Background

The histories of the gold-eyed Princes Kasheron and Terak – as told in the tales of the plains and the Writings of the north

There was a time when all the lands between the Oskinas Seas and the southern forests were trodden only by scattered families, each with its own small herd of grazing animals. Over the seasons these families came together to form distinct peoples. On the whole they lived peaceably, moving their stock to new grazing lands as the seasons dictated. Settlements at that time were few and less than a hundred people in size.

Then the peoples who dwelt mainly in the north began trading with strangers who came over the Oskinas Seas. They were merchants from the lands beyond Tanagia and they brought with them strange and wonderful things. The northern peoples traded their animal hides, hair, bone ornaments, meats and cheeses, and in return, they received horses and all manner of metals. The horses gave them speed and metals could be made into swords and daggers, and fashioned into arrows-heads. 

The northern people joined, finding strength and power in numbers. They built mighty cities such as Sarnia as monuments to their achievements and they drove those who opposed them, or who wouldn’t treaty with them, from the lands north of the Azurcades. All the lush grazing tracts became theirs, to be used only for themselves.

It was while this fighting was still young, that Kasheron and Terak were born. In the heart of the Silvercades lay the settlement of Kessom. It was a place of herbs and healing and the home of a beautiful and powerful, gold-eyed Healer. It was this Healer, Kiraon, that the warrior King, Tartian, courted and wed.

In time, Kiraon birthed sons, twins and gold-eyed like herself. But as the Princes grew, it became apparent that one had inherited his father’s sword-hand, and the other his mother’s healing. As the plains around became increasingly blood-soaked, and the funeral pyres of the slain higher, so too the conflict between the two grew. Finally the older twin Kasheron broke from his brother, taking his followers with him. It was said they went north, over the Oskinas Seas, but wherever they went, the breach was like a sword-slash through the fighters who remained.

Those who the northern peoples had all but vanquished, surged back with renewed ferocity, and it was only the formation of a new peoples, part of and equal to the old, which prevented all from being lost. The Princes’ sundering birthed the Terak Kirillian, formed from Prince Terak’s people, the Kirs and the Illians, but it severed the links between the brothers forever.

It was said that Queen Kiraon was heartbroken and insisted land be set aside in Sarnia for her other son and his followers, should they return. But they never did. The land remains desolate to this day, a testament to the bitterness that remains.