There's a itty-bitty - well, not so itty-bitty, but still fairly
insignificant - island, in the middle of an insignificant ocean, on an
insignificant planet in an insignificant solar system located at the far
edge of an insignificant galaxy. And in this insignificant place, something
significant happened. The gods (Anar, Ulum and Qini) got bored.

The life that developed on this planet consisted of various indigenous
species. Some plant life, lots of marine life, but no really humanoid life
except on this one large island. The entire world is a series of small
archipelagos and mountains - the tips of which are mostly tall bumps in the
ocean of the world - except for this single, large island.  As the largest
piece of land, it was the closet thing to a continent the planet had - so it
got the Peoples.

There were three humanoid races that developed on this Island, all of whom
initially called themselves The People. Once they met and began to establish
trade, they edited their names to the Forest People, the Mountain People,
and the Water People, just for clarity. When Earth-humans arrived on the
island, hundreds of years later, they also received Earth designations -
Elves, Dwarfs and Mer-folk, respectively.

The Elves were a partially arboreal race, primarily building their homes in
the branches of trees. In order to facilitate moving about in the forests,
they grew tall and slender. Their hair and eyes were light, and they gloried
in the sun as a friend. They tended to groves and orchards, as well as to
small gardens in the available forest clearings. Occasionally they caught
small animals - squirrels, rabbits, quail and similar - but largely they
were vegetarian.

The Dwarfs lived under the Mountains to the north of the Forest. They ate
roots, mushrooms, and the few small vegetables or fruits that were willing
to grow on the sides of mountains. As they lived underground, two
unsurprising traits became a part of the Dwarfs' life: First, they became
nocturnal (the sun is uncomfortable for eyes that are not accustomed to its
light), and second, they began to dig around to see what was under the
rocks. As they discovered the many gems to be found, this eventually led to
organized mining. The close confines of the underground world encouraged
shorter bodies, while the demands of mining were best filled by the
strongest, so the race as a whole became much stockier.

As this world was still a young world, as ages of planets go, there was not
much difference between the salinity of fresh water and ocean
water. Correspondingly, the Mer-folk were able to manage both rivers and
inlets comfortably. Although they could comfortably swim in deeper water,
for their living purposes they preferred to stick close to shores. While a
Mer can exit the water for a short period of time, they become actively
uncomfortable within an hour, and begin to exhibit signs of severe
dehydration within three. As a result, their homes are built in the
water, with very limited space above. This environment encouraged long,
slender bodies, much like the Elves, but with no hair, some scales, webbed
hands and feet and - as time went on - the beginnings of gills.

Oddly, despite their differences, these races - who all started from the
same common ancestry - have a chancy, limited ability to crossbreed. It
happens rarely, but such children are brought up understanding both
environments and permitted to choose the one they wish to live in as an
adult (the gods had been bored when they began to encourage the
environmental differences, but they thought that perhaps maintaining some
ability to cross-breed would be a good idea).

Initially, the races were unaware of each other. When they finally met,
however, there was general pleasure, since each race could provide variety
in foods to the others. Trade was encouraged as racial differences were
largely ignored. None of the populations became very large, and it was
a comfortable world to live in. Eventually, the Dwarfs figured out the fine
art of gold-smithing and broznesmithing, leading to more elaborate decoration
than had been available before. The few individuals from the various clans
who went out for adventure rarely returned. It was a simple life, for these
people, and a happy life. They did not even bother coming up with a form of
worship for their gods, because they did not feel the need for it. And the
gods were *bored*.

The three gods that choose this place did so because they wanted to watch
over a planet which would be 'easy to administrate' - which they got. They
failed to take into account that 'easy to administrate' often meant 'nothing
going on'. Therefore, they had to content themselves with looking in on the
worlds of other gods, and listening to those gods bragging about the
accomplishments of their followers. Regular god meetings occurred, and the
three gods of this planet were rather abashed, as they never had anything
occur about which they could report.

Then, during one of the miscellaneous "god meetings", they heard other gods
not just bragging about various worshipers, but even considering how
various groups would get on together - if they would fight or work
peacefully. It is not entirely clear who first said it, but the comment came
out,

"Well, it's just too bad we don't have a place where we could throw them all
together!"

The conversation gathered more attention at that point, as the various gods
began trying to pin down what exactly they were thinking of. Some thought it
would be an experiment in social engineering, others thought of it as a zoo,
and still others considered it a way to find solutions for xenophobia and
architectural differences. During the conversations, one of the gods woke up
from his ongoing nap to comment, "Oh, you're putting them all in one place?
Good, it'll make a nice buffet," and promptly went back to sleep. Everyone
else ignored him, since he had already eaten most of his own worshipers.

Despite all the details they could come up with, there was one major
problem. No one could think of a good place to put this experiment - the
universe had already grown to a reasonable size, and there were no gods left
to handle the administrative details.

Qini and Anar were in the midst of a rather heated, but quiet, debate about
the situation, when suddenly their conversation became moot. Leaping in with
both feet first, Ulum excitedly announced, "Hey, you can use our planet!
We've only got three races, each of them numbering less than 500 people!"
Before Qini was able to intervene and save her poor planet from imminent
invasion, the other gods had sewn up the deal nice and tight, and everything
was planned out.

Of course, since these are gods, the initial planning may be quick, but the
implementation takes quite a while and the average 7-day span is rather
metaphorical. Nevertheless, there they were, planning on how to move other
races onto this island. Meanwhile, the Peoples on the island were cheerfully
living their lives, not really thinking about what the gods may be up to -
because who needs gods when they already have everything they want? 

Then one day, a new People showed up. And they looked rather distinctly
confused. They seemed to be a new type of People, since they looked like the
Forest People, but not as tall. They looked rather like the Mountain People,
but not as short. And they looked like the Water People, but without webbed
feet. They arrived on the top of the hill that overlooks the main
outlet of The River. They spoke "strangely," in a language other than the one
that all the People used, which was rather disconcerting for all, as
communication repeatedly failed. Then, a few days later, they could suddenly
understand and be understood in the language of the People. Tentative
greetings were exchanged, and the newcomers called themselves "Humans." Each
of these new people had three or four names, which seemed rather excessive,
as the Peoples generally only had one name apiece. These Humans also had the
habit of calling the Forest People 'elves' and the Water People "Mer-folk (or
mermaids and mermen), and the Mountain People "dwarfs."

There was a brief adjustment as the Humans got themselves settled in, with
houses built and a new structure called a stable, built for their large
animals, called cows and horses and sheep and goats. All of the Peoples
quickly discovered, however, that the 'milk' produced by the cows and goats
made them feel terribly uncomfortable. The Mountain People were largely
unaffected by the Humans, although the few who came to see the New People
were fascinated by the concept of "iron" and "smithies" - and a new sort of
mining was started, as the Mountain People started searching for the type of
rock the Humans called iron.  By and large, however, the Mountain People
were rather smug, as they did not have to share their lands with the Humans.

The Mountain People's smugness quickly wore off, however, as they found
another new People, called 'Gnomes' showing up in their burrows. Then
'Selkie' appeared near the Mer-folk homes, and 'Centaur' appeared in the
forest. It was rather disturbing, to all involved - but the number of
Newcomers (as they became called) were less than the number of Natives, and
so there was a relative amount of peace between all groups, as they
attempted to acclimate themselves to the new ways of life.

Usually, the transplanted Newcomers arrived in family groups, or small
colony groups. Rarely, at first, did single people arrive at a time. The
time between arrivals was changeable, however, and the location of the
arrivals seemed rather random - although most Newcomers arrived in an
environment at least somewhat appropriate for the type of People they
were. Much to the original People's annoyance, the names Mer-folk, Elves and
Dwarfs stuck to them, rather than the preferred Mountain, Forest and Water
People. After all, there were now many types of Peoples from the Water,
Forest and Mountains. And thus, life went from placid, unchanging, and
relatively happy to confusing and constantly changing in a very short
time. This period of initial adjustment lasted nearly a hundred years.

Then the various Newcomers started showing up in greater numbers, and more
varieties - with Humans outnumbering nearly everyone else. Humans who called
themselves Roman Legions, Puritans, Egyptians, and Greeks came in, as did
Peoples who looked like beasts but were very intelligent - Gryphons and
Sphinxes. The Beast Peoples forbore eating any of the Humanoid Peoples in
exchange for information about where they were. They then took a few herds
of goats and flew off into the mountains.

The Roman Legions brought in the concepts of straight roads and aqueducts,
which were cheerfully accepted. The concepts of taxes and ruled lands,
however, were not so readily accepted, and rather thoroughly put down. A
small group of Mongols showed up, only to be quickly pacified by the
Legions; thus an impromptu police force was formed. Vikings appeared, and
attempted to a-viking the Island. This met with a great lack of success as
soon as they found out that they could not sail more than 50 miles away from
the island before an invisible force turned them around and forced them
back. In this attempt to sail off, the Vikings lost several ships as they
sailed through a patch of carnivorous seaweed to the west of the Island - a
patch later named a Kracken by those humans who were most familiar with
their own mythology.

In this way, the population of the island grew, and as the population grew,
so did the cultural clashes and disagreements. There were ongoing attempts
by everyone, Newcomers and Natives alike, to maintain their own way of life,
including cultures, gods and traditions. The Puritans had a particular
preacher that began to condemn the other gods which were worshiped, and
then went on to condemn the non-Humans as hell-spawned beasts of Satan. The
one and only time there was an actual dragon sighting was when a giant,
purple dragon flew down from above and ate this preacher in one large bite,
only to then fly off complaining about indigestion.

Eventually, after a hundred years of arguments over gods, eating habits,
greetings, architecture and any number of other things, the Island was a
complete mess. The single City that had managed to get built was faced with
frequent disasters, including fires and rioting. After a particularly bad
rash of such disasters, in the midst of a rather unusual drought, the City
burned down to ash. It took several days for the fire to be put out and at
the end of the Great Burn, the death and injured toll was unfortunately
high. Further disasters of similar proportions occurred in the other
settlements on the Island - floods, earthquake, and other problems. Every
time the settlements attempted to rebuild, however, some other difficulty
would arise and the settlement was once again destroyed.

Despite all this, one small settlement survived. This settlement, located
where the Forest left off, was neat, orderly and carefully planned out. It
had rules, and a small enforcement group. It was made up of several
different races, each of whom had agreed to work together to find a new way
of life. The settlement was run by a man named Sang Aparo and his twin
sister, Zoraida. Sang Aparo and Zoraida believed that with the cooperation
of all the cultures, it would be possible to create order out of the chaos
that existed on the Island. It was time, they pointed out, to accept that
nobody was going back to the places they or their ancestors came from, and
only by deciding to move forward would all the residents of the Island be
able to have productive, happy lives.

The word went out up to the mountains and around the coast, through the
Forest and the Marsh, that an island-wide Meeting was to happen at this
encampment, and that at least one representative from each race and culture
was to be present. Some races and cultures came en masse to the settlement,
others simply sent a representative family; still others joined with a
similar race or culture, and one representative was sent for the group. In
the end, however, a convocation was pulled together of all the residents on
the Island - excepting only the Beast People, who refused to come. No one
missed them, though, since feeding such large People would quickly become
difficult.

One of the first things this Meeting did was get as accurate a census as
possible, and it was thus discovered that while there were many thousands of
people on the Island, they were not as diverse as previously thought in
race. A census was also taken of gods, their symbols and their holy days and
liturgy. Finally, documents detailing many of the common customs of each
culture, along with the specific issues that the culture had with others,
were created. Each representative found themselves reading about all the
other cultures and races for well over a year, as the Meeting attempted to make
sure that everyone started from a place of equal understanding.

During this time, small towns were built in various locations along the
roads that the Romans had installed, and the UnderMountain city was also
built. One very large town was built at the edge of the marsh on the
southwest side of the island; another large town was built in the
southeastern farmlands. The Forest dwellers built a trading town of their
own, in a clearing of the forest where it touched the River. But despite all
this building, no-one attempted to rebuild the City at the end of the River,
allowing it to stand empty and menacing as it overlooked the main harbor.

Eventually, the representatives of the people declared themselves ready to
come to the table, and the discussion part of the Meeting began. It took
nearly three years of constant discussion and compromise, but eventually the
Accords of Integration were written, agreed upon, and signed. The Accords
did not make everyone happy, but neither did they make everyone unhappy, and
the general consensus was that life would be rather more peaceful in the
long run. And so thought turned to rebuilding the City as called for in the
Accords - a secluded location to house the Temples and Churches for the
various gods, accessible by all; architecture that was accessible by the
majority, if not all; open streets, plazas and parks for the enjoyment of
visitors and residents. Also, very importantly, a Newcomer's Adjustment
Center, where Newcomers could go for information and help settling. The
representatives held on to the hope that, one day, Newcomers would even
arrive at the 'NAC', allowing more immediate help to be given to them.

The rebuilding took years, as predicted. During this time, Sang Aparo and
Zoraida went into seclusion - rumors persisted that Zoraida had an illness
which caused convulsions. Sang Aparo was said to be either caring for his
sister, or working on some form of treatise on esoteric matters. Sang Aparo
made several appearances during the Rebuilding years, advising when needed
and presiding over the Grand Openings of various buildings. Finally, some 35
years after the initial disasters brought forth the need for the Meeting and
the representatives, the rebuilding was complete, and the general elections
could be held.

Each region had its own Council. The Regions consisted of the Forest, the
Under-Mountain, the non-Forest lands east of the River, and the non-forest
lands West of the River. The City was also considered its own Region, due to
its size.  Each Council, in turn, sent a Representative to the City to sit
on the Island Governing Council. The City's Representative also acted as the
Mayor of the City.

The City was divided up into twelve sections. The reason for twelve was
never made completely clear, but each member of the City Council came from
one of the sections. The Mayor, who was the thirteenth member of the
Council, was expected to put aside loyalties to the section s/he originally
came from. Sang Aparo was the first Mayor, despite his protests, elected in
the first and only unanimous election. He had no competitors. The only
requirement to be elected to any given Council was that the person running
for office had to be a resident of the area they purported to represent.
When Sang Aparo's term as Mayor ended, he avoided re-election to a post he
was quite uncomfortable with by virtue of moving out of the city, into the
countryside. During his entire term, speculations about his sister
increased, as very few people ever saw her. The servants who did reported
only that she was alive, and rather ill. Whispers of prophecy and magic
joined the rumors of her illness, and everyone at the time wondered when the
truth about Sang Aparo and Zoraida would come out.

In the years of adjustment, it had been noted that the Natives, and their
Newcomer cousins, were long lived, compared to many of the other Newcomer
races. Sang Aparo and Zoraida were half-Elven and half-Human, so while their
60 years of age was considerable, it was perhaps half of their expected
lifespan. Therefore, while their intimates grew old and passed on, the
siblings continued in seclusion until they passed out of their initial
notoriety. It was at 110 years of age that two events happened which
profoundly affected the twins: Zoraida passed away, and Sang Aparo published
two books.

The first book was considered a great wonder to the Temples and Churches,
along with students of religion and anthropology, although it was passed
over by most people. A slim volume, it contained words of Prophecy as they
came through Zoraida. The burden of this Prophetic Vision is what ultimately
caused Zoraida's convulsive illness, the book explained, and it was her
final wish for these Prophecies to be made available only once. The few
copies that were bought were handled carefully, or not, according to the
views of their owners. As a result, the book itself came to be very
rare. Two copies are kept at the Council Hall in the City - one in the
History Museum and one carefully tended copy available to the historians and
anthropologists employed by the City.

The second book, however, was greeted with great awe and astonishment, and
Sang Aparo found himself once again much in demand. He had published, in one
large book, a textbook and treatise on the ways of Magic within the
world. Anyone who had the talent could be trained to use Magic, and most
people had just enough talent to perform one or two of the very smallest
spells.

(To Be Continued)