History of Tairghol

The world which contains the continent of Tairghol is the afterlife of humanity, and of other sentient creatures from different worlds. The continent named Halcyonia, a massive land three times the size of Eurasia, is the ancestral home of humanity in this world.

The state of humanity in Halcyonia is very different to that on Earth. For one thing, immortality is prevalent on the continent. This is mostly due to the unity of the land - the lack of war on Halcyonia, and the presence of a single centralised Halcyonian government, causes every resident to live forever, preserved as they were in the prime of their previous life. Another interesting facet of Halcyonian life was the Language of Death - every resident of the continent was able to understand one another despite seeming to speak their own languages.

The central government of the continent has traditionally been a council of twelve souls, ruling democratically and coming into and out of power depending on the influence of their home culture on Earth. This means Greeks ruled during Antiquity, followed closely by Latins, and so on.

Events in this afterworld have an effect on ours, mostly in terms of what is considered correct; the right course of events. The twelve governmental figures often filter back to Earth, to be perceived as gods. The Greek Pantheon is a product of the Halcyonian government of the time, which in turn is composed of humans who lived in the very early stages of Antiquity.

## Tyrant’s War

This peaceful state of affairs changed greatly in the year 30BC. The government of the time was deposed by a single Abrahamic individual. Known on Earth as God, he ruled ruthlessly for one and a half thousand years. Immortality was preserved through this dictatorship, given its lack of opposition.

At the turn of the 17th Century, humans began to enter Halcyonia with radical new ideas. On Earth at this point, the idea of a single infallible ruler was beginning to waver and crumble, with many common folk second-guessing their tyrannical monarchs. On Halcyonia, these people quickly made their voices heard, and sentiments began to swing against God, or as he is known in Halcyonia, the Tyrant.

In what we would call the year 1683, tensions came to a head and war broke out. The Tyrant’s War raged for twenty years, resulting in the death of the Tyrant and the loss of immortality on the continent. Ever since, Halcyonia has been a war-torn hell, with petty warlords ensuring the state of peace Halcyonia once had, a pipe dream.

## Halcyonian Flotilla

But all was not lost for humanity. During the war, many became disillusioned with the war effort, and decided to leave Halcyonia forever. This fleet, known as the Halcyonian Flotilla, was comprised of thousands of ships from dozens of different cultures. Led by charismatic figures who have faded into legend or history on Earth, these pioneers sailed south from Halcyonia and found the new continent of Tairghol in the year we would call 1700AD.

This new continent was spotted by a lookout on the Mediaeval Scottish carrack Auld Alasdair, and given the name ‘Tìr Ghol’, meaning ‘Gravelly Land’ in Scots Gaelic. In other Tairghol cultures, this name has been translated to similar ends.

Due to the Flotilla’s departure from Halcyonia, the Language of Death gradually faded over the trip. By the time the Flotilla reached Tairghol, what had set out an organised fleet under a single language had become a mess of ships, some understanding others and many misunderstanding the rest.

The flotilla came to Tairghol in an area now known as Nagrejgi Bay, and began to separate, splitting into smaller fleets with common languages or cultures. The Celts, Slavs, and Tatars all headed east along the coast as the Eastern Fleet , the Greeks, Persians, and Romans went inland along the Flentia River as part of the Flentia Fleet, and the East Asians and Babylonians headed west along the Vasterland coast as part of the Vasterlands Fleet.

## Temporal Issues

From here on, time gets a bit difficult. On Earth, the year would be just after 1700. However, this fact is unknown to most on Tairghol. In Halcyonia, the concept of time is only measurable by the testament of those newly arriving from Earth. Like religion, time as an idea is inconceivable in Halcyonia. It did, however, spring back into being when immortality was lost.

The original measure of time for the people of Tairghol was from the departure of the fleet from Halcyonia (DH). Later on, the datum for humans in central Tairghol would be given as the collapse of Sardan and the beginning of the Fifty Year War (CE). In other areas, more obscure datums were used. These range from the deaths of rulers to the cycles of the seasons. The datum which will be used from here is the CE measure, in which 0CE aligns with 2400AD, putting the colonisation of Tairghol at 600BCE.

## Age of Migration

The three fleets formed the initial, and by far the greatest, wave of human settlers on the continent. Two smaller waves, the Gehemnians and the Negarans, came much later on and can thus be ignored in this early history. Humanity settled this massive continent sparsely, quickly losing overall cohesion even within the same cultural groups. The concept of a nation-state was tossed by the wayside as individual settlements began to rise to prominence - a continent full of city-states.

The main opposition these settlers faced was the People. These were the natives of the continent, just as humans were the natives of Halcyonia. Initially the People varied slightly across the continent, communicating and interbreeding between their various nomadic tribes.

When humanity arrived, they began to force the People out of habitable areas. The People fled to the high, dark places of Tairghol - the mountains, forests and deserts, where humanity could not pursue them. Cut off from one another, they began to adapt to their new environments. This is what makes the People fundamentally different to humanity - while the latter are slow to evolve but quick to learn, the inverse is true for the People. They stick by their same ways and customs, but evolve within decades to more efficiently achieve their goals.

Initially there was an uneasy peace between the People and humanity in many places. However, this peace did not last. The Isfelian Plains was the first place for war to flare up - Chinese settlers on the plains managed to agitate the native Running Men by refusing to abide by their customs during diplomatic meetings, and were wiped out within a decade of landing. The next group of human settlers to call the Plains their home, the Dalforeans, discovered evidence of this war and eradicated every last trace of the Running Men over dozens of campaigns spanning centuries of warfare.

In other places the People simply lay down and took the beating. When human numbers reached a critical mass and ambition began to flare once more, nation-states began to rise again in the form of Kharos and Reme. Both of these nations mercilessly bullied the races of the People to gain legitimacy, land, and natural resources. Over time, though, the People hardened and grew to resent this treatment. In the year 345CE, just over a thousand years after the first humans landed on Tairghol, the Great Gap occurred. This event is considered to mark the end of early history, and the beginning of modern history.