Deorma: An Annotated History

"If you say you read it in that history book and actually believed it, then you're an idiot and you deserve what's coming to you."

— Gwenn Alarch

If you read this book and believe it to be a representative history, we will not disabuse you of the notion, but there is a very good chance that someone will punch you if you use it as a position of authority.

— from the Introduction of Deorma: An Annotated History

The group of people least likely to read this book is all the clans of Deorma other than Clan Leafmire, who wrote it and regularly update it. This should say something about the quality of the history within, but many people of the world still read it, some as an ironic look at a one-sided view of Deormic history, and others taking it as a serious historical tome.

Document Structure

Publication Status

This book is published across the known world and, outside of Deorma, is considered to be the quintessential reference work for the country as a whole. Within Deorma, it is still published, but usually used as toilet paper by everyone except Clan Leafmire.

Historical Details

Background

Clan Leafmire has traditionally taken on a more secretarial role when in relation to the other clans. As such, at some point in the past (probably around the year 500) they took it upon themselves to record history. They refused to take input from the other clans, or allow them to participate in the project.
When the first version of the history was complete, it was met with outrage. Leafmire showed obvious favoritism toward their allies, and painted their enemies as universally reviled villains, even when all that enemy might have done was let a border stone fall over.
Ever since then, Leafmire has maintained the history. While the events did most likely happen, the perspective is entirely one sided. This is a noted hallmark of the book.

Legacy

This book is in part the reason for Deorma's reputation as being rather stupid. Clan Leafmire is overt in their bias, and the other clans know this, so they discount the information in this history with good reason. They also discount other history books as being equally fallacious. While they only fall slightly under the usual literacy rate, most of the people don't take advantage of the skill for nonfiction works, since they have every reason to believe that it is full of lies and opinions.

Type

Manuscript, Historical

Medium

Paper