While the West and the North grew under the purview of gods and magick, the people of the East explored. They wandered and drew maps, they tamed animals and learned to ride them, and they even began to use tools of iron to build bridges and boats along the coast.
This ingenuity and curiosity woven its destiny along the coastlines in the East. The mortal races had spread along the plains, forests, and mountains quickly in the early years, and many of them fell in love with the powerful winds and waves. Early blankets became sails, doors became rafts, and the life of the sailor was born.
While the Elves tended the land, beasts, and plants of the West, mankind spread far and wide. Traversing the hills and valleys, flowing down the rivers, and building forts to harvest precious furs and materials. The land provided ample fuel to the innovative minds of the East, and solutions were built and tested, generation after generation.
Some of the most prominent areas turned from villages to trading outposts, then finally to towns. But it was the cities, that formed from ports and waterways that truly drove innovation along the coast, and the invention of coin.
It was the short-lived mortals that invented currency, inspired by the Dvarfolk’s desire for shiny metals and gems. Bartering for goods quickly turned into a game of collecting precious and hard-to-find materials. The ones that were needed for the most luxurious finery and the most productive travel. Trade was born almost instantly when the dwarves of the mountains met the explorers of the eastern coast. And soon the smithing and gem-cutting skills of the elvish lands were being enhanced by the creativity of the mortals in the cities and mountains of the East.
The cities built from ports needed leaders, and after many different models failed, a lord-king was created for each major port. In the coming ages they would be called pirate kings for the impetus to steal and smuggle from each other in daring enterprises and schemes, but in the beginning, they were simply the most capable leaders. The ones who could provide security and profit, and enforce rules of civility.
If you are enjoying the Wold of Ar’rin and its mythology, please try reading my novel “in progress” that is set in Ar’rin as the Age of Shadows comes to an end.