How the Empire Began

This is the story of how the Zekresh Empire began.
By Yavuk the Scribe
Written in the 18th year of the Reign of Yatyva XXII


The Wars of Fire

Two generations after the War of the Duel, new Frayethay was prospering on the coast of North Peninsula when the tribes of the Fire People began to raid them and the tribes of wildmen nearby such as the Marsh People, the Shell People and the Moss People. The raiders would come by ship along the coast. During these wars, most of the Frayeth people in the new Frayethay fled inland away from the coast and established fortified places.

The largest of these was the fortification known as "Kast Yvar" (Fort Refuge) after which Salan Kast (Fortress Province) is named. Another one was established by Zekryva, the leader of a group of Frayeth warriors who fled inland from the coast. The fort they built was known as Kast Uvinshakh (Interior Fort) and was located a day's march inland from the present site of the city of Zekran.

Fire People actually attempted to set up a permanent settlement on the coast nearby in lands that belonged to a tribe of wildmen called the Shell People. The Shell People had been friendly to the Frayeth and their lands were the farthest Southeast corner of North Peninsula, closest to the lands of the Fire People across the waters on South Peninsula.

The Frayeth warriors of Kast Uvinshakh raided the Fire People's camps and settlement and were in turn attacked and besieged by the Fire People. Kast Uvinshakh withstood all these attacks and served as a rallying point for Frayeth resistance to the occupation of Frayethay by the Fire People. Ultimately, the raids from Kast Uvinshakh made the Fire People's settlement near the present site of Zekran untenable and they left. Zekryva and his men then moved to the coast and built a new fort there called Kast Olalga (Coast Fort). They built ships and used this fort to launch raids by sea against the lands of the Fire People and their allies, the People of the Tides. In response, the Fire People and the People of the Tides besieged Kast Olalga for four months, but failed to take it. Zekryva's victories against the Fire People made him a legendary figure among the Frayeth, but he was killed soon after the seige of Kast Olalga while participating in a raid against the People of the Tides.


The First Dynasty

After Zekryva's death, Kast Olalga came to be known as Kast Zekryva (Zekryva's Fort). Under the leadership of Zekryva's successors, Kast Zekryva became a settlement and not just a fort.

Partly because of the protection of the fort and partly because of its strategic location on the Gateway Waters, Kast Zekryva eventually became the major port on that coast. The Frayeth warlord Olomuk made it the capital of his short-lived realm. The oldest title of Zekresh nobility still claimed by anyone is the title of "Aylorkern ya Zekryvan" which is still claimed by the alleged descendants of Olomuk.

Because Kast Zekryva was Olomuk's capital, the lands he ruled were called Zekryvan, meaning lands of Zekryva. It was then shortened to Zekran. Although Olomuk's effort to unify the Frayeth lands failed, a generation later, another Frayeth warlord named Firthyva succeeded in seizing control of Kast Zekryva, conquering Kast Yvar and unifying Frayethay. It was in this time that the old fort of Kast Zekryva was severely damaged in an earthquake. The stones of the fort were then used to build a defensive wall around the city. With no fort there anymore, the name Kast Zekryva made little sense, but since it was the capital city of the lands of Zekran, people called it Serat Zekran, which means City of Zekran.


The Firthyva dynasty

Firthyva and six of his descendants ruled Zekran for more than a century. By the end of the Firthyva Dynasty, Zekran had grown into a medium sized port city and still ruled all of Frayethay, but it split apart into warring factions.

Firthyva was the first ruler of Zekran to mint his own coinage. The coins were of silver and bore the image of a sword, but no inscription.


Yormuk's Conquests

During the time after the collapse of the Firthyva Dynasty, a powerful warlord arose at Kast Yvar named Yormuk. Another warlord named Sinamuk vied with him for control of Frayethay. Sinamuk's capital was the port city of Nass Umrug (Marsh Bay). A series of weak leaders ruled Zekran during this time. Meanwhile, Sinamuk and Nass Umrug were menaced by the a tribe of wildmen calling themselves the Viper People while Yormuk and Zekran were attacked by another tribe of wildmen called the Moss People who were later assisted by their allies the Mushroom People and the Crab People. The Fire People even raided Zekran one last time during this period and pillaged it.

Zekran was occupied by Frayeth troops loyal to Sinamuk who had taken the forbidden title of Frayeth Emperor and declared Nass Umrug to be the capital of a new Frayeth Empire. It was during this occupation of Zekran by Sinamuk's troops that the people of Zekran began to think of the Frayeth troops as foreigners and themselves as properly a separate nation and not just a part of Frayethay. In Zekran, the leader of this nationalistic movement was a warrior named Natosamuk who led the resistance against Sinamuk's occupation forces in Zekran.

Natosamuk allied himself with Yormuk of Kast Yvar to try to evict Sinamuk's troops from Zekran. Yormuk at that time was at war with Sinamuk. During this struggle, Yormuk allied himself with the Viper People to keep Sinamuk and Nass Umrug under pressure while Yormuk's own army took Zekran from Sinamuk and then marched boldly into the lands of the Moss People and the Mushroom People, conquering both and also driving the Crab People northward back to their own lands. It was because of this conquest that the lands of the Moss People and the Mushroom People are today known as Yormukan, the lands of Yormuk.

But the effect of Yormuk's brutal occupation of Zekran was even more profound. Though Natosamuk and his resistance fighters had been talking of Zekran as a separate nation and not part of Frayethay, most of the people of Zekran seemed to have thought of themselves as Frayeth and of Zekran as part of Frayethay. Only after Yormuk's warriors pillaged Zekran as if it were nothing more than a wildman encampment did the people of Zekran seem to view both the major Frayeth factions as foreigners and themselves as something else. Natosamuk's resistance movement became a popular cause and his ideas that the Zekresh people were a separate nation from the Frayeth caught on. Indeed, Zekran's residents were not just Frayeth, but a mixture of people from several nations, notably the Frayeth, the Cliff People and the Seagull People, all from South Peninsula, who had been loyal subjects of the Frayeth Empire in Emperor Dulimuk's time and the indigenous Shell People of North Peninsula who had lived in the area since before the arrival of the Frayeth. From this mixture emerged a new nation, the Zekresh.

Natosamuk formed an alliance with the hated Sinamuk and regained independence for Zekran with his help and a popular uprising against Yormuk's garrison while Yormuk and his main army were away fighting in the lands of the Moss People.

Natosamuk became the leader of Zekran upon the surrender of Yormuk's occupation forces. Natosamuk took the title of "Naltor ya Zekran" ("Prince of Zekran"). Yormuk attempted to hold Yormukan (the lands he had just conquered from the wildmen), retake Zekran, and also assist the Viper People in attacking Nass Umrug. He was unable to do all this and only barely kept Yormukan while the other efforts failed miserably. Yormuk continued to rule Kast Yvar and Yormukan to the end of his days, but he did not have the strength to conquer Nass Umrug or to reconquer Zekran. In time, Sinamuk defeated the Viper People and beseiged Kast Yvar. Zekresh troops helped break the seige to prevent the unification of Frayethay.


The Iyatyva Dynasty and the Empire

Natosamuk was a brilliant leader, but he died in the seige of Kast Yvar and left no heirs. Leadership of Zekran fell to Iyatyva, the founder of the Iyatyva Dynasty. Iyatyva continued the alliance with Kast Yvar and also made an alliance with the Viper People against Sinamuk's so-called Frayeth Empire which was really only the city-state of Nass Umrug. In the eleventh year of his reign, Iyatyva led a combined force of Zekresh troops, Frayeth rebels, Viper People warriors, Mushroom People warriors and troops from Kast Yvar to conquer Nass Umrug. When Iyatyva captured and killed Sinamuk, the self-proclaimed Frayeth Emperor, Iyatayva resisted the temptation to take the title of "Emperor" himself since he considered himself Zekresh and not Frayeth and he was aware of the Curse of the Duel which seemed to work against anyone calling himself the "Frayeth Emperor." Sinamuk had met his doom while holding this title, after all. Iyatyva called himself "Naltor ya Zekran arend Nass Umrug" ("Prince of Zekran and Nass Umrug") rather than emperor.

In the 19th year of his reign, Prince Iyatyva died and his son, Yatyva, became prince of Zekran and Nass Umrug. Yatyva exploited or possibly instigated an attack by Mushroom People on Kast Yvar. The warlord of Kast Yvar welcomed reinforcements from Zekran. Once inside Kast Yvar, the Zekresh troops took over the fortress in a treacherous move. Yatyva then made it part of his realm which now included all of Frayethay. In the 9th year of his reign, Yatyva suppressed a revolt by Sinamuk's son, Ninamuk, in Nass Umrug who claimed his father's title of "Frayeth Emperor". Upon the execution of Ninamuk and his rebels, Yatyva took the title of "Emperor" for himself, but out of nationalism or to avoid the Curse of the Duel, he declared himself to be the "Vylor Zekresh" (Zekresh Emperor) not the "Vylor Frayeth" (Frayeth Emperor).

Yatyva then had to supress a revolt of the Moss People in Yormukan to make the newly proclaimed empire secure. Yatyva's son, Yatyva II expanded the boundaries of the Empire slightly and fought an inconclusive war with the Viper People on the Western frontier. Yatyva II was succeeded on the throne by his son Yatyva III. Yatyva III was known for neglecting the affairs of the empire in favor of his personal pursuits and amusements. For this, he was overthrown by his cousin's husband, Marivuk, in the twelfth year of his reign. Thus ended the Yatyva dynasty. This was the first violent overthrow of a Zekresh Emperor. It would not be the last.