ONCE UPON A TIME...
[Extract from the Elven Tome of Times. How it all began]
The island of Brythan was a part of the continental mass (now known as Europa) but when the ice age covered it in glaciers they gouged out huge channels in the sandy soils over which they lay.
Those same glaciers ruthlessly thrust aside any and all rocky outcrops that lay in their path, often transporting the most obdurate within the ice only to deposit them far from their place of origin when the ice age ended and the glaciers melted.
Thus Brythans corrugated landscape was the end result and one of the largest rocky orphans deposited far from its point of origin, now dominated the central plains of Brythan and in time would become the fortress capital city known as The Citadel.
Ironically the preceding geological activity that had created Brythans benign contours had also severed its connection to the continental mass from which it was now separated by a tapering channel running from the North at its widest to the South at its narrowest, thus creating a turbulent seaway that also channeled the warm ocean current flowing from the tropics to the polar region.
Thus this happy accident of various geological and climatic occurrences gave rise to the birth of a nation blessed with a benevolent topography and temperate climate kept aloof from exploration or invasion by the various belligerent continental tribes who had driven the fey folk almost to extinction. They had narrowly escaped the fate of their forebears by escaping to the North of Brythan where they established the Barrier which kept them safely shielded from any further assaults by the world of men.
FROM WHENCE CAME THE FEY?
A matter of constant debate amongst the Council of the Wise, it is generally if reluctantly admitted that our origins are lost in the mists of time. This unsatisfactory conclusion is the best solution we have found to avoid tempestuous argument of how the fey originated.
Nevertheless there are sufficient enigmatic scraps of evidence to suggest that we were once the dominant life form that became gradually separated by time and distance enough to cause the separate races of Elves, Dwarfs and Brownies to evolve of their own accord yet without conflict as if in recognition of their common ancestry.
When the earliest forms of mankind began to appear they were aggressive brutish predators that slew all other creatures they regarded as either a threat or a food resource. Thus the Elves took refuge in the depths of the vast forests and became a sylvan folk that made their homes amidst the tree tops.
Whereas the Dwarves upon encountering the same fierce prejudice, took shelter in the mountains and adapted to a way of life, mainly mining and metalwork, which encouraged their physical change to heavily muscled people, short in stature.
Alone of all other fey folk the Brownies adapted to a unique co-existence with those few human kind that understood how to be thankful for the Brownies abilities to be helpful around hearth and home of those that understood they were best left alone to their own devices.
The Brownies were not affected by the presence of the Barrier and could freely travel between the two states of time and place that separated Man from Fey and which spatial temporal incline grows steeper over the years so as to eventually become completely impassable to even the most determined investigation by either side, should such an unlikely event ever occur.
BRYTHAN - part 2
Timothy put the ornate book marker in place before closing the Tome of Time and asked Liet the Elven List Keeper "Yes, I see how the Capitol rock came to be where it is now, because I've often wondered about that but what I was really interested in was the Barrier and these records don't mention who made it."
"We don't know" came the reply "We assume it's some sort of magical influence using powers that we no longer possess or if we do have them then we've forgotten how to use them over the millenia."
Tim said nothing but privately thought it unlikely that the Barrier would still be getting stronger if it wasn't being maintained continuously by someone or something.
For his part the Secret Keeper noticed Tim's polite but obvious expression of disbelief "I see by the look on your face that you don't accept that explanation?"
"Well just lok at the devices you use and seem to take for granted. The Time Window, for example, don't you ever consider why and how it works the way it does? Yet on the other hand some of the artifacts in daily use are quite primitive and others which are more functional you rely upon the Dwarves to build and keep in good repair.
Then again its obvious that they hold you in high regard as the intellectual leaders of the fey folk. These disparate observances of mine don't make sense, they are contradictory. Worse still they appear to suggest you are extremely vulnerable to sudden changes in circumstance. Just supposing the Dwarves decide to move away to a new area, perhaps because their current veins of ore have been used up. Who will you turn to that can keep your equipment in good repair?"
"We've been quite satisfied with matters so far and many of our dwarven pieces of equipment have run without requiring attention for many decades. What makes you think this happy state of affairs will not continue?"
"We have a saying about the dangers of skating on thin ice" replied Tim "and I have this instinctive feeling that the ice is getting thinner for all of us, men and fey. I can sense danger it's a legacy of growing up on the Capitol streets having to look out for myself. Further I have mentioned this to Stiv Preem a friend of mine whose occupation requires him to be on constant alert for attempts on his life and he agrees that he has a heightened sense of danger too."
BRYTHAN Part 3
Timothy Tinkletap the onomatopoeic toy maker who had chosen the surname for that purpose, smiled as he worked on his latest invention because he'd just completed an assembly that did produce exactly that sequence of sounds.
The 'tinkle' came from the tinplate armour he had painstakingly fitted to the jointed metal skeleton of a knight mounted on a charger and the 'tap' from the ball peen hammer used to embed the fastening pins into the horse's wooden body.
Then another thought caused him to frown because of late it was becoming difficult to obtain tinplate of the gauge and quality his models required and he wondered what problems were affecting the supply.
If need be he could substitute silver paint to finish the thin steel with but it never lasted very long and once it started to chip and flake the steel rusted quickly whereas hot dipped tin coatings were far superior in both appearance and durability.
The previous year he'd had reason to take a long enforced 'holiday' on the advice of his assassin friend Stiv, during which he'd been introduced to the tin mining goblins almost accidentally as he took shelter in what he'd thought was a cave.
At first it seemed as if this was a mistake from which he'd be lucky to escape with his life but his mechanical ability had saved him when he helped the miners solve a difficult hydraulic problem and afterward had been welcomed as a friend of the piskies as they were known in the West of Brythan.
Brythan's economy was largely self contained because as some traders sourly put it "We dusn't have anything them as lives over the sea wants and they dusn't have nothing us uns can afford." this was for the most part true. Brythan had no currency of its own, trading was mostly done by barter and being an agrarian economy it could feed itself very well.
The only real source of actual income was between the mercantile traders for luxury goods the demand for which was restricted to the few large land owners. Tin from the West was traded for wines from the South East seas, a monopoly jealously guarded by the Free Nations whose specially made fortified wines were the only ones able to withstand a long sea voyage.
Western tin was highly valued abroad for its quantity and quality for which the piskies demanded and got a very good exchange for the wine concentratethat when diluted gave triple the original market value as table wines preferred by those of any substance over Brythans national beverage of ales and stout.
The tin trade was the weather cock to Brythans national prosperity so any drop in availability had long term consequences for home and abroad. Through the brownie network Tim could find out what was causing this unusual shortage.
Message Thread
« Back to index