Legends of Belariath

Boleslaw

It was a typical halfling dispute that had set his people on the exodus so far to the south and east, to the marshes and bogs that they would settle in. Something so simple and, some would argue so stupid as thinking their kindred talked too much, drank too much, and generally were fat and cheerful imbeciles. At that time they had been the Meadowdown branch of halflings, always a little taller than the average, a little stouter than their kindred. Centuries of breeding within their own clan created the distinct people that would later change their name to ‘Maurokian’, or Bog Treader. It is amazing what centuries spent far away from the other halfling bloodlines will do for genetic drift, though the particulars of such a concept would be nothing that the swamp halflings would understand. All they knew was that after several generations, they were larger than the fat and childlike cousins they had abandoned in disgust. No one would confuse them for anything more than a beardless, emaciated dwarf, but it was sufficient to give them a diverse look all of their own.

Culturally, they became products of the harsh terrain they viewed as some sort of paradise, paradoxically because of the very things that made it so inhospitable. To keep safe from the various predators such as the marsh eagle and the alligator, they developed a language of sign and only spoke the verbal word when communication with those who were not Maurokian. The harsh terrain and the soft ground that would suck anything that stood upon it too long down into oblivion kept them in small and highly mobile bands of skirmishers, negating the need for them to congregate in the large groups that they so disliked. For a halfling brood that disliked excessive speech, valued privacy, and only felt the need to organize during war or great threat, it was a curious sort of heaven upon the world.

The centuries passed and the Maurokian’s eventually became known to the city states that consistently warred with each other still further south than their paradise. In their arrogance, the civilized humans thought to use the evolving savagery and cunning of the Maurokians in their wars, hoping to gain some sort of advantage from their use as skirmishers and light infantry.

To facilitate this demand, and to make sure that no band ended up fighting another, a formal office was created. These ambassadors and negotiators also had another, more secret and insidious task: to keep the states in a state of distrust and war, so that the Maurokians would always profit from their strife, until they themselves grew weary of it and would pour from their bogs and bring down the cities, only to impose their own savage brand of order. In a facetious act, they named it after the one king they had respected, the only one who figured out that the swamp savages were perhaps a bit smarter and a lot less primitive than the deliberate impression given. They killed him because of this wisdom, and yet they honored him with the negotiators caste name: henceforth, these spies and diplomats would be called Boleslaws.

The one who would be born of the Wraith band, the third child to be designated for training as a Boleslaw, was a giant even amongst the marsh halflings. Standing four foot when he was five by the Imperial calendar, four foot eleven by the time he finally stopped growing at sixteen. A fine hunter and warrior, he gained renown as a Boleslaw of great deceptions and political acumen. He instigated three of the most profitable wars for the Maurokian people between the states, managed and brought several Wraith bands to great victories, and did all of this while concealing himself behind the veil of a mere representative of the savages. All the while he learned, concealing the depth of wisdom wedded to primal cunning beyond a mild mannered and sagacious mannerism. So easy to forget how smart he was with his savage mode of dress. How hard to imagine that he forgot nothing and remembered where the bodies were buried when he played the part of the sycophant.

Yet even though he played the part of the manipulator and subversive so well, from a young age he had chafed at the grand deception his people made. They had made enough money, their warriors were in each city, and their population enjoyed the most quiet explosion in the history of the world. Why did they not simply take what they wished? Perhaps it was a lack of knowledge, an awareness that if they conquered, if the annexd the states it might be they who became assimilated.

It was with this in mind that the Boleslaw made the years long journey to a nation heard largely in rumors and talk between traders. After training his replacement, he would seek the knowledge of what holds together an Empire, what would keep their cultural identity strong in the face of civilization. For the Boleslaw, it was not a trip of luxury...one day, the game his people played might be played out, and thus have their hand forced. Or perhaps this rapidly expanding empire would one day border their swamps and marshes. The Maurokians needed to make friends or at the very least allies of this Emperor and his nation, lest they be subjugated...

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