzka period the monarchs constructed any palaces. Furthermore, the monarch welded no armies of their own but was instead dependent on the private armies employed by the landowners thus the monarch’s power came exclusively from the landed elite. It is therefore likely that the succession, upon the death of the incumbent monarch, was also decided primarily by the landowners. Prasanna, writing in the 3rd century BCE, follows the succession of Tétzūzka-Iaga to the monarchy. “Iaga’s patrons, Itbazo and Aedto, employed six hundred men to march through Milavice and Parazina with drums and clubs chanting his name. His rivals were fewer in number and were quick to flee the cities. Soon after Iaga was coronated [as monarch] of the Ouronnan kingdom.”
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The Tétzūzka Dynasty (c.1509 BCE – 1320 BCE)


A sculpture believed to depict the
head of King Tétzūzka I

Tétzūzka-Iaga is the first monarch of the Ouronnan kingdom Prasaana mentions by name, the historian spends three quarters of his first volume on the early 14th century BCE king and for good reason as it under Tétzūzka’s reign that the power of the plutocrats was finally eroded, allowing a powerful centralised monarchy to assert itself. According to Prasaana Tétzūzka-Iaga assumed power in 1509 BCE at the age of 18. Early in his reign Tétzūzka put down multiple attempts by militant landowners to force him to abdicate and in retribution confiscated a portion of their land for the royal estate and forced them to pay a monthly tribute to the royal treasury. While Tétzūzka used much of this wealth to pay for a standing military to challenge the landowner’s private armies more was used to erect palaces and temples to stand as symbols to the king’s prestige. It is the first King Tétzūzka we have to thank for the palaces of Parazine and Milavice, and for the extending the Great Ziggurat of Nirapanza. Tétzūzka’s reign also saw an expansion of the kingdom’s trade as Totzkan bronze flooded the ancient Western Isles reaching as far as the city states of Torom.

King Tétzūzka’s other great legacy is Burial Edict of 1481 BCE, Totzka’s oldest known codified legislation, engraved on thousands of clay tablets which were distributed across Totzka. The edict proclaims that no individual may be buried “within the earth” but instead must laid to rest in the “mausoleum of their god’s temples.” Totzka’s Ipachi and Central and North Argean ancestors had all brought their gods to Raedlon when they settled there which had resulted in a loose pantheon of separate and often conflicting faiths and cults. The insistence of the Burial Edict throws up many questions about the interreligious relations of the Ouronnan Kingdom. Was there conflict over land for gravesites between different faiths. Were communities becoming more segregated along religious lines. Was this increased competition over land related to a sudden increase in the number of population or perhaps the death rate?

Tétzūzka-Iaga died around 1468 BCE and was succeeded by his adopted daughter Tétzūzka II otherwise known as Tétzūzka-Ottéla, daughter of Ibjunn-Ottélo and student of Iaga. As Queen Tétzūzka II instituted an extensive system of record keeping within her court at the Royal Palace of Nirapanza. Thousands of legal precedents emerged from Tétzūzka II’s reign, a few of which are still used today (Totzkan jurists often claim that Totzka has the oldest legal tradition in the world). It was in Tétzūzka II’s reign that the phrase “murder without just cause” was first used leading to a millennium of Totzkan philosophers pondering the question: ‘what is a just cause to murder’. Tétzūzka II continued her adoptive father’s work of expanding the royal estates and the expense of the plutocrats and is often hailed as “richest among queens, kings and emperors” in various records. Tétzūzka II also began construction on the Nirapanza Viaduct (which, contrary to popular belief, was not originally built in bronze) in order to ease travel across the Rio Ouronna. In the later years of her reign new cities began to emerge among the coast challenging the dominance of the older cities built on the banks of the Rio Ouronna. These new cities were essential for overseas trade as the Ouronnan Kingdom developed a thirst for foreign goods, in particular copper which was essential for Totzkan bronzeworking - the kingdom’s primary industry.

Tétzūzka-Ottéla was succeeded by Tétzūzka III who led a short, unremarkable reign (so much so historians don’t even know his birth name) from 1435 BCE to 1431 BCE. It was however within Tétzūzka III’s reign that the seeds of the conquest of Pamilya were sown. Pamilya had been settled almost two centuries earlier by south Totzkan labourers who sought to escape exploitation by the landowning elites. By the 14th century BCE it existed as a patchwork of nominally independent tribes that were still beholden to the Ouronnan Kingdom for trade. Over nearly 200 years the settlers had expanded until their lands stretched from the marches of the westernmost Terras das Picos to tip of the Pamil Peninsular. Bound by the Mesder Sea to the north and west and vast infertile Yhai steppe to the east, the ever-growing population of Pamilya struggled to find new lands to farm. During the reign of Tétzūzka III the Pamil tribes began expanding south into the Ouronnan Kingdom. Some records indicate this was a peaceful and legal expansion with Pamil chieftains buying land rights off impoverish landowners while others claim this was a violent process as the Pamil chased the Ouronnan’s off their land. Regardless of whether the Pamil expansion was peaceful or not the Ouronnans that lived under Pamil rule viewed their new masters as a different, less civilised people and resented the loss of the Ouronnan kingdom’s laws and protection. By the reign of Tétzūzka IV (1431 BCE – 1411 BCE and also known as Tétzūzka-Drigo) a culture of raiding and counterraiding existed along the Pamil-Ouronnan border. Many of the surviving edicts from the reigns of the third and fourth Tétzūzkas concern the execution and ransoming of Pamil prisoners. The Nirapanza Viaduct was also largely completely during Tétzūzka IV’s reign (although later monarchs would add to it) and city of Nirapanza began spread south across the Rio Ouronna and towards the Mesder Coast.
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The ruins of Old Parazine; one of the great cities of the Ouronnan Kingdom

The first conquest of Pamilya (1425 BCE – c.1390 BCE)
In 1425 BCE Ókhary-Karólétz, who was probably the heir to a dispossessed landowner, gathered a force of (according to Prasanna) 3,000 men to attack the tribes in the Ouronnan-Pamil border area. He was not the first to attempt this, but he was the most successful as he not only defeated the tribes but managed to hold the land he had taken rather than being forced back south as his predecessors had. Modern historians believed part of his success came from his implementation of dedicated companies under commanders into his army, rather than relying on ad hoc units created for each individual battle as previous Totzkan armies had done. As word of Ókhary’s success grew more men flocked north hoping the share in the new kingdom that the warlord was rapidly carving out for himself. Despite effectively stemming the tide of Pamil raids Ókhary’s achievements were not well received by Tétzūzka IV who outlawed all private armies. This did not concern Ókhary who was now intent of conquering all of Pamilya as his own personal domain and pushed further north waging war of the tribes that played no part in the border raids. In 1422 BCE twenty-four Pamil tribes joined together in an alliance, known today as the first Chuesa League (named for the alliance’s largest tribe), in an attempt to defeat the warlord in the battle of the Paéyo forest. Despite being supposedly outnumbered four to one, Ókhary saw victory after he flanked the opposing forces and drew the various tribes apart, fighting a series of smaller battles to slowly bleed the Pamil army to surrendering. Following the defeat of the First Chuesa League no tribe in Pamilya had the strength to challenge the Ouronnan host and Ókhary and by 1415 BCE Ókhary controlled almost all of Pamila’s interior, his territory stretching from the southern border to the Bay of Pamilya in the north. For almost three years his vast army camped on the shore of the great northern bay, gradually building a city to replace the tents of soldiers. This city would bare Ókhary-Karólétz’s name and looked set to pose a challenge to the southern cities.

Between 1412 and 1410 BCE a split between the forces of Ókhary and those under his most proficient commander, (who is only remembered by his Pamil name; Asaka) would lead to civil war as the two factions fought for control over the new kingdom. Ókhary’s larger force would triumph against the would-be usurper and Asaka was forced to retreat the Serdoté peninsular in where he would conquer and establish his own state in the 1410s BCE. The civil war allowed the Pamil tribes to regroup in the east and from the Second Cheusa League in 1409 BCE. Although they too would ultimately be defeated Ókhary would be assassinated the same year. Following his death, the conquered territory as Ókhary’s grand army broke apart and his commanders became independent warlords carving out their own states. Ókhary’s ambition of single Pamil state united by conquest would not be achieved until the Ostrivanid conquest of the mid 4th century AD. While later records would often refer to the “eight mythical kingdoms of Pamilya” modern histories believe there may have been as many as fifteen existing at any time. Some of the kingdoms were controlled by the Ouronnan warlords, descendants of Ókhary’s commanders, who ruled from centralised fortresses, and others were ruled by the resurgent Pamil tribes (the coming centuries would see 22 more Cheusa Leagues emerge) while others were placed under puppet rulers of the Ouronnan Kingdom which was prone to interfere in the affairs of their northern neighbours.
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The century of trials (c.1390 BCE – c.1290 BCE)
The late 14th century BCE and early 13th century BCE generally saw an increase in violence across Totzka in part caused by the armed rising up of a pretender to the Ouronnan Throne. After Tétzūzka IV’s death in 1411 there appears to have been dispute over the succession as two factions vied for power. The origin of the dispute is unknown. Akjunn-Edemo claimed the throne in 1410 BCE and was crowned Tétzūzka V in the royal palaces of Nirapanza. His rival, Ittala-Mila, seemed to successfully gather the support of many of the landowners in the east, leaving some to speculate that she offered them land from the royal estate, which at this point encompassed almost one fourth of South Totzka. Tétzūzka V relinquished the throne sometime between 1406 BCE and 1401 BCE following his defeat in battle (possibly the mythical Battle at the Idiamonis) and the successful siege of Nirapanza and Ittala-Mila was soon crowned Tétzūzka VI. A decade into her reign Tétzūzka was forced to put down with a massive uprising against her rule initiated by the landed elite suggesting their alliance had broken down.


Disaster struck in early 13th century BCE when tectonic movements in Mesder plate saw a series of devastating tsunamis strike Totzka’s southern coast. The number of the tsunamis varies depending on the source, but most historians believe over nineteen tsunamis hit the Ouronnan kingdom between 1387 BCE and 1384 BCE causing “the banks of the [Rio Ouronna] to burst… the fields of the west and the eastern mines to flood.” Some sources also claim one of these Tsunami’s claimed the life of Tétzūzka VI in 1386 BCE. The abandonment of the royal palaces in 1383 BCE means we known very little of last years of Tétzūzka-Mila’s reign or that of the monarchs succeed her. The destruction of the kingdom’s agriculture, industry and infrastructure saw a refugee crisis develop as tens of thousands of Ouronnans flocked north into Pamilya looking for land, sustenance and work. Due to the lack of literacy within Pamilya it is unknown how the Pamil kingdoms reacted to mass migration north but considering that hostilities had existed between the Pamil and Ouronnans since the 1440s BCE there must have been much blood shed between the two peoples with some historians writing about the existence of the disputed 12th Cheusa League which would round up and execute Ouronnan settlers.

The decades from 1380 to 1310 BCE are lost to us as few records survive from these years. The reigns of Tétzūzka VII and Tétzūzka VIII occurred during this period but of them and their rule we known nothing. No great works architecture appeared, and the legacy of these decades is the increased number of mass graves, a result of the famine, drought and violence of this era. Although some Ouronnan’s returned to the south the process of rebuilding the kingdom was slow and it would take many more years before the country would return to its golden age.

During Tétzūzka VIII’s reign the Tétzūzka dynasty, after almost two hundred years of rule, seems to have fallen from power. Legal edicts inscribed on clay tablets, dating from the early 1320s, are attributed to a king or queen Mazkénid I but these are contemporaneous with other’s proclaimed by Tétzūzka VIII suggesting the kingdom had managed to split between two monarchs. Then, by 1320 BCE, Tétzūzka VIII simply vanishes from any known records with no mention of who succeeded him. Historians throughout history have put forward different theories to how the great dynasty ended with varying degrees of evidence. Prasanna claimed that the dynasty was overthrown by their own court ushering in decades of anarchy in Ouronna, though he claims this was during the reign of Tétzūzka X who is mentioned nowhere else. Shankayomapatil, an 12th century Buddhist monk, claims Tétzūzka VIII was prone to changing his preference as to who would succeed him and thus ushered in a bloody civil war between his would-be successors. More recently Júlio Calixto Rodrigues, writing in the 1990s, argued that the dynasty’s power had been waning for decades, allowing several rival monarchies to set themselves up, and the Tétzūzka dynasty simply ceased to be relevant.
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Rise of the Asharé and the Itdūzkéts (c.1290 BCE – 1228 BCE)
Prior the floods of the 1380s BCE the Ouronnans put their faith into a “loose pantheon of gods, idols and cults” they had imported from their ancestors in Argus and the Eterna Sea. It was not uncommon for neighbours to have household shrines to contradicting deities and in general the kingdom lived harmoniously in regard to religion. This was not case in Pamilya where kingdoms and tribes were generally more segregated along religious and sectarian lines. Since the conquest of Pamilya in the 1420s BCE the new kings, especially the incoming Ouronnan conquerors, had increasingly relied on religion and an emerging priestly class to legitimise their rule. The arrival of tens of thousands of Ouronnans, along with their many gods and traditions, upset the religious homogeneity of the Pamil kingdoms and likely led to much religious violence and persecution in the coming decades.

This persecution is possibly what led to a group of literate men and women, likely of Ouronnan descent, in the northern city of Ókhary-Karólétz to record faiths of the refugee population before they were eradicated from memory. It was these writings and their authors which would go on to proclaim that all matter was constructed from a single divine energy, the Aash, which could be an individual could manipulate to their will should they achieve the so called ‘Five Precepts of Aash” (Charisma, Endurance, Wisdom, Passion and Principles) and reach a state of being called ‘Ejaezcaca’, which can be translated to ‘Deification’. For the Ouronnan refugee population the idea of taking back control of their worlds must have seemed irresistible. The early Asharé were highly inclusive, adopting thousands of previous faiths into their religion. Gods became ancestors who achieved Ejaezcaca and ancient traditions became tenets required for the completion of the Five Precepts of Aash. Asharé was, since its foundation. the religion of literates and, taking advantage from the new trade in papyrus from South Argus, relied extensively on its writings to spread its message. Even by the 13th century BCE the ancient Totzkans were still using a glut of scripts inherited and adapted from those brought by the Ipachi and Argeans almost six centuries prior and use thousands of pictograms, glyphs and compound characters to convey their meaning. The Asharé were innovative, reforming this system into a standardised alphabet of three dozen characters. The efficiency of Somba’s Script, as it was later called, saw it become quickly incorporated by the secretarial classes and as a result the Asharé became dominant among the literate members of Ouronnan society.

Its rapid spread saw many different variations on the faith begin to appear across Pamilya and South Totzkan in the 13th and 12th centuries BC but by the 1260s BCE many of the early Asharé cults had coalesced around a single figure known to the Asharé as Somba and Somba’s Order, the name given to his followers, would be the dominant denomination of the religion. According to the Asharé Somba not only achieved Ejaezcaca but was the first to reach a stage on existence they called Ejaejasomba, or ‘Sombafication’, and thus became an omniscient being with full control of reality. Unfortunately, the details of Somba’s life, while much written about, are extremely unreliable – it can be safely assumed, for instance, that Somba didn’t bring about harvests in winter or live for five centuries. Most historians do believe Somba was a real person who lived during the mid 12th century BCE, and was probably originally of Pamil, not Ouronnan origin, and may have previously served in an advisory capacity to a Pamil chief before his conversion. Somba also probably played influential in defending the Asharé from persecution although the framing of Somba as either a peacemaker or a warrior depends on his biographer.


A sculpture depicting Somba, circa
1300 BCE

While the contributions to the Asharé faith attributed to Somba should not be underestimated, its arguable that Somba’s greatest achievement was his alliance with the Itdūzkét family. The Asharé claim the Itdūzkéts were once wealt landlords from Ouronnan who had lost everything where their fields turned to swamps in the 1380s BCE and had chosen to head north an settle in south eastern pamilya where they had sought a new fortune fishing in the North Mesder sea. In 1230 BCE the head of the Itdūzkét, Itdūzkét-Órkharó, adopted the Somba’s biological daughter, Pi-Somboa Jachues Méja, as heir to what was left of the family’s estates. It was Itdūzkét-Jachua, as she was later known, who was supposedly responsible for “leading the Asharé south, to carve a holy land along shores of the [Rio Ouronna] and the Mesder sea”. In reality the Itdūzkéts did move their household south but only after the local Pamil tribes chased them and the rest of the Asharé from western Pamilya. The Tucunaré Manuscripts, written by an anonymous Asharé author in the 9th century BCE, largely concern themselves with the Itdūzkét’s exodus and exploits in South Totzka. It paints a picture of a lawless, starving kingdom divided between hundreds of weak and ineffectual lords. According to the manuscript the Asharé, under the guidance of Itdūzkét-Jachua, settled on the outskirts of Nirapanza in the summer of 1228 BC, where they soon came under threat by the lord of Nirapanza who attempted to enslave them. Itdūzkét-Jachua supposedly defeated the Nirapanzeese by making dry grass grow between the city’s and roads buildings and told the inhabitants that unless they submitted Nirapanza to the Asharé she would bring the sun so low the city would catch fire and burn. Putting the supernatural elements aside, there are other records, dating from the 1220s BCE, which speaks of “the siege” and “burning of Nirapanza” which may hint at how Itdūzkét-Jachua truly manage to assert her control over the city.

After assuming rule of the Nirapanza the Itdūzkét made their court in the Nirapanza Viaduct; a colossal structure, first built during the reign of Tétzūzka II, which was part bridge and part fortress and spanned the width of the Rio Ouronna by Nirapanza. Over the coming decades the Itdūzkéts would rebuilding the viaduct, engraving the outer walls with frescoes depicting their dynasty’s accomplishments and with famous scenes from Asharé mythology. Even after the dynasty fell from power the Asharé would continue to make pilgrimages to the viaduct until its destruction during the Samratton. By seizing control of the Viaduct the Itdūzkéts could effectively control trade on the Rio Ouronna, a soft-power advantage which would hasten their rapid subjugation of South Totzka.
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The reign of Itdūzkéts (c.1228 BCE - c.1100 BCE)
The Asharé claim that the lands controlled and worked by the Itdūzkéts and their subjects immediately began to flourish; their mines and farms yielded more ore and crops then those of the neighbouring lords who soon grew envious of their success. As such the Asharé absolved the Itdūzkéts of conquest of the south, arguing that they were protecting their lands and liberating the labouring classes from soft and incompetent rulers. According to the Tucunaré Manuscripts the Itdūzkéts relied on their faith to overcome opponents that outnumbered them and pacify populations hostile to their rule. Other records paint a far bloody image of the Itdūzkéts relying on ambushes and terror tactics to defeat their enemies and subjugate the southern people. The majority of historians agree that Itdūzkét-Tuléo, the adopted grandson of Itdūzkét-Jachua, was the first Itdūzkét to control all of the Tétzūzka dynasty’s former territory and thus attribute to him the title of King Itdūzkét I, although there is some debate as to the identity of this king. Textual evidence suggests that Itdūzkét I was not satisfied with the south and expanded northward in a series of bloody campaigns in Pamilya and Picos Das Terras. Under the Itdūzkét dynasty the borders of the Ouronnan kingdom were constantly shifting, the result of invasions, counter-invasion and constant rebellion. This cycle continued throughout the reigns of Itdūzkét I (c.1220 BCE -1208 BCE) and his adopted son Itdūzkét II (1208 BCE – 1203 BCE), also known as Itdūzkét-Lénzet or Itdūzkét the crusher after his preferred method of execution.

It was under the reign of Itdūzkét III (1203 BCE – 1174 BCE) that the pattern of endless warfare began to slow down as the king focused more securing his existing borders rather than expanding them. Itdūzkét III constructed a series of fortress of an unprecedent size to create his “ring of stone” that would protect his kingdom. To achieve this massive undertaking thousands were forced into slavery (most slaves were likely prisoners of war or those who could not pay off debts). The presence of such a large amount of slavery is likely what led to Itdūzkét III’s most enduring legacy; that “no child born shall be punished nor reward for the merits or failings of their parents.” Historians today refer to this as the Foundational Liberty Edict and while at the time it was probably issued to stop children being born into slavery it would later be influential in the development of Satzhee Corze, the Ilhan lifestyle of raising children communally. Itdūzkét III’s reign was also concern with the conversion of his kingdom to the Asharé faith as the king believed that opposition to the ruling dynasty’s religion was the cause of the many rebellions that plague the reign of his forebearers. Itdūzkét III implemented several taxes that targeted his non-Asharé subjects – these were successful in converting much of the western farmers and some of the prospectors and landlords of the east but much of the rank-and-file labourers and the urban city dwellers refused to give their faiths so easily. Many historians claim that Itdūzkét III’s taxation led to the emergence of an Asharé minority elite.


The Itdūzkét Fort at Milavise, built in the 1190s BCE

Itdūzkét III’s religious policies would continue under his heir, Itdūzkét the old (or, to more recent historians, ‘Itdūzkét the dull’) who reigned from 1174 BCE – 1148 BCE), however they did not stop a wave of religious violence known as the “Pious Uprising” that gripped the cities of the kingdom throughout the 1150s and 1160s BCE. As a consequence of the uprising Somba’s Order, the religious wing of the Itdūzkét dynasty, divided when the group led by the king’s cousin, Itdūzkét-Tachoa, broke away from the main order believing it too weak to defend the Asharé faith properly. Tensions between the more orthodox Sombist and the more militant Tachoist branches of the Asharé faith would lead to much internal strife in the religion. However much of the violence of Itdūzkét IV’s reign was contained to cities along the Rio Ouronna and the Mesder sea while the farms and mines that had so long driven the Ouronnan kingdom prospered and by the 1140s BCE the kingdom’s population is estimated to have reached 12 million. Having survived almost 5 centuries and with newly secured borders, a thriving economy and powerful state apparatus in seemed as though the Ouronnan Kingdom would be eternal.
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The Disintegration of the Ouronnan Kingdom
The Totzkan-Marian sociologist and historian Antonio Parades once claimed that “Totzkan history is an endless cycle of balkanisation”. If this is true than the cycle began in the late 11th century BCE when mass starvation and constant warfare so the kingdom break up not into smaller, rival kingdoms, as it had following the collapse of the Tétzūzka dynasty two hundred years prior, but into a regressive tribal society.

It likely began with famine as centuries of intensive farming had slowly ruined the once fertile land that was no longer able to keep up with the kingdom’s ever-expanding population. As the price of food rose more looked to the kingdom’s other source of wealth; tin. A renewed wave of prospectors headed east and the struggle for land among the eastern hills became ever more competitive. But, while the hills still had much ore to offer, the tin that had driven the kingdom to great highest the 14th century BCE was no longer so common. Mass starvation led to anger which became ever more directed at the ruling Asharé majority and a second pious uprising broke out during the reign of Itdūzkét V, this time in the east. This wave of violence is also known as the Tunnel War as the corpses of the murdered were often hidden deep in the tin mines. Itdūzkét V raised a host of several thousand men, primarily of the Asharé faith, to hunt down those responsible for the violence. Then in the 1120s BCE, when the kingdom was at its most fragile, the Mountain People came to deal the shattering blow.

The inhabitants of Picos Das Terras are often neglected in most telling’s of Ancient Totzkan history and for good reason. Their history is cryptic, and they left little evidence of their society and so the historian must rely on their neighbour’s descriptions which range from a few hints implying a tribal society scratching a harsh living farmed goats and sheep to describing a race of abnormal fleshy creatures that dwelled inside hollow mountains. Most historians refer to the inhabitants as the Pre-Picoans and their ancestors were likely illiterate labourers who migrated from the Proto-Ouronnan kingdom between the 18th and 16th century BCE. Both the Tétzūzka and the Itdūzkét dynasty had made attempts to subjugate the area but none could stomach a long drawn out campaign in the cold mountains and valleys. We do not know what drove them from their mountainsides southwards though many theories have been put forward. Tsukic and medieval scholars, like Prasanna and Shankayomapatil, claim that the Mountain People sought to improve their personal prestige in combat and thus spend many pages detailing the lives of the legendary Pre-Picoan warriors such Bloody Eonӓnn and Aӓmbka the Fire-mad. Later historians would argue economic factors caused the Mountain People to look for new land to settle in South Totzka and Pamilya, bringing them into an inevitable conflict with the people’s already living there. Ultimately any such theory is purely conjecture and there is little reliable evidence to tell us why Pre-Picoans, having been so idle for centuries conducted a seemingly spontaneous decades long campaign but we do know of the consequences of their invasion.

Almost all historians agree that the Mountain People first raided the fertile farmlands in the west disrupting the ever-important trading network of the Rio Ouronna and compounding the growing food crisis in the South Totzka. The Ouronnan’s responded by raising multiple hosts to defend their lands but in warfare, despite their much smaller population, the Pre-Picoans held two distinct advantages of their enemies. The first was their preference for archery, utilising bows composed of horn, wood, and sinew, rather than the bronze spears favoured by the Ouronnans. An unknown Asharé writer, in the 12th century BCE, once praised the archery skills of the Mountain People by claiming they fought wars by firing on each other from opposing mountainsides. The Pre-Picoans second advantage was their early mastery of horse-riding. The Ouronnans, having lived and died by the riverside, had little use of horses which themselves were a relatively recent addition to Totzka’s fauna having arrived in Yhaiva only a few centuries prior. The Pre-Picoans bred them stout and sturdy to climb the steep Picoan mountainsides and survive the area’s harsh winters – these beasts were not the powerful destriers of the Samratton or Hangate period but they were more than capable of outflanking and outriding the Ouronnan spearmen. Multiple accounts exist of battles where vast numbers of Ouronnan soldiers were killed without ever reaching their enemy. A desperate prayer scratched into a temple wall circa 1120 BCE reads “where once there was trade now only corpses, peppered with arrow heads flow down that bloody river” (this quote has led some historians referring to this era as the Rio Vermelho Period). It was not just the Ouronnans who fought and lost to the Pre-Picoans, in Pamilya the 17th Cheusa League rose up around 1210 BCE with a force supposedly 30,000 strong. Their defeat is remembered in Pamil history as the Kikma Vougue Neor or the Day of Red and Black. Only the Asharé claim to have succeeded in battle against the Mountain People and their writings dating from this period speak of the Itdūzkét kings bravely turning back the tide of the Pre-Picoans by calling on supernatural powers such as turning their opponents armour into glass or making their horses become savage and thrown off their riders.


Cloth thought to depict the Pre-Picoan invasion, c.1100 BCE

The truth is mired in blood and confusion. Both primary and secondary sources will corroborate that, in circa 1100 BCE, the Nirapanza Viaduct was stormed and King Itdūzkét VI was killed alongside his family, wiping out the main branch of the Itdūzkét dynasty. However, it is not known who perpetrated the attack. The Pre-Picoans are perhaps the most obvious suspects but other historians have argued that the Itdūzkét’s vassal lords, the Pamil Leagues or even their religious rivals, the Tachoists, are to blame while other historians have argued that the murder of the Itdūzkét dynasty was not an isolated incident but part of larger nationwide uprising against the Asharé elite. The collapse of the Asharé’s hold over Totzka may explain why, going into the 10th 9th and 8th centuries BCE, writings from this period become sparse, incomplete and contradictory.

The loss of the monarchy, along with the rapid decline of the Ouronnan population (falling from twelve million in circa 1140 BCE to just four million by the 10th century BCE) saw a complete breakdown in the structure of the Ouronnan kingdom as pretender kingdoms and break away states emerged. But soon these too collapsed, falling victim to the Mountain People’s onslaught and great famine that had engulfed South Totzka and Pamilya. The Pre-Picoans, who may have been great warriors and raiders but were certainly not conquerors, never made any attempt to subjugate the defeated Ouronnans but instead settled alongside them and overtime the distinction between Pre-Picoan, Pamil and Ouronnan became erased although the religious divide between Sombists, Tachoists and non- Asharé remained ever relevant.

The Ouronnan Kingdom, after five centuries, was gone and for the next three-hundred years the highest political authority would be that of the village chieftain as tiny tribes dwelt among the ruins of a former great civilisation.
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