Legends of Belariath

Sithian History

The first Sithians appeared on an island 30 miles away from their homeland, they were partial (air breathing) marine based organisms and highly intelligent, living on the partially submerged island of Castros. A group traveled to the mainland, and those that remained drowned when the tides rose 300 years later.

Nearly 1000 years passed and the first priestesshood rose up. The Qux-Anxata was written in its first form upon the walls of an ancient pyramid, and then copied into smaller mud-based forms 500 years later. The people were considered enlightened and educated, as any could read the great Qux-Anxata within the first city and interpret its meaning personally.

Great earthquakes rocked the land and destroyed the great pyramid and the original form of Qux-Anxata; 10 different copies circulated through the survivors, each different interpretations of the original text. Nomads traveled the land far and wide, and new cities were formed by those that stayed.

The Xut-anpatoc (helper of the people), a family of Sithians, catalogued and gathered most of the known copies. From their interpretation the younger generations were taught and educated, and the royal family built its power base. A new priestesshood was formed, and the bridge between Sithians and other races (who have, for the most part, existed in peace) was burned when the priestess hood instituted sacrifice.

The Sithian people spread far and wide throughout the jungles of Belariath, many cities were formed, and the nomads continued to travel farther and farther out into the country. The land was smaller then, and the oceans were vaster.

Over several thousand years the climate became gradually colder and colder, the Sithian civilization lived at its peak and then began to shrink as more and more fled into the center of the empire. Finally Belariath came out to be as it is today, far colder then it was when Sithians first colonized it. A single house, the Calx-riatic, discovered the tyranny of the priestess hood of Xut-anpatoc and left the circle. The Xut-anpatoc cast them out as outcasts, and the Calx-riatic remade the religion in the image they thought the original creators would have wanted. Many followers left with them, but most stayed.

The priestesshood split apart the land into fiefdoms alighted to a rare few, chosen families that aided Xut-anpatoc in appreciated ways. Lesser families were to work these lands, and were to pay their ‘rent’ by working the lands and in return given protection and housing. The caste system was formed, and surnames were changed.

In recent times, the outcasts are found more prevalent in the outer lands and in the swamps, living sometimes solitarily and sometimes in small tribes, scraping out livings for themselves and worshiping Brastli in their own individual ways. The population has boomed for the Sithians of the city states, and expansion is desired…they wish to form strategic alliances with their racial neighbors, and cut down those unworthy of such alliances. They also desire trade, as the resources of their forest homes are drying up.