"The Tinganjani Seal"
Intro
by Osiris Brackhaus
As every child knows, the nine great realms encompass the
whole world.
From the frozen wastes of the Uzurad to the gleaming spires of El-Allalejn,
there is no territory unclaimed, uncharted.
For most people, the fact that the Desert Cities of the Silver Treaty are the northeastern border to our world is as natural as the sun rising in the east. Beyond, there is nothing but the barren stones of the Endless Wall, the mountain range that comes down from the Uzurad to the north and runs far into the Damoli desert.
If you'd ask the simple man on the streets what he was to see if he ventured into the Endless Wall and beyond, most of them would just shrug, some of the smarter ones would answer that they would probably end up in the forests of Bala'an, on the other side of every map.
Hardly anybody would think that there existed anything worthy of notice between the towering mountains of the Endless Wall.
Among the scholars of the Desert Cities, though, some very few might be able to point out that indeed, a week's ride into the first mountains of the Endless Wall, there was a small trading post, a settlement of a single building where merchants exchanged metal wares for furs and rare herbs with the scattered barbarian nomads that lived up there in the infertile plains. But again, nothing really worthy to mention.
Which was so utterly wrong it actually was amusing again, if only someone had found out.
For the twenty-four tribes of the Tinganjani, as the 'barbarians'
called themselves, were the only thing that protected all life in the nine
great realms, even without knowing themselves.
The infertile plains they lived on was a circular mesa spanning almost a thousand
miles, and since the beginning of memory, the tribes have wandered it with
their herds and families. Guided by their shaman-priestesses, the Sirdai,
they circle around a single, towering mountain in the center of their secluded
world, a pillar they thought to be the home of their Dark God, who they worshiped
and feared at the same time.
Since the beginning of time, it seems, the Tinganjani tribes
have circled the plain, and if ever they knew the cause, it has long since
fallen out of memory. But a guardian who doesn't know of his charge is hardly
ever a watchful one.
It will need a strong and bold spirit to question the old ways, and a wise
one to see that some of them actually have a reason far more important than
anyone could have imagined...
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go to PART 1