User:Arzena/bios

Here are some people from Akana's history that I have created:

A Voyage to Xshalad

Diaries of Nirroh Vianoalle the captain of a galleon - the Dâdâh Fisas ('The Dancing Villain') - who plied the trade route from Kasca to the Isles, thence to Zeluzh, and finally Ralpir Sunax (Sandmouth), the the last port of call in Xshalad.

"Spring Month 2 Day 23 - I have received the trading commission from Lady Lohtei Tungoulou. We are to transport for our patroness' profit and gain: 200 tons of grain and sundry seeds; 50 tons of leather; 50 tons of wool; 7 tons of spirits and liquors (NOT for the crew's use); 6 tons of steel tools, weapons and sundry items for sale among the primitives of Zeluzh in exchange for their obsidian, in the form of raw rock and jewelry, and sundry precious metals native to their lands. Our patroness has also provided us with papers of credit in the amount of 500,000 nira to finance the purchase of 20 tons of spices in Xshalad and for exchange at the Hana Yards along our journey to purchase anything that we may require. For the sake of universal morality, we transport as well five printing presses on behalf of Preceptor Eitou Sudapazh of Mumba to spread the light of Etúgə across the waves, for delivery at the ports of call specified in the manifest. The remaining 200 tons of our cargo consist of sundry provisions and water for the crew (77 sailors, 30 marines) and passengers. We take aboard 96 passengers, 61 of whom will disembark at Agumosou, 17 of whom will disembark at Wihe, 10 of whom will disembark at Ttiruku, and 8 of whom will disembark at Zeluzh. The ship's company will take aboard no further passengers until arrival and reprovisioning in Ralpir Sunax, whereupon the Dâdâh Fisas will take on Lady Lohtei's chaplain, Ehobbu Viateiwa, and his missionaries who have spent the past 15 years spreading the teachings of our faith to the benighted Xshali.

Oyetléwulú

Oyetlewulú was a speaker of a dialect of Empotle7á who was born around -860YP. During his adolescence, he and twenty-five others from the village of Kulúéngi were kidnapped by slavers from the Lukpanic city of Poalugbum.

Oyetlewulú was purchased by a merchant named Biusiŋmaukeb and assigned as menial work in his master's warehouse. Through chance, luck, and hard work he purchased his freedom and became the chief overseer of Biusiŋmaukeb's commercial affairs.

When Biusiŋmaukeb died, he bequeathed a quarter of his fortune to Oyetlewulú. With the money, he set up a tin mining operation near his home village of Kulúéngi. He became a moderately successful maritime businessman, selling tin mined from the Coastal Corridor to bronze smithies in Poalugbum.

Oyetlewulú is significant because our some the few primary sources of Empotle7á come from his hand. Towards the end of his life, he wrote a bilingual memoir in the Poalugbum Lukpanic dialect and Empotle7á. Diachronically, the Empotle7á he wrote in is from a later period of the language compared to the language described in the grammar. The original documents have been lost to the ravages of time, but fortunately for Akana philologists, two copies survive in the Imperial Museum of History in Athalê. Oyetlewulú is believed to have in -802 YP at age 58.

Etymology: oyetlé-kulú 'The Wolf Runs'. By the 9th century BP oyetlé-wulú came to be pronounced Ayašöl [a.ja.S9l], inferring from the modern reflexes of the Coastal Western Languages and the choice of spelling that Oyetlewulu chose in composing his memoirs. Alas, the same methods frustrate our efforts to know if his name was pronounced with tones or a different suprasegmental feature.

Habvam

The memory of Habvam (c. 450 - 404 BP) comes to us from the Anheshnalaks. He arose as one of the greatest warriors of that people in their wars against the Xšali Empire. In the centuries before his birth, the Anheshnalaks had migrated from the Xoron Ewel and the edges of Rathedan into the Tjakori Plateau. After they settled into that region, the opportunistic among them hired themselves out to Xšali lordlings. Xšalad in this time was mired in one of its interdynastic power struggles; it didn't take long for ambitious mercenaries to transform themselves into would-be conquerors of this rich and decadent land.

Habvam got his start as a one of those Anheshnalak hired swords. Through his cunning and charisma, he won leadership of one band of warriors, then another, and eventually 30,000 loyal cavalry. With this force, Habvam bested the other strongmen of his generation and, by age 30, found himself in command of nearly every Anheshnalak man of fighting age.

With this power and unprecedented unity, the Anheshnalaks (and a not-small number of Xšali opportunists) galloped from their plateau homelands, across Xšalad, and punched through to the sea. By 420 BP Habvam had conquered the provinces of Xšalad northwest of the Yima; the floodplains of the great river itself became a contested neutral zone, caught up in a bloody back-and-forth. The Xšali elite, divided as they were, nevertheless buried their disputes and dug in. Habvam was not some mere raiding chief, they recognized, content with token resistance and subsequent gifts of submission; he aimed to conquer: "The emperor's skull will be my rice wine glass; his crown my piss-pot. Through kwacu and horse-blood Xšalad will tremble."

Though the nomads out-maneuvered and out-shot the Xšali arrow for arrow, the agriculturalists dug in and held the line at the Yima River. With the rice paddies canals opened, the riverbanks flooded and bogged down the movements of Habvam's horses. While he could mow down any Xšali sorty, his horses found themselves useless against the new walls and forts surrounding the unflooded fords.

Faced with this new strategy, Habvam lessened the calls for raiding and rested on the laurels of his past conquests. By 406 BP several of his chief lieutenants abandoned him, thinking the once great Habvam had grown soft. Habvam considered this abandonment betrayal and vowed to crush his former friends. He was not unwarranted in this reaction; three of those lieutenants returned to their former Xšali employers. Habvam, understandably, feared an attempt on his life. So, calling his remaining banners, he struck out to crush his former allies before they could strike the first blow.

The day Habvam met his former second-in-command, Dugul, on the field of the Twinned Trees would be his last. The two met in personal combat and fought fiercely. But, in the end, Dugul's Xšali steel cut through the leather-and-mail of his enemy. By the week's end, the Emperor of Xšalad and Dugul (his newly minted "Lord of All Horses") lifted Habvam's head together to adulating crowds.

Saufub

Saufub was a chief elder of the city of Kpitamoa. As the Coastal Westerners besieged Kpitamoa in the sixth century BYP, he organized an escape effort from the city utilizing Kpitamoa's small naval force. Saufub planed to sail his fleet to Isi, but a storm threw the fleet off course and it landed in the Coastal Corridor.

Saufub founded a settlement named Ãihib near a Lukpanic tin mining operation. The settlement became a rallying point for other Lukpanic refugees, as Saufub coordinated several voyages in the last five years of his life to 'liberate' Lukpanics under barbarian rule. After Saufub died, it was agreed that power would shared among five representatives, one from each of the neighborhoods of Ãihib.