FSE

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I should like to clarify a few things before I get to the main story. Also, I intend to post weekly updates.

A Note from the Author

My group of explorers and I found a copy of this book on our explorations to the world of Ferina III. In discovering it, we found that, despite our many different native tongues and ethnicities, we could all read and understand the same meaning from the text. This discovery ought to be made known to the general public. In it is written an apparent history or epic poem of the planet before we men arrived. A copy of the manuscript is presented as follows, but before we continue, some things must be clarified.

The houyhnhnms are a race of horse men. Not centaurs, mind, horses who have developed the ability to stand on their hind legs and opposable thumbs. Now, we men call them horses, but the houyhnhnms also have large horns similar to a bull's, but not nearly so long. Their height, on average, is about seven feet tall fully extended, but the houyhnhnms prefer to bend their knees and hunch their backs--such is seen as a humble position in their society. But they have a standard deviation in height of about 3 inches from the samples that men have seen. They weigh, on average, anywhere from 1050 to 1150 pounds on average, with a standard deviation of about 50 pounds. They are, like our horses and cows, herbivorous, primarily eating vegetation similar to what we know to be corn or maize and oats. Their hair colors are also similar in pattern and variation to our own horses. Their temperaments also tend to be docile, kind, gentle, and trusting. Very few houses in any houyhnhnm village will have a lock on its door. Those who are ill-tempered or cynical tend to be soldiers who have seen the other sentient races who live on their planet--dwarves, elves, trolls, and dragons.

The houyhnhnms, as described, are a trusting people. Other races, especially the elves and dragons, call them naïve. They are, by our own standards, a primitive and unindustrious people on the whole, one that would prefer to feast and live in relative primitivity in secluded country villages rather than develop large cities. The largest city they have, Brarhapa, numbers barely larger than 60,000. They celebrate certain holidays celebrating the harvest and the new planting season as well as a seeming myriad of smaller holidays, perpetually looking for a reason to relax. Being uptight or pushy is to a houyhnhnm rather rude and obnoxious.

The history of the houyhnhnms dates back to the dawn of their planet, which consists of one colossal mega-continent similar to our own Pangaea. The houyhnhnms live in the steppes of the Southwest of the continent, a fertile, if somewhat arid, land well-drained with many rivers and creeks. And despite the few natural barriers of their land, the lack of natural resources other than the mildly fertile land and the remoteness of the land made it not worth the effort of the other sentient races to invade. Moreover, the houyhnhnms were indeed quite capable fighters. Their speed and prowess in battle could only really be rivaled by the dragons themselves, who had no interest in the vast, open plains where the houyhnhnms lived, preferring instead to live in mountains, safe from the meddling of others. As a result, the houyhnhnms, having enjoyed many decades of absolute peace, last broken by a minor skirmish with the elves at the edge of the forests that were adjacent to the plains to the north. The last major war in which the houyhnhnms had participated had been centuries previous, when the elves and trolls had formed an alliance under Depsonius III. And having formed an alliance with the dwarves and a few of the dragons, the houyhnhnms managed, after a series of bloody battles, to depose Depsonius and impose a new king on the elves.

And from that war, the houyhnhnms managed to find scrolls of magic from the elves, guarded most secretly and well. These were, at the time, considered most advanced magical arts, and the houyhnhnms pounced on the opportunity to use them. But the elves, having remembered that embarrassing defeat, did not sit still. Furious at having their most advanced arcane arts stolen, they strove their hardest to improve upon them. The elves, as we men understand, are an industrious, urban people. They do live in forests, but their population centers are clustered and largely sedentary. From them and the dragons, all other races learned magic, and the elves are considered to have the most efficient magical algorithms in the world to this day. The elves are also a cunning race that prizes industry and thrift. Their culture has developed a very meritocratic system of life. Their children are, from an early age, separated from their parents so that they do not learn the vices of their parents. They are educated en masse in large assembly halls similar to our own auditoria. Nevertheless, without what they see as the meddling influence of parents, they have been able to maintain a high degree of academic excellence.

We do not know much of Orkish culture--which many speculate to be because they haven't any. The Orks are a fiercely individualistic bunch, by and large, preferring the company of themselves and their immediate family over broad communities. They seldom interact even with one another, preferring instead to go about their business. Their bazaars, however, are enormous, sprawling things, full of every kind of spectacle (many of which are prohibited elsewhere). But the Orks are a peaceful people, content to sit and go about their business rather than to be interfered with.

The dragons are often similar in temperament to the Orks. But being bigger and smarter (dragons are said to have intelligence quotients many times the average of every other sentient race), the dragons are only united by individual ties and personal relation. They are also a needy species (their daily nutritional requirements are as much as 10 men); they therefore hire servant kobolds (offering protection and land for a tax of surplus goods). Dragons are thus divided into minor fiefdoms, each with his own kobold vassals.

And finally, the dwarves are the merchants and common glue of Ferina III. They trade their wares among all the races of the world and are fiercely ambitious and adventurous. Many of the other races call them a tad greedy, and there are rumors of dwarves dying for their treasures. With that said, the dwarves are by and large honest (even if only because other dwarves force them to be so), but they are also eager to learn and open to new experience. They are pleasant, and often more willing to negotiate than to fight. They are pragmatic, reasonable, and flexible on the whole, but also committed to inquiry, new roads, and new people.

With this bare-bones sketch of the planet Ferina III, I hope my dear reader can understand enough of the history and temperaments of enough of those involved for you to believe what I say to be true.