Ocean Folk

The Ocean Folk (yako-yamuka, literally "first rowers" in old Ǧafetse language) were the first men who arrived on Mundus somewhere between 2800 and 3100 years before the current era. They were the precursor to the three human cultures that exist on the continents today.

History

The ocean folk sailed from across the western ocean, fleeing the destruction of their homeland in the Sundering. They arrived on the shores of Mundus Minor the years following the calamity, and settled in its coastal woodlands, south of the Shrouded Peaks. Over the next centuries, they continued their expansion east along the tropical forests, and eventually settled all of the Teukharan peninsula.
Sometime during this eastward expansion, the made contact with dwarves of the Shrouded Peaks. For many centuries the two peoples kept a respectful distance to each other, but over centuries of coexistence, they began to mingle and live among each other. They engaged in trade with these mountain kith, who between the years 1800 and 1500 before the current era taught the yako-yamuka the secrets of metalworking.
The yako-yamuka had sailing in their blood, and sometime between the years 1200 and 1000 before the current era, splinter groups set sail across The Abyssal Divide seeking new lands to settle. They formed settlements along the western coast of Mundus Major, some of them spreading north while others went south. There they found the rainy peninsulas of the Sea of Sorrows.
Over the next millenium, life was good for mankind, and as they spread and populated the world, three distinct cultural groups began to form among them:

Western folk. Those who remained in the the tropics of Mundus Minor, and mingled with the dwarves there.

Savannah folk. Men who sailed east and north, where they met the wild elves of the north. They lived on the edge of the endless sea of grass.

Southern folk. Men who sailed north and south, settling in the isles and peninsulas of the Sea of Sorrows. They eventually met with the gruakhai, the towering kith of the woods.

Legacy

Drawing a clear line between the the last yako-yamuka and the first of the three new tribes is amount to drawing a line in the waves. The ocean folk of millenia past left few physical reminders of their passing, as they built of wood and lived semi-nomadic lives along the coasts. Their legacy lives on among the three tribes of folk, each of them carrying a piece of the men who sought refuge from their destroyed homeland.
Between the years 8th and 9th century of the current era, the setzá began their expansion from the Lake of Tears. Mounted atop their razorbeaks, they proved to be formidable conquerors. They rode west and torched many a human settlement, while enslaving or exacting tribute from others. Their conquest physically split the savannah folk from their southern cousins, and made travel along the coast more dangerous, further deepening the cultural divide between these three cultures.

I curse the day our ancestors averted their gaze from Neji-sosheaka! What good has followed since we left the embrace of her shores?
The darkness of the mountain and shadows of the forest have tainted our souls, made us turn on each other! The misakii gave us swords to slay each other in greater numbers, the iron to shackle our fellow kith!
We have lost sight of which makes us men - the ocean and her waves! To live outside of her reach has soiled our spirit, made us cruel and conniving, vying for scraps of land we should never have touched!
Brothers and sisters! We must cast aside our corrupted ways! Live as our ancestors did, by the grace and mercy of The Tidebringer! Abandon your tools and blades of unholy metal, back into the deep pits of the earth! Only then can we hope to be free of violence and misery, of war and strife!
A street preacher in Teukhara at the onset of the War of the Axe and Shackle, 1479.