Arcél 1510

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Arcél 1300

Arcél 1690

1 The ruler of everything
2 Uytai
3 Elsewhere
4 Land use
5 Contact with another world
6 Characteristic figure

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The ruler of everything

If the increased power of Krwŋ is the most striking aspect of this map, it was even more formidable in the eyes of its rulers. The mere title of pauram no longer sufficed; the emperors styled themselves paukhel ‘ruler of everything’ (and for good measure claimed descent from king Paukhel).

In the north they had extended their rule into barbarian lands— southern Belesao, in the 1380s, where they could eliminate the first set of middlemen on the north-south trade routes (and incidentally extend the range of phret cultivation). They conquered the Smë rift valley (Uyseʔ Pirthunswiʔ) in the 1420s.

The paukhel Susirn felt that the time was right to take on the empire’s ancient rival Uytai. However, a pretext was needed. It was customary for the emperors to exchange gifts once a year; Susirn informed his counterpart, the emperor Tyaisut, that he expected a tripled tribute. Tyaisut refused, and Susirn declared war (1454).

There was a good deal of battle, but it came down to a siege of the capital, Uykhrai. It would be difficult to starve the city, as it lay on the river and the Uytainese had more and better boats; but Susirn had an inside man— or rather woman: his cousin Nyanyar, Tyaisut’s wife. Nyanyar organized a fifth column— dissidents, Krwŋese migrants, or the merely bribeable— culminating one dark night in 1457 with the opening one of the city’s gates. Susirn poured men in quietly and quickly all night, and attacked at dawn. The city fell within three days.

Tsaiyut escaped by boat to Srethun, while also leaving a clear trail to Tsopwan, inviting Susirn to split his forces or go to the wrong city. Susirn did both, sending armies to besiege both cities but proceeeding himself with the larger force to Tsopwan. The attack on Srethun was a disaster: the Uytainese sent a flotilla up the river, cutting off the Krwŋese supply lines and then cutting the trapped force to shreds.

Susirn continued the siege of Tsopwan for three years: when you are ruler of everything, there’s no easy way to back down. Only when the Uytainese mounted an all-out attack on Uykhrai was he forced to withdraw his forces to defend his conquest. He did so successfully, then decided that taking his enemy’s capital was glory enough, and wound down the war, though he never bothered to formally make peace.

There was some social justification for all this aggression: Krwŋ was overcrowded and clamored for new land. Traditionally new plots were carved out of virgin forest, but after two milennia of cultivation there was no virgin forest left. It was no longer possible to rest plots for twenty years. In many areas the forest had been entirely cleared. There were attempts to irrigate, to rotate crops, to manure them to retain fertility, or to extend agriculture into the hills. These had not proved sufficient; crop yields were dropping, and poorly planned works simply washed away what soil remained.

It didn’t help that there was no mental or cultural framework to discuss the problem. There was no consultative body nor any tradition of public discussion. The concept of an ecological problem did not exist; the issue was assumed to be a lack of land, or (more ominously) the displeasure of the ancestors. But why would they be displeased with the greatest empire in the world? Still, it was best to be prudent. Fundamentalist cults arose, exhorting a return to purity, virtue, and vigor. (These rhyme in Uyseʔ— han, kran, twan— and historians refer to the Swolan ‘three -an’ movement.)

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Uytai

Tyaisut moved his capital to Srethun. The upper Tsyeʔ sensed that Uytainese power was low, and rebelled twenty years later.

By this time Uytai had institutionalized interaction with the Powers. Almost any Almean state has hired magicians; but Uytai went further than most, cultivating magic and magicians (hyetram) as a state policy. Many applications were found, from surveillance and communications to architecture and war. Most nations had found the Powers too unreliable for exploitation— but they didn’t have the patience of the Uytainese, who supported thousands of magicians in hope that at least some of them could do useful work.

A corollary was a decreased interest in non-magical methods— why build water mills if you have arcane forces to call on? There were other, stranger effects: unearthly plagues, misfired teleportation spells, occasional darkness at mid-day, a strain of madness in the imperial family. But the benefits were felt to outweigh the drawbacks.

Uyram colonization of the coast continued, and by this time three new kingdoms had been organized: Nyandai and Tsemeʔ in the southwest, and Ťrim to the east.

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Elsewhere

In the north, large-scale queendoms had emerged. The impetus for the consolidation of Pànsàɔ was the Krwŋese invasion, which was beyond the resources of any one city-state to resist. (Pàn is the name of the Bé ethnic group living along the upper Lɛn. The capital was Joní.) After this, however, the other cities organized their own kingdoms to defend agains the Pàn: Dásnâr along the Ŋê and Jansɛ̀ along the coast. The boundaries shown had emerged by about 1450. Mɔłɔsɔu far to the east was organized around 1510. (The area in between does not support as dense a population.)

The Beic system adapted easily to monarchy; one particular aristocratic jɔ was recognized as royal. Royalty in turn created other aristocratic jɔ, through splits or as a reward for service.

Still, the tràŋ or queen had to persuade as much as give orders; there was a limit to how arbitrary the ruler could be when subjects could always pick up and move deeper into the jungle. (Within the royal family, however, she was paramount; when she died, her husbands were sacrificed to accompany her in the afterlife.)

The Kleʔmet’ valley is now organized as a confederacy, Bečgo, much like those of Nlatak and Itsulwit; Bečgo is the Itsenic name for the river.

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Land use

Land use patterns are approaching their modern state, with the extension of agriculture to the large river valleys, and pastoralism to the highlands adjoining them, and hunter-gatherers restricted to remote or marginal lands. (Again, the boundaries are fuzzier than the map can easily show.)

In the east other peoples are taking the lead from the Uyram. In the east a Mnesean people, the Sumë, occupied the eastern highlands, often pushing the Uyram back aggressively. In the Nikrit plain, a people called the Kem (meaning ‘people’; the source of the word ‘Kemic’) developed an amalgam of hunting, fishing, herding, and small-scale agriculture, more suitable to the tropical forest but easily adaptable to the highlands or the coast; they are expanding at the expense of the Uyram and the Kereminthic peoples of the eastern coast.

Kereminth itself is now marked as agricultural, though this is really the culmination of a centuries-long evolution. The chief crops were streff, hardroot, and yam; the chief meat animal was the pig, domesticated at about this time.

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Contact with another world

Around 1400 Skourene traders from Kolatimand made the 3000 km crossing from Ereláe. They first encountered Dnetic hunter-gatherers in the Togwaš peninsula, who proved both impoverished and hostile; then the confederacy of Nlatak, which proved more interesting; they brought food, a bit of gold, and some curious Nlatakans back to Skouras.

Others followed; it was traders from Gurdago who first reached Uytai, around 1465. The Skourenes were not very impressed with Uytai, which they considered backwards and despotic, but they were excited by the ready availability of gold. (They also brought millet back to Skouras; its hardiness suited their damp, cold climate.)

The Uytainese gladly traded gold for Skourene products, from clocks to looms to wine; but they were most interested in iron weapons. They bought as many as they could, and began to dream of reversing their humiliation at Uykhrai. (As iron came in ships, it was known as swiʔko ‘sea metal’; the term, or simple speculation, led to a common belief that it was actually harvested by the Skourenes from the ocean.)

There was a good deal of interest in the Skourene manufactures, but it was assumed that the Skourenes acquired these from some other nation, or perhaps from demons. It seemed unlikely that their makers had anything to do with the unkempt and unshaven sailors that stumbled off the ships, obsessed with gold and the denizens of the ħunlainin, the prostitutes’ quarter.

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