Chapter Three: A New World

So. Thus far, you know the story of this as a world once ruled by humans. A world which was thrown on its head, after they ignored the signs that it was collapsing around them as a result to their own ignorance that they needed to balance their desires with the impact it had on the surrounding systems that nothing can be taken without a price, in this case a very heavy and exacting one, being extolled.

You have heard of the Omnitrophs, the great beasts who were a seemingly mythical blend of plant and animal that nature created, and who were creatures not only designed for the purpose existing in the world man left behind after half the survivors left seeking a new world, and half stayed behind to fix what their civilization had broken, but were meant to thrive on this new supercontinent. A stage which marked the end of days for the last of the Verdantists, and which is the place where the last large autotrophs and Heterotrophs met their end, before being replaced by the smaller autotrophs and Heterotrophs who had no need to compete for resources or land, as they required fewer resources for sustenance. An unspoken agreement, which as I said, allowed them to continue evolving, up until the point that they began understanding the basics of spoken and written language. A socially agreed building block by most, for true civilization, as they rose from their feral roots, and in a true enlightened sense of curiosity, began taking stock of the world around them.

For instance, you had in the northeast, the groundhogs. A race of marmots whose history truly was quite fascinating, even from its earliest days. They began as one of the most tribal and ritualistic of all the races. A fact which is still true even to this day, they live in tribes led by the Weemuskhan. A matriarchal leader, who is more than just the tribe's head. She is the tribe's chief, their counselor, and their advisor on all things from military to medicine, to social affairs.

According to history, it was the first Weemuskhan, Agata Digpath, who led her people to settle amidst that same mountain range which formed when the West coast of the British Isles and Eurasia collided with the East coast of North America. A region with such harsh winds and such bitterly cold temperatures that it was named the Bristlespines by the new inhabitants of this world, as just spending a few hours there was enough to send chills to your most sensitive extremities, it would stiffen your muscles, and send constant, 'bristles up your spine,' because the wind was so sharp and the weather was so bitterly cold.

Even members of Agata's own tribe, thought she was crazy for wanting to bring her people to such a place. They believed there was no need to expand their horizons beyond the warm fields and prairies they had known for all their lives. They claimed, it made no sense to go beyond what was safe, just for the sake of exploration. The consequence of this, you then had two factions, the traditionalists and the Agatan Disciplist groundhog, which developed and branched out. The traditionalists, a faction who stuck with the old ways, and who saw no need for change. The Agatan Disciplist, those who were marked by their decision to take a chance as they followed Weemuskhan Agata on her trek of exploration, up into the Bristlespines. A place where they not only discovered new ways of living by building a vast, networked, underground community, as means of staying warm and out of the elements; but also, where they learned new ways of working and supporting themselves. For see, it was the Agatan Disciplist groundhogs, who then introduced mining and the knowledge of metalcrafts into the world of Mintara. A craft which came to be dearly appreciated by their soon-to-be allies the lizards. For while it was true the lizards of the south who inhabited that desert region which formed after the head of Africa filled in the Gulf of Mexico, were experts at hunting and tracking; what also was true, was that they did not have access to any of the pristine and perfect metals which were mined from the mountain by the Agata disciplist groundhogs. Rather, what the lizards had to use was stone and sticks, and flawed metals. Things which served their purpose once or twice, but which were in the end, too brittle, to properly serve the lizards in their daily necessity of the hunt.

To compensate, the lizards initiated what could be called the first trade alliance of Mintara.  In trade for a share of finished metalworks, the lizards gave in turn, salt, to the groundhogs. An undervalued commodity to some, that then was highly prized to the groundhogs. As it meant they could not only preserve their meals longer, but also, they did not have to light their homes and mines with dangerous oil-fueled torches.

Instead, they now had electroconductive salt crystals, that they used to light their cities and their mines. A change in lifestyle, which made not only life much easier and much safer for the groundhogs. It in turn, also made life easier for the lizards, who did not have to fear that their brittle hunting weapons would break, after every single hunt.

Truthfully, the only ones who were left out of this, and who amazingly were glad to be left out, were the otters. A highly devout but political race, who first set foot in the marshlands which once were a region that would have been recognized as the Brazilian Amazon, but which now are known as Solmani Marsh; after having been led there by two otter siblings named Ana and Tan. The prophets of Balan, as they were called, who we know hardly anything about, other than they were the first leaders of a unified otter society. We do not even know their birthplace or their hometown. We only have evidence derived from what has been found in oral tradition left by the original otter pilgrims who followed them, and who helped to settle the area of Solmani Marsh where a large number of their descendants still live, even in modern times. According to what is written here and what has since been passed down, Ana and Tan were not from any of the riverside otter settlements which preceded the establishment of a single, unified otter state. It is believed, instead, that they may have come from a long-forgotten city-state called Musteladonia. A nation where all weasels were said to have lived peacefully and prosperously, until the day it collapsed into ruin. Ana and Tan, these otters believed, then were but a handful who escaped the demise of the city, and who now were here, to lead the disunified tribal otters in a project of reviving the glory of weasel culture in a new promised land, before it faded away and was forgotten to time, forever.

To this day, the capital city of Gracebrooke, is still considered the greatest manifestation of that dream. The first unified city built by the otter tribes, it became the seat of power for a five-part lineal government represented by the children of Ana and Tan. You had in the highest seat, Premiana, Ana's eldest, who was the Lod'zhak. The 'lodge overseer,' in basic Mintaran, whose job it was to not only be an image of strong and fair leadership to the people, but to also oversee the heads of the four other departments, and to make sure they were operating with honesty and efficiency. These four heads who were monitored, were Premiana's second youngest sister Gloriana, who oversaw welfare and of tending to the social issues and needs of the citizens. Her youngest sister, Belayana, who oversaw city records and of preserving the history of otter culture. Her eldest cousin Sheldton, who managed security affairs and who was head of the Otterian military. And Giltan, Premiana's younger cousin, who oversaw managing taxes and of managing the Otterian economy.

The Pentarchy as this system in its entirety was called, stood for a symbolic model of the same type of calculating and micro-managing government power structure, which was believed to have made the weasel nation-state of Musteladonia so successful. Nothing went unmanaged. The core pillars of society each had a janitorial head to look after them. And above these janitorial heads, there was one overseer to ensure no corruption or mismanagement occurred. Something which was important to the otters, because to them, order was everything. They even built their capital, Gracebrooke, in a design of three socially separate tiers, to not only ensure a sense of social order in the structure, but to also replicate physically, the design of Musteladonia itself. A proud monument, which showed how they not only wanted to keep alive the ideals which had made Musteladonia successful, but they quite literally wanted to rebuild the city itself in the marshes of Mintara. A task which while difficult on its own, was one they found further complicated when they realized they had the lizards of the Aguanada desert as neighbors to the south, the traditionalist groundhogs as neighbors to the East, and the Agatan disciplist groundhogs as neighbors to the North.

For the otters, it frustrated them that they had to share the continent of Mintara with so many confusing, and what seemed to them as backward, cultures. To them, two things were at the center of everything. Balan the creator, the deity they believed who had led Ana and Tan to their promised land of Solmani Marsh, and the Pentarchy, the blessed five who as descendants of Ana and Tan were and still are, the high government council that they looked to for guidance and order in everything. There was nothing more important to an otter, than these two things. They did not and could not understand how any other race, could see things any differently. And honestly, it terrified them when, for instance, they tried to comprehend why a race such as the lizards would choose to be nomadic instead of settling in one place. To the otters, a nomadic lifestyle meant you had no roots of origin, for which to claim your own. You did not know, as they put it, "where the source-waters to your life's river began, nor where it ended." A notion which was particularly important in otter culture, because they had already been exiled once after the collapse of Musteladonia. An event which left them in perpetual fear of it ever happening again, and which left them unable to reconcile how anyone could manage to successfully live in co-existence with the chaos in their lives. Especially, when in what were considered some of the harshest and most unforgiving environments in all Mintara.

  To the otters, it was simply an impossible and irreconcilable idea, that this could be possible. They feared the lizards and the otters, because they did not understand how they could live this way. They reviled them because they thought of them as uncivilized savages, and this fear, envy and enmity they held, forged a vicious concoction of volatile emotions which was so powerful, it caused the otters to remain fiercely opposed to joining the groundhogs and the lizards in their trade alliance. A position they held, for several decades, until two siblings from the martens, another weasel race, arrived aboard a ship named the "Hoarfrost's Halberd." Those moments just before they arrived, then being the moments when we will end this introduction to the world of Mintara with, as we find them on the island the isle of Jutfaang. Each still unaware, of the impact their stories, their travels, and their lives, would have in the shaping of Mintara. The world of tooth and claw.