History and Culture of the Rylocke Valley's Wasteland Dharan People Volume 1
Chronicled by Georgi Serebryakov
For most of my adult life I have found myself fascinated by the Dharan people of the wastelands lying between our human kingdoms in the west and the kingdoms of the immortals lying in the eastern Rylocke Valley. Now eight times have I ventured into those wastelands interacting with many of the same people and recording all that I have heard from them. The following is my best at ordering in time, their oral history until what they say is the Founding of the Kingdom. Every Dharan I have ever met outside of the wastelands or in the four wasteland villages I have visited has retold these same stories in near exact fashion. Though I have yet to find any evidence of truth for their many legends and history they swear by, I will still record them here as the Dharans themselves would tell them.
According to Dharan legend the origin of their people goes back to the infancy of humanity of our continent of Rylocke. In a time long before the Ancient Kingdoms came to be, Rylocke was only populated by humans in the southern half of the continent, south of the Great Barrier Forest of Tolumberg, where the chosen people of god Taka reside and the Kilmisé Mountains.
During this time humanity was organized into small tribes or loosely affiliated clans, who were in a near constant state of conflict with each other. There were no large civilizations or cultures yet as the fires of war raged all over. Many clans began seeking advantages over their enemies and sought to domesticate many of the animals roaming the land, turning them into beasts of war.
Furious that her favored creations were being treated so cruelly, their Mother Goddess Panno gave birth to the first Dharans and sent them to Rylocke. They were to gather every horse and guide them to the safety of the valley. With just their words alone, the Dharans were able to take all horses from their fellow man and guide them north. Upon reaching the Great Barrier Forest of Tolumberg, the Dharans would negotiate for three days before coming to an agreement with the Talv. The Talv would guide the Dharans and their horses through Tolumberg and into the valley.
In the Rylocke Valley the Dharans found open plains plentiful and allowed the horses to go freely into the valley. The Dharans split into nomadic tribes that lived alongside different herds of their charges. For a time, they lived as they were meant to in the peaceful valley. Nothing brought a violent death to the Dharans or their charges and food was plentiful for both. Nearly all lived to old age.
But that all changed when the great enemy, the Goddess Draekia, had her wolves slip through Tolumberg and into the valley. There these new plains wolves grew larger than their kin feasting on horses and Dharans alike. Unprepared for such behavior the Dharans took the horses and fled deeper into different parts of the valley where once small, scattered tribes began merging into nomadic confederations hoping that their numbers would dissuade the wolves from attacking. These wolves, having grown in size, continued to hunt the Dharans and horses alike. And growing in their boldness the wolves would not just hunt the edges of these camps but deep in the center as well.
With the wolves killing nightly, the Dharans offered up fearful and remorseful prayers to their Mother Goddess and begged for her intervention. Driven to fury once more with her horses and children being slaughtered, the once docile Panno took knowledge from Taka and taught it to her children, turning herself into a goddess of the hunt. From her, her children learned how to make weapons for hunting, how to track and how to kill. The wolves of Draekia would be the first to have their blood drawn by the Dharan people.
At first the hunting was not truly successful. Many hunts ended in the deaths of most of the hunting party. Over time and with the additions of new hounds and friendly eagles gifted to her children by Panno, the Dharans became proficient hunters and with their horses reclaimed the valley from the rampaging wolves.
But their war with the wolves changed the Dharans forever. No longer did the men have many wives nor did the Dharans survive off the same food as their horses. Now they ate the wolves they killed, and men and women alike had one partner for life.
The great enemy's wolves were only the first to be hunted by the Dharans. Slowly other predators and peace-loving creatures would venture into their valley, being met with the violence of Dharan hunting parties. For centuries this was of living would continue for the Dharans as the plains of the valley continued to be theirs alone.
This peaceful existence would continue until the first non-Dharan humans would land on the western shores of the valley, having sailed around Tolumberg. The Dharans were wary of these new people and sought to watch them for some time. When finally, they interacted with these new people, the Dharans were proven correct to be wary. The first human war had been brought to the valley by one of the first civilizations in the south. Horses were captured and once more turned into beasts of war, the Dharans were either killed or enslaved as what was once their land was taken by force.
Once more, forced to retreat from their own land, the distant Dharan tribes gathered together in full for the first time since they crossed the Tolumberg Forest. As they retreated east, they made the discovery that the eastern shores were being taken from them by those from the south after having sailed around the southern Kilmisé Mountain Range.
Now surrounded on both sides and forced towards the center of the valley, the Dharans once more turned to their mother goddess and prayed for her intervention. And a furious Panno responded. Turning to the gods of war, Panno learned all she could from them and made herself into a god of war by teaching her children everything they would need to wage war.
Now in need of stone and metal, the nomadic Dharans turned to building fortifications, mines and weapon forges. Inside what territory they still controlled, the Dharans had a black stone stronger than other stone found elsewhere and they used it in the building of fortresses. Black Tirstul was found in unfathomable quantities, and they learned to work it into weapons, while using lighter metals for armor. Their implements for hunting were turned into weapons of war and soon every Dharan, man or woman, was trained in skirmishing or heavy infantry. No cavalry beyond scouts were created or used and their hounds were dressed for war, as their masters were.
With their people united in totality and a new military force, the Dharans set off to their first war. Decades of brutal, savage war followed with the Dharan military growing in viciousness with each passing year. But their fellow humans were not the only enemies the Dharans would fight. With the dead pilling high, the great enemy's wolves, that had nearly been removed entirely from the valley, made a resurgence. The now war tested Dharans killed many of the wolves but also began making use of them. Captured wolves were used to train the young Dharans or released near enemy territory as a declaration of their savage intentions.
Over the centuries the Dharans slowly reclaimed the plains of the valley, pushing the invaders back to the shores. But their victory was not to be. The civilizations in the south continued sending their own military forces, providing more men than what could be killed and forced the Dharan military back. In their new retreat, the Dharans took some teachings from the Talv of Tolumberg and began planting large forests to keep their enemies from advancing on them, turning what was once a single great plain into a diverse landscape. Inside of these defensive forests remained a great plain they named the Dharas Plains. There they settled, resuming the nomadic lifestyle of their ancestors in a much-reduced territory. One the edges of these plains the Dharans maintained several of their stone fortresses and forges, but any sign of a greater civilization no longer existed inside of their plains.
In the following millennia, the Dharans maintained a loose confederation of nomadic tribes, only uniting when invaders threatened their land. These brief moments of time proved them to be formidable heavy infantry and with their connections to horses, forced their enemies to abandon cavalry assaults. This forced their enemies to engage the proficient Dharan heavy infantry and skirmishers with inferior infantry forces.
This state of existence lasted well into the Ancient Kingdom period as the Dharans and their plains remained the one major obstacle separating the east from the west. That was until Emperor Kefka Klossal of the Klanaught Empire became the first to successfully defeat the Dharans on the field of battle. With their defeat, the Dharas plains were finally annexed, making the kingdom into an empire.
For centuries the Dharans accepted their role in the empire, serving as horse breeders, specialized heavy infantry and skirmishers, stone masons, foresters, farmers and the only people capable of working black tirstul. Despite their acceptance of this, they would never accept anyone other than the emperor trying to rule over them. Numerous times nobles tried to seize the plains or were gifted the rule over the plains, but no one was ever successful at pacifying the Dharans, making the plains a punishment if one was granted the rights to rule over them. Even foreign invaders from the east failed to invade as they faced a unified Dharan people.
During this relatively stable period for the Dharans, they finally began to build permanent cities and villages. Settling the plains thoroughly as they continued to maintain a healthy connection to their nomadic past, with many continuing to live as they always have.
This leaderless period would last for centuries until a figure called Syrn appeared. Syrn was an obscure peasant of the Klanaught Empire. One day Syrn would save the emperor's life during an assassination attempt. In his generosity, the emperor named Syrn a noble and granted him control over the Dharas Plains, establishing a long running connection between the two families.
As all previous attempts, the Dharans resisted but Syrn would prove himself worth by beating them on the field of battle. With his status as duke confirmed, Syrn took to ruling over the Dharans and established a strong noble faction in the plains. Very few of these nobles were just Dharan, with most primarily being from other peoples within the empire. The Dharans accepted this, but resentment was growing, only to be placated when Syrn took a Dharan wife, though he never truly lived as one.
For a time Syrn ruled well, bringing about a wealth to the plains that they had never known before. The cities began growing larger and even around his own palace, along the Caralas River, a small city sprung up. This prosperity lasted until Syrn went mad. The brutalization of the Dharan people followed killing and torturing thousands. In mere months the Dharans were equipped and ready for open rebellion. The rebellion was settled before it could begin when Syrn's Dharan wife slit his throat one night and established their eldest son, Bruliel, as duke.
Quick was Bruliel to use his powers to root out all those who participated in the brutalization, as his mom in secret had raised him and all his siblings to be Dharans. And once all debts had been repaid, Bruliel took his mother's family name as his own and fully established the noble Salvatal family. While this angered many of the non-Dharans living in the plains and many of the other noble families of the empire, Bruliel did not forget the imperial family and continued to maintain the relationship between the two.
With the relationship between the two families re-established Bruliel prevented any form of noble intervention and the threat of facing a united Dharan force silently quelled any potential revolt from the non-Dharan populace of the plains. Now that peace was returned to the plains, it would last for many more centuries.
These centuries of peace would come crashing down in a new era of bloodshed, as war erupted simultaneously across the entire continent ripping apart the Ancient Kingdoms and Empires. The Duke of the Dharas Plains was Orias Salvatal, a direct descendant of Bruliel but more Dharan than his ancestor, saw that this conflict would come to his people. In an effort to spare them most of the violence he set about preparing for it. His palace was turned into a black stone fortress as he withdrew his border forces into a smaller more defensible position along the Caralas River. There he built up fortifications, strengthened his forces and brought as many of his fellow Dharans and horses as he could possibly take into his territory before the war came.
When it finally came, it came en-force. Orias and his eldest son Orias, led their forces in battle after battle, successfully holding onto their fortified territory and expanding it slightly. Tens of thousands of Dharans perished in the wars but they took far more from the invaders, proving they were still a force to be reckoned with. The palace turned fortress would never see a single enemy soldier at its gates, not even in chains.
Once the wars finally came to an end, the Dharans had lost control over much of their homeland with many new non-Dharan powers rising up in the Dharas plains. But they had also gained a new independent kingdom of their own, the Kingdom of Arlorne. Formerly Duke Orias had now become King Orias Salvatal I and his eldest son was the future King Orias Salvatal II. And though they lost self-rule over most of the plains and their people becoming fractured for the first time since before Syrn united them under his rule, the Dharans would continue to play a significant role in the development of the valley.
The Klanaught Empire that the Dharans were once part of, continued to survive after these great wars, though at a significant territorial loss. Thanks to the many Dharan soldiers it still possessed and the close connection between the Klossal and Salvatal families, the old empire would live on. Orias himself would not allow it to fall and rode out several times in its defense even as he successfully defended his lands during the wars. Because of these efforts, the new Kingdom of Arlorne would have a secure trading partner and military ally for the next four centuries.
The oral history of the Dharan people after what they refer to as the Fall of the Ancient Kingdoms, their stories have the fall happening some two millennia prior to the Great Terror unlike all modern scholarly belief, is much more detailed than the rest and has the most to tell. There are nineteen monarchs, hundreds of wars, purges, great feats of craftsmanship and many dealings with the gods and devils. It is all quite interesting and would make for excellent stage work. There is so much to happen during the period of their kingdom that I have yet to order it all correctly. With the fifteen different kings named Orias, three named Lucien, the seemingly endless state of conquest and several so-called civil wars, it has become difficult for me to sometimes remember which king achieved what, though the Dharans have no issues. As such I could not possibly begin to tell the story of their seemingly mythical kingdom without first delving into the cultural elements of these hardy people. It plays such a prominent role in the stories to come that it would be impossible to tell them without it.
With this the first volume of my recordings of the oral history of the wasteland's Dharan people must end. Until I can transfer my many notes on their culture into a much more readable text and finish organizing their oral history of the period they refer to as the Reign of the Dharan Kings, there is nothing else to be said.
This is just a fun little thing I want to do in-between each story arc until I can no longer come up with ideas for it. It mainly serves as a way to expand upon the Dharan people without bogging down the main adventures of Lucien. And I find them fun to write.
