Avave: A History

[James]

Avave: A History
By Tomas Arwood

Foreword

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The land of Avave is a land of the most wonderful of wonders, the most mysterious of mysteries and the bleakest of the bleak. It is a land only half known to us; the west unknown to the races of men and it is a land full of wonderful and terrifying creatures. This book is to try and document some of the history and quirks of this land.

I warn you now to read with an open head for this book is merely a flow of consciousness and has no sense of conventional structure. Being both one of the Riverfolk and an Arwood, organisation is not one of my strong points. To make matters worse I made no attempt of organising this, the book itself is purely for the benefit of future Arwood education. And finally I am not the next Peeter Drifttide, whose work can be found within the libraries of even the mountain halls of the Rafkar Empire. I merely hope that what I have written is both eligible and understandable.

What is included in this book is my knowledge from my travels as a young man and the knowledge of those foreign people who come to reside in the Riverlands in search of both peace and quiet, which are against Man’s popular belief, two different things. You will find details on the race of men, on religion and military, on history and geography and towards the end on far less interesting things like fish and leaves, which will bore Men, but not us, Riverfolk, who are the intended audience of this book.

- Tomas Arwood

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[James]

Map of Eastern Avave:

((When I get hold of a scanner!))

[James]

((So while working on Phantoms (which Chapter Six is nearly done), I'm going to be working on my own fantasy world at the same, known as Avave. This will be a collection of information on that world in the guise of a history book written by one of the Riverfolk, Tomas Arwood.

First post, which I'm about to write, will explain who the Riverfolk are, and the other races of the world.))

[James]

On the Races of Men

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Today on Avave, there are three separate branches of men who reside in different parts of the land. Along the coast, under the mountains, by the rivers and on the plains reside the group known as Man, who considers themselves the purest of the races. Within the valley of the Riverlands, we Riverfolk dwell by the small rivers that meander through the valley. And in the cold north, living a meagre existence, the Capils reside in solitude. All of us share differences and similarities in appearance and all of us have a common ancestry.

Man did not always dwell in Avave but rather upon the island of Oras, a large island that lies forgotten now to the east of Avave. It was there where the race of Man first began to take form. A creature, unlike and yet like us, resided in the heavily dense forests of the island. In a land full of dangerous creatures, this Man-like creature quickly became strong and intelligent. For reasons still unknown, this creature left the forest, which had become it kingdom and descended into the island. Four different branches of men would evolve from here, although only three of them would cross to Avave.

Riverfolk

Both Man and Capils consider the Riverfolk, to be the weakest of their cousins. We are far smaller than the Capils and our tallest is only of average size to the race of Man. Males can reach up to 5ft 6, but many do not grow beyond 5ft3 and I myself I’m only 5ft 2 in height. Meanwhile females are often only just 5ft tall and neither gender possesses much strength. Having presided most of our lives in either well-built homes or the thick vegetation surrounding rivers we are paler than Man in the east.

This appearance and our love of peace have given us, unfairly, a reputation of being a weak race of people. Indeed some of the more uncivilised of our cousins in the kingdoms of Man refer to us as Reedlings, a mixture of the word Reeds and Weaklings. I suppose to the less intellectual inclined man; this must appear to be very humorous. Despite this unfair image of us we are actually quick and agile, excellent swimmers of course, and of a swift wit (excluding the Damfords and Redstream, obviously).

It is quite evident that when the ancestors of the Riverfolk left the forest, they headed into the valleys and fields to reside by the rivers. Living in relative peace they experienced no great trauma and slowly changed into the race we are today. The only peculiar product of our environment was that our hands and feet were slightly webbed to better move through the water. This need for movement of water have also caused us to become nearly hairless except from quite often splendid locks of hair upon our head.

Man

Man is the most numerous of the races upon Avave and considers themselves to be the rulers of Avave. This belief probably stems back to the island of Oras where Man often beat the other branches in wars while looking for more land. For Man evolved in the fields and plains of Oras, along with some of the more fearsome of the animals, which would slay even the great wolves of Demenid. Therefore they became the diverse race of men that they are today, some tall and some short, some strong and some smart.

I won’t go into detail of Man’s appearances and attributes, since many more have done it better than I ever could.

Capils:

Capils are perhaps the most intriguing of the races of men on Avave and they are also the least numerous being nomadic and wondering in the harsh northern areas of the land. Not that Man or Riverfolk feel much sympathy for them, it’s a rare occurrence when we agree, but the less wondering hairy giants the better for both Man and us.

The Capils are not giant as the old folkstories tell, but rather giants in human scales. I have yet to see a Capil under 6ft tall, and most are around the 7ft mark. Besides being incredibly tall they are also stocky and exceedingly hairy, both helping them from the bitter cold that they survive in. Despite appearing like great hairy brutes, some Capils have been known of great wisdom and I indeed met what they call a Shaman on the border that showed me simple earth magic.

Corrins:

This last name might appear to be unfamiliar for many readers, Corrins having disappeared from history over the past thousand years and indeed even what I have gleamed in my extensive travels have been minimal. All I know is that they were the fourth branches of humanity that remained in the forest but out of the trees. The only descriptions compare them to four legged spiders, hardly ever standing upright on two feet. They never made it to the shores of Avave and are probably long since extinct on Oras, too weak to fight off the various animals and the Great Evil that drove us to this new land.

It is worth nothing that the Corrins are probably the inspiration to the Corina, the monster that is said to dwell in the mountains to keep children away from them. [/blockquote]