Tellene History

Legends say that in distant days, the dwarves, elves, gnomes and halflings inhabited the main continent of Tellene, and many of their great civilizations rose and fell over the millennia. However, most humans of that time were simple hunters and gathers, living off the resources of the great Svimohzish Isle to the south. Then, over time, certain tribes occasionally migrated away from the Isle, cross to the main continent by means of a land bridge periodically rose from the waves. For humanoids, the arrival of these new creatures mattered little, for the bounty of Tellene was such that it could support many races, and they often helped the new humans to prosper, teaching them the arts of agriculture, magic and such. Little did they know what the future would hold, and that the humans would thrive, establishing great kingdoms throughout the unsettled lands.

KALAMAR

After their journey over the land bridge to the mainland, the tribe soon to be known as the Kalamaran people settled down to become a kingdom of simple farmers and ranchers. Then, after encountering a settlement of dwarves who traded with them for the secret of bronze, everything changed. Armed with this new knowledge, they easily crushed any force that dared oppose them. After securing the jungle border to the south, the Kalamaran leaders spied on the countries to the north, but were turned back by the local barbarians, as well as by sub-zero temperatures and heavy snow. Declaring the north a worthless wasteland, the Kalamarans focused their attention on the lands of Brandobia.

After the battle, the Brandobians retained all lands west of the Legasa Mountains, but conceded P'bar and the Legasa Peaks to the Kalamarans. Foreseeing his inability to control such an enormous land, the Kalamaran emperor divided the land into smaller kingdoms and duchies that were to pay fealty directly to Kalamar. Two noble houses each declared their own senior member as the new Emperor, and land was thrown into a bloody civil war.

During the next seventy years, commonly known as the Age of Great Anguish, the Empire crumbled into fragmented kingdoms ruled by lesser lords with each monarch attempting to assume the Imperial throne. However, one petty lord from the south, Prince Thedorus, had a small army of loyal troops including many dwarves from Ka'Asa Mountains - and the secret of steel. With his troops' steel weapons and armor, King Thedorus I vanquished the remaining lords and reunited the Empire, reigning for the next fifty-seven years. Yet, little more than a week after his death, the land was thrown into another civil war.

The next several years, know as the Time of Misfortune, were marked by a return to conditions not unlike those of the Age of Great Anguish. Over the next three centuries, the once great Empire slowly deteriorated to less than half its original size. During the last 200 years, incompetent, insane or drunken emperors dominated the Bakar dynasty. These feeble rulers allowed dependent duchies to openly defy the Crown and eventually the western and northern lands began to declare independence. While some of these provinces (Basir, Dodera, O'Par, Tarisato, and Tokis) remain under the nominal control or guidance of the Kalamaran empire, others become completely independent (Pekal, and the Young Kingdoms).

ROKUGAN

The history of Rokugan begins in the Celestial Heavens, which at that time were one with the mortal world. There, Lady Sun and Lord Moon were born from nothing, and together bore ten children. Known as the kami or great spirits, these children were named Hida, Doji, Togashi, Akodo, Shiba, Bayushi, Shinjo, Fu Leng, Ryoshun, and Hantei. Lord Moon, Onnotangu, was jealous of his children, however, and did not wish to share their mother's love with them. Thus, he sought to destroy his children by eating them. He swallowed nine of them, leaving only Hantei, who hid in a cave. When Hantei grew to adulthood; he faced his father in combat and cut open Lord Moon's belly. From the wound, the eight living children of the Sun and Moon spilled out. One child, Ryoshun, died in his father's stomach and went on to watch over Jigoku, the realm of the dead . Lord Moon's blood and Lady Sun's tears also fell from the sky, raining down on Tellene. From the mixture of blood and tears, humanity was born. The kami, too, fell to the earth-Fu Leng landing in a deep pit that would become the source of the Shadowlands, the other eight ending up among the new race of humans.

When humanity was born, it was not alone on the earth. Nezumi, nagas, kenkus, and kitsus lived on Tellene before humanity arose. The oldest naga stories" speak of a race that was flourishing when they were young. All were pushed aside by the rise oftheempire. The nezumi empire was shattered by Fu Leng's fall, and the nezumi reduced to their savage state in order to survive the horrors of the Shadowlands. The nagas began their long sleep, planning to reawaken when they were needed once more. The kenkus simply withdrew into the deepest forests. The kitsus were hunted down and nearly exterminated, until Akodo saw their intelligence and compassion, and brought the survivors into his clan.

A thousand years passed-not peaceful, for the clans warred against each other virtually without ceasing, as they do to this day. Still, this time is called "A Thousand Years of Peace," because for a thousand years Fu Leng's power remained contained in the Black Scrolls. During this time, the Ki-Rin clan, led by the kami Shinjo, left Rokugan to explore the rest of the world. They wandered for eight hundred years, returning in 815 as the Unicorn clan .

The minions of Fu Leng did not rest for a thousand years, however. Not only did the creatures of the Shadowlands attack the empire from without, but the Taint of the Shadowlands began to spread within the empire as well. A Crab scholar named Kuni Nakanu discovered the Taint as early as the year 100, noticing its ability to animate corpses. Four centuries later, a sorcerer now called Iuchiban discovered Nakanu's works and used them to develop spells of maho. He animated an army of skeletons and zombies within a cemetery in the heart of Otosan Uchi (known as the Battle of Stolen Graves), but he was eventually caught and imprisoned within a tomb deep in Crab territory. His loyal followers, known as Bloodspeakers, continued to pass on his teachings despite their master's apparent defeat. Iuchiban's spirit has not lain quietly in his tomb, either. It escaped once, after two hundred years of imprisonment, and very nearly did so again in recent memory. No means has yet been discovered to destroy luchiban's spirit forever, and until that happens, the danger he and his Bloodspeakers represent continues to threaten the empire.