The Founding of Karanya
Once upon a time...there was a poor fisherman, his wife, and their three sons. The oldest son was proud and haughty, the middle son was ambitious but not academically gifted, and the youngest son was a mama's boy who was quiet but kind and polite, and therefore often picked on by his brothers. As the couple could not afford to care for all three of their sons, the young men decided to seek their fortune elsewhere with the hopes of bringing their riches back to their parents eventually. They heard of a trading caravan taking the Silk Road to Huanjin, and so they bid their parents farewell and headed off.
The three brothers traveled down to Venice, a city built entirely on water, and teamed up with a merchant's son named Adam Morandi. They traveled across seven mountains, seven deserts, seven forests, and seven fields. They saw cities where the sun never rose and countries where time seemed to be stuck in a loop. Their final destination, Huanjin, was just as extraordinary. There, they saw all the mythical beasts they once only heard about in stories, and saw common people living in such extravagance, it left the boys dumbfounded.
Adam had his father and uncles, who quickly made an alliance with the emperor of Huanjin. The emperor had an advisor, a mysterious woman called Lisa, with skin a highly desirable pale tone, hair curiously light-colored for someone who had supposedly lived in Huanjin for her whole life and had family living there for several generations. Everyone was enamored with her. The brothers thought this was peculiar, but let it pass as a thought to the back of their minds.
Instead, the oldest brother, Dmitri, tried to seduce the emperor's daughter. This annoyed both the emperor and his daughter, who wanted nothing to do with him. The second brother, Ognjen, tried to participate in trade negotiations, but as he was terrible at math, he struggled, and others quickly grew annoyed with him. He soon found his greater strength lay in words - interpreting what was said by one individual or group to another, and he began to learn the local language out of curiosity.
The youngest son just wanted to help. His name was Tobias. He did not speak much, and he did not have the language down, but followed cues and helped with things whenever possible. The emperor liked him.
So much so that the emperor invited him on a tour of his kingdom after Adam had been appointed as governor.
The emperor showed him magnificent palaces and public works that he had ordered the construction of, and enormous rice fields where great numbers of workers labored to harvest the grain alongside immaculate fruiting forests. He took Tobias to all the beautiful places in the empire.
Tobias may have been quiet and foreign to these lands, but he was not dull. He asked to go to a village where real common people lived. Nothing that had been set up in advance for visitors by the emperor. The emperor did not want to, but the boy next to him was so polite that he was inclined to agree.
They arrived a village where no one was well-dressed or prepared to meet with royalty. The people before them shivered under threadbare clothes, wrapping shawls around themselves from the wind.
The emperor, in his haste to be done with this detour, nearly ran over a young woman in their path in his haste.
"Has the mandate of heaven ordered you to kill those you conquer now?" the woman scolded. "Hurting my family was not enough?"
"Impertinent woman! Guards, seize her!"
"No!" Tobias interrupted. "Let her go, she was just surprised and hurt." He jumped out of the caravan and offered a hand to the woman, but she refused. He noticed she was much darker in complexion than the city folk.
"Sir, leave me be," she said. "Go back to your cities and palaces." "You are not from here, young man," the emperor said. "And we do things differently here." "As a favor to me, then, do not hurt her."
But he quietly resolved to make things better, in his own way. It took him nearly a month, but he managed to gather a large amount of coin and spices and hop a cart heading out of the Emperor's city and go to the hidden village. He left it at the back door of the woman's family cottage. And then he repeated it for several months after, until the woman, named Eun, finally came out one evening and said, "at least stay for supper?"
She taught him about her culture, and he told her about his home. They became great friends, and he kept providing for the village in secret, and soon they fell in love.
Years passed, and finally they decided to marry in the tradition of her people. They had a young daughter, Miraslava, who had more syllables in her name than Eun was used to, but she was well loved all the same.
And that was when the emperor ordered that the villages would be razed for a new building project, and all the people misplaced.
Eun and Tobias had stayed deeply in love, and they devised a plan. Under the cover of a solar eclipse - an auspicious sign that would make the emperor very happy - and a harvest festival celebrating the initial defeat of Eun's people, Tobias would help the townspeople escape. He got Ognjen, now a skilled linguist, to help spread the word, but found that Dmitri was too wrapped up in a tryst with Lisa to care. He also had mysteriously caught some sort of perpetual flu, which had all the palace doctors stumped.
With the doctors stumped, they brought in a sorcerer, who the brothers and the Morandi family seriously doubted could do anything, but nevertheless he was called. The sorcerer said that Dmitri had been cursed by none other than Lisa, marking her as a Josunese gumiho who drained the life force of her victims.
The emperor sided with Lisa, though. He said that this must be a sign the brothers were untrustworthy and ordered their banishment or else execution. Quickly, Tobias and Eun divulged their plan to the other brothers, and they pulled it off just as the solar eclipse was passing overhead.
Upon reaching Buntunia, they brought all the riches they now had to their parents and built the town into a grand trade center to rival the whole of Gutonia. Tobias's two brothers were married to Eun's two sisters, and they all swore fealty to Tobias, whose cleverness saved the day.
The three brothers traveled down to Venice, a city built entirely on water, and teamed up with a merchant's son named Adam Morandi. They traveled across seven mountains, seven deserts, seven forests, and seven fields. They saw cities where the sun never rose and countries where time seemed to be stuck in a loop. Their final destination, Huanjin, was just as extraordinary. There, they saw all the mythical beasts they once only heard about in stories, and saw common people living in such extravagance, it left the boys dumbfounded.
Adam had his father and uncles, who quickly made an alliance with the emperor of Huanjin. The emperor had an advisor, a mysterious woman called Lisa, with skin a highly desirable pale tone, hair curiously light-colored for someone who had supposedly lived in Huanjin for her whole life and had family living there for several generations. Everyone was enamored with her. The brothers thought this was peculiar, but let it pass as a thought to the back of their minds.
Instead, the oldest brother, Dmitri, tried to seduce the emperor's daughter. This annoyed both the emperor and his daughter, who wanted nothing to do with him. The second brother, Ognjen, tried to participate in trade negotiations, but as he was terrible at math, he struggled, and others quickly grew annoyed with him. He soon found his greater strength lay in words - interpreting what was said by one individual or group to another, and he began to learn the local language out of curiosity.
The youngest son just wanted to help. His name was Tobias. He did not speak much, and he did not have the language down, but followed cues and helped with things whenever possible. The emperor liked him.
So much so that the emperor invited him on a tour of his kingdom after Adam had been appointed as governor.
The emperor showed him magnificent palaces and public works that he had ordered the construction of, and enormous rice fields where great numbers of workers labored to harvest the grain alongside immaculate fruiting forests. He took Tobias to all the beautiful places in the empire.
Tobias may have been quiet and foreign to these lands, but he was not dull. He asked to go to a village where real common people lived. Nothing that had been set up in advance for visitors by the emperor. The emperor did not want to, but the boy next to him was so polite that he was inclined to agree.
They arrived a village where no one was well-dressed or prepared to meet with royalty. The people before them shivered under threadbare clothes, wrapping shawls around themselves from the wind.
The emperor, in his haste to be done with this detour, nearly ran over a young woman in their path in his haste.
"Has the mandate of heaven ordered you to kill those you conquer now?" the woman scolded. "Hurting my family was not enough?"
"Impertinent woman! Guards, seize her!"
"No!" Tobias interrupted. "Let her go, she was just surprised and hurt." He jumped out of the caravan and offered a hand to the woman, but she refused. He noticed she was much darker in complexion than the city folk.
"Sir, leave me be," she said. "Go back to your cities and palaces." "You are not from here, young man," the emperor said. "And we do things differently here." "As a favor to me, then, do not hurt her."
But he quietly resolved to make things better, in his own way. It took him nearly a month, but he managed to gather a large amount of coin and spices and hop a cart heading out of the Emperor's city and go to the hidden village. He left it at the back door of the woman's family cottage. And then he repeated it for several months after, until the woman, named Eun, finally came out one evening and said, "at least stay for supper?"
She taught him about her culture, and he told her about his home. They became great friends, and he kept providing for the village in secret, and soon they fell in love.
Years passed, and finally they decided to marry in the tradition of her people. They had a young daughter, Miraslava, who had more syllables in her name than Eun was used to, but she was well loved all the same.
And that was when the emperor ordered that the villages would be razed for a new building project, and all the people misplaced.
Eun and Tobias had stayed deeply in love, and they devised a plan. Under the cover of a solar eclipse - an auspicious sign that would make the emperor very happy - and a harvest festival celebrating the initial defeat of Eun's people, Tobias would help the townspeople escape. He got Ognjen, now a skilled linguist, to help spread the word, but found that Dmitri was too wrapped up in a tryst with Lisa to care. He also had mysteriously caught some sort of perpetual flu, which had all the palace doctors stumped.
With the doctors stumped, they brought in a sorcerer, who the brothers and the Morandi family seriously doubted could do anything, but nevertheless he was called. The sorcerer said that Dmitri had been cursed by none other than Lisa, marking her as a Josunese gumiho who drained the life force of her victims.
The emperor sided with Lisa, though. He said that this must be a sign the brothers were untrustworthy and ordered their banishment or else execution. Quickly, Tobias and Eun divulged their plan to the other brothers, and they pulled it off just as the solar eclipse was passing overhead.
Upon reaching Buntunia, they brought all the riches they now had to their parents and built the town into a grand trade center to rival the whole of Gutonia. Tobias's two brothers were married to Eun's two sisters, and they all swore fealty to Tobias, whose cleverness saved the day.
Historical Basis
There was an emperor. Huanjin was called Luan at the time because of the dynasty name. Lisa was a real gumiho but it is debatable if she actually did anything to Dmitri or if he was just an idiot who caught something. The Karanyans tended to view any shapeshifters from outside their ranks as nefarious.
Variations & Mutation
Different versions of the story usually change Lisa's species to various other monsters than a gumiho, although she is always a trickster figure with murderous intent.
Cultural Reception
The northern half of present-day Karanya honors this story as their origin story, while the southern half - what was once known as Waskascia politically and now is just cultural Waskascia - just thinks of it as "the origin of those crazy people up north". Lisa's name comes from the local myths of trickster foxes rather than the Josunese one. Overall, this legend did a lot to both honor and deride the Huanjinese, painting them as savages who didn't know what good was in their lands.
Date of First Recording
4189
Date of Setting
4060s-4080s
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