BACKGROUND

There are two moons orbiting this planet but the smaller moon is invisible to the naked eye. The calander consist of four seasons each 360 days long, divided into 30 day months (48 months in a year, 12 per season). Mana levels fluxuate in 90 day cycles, the first three months of the season are times of low mana, then it rises to normal for the next 90 days, then tops off with a high mana cycle of 90 days before dropping back to normal again for the last 90 days of the season. The weather also follows the mana patterns with the worst storms during the high mana periods. Due to the length of the seasons the human civilizations are closer to the equator with the polar extremes being inhabited during the warm season by nomadic elf tribes and hunters. Many of the creatures that dwell in deep caverns beneath the poles also come to the surface during the winter darkness to hunt hibernating animals or those foolish enough to try and winter there.
3,000 years ago nine tribes of TL1 humans came to this world through gates fleeing a war on another world. Each tribe is led by a sorceror king who marries the matriarch of each family band. These semi-nomadic people rode sure-footed shaggy ponies and would settle in river valleys during the spring and summer to let their ponies run loose and fatten up and breed while they gathered wild food and fish. Then they would separate into family bands led by the kings wife during the autumn to hunt surrounding mountain forests before building longhouses to winter in, these were long pits lined with stones with a roof built of logs 2-3 feet above the surface. During the winter was the time of story telling and learning the oral traditions of tribe and family. One of the sorceror kings main jobs was the ceremony of the dead held in the spring, the mummified remains put in their caerns had two purposes, to guard against tomb raiders and against tresspassers into the valley. The first full year here was harsh and many ponies and men died during the long winter, afterwards most tribes journeyed towards warmer lands, some stayed near the old gates but changed their ways. Those that stayed began using caves during the winter and learned to hunt during the winter and took the great snow owl as their totem. Those that journeyed to warmer climes settled in river valleys in the plains and hunt the herds during the autumn but returned to the rivers for water and built permanent villages and took the cave lion as their totem, others became completely nomadic following the herds year round and took the prairie cat as their totem.

STATUS

5 OverKing
4 Sorceror King
3 King's Wife or OverKings Children
2 Tribal Champion or Eldest Family Member or Kings Children
1 Warrior or Sorceror
0 Tribe Member
-1 Slave
-2 Outsider
-3 Outcast, Criminal

The Snow Tribes ponies could not endure the long winters and dire wolf cubs were raised as hunting animals and mounts, they eventually met wild elves (TL0) during their winter hunts and traded bronze arrowheads for better bows and leather armor for snow shoes. The Prairie Tribes eventually befriended the prairie cats and abandoned their ponies and came to the great jungles and encountered the fringes of the reptilian empire. The Valley Tribes captured and enslaved some exhaulted horses and after great difficulty and much sorcery mixed the blood with that of their mountain ponies, they also begin domesticating plants and building larger structures out of river mud bricks.

TIMELINE

(one year equals approximately four earth years)