8 40 Generations
After the ancestors of mankind had left to the ends of arkhaia, they gave birth to descendants. Each of the seven pairs gave birth to their own peoples, each with their own distinct features, each being the first human ethnicities in Arkhaia.
In the east, there were the Jomon, the Gu Ren and the Takkatu. The Jomon and the Gu Ren shared lighter skin tones and smaller eyes. Their differences lie in the hair color of the Jomon, which are typically brown or dark brown in contrast to the black hair of the Gu Ren.
The Jomon also have longer, more streamlined noses than the Gu Ren, who typically have small or fat noses. In aspects beyond appearance, the two peoples are nearly indistinguishable, as both settle in the valleys and plains of the land they inherited, staying near the forests and keeping distance from the mountains.
The mountains were filled with dangerous animals and for the Gu Ren, dragons. The Jomon experienced powerful earthquakes near the mountains and it is a common sight for them to witness smoke spewing out from the mountains of their land. The two peoples share a common fear and reverence for the mountains.
The Gu Ren placed offerings to the dragons, building altars of wood and stone for safe passage through the mountains or to avoid the wrath of these fire breathing serpents. On each mountain where a dragon had been seen, a small shrine to its inhabitant dragon would be seen. Villages large enough to have priests conduct monthly visitation, rituals and maintenance on the shrine.
As for the Jomon, they believed the mountains themselves were powerful spirits and that the fiery pillars of smoke were displays of their might and fury. The Jomon did not build temples to these mountains but merely fled, with villages typically having chosen two or three candidates for resettlement when the mountain spirits are enraged.
Amanah had foreseen that the Gu Ren would deify the dragons and sell their souls to their judgement, corrupting both the dragons with arrogance and the humans with slavery. So, she left behind a teaching to their ancestors, teaching of the Heavenly Empress who created all things and whom rules over all. There is no power greater than her and all power is only by her.
The Gu Ren referred to her as the Tianhou, who did not have a shrine but whose name instills a silent reverence over these people.
The Jomon had similar countermeasures, namely about the solar maiden. The solar maiden was believed to be older than the darkness, who created the darkness and light from it. This maiden controls the course of the sun and keeps the world from breaking apart into darkness.
It was a folk tale that circulated amongst the people, parents would pass it on to their children and no child is unaware of that story.
The maiden was nowhere to be, the maiden was bored
So the maiden played with the night and out came light
Then night became a pot and light filled the pot like water
She shook the pot and out came the world, fresh and new
The pot rested on her palm, with every shake, new things came to be
And the maiden was bored no more
And the maiden watched her soup
The Takkatu people on the other hand settled and ventured around the sea, creating rafts and canoes. Over the centuries, they became nomads who ventured in raft fleets known as Palao. Each Palao must have at least 10 rafts and fourteen people.
The Palao move from island to island, following the stars and the wind. They never settle on any island, always harvesting resources from each island to rebuild, restock and expand their fleets.
Takkatu men were valued as rowers and hunter gatherers, while women were valued as engineers. The Takkatu were tan skinned, had brown eyes and were predominantly black haired. They typically had larger chests and lungs, adapted for them to dive under the water for prolonged periods of time.
They are the first culture to develop a way to harvest drinkable water from the salty sea water through the development of advanced glassmaking techniques handed down from their progenitors. The salt left behind from these methods were used as spices and became a common currency alongside desalinated water.
In the central continent, where Amanah had raised the Lord of the Night and the Ancestors of Humanity, there were three prime ethinicites. The Ulfyr who settled in the cold, northern tundras, the Helionites who settled in the central plains and forests and the Akkadians, who settled in the fertile river deltas bordering the vast deserts in the south.
The Ulfyr are known for their much lighter skin, blond hair and blue eyes. Their men are typically muscular and strong to survive the colder lands. Ulfyr women are also expected to be physically capable, to be able to hunt and gather too, for the wintry wastelands of the north do not allow for weakness.
Their ancestors, freya and lif, decided to settle this land out of their passion to hunt. The frozen north is rich in both powerful magical beasts and packs of common animals, a perfect hunting ground for both beginners and veterans alike. They raised their children with strength and competence, and held no punches back to teach them the importance of their training.
Amanah blessed all children of the Ulfyr tribe to be strong in both heart and body. No child in their line will become weak or suffer crippling weakness, for any who do would not have been born in the first place. For their ancestors had chosen a merciless land of frost and monsters, so Amanah will lessen the hardships of their descendants with a blessing.
The Helionites were distinct for their fair skin, a shade darker than the Ulfyr, sharp noses and brown or blonde hair. They settled in the pastures that span between the hills and mountains, building villages and even the first cities of Arkhaia.
The favorable weather, fertile soil and lack of dangerous beasts allowed the Helionites to progress and advance faster than their brethren all around the planet. The Helionites were the first who reached a population of 30,000 people, 3,000 of which resided within their first city, Minoa.
However, the Helionites had the shortest lives. The vast population had forgotten the reality of the death curse and the blessing of life. All whom honor their parents shall live a fruitful and long life, and the most filial shall live forever.
The Helionites had forgotten much of the values placed upon them, the comfort and success of their budding civilization had made them prone to rebellion. The seeds of fornication and slavery had been placed, as men and women lusted for another from behind their partners and children born from these unholy unions were turned into slaves as punishment.
But there is no intervention to perform, things will undergo its natural course as time passes.
The Akkadians have sharp noses like helionites but tan skin accompanied by significant facial hair. They only had exclusively black hair and their eye colors were lighter shades of brown and in rare cases, golden.
They dwelled among the desert as nomads, moving from one oasis to another in swarms. Much like the Takkatu on the sea, the Akkadians are on sand. Through generations of travel and accumulating resource, they have developed ways to build mobile tents, easy to assemble and disassemble for their needs.
The desert dunes are not a friendly place for humans, the Akkadians struggled against ambushes of predators below the sand and assaults from beings above it. Although entire caravans could perish with a single assault, those who do not were quick to build weapons from the corpses of wild beasts to fend them off.
As for the seventh tribe of humanity, one that travelled to the far west instead. The Pacha dwelled in the mountains and in the jungles, with their mountainous kin possessing lighter skin. They have distinctively hard features and solely black hair.
As a civilization, only the mountain ones have shown any signs of developing city states while those in the forest remained as nomadic hunter tribes. They were the first to slowly diverge into two separate ethinicites, as the mountain Pacha developed larger lungs and broader chests while the jungle Pacha developed a wide resistance to illnesses.
Here are the forty generations of man in its infancy, and what follows next shall be the cradle of civilization.
