Lost Lore, The First Men Part II

Lost Lore, The First Men.

Excerpt from the diaries of Prince Doran Nymeros Martell:

The Novii Empire was exceptionally religious, bordering fanatical. Reason why they had a fairly isolationist policy, trading with them was difficult and tedious for the nearby kingdoms. They mostly traded with nearby kingdoms whose religions also revolved around Nova.

I didn't find much information about the other kingdoms, just a few sentences here and there, from what little I did find I was surprised that the cult of Nova seems to be almost universal throughout Ulthos. It seems that Novismo has different branches, something very similar to Christianity. In the Novii Empire there is the main branch of this religion, the strictest of them.

In other realms Novism is more relaxed, in the Sunrise Sea coast kingdoms the local branch of Novism not only accepts the existence of other gods but seems to embrace them. This branch of Novism believes that the goddess Nova created gods from other pantheons to help her rule the universe.

Most of the empire's trade came from these kingdoms as they were known as the Lords of Commerce. The Sunrise Sea Kingdoms traded up and down the coast of Ulthos, and they ventured as far as Essos, where they had strong ties to the most famous and powerful empire of the Age of Dawn: The Great Empire of the Dawn. This age was named in honor of this realm.

The Great Empire of the Dawn is shrouded in more mystery than any realm known. We only know that its first emperor supposedly lived for 10,000 years and had a hundred wives, and that his successors lived shorter with each generation until they lost their divine vitality and became mortal men.

These books gave me more information about this mysterious realm, more information than any person in the Known World possesses (that I know of, but I'm pretty sure of my statement. This world is full of vain and proud fame-starved men and women; if anyone had any parchment about the oldest empire in the world they would brag about it).

Thanks to these books I now know many things about this great empire. The Emperor during the events that marked the rise of the First Men (the former novii, now exiled) was Zuko of the Igasia Dynasty. He was also known as the Onyx Emperor and was the great grandfather of the last ruler of this Empire. His descendant was Izu, the Amethyst Empress. She was usurped by her psycho little brother Azu, the Bloodstone Emperor.

Azu`s actions caused the Long Night, something I'll talk about another time.

Emperor Zuko was a great adventurer since he was a child, he always loved to travel and it is said that he traveled to all the realms of the world, and even ventured to realms outside the mortal world (they are mostly legends, but I can't deny anything for the lack of more information). His travels took him to the southernmost empire in the world, the Novii Empire, a large and powerful empire. The young prince was fascinated by the culture of the empire.

He stayed there for several years, something very rare because the Novii Empire did not allow foreigners in their lands, let alone foreigners who worship other gods. But the Emperor of Novii could not deny anything to the crown prince of the most powerful Empire in the world because he knew that angering that empire could well mean the doom of his own realms.

During his years in the empire, the prince talked animatedly about his gods and about the culture and traditions of his home. Such was his charisma that many locals became fascinated with foreign gods. When the prince returned to his home, hundreds of novii followed him to experience for themselves the culture that fascinated them so much.

The Great Empire of the Dawn was everything they expected and more, much more. The technology of the Essosi empire was generations more advanced than that of the Novii Empire. Their people physically had many similarities with them but in personality they were very different, the people of Dawn were warm and open-minded. The novii were welcomed with open arms, the locals were friendly and warm, something that surprised them a lot because they grew up in a culture that taught them to distrust and in many cases hate everything foreign.

The novii fell in love with The Great Empire of the Dawn and after several years when they returned home they talked about all the wonders they experienced there to their friends and family. That caused more people to leave the Novii empire to venture into foreign lands, not only that; those same novii began to worship foreign gods.

Within several generations the northern provinces of the empire had abandoned the strict branch of Novism for a more lax and permissive branch, which they called Dawnian Novism. In Dawnian Novism Nova is the mother of the gods of the Dawn pantheon (something like Gaia in the Greek pantheon), it was very similar to the the branch of Novism adored in the Kingdoms of the Sunrise sea coast.

This change was not well received by the rulers of the Novii Empire, they saw how this new branch spread like a plague throughout their empire and they did not like it one bit. Not only that, many novii began to adopt a new language, a language that we now call the Old Tongue.

That language consists of the fusion of a dialect of the official language of The Great Empire of the Dawn with influences from the language spoken in the Kingdoms of the Sunrise sea coast (the Sea Speech) and another language called the High Tongue (spoken by the inhabitants of the city-states from the east coast of Essos, today called the Winged men).

Knowing all this, it was not surprising to me that a civil war broke out in the empire.

The books say that the war was started solely for religious reasons, but I can read between the lines and see what others cannot. The rulers of Novii saw their influence diminish as the influence of The Great Empire of the Dawn increased in their territory. They feared losing their positions as rulers.

I don't think that The Great Empire of the Dawn had any intention of annexing the Novii Empire to their domains, if they had wanted that they could have done it much sooner (the military power of The Great Empire of the Dawn was far superior to any other kingdom or empire or so I read).

But paranoia is paranoia.

Novii's rulers banned the new branch and ordered all citizens to return to their roots, the traditional Novism. Those who did not comply, which were many, were killed.

The resulting war was horrific, books recount brothers killing each other, wife against husband, friend against friend, father against son.

The next part, the end of the war and the reason why the First Men left their home is quite unreal even for me. But as I said before, I can't deny anything for lack of more information.

They say that the goddess Nova, horrified by the bloodshed, went to the mortal World in the middle of the bloodiest battle of the civil war. She rebuked her followers and ordered them to lay down their weapons. Before leaving she told the supporters of Dawnian Novism that she was ashamed of them, and she could no longer call them her children.

Thus ended the war.

After that divine intervention all supporters of Dawnian Novism felt remorse and shame, as a result they left Ulthos.

The book mentions that Emperor Zuko offered them a place in his empire but they refused and continued to migrate until they reached the Last Land, a land untouched by man and inhabited by giants and mysterious little creatures.

The last thing that is said about the Novii Empire is that after the exiles left, the rulers had a wall built around the empire to definitively isolate it from the rest of the world so that something like this would never happen.

They called it the Southern Wall.