The Aryiki World
The continent of Tautha is a large and mysterious land,
full of secrets, magic and danger. There for a long time spirits and fae lived
in the forests and meadows beneath the great mountain range that divided the sickle-shaped
continent in two.
The first strangers to arrive were the Tautha, golden-haired maidens who loved
nature and the ways of enchantry. They spread amongst the land, delving deep into
the tall forests where they could be alone and free. They did not know the land was
home to powerful and ancient spirits of nature: dryads and naiads and fairie and more
and so tresspassed unaware.
Trouble did come when by misunderstanding and accident Fae and Tautha battled. Trouble
turned to grief and dispair as the terrible power of the Fae was unleashed; beligerent
spirits raised the Hunt and the Tautha were almost ruined to the last before the Hunt
was dispelled and chased to the mountains by an alliance of Tautha and benevolent
fae, who saw that both races could live in peace and prosper together. And since the
war this is what has happened. The Tautha grew in numbers through arrivals and birth
and they learnt much from the Fae and in return tended to their Groves and places
of power and made the forests and meadows more beautiful than before. During these
long Spring years the Tautha divided into two, the Tir who were more interested in
enchantments and growth, and the Sidhe, the descendants of the survivors of the Hunt,
who wished to learn the violent nature of the Fae.
The Tautha remained at peace, each Tribe drifting to either left or right of a misty
delta which divided the long arms of the continent. Too often lone maidens would be
lost in the delta; even to the Fae what lay within was not known. Not until the Tir
Queen lead a band inside seeking her daughter was truth found.
In the delta lived a reptillian race of coarse and brutish nature, the Tentac. They
and the Tir struggled but the Queen could not recover her daughter. So then began
the War of Reprisal which continues to this day as Tir and Tentac seek the skins of
one another, or slaves.
Two years past another race landed on the inside shores of Tautha. Their hair
is the colour of the burning sun and they are tall and gleam brightly in their armour.
These damsels are the Aryidannan, a tribe of from the Hellenas forced to flee their
ancestral lands or face extinction or slavery. On a thousand ships they set out from
their cities, leaving behind temple and home to be plundered by their enemies. Only
two thirds reached Tautha, many sunk, others lost or turned back. Beaching their galleys
on the shore the hardened damsels leapt onto the sand and claimed the land for their
own.
For a year the Tautha watched and did nothing. They did not like the sea and let the
fire-hairs build their strange settlements on the land between the forest and the
sea. They became alarmed, but still did nothing, when the settlements fought against
each other. The Tautha did not know that the land was poor and yielded few crops and
those that did prosper had been ruined by spirits whose land was invested.
The Aryidannan fought amongst themselves and two tribes became dominant. The Sparkerie,
the hardest and greatest of their damsels in the arts of war, and the Dannan, from
which came the Priestesses of Aryiki, the Great Goddess of the Hellena. The smaller
Artemae and Cleo became their subjects and the Bonvair fled across the sea to a rough
island near the eastern arm of Tautha.
The Tautha would have been content to watch but cruel fate saw a Sidhe maiden fall
into the hands of the Aryidannan. The Aryidannan had not seen any inhabitants of the
land before and all blame turned onto the race of maiden's whose hair shone as gold
as the midday sun.
Now the Goldfire War has began, between sunset and sunblaze for mastery and survival
in the name of Tautha and Aryiki.
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