To visit the Eptemians in time is like to visit the very cradle of civilisation as we know it, in terms of perfections and aspirations, for it was here that truly modern culture was to be born. Or so at least are the assertions of many historians, who look upon the southern cultural basins and developments on the western continent before it with less favourable eyes. The great empires of Haradicoh in the near south and Iwy-apum in the distant east are especially looked upon as the birth of great cultures and peoples of course, yet theirs was a natural progression of the social hierarchical instinct, in which one man would rule all, regardless of his ability, wisdom, or conscience. Though lavish in their expressions, their social infrastructures were rigid and brittle to great movements of power, so much so that progression of ideals was often difficult without great conflict within each. And yet although the Eptemians equally had their flaws and failings, it was here that ancient democracy and liberal philosophy were first developed for all. Despite the religious revolutions originating in Gallerea, whose noble expoundings were later deeply politicised and dogmatised, the idea of individual freedom of self with the betterment of society had its roots in early Eptemia, and that is why it interests us so.
It is also because the very first seed of the Corianth Empire was planted from here, through Eptemia's founding of a seeming insignificant colony named Eiom. Although there were other great centres of thought and of learning throughout all of Eptemia, such as the majesty at Xios and the honour of our founding Delophis, it was the enlarged trading post at Eiom that sprouted the first bloom of Corianth culture under the later Emperor Sephis, whose blossom gave rise to a magnificent empire that would rise so importantly after the Middle-Ages. And as our Later-Age culture takes on new flower, we now look more deeply at that first root, Eptemia.
Of course, as every schoolchild knows, Eptemia was shaped by the Early-Age culture we know as Haradicoh, and its ancient capital lies under the tenement buildings and heavy industrial complexes of Kariandari in Alithidel. The people of Haradicoh were the real influence of all forms of learning that was passed on to Eptemia, for those later peoples to turn to their own. Yet whatever the perceived faults of the Haradican system of life and of government, its jewels cannot be surpassed. It was here that mathematics was born, and with it, astronomy, the beginnings of all science, and a great appreciation of the arts that would so bewitch our Eptemian forebears. Dazzled in learning and highly advanced, the Haradicans developed through a pair of millennia to become a civilisation far greater than the world had seen before. As those first developments arose in their early beginnings, little stood to prevent the immense spread and high achievement of the Haradicans as they easily became the dominant peoples about the perimeter of the Hamasen Sea.
Yet it was in this that the early foundations of Xios, Delophis, Argar, and others had their making. Taking control of the great island of Ocros, the fleet of Haradicoh built up the seaport of Nazimah, using it as a base to expand into the lands we now call Old Eptemia.
Trading with the native peoples, the Haradicans spread their learnings of culture and shared them freely with a people they had wished to befriend, manipulating their minds towards building great trade centres of their own, whose transactions with the Haradican cities produced a route to great profit for both peoples. Pottery, especially as an industry, appeared through both separate groups, the Eptemians mastering better the techniques and styles of Haradican craftsmen in time, as the Eptemian wares became more sought after and at higher prices after only a few centuries of development. Indeed, it was priceless crafts that saved the Eptemians and their culture, as the winds of change then literally blew upon the Haradicans.
Around the later years of the ninth century BLC (Before Lionine Calendar), a dramatic change in environmental weather patterns deprived their culture of much needed seasonal rainfalls, parching the green as their lands dried to desert. This still as yet unknown global event left the Haradicans without crops as a terrible famine began in their lands as the rains continually failed. Desperate and in need of insufficient supplies abroad, the dwindling powers of the kings of Haradicoh began to fragment completely, as within two centuries their entire civilisation collapsed into anarchy and poverty. Extensive erosion caused by mass overgrazing stripped the leaching soil from its fragile growing pastures, while storm followed drought in a way violent as never seen before. As the Haradican culture fragmented and withered with age to complete collapse, Eptemia was left after as the master of the Hamasen's waters. Accelerating the Haradican downfall was the due control and war over the shipment of grain, as the Eptemians saw their chance for power and took it easily. Straining more to aspire to Haradican's riches the Eptemians built faster their cities, draining Haradican gold and their last strength of being through catastrophic wars.
In doing so, the Eptemians soon found themselves spreading quick through the world with their own strange mix of local lore blended with Haradican culture, until a greater child was soon birthed of their development. And as Eptemia expanded and defined its boundaries, its cities working mostly in alliance with one another against Haradican masters, a people we call the Thos were displaced and made to migrate north-eastwards.
The Thos, as a bronze age people, would see greater glory when they sided with Sephis in those later centuries, joining in a bold alliance of might with then Eiom, defeating Ithraya and founding the Corianth Empire. Again the child would destroy its own parent. For as Irrax claimed to have founded Delophis, so did Delophis found of Eiom, who would become known as the City of Corianth. And just as Delophis had fought Irrax for independence, so Corianth fought both of them in bloodier centuries.
Yet as the early Eptemians found themselves developed beyond recognition from a barbarian race, so it was then that they stopped for measure of self-identity, and while contemplating so, became the master of politics, philosophy, and art beyond the direction and vision of Haradicoh. And as the Eptemians realised each other's position, so did the terrible battling for supremacy and might begin between its lead city-states. So it was that early Eptemia, as Haradicoh had known it, fragmented into two, the one remaining known as Eptemia triumphing under the leadership of the cities of Xios and Delophis, while then Ithraya was formed from those who rebelled after with Irrax, their later capital. Then came the two-hundred years of incessant warfare that would lead to Eptemia being absorbed whole under Ithraya, in that time becoming known as the Ossienic Empire, before that polished culture was torn apart from the ever increasing sense of self-identity among its cities and nobles, imbued with that sense of independence that early Eptemian thought had developed.
It was during those days of intellectual animosity after the birth of the Ossienic Empire, that the once trading post of Eiom was founded proper by colonists fleeing Delophis, when the monotheistic religious persecutions began. Influenced by the varied recorded teachings of Iescu of Mezraheda, whose interpreted ideologies preached in Shalem, had violently erupted among the masses in Gallerea, the rulers of the Ossienic Empire enforced a single state religion upon all its lands and dominion. Just as Gallerea suffered failed revolt during the time of Iescu, so was that sense of Eptemian polytheistic nationhood also ripped apart in a series of wars and rebellions. By the time a lasting order was restored, many Eptemians had fled to overseas colonies, or else to safe enclaves within nearer kingdoms of changeable and sometimes dubious association with the Ossienics. When later the imperial Ossienic overlordship was destroyed, Eptemia regained something of its independence and identity, albeit irrevocably changed. And among its principalities grew stronger an anti-Ithrayan feeling, that first and last bastion of Ossienic strength, and long periods of open warfare began against it, crippling Eptemian development as raid and siege followed counter-raid and counter-siege.
All the while this occurred, King Minan of Irrax made the fateful mistake of challenging Eiom and its smaller city states for control of their trade and industry of metals in their possession. Having only just themselves recovered after a major civil conflict, the settlements that Eiom had established remained under a shaky peace. King Minan's threat was taken badly, drawing the Eiomites again to some recalcitrant sense of wholeness, as they sent out their own facing force under the remarkable leadership of Sephas Corianthos. Although against overwhelming odds, the Eiomites carried old Eptemian resolve to face a foe whatever, while the Thos peoples were drawn by subterfuge and misleading pleading by Sephas to join into a war not necessarily theirs. As the armies approached, Sephas carried stern resolution against the Ithrayan demands. With this complaint did Sephis stride out and defeat the Ithrayan armies in a series of stunning victories.
When Eiom and its own cluster colonies found themselves allied to the Thos however, many revoked the authority of Sephas, believing wild tales and propaganda from greedier nobles who saw Sephas as a rival to their own authority, especially King Emeris himself, who had succeeded through usurpation, his own rule only established after his successful campaigning in their own earlier civil war. As very Eiom closed the gates against the man they had sent out to defend them, they now defended themselves against a man who would be Emperor.
Few need reminding of the drama of the Siege of Eiom, where claimed insane Emeris perished, with his son and last of his blood, and Sephas' later bargaining for the allegiance of Eiom's won colonies, combining with the military strength of the Thos under his direction.
As Sephis joined in treaty with Eptemia, drawing help and support from various kingdoms in Alithidel also, that desert land of humbled people who succeeded the fallen luxuries of Haradicoh, so did Sephis lead again to victory against Ithraya, storming the city of Irrax, and slaying King Minan, gaining the possession of the vast Ithrayan Kingdom. As he consolidated his gains among the possessions of Eiom, the lands of the Thos, and defeated Ithraya, so he began the first forgings of what would be called the Corianth Empire.
And as he did so, he insisted on one faith for one empire: that of the once lowly Church of Omicron, a schismatic and generally contemporarily regarded heretical group, based upon the teachings of Iescu, as disseminated by Vaul, that now Emperor Sephis re-founded new illustriously as the Order of Omicron. Ironically, that first Emperor Sephis, descended from those who had once fled monotheism, thereby sealed it irrevocably upon not simply the kin of once refugees, but upon a whole spread of people who if they even heard of Iescu, had an often radically outlook, and they would suffer for this in later years, especially during the reign of Emperor Polithos.
That empire, that achievement our since better democratised civilisation has long since evolved from, had all of its first foundings in the ideologies of ancient Eptemia. This here, then, is a collection of myths and tales that helped shape those peoples from that proud series of nation states, Eptemia.
