[center][b]Nalusa[/b]
[i]Lands by the River[/i][/center]

The sun’s warmth was often welcome upon the bronzed back of Darius, but sometimes he longed for the respite of shade. So he found himself sitting beneath a date tree by the water, listening to the river’s gurgle. It had been a couple moons since the river had last gurgled and flooded, and now the rich sediments that its headwaters had spread across the plains and banks were bearing fruit.

Men, women, and children alike were all out there in the fields harvesting barley; others, the more agile, climbed up the trees in the orchards and along the riverside to pick at fruits. They knew nothing of clothing, and so looked almost like beasts even as they knew the ways of digging furrows and cultivating the grain, and of erecting crude hovels and shelters on the high hills away from the fickle river. Ah, and Darius still held the River-Spirit’s gemstone; he spoke for them all as he was still the mightiest of their people, even after this many years, and he worked alongside them too, for their culture had yet to grow lazy in the sun. 

Even those who had been born gifted with the Sight toiled in the sun with all their kin. It was still undreamed of for anyone to not work in the fields, be it because they claimed some birthright, or because they had pretensions of greatness and felt themselves above such tasks, or even because they were specialized in other things. No, life was very simple here, and even Darius was just another humble man at the end of the day, albeit a bit taller, stronger, and more outspoken than the rest.

The day changed when the dirt next to him rose into the shape of a man. Darius jumped with a start, instinctively seizing up and raising a stone tool. Lions and other beasts roamed the untamed lands, and the slow, the ones that lacked vigilance, and the unprepared were sometimes carried away in those early days. Darius, of course, was none of those things, and all too ready to fight against the unknown.

Yet the featureless face did not seem to make any threatening motions. It turned and examined the area around, thinking aloud. “Hmm. This will do. Central location, and you already have fields to toil and defend. Yes, this will do nicely.” Voligan turned to look at Darius. “You are a leader of these people, yes? I am Voligan, the Earthheart. God of the Earth and the Craft. Champion of the Monarch. Gather for me your people. From them, select your most patient and precise. I have come to bless your people with the knowledge that will make their nights easier and their communities more stable.”

Even if it hadn’t declared itself a god, the earth-face’s manner of appearance and very nature would have made as much clear, so Darius heard his words and harkened quickly to obey. He ran to the nearest of his people, be they resting in the shade or toiling in the fields, and told them not to gather before the god right then but rather to spread the word. So it was that soon a few dozen heralds ran through the fields crying out for the people to set aside their work and gather by the river, and soon enough that was done.

Voligan looked around at the gathered crowd, those who had been brought before him, and those others from the most distant fields that were still trickling into the assembly. “I have come to teach you how to make bricks, and from them homes and walls. Sturdy creations that can be used to keep out the cold of the night, the wet of the rain, the heat of the day, and the predators that stalk the night. Those who make these bricks will not have time to work in your fields. Instead, they will be busy building your homes and walls.  In return for this work, they will still be allowed to eat even though they have not gathered any food themselves.” He looked towards the designated brick makers. “Come, and I will show you how to build bricks.”

In front of the gathered crowd, Voligan showed how to gather the clay needed to make bricks, and how to identify clay that would be best suitable for bricks. You did not want clay that was filled with debris, for it would make weak bricks. He showed them how to gather and combine the clay, sand, and water into the batter that would be laid out into bricks. The mixture was important. Too much water, and your bricks wouldn’t set right. Too much sand, and they would be too weak to be of any use. Next was to ensure that they would be allowed to dry to set, removing the water once they had been laid out into bricks and protecting them from the elements, followed by building a kiln to fire them in. 

Once he had shown the new bricklayers how to do their craft, he made them show him that they knew how to do their craft without his help. It took some time. There were errors, mistakes, that were brusquely corrected and undid to let them do again. Eventually, as the day neared its end, they were competent enough for Voligan’s satisfaction. “Good. You will build the homes of your people now.” He turned his attention to Darius once more. “Who is your leader? The one who directs all others?”

“I am called Darius, and I have spoken for and led these people for a long time now, since we encountered the River God who gifted us with grain, since we turned away from the cowardly prophet called Medes,” the greatest man in the crowd proclaimed.

Voligan looked over Darius. “Hmm. And what do you call yourselves and this place? It will need a name, and defenses soon, Darius. Dark things are making their way towards you, drawn by the scent of flesh and mortal blood. Your people will need an identity to protect themselves from such creatures.”

“We know of the dangers, the beasts that hide in the grass and in the caves,” Darius insisted, “the lions come often by night, sometimes even in day, and try to carry off whoever they can. And we know that this is their land – Nalusa, the Land of Lions – but by this river we have carved out a piece for ourselves. And the River Spirit has pledged his support for our claim here, by the most fertile of all the rivers, the one that is called [abbr=”White Flow”]Jiryaan Sefid[/abbr]!”

“We are just people here, like any other humans, but not like the whistlers in the hills. If other bands still led by prophets spoke of us, they might call us Darius’ People.”

“No, Darius of Darius’ people. I am not warning you of the dangers of beasts. There are creatures of my brother who are coming. They will wear the skin of your people, they will gain their trust, and they will consume them. It will be all the easier if you have no defenses and no identity. It is one thing to settle in an area and trust in the River Spirit. It is another to build around it. What do you call this land around the river? And where does your domain stop?”

Such revelations were disturbing. In these earliest of days there were few conflicts that set man against man, and while Darius possessed something of an innate understanding of such things (and it was that which lent him the will tochallenge the leadership of Medes) such things as war and murder, of skinshifting vertans, all felt so strange and foreign. Yet this ‘Voligan’ Spirit seemed more trustworthy than a prophet, so a troubled Darius could only furrow his brow and frown at what he heard.

“We had no thought to name this land, for we just know it as our own. But if you say that names matter, I will tell them that this land, this bend of the Jiryaan Sefid and further, as far as the fields we can till, is called [abbr=”Protective Fortress”][b]Pasargad[/b][/abbr].

“But Great Voligan,” Darius went on to the true question, the thing that mattered to him most, “what manner of defenses ought we build? One great house, raised from stacking these hardened earth bricks that you have shown us the way to make?”

“Stacking these hardened earth bricks is the goal, but not for a great house.” Voligan shifted the earth around them to make a dirt wall. “You must build a wall, something that your people can hide behind and stand upon so that you can control who enters and exits Pasargad and more easily discover strangers among you. If you are attacked, you can hide those who have no skill at fighting behind the walls while those who are skilled can throw rocks at the attackers. It is a useful tool, and one that you should build soon.”

Voligan paused and then, with amusement added, “Hmm. It will also make keeping the lions out of Pasargad much easier.”

He looked over the gathered humans and their nudity. "Clothing will also help with cold nights and offer a measure of protection against attacks. I shall teach you how to use your flax to make linen, how to craft clothing, and how to sew the leathers together to better protect yourselves. Yes, that will be the start. The rest I'm sure you will figure out."

And so the folk were shown and taught, and they learned. When at last it came time for Great Voligan to depart, his work finished, that great visage in the Galbar’s clay sank back into the ground without a trace. That they could prove their gratitude and devotion to that benefactor, they assembled a great mass of burnt bricks about that spot and began to build a great mortared house to praise and commemorate Voligan. They built it tall, taller than the growing walls and ramparts even, as befit one of his stature. They built it so tall that it began to grow unstable, and so tapered its width as it grew. At the top it came to a point, and at the end they were left with a temple-pyramid that more resembled the shape of a mountain (by accident) than a house.

So as to remember also the River Spirit that was their protector, the gate nearest the river was given a massive wooden gate that they painted blue and decorated, and the walls bestride it engraved and carved with a great many depictions of the River Spirit and Darius. Behind that gate, they built a statue of fired clay in that other god’s likeness, and atop some other hill they built a temple to the moon.

Darius ruled them into his old years, working with the others until his body began to falter, and only then contenting himself to rest and merely overlook his city from the lofty heights of his abode atop a hill. Eventually he grew near to death, and in the moonlight saw a vision of what was to be done.

The king, well respected and still taller than most even in those venerable years, relinquished his rule. Cyaxares, the favored son of Darius and by then a mighty man in his own right, was proclaimed the next king. Under his rule the walls grew taller and thicker while the grasslands were fallowed into farmland further downriver than ever before. Darius’ stalwart abode was expanded until there was little hint of the modesty and humble nature of the man who had first laid its foundation; now, under that man’s son, it became a palace. 

Time soon revealed that they had underestimated the space that they’d left to themselves within the walls and ramparts that they’d erected, so the fields beyond were pushed farther back and a second ring of walls was soon raised. After that, there was no question that Pasargad – the Enclosure – was the greatest city in Nalusa, its folk the mightiest tribe.

[hider=Summary]
Nalusa comes to Darius’ tribe in Nalusa and gives them a big technological advancement. They learn to make clothes from the flax that was already present, and now they have bricks and pottery and somewhat advanced construction.

Darius lives and dies and his tribe founds Pasargad – the Enclosure – a doubly-walled city. There’s temples to Yudaiel, Arvum, and Voligan inside of it.
[/hider][hider=Vigor Expenditures]
Voligan probably invests about 2 vigor into this post; however, the doctor unfortunately seems to have vanished, so on the spreadsheet Voligan will just be shifted to inactive for now.
[/hider]