2. Rise of the Julous Dominion

In the Marrow Valley, the numerous decades following the Divergence left the landscape blackened and inhospitable. The remaining people struggled for food and shelter as they wandered the rocky hills for centuries, avoiding the colder weather of the north. Nomadic sects of humans and halflings defended themselves against the hungry beasts and lingering evils threatening their homesteads, and fought with each other over fertile land.
Small civilizations began to form amid the chaos, but it wasn’t until the central township of Zadash was established as a safe outpost that the unification of the Marrow Valley began. Helmed by the Julous family, supposedly of noble blood from before the Calamity, a guarded community with an organized military force was built in the center of the valley around four hundred years ago. It became both a haven for the struggling masses and a center for agricultural expansion.
Increasing their strength with each generation, this movement guided by the Julous family became known as the Julous Dominion, stretching across the south end of Western Wynandir. Not all agreed to join the Julous Dominion, however. Some outliers rejected the Julous interests, founding their own village of Kamordah on the boiling earth of the hills in the southwest Marrow Valley. In time, the people of Kamordah came to worship a being of primordial fire that lives beneath the mountains and speaks to them in dreams and visions.