The Rise of the Marsh People

Founding

The city-state of Eshkar is established when the Eshtem of the Markunj River delta in southwestern Utanar declare themselves independent from the Turha Empire. Other Eshtem cities in the southern coastal region soon follow their example, establishing mutual defense and take control of sea lanes with Xusmalat.

In southern Utanar, civilizations and empires had risen and fell for centuries. Inland hill chiefs fought each other for territory and spread ever westward from their rocky hills towards the coastal plains, consuming villages and clans that farmed and herded those rich lands. These bandit lords grew to become kings. In time, their wealth attracted the steppe peoples of Utanar, who raided their rich lands from the north.

On the coast of southwestern Utanar, a cluster of humble fishing villages did their best to keep out of the way of these powers, trusting in the isolation of their reed filled marshes on the banks of the great Markunj River. These Eshtem, the People of the Marshes, continued to spread along the coasts, fishing and trading, too poor in goods and cropland to warrant attention. As their seacraft improved, they ventured out ever further south into into the narrow Mahasam Sea. Some eventually reached the coast of northern Xusmalat.

The largest and oldest Eshtem village, Eshkar, grew to become a city, most of which existed on wooden platforms in the shallow Markunj Bay. The city protected itself from occasional land raids with drawbridges and attacks from sea were counfounded by the treacherous sandbars that only the Eshtem knew how to navigate.

From this vantage, these humble fisherfolk grew into merchants of great reknown, trading spices, fruit and other exotic goods northward along the coast to the northern border kingdoms on the edge of the northern steppes as well as east up the wide Markunj River. In time, their wealth grew to become a prize worth grabbing by the inland kingdoms, which by now had been consolidated into the Turha Empire. Eshkar and the other coastal cities did not have the ability to resist their might and became vassal states to Turha, paying tribute for the right to exist.

Eshkar and the other coastal cities continued to prosper in this dearly purchased peace. This prosperity attracted landless peasants and escaped slaves from the east and north who came to the Eshtem cities for work and a new life. Along with immigrants from Xusmalat, the coastal cities became cosmopolitan and diverse, a place of opportunity with no bandits or lords to fear.

The oldest Eshtem families, the great houses, grew in wealth, power and influence. But they knew that their positions were precarious, should their overlords to the east become too jealous or greedy of them, despised as they were as nothing but filthy merchants. And so they sent their eldest children to serve in the officer ranks of the Turha armies and married them into the families of wealthy lords and into the Turha royalty itself.

These houses also conspired to create their own secret navies. Their ships raided Turha trading vessels under the guise of Xusmalat pirates and set up shipyards and pirate havens in remote coastal areas of northern Xusmalat, headed up by their second-born sons and daughters. They played this dangerous game for decades, awaiting an opportunity that finally came in the death of the Turha Emperor Vijkhan. The civil war between his many sons and vassals tore the empire apart. It was in this year that the great houses of Eshkar declared themselves an independent city-state.

Using their now powerful navy, mercenary army of hired steppe nomads and network of intelligence, Eshkar defended itself from the empire's forces seeking tribute and recruits. They strangled trade on the Mahasam sea and supplied steppe nomads with weapons and supplies to raid from the north without pause, dividing the empire's forces. A year later, all the Eshtem city-states had followed suit and a formal alliance was formed. The free cities of the southern coast vowed to defend eachother and never again be under the heel of outsiders.