The barbarian tribes of Southern Malura, brutish warriors who carved out an existence on the barren Plains and sandy shores of Rook’s Coast, had arrived by boat some four hundred years ago. They once called an outlying island, known to Malurians as Whalestone, their home, before a tsunami threatened to wipe them out of existence. A few hundred barbarians made it into boats, crossing the Malurian Ocean and landing at Rook’s Coast; they proceeded to rampage through the coastal fishing villages, setting up their own civilization amongst the dunes and harassing any that dared come too close.
However, the monarchy and scattered barbarian tribes co-existed peacefully enough since the reign of Salarenzo’s great-grandfather, Urbantus, who took the throne some two hundred and fifty years ago. Urbantus was a diplomat with a silver tongue, and had managed to organise a truce with the barbarian’s Great Warlord, Jihnu. It hadn’t been easy; the two rulers had engaged in combat, much to the displeasure of the king’s advisors. But, surprising all in attendance, Urbantus bested the barbarian, a mortal blow for a culture built on warfare. In truth, it was the King’s superior weapons and armour, thick white-gold plate forged in the royal smithy, that had given him the inevitable edge.
“Give. Now.”
The King knew that to refuse would be to ruin any chance of alliance. And yet he also knew he had something that the barbarian wanted. He couldn’t just hand it over without getting anything in return. And so he offered a deal; “I will show you how to make your own; but in return, you must respect our position at the head of this Kingdom and allow our citizens and merchants free passage through your lands.”
Though he was wild, violent and short-tempered, the Warlord knew that he had been defeated, and had little choice than to submit to the King, entering into a truce that has held ever since.
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When the Great Rift opened, the barbarians sent their Immortals to fight alongside the rest of the kingdom’s forces. Battle-tested and ready, the barbarian warriors were the most revered soldiers across all the lands of Malura. To hold the title of Immortal, a barbarian warrior must have fought in over one hundred battles, skirmishes or duels, having never lost once; testament to their power and longevity, the barbarians had nearly a thousand such warriors.
But faced with the demons of the Pale Void, they failed to live up to their name; falling in great numbers, the civilized world and the barbarians bled as one.
Jinhu himself, now nearly five hundred years old, stood amongst the ranks of The Order, fighting back the horrors with the very weapons that Urbantus had taught him to forge all those years ago. But in the aftermath of the battle, the barbarian tribes were left scattered and without a clear leader. Their golden age as the most renowned warrior force had come to a faltering end; with no one to unite them, fighting erupted on a small scale across all the Plains, each rookie warrior vying for that most glorious position at the head of all tribes. Soon, however, very few warriors were left standing, and once the blood had dried, the barbarians as a whole were left as little more than a series of disconnected farming villages. Some tribes fell back into their old ways, harassing the Kingdom’s citizens that came too close, but many simply lived out their lives in relative peace and quiet.
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But, true to their nature, the barbarians were the first to pick up their weapons and go out on the hunt once more. Their god was Huroa, the Bringer of Warfare, after all. The barbarian mystics, reading the seasons and the weather, did not believe that the Great Rift opened as a vengeful act of god; they thought it was a challenge sent by Huroa to test them, a challenge that they had failed. It seemed natural that they would begin to satiate his desire for destruction once more by seeking out further violence. Still disunited, they never managed to regain their former glory, but without a doubt the Plains were amongst the safest places in the whole Kingdom. Once the barbarians returned their weapons to their hands, very few monsters survived to stalk the lands.
And so it was with a great sense of dread that the Royal Guards handed over the decree. Unsurprisingly, the barbarians fought back; they had respected the rule of the Kingdom because for a long time they had no reason not to. But now, this was an abomination against their god! Yet the Royal Guard swept through each village, overwhelming the barbarians through sheer number; Aurorus had expected resistance, and dispatched a great number of his men accordingly. Some of the barbarians fell into chains, but many fell into their graves. The barbarians were not really the sort of people to be taken to the jails in any other way.