Gaz F10 The Kingdom of Kaarjala - Vaults of Pandius

HISTORY AS THE IMMORTALS KNOW ITperilous, with many skirmishes withbands of humanoids and barbarians, buteventually the Saamari reached sanctuaryin the fabled land of Pojaara.Lemminkainen revealed to the chiefsthat the lands on the eastern side of agreat mountain range would be their newhome. There they would prosper so longas they upheld their spirit and foughtvaliantly for all they held dear. Yet itwas not time for their passage to the eastto begin, and Lemminkainen commandedthe Saamari to rest in Pojaara until theirgrief over the loss of Isanmaa hadsubsided; a sign would be given when thetime was right to leave. Lemminkainennamed as his successor Eino, widelyregarded as the bravest of the chiefs, andthen departed with the Automaton.The Saamari enjoyed fifteen years ofpeace in Pojaara, during which theirmorale and health improved greatly. Oneday, a great tremor shook the land, andthe people saw a swath of hills –mountains, actually – fall away in theeast, revealing a clear path runningthrough a wide gap. After another threeyears of preparation, the people emergedfrom Pojaara but found themselves in thenorthern reaches of the Borean Valley.They followed a circuitous route acrossthe north, guided by beacons laid downby Lemminkainen. They stopped severaltimes to regroup on the modern ShonakTribal Lands and the highlands north ofthe Hill and Dale, but external forcesalways forced them to continue theirjourney before long. Finally, the Saamarireached the western foothills of a greatmountain range – the Icereach – andmade their way through several passes.A hidden forest in the northern rangeprotected another generation of theSaamari before their odyssey continued.On the other side of the peaks, theybeheld a great, marshy plain stretchinginto the east, lightly populated by twoquarreling peoples – a stocky, nomadicpeople who followed herds of reindeercalled the Shonaks; and the fair-skinnedLittonians, who herded, farmed meagerly,and mined. Eino’s great-grandson, Risto,decreed that the plains were meant for theSaamari, and he led his people on acampaign to expel the other peoplesquickly.The Birth of KaarjalaThe promises made by Lemminkainen,which had been repeated by successivechiefs, soon seemed to ring hollow. TheSaamari were in the midst of a frigid bog,whipped by fierce storms from the north.The few regions of dry land they couldfind had thin soil, and the summer wassimply too short to grow anything but themost meager crops. Morale fell, andbefore long people began to question theintentions of the seemingly legendaryman who had led them out of Isanmaa.The environment would prove to beonly one of several adversaries. Thisdesolate region was the winter huntingground of the nomadic Shonaks, whoresented the arrival of the Saamari andsought to drive them out. Conflict alsoarose with the Littonians to the south, forthey also had claims to the region.The Saamari were not unprepared, andused the tactics they employed againstthe humanoids in Isanmaa to theiradvantage, but they were unfamiliar withthe territory and relatively few in number.Within twenty years of leaving theIcereach Range, the Saamari wereconfined to a belt of open landsandwiched between Pohjanjärvi andIsojärvi Lakes. They maintained theirdefensive lines, but food stores and theresources of the land would notadequately support them indefinitely.Meanwhile their adversaries hunted andgathered with impunity.In the aftermath of a ferocious Shonakassault, Ilmarinen the Smith reappearedwith many legendary devices. With hisweapons, the skills he acquired in hisprevious incarnations, and capitalizing onLittonian-Shonak hostility, Ilmarinenhelped Risto transform the Saamari’sdefensive campaign into an offensiveone. Ten years out, the Shonaks hadbeen driven north, and the Littonians hadretreated to the southeast after their kingfell near Lake Isojärvi. The successor tothe Littonian throne, Marīs, offered toacknowledge the Saamari presence in thenorth in exchange for peace. Both peoplesigned the Treaty of Valmiera in BC 105,and the nation of Kaarjala wasproclaimed with Risto as its first king.Rise of the New KingdomWith their frontiers secure, the Saamaribegan the slow, backbreaking process oftaming their land. Ilmarinen built a newworkshop and withdrew into its sanctum.Five years later, the Saamari werebuffeted by a series of gales, and localtemperatures began to rise as a wave ofsudden warmth washed over the region.The Saamari chiefs traced the source ofthe changes to Ilmarinen’s workshop,where a great golden windmill, glowingwith its own light, dominated thestructure. Ilmarinen emerged andformally unveiled the Great Sampo, hislasting gift to his people that would maketheir land bountiful so long as they stayedtrue to their spirit. His life’s work finallycomplete, Ilmarinen disappeared toreceive the rewards of Immortality.Risto constructed a fortress to protectthe Great Sampo, around which grew thefuture capital, Kaarja, as more peoplesettled the area to be close to the artifactand its gifts. Contact with Littoniacontinued, and relations slowly eased andbecame friendly.Figure 3 The North 0 AC6