Nobody remembers who first said “history is written by the victors”, but everyone knows it’s true. Yet only in storybooks do the heroes always win. In life, it’s often the villains who determine how history remembers them. Finding truth requires asking the losers, the conquered, and the vanquished.
For instance, history says human explorer duo Lois and Clark Meriam founded Redfell port in 4168. The town grew to a small but prosperous city of primarily humans and tieflings. There’s no mention of tensions until 4253, when tiefling residents were declared public enemies. They were the accused culprits behind recent events such as thefts of artifacts, a string of disappearances, and the mayor’s suspicious death. After a brief period of violence, the tieflings lost and were segregated. News of the conflict barely left the region, but Redfell and its neighboring towns remain segregated to this day.
History also says anti-tiefling sentiment was gradually declining during this time period, a decline that continues today across most planes. Individuals may still hold unfavorable opinions, but no other city in its entirety is considered hostile to tieflings. This holds true for most races that endured inequitable treatment at the start of the New Age. Many historians have noted that this era’s conflicts focus more on class than the tribal race divides of the Blood Age. Why, then, is Redfell so far out of time compared to the rest of Orrithia?
If the victors have been disinclined to write this history, then someone who lost might be more willing. Phoenix was born in Redfell in 4224. As children, she and her four sisters would swim in the ocean, climb in trees, and explore the city. “My favorite was the Autumn Festival,” she recalls. “We’d spend our allowances on trinkets from the traveling merchants. When we were young, we’d play shopkeep with caught leaves as money to ‘buy’ seashells from each other. You had to catch the leaves before they hit the ground, otherwise it wouldn’t count.” They were tiefling, and many of their friends were human. Being children, they didn’t think much of why their human friends’ parents never invited them for dinner.
As they got older, things changed. It wasn’t just the parents anymore, but their friends were less interested in being friends. Human shopkeepers followed them around stores, and working for human bosses became more difficult. Phoenix and her sisters were all seamstresses, and experienced this firsthand. “We started getting incomplete or contradicting orders,” she says. “The bosses wouldn’t answer our questions, so we had to make do and hope it worked out.” It often didn’t, as something as minor as using too many buttons would result in docked pay or even firing. Other tieflings in different careers encountered similar issues, and work became harder to find at all.
This was particularly unusual for Redfell, as the city wasn’t founded by the Meriams1 at all, but by tieflings. “We arrived in Redfell hundreds of years ago and built it from the ground up,” Phoenix says. “It became a city thanks to our people.” Since humans held most of west Orrithia, it was only natural that many came to live in the thriving port, especially merchants. “We were always taught that the diversity of our city was to everyone’s benefit. That cooperation and equality made Redfell great.” These lessons, including the full history of the city, were taught in schools that served all children. That half grew up to believe otherwise indicates a much deeper change was taking place in the background.
Phoenix, her sisters, and many other tieflings fought against this changing culture, but whatever forces were behind it were more than they could stop. In 4253, when Phoenix was about 30 years old, tensions rose to violence in the wake of the mayor’s death. For reasons unknown to Phoenix, the city’s humans decided all tieflings were to blame. “Some of us tried to stop it from becoming violent. [My sister] tried handing leaves to a human on the other side. As if to say ‘remember when we played shopkeep together?’ He stabbed her, and left her bleeding on the ground.” Phoenix’s sister survived, but many others didn’t. The conflict was brief and decisive: within a few months, the humans had won control of the city.
1 How the Meriams got attached to the city is unknown – no surviving journals of theirs mention coming to the region at all. Further, city records show all locations in Redfell bearing the Meriam name were renamed that way within the last century. These same records fail to include what the prior names were.
There is a page missing here. It was about how Phoenix and others didn’t stop fighting back and rebelling against the changing tides. They continued smuggling in weapons and trying to escape to get outside help. Mistake removed it at the last minute.By 4260, a section of the city was walled off and all surviving tieflings were corralled inside. The streets were unpaved dirt, and the wooden houses barely kept out the cold. Then, as today, they weren’t allowed in human areas of the city, and couldn’t leave whether by sea or by land. Phoenix recalls: “Every now and then, I tried to sneak onto a ship…But they’d always find me and throw me overboard,” sometimes miles from shore. Even if she could escape, she had nowhere to go. News from outside of Redfell was restricted, leaving her with no guarantee anywhere else would be less hostile. Besides that, she couldn’t leave her four sisters and aging parents behind in such conditions. Phoenix remained in Redfell until she died in a fire in 4286. No history book mentions her, her family, or the fire that killed her, nor questions why the anachronistic conflict arose in an otherwise peaceful city. While anti-tiefling sentiments continue their decline across Arcavios, Redfell and its neighbors maintain their ways and isolate their people so they never know how different the rest of the world is. History is written by the victors, and they rarely mention when they’re wrong.
Included with this report is a transcript of Mistake’s interview with Phoenix. References to Phoenix’s involvement in violence were removed, along with discussions of the lords of hell.
1 How the Meriams got attached to the city is unknown – no surviving journals of theirs mention coming to the region at all. Further, city records show all locations in Redfell bearing the Meriam name were renamed that way within the last century. These same records fail to include what the prior names were.
Mentioned
Timeline
| 4168 | Supposed founding date of Redfell |
| 4224 | Phoenix is born |
| 4253 | The Conflict begins |
| 4260 | Tiefling slums created |
| 4286 | Phoenix dies in a fire |
| 4445 | Mistake is born |
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