dences were constructed beside them.
The Parrosans used the channels
The History of Rombune
The upheaval of the great Cataclysm made vast alterations in the western
coastline of ancient Minaria. Formerly, an arm of the continent called Umiak
extended out into the Great Sea. Into this pleasant subtropical region crowded
many of the empire's Lloroi subjects. It was here that the Emperor held court in
the Imperial capital of Niiawee, it was here that came petitioners from every cor-
ner of the realm, even from faraway Neuth and Vultelina. To Niiawee also came
ambassadors and visiting kings from distant Reiken and Girion.
Alas, by earthquake and inundation Niiawee perished beneath the waters.
When the torn earth quieted, only two sizable fragments of Umiak remained
above the waves -- islands known today as Skull Island and Thores.
Great homeless mobs of Lloroi survived upon these islands, but these citified
refugees adjusted poorly to a scavenger's existence; starvation reigned every-
where and many a wretch degenerated into cannibalism during those first terri-
ble months. But as if the gods demanded even more death, a few years after
the Cataclysm the Punishing Star struck the desert inland. The earthquake, the
"fiery wind," and the tidal wave that followed swept away all but the high moun-
tains of Golkus and Thores, purging the Westward Islands clear of life. As if this
was not enough, the following freezing winters under the sunless "Brown Sky"
reduced the island populations to only a few hundred of the strongest and most
resourceful. When outsiders learned of the drowning of the islanders they inter-
preted it to mean the continuing disdain of the gods for the Lloroi, whose ances -
tors had, in their minds, destroyed the world. This myth gave moral force to the
ongoing persecution of the Lloroi-descendants who survived on the mainland.
Little more can be said of aboriginal people and their descendants on the
islands. Contemporary written records -- mainly those of the city of Kuzdol --
mention the tribesmen only in the context of occasional raids on the islands for
slaves, but these raids did not start until the early Seventh Century.
If any persons had dwelled near modern Parros before the Punishing Star cre-
ated the Crater, they would not have survived. Parros as we know it came to
be two centuries after the Cataclysm when a tribe of vagabonds, driven from the
hunting grounds of the north by fiercer interlopers, came out of the desert. They
found a sweet-flowing spring rushing out of a ring of hills that overlooked a great
bay. The newcomers constructed a wattle and daub village and learned to ply
the sea for food, gradually developing agriculture. The latter became more
important than fishing when they discovered the basics of crop irrigation.
Soon the early Parrosans found that they catching more fish than the local area
demanded. Consequently, enterprising men took wagon loads of salted fish
inland, where it became popular with the desert people -- a great delicacy, in
fact. Developing commerce for fish and other commodities contributed to the
rapid growth of Parros, and also of Zefnar, a town which existed under similar
circumstances farther north. Eventually the Parrosans discovered the great
meteoric iron deposits left by the Punishing Star and Parrosan steel became far-
famed. The metal was believed to neutralize magic and so found great favor
with the makers of protective talismans.
By this time, some 300 years after the Cataclysm, the outlying barbarian popu-
lation had grown large enough to constitute a threat to Parros. In reply, the city-
dwellers rudely fortified the islands at the head of the bay as a refuge in times
of war. These forts formed the nucleus of island communities; shops and resi-
1
between the islands as watery avenues plied by long, graceful canoes called
devos. Tribesmen who visited the city assumed that all of it had originally been
above water and had submerged -- from which fanciful belief comes Parros'
popular name, "The Sunken City."
Like its neighbors, the Trade Cities of the South Plains, Parros began true citi-
hood with a simple civil democracy that evolved into an unstable monarchy, and
then into a merchant-led oligarchy as both internal complexity and outside men-
ace increased. Concurrently, the life of its people steadily improved, as a large
fishing fleet augmented flourishing agriculture. These net-boats plied by fisher-
men were the precursors of the Parrosan merchant marine. Trade with other
peoples of the coast -- including Zefnar to the north -- in time proved more prof-
itable than fishing. When the seventh century after the Cataclysm had dawned,
the classes of Parros were three -- the nobles, the peasants, and the mer-
chants. This last class expanded in direct proportion to Parros' economic
growth; its escalating demands for a voice in the government caused sharp con-
flict with the nobility, who were content to hold office under the weak Parrosan
kingship.
The rivalry exploded in the Sizigar's Day Riot, which allied the merchants with
the peasants. King Voric had to recognize their rights to freehold property and
so broke up the noble estates into many peasant freeholdings. The craven
reaction of the aristocrats to the riots had made this action relatively easy.
When the House of Voric died out in the next century, the kingship itself was
abolished as an unnecessary expense on the taxpayers.
Throughout the seventh and eighth centuries, Parros prospered materially and
culturally. Its daring seafarers forged markets a thousand miles up the coasts
of Minaria and Girion. The pitiable primitives on the islands gave someone the
idea to go into slaving, and expeditions started making raids. It was at this time,
the early Seventh Century, that the Parrosans named the larger of the two sig-
nificant islands after inhabitants, whom they called "the Pale Ones" (Gol-kous in
their tongue); the lesser took the name of the slave-raider Misha Thores. So
rapacious were Thores and other slavers that in just a few generations their
mass kidnapping left the islands almost uninhabited. The few Golkus survivors
retreated into the volcanic hills, shunning the foreigners who continued to put in
on their coasts. It was sorry ending to the only politically-independent Lloroi
community remaining in Minaria. Through its whole six-hundred year existence,
it had never managed to improve upon what one must consider a wretched
hand-to-mouth barbarism. Perhaps it was true that the gods still hated the
Lloroi for their ancient evildoings.
The sailors who afterwards visited the Golkus were not merchants, but worked
at a different trade. The many coves and rugged interior of the island offered
themselves as shelter for pirates. From lofty lookouts and well-hidden strong-
holds the sea-robbers launched forays against Minaria's expanding marine
commerce. As the ninth century came on, pirates brought chaos to every coast
bordering the Great Sea.
Interestingly, no maritime power made a real attempt to nip this menace in the
bud. As wise men say, "Watch where the money goes." The first piratical bases
actually provided black markets for cheap, stolen merchandise which the trad-
ing kingdoms were happy to deal in. Yet, while Minarian traders collaborated
with the pirates, many individuals flocked to join their free-wheeling companies
-- escaped slaves, common criminals, unemployed sailors, and dispossessed
yeomen.
The latter came in swelling numbers throughout the eighth century, as the plu-
tocrats of Zefnar and Parros cajoled or coerced many small freeholders into
selling the farms that had been theirs since King Voric's day. Thereafter, land
that had supported many hard-working families was turned into vineyards and
sheep pastures. The former yeomen had no livelihood left and became demor-
alized, unemployed hangers-on. Piracy seemed an easy out for their angry
sons.
Superficially, Parros still prospered -- but a tangible menace partly of their own
making was growing off its coasts. By the end of the Eighth Century, the coves
of the Golkus sheltered enough swift ships and hard-bitten sea fighters to form
whole fleets and the isle had been renamed "Skull Island." Where once pirate
captains competed openly and violently, now most belonged to a few large pirat-
ical brotherhoods ("rombunes," in Minarian slang) which followed elected admi -
rals. The rombunes developed efficient intelligence systems, whereby pirates
would fraternize with merchant crewmen in the coastal towns, discover their
destinations and cargos, and relay the information back to Skull Island. Harbor
records of Parros and Zefnar reveal the appalling losses that local shippers sus -
tained. It was common for a continental trader to visit the black markets of Skull
Island only to find himself bidding on looted merchandise bearing his own ship-
ping company's name.
Severe though sea robbery was, it was only a sideline to the pirates' main occu-
pation of slave-running. As if in retribution for the callous way the sea powers
had preyed upon the islands in earlier times, these new islanders scoured the
coasts near and far for prisoners. Many towns paid tribute to ward them off;
some were forced to accept agreements by which pirate vessels could outfit and
sell merchandise openly in their harbors. By the latter Ninth Century, Skull
Island was the main source of chattel for the slave-hungry Trade Cities of the
South Plains. It could have shut down Parros at any time, but preferred to have
it as a conduit for trade with the interior as long as it was kept in its place.
The shipwrights of Mivior had in the meantime developed swift, deep-water craft
called lamash vessels. As a number of these ships fell into the hands of the
pirates, the pace of their depredations was stepped up, causing near-panic
amongst the Minarian sea powers. So arrogant did the pirates grow, that their
compact with Parros began to break down. In the records of his temple the high
priest of the Parrosan god Ashikag laments: "Pirates came into our city by night
and abducted more than three hundred young maids, women, and other inno-
cents, slave and free. Before our garrison could deal them out any punishment,
they cut loose the boats in our harbor to prevent pursuit and escaped with all
their captives and booty. Neither was the freedom of the prisoners secured until
the council of the city handed over to the pillagers a vast ransom of silver."
Perhaps the priest was too optimistic; it is doubtful Parros had the resources to
fight the pirates on its own. Worse, threats from desert nomads were even more
pressing. The Wisnyos, horse nomads led by a chieftain called Simir Raviev,
were conquering the South, sending defeated foes fleeing north to Parros' bor-
ders. The city council of Parros, desperate for manpower, hired some of the
refugee tribesmen to fend off other, wilder bands. Alas one large group they
employed took bribes from Simir Raviev. As the Wisnyos approached the city,
these treacherous hirelings seized the city's key fortresses and its leaders. For
eight days Parros was given over to debauchery and looting; afterwards, with-
out pausing to organize his conquest, Simir Raviev extended his campaign
north.
The Wisnyo conquest had a profound effect on the pirates' slave trade. With an
empire at their feet, the nomads had no need for slave dealers. Further, their
ignorance and extortions had already ruined the merchant marines of Parros
and Zefnar, leaving only the well-guarded ships of Mivior to prey upon. The
Miviorans reacted with deadly vengeance, raiding the pirate bases, scuttling
their ships, and burning their villages. Any pirates caught in the process were
hanged.
The pirates had not recovered from the Mivioran raids before the invasion of
"the abominations of the land and the horrors of the air" ruined Mivior and thus
deprived the freebooters of the last important source of shipping on the Great
Sea. Aside from a little fishing, the former pirates had no incentive to go sail-
ing, and so settled down to a life of subsistence farming.
In the eleventh century, the monstrous invasion over and the Wisnyo empire
long-ago collapsed, Parros and Zefnar recovered somewhat, but the merce-
nary-supported tyrants who took power in those cities were too preoccupied
with intrigue and local warfare to develop their sea trade to its pre-Wisnyo lev -
els. The piratical response of the inhabitants of Skull Island was likewise a pale
shadow of the past.
But the vital energies of these pirates' sons could not be indefinitely repressed.
Many islanders sang the songs of the golden days of the "rombunes" and
longed to see unity among the scattered villages. The eleventh century logbook
of the village of Daiton's Moor says: "Those who wished Skull Island to have one
leader looked to the captain Marko Steelknife of Quaytown. Steelknife believed
that unity was within reach of the island, for unlike the continental states, the
boundaries of Skull Island were clearly defined and not coveted by neighbors or
barbarians. To advance his plan, he formed a brotherhood which he called 'The
Rombune' and built a strong fortress."
This fort, built in 1020, was named Port Leeward, but foreigners called it after
2
the earlier name for the island --"the Golkus." Subsequently, Steelknife extend-
ed the power of his Rombune by a series of small wars, power plays, and
intrigues. By the time Steelknife's physical powers started to yield to age, the
principal leaders of Skull Island had assembled at Port Leeward to draw up a
charter for united government.
The document showed the pirates' natural distrust of authority. The islanders'
system borrowed many elements from old piratical articles -- including a division
of the chief executive's office into two parts. A king managed foreign relations
and warfare, while the otzlauf, a kind of tribune, administered law and domestic
policy. These offices corresponded to the captain and the boatswain of a pirate
ship -- one of Minaria's most democratic institutions.
In 1052, Steelknife assumed the kingship, but died in his residence less than
one year later. The new state which his election had brought into being was
officially recognized under the name of Rombune.
The newborn nation leapt into vigorous life. Mivior was not fully recovered from
the devastations of a century earlier and even Zefnar and Parros had taken to
raiding Mivior's coasts for plunder and slaves. Rombune struck an accord with
its neighbors and joined in the raping of their traditional enemy. Not until the cli-
mactic fleet engagement of Marooner's Island in 1098 did Mivior manage to
reassert its naval power and drive the confederacy of raiders from its coasts.
The end of the Mivioran war coincided with a major shift in Rombunese policy.
The government had for a long time closed its eyes to the nation's traditional
trade, piracy, but now that the reavers could not be employed against Mivior,
their lawless spirit led to banditry along Rombune's own shores. Furthermore,
nationhood had brought with it a need for respectability, and the swaggering
pirates were becoming a national embarrassment. As more and more restric-
tions were placed upon Rombune's pirate captains, the freebooters grew dis-
gusted with petty-fogging bureaucrats and moved their bases of operation to
Thores and the Westward Islands. Finally, by edict of King Harus Tarpaulin,
piracy was forbidden; raiding was to be permitted only against states at war with
Rombune -- and then only if the captains carried legal letters of marque.
When the captains of Thores resisted the new law, Harus dispatched his
marines to the island, seized it, hung the leader, pardoned the common sea-
men, and made the island a major naval base. The pirates who would not live
under the new order joined mercenary fleets or moved to the Westward Islands
and lived pretty much as before.
The filibusters of the Westward Islands, with so much new talent moving in, kept
busy; by the middle of the twelfth century their attacks had driven most of
Zefnar's and Parros' shipping off the seas and only politics prevented them from
doing the same with Rombune's. Finally, the desperate tyrant of Parros, Arin,
persuaded the Black Knight to take charge of his squadrons. Within a few years
the mercenary champion had captured and hanged thousands of filibusters,
frightening most of the remainder out of the trade.
Rombune had done nothing to help the pirates. While the kingdom did not
oppose piracy on moral grounds, it had lost faith in piracy that did not advance
the government's ends. After conniving at their crimes for years, the
Rombunese chose this moment of filibuster weakness to send a fleet to the
Westward Islands and set up a number of forts to keep them under control.
Hereafter, the royal government assumed, the pirates would serve as the pliant
instruments of Rombunese policy.
But it did not work out that way. Fearful of growing Rombunese power, Parros
gave aid to the same pirates the Black Knight had suppressed. They sowed
their seeds on fertile ground, finding former captains who were restive under
Rombunese control and yearning to regain their old independence. Before
long, in the year 1153, a young filibuster captain named Garn the Cutlass seized
the Rombunese fort of Seawood. The escapade touched off a long rebellion in
the isles, and though Rombune poured men, ships and treasure into island con-
flict, the angry pirates, secretly aided by Parros and soon by Zefnar, kept victo-
ry out of its grasp.
The war with the Westward Islands continued into the reign of Harus son,
Nectano Brownstockings. At last public opinion turned against the long-grind-
ing conflict and the king, refusing to make peace, was forced to abdicate when
the peace faction found enough votes to elect one of their own, Janup
Goodcargo, into his place.
King Janup ruled for twenty-six years. During this time Parros and Zefnar suf-
fered severely from an on-going trade war with Mivior. A series of military
reverses had all but eliminated these city-states from the sea lanes. In their
decline they looked for support from Rombune, which deigned to grant it -- at a
cost. The acquisition of these well-humbled old enemies as client states great-
ly enhanced the prestige of the Rombunese king.
Under Janup, Rombune reasserted itself militarily, keeping the Westward Island
pirates at bay and safeguarding the Gironese coastal trade from Mivioran
encroachment, making terms with the Selkies, the non-human race which con-
trolled the northern coasts of Girion, to do it. At home, the alliance of factional
interests that Janup welded together remained strong enough to ensure the
election of his son upon his death.
Janup's son Modeus Goodcargo enjoyed a reign so tranquil that little is record-
ed of it. It was in 1202, in the reign of the next Goodcargo, Rocorn, that word
leaked out regarding the scope and great wealth of Mivior's trade with Reiken.
It is strange that Rombune did not did not show greater interest in Reiken at an
earlier date, since men know of the Reiken voyages since before the invasion
of the Abominations. But they no doubt had been fully distracted by the Girion
trade from which they were attempting to exclude the Miviorans. Further,
Arnult's book had valuable charts to follow.
The Rombunese found the Reikenites willing potential partners when their first
trading enterprise arrived, but Mivior retaliated and a serious war irrupted. After
years of mutually-damaging conflict, Mivior agreed to respect Rombune's rights
in Girion for exclusivity in Reiken. But the war could not paper over the intense
anger generated on both sides.
Despite the failure to establish a Reiken trade, the succession of kings of the
House of Goodcargo had proven so fortunate for Rombune that after the death
of Rocorn, the captains of Rombune elected his son Harus II to the throne.
The most memorable event of the reign of Harus II was the great tidal wave that
struck Minaria. Some believed it was due to the anger of the gods for Yoritom
of Adeese's sacrifice at the altars of Greystaff. Regardless, it came out of the
southwest and did great harm to all of the southern coasts of Minaria, up to
Boran and Boliske. Thores and the Golkus ports were fortunately not inundat-
ed due to the shelter of their mountainous terrain facing the wave, but Parros
and Zefnar were hard hit. All the sea powers sustained immense losses when
the disaster struck, but overall it was turned to Rombune's benefit. Already
weakened by internal problems, the physical destruction of Parros and Zefnar
forced them to accept Rombunese help, which soon reduced them to quasi-pro-
tectorates. Mivior, too, was eclipsed, and this allowed Harus II to enter into the
Reiken trade unopposed. The kingdom took care to treat generously with the
Reikenites so that when Mivior felt strong enough to oppose the arrangement,
it was the Reikenites themselves who compelled Mivior to share the Reiken
trade with the Rombunese.
After such a monumental coup, the captains were loyal to the house of
Goodcargo to the man and at Harus' death took the remarkable step of electing
a woman to the monarchy, Harus' daughter Daring.
Early in Daring's reign, Zefnar and Parros sent out a call for help against the
new kingdom of Shucassam. Daring dispatched her marines to their aid, and
several years of sporadic warfare with Shucassam followed. In the course of
this war, Daring met and looked favorably on Galiz Tabir, the tyrant of Parros.
The intelligent young man saw that a royal marriage was the best way out of his
troubles and accordingly wooed and won the queen's hand.
Once installed as prince consort, he persuaded the Rombunese to sacrifice
Zefnar to Shucassam, in that way buying a long-term peace for Parros. The lat-
ter at first enjoyed a protectorate status, but in time came to be an integral part
of the Rombunese kingdom. The bargain also satisfied the war-weary
Shucassamites, seeing the advantages of gaining such an excellent port on the
Great Sea. Galiz is remembered not only as one of the last, but also one of the
most fortunate tyrants ever to reign on the South Plains.
3
Parros accepted its loss of independence without much lamentation, as it had
been a mere formality for a long while. It rebuilt its economy and even reopened
the meteoric iron mines that had not been worked to their fullest potential since
the Wisnyo conquest. The Parrosan fleet, for a long time in deep decay, sprang
to life again with Rombune's support, and shared in that kingdom's far-flung
markets.
Rombune's nearest neighbor to the south was the kingdom of Afgaar.
Previously, Afgaar had little interest in pressing to the north, where only
wretched wasteland prevailed until Parros was reached. But now they started
moving north, to the alarm of the Rombunese subjects of the mainland.
Galiz and Daring put there heads together, and sent soldiers and settlers south,
staking a claim to what had only been land sparsely inhabited by only primitives
before. This southward expansion deliberately ran itself up against the most
advanced outposts of Afgaar and there established a fort to nail down a lasting
claim to the territory. The dual monarchs called it "Fort Harus," after her father.
A number of small wars have been fought between Afgaar and Rombune since,
mainly on land as the Selkies will not tolerate two of their allies settling their dif-
ferences amid their territory, which is called the Silkien Coast.
Yet these wars have been half-hearted. Afgaar is too engaged in the South to
waste its resources on the poor lands of the north and it needs Rombunese
trade. Rombune, on the other hand, lacks the large population required for seri-
ous aggression. Hence, Fort Harus has continued to stand in mostly quiet vig-
ilance on the south border.
While protecting Parros from barbarians, Afgaarans, and Shucassamites,
Rombune has made great material progress during the last century. Its ship-
building yards rival Mivior's in the number of merchant vessels produced. The
wise kings of the House of Goodcargo-Tabir are, in a large measure responsi-
ble for the continuing prosperity. What they have done for their country has
been justly rewarded by Rombune's electors. To date, the throne has not left
the family of Janup Goodcargo.
The long-expected confrontation between Rombune and Mivior has not come.
The latter kingdom has gone stagnant and has not acted with its old aggres -
siveness. Rombune, on the other hand, has become engaged, wisely or
unwisely, in the deeper interior of the mainland.
Redgrave I heeded an appeal from rebels in the town of Jipols, who had risen
to cast of Shucassamite rule when the kingdom was racked by the same region-
al quake which shook Muetar. The Sea of Zett flooded so much that Jipols,
standing at the outer edge of a great basin, became viable for a port. The
Gyharan ethnics of the city always had resented Shucassamite rule, and now
believed as a protectorate of Rombune they could achieve much of their ambi-
tions.
Rombune, allied with Jipols, fought a short war against the enfeebled
Shucassam, winning a grudging truce, if not a formal recognition of Jipolean
independence. At the moment Jipols exists as something of a Rombunese ally
and a protectorate, while Shucassam plots a reconquest. Jipols no doubt hopes
for a return of its past independence, while Rombune looks ahead to absorbing
it as it did Parros. Minarian politics are complex and only time will decide the
complex issue.
The Rombunese have characteristically been a rowdy people always ready for
a good fight or a good song. Here is one of their rousing songs:
The Western Gales Do Blow
Ye fighting men of Rombune
Who tack the flowing breeze,
Whose pendant's flown three hundred years,
Through fights and stormy seas!
Your lamash craft shall never fail
To thwart the foreign foe,
As ye sweep through the deep
And the western gales do blow.
The brave ghosts of your comrades
Shall watch from every wave,
For the Great Sea was their field of fame
And the ocean was their grave.
Where foemen of our people fell
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep
And the western gales do blow.

Bold Rombune needs no sea-wall,

No towers on the steep;
Her fortress is the mountain-waves,
Her trench the daunting deep.
With lamash built of seasoned oak,
She quells the swells that flow,
As ye sweep through the deep
And the western gales do blow.

The shield and sword of Rombune,

Never for home shall yearn
Till our foemen's fleets depart
And starry skies return.
Then, ye Great Sea warriors
To the Golkus Town we'll go,
Then we'll sweep through the deep
When the gale has ceased to blow.

When the clam'ring fight is heard no more,

And the gale has ceased to blow.