Ikela History

An extract of a lecture read in 35 CE [135 AC] at the Royal University of Mirzapor by Chandrasekar Polandris, Senior Lecturer in Historical Studies and pompous windbag and racist. Please forgive the bigoted remarks about racial matters; the basic content is correct but his language is...not. Footnotes have been inserted to mark corrections in the factual record.

Earliest Records

The dawn of the human population in Soefra started, as far as our records hold, nearly 1100 years ago. As all the learned know, humanity is not native to Soefra; we hail from the fabled northern continent of Noefra. Our ancestors landed near what is now our beloved city of Mirzapur, colonists and settlers, and spread out across the Great Rift. We alone, however, have not stained our skins; we retain the lighter coloration of true humans.

Roughly 100 years after the First Landing, contact was lost with our ancestors’ homeland, plunging humanity into a dark age at the hands (or rather claws) of brutish beast-men. Our allies the kalasaa had not yet arrived, so humanity fell into barbarism, a state which persists across the Great Rift till this day, our own glorious nation excepted[1]. That state of decay, both moral and social, persisted even here for four hundred years.

The First Kingdom

In 698 BCE, Lady Poliandra (of whom I am a distant descendant[2]), first of her line, founded the Kingdom of Mirzapor not far from where we sit. Her enlightened reign spread throughout most of the basin, subjugating the beasts and making allies with the Moonshell dragons and the kalaasa of Kal’Mer, who had arrived a few generations before. Within two generations, the power of Mirzapor had spread across the entire bay, including what is now Fatehpur and the Ship Folk lands to the north. But the peace was not to last. Her grandson, Indria the Fool, doomed our ancestors to 350 years of slavery and subjugation.

Rise of the Evil Dragon

Indria was, as his appellation suggests, a fool. Weak and vacillating, he relied on advisors. He let the army and navy go to rot, preferring to build idle palaces and consort with his lissome beast-folk concubines[3]. At the advice of his short-sighted advisors, he forsook the treaties with the Moonshell and the kalaasa as “too expensive” and “unneeded in these times of peace”.

Into this era of rot and dissolution came the great wyrm[4] known as Kozhun, his green wings, acrid breath, and conniving mind and agile tongue. He gathered a force of other dragons, as well as disaffected humans and barbarous beast tribes, and led them against the people of Mirzapor. Had Indria not let the army rot, there could have been a contest; had he maintained the alliances, Kozhun’s forces might have been defeated. But the army, led by fat Indria himself, took the field...and were utterly routed. Over the next 10 years, Kozhun consolidated his control over the entire area. Notably, he mostly left the Moonshell and the kalasaa alone for now; the first in keeping with the Law of the Flight, the conquest of the second was a venture for a later day.

Reign of the Evil Dragon

Kozhun made his capital in the middle of Jaoshepar[5] at the ill-featured swamp capital now known as Dragon’s End. He and his fellow dragons (and their Riders) levied taxes on all the people, destroying them with flame and claw if they dared refuse. He took their children as slaves and (horror of horrors) put zandolit beast-folk in positions of authority over humans. Only the Moonshell flight held out--within a decade he had consolidated his hold over the entire Kingdom and beyond. While he never conquered the undersea holds, he laid tribute on them, including extorting slaves.

This reign lasted unbroken for 350 years; the only disruption was the Upheaval. But since his power was not based in magic spells but in might and lies, even that change did not unseat him. It did, however, pave the way for his downfall.

The Fall of the Dragon

Thirty-eight years ago [3 BCE, 97 AC], a band of heroes gathered here, in Mirzapur[6]. Eight in number (the number of holiness), they began to seek out ways to defeat the Evil Dragon and bring peace and independence to the land. Forced to flee at the hands of the Dragon Knight Fizbar, satrap ruler of the province for her evil master, they sought refuge among the dragons of the Moonshell flight. There, they learned of the Dread Dragon’s weakness--his hoard of souls, trapped in glass baubles which gave him power and allowed him to command his fellow dragons. But how to gain access to such a guarded place?

At this, the effects of the Upheaval become relevant. Among other things, it weakened the Moonshell, which led Kozhun to believe that he could overwhelm them and claim their lands and their souls. His initial attack killed many of their followers, but the dragons themselves escaped. And now, Kozhun had broken the Law and the Moonshell were free to oppose him directly. They, coordinating with the kalaasa and even the free mkhulu of Merais, launched a three-pronged invasion of Kozhun’s territory while the heroes stoked the fires of rebellion throughout the land. The proud Kozhun, thinking this the true threat, split his armies to crush them in detail before they could unify, going himself to the northern front against the Moonshell. But unification was never the goal, diversion was.

The heroes, taking advantage of Kozhun’s absence (along with the bulk of his forces), crept into Dragon’s End. There, in a cataclysmic battle that destroyed the place and cost all the heroes their lives, they managed to destroy the hoard of stolen souls. With Kozhun weakened and his Dragon Knights in disarray as mount and rider warred with each other for dominance, the allied forces rallied.

In the end, the great wyrm Belozhai, ancient of the Moonshell, and Kozhun met in conflict in the skies. For days[7] they battled, tearing great chunks from the other. And then, finally, Belozhai gave her last breath to drive Kozhun to the ground and pin him there under her bulk, where the two-legged allies hacked the evil beast to death. Thus ended the reign of the tyrant Kozhun.

Rebuilding

With the former royal house destroyed centuries before, a new order was required. The Moonshell retreated to their lairs, grieving the loss of Belozhai, but not before a new treaty was made. Fearing the rise of another tyrant, the kalasaa king Qual’ikel gathered the remains of the human population to him. From them, they chose a brother of the leader of the band of heroes to be the new king, King Ikel the First. From the new joint capitals of Ikela and Ikel’Mer, the two races would rebuild. This Crowning Day, 35 years ago today, marked the first day of the Current Era. Ikel the First has now gone to the Storm Queen’s rest (may his rest be peaceful!) and his son, Ikel the Second, now occupies the Coral Throne in his place. Long live King Ikel!

This is the end of the lecture, but additional details about the history since then have been appended.

Major events since 35 CE.

1. 25 CE (125 AC) The Golden Age of Ikela begins
2. 48 CE (148 AC) The Golden Age of Ikela ends with the death of Ikel the Second.
3. 112 CE (212 AC) Colonization begins outside the southern border.
4. Expansion continues until 128 CE (229 AC), when the invading Ship Folk of the Second Expeditionary Fleet drive the kalaasa and humans out of the north side of the bay.
5. 85 CE (235 AC) The Treaty of Kal’Mer is signed, stabilizing the borders with the Ship Folk.
6. 96 CE (247 AC) The Reweaving[8] muddles much of the history.

Footnotes

1. Which conveniently ignores all the other civilized nations of the Great Rift.
2. He wishes--the modern Polandris family took that name to make the completely ahistorical claim.
3. This is not attested anywhere else and is likely the lecturer imposing his own bigoted opinions
4. By modern reckoning, an ancient dragon
5. The “island” formed by the splitting of the Ind into the Jao and the Sheo.
6. Well....not really. Every major city claims to have been the birthplace of the heroes, and some claim that there weren’t any such thing. The records are...not clear. And it’s not clear why they’re not clear--it’s as if they all saw different things.
7. Artistic license here...
8. No one knows what this was, other than that it was the source of much of the mixed up historical records. Something caused a disruption. Some theorize that it was a breakdown of causality and time itself.