History of Awal

Prehistory, Early Empires, and Foreign Rule (c. 205,000 - 20,000 BR)

Awal, a word meaning "first" in the Gamali language, was the first part of the Primordial Sphere to be inhabited by humans, the first two of which were named Mashya and Hawa. Not much is definitively known about Mashya and Hawa, except that they probably lived somewhere in present-day Peshmerghestan. For the most part, history dating this far back was not written down and only survives outside of Awal in the form of myths based on mangled oral traditions. However, one surviving text from this period (and generally regarded to be the first book in galactic history), the Kutub, tells us that Mashya and Hawa, made from Aztlanian corn tortillas by a divine being known as Hirsa, are the progenitors of all humanity.

However, early humanity was soon manipulated by the three Titans, the children of Hirsa and his wife Hiratha. The Titans created the first three schools of magic: Fire, Storm, and Ice, and each led a roughly equal-sized group of humans in a great war against the other two Titans and their armies. The final battle of this war, fought between the powerful Titans themselves, caused the Primordial Sphere to fracture into the planets that we now know of as the South Galaxy, very nearly wiping out humanity in the process. During the course of this war, the first known city in the galaxy, called Amol was built, and it was ruled by a King named Nebuchadnezzar. During this war, Nebuchadnezzar ordered built a tower higher than any mountain in the galaxy, from which he could challenge Iotannu, the Ice Titan. Seeing the threat to his power, Iotannu cast down the tower once it was built, killed Nebuchadnezzar, and cursed humanity to speak in different languages to prevent them from working together to challenge his power ever again. No one knows for sure where Amol or this Tower of Nebuchadnezzar were located, but most historians agree that Amol either was or was very close to the modern city of Asur.

After this, Hirsa and Hiratha sacrificed themselves to put the Titans into an eternal sleep, but not before giving birth to a set of sextuplets: Dyeus, Vorunar, Divana, Dhega, Mikhlanteku, and Talikhar. These would be the first of the Gods that would come to rule the universe in the absence of these divine beings. Some of humanity's earliest societies chose to worship these Gods, but most chose to worship their enemies, the Oni Demons (part of a new divine race called the Giants). Those who worshipped the Oni Demons were cursed to become anthropomorphic animals, while those who worshipped the Gods were spared. On Awal, all but the progenitors of the various Haxamanian peoples and the Imazi tribes were transformed. The rest of the galaxy had it even worse, with lowland Atlanteans being the only other humans remaining in the entire galaxy.

Not long after the Gods's war with the Giants, Brahma, the 2nd Man of Light and Shadow, planted a magical tree called the Primordial Myrrh in an isolated location deep within the Gamali Desert, marking the location of the entrance of the Sands of Time. This became the holiest location on the Planet Awal, and the tree, planted from a cutting from Heaven's Arcane Garden, both anchors Awal to the rest of the galaxy and provides the planet with magical protection. Over time, the area surrounding this tree was built up into a shrine called the Temple of Time, tended to and guarded by an order of secretive warrior-priests called the Zamanrahib.

Eventually, a leader of these Zamanrahib, known as Ibrahim, through a combination of spiritual leadership and military prowess, was able to unite the warring tribes of the Gamals into the Gamal Empire, declaring himself Malik Almuluk, or "King of Kings". Ibrahim expanded the kingdom to cover almost all of modern-day Gamalistan, as well as parts of Peshmerghestan. Ibrahim's son and successor, Khaleel, added modern-day Pelesetistan to the empire, as well as the rest of Peshmerghestan and parts of Hatti. Khaleel also replaced barter in his empire with the first proper currency, an innovation that revolutionized trade both on Awal and throughout the entire galaxy. Weights and measures were standardized, a primitive system of free trade was implemented, and the Gamali Script, still used in Gamalistan, Peshmerghestan, and Pelesetistan to this day, was used to promote literacy throughout the empire. All goes well for the First Gamali Empire for the next two centuries or so, when they are invaded and conquered by the Aryavartan Empire from the Planet Bharatam.

The Aryavartan Empire also swiftly conquered the small petty kindoms that were present in modern-day Hatti, Luwistan, and East Hyrcania, but could never penetrate the Hyrcanian Alps. Spanning huge swathes of the galaxy at its peak, the Aryavartan Empire paid little attention to its Awalian provinces, mostly focusing on extracting resources and bolstering its massive army with local manpower. However, Hyrcania, with its lush, fertile landscape, attracted many Bharatami settlers, who flocked to the area en masse, especially the southwest. Overall, Bharatami rule had little impact on those it affected , with its only real long-term impacts on Awal overall (outside of Hyrcania) being the introduction of elephants to Awalian warfare and the opening of new trade routes.

A few millennia after the conquests of the Aryavartans, the Sakas, nomadic Haxamanian-speaking horse archers from the steppes and deserts beyond the Hyrcanian Alps, conquered most of the Aryavartan Empire, both on Awal and outside Awal, causing what was left of the Aryavartan Empire to break apart into small, feuding kingdoms. However, the conquests of the Sakas did not last very long either, and their conquests broke apart into feuding kingdoms a few centuries after they achieved them. Despite this, the Sakas, at their peak, were able to create a much larger interplanetary empire than the Aryavartans, and as a result, the majority of the galaxy's languages are derived from Saka (and thus, Archaic Haxamanian): the Aurean, Centralian, Haxamanian, 108er, Arturian, Vigamian, Bharatami, Hattian-Luwian, and Basic language families all descend from Saka. However, the Sakas never conquered Gamalistan, the Imazi lands, or Pelesetistan, and as a result, those areas' languages are all part of the Old Awalian family.

The first group to take advantage of the power vacuum left behind by the Sakas were the Hattians, who conquered Luwistan and Pelesetistan and founded the Hattian Empire. Not much is known about Hattian culture, but they developed a pictographic writing system, Hattusan, still used in Hatti and Luwistan to this day.

The Arrival of Anandism and the 2nd Gamali Empire (c. 20,000 BR)