caused them to build the city following his maiming by
Cthrag Yaska. The scriptures blur over the hundred year interval during
-,which the Angaraks spread out over the northwestern quadrant of
Mallorea and implies that those who followed the maimed God
comprised all of Angarak. Civil records of the period, however,
reveal that scarcely more than a quarter of the Angarak people
followed Torak to Cthol Mishrak. Pleading the necessity of
administering and protecting the rest of the nation, the military remained in
place at Mal Zeth; and similarly, the Grolim hierarchy, with the
equally plausible excuse of the need for overseeing the spiritual
requirements of a growing and wide-spread population, continued
to occupy Mal Yaska, from which they jealously guarded church
interests against military encroachment. Torak, almost totally absorbed
in his effort to gain control of the Orb, seemed oblivious to the fact
that the majority of the Angarak peoples were becoming
secularized. Those who followed him to Cthol Mishrak were, by and
large, the often hysterical fringe of religious fanatics which are to be
found in any society. Since Torak’s attention was almost totally
focused upon the Orb, the administration of day to day life in Cthol
Mishrak fell to his three Disciples, Ctuchik, Urvon and later, Zedar.
This trio, with the zeal which usually marks the Disciple, rigidly
maintained the older forms and customs, in effect petrifying the
society of Cthol Mishrak in that somewhat pastoral form which
had obtained in the Angarak culture prior to the migration to
Mallorea. As a result, the rest of Angarak changed in response to
external pressures and their new environment, while the society at
Cthol Mishrak and environs remained static. It was precisely this
divergence which ultimately led to the friction which divides Cthol
Murgos and modern Mallorea.
The Grolim hierarchy at Mal Yaska, chafing at what they felt was
the usurpation of power by the military, began to take certain steps
which once again brought Mallorea to the brink of civil war. While
their campaign was scrupulously theological, it was nonetheless
quite obviously directed at the military chain of command. The
practice of human sacrifice had fallen into a certain disuse during
the protracted filness of the Dragon God, but it was now reinstituted
with unusual fervor. By carefully manipulating the drawing of lots
which selected the sacrificial victims, the Grolims began to
systematically exterminate the lower echelons of the officer corps.
The situation soon grew intolerable to the military commanders
at Mal Zeth, and they retaliated by leveling fraudulent criminal
charges at every Grolim unlucky enough to fall into their hands.
Despite the howls of protest from Mal Yaska, where the hierarchy
strenuously maintained that the priesthood was exempt from civil
prosecution, these ‘criminals’ were all summarily executed.
Ultimately, word of this surreptitious war reached
Torak, and the
God of Angarak took immediate steps to halt the bloodshed. He
summoned the Military High Command and the Grolim Hierarchy
to Cthol Mishrak and delivered his commands to the warring
factions in blistering terms. There were to be no further sacrifices of
military officers and no further executions of Grolims. Exempting
only the enclaves at Mal Yaska and Mal Zeth, all other towns and
districts in ancient Mallorea were to be ruled jointly by the military
and the priesthood, the military to be responsible for civil matters,
and the priesthood for religious ones. He told them, moreover, that
should there be any recurrence of their secret war, he would
immediately order the abandonment of all of the rest of Mallorea and
command all of Angarak to repair immediately to Cthol Mishrak
and to live there under the direct supervision of his disciples.
In retrospect, it is quite obvious that Torak had plans for the
future which necessitated both a strong military and a powerful,
well-organized Church. At that moment, however, it was only his
threat and the cold-eyed stares of the dreaded disciples which
whipped the military and the hierarchy into line. Shuddering at the
prospect of living in the hideous basin which surrounded the City of
Night under the domination of Torak’s Disciples, the military and
the priesthood made peace with each other, and the matter ended
with their return to their separate enclaves where they could exist in
at least semi-autonomy beyond the range of Torak’s direct scrutiny.
This enforced truce freed the commanders of the army to pursue
other matters. It had become evident almost as soon as the Angarak
migration had reached the continent that there were other
inhabitants of Mallorea. The origins of these people are lost in the mists of
pre-history’ and scriptural references to them are notoriously
inexact. The traditional view that the Gods each selected a people and
that the unchosen – or Godless – people were then driven out must,
in the light of more modern perceptions, be regarded with some
scepticism. Whatever their origins, however, three separate and
quite distinct races inhabited the Mallorean continent prior to the
coming of the Angaraks; the Dalasians of the southwest, the
Karands of the north, and the Melcenes in the east. Once Torak’s
intervention had established some kind of internal stability in
Mallorean society ‘ about nine hundred years after the original
Angarak migration – the military at Mal Zeth was forced to focus its
attention upon Karanda.
The Karandese were not a wholly unified people, but lived in
a loose confederation of seven kingdoms stretching across the
northern half of the continent from the Karandese Mountains to the
sea lying beyond the mountains of Zamad.
* This derives from the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy of pre-Norman England, seven kingdoms
that didn’t co-exist very well. Their dissension opened the door for the Vikings.
There is some evidence
to suggest that the original home of the Karands lay around the
shores of Lake Karand in modern Ganesia. Their expansion over
the centuries was largely the result of population pressures and
climatic conditions. There is abundant evidence that there had long
been periodic glacial incursions reaching down onto the plains of
north central Mallorea out of the frigid trough lying between the
two ranges of mountains in the far north. Retreating before the
encroaching ice, the Karands were pushed into Pallia and Deld-tin
and ultimately into Rengel and what is now the District of Rakuth in
eastern Mallorea proper. The last of these glacial ages occurred just
prior to the catastrophic events which led to the formation of the Sea
of the East. At that time the Barrens of Northern Mallorea were
sheathed in ice to a depth of several hundred feet, and glaciers
extended a hundred leagues or more south of the present shoreline
of Lake Karand. The explosive appearance of the Sea of the East,
however, brought a abrupt end to the grip of the glaciers. The flow
of warm, moist air off the vast steam cloud which accompanied the
volcanic formation of the sea poured up through the natural channel
lying between the Dalasian and Karandese ranges and initiated a
glacial melt of titanic proportions. The suddenly unlocked waters
gouged out the huge valley of the Great River Magan, quite the
longest and most majestic river in the world.
The Karands themselves, as is so frequently the case with
northern peoples, are a warlike race, and their frequent glacier-compelled
migrations left them little time for the establishment of the cultural
niceties which characterize the nations of more southerly latitudes.
Indeed, it has been said with some accuracy that the Karands
habitually hover just on the verge of howling barbarism. Karandese cities
are crude by any standards, usually protected by rude log palisades,
and the sight of hogs roaming at will through the muddy streets is
all too common.
By the beginning of the second millennium, incursions by roving
bands of Karandese brigands had become a serious problem along
Mallorea’s eastern frontier, and the Angarak army moved out of
Mal Zeth to take up positions along the western fringes of the
Karandese Kingdom of Pallia. In a quick punitive expedition, the city of
Rakand in southwestern PaWa was sacked and burned and the
inhabitants taken captive.
It was at this point that one of the most monumental decisions in
Angarak history was made. Even as the Grolims prepared for an
orgy of human sacrifice, the military commanders paused to take
stock of the situation. The Angarak military had no real desire to
occupy Pallia. The difficulties of communication over long distances
as well as the wide dispersal of their forces which such an
occupation would have involved made the whole notion distinctly
unattractive. From the point of view of the military it was far better to
keep the Pallian Kingdom intact as a subject nation and to exact
tribute than to physically occupy a depopulated territory. No one can be
sure to whom the solution first occurred, but the military
universally approved.
The Grolims were naturally horrified when the suggestion was
first presented to them, but the military was adamant. Ultimately,
both sides agreed to place the matter in the hands of Torak himself