Raeluna History

Clanless Diaspora 

Years 45 - 50. 

By the 45th year of the modern era, the Clanless (or Culled) of Anvardi had become a heated and problematic cultural issue for the Islands of Realuna. The other Cradle Islands had their own internal differences and class divisions, but none so stark as between the Clanned and Culled of Anvardi. The Clans had always treated them as less than human, and unworthy of respect or consideration, even as they unflinchingly used them as their primary farm and labor force. The rulers and people of influence on the other Core Islands often spoke out on the plight of the Culled, and how in an increasingly connected world there was no reason to treat a class of people quite so harshly. The Clans were in some circles condemned as barbaric backwards rulers. Yet over four decades the other Islands had come to treat the Clanless in similar fashion. The preferred solution for undesirable work became a petition to the Clans for use of some of the Culled, and many Core Islanders had purchased the release of Culled work gangs from the Anvardi Clans.   

A growing number of the Culled, for their part, had been eager to get off the Island when they became aware of places they could go where no Clans existed to heap mistreatment, repression, and cruelty upon them. Thus there were always groups of such disaffected Clanless that the Clans could offer to a foreigner looking to acquire workers. In this way the Clans carefully rid themselves of potentially annoying groups of dissenters, and the other Islands gladly picked up cheap labor. They filled many of the same drudgery positions on Nade that they did in the Anvard outlands. Barathi began to use them in the dangerous work of keeping their Kaltvines trimmed, and used them to build many of the interior structures of the Citadel. Culled took up farming positions on cold Iradel, where few wanted to work in the difficult weather. They built roads on Barakeel, Empyrean, and Nade, and constructed the dangerous hanging village on Morayel.  Most often and most egregiously, they were used for trips to the ground as human shields and fodder, with the weak promise of a survivors’ payday. They became the second humans on the ground in the Ang mountains (droppers went first, of course), charged with building the first platforms and dwellings, and later digging the first mines. It is thought that the later Guild structure may have evolved from those early days.

In the time leading up to year 45, far more Culled wanted off of Anvard than were regularly requested by other Islands.  In the first week that year, with the help of foreign sympathizers - or as the Clans would claim, foreign agitators - a group of Culled marched toward the city during a Gate opening to Nade. They claimed a right to emigrate and either seek work or homestead on the large farming Island, which was still allowed in the non-Rathi areas under Baraki rule. The Clans had been letting individual Clanless out without issue, but out of pure cultural conditioning took a dislike to a group of them demanding anything, and hired or instructed the Gorvan Clan to mobilize and stop them. On day 12 of year 45, with the Nade Gate still open, Gorvan Clansfolk slaughtered some 2500 Culled before the main entrance to Anvard City. Anvardi found this to be delicious gossip but utterly unremarkable - foreigners in Anvard were appalled and many fled through the Gate to Nade to spread the alarm of this massacre. 

By the fates of the Gates, word travels slowly in Raeluna. It took until day 23 for the news reach Barakeel and Iradel. By day 59, Morayel knew. Day 172, Vaaris. Day 185, Uldrath direct from Anvard, and in a rare joint appearance the Ulda council and Rathi anax issued the first of many condemnations to the Anvard Clans, which the Clans promptly ignored.  224, Jamerah.  282, Zelix.  One year later only 9 of the 12 Core Islands were aware of the massacre. Empyrean, the last to get the news, heard 581 days after the event occured, 1.8 years later.       

As the Gate openings allowed, outrage was shared and inflamed, and various groups sent messages and messengers to the Clans to protest this wanton killing of such a large and harmless group for simply wanting to travel and work on other Islands. The Avardi Clans found this at first amusing, then annoying, and then worthy of nothing more than chilly indifference. 

At that point in time the Anvardi Clan leaders had a well founded reputation for opacity and their relationships with other Core Island powers-that-be were obtuse at best.  Yet the Gates opened on schedule, big questions always seemed to be answered from somewhere, and commerce and other engagements seemed to work at some level in Anvard, so the other Islands got along with whatever hazy connections they thought they could make. The Massacre of the Culled kicked this complacency over on its head..  The Clans’ slippery shell game in dealing with outsiders had generated significant pent up frustration that likely intensified the collective response that followed.               

Over year 46 the rhetoric escalated, and in late 46 the first overt military alliance in the modern age coalesced between Barakeel, Mehujael, and Uldrath (who always resented the Anvardi for treating them as backwards savages). The Zelixi who paid attention to external matters voiced support, but on the whole were too inward facing and too few in number to participate. Plans were drawn up for an invasion and occupation of Anvard City, with endgames ranging from simply extracting promises of better behavior towards the Culled to a full scale dismantling of the Clan system and a take-over of Anvard. Although it was unclear how much the Arcanists would allow -  a large reason for the lack of inter-Island conflict at any larger scale had been the Arcanist's implicit ability to simply close down the Gates - the plans progressed and large numbers of people were readied for invasion and positioned to the appropriate Islands, primarily Nade. The alliance was not secret, and this transparency was perhaps meant to convince Clan leadership that the rest of the world was serious about their demands. 

The earliest the Clans would have heard about any substantial movement was after an Anvard-Morayel opening on day 36 of year 47. Representatives from the alliance waited on Morayel and delivered an indirect but very implied threat to the Clans. The Anvardi reaction was not surprising. They ignored or blew off any notion that the other Islands would be so foolish. The Gate closed on day 41. 

The next Anvard opening was to Nade on day 75.  With many thousands of alliance fighters formed up on the plains of Nade, the Clans were given direct visual confirmation of the implied threat.  On day 79 Anvard-Barakeel opened, and shortly thereafter the representatives of the alliance obtained straightforward and sober audiences with a number of Clan leaders. In typical Anvardi fashion, even these meetings talked in circles, and no decisions were communicated until the last minute. A day before the Anvard-Barakeel Gate closed on day 134, the representatives were told that Anvard would allow the Culled to migrate. The allies on Barakeel counted themselves victorious, and readied messages to disband the gathering on Nade and elsewhere. Well before these messages could arrive, the Anvard-Nade Gate opened again on day 208, and Nade learned Anvard’s’s true response to being threatened. 

Out stepped a crowd of Culled, seeking better fortunes and spreading out past the Gate. But then more came through, and more. Three thousand came through in the first hour. And kept coming. And then more.  When the flood slowed and those on the Nade side could get through the outflow to pass through to Anvard, they witnessed the Great Hall crammed with Culled, being herded by Gorvan Clan soldiers. They could get no further in the press of bodies, and Culled kept spilling out into the Nade Gatehouse and out into the Baraki encampment and beyond. 

Those near the crowd with the presence of mind to pay attention (and some Anvardi language) gathered that the crowds were involuntary migrants - the Clans of Anvard were rounding them up and forcing them through the Gate. By sundown, the parade of unfortunate Clanless showed no sign of stopping, and the Rathi on Nade, afraid that their villages would be overrun, were begging the Arcanists to close the Gate. The Arcanists refused, and the tide of Culled continued overnight. Sometime after dawn the Nade residents and alliance soldiers began moving temporary barricades in front of the Gate. They succeeded in stopping the flow, only for the barricades to be moved by the Anvardi, and the cycle to repeat. While those at the Gate tried to move objects heavy enough to truly block it, Rathi Orn Riders began herding thousands of Culled away from their own territory. Tramplings and unfortunate clashes happened, and deaths began to pile up. By day 211 the Nade side of the Gate was substantially blocked, and maintained that way for the next 16 days until the Gate closed. It is estimated that 20,000 Culled were forced onto Nade in the two days of unstoppered access.  

Nade struggled to settle the Culled into temporary camps, let alone feed them. Some were taken as workers, some turned to outright banditry and had to be hunted down, some walked to the edge and threw themselves off, driven mad by the forced march to a whole different Island. The alliance forces on Nade were a great help in this regard - if they had not been there far more chaos may have ensued. 

By day 245, when the next Nade Gate opened to Iradel, the Baraki and Rathi were eager to move many of the refugees onward. Iradel, as unprepared as Nade, reluctantly took on at least 6,000 Culled, although in a more controlled fashion. The weather on Iradel being substantially more inhospitable than Nade, the Culled and those obligated to care for them struggled to house and feed them as well. 

Between 260 and 272 Anvard opened to Morayel, an Island controlled by the Anvard Magi Clan. Unbeknownst to the other Islands, Anvard crammed 10,000 Culled into Morayel into the area nearest the Gate with no shelter and barely enough food to last to the next opening.   

On day 276, Nade opened to Barakeel, and the Citadel and AbasDarhan were persuaded to take on some of the Culled as well. Another 5,000 moved to Barakeel, where they were variously sent out among the tribes or put to work on Citadel building projects. Alliance representatives also petitioned the Arcanists of the Citadel to disallow such unbalanced and inhumane forced migration, but the Arcanists seemingly cared only for keeping the Gates open. 

On day 299 the Anvard-Vaaris Gate opened, and the Vaaris Baraki village was immediately swamped with Culled, who began to spread out into Vaaris, a sovereign Ulda territory. Vaaris had not received news of the Nade openings, and they were similarly unprepared. Again the Arcanists were petitioned to close the Gate, and again they refused. Vaaris is a smaller Island than Nade, and at that time still depended on outside food to survive. After several hours and the arrival of many thousands of Culled, the local Ulda took matters into their own hands. A wing of Orn Riders scattered the Culled on the Vaaris side and stepped through to scatter and stop the flow on the Anvard side. They too encountered the Great Hall packed with Culled, herded by Gorvan Clan soldiers. The Orn Riders terrified the crowd, but the press of people from behind drove the crowrd forward into the Orn, and the Orn back through the Gate.       

Now apprised of the situation on the Anvard side, the Orn Riders formed up in more force made space a second time, and several wings of Orn came screaming through the Gate and into the air of the Great Hall. They specifically targeted the Gorvan Clan soldiers and attacked without hesitation. The Culled, in absolute terror and seeing many of their tormentors collapse into bloody heaps, rushed away in every direction, and this panic spilled backwards through the many thousands still lining the city passageways in preparation to be marched through.  

The Orn Riders held the Great Hall for an hour, and Baraki guardsmen entered to back them up. The local tribal leader entered and demanded to talk to Anvardi Clan leaders, but no diplomacy was to take place that day. Phalanxes of Gorvan stormed the Hall and drove out the Vaaris forces, through the Gate to Vaaris, where they took the Gatehouse and bits of the surrounding village. Baraki guardsmen fought them in the streets, with Orn Rider support, while the Culled resumed coming through in droves to run and flee from the fighting. As the Gorvan were being reinforced from the Gate for the third time, the Arcanists were finally persuaded to close the Gate. The Anvardi Gorvan abandoned on the wrong side threw down arms to surrender, but only some of them were left alive by the end of day 299 of year 47.         

On Day 5 of the new year 48 Morayel opened to Iradel. Iradel had already taken on 6,000 Culled from Nade, and were not expecting a flood from unpopulated Morayel. They were unable, though obstruction or force of arms, to stop the crowd, and 10,000 more Culled were herded onto cold Iradel. There was not much of a fighter presence on Iradel - a small troop of Baraki guardsmen and scattered Mehujaeli droppers and Orn Riders - and they did not have the numbers to directly oppose the Gorvan and Magi Clans. After the Culled were through, the Baraki tribal leaders in control of Iradel went through to Morayel to demand answers, and the Magi and Gorvan Clansfolk on Morayel were simply silent. The Gate would remain open until day 19, and Iradel would repeatedly try to send Culled back.  The majority of them refused to go, and the ones that did were chased back through by the Gorvan, often sporting wounds for their trouble.  

The next Anvard opening was to Nade again on day 10 of year 48. Nade was yet unaware that it had come to armed conflict on Vaaris, but did not risk more Culled coming through - the Arcanists indicated that they would open the Gate, so the Nade locals blocked the Gate with tons of rocks and soil, leaving only space for a single person to come through at a high point in the Gate. Eventually, Culled came through one by one and were pulled up and onto Nade. Although _something_ from the Anvard side attempted to push the obstruction away, it held, and the flood of Culled was slowed to a trickle for 10 days. 

On day 20, Nade and Vaaris were close enough to open. The Arcansists followed their natural practice, when one Island is in range of two others, of closing the Gate to one and opening the Gate to the other on alternate days. The Nade side sent one person through to Varis to explain the obstruction, and then of course Nade learned of the bloody events at the last Anvard-Vaaris opening. The Arcanists of Vaaris were able to explain to their Nade counterparts that violence had led them to prematurely shut down an opening. The alliance representatives heard the news from Vaaris and, with encouragement from the Arcanists but without time to ask their home Islands, decided to act. 

They already had plans drawn up.  They already had thousands of men and women on Nade ready to go. They had plenty of provocation to recruit more locals to help. And they all possessed built up righteousness and rage. 

They also knew that Anvard was likely ready for them, and that the tactic seemed to be to flood the Gate with human shields. Anvard was also likely, after the Vaaris experience, to have stationed missile weapons to confound Orn Riders. Nonetheless they prepared the assault. 

Year 48, Day 21: The Anvardi were indeed relying on human shields, and also sealed all but two entrances to the Great Hall.  The alliance weighed the lives of Culled against stopping the Anvard, and came up on the cruel side. They burst through and slaughtered Culled by the dozens, causing terror and making room for their forces. The Gorvan, charged with the defense of the city, put up a fight at the Great Hall but were not expecting so large an assault and in an hour the alliance forces broke out through magics and brute force. While shoring up the Anvard side of the Gate, the alliance forces rushed to take over the main food storage district, the water intakes and cisterns, what they _thought_ were Clan leadership areas. The Gorvan let the alliance members go where they will with only token resistance. Every foreign fighter carried a message for the Anvardi Clans - cease the forced migration, come to the table and talk sensibly, or see your city starved and thirsty. By the end of the day they achieved their objectives (except for capturing any leadership) and delivered this message to anyone who looked likely to deliver it.  

Year 48, Day 22: The Gorvan had simply been waiting to see how many fighters the alliance would send through the Gate, and where they would camp themselves in the city. They have always, like all the Clans, conveyed a sense of mystery about themselves and as such kept their true numbers more or less a secret. Late into the night they fell upon the Great Hall and battled the alliance forces, scattering them to side-halls or back through the Gate. They took and begin going through the Gate themselves, and the battle moved to the Nade Gatehouse. Simultaneously messages were delivered that night to the three camps in the city - the Gate is ours, you are cut off, surrender or be killed to the last fighter.  

The Gorvan, however, did not count on the Arcanists keeping to their normal practice of switching active gates when more than one Island is in range. At dawn of day 22, the Anvard-Nade Gate was closed and the Anvard-Vaaris Gate was opened. Fresh forces flowed in from Vaaris and the Gorvan holding the Nade side of the Gate were taken from behind. Those that surrendered were taken into custody, and Nade/Vaaris forces prepared their next push through the Gate to Anvard for the following day.  

On the Anvard side, the Gorvan were surprised to find themselves with a closed Gate, but quickly understood what was happening. They used the time to divert their numbers to the alliance water-cache and quickly dispersed the forces there, who fled through the city. Although the Clansfolk knew their warren of a city best, the alliance had 48 years of free and encouraged exploration of the place and laid their plans well. Much to the frustration of the Gorvan, they did not flee into any traps or dead ends. But much to the joy of the Gorvan, they always seemed to be one short misstep from annialiation.  The city itself was quite empty - most non-combatants had evacuated outside or to far levels of the city away from the fighting.          

As the evening set in, the other two alliance groups broke out of their Gorvan cordons with much loss of life and roamed the city, alternately herded by and escaping the pursuing Gorvan. This cat and mouse game went on throughout the night, and the alliance forces seemed withered, tired, and stumbling. Near dawn, however, they picked up renewed vigor and rushed the Great Hall from three directions at once. They didn’t take it right away- indeed they were for a few minutes trapped between the renewed Gorvan defense of the Gate and their Gorvan pursuers, but at dawn the Gate opened again to Nade, where more Alliance forces were ready.      

Year 48, Day 23: If the first alliance fighters though on Day 21 represented the vanguard - an exploratory force to see how the Gorvan would react - the dawn of Day 23 saw the main forces push through the Gate. The Gorvan in the Great Hall, now themselves presented with two sides to defend, broke and fled. The alliance forces met up and turned to defend the Gate so that their small army could come through. The day was spent meticulously taking territory adjacent to the Great Hall, sealing certain passages, moving soldiers into advantageous positions, and fending off Gorvan attacks. The Anvardi again adopted a wait-and-see approach. They reasoned that the invasion could only go on for as long as the Gate was open, and that as long as they protected vital parts of the city (the water and food stores were now much better defended) they could afford to simply wait it out and then attack in force when the foes were unable to be reinforced. They focused on sealing up their own passages and bottling up the invading forces to the areas they have already taken.  

Year 48, Day 24: The Anvard-Nade Gate closed again. The day became one of probing attacks, re-sealing broken lines, settling in. The Gorvan attacked and got only so far before they become enveloped and pushed back. The alliance attacked and experienced the same, and were forced to flee into the city and get cut off from their main camp or fall back. As the day wore on, more alliance forces were split. Some tried for the cisterns and food warehouses again, only to be easily rebuffed. A good number were chased from the city altogether and into the countryside, where the Gorvan ignored them until they could be cleaned up later. The job of the Clans would have been much easier if they were able to destroy or cut through the Ancient Ruins that make up much of the structure of the city, but they were unwilling to do so.  The alliance, for their part, also left those structures undamaged even though their own native Islands didn’t have strict prohibitions on harming the Ruins. The night was quiet - the fighters were exhausted and both sides seemed content to wait it out. 

Year 48, Day 25: The Gate opens, and the last of the alliance forces entered the Great Hall and occupied Anvardi territory. It was the last day the Gate would be open. There were fewer skirmishes than Day 24, although the alliance forces made three big attempts to break containment and push upwards into the city. Two were rebuffed but one managed to capture some wealthy Clansfolk and bring them back. The Clans perhaps laughingly wondered if the alliance thought they had captured themselves some leaders, but the Clans also then demanded that the Gorvan reinforce the upper passages. At dusk, the alliance made its biggest move: not upward, but out and down. They threw everything in one direction, broke containment, and  - fighting all the way - marched their small army out of the city and into the countryside. The Gorvan quickly retook the Great Hall, only to find the Gate again blocked on the Nade side with what seemed like a wall of rock. There in front of the Gate was a message from the alliance to the leaders of Anvard: cease the forced migration, come to the table and talk sensibly, or the pain will continue. 

The few observers who could report on such things later said that the Anvardi Clans laughed off the message. Although the body count was high, and damage and disruption to the city extensive, the Gate would be closed for another 108 days and the alliance forces were trapped on the Anvard side. Their attitude seemed to be that they had answered the impertinence of the other Islands (by forcefully giving them what they wanted - Culled migration), easily withstood a violent response (without any lasting damage to their city or Island), and forced the other Islands to treat the Culled in the same way for which they had excoriated the Anvardi (the alliance killed about 1000 Culled in their initial attack). They could now simply use Nade’s tactic of blocking the Gate with a sufficiently large stone to prevent further attacks, and clean up the defeated and isolated alliance forces.   

The Clans, historians would argue, failed to take into account the number and nature of the trapped interlopers. Although Gorvan Clan members were quite skilled in City policing and could push the Culled around the countryside without issue, the bulk of alliance forces (about 4000 of them) were Baraki nomadic tribesmen, well used to living and fighting on the move. Mehujeali dropper teams formed specialized units within the guerrilla force, and no one had accounted for the number of Orn Riders who came through the Gate and escaped onto the Island. For the next 108 days, the alliance forces ran rampant through the Anvard countryside, a roving menace to “civilized” Clan villages and outposts and a ready source of insurrection training to willing Culled groups. The foreigners disrupted food shipments, shut down most Clan business outside the city, and generally got the better of any Gorvan troops sent out to deal with them. Anvardi self sufficiency as an Island became a weak point, in that the alliance force would also be able to sustain itself indefinitely. Any hopes that Anvard could simply kill them off over time and win by attrition were dashed when larger groups of trained Culled began to overrun undermanned Gorvan patrols and barracks.  

Away from Anvard, on day 66 to 79 Nade was reinforced from Barakeel. 

On Day 73 Morayel opened to Empyrean and alliance forces came through to Morayel. The Anvardi Magi Clan seemed to make quick work of the more mundane invaders, but many alliance magi and mystics made it through and spread out around the Island. On Day 78 Morayel became open to Nade and a greater number of alliance forces came though. After two days of fighting the alliance decisively took over the Island on Day 80.  

On Anvard, another Anvard-Nade opening approached at day 133.  On Day 120 the Anvardi Clans asked the Arcanists to intervene as arbiters to settle the conflict, either out of a sense of defeat (as alliance historians would claim) or an intelligent decision to cut their losses (as Anvardi would claim). 

Later witnesses reported that the highest pressure felt by the Clans was the dissolution of the Culled underclass. The Clans were clearly willing to sacrifice, give away, or migrate by force a great many Culled, but (with the alliance forces encouraging and training the Culled) the Clans began to foresee an end to Culled subservience, and therefore the end of Clan structure altogether as the underlying labor disappeared. 

It took another few days for the Arcanists to find the alliance leaders and get them to the table. In exchange for the alliance forces leaving Anvard, the Anvardi would sign a pact with the Arcanists regarding their treatment of Culled, including true freedom of movement between Islands. The alliance, for their part, would need to keep the Culled already migrated and agree to take on more, primarily those they had trained and motivated to rise up against the Clans. The Clan leaders guessed (without knowing of course) that the alliance had likely taken Moyarel, and bargained with the alliance and Arcanists to get it back. The Arcanists agreed that the small Island could come back under Anvardi Magi Clan control as long as they built a place for magi from all the Islands to come and train - thus the Collegium of Magi was founded. The Arcanists also clarified their stance on Gate closures - they would only close the Gates if they felt that the existence of humanity on an Island was in danger.   

It would take the rest of year 48, and years 49 and 50 for the various agreements to reach fruition and for the alliance forces (and more Culled) to totally vacate Anvard. It seemed like a victory for the alliance Islands because the Anvardi blinked first, but in the end the Anvardi still managed to thin their own dissident population by turning them into a burden for the other Islands. This was close to the status quo before the incidents, and the Anvardi viewed it in retrospect as a victory for Anvardi Clan cunning. The other Islands, although awash in resource-straining migrants, viewed the engagement as a success as well.  The alliance was a new bond between them, and they prosecuted a military engagement with another Islands through a Gate, which heretofore was thought to be impossible.  Many great minds went to work dissecting the tactics and strategies.          

In the end about 40,000 Culled moved off of Anvard, between the forced migrations and the after-treaty movement.  In addition to Iradel, Vaaris, Nade, and Barakeel, many of them moved to largely unpopulated Empyrean. The rough and ready trainees from the occupation time largely rode Angbol down to the Ang mountains, there to help their brothers scratch out an existence on those bleak peaks. Over time, the migrated Culled would become the “everyman” of the Islands - with no pride in having been Clanless the bulk of them redefined themselves as part of their new home Islands.  Whereas a Baraki family on Empyrean might still retain their Baraki identity, the Culled on Empyrean would simply call themselves Empyrean.    

Roughly 5000 culled, 1000 Gorvan Clan fighters, and 2100 alliance fighters were killed. A small memorial to all of them sits near the Gate on Nade, as the Clans would never allow it in the Great Hall of Anvard, where most of them died.      

Some of the Culled were settled to the fertile but sparsely populated Outer Island Alfinel. Early explorers found easy farming on the reportedly wide and fertile soil of Alfinel but, with Nade open to early settlers at the same time, Alfinel's 3.4 year cycle did not place it high on the list of colonization targets right after the first Gate openings. 

In year 54 a sizable contingent of Gorvan Clan left Anvard for unknown reasons.  Their passage through Nade and Vaaris had to be brokered through the Arcansists given the hard feelings about the year 47/48 hostilities. They ended up joining the Culled already on Alfinel. No one has any direct reports of what was said or done at that meeting. Some say they offered their services defending the Island if the Culled would allow them to stay and produce food and shelter for them. Others say they enslaved the Culled in retaliation for the events of the diaspora. No one can know - since the year 54 Alfinel has been closed to all outsiders. The Gorvan from Alfinel today are known simply as The Habri (the name thought to be taken from the captain who led the desertion), and are hired as guards and mercenaries throughout the Islands on 3.4 year tours.