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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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Kalkoraen Exploration (1 I.D. - ca. 300 I.D.)

For several decades after making landfall, the Kalkorae devoted most of their time and resources to fortifying their position at Domus Palus. Within a year, they had built a dam at the mouth of the Lapis Amnis, transforming it into a long, narrow lake. In addition to providing a steady supply of power for the Kalkoraen devices, the dam could also be opened with a few minutes' notice. Opening the dam not only transformed the lake into a raging maelstrom of angry water in the event of a water craft attack, it could provide a significant, if temporary, boost to the amount of energy the dam's harvesters produced.

During this period, there were a handful of Kalkorae who ventured beyond the range of the sun slings to explore the surrounding lands. These were the first mapmakers, and they were at once the mockery and the wonder of their people. Kalkoraen devices were too heavy and bulky for a single person to carry a harvester and several foci in a pack. The Kalkorae had no beasts of burden, and their transportation devices could not travel across the marshy ground or through the thick wooded areas that surrounded Domus Palus. Virtually all Kalkoraen technology was rooted in their magic, so these mapmakers were forced to travel without the benefit of any of their civilization's prodigious advancements. The mapmakers ranged into the swamps with a sword, a spear, two days of rations, and only those few devices (such as fire starters and wind compasses) that were small enough to carry on the back.

Despite their courage and resourcefulness, these mapmakers penetrated less than a hundred miles into the interior in the first three centuries following the founding of Domus Palus. They learned much about the hazards of the terrain — primarily by seeing their traveling companions fall prey to them — and developed mundane tools and processes to cope with many of these. Doing so without the guidance of anyone whose ancestors had endured the worst the subcontinent had to offer was an impressive accomplishment, but it drastically reduced the rate at which the mapmakers could safely explore. Some who ventured into the most dangerous parts of the swamp even caught glimpses of wint towns that were clearly different from those of the Totanbeni, though these reports seldom attracted any significant attention from the Kalkoraen authority.

(Contributed by Weard Oda Kalidus)