History of the Morellic Minikin

Last updated Oct 1, 2023

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This note goes over the history of the Morellic Minikin. It explains their divergence from the Móra riSéwi, their hybridisation with the Western Kaśtaira, and the founding of Sarvara.

• The Creation Story
• The History of the Móra riSéwi Minikin

One day in the early autumn, a Móra riSéwi group was exploring the northern wilderness of the central continent. As they reached the edge of a steppe, they found a forest.

Foraging for food in the forest as they as their ancestors had done for hundreds of years, they went further deep, eventually stumbling upon a clearing, which had a circular swamp with a tree in the centre.

The swamp and tree looked normal from afar, but upon closer inspection it was noticed that the swamp not only was filled with tar, but also that the tree was grey, with a grey ridged surface.

When the minikin attempted to climb the tree, it was promptly discovered that the tree was flimsy, hollow, and broke into pieces under the slightest touch, solid black fumes pouring out of the hole before evaporating into oblivion.

The pieces that had broken off of the tree, however, lacked gravity, and soon floated back into their original positions, and the fumes ceased to pour out.

As the minikin touched the tree more and more, watching it break like dust into black clouds before reforming, they noticed that there was a great lot of fruit at the bottom of the hollow trunk, and the fruit was gold.

The fruit kept the consistency of real fruit, but appeared shiny and golden, and their insides were wet, fleshy, and white, with a pitch-black stone in the centre.

The group’s leader, a minikin known as Grasscap, took the initiative to eat the fruit, but immediately she began to cough, violently hacking up the same solid back fumes of the tree. What the group didn’t know nor understand, was that she had contracted the Curse of Hollowness.

The group immediately tried to place the golden fruit back, but in the blink of an eye the entire swamp, the fruit, and the tree had dissapeared without them noticing.

Frightened and confused by what had happened, the group decided to return to foraging, but the air was bitter and the entire group was afraid. Grasscap attempted to be confident however, and never truly let herself resign to fear.

While a lot of the group were convinced the event was an apparition that never truly existed or threatened anyone, it soon showed that Grasscap would continually and routinely begin coughing more and more of the black fumes, and her state worsened over time.

The spiritual leaders of the group settled that the event was a Nightmare coming to life and affecting the real world, and while the world may have woken up, Carsai was affected still from eating the fruit.

A lot of the minikin were scared to be around her for fear of breathing in the fumes once others began to show the same symptoms, and eventually portions her own body began to turn to the same gravityless mass of the tree.

It was soon that these Móra riSéwi minikin decided to move to Naíru, to settle down and maybe find a cure for their afflicted, on account of the advanced medicinal industry of the city-state.

Grasscap proved herself bedridden, laying in a hospital den indefinitely, but she was in good spirits and continued to attempt to guide her group with her wisdom and advice.

A lot of the group joined the effort to bring a halt to the plague, creating potions, blessing certain mixtures, and creating face-masks to block the black fumes from getting from and to others.

Despite the great effort of a lot of minikin, the first people began to die. Mostly poor Naíruans, but eventually, the nobles and royalty. This was the beginning of the Naíruan Extinction Event.

Mooncloud, twin sister of the co-regnant Moonwind, was one of those to die. The two deformed twins ruled the city of Naíru at the time, and shared one soul enough for two people due to their twinhood.

This meant that Moonwind took a massive blow upon the death of her sister. Not only was her city crumbling, but her sister was also gone, and she was being filled to overflowing with pitch.

Showing the signs of phantasmarrhoea, she began to go insane on top of the stress she was under. Blaming Grasscap and the Móra riSéwi minikin as a whole, she ordered they be executed, especially Grasscap.

Grasscap had not died yet due to her own resilience as a person, but also due to the Móra riSéwi’s spiritualism, which gave them the knowledge of how to charm their healths.

Moonwind took it into her own hands to exact judgement upon Grasscap, blaming her specifically for her sister’s death.

With purple alucinarium crystals growing upon her skin and orange orb-sparks flaring at every movement, she stood before the emaciated Grasscap.

The Móra riSéwi leader opened her mouth dryly to convey an ancient poem about the nature of the universe, in an attempt to enlighten Moonwind, but it was of no use.

Upon the first word of the poem, Moonwind hacked Grasscap to pieces in her den. A ghastly mixture of red mist, blood, and black fumes filled the air, with the deathly sound of pitch shreiking out as her soul left her body.

As with many other charming methods, one mechanism employed by the Móra riSéwi minikin was the use of watchstones. Thus, the petrified child saw the whole thing.

The Oyhólıru were orders of magnitude less spiritual, or at least less spiritual in the more correct manner, as the Móra riSéwi’s spiritual practices and philosophies aligned greatly with the phenomena and truths of the universe.

This meant that not only did the Oyhólıru not have the experience to treat reality the ‘right’ way, but they were also way out of their depth when interacting with more spiritual groups, leading to mistakes such as the one Moonwind made.

The Petrified Child, having been notified of the evil act by the watchstones peppered about the trees and dens of the Móra riSéwi, immediately made a beeline for the city.

Reaching the royal tree, matching it in size in comparison to the miniscule minikin, it stared on wonderously at Moonwind. Moonwind was terrified of it, and pleaded with it not to hurt her or her kingdom, that they had experienced enough tragedy yet, but it was of no use, and the petrified child blinked at her with the sound of crackling rocks. ‘I don’t like you.’

Moonwind’s face turned from a diplomatic smile to a fearful contortion, and in one moment she called for her servants and guards to attack the Petrified Child, to make sure it wouldn’t kill her, but the child was made of stone. Any weaponry available to the Naíruans was futile, and their spears cumpled and bounced off of the child’s surface.

The last thing that Moonwind ever saw and heard was the sorrowful face of the god, crying and screeching with echoes bouncing off of mountains a continent away. And then she was gone, along with her guards, her servants, her kingdom, her sister, and her adversary Grasscap, only in that royal tree was left the Petrified Child.

In an instant, the government and all structure in the city was lost, in what was great royal tree of wonder and order, was now a simple plant. A plant now with the most luscious flora growing upon its branches, and now with the most strengthened pathogens to grace the universe.

The entire Oyhólıru populus had no idea what a baby meadow was, all they knew was that in the blink of an eye a massive swaddled baby made out of stone had turned their beloved queen into nothing but a beautiful meadow in the midst of her tree.

Naturally, everybody began screaming, looting, fighting, and running. They didn’t know what to do and were terrified of what had happened, the Petrified Child had disappeared in a blink to all in the crowd.

The Móra riSéwi, seeing all of this, knew what was wrong. They had heard tales of Baby Meadows, but had only seen their aftermaths and the great mounds of bones at their core, never up close as they were created.

As much as the sight was beautiful, Grasscap’s daughter, Grassapple, who was now in charge, promptly made the entire group snap out of their focus on the morbid event. Her first command was to make leave for the shore and leave behind all sick, to escape the area’s chaos and the curse of hollowness.

Their first destination was the Natswh’kara river, as they knew that if they followed it downstream, they could reach the sea very quickly, (Naíru was built close to the shore and was a port city) and they could use the inland flora to construct boats and rafts out of sticks and vegetation very effectively.

Soon, they went downstream upon their rafts, leaving behind all sick from the curse of hollowness. after a short period, they reached the mouth of the river, and brought out large sticks and leaves to serve as oars.

The Móra riSéwi resolved to get as far away as they could. They had no obligation to stay in Naíru once Grasscap was dead and the mourning period was over by the time the Petrified Child arrived.

All Naíru was to the Móra riSéwi was a broken city with no relevance anymore, and the group figured there would be little detriment to feeling to a new land; they were people of the forest, they could fend for themselves - all they had to do was explore, find where the food was, and charm it for preservation.

They agreed to journey to the South-West, collectively sailing as a fleet to their shared destination. They would throw overboard and minikin showing signs of the curse of hollowness, and ration what food they had left. After 2 months when the journey was over, all who died from starvation or dehydration or were sick were left behind at the bottom of the ocean.

Once the Móra riSéwi minikin had reached the shore, they immediately leaped off of their boats and rafts and ran in search of food toward the forests and stepped of the wilderness.

The first major landmark which the minikin found was the Abhmýra, a river in the midst of a lush valley, which the group promptly took for themselves. The starving minikin would rip up and eat anything they could find, eating leaves, grass, bark, and so on, as they had absolutely no idea where the nutritious edible food was.

In fact, the Móra riSéwi’s emaciated bodies looked little better than when they had arrived, even after a couple years. And the natives, looking upon the poor desparate group, took pity on them.

The group that had noticed the Móra riSéwi was the Western Kaśtaira, a Śuténqan group, distinct from the related Eastern Kaśtaira and the ó Źol. They took pity on the Móra riSéwi, taking them in, feeding them, and giving them a place to recover from the sustained malnutrition they had suffered since setting off from Naíru.

After the Móra riSéwi had seen the Kaśtaira’s hospitality, the Kaśtaira matriarchs all came together to discuss the situation; the Móra riSéwi were surely another set of mouths to feed, another group leeching the land of resources.

In a compromise, the matriarchs decided that the Móra riSéwi would be permitted to live in their settlements as long as they be driven out once they knew how to fend for themselves in their new habitat.

After the matriarchs’ decision, the Móra riSéwi all felt more and more comfortable dwelling in their settlements; Naíru had proved to get them used to cities and the culture-shock in living with non-nomads. In fact, the Móra riSéwi felt so comfortable that they naturally began to find love in their new environment, settling down with the Kaśtairan natives in marriage.

The Móra riSéwi didn’t need to learn how to build their own settlements by being taught, but they rather married into a tribe that did, and the next generation inhereted the knowledge from their native parent and their culture as they were raised.

As time went on, the need for the Móra riSéwi minikin to leave became obsolete; a fair amount of Móra riSéwi minikin were now (partially) native Western Kaśtaira. But this didn’t nullify the agreement the matriarchs had made, their declaration was ‘signed in blood’, meaning they couldn’t backtrack on their decision.

Upon the next meeting of the matriarchs concerning the The Móra riSéwi, they agreed it was time that they had better leave. However, most Móra riSéwi minikin living in their settlements had a 50% claim to staying, which made the agreement largely redundant.

The matriarchs still demand that the Móra riSéwi leave, pointing out the agreement which was painted into wooden tablets in red dye. And the Móra riSéwi agreed, they ought to leave, despite their claim to the area. A lot of fuly native people left as well, as parents of mixed-Móra riSéwi children.

The Móra riSéwi minikin’s main reason for leaving was the fact that they wished to preserve their culture; they didn’t dislike Kaśtaira culture, in fact, they incorporated a lot of it into their own, but rather they didn’t wish to be completely subsumed.

The place the Móra riSéwi knew they had to settle was clear, the Abhmýra river valley, which was semi-mythologised as tales that the settlers had told their children in the story of how they got to where they were.

And after a trek of about a week, the entire tribe had reached the river valley, as green and beautiful (if not more) as when the Móra riSéwi had arrived. The valley featured the titular river, but it also proved evident that there was an island int eh centre of the river, an eyot with a large tree in the middle.

Standing upon the top of the surrounding hills, Grassquartz the queen, daughter of Grassapple, daughter of Grasscap, leaned over to her second in command and, pointing to the tree, said ‘This is where we will live.’

Grassquartz ordered the building of the city immediately, and so the people went to build. They termed the city Sarvara, meaning ‘Our Valley,’ and stayed there, having lost their nomadic tradition for the Kaśtaira tradition of settling down.

This Móra riSéwi group, having genetically and culturally merged with the Kaśtaira, began to find it harder and harder to consider themselves Móra riSéwi.

A lot of the partially native children found it alienating to align themselves with a group from a sea away who looked different to them (Or, like only one of their parents.) So, a compromise was reached, and the Móra riSéwi eventually became the Morellic minikin - a new, separate group entirely.

A group that was very displeased by the morellic arrival was the Tsṇjén, an ó Źol tribe native to the area. Following their displacement, they were forced to inhabit the inland desert oases of the central continent, a far cry compared to the lushness of the coastal valleys.

%%Please rewrite this all in more detail, this is the next arc! work on it in the next few streams?%%

The conflict began as the Tsṇjén arrived to the Abhmýra, and seeing the city of Sarvara being set up, immediately attempted to attack it. Thankfully, the morellic minikin had Alucinara on their side, and threatened them with watchstones and blades if they were to hurt anyone.

A retreat followed, not before a lot of Tsṇjén had their tails cut off. Such a punishment spiritually disconnected the soul, leading to ostracism of those affected by it and the innability for their living consciousness to enter the afterlife, impacting the person’s life deeply.

From then on, any Tsṇjén minikin were to have their tails removed on sight, and they would routinely raid Sarvaran satellite villages in the surrounding area. This culminated in the great war of the Abhmyra, leading to many casualties, but a decisive victory of the sarvaran civilisation led by the military general Hastynewt the Elephant.