History of the Million Islands

"History is the ultimate source of all wisdom." - Lykomedes of Thalessos

The Great Ring has passed through several historical eons, and attempting to capture all of them in a single document would be daunting. This article will instead give a very broad overview of the history of the islands, with references to other documents where the reader can learn more.

The Nakaal and the Empire of Muria

The earliest records we have of the Great Ring are those of Muria, the empire of the Nakaal. They speak of the first conquest of the islands, when the soul-eating High Nakaal used their magic to subjugate the kingdoms of the Kikipua and the Zmei. They built a regime founded in magic, but found themselves consuming more than they could produce. Their quest to find a ready source of souls to use to feed their magics spelled their doom, when they brought humans and Clarati into the world from across the Dream. You can read more about the Nakaal here.

Humans and the Clarati

The Nakaal ritual, designed to bring a kind of spiritual livestock into the world, brought far more than they expected. Groups of a new species appeared across Muria, often with cultures strangely similar to the people they arrived near. These were the humans, and at first the Nakaal thought they had achieved their goals - they could use the new arrivals as fuel for their magic without constantly depleting their own population. But among the humans were another race, superficially similar to them. These were the Clarati, powerful mages in their own right who had no need to steal the energies of others. At first, they left the Nakaal alone while they looked over the world they had come to. But when the High Nakaal attempted to harvest the souls of one of the Clarati, the sorcerers struck back. They unleashed magical spells which ripped through the population of the Great Ring, slaughtering the Kikipua and Zmei. In many places, only the humans survived the genocidal attacks. In a few, populations of the original inhabitants endured. None of the High Nakaal were spared, though. Muria was destroyed, and the Clarati then departed, establishing themselves on the continent of Sange, far to the east of the Great Ring. You can read more about them here.

Humanity's Ring

After the Clarati genocide, humans became the primary inhabitants of the Great Ring, and their actions have shaped it ever since. While populations of the original races persist, they have never reclaimed their numbers or their position in the islands, and most live under the rule of human governments. A few Clarati ruled over the eastern Ynys Archipelago for a millennium, but when a great catastrophe struck the continent of Sange, the Clarati were all but wiped out, and the last died three centuries after the disaster. Today, the ring is ruled over by dozens of kingdoms and empires, each with their own gods and their own magics.

Historical Disagreements

Alas, history is not always simply a matter of uncontested facts. Different historians will bring their own viewpoints to the material, interpreting them in the light of their own theories. For example, some historians have placed the Final Monument as an artifact of the Nakaal, while others believe it dates to an older period. In this document, I've given preference to the opinions presented by Lykomedes of Thalessos, the most renowned living historian.

Before the Nakaal

We know very little of what occurred during this period, and can only glean hints from what was left behind. The massive buildings on Koa'ki and elsewhere tell their own tales of great builders, and the Final Monument in the western sea hints at an empire that spanned all the world we know and beyond. They worked on a massive scale, both physically and metaphysically, and we are still working to understand what they left behind and who they might have been.

Calendars of the Great Ring

History often depends on dates, and those are only possible through the use of calendars. There are several different calendar systems in use throughout the Great Ring, with the Clarati Calendar being the most commonly used by scholars in the eastern regions. You can read more about the calendars of the Great Ring here.