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Marrishland has a long and violent history. Several civilizations have risen and fallen, here, and the book tells about events during one of the most turbulant periods - a period whose events determine whether a civilization survives or dies.

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The God Wars (ca. 2000 - 1000 A.C.)

Once the Hundred Tribes established themselves in their local environments, they seemed to have few threats to their territory. There is no record of contact with the Drakes during, before, or even for several centuries after this time, so the sole rival to human occupation did not factor into the history of the Hundred Tribes. Scholars disagree about how this is possible. Some claim the Drakes had not yet expanded into areas occupied by the wint tribes or that they avoided these newcomers to the subcontinent. Others believe the Drakes were too torn with fighting among themselves to recognize the potential threat these wints represented, and that the wints did not recognize the Drakes' intelligence or consider them anything but large predators. A few believe the Drakes were not present in Marrishland at all in this early period but, rather, arrived much later in history, either because they had not yet been created by Dinah or because they originated from a place outside of the subcontinent. Certainly, their appearance in history is dramatic and abrupt.

Regardless of the Drakes' whereabouts, the Hundred Tribes soon mastered a significant portion of the subcontinent's interior and expanded to the edges of their individual territories. Soon, many tribes found themselves in competition for the same territory. Marrishland, while large, has always been notably lacking in many resources, including land suitable for building towns. The more dry land a tribe controlled, the larger a population it could support.

The oral histories of those tribes that were later recorded describe the conflict between the Hundred Tribes as nothing less than a series of battles between scores of gods, many of whom have identifiable equivalents in the Mar pantheon or mirror the attributes of a hero still revered by the Mar. According to these stories, each deity guided and guarded a different tribe, and each tribe embodied the attributes of its patron deity. The events described as literally accurate in these mythological conflicts are, of course, impossible, but some scholars believe they might be reflective of the fates of the tribes these warring gods embodied. During this chaotic millennium, half the gods fell to violence and treachery of one sort or another — a detail that seems to illustrate the fierceness of these tribal conflicts. For this reason, this period is often called the God Wars.

While it is unimaginable that this millennium was marked by a constant state of war, it was intense enough to weaken the surviving gods such that, by the end of it, illnesses were breaking out throughout many of the villages of the Hundred Tribes. While these epidemics did not threaten to wipe out the tribes, that they were able to find purchase among the god-defended inhabitants of these communities was indicative of how near the tribes were to the end of their strength after a millennium of bitter wars. Even those tribes who feared for the worst — that the gods themselves were nearing the end of their strength — believed they could do nothing to end the conflicts, for if they lowered their own defenses, nothing would stop the other tribes from consuming them.

(Contributed by Weard Leif Gesyk)