The Treaty Tree
"That is fat tree, mama," the little girl said as she stared at the bristlecone pine that reached to the top of the slope it grew on. She and her mother stood around the tree in a circle, holding hands with the two dozen other brahmaur who had made the prilgrimage to the Valley of Salvation, the origin of their kind. "Yes it is, honey," her mother said. "Now be quiet and listen as we sing."The little girl grinned in delight. She loved singing! The men began by droning in a deep toned drone. The women joined in singing in higher notes that were deeper than human and elven females' voices. As their song went on, men and women changed to a higher pitch and teh men finally changed from the drone to singing words as well. Their song then sank back down to the deep tones and ended."We must never forget the Treaty Tree, honey," the little girl's mother told her as the brahmaur began to head back down into the valley. "It proves we are a people.""On a hill far away stands an old bristlecone, holding the shine of the moon. And I love that old tree, where the world came to see, we are the people of T'Ar ... "
A Bristlecone Pine
Three thousand years ago, no one knew about the Brahmaur.
The Brahmaur only knew that there were others out there who would see them as monsters rather than as a people.
They did their best to hide away in a rugged mountain valley where no one else seemed to go.
It was at this time that the Jarevar kingdom of dwarves followed a very long vein of rock.
This vein came out of the mountain into a valley full of minotaurs. At first, the dwarves thought they were the monstrous sort who had overrun a mountain village.
Their army charged in, wielding their rune-powered axes and shields. But these minotaur faced them with tactics and axes or their own instead of just claws, hooves, and horns.
Ever more alarming to the dwarves, these minotaurs seemed able to ignore their rune magics!
More intriguing beacons were lit in lines that went out of the valley.
More of the minotaurs arrived running in formations.
These, too, wielded axes like trained soldiers.
The rune-casters and clerics, after burning thremselves out with delving magics and deep prayer, went to the dwarven general, the third son of the King.
They told him they have learned that these minotaurs are the people of a god named T'Ar.
Prince Asgrim took this all in and send out a brave party to ask for parley from these minotaurs.
These minotaurs agreed.
Dwarves and Brahmaur met beneath the tallest tree in the valley, a bristlecone pine on a windy slope.
The Treaty
Beneath the bristecone, the dwarves and Brahmaur spent three days negotiating a treaty.
Fighting on both sides ended, but the Brahmaur demanded restitution for the unjust attack on their valley.
Rather than gold or riches, Nizamnaegel, leader of the valley Brahmaur, insisted that the dwarves teach them mining and smithing.
After letters were sent back to the king, this was agreed to.
For generations, this treaty stood until it was no longer needed.
The Jarevar king decided the mines, which were at such a far end of their underground kingdom, became too depleted of strong veins worthy of Dwarven efforts to mine.
They gave these mines to the Brahmaur and retreated to mine elsewhere.
Any routes that led to Jarevar were closed off with cave-ins and mighty doors.
The Treaty Tree
Since the days of the Jarevar Treaty, the Brahmaur have nurtured the bristlecone tree.
It is now over three thousand years and reaching eighty feet tall ... an impossible height for a bristlecone.
It can grow no taller as the wind rips off any parts the grow higher than the slope it stands on.
The tree makes up for this by growing its trunk wider.
It is now twenty feet across at its base and a wonder to behold.
Brahmaurs from beyond Brahmaur Valley make great pilgrimages to the valley to pay homage to the tree and learn their history.
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