Paradise Lost

Population Migration / Travel

As the latest glacial minimum of the Nehem glaciation reaches its most severe heat, sea level rise accelerates. Islands and coastlines are consumed by the seas over the course of mere decades. The island peoples off the coast of northwestern Xusmalat are confronted with loss and stark choices.

Life on the bountiful island chains northwest of Xusmalat was an ideal existance for a millenium. The people of these isles plied the waters in canoes and great sailed catamarans. They fished, foraged and grew gardens and traded with their neighboring islands.

Then the seas began to rise, at first gradually, but increasing in pace. Land and resources became scarcer, the seas warmed and storms became more common and fiercer. Confronted with these pressures, the societies became increasingly warlike and heirarchical. They competed for control over the remaining islands until one tribe came to dominate the entire region.

Some lesser tribes on the fringes of this island empire bound together into two tribal coalitions, one in the east and one in the west. These coalitions independently made the decision to strike out from their islands in search of freedom and a new life and set sail in great fleets of catamarans towards their destinies.

Those of the eastern most islands made their way to the coasts of Xusmalat, becoming the ancestors of the sea nomads called the Ranjari. The tribes of the westernmost islands, galvanized by the prophecies of the priests of Lady Acuecueyolotl, sailed west into the unknown.

The great fleets of the western tribal coalition, guided and protected by the powerful priests of the sea goddess Acuecueyolotl, found themselves months later on the southeastern shores of Kalmasa. The land they found themselves in was strange, but bountiful and they gave thanks and offerings to the Heart of Waters for their salvation.