Yarpalïŋ-Ýmïlýrhonid
The Yarpalïnó-Ýmïlýrhonid, that is, the Expeditions/Adventures out of the Ïlýrhonid Tribe, were a series of early Expeditions that characterized the Heta-Ýmor-Vëtam (First Dark Age) of Ïlýrhonidian history. Alongside creating the first cities, most prominently in the Amoŋot Desert, and thus setting the geopolitical situation of the Varhoŋïð and Maðúšýï tribes, it also did the most in fueling the Ýmïlýrhonid Movement, that is, a general sentiment towards emigration out of the Ïlýrhonid tribe, culminating in the departure of the Ýlëntuk Family in 25020 AYM.
The Yarpalïŋó-Ýmïlýrhonid are considered to be one of the first recorded ventures out of the Ïlýrhonid Tribe, and most certainly the first such ventures that occurred with the explicit support of the central Ïlýrhonidian government. Despite this, the Yarpalïŋó were groundbreaking in how they interacted with the Ïlýrhonidian cultural standard; it broke down the old narrative that the outside world was extremely deadly, and set forth a wave of emigrations that would continue until the Ïlýrhonid Tribe's demise. By the Khýnýšic Expedition, the central government had abolished the state religion in favor for an approach that favored exploration and trade with settlements already established in the Desert.
Background
The Yarpalïŋó-Ýmïlýrhonid were the culmination of the events that occurred in the late Arfarotï period, that is, the Ýmor-Šapariž. This period saw a massive influx in natural disasters, like earthquakes, rockslides, and floods, that ravaged the landscape. Throughout these disasters, the Žötó-Žimiara, a group of individuals in each family, produced numerous innovations to help protect the civilians of their respective families while using these events to improve cultural morale and stability. The contributions of the Žötó-Žimiara, and the inaction of the central government, resulted in a shift of public sentiment away from the collective tribal mindset and towards a more familial way of living, in which the safety of the individuals within each family was maintained not by an overarching government but by the family head itself.
Alongside this shift in leadership, a simultaneous shift occurred in how people felt about the physical location of the Tribe, with most people deeming it too hazardous to be a suitable location. Thus, discussions brewed about a possible relocation, both of the entire tribe all at once and of a family-specific emigration.
Expeditions
In total, there are five major Yarpalïŋó-Ýmïlýrhonid; although minor expeditions did happen, they often involved very few people and were scarcely recorded.
Hayïdic Expedition
Main Article: Hayïdic Expedition
The Hayïdic Expedition, occuring from 2 Heta to 11 Suta-Eimarae, 25032 AYM and lasting 118 days, was the first expedition. Organized and led by Hayïd, it arose due to a collapse in a section of the outer walls of the Ïlýrhonid Tribe. While repairs were ongoing, Hayïd received permission from the government to lead a party outside the walls to guard against outside threats and thus ensure the safety of the entire Tribe. In reality, however, only sixty percent of the 4,300 individuals selected did so, while the other forty, led personally by Hayïd, secretly traveled along the bottom edge of the Nuzowli Mountain Range and explored the bottom half of the Amoŋot Desert, founding Óm-hayïd, Tý-hayïd, and Yuževhït. Almost all of the surviving participants, including Hayïd himself, opted to reside in one of these three cities, while 144 of them decided to return back. This latter group served as the return messenger, giving a detailed account of the expedition, which became a custom for all future emigrations.
This Expedition was notorious for its high death count. All of the people selected to guard the walls were never seen again, both by Hayïd's members and by civilians of the Tribe itself, and 800-900 of those with Hayïd also perished on the journey outwards, most of them from starvation. There are theories about a possible case of genocide perpetrated by the Ïlýrhonidian government, but this is not certain. Nonetheless, this successfully deterred the remaining population from attempting any emigrations until the Wýðúric Expedition five years later.
Wýðúric Expedition
Main Article: Wýðúric Expedition
The Wýðúric Expedition is often cited as the first successful expedition. Occuring from 25 Anta-Eimarae, 25027 AYM, to 6 Yota-Eimarae, 25026 AYM, and thus lasting 171 days, it featured historic progress in the exploration, documentation, and settlement of the Amoŋot Desert. This was mostly due to the collaboration being Wýðúr, the leader of the expedition, and Ikheðep, a participant in the earlier Hayïdic Expedition and one of the 144 messengers. From his advice, the party was reduced to 650, and a different route via the Kairn River System was taken, allowing them to stock up on rocks, plants, and wood from the Nuzowli Mountain Range and the Volain Forest.
These materials were used in part to construct what are called Wëbëlup-Wýðúr, tall logs held up and stabilized by vines and rocks, which served as markers to help the groups keep track of their progress. Although not settlements in their own right, they became the basis of many major cities, like Vërðïm, Lómóhüd, and Óvarhën. The only city founded and settled by the expedition members themselves was Güðün.
Only six members died during the trip, while the 144 others traveled back as return messengers. This massive difference from the results of the Hayïdic Expedition dealt the Kavamïŋ-Ïlýrhonid a heavy blow; Ïlýrhonidian officials attempted to discredit the report by questioning the existence of the 500 members living in Güðün, and those who accepted the report were forced to reconcile the supposed danger of the outside world with the success of the Expedition, with most turning to some form of random luck or some supernatural conditions to explain it. Nonetheless, the Wýðúric Expedition gave the impression that one could traverse the outside world with relative ease.
Khýnýšic Expedition
Main Article: Khýnýšic Expedition
The Khýnýšic Expedition, lasting from 3 Suta-Eimarae, 25026 AYM, to 17 Heta-Eimarae, 25025 AYM, by far the shortest of the five Expeditions, was carried out a mere three months after the Wýðúric Expedition. The only Expedition not named after a person, it comes from the Eldrond word for 'prove', Khýný, thus labelling it the 'Expedition of Proof'. Led by Ikheðep, who was one of the primary planners of the Wýðúric Expedition and a participant in the Hayïdic Expedition, it occurred in response to doubt raised by Ïlýrhonidian officials over the legitimacy of the report, more specifically the legitimacy of the 500 residents of Güðün. It consisted of 20 participants and used the same route as the previous expedition. Upon meeting the residents of Güðün and bringing them along, the group ventured southward along the Volain Forest to contact the residents of Óm-hayïd, Tý-hayïd, and Yuževhït, the three cities founded by the Hayïdic Expedition. From there, they traveled back to the Kairn River System and returned to the Ïlýrhonid Tribe. The speed at which this occurred was due to Ikheðep's knowledge of both of the previous Expeditions, and this speediness, coupled with the fact that, of the 1200-1300 that resided in those cities, around 1150 of them were successfully brought back, effectively destroyed the Kavamïŋ-Ïlýrhonid as a practical belief system, and led to Anirhož and the Alaghúl-Garhifiŋ putting forth the Abolishment of the Kavamïŋ-Ïlýrhonid in 20 Heta-Eimarae, which shut down the Ïlýrhonidian belief system and officially deemed emigrations legal.
Šókhekic/Alëhadic Expeditions
Main Articles: Šókhekic Expedition, Alëhadic Expedition
The fourth Expedition occurred from 5 Nota-Eimarae, 25021 to 8 Suta-Eimarae, 25019 AYM, four years after the Khýnýšic Expedition, and was launched in response to the influx in emigrations following the Abolishment, with the purpose of establishing a series of reliable paths from the Ïlýrhonid Tribe to various cities founded in the Amoŋot Desert. It is often broken up into the Šókhekic and Alëhadic Expeditions due to the fact that, upon approaching the fork of the Kairn River System, one party mistakenly followed a different course than the other. The former of the two, the Šókhekic Expedition, took the west fork, thus arriving at the Amoŋot Desert, while the latter, the Alëhadic Expedition, took the east fork, thus arriving at the Ðýmóš Plains. Although individual travelers and minor expeditions had already explored the Plains and even founded cities in them, the Alëhadic Expedition was the first major venture into the region and contributed the most towards introducing those in the Amoŋot Desert and the Ïlýrhonid Tribe to the Plains.
The Šókhekic Expedition, which traversed the Amoŋot Desert, is notable for having the clearest, most reliable accounts regarding the political state of the Desert and its inhabitants. In addition to connecting the three Hayïdic towns in the south and the Wýðúric towns in the north, it conducted what was essentially a giant census, providing information on the populations of each city and a detailed map regarding them and the roads that connected them. These resources compose the Gaðërïŋ-Šókhekka, one of the primary resources concerning the Desert and the Varhoŋïð Tribe.
The Alëhadic Expedition, which explored the relatively-undisturbed Ðýmóš Plains, saw relatively little action, given the existence of just two settlements, Býn-Avï and Ðóš-Avï. To better connect these two cities with those of the Desert, two towns, Dlaýe-Vïn and Waðë-Vïn, were formed just north of the Volain Forest, to serve as linkage points between the Desert and the Plains and between the two sources of the Kairn River System.
However, in 25020 AYM, the entirety of the Ýlëntuk Family emigrated out of the Tribe and subsequently fractured into Kairn and Varonith-Callauz, the latter of which took over cities bordering the Volain Forest (most crucially Güðün and Óm-hayïd) and began making plans to carry out an invasion into the Kairn and Ïlýrhonid Tribes. This threat essentially jeopardized the Expedition members, and, after several skirmishes which Callauzian forces in the Forest, both groups returned back in 25019 AYM.
Úrïsic Expedition
Main Article: Úrïsic Expedition
The fifth and last Expedition was launched immediately after the Šókhekic and Alëhadic Expeditions with the aim of conducting an inspection of the roads established previously and attempting to garner support for the Ïlýrhonidian Tribe. This was an extremely precarious situation due to Varonith-Callauz, and it occurred in tandem with the raising of the Ïlýrhonidian Army, which would collaborate with the Kairn Tribe to set up a sizable defense. By capitalizing on the recency of the Ýlëntukian migration, the Expedition successfully raised up a small army of skirmishes in Yuževhït and Tý-hayïd, which would become the Matousai, but the northern cities, who had little sentiment for Güðün, could not muster up enough of a strength. The Expedition noted the differences in living conditions in the two halves; the southern cities, being so few in number and facing harsh weather conditions, had made good use of the roads as an exchange of resources and a medical lifeline, while those in the north were relatively self-sufficient and thus had little need to interact with others. Even Güðün, the closest city to the Forest, was too far away to be able to effectively use its resources well.
Amidst increasing tensions, the Expedition members opted to return by way of the Nuzowli Mountain Range, which was done by going right along the southern coast and using skirmish allies as escorts. Because of the danger posed by this tension, no more Expeditions were undertaken, and as a result, Ïlýrhonid lost contact with the vast majority of the outside world, save their allies in the Kairn tribe and the Matousai, and the southern passage was so guarded by the Varonith-Callauz that any messages received by the Matousai were extremely piecemeal at best.
Legacy
Outside the Ïlýrhonid Tribe
The Yarpalïŋó-Ýmïlýrhonid were instrumental in shaping the geopolitical situation in Varhoŋïð by establishing the majority of the settlements and, in the case of the Matousai, the roads that connected them. Due in part to the scarcity of the paths available (either south of the Nuzowli Mountain Range or via the Kairn River System), the northern cities were established far off from those in the south, creating two distinct cultures and thus two different Tribes, with the Matousai, a powerful raiding group, dominating in the south, and Varhoŋïð, a loose scattering of city-states, in control of the north. This division would freeze the geopolitical situation in the Amoŋot Desert until the First and Second Varonian Wars in 24976 and 24720 AYM.
Despite this, The Ïlýrhonidian Tribe did not accomplish most of the aims of the Expeditions. The roads established in the Šókhekic Expedition were quickly neglected by cities in the north, and those linking the northern and southern towns were deemed to be unusable due to the distances between them. Admittedly, most of these was due to the presence of Varonith-Callauz, whose territory, a large strip of land immediately west of the Volain Forest, blocked both passages to the Desert, thus preventing any meaningful trade or communication with Varhoŋïð or with the Matousai.
Inside the Ïlýrhonid Tribe
The Yarpalïŋó-Ýmïlýrhonid did the most to undermine the state religion, the Kavamïŋ-Ïlýrhonid, and steer the tribal mantality towards an attitude more favorable to the idea of emigration and of the outside world in general. This was most sufficiently done via the Wýðúric and Khýnýšic Expeditions, which successfully proved that one could easily and safely traverse the wilderness for long stretches of time, leading to a massive wave of emigrations that, according to documents at the time, reduced the Ïlýrhonidian population to 60% that of the Tribe during the Arfarotï period.
This simultaneously drew public approval away from the government, who they perceived as being deceptive due to their affiliation with the state religion. This, as well as its inaction during the series of natural disasters in the Ýmor-Šapariž, further incentivized the propspect of emigration, and many historians have conjectured that this combination of lingering sentiment made the idea of a family-wide emigration possible, as neither such sentiment by itself would serve enough appeal to venture into what was initially an unknown wilderness. Although first done by the Ýlëntuk Family in 25020 AYM, 11 of the 12 families in the original Ïlýrhonid Tribe would eventually carry out this family-wide emigration throughout the course of the Tribe's lifespan. This berth in manpower would weaken it severely, and thus eventually contribute to the defeat of the Kairn Tribe against Varonith-Callauz.
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