A quick trace of the relevant part of The Greater World, the unnamed continent is/contains Layana (sp) but I need to just finish that off. Its good getting all this geography clear and down on paper after its been in my head for so long.
The Greater World: The Quake. If affected the whole of the Greater World. It destroyed the greatest cities, libraries, school, monuments, churches and most houses. Mountains were split, land was flooded, rivers overflowed and ran dry. The entire world was changed. Entire races died out and others were pushed to the edge of survival.
The Crestessi: The massacre. 5 months before The Quake, suspected nomads, came on foot during the night, and massacred ninety percent of all Crestessi men and boys. All that remain are the older male generation and females. The Crestessi believe it was nomads, as more and more had been moving into their land, from the Janeho continent. However, they are still unable to prove this, and points made against this assumption include that none of the nomads were killed. Of all the young men who lived in the coastal region, none were able to fight back, or kill their attacker. Nomads only travel in groups of twenty, the largest at the time of the Massacre was thought to be fifty which wouldn’t nearly be enough to slaughter an entire race of young men, as they did. Also, the nomads deny these claims emphatically.
The iine : The iine don’t have any violent historical events. However, they made the greatest historical structure in the Greater World. They built the iine Damn. The iine lived on the series of rivers at the foot of the Jeel Mountains that separate Crestos from the rest of the Janeho continent. They would travel on foot back over the mountains to trade with any nomads close by, but would travel by boat down to Crestos. However, being quite an anti-social, secretive group, they were unwilling to take the normal, busy trade routes. So they would take the lesser used smaller streams and rivers. However these had a tendency to dry up, especially during the summer. So, the iine built a damn. Using the non-porous rocks around the base of the mountain, trees, leaves and mulch they built a giant wall across the river. Their plan was to control these lesser used rivers, to their own advantage, but before they could impliment their plan, the damn burst and flooded their land and northern Crestos. For months, the iine moved into the mountains, mining and living on the mountain streams and lakes, trading and socialising more with groups of nomads, than they ever had before. The people of Crestos, disturbed at how their water trade partners had suddenly disappeared, went to investigate, and found a mess of trees and debris floating amongst the flooded settlements. They assumed the Nomads had attacked them. Soon the iine left the mountains and returned to their riverbeds. Using the metals and new raw materials they had obtained from living in the mountains and learning from the nomads, they were able to build a more solid damn, which they could control, with levers and gates. They built a reservoir where their settlements used to be and simply moved higher up the mountains. They were now able to control who was able to use their ‘private’ rivers. This damn also came into use, when the Crestessi attempted to cross the mountains to attack the Nomads. They tried to reason with the iine, but were unabled to even come close enough to the mountains to even think of crossing them as the iine were able to cut off water to the rivers they were using , forcing them to return to the coast. The stand-off almost caused another flood in the iine resevoir, but the Crestessi agreed to stand down. To this day, no other group of people has managed such a feat, as large and effective as the iine damn. Also, although the iine and the nomads, were never as close as they were during the months after the failed damn, they never lost the respect they had to each other, strengthened by the fact that the iine stopped the Crestessi from travelling over the mountains to invade the Janeho continent.
The Kingdom Sonn: Although there is no distinct historical event that defined the Sonnierre, they are defined by their historical isolationist position. Not universally thought of as as arrogant as the Crestessi, the Sonnierre are still have a reputation of pride. They refuse to accept trade from anywhere else in The Greater World, and are self sufficient. They do not have any historical bonds or feuds with any other nation or people as they barely have a relationship with anyone. They rely on their excellent produce and business savvy to allow then one way trade, as well as the free market. Their history is of self-reliance and brilliance.
Hogsdown/Mountain People: (More of a History becoming section) The Hogsdown farmers, lived in an uninteresting, unchallenging part of the world Hogsdown was in the centre of The Greater World, in a Country named Landstrom. It had mild weather, warm summers, cold winters. It rarely snowed, rarely blistered. The people of Hogsdown lived simple lives. There were easy relations with neighbouring towns. Good trade routes crossed nearby, rivers occasionally flooded if there was a heavy rain, fields occasionally dried up and turned brown in there wasn't enough rain. The crime rate was extremely low, the life expectancy was reasonably high. People were happy in Hogsdown. It was unremarkable. No famous warrior, or academic or hero came from Hogsdown, and they had no reputation. In fact most people outside of the immediate area had ever heard of Hogsdown. But people who lived there were happy. They don’t know how and why they managed to survive as almost an complete town, and yet almost all of the rest of Landstrom did not. Some of the survivors blamed their poor hut building skills, when their houses caved in, the walls were still reasonably soft, and only left them with cuts and bruises. Some managed to survive because they were busy out in the fields. A lot of farmers were killed by scared, stampeding animals. But the Hogsdown farmers, were the only farm in the area to grow rapeseed, as well as cattle, pigs and sheep. On the day of the quake, the majority of the farmers were out working in the rape field, and were somehow unharmed during the quake. But the majority of the town attribute their survival to the falling of the Oakren, the great oak in the centre of the village. It fell landing on the roof of an empty hut, which somehow managed to stay upright, hundreds of people took cover under the Oakren and were protected. Now on Arldon, they are beginning to make their own history. Their own reputation. After a history of no events, wars or miracles, their history has started on Arldon. At first they were forced up into the mountains by the Sonn Farmers, despite them being the largest community to join Arldon, they are not the most aggressive. Living in the mountains people began to forget about them, they were just the pushover Hogsdown Farmers, who lost all their cattle. But then they began to mine. They learnt their trade and they learnt their business. People began to hear about the jewels and precious stones they were selling, and began to travel to see the mines for themselves. But if and when they arrived, they were surprised to find the Hogsdown people to be excellent, hunters, builders, clothes makers and general survivalists. They gained a reputation of intelligence, strength and peace. They joined Arldon, began a new trade, on new land and lived on terrain which would be a challenge for anyone. And they thrived.
