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Barbarian Gardens

Garden of Athena is a far future realm of Suzerain, part of the Catalyst family of realms.
Vital to this realm are the barbarian gardens many of which are more or less colonized by the Athenians.

Click on map for full size.

Map of the Athenian Hegemony and the Sakalid Empire 2404 Athenian Calendar

BARBARIAN GARDENS

What follows is a quick guide to the barbarian gardens discovered by the Athenians and their status as per 2404 Athenian Calendar.

The date for "Colonized" in the description is the year in which the first Athenian colonies were founded on a given colony-garden.

The technological level of a barbarian culture is categorized as follows:

Stone Age (little or no advanced tools)
Bronze Age (early metallurgy and primitive technologies)
Iron Age (good metallurgy and some advanced technologies)
Renaissance Age (advanced metallurgy, often gunpowder or equivalent, and advanced technologies in other fields)
Industrial Age (advanced technologies in many fields)

BRUKWENN

Colonized: 2117
Original Culture: Stone Age hunter-gatherers
The first garden to be colonized by the Athenians, Brukwenn is today completely assimilated into the Athenian culture and only a few local dialects and other cultural anomalies will reveal to the casual onlooker that he is not on Athens.
Virtually all Athenian poleis have a colony on Brukwenn.

FERRONIA

Colonized: 2120
Original Culture: Stone Age hunter-gatherers
The second garden to be colonized, Ferronia proved to be much less welcoming than Brukwenn, due to its hostile flora and fauna.
Still to this day large areas of Ferronia’s massive jungles remain untouched and home to deadly creatures such as the Ferronian Tiger and Jungle Bulls.

GAMEEL

Colonized: 2121
Original Culture: Bronze Age city-states
Following a handful of very bloody battles between the bronze-weapon armed Gameeli armies and Athenian hoplites armed with the gifts of the gods the population of this garden abandoned their own ways and embraced Athenian culture wholeheartedly.
Most Athenian poleis have a colony on Gameel or at least a local puppet-king paying tribute.

LUSTRAAD

Colonized: 2128
Original Culture: Bronze Age kingdoms
The peoples of Lustraad fought long and hard against the invading Athenians, but with their primitive weapons and lack of coordination between their kings they could only postpone the inevitable.

In 2222 a bloody rebellion almost managed to force out the Athenian colonists from one of the continents, but in the end it was crushed by a united force from seventeen poleis working in unison.

Today Lustraad is quite peaceful and its population is mostly accepting of Athenian culture. It is one of the richest agricultural gardens in the Hegemony.

GESMERON

Colonized: 2135
Original Culture: Late Iron Age feudal kingdoms
The warring kings of Gesmeron could potentially have offered serious resistance to the Athenians when they arrived, but they were involved in a bloody religious war and did not immediately realize the danger.
Playing one king against another, the Athenians settled and soon dominated the garden.

Today Gesmeron is mostly known for its many mercenaries.

SHINTO

Colonized: 2140
Original Culture: Early Iron Age with advanced mathematics
In this garden Logicians were considered holy men, and their words were headed by even the loftiest of kings. The power of the religion was such that when the Logician-priests told the kings of Shinto that they would not be able to defeat the Athenians they all lay down their weapons and surrendered.

Today Shinto is a rich and well developed garden with its local culture very much intact, albeit officially subservient to the Athenian.

TAYN

Colonized: 2149
Original Culture: Stone Age hunter-gatherers
While this garden is ripe with animal and plant life it is not a pleasant place for humans. Its three main continents are very low-lying land and are regularly flooded by the unpredictable tides.
Only few Athenian poleis found it worth the trouble to settle on Tayn, and today it is still largely untouched, with most of the local tribes of hunter-gatherers living unaffected by Athenian influence.

KAOBIA

Colonized: 2153
Original Culture: Bronze Age with advanced maritime technology
Thousands upon thousands of tropical islands are scattered around the equator of this beautiful garden. Some larger landmasses on the southern hemisphere seem to have become uninhabitable only a few generations prior to the arrival of the Athenians, causing massive migrations and inevitable conflicts between the local tribes. These conflicts were easily exploited by early Athenian settlers, but the geography of the garden made total domination very hard to establish. Even today many islands are largely independent.
Many Kaobians serve as mercenaries for the Athenians all over the Hegemony.

WERSUND

Colonized: 2162
Original Culture: Stone Age hunter gatherers
The largest tribes on Wersund numbered only around five hundred individuals, so despite the unusually large build of the male warriors there was never any serious opposition to the Athenian colonists.
This garden has only one single huge continent and the Athenian colonies are largely concentrated along the coast, leaving much of the wild interior untouched. Since Wersund is very poor in minerals and other natural resources, the Athenian settlements are relatively small and insignificant compared to other gardens colonized around the same time. The main export of Wersund is slaves.

ASHTORM

Colonized: 2173
Original Culture: Iron Age tribes living in the ruins of a once globe-spanning empire
It seems that there was once a huge empire spanning most, if not all, of this garden. Somehow this empire collapsed, seemingly from a sudden increase in monsters and natural catastrophes.
When the Athenians arrived they were largely welcomed as they, and in particular their weapons, offered protection from the deadly monsters that roamed the garden. This attitude changed quickly, however, and today Ashtorm has many rebel groups fighting for freedom.
Aside from its aggressive monsters, Ashtorm is mostly famous for its huge desert that spans two separate continents.

SUFFILAR

Colonized: 2192
Original Culture: Bronze Age imperial theocracy dominating scattered Stone Age tribes
The tribes of this garden had lived in a primitive Stone Age society until about two hundred years before the arrival of the Athenians. At that time a powerful leader managed to unite enough tribes to form an empire and begin the move towards a more advanced society.
The legend of this “Hunter-King” was such that a religion was build around him, turning the empire he had created into a fanatical theocracy.
The Athenians were at first welcomed by the high-priests and allowed to settle, and when they finally realized that they were no longer masters in their own house it was too late and their armies were destroyed.

Today the religion of the Hunter-King has been turned into a veneration of Orion by the Athenians, and most Suffilarians are quite happy with that.

HOKE

Colonized: 2195
Original Culture: Semi-nomadic Bronze Age culture
While several less interesting cultures existed on Hoke by the time the Athenians arrived, it is the people known as the Mehars that have made Hoke famous, and in particular their nomadic Wandering Nobles. These caused the Athenians some trouble when they arrived, since they had no geographical center that could be controlled or attacked. Luckily for the colonists, the Wandering Nobles were few in number, and while their martial arts were impressive, they were no match for Athenian weaponry.
Today Hoke is relatively peaceful, with the Mehars’ Wandering Nobles largely pacified either by treaties or force.

IDETA

Colonized: 2198
Original Culture: Stone Age with some emerging Bronze Age areas

While most of the tribes on Ideta were primitive and unruly a handful of emerging city-states were emerging in the fertile areas of the world had developed the first trappings of civilization.
The Athenian invasion of the city-states was relatively peaceful. The Athenians recognized the political system, which was much like they were used to from home, and they had little trouble convincing the rulers of Ideta that they were better served as loyal subjects rather than enemies of the Athenians.
The primitive tribes of wild were less cooperative, but posed no real threat. Occasionally slave traders might capture a tribe or two, but otherwise they were mostly left to themselves.
Even today many Ideta tribes lives as they have for thousands of years.

RICHAK

Colonized: 2210
Original Culture: Bronze Age
The natives of Richak claim to be from fabled Earth much in the same way as the Athenians. And like the Athenians they claim to have been saved by a divinity when on the brink of extinction.
Interestingly enough it seems that the original tribes on Richak were united in one nation and only later split up into the smaller political entities that the first Athenian colonists found and conquered.
While it is not the only export from this garden, the smoke-leafs of Richak are famous all across the Hegemony.

PENGARA

Colonized: 2213
Original Culture: Iron Age/Early Renaissance Age feudal lords
When the Athenians arrived on Pengara they were impressed with the advanced culture they found here. The local warlords, calling themselves Daimyos, controlled massive armies that could very well pose a problem for the Athenian colonists if they were not controlled. Luckily all the Pengarans seemed to obey their Emperor who they saw as a reincarnation of a divinity, so when an elite force of hoplites took him hostage the armed resistance to the invaders turned to negotiations.
Today the emperor and his family is still under guard by the Athenians.

AKIRON

Colonized: 2225
Original Culture: Renaissance Age empires, lacking in military technologies
The Athenians found Akiron ripe for colonization. Massive, but fragile empires were ruled by weak dynasties with little support in the general population. The multitude of religious beliefs and philosophies meant that there was no unifying factor by which to resist the Athenians effectively. Additionally, while the empires could potentially muster millions of soldiers, they had only tiny professional armies, mostly used as palace guards for the ruling class. While they were quite advanced in the fine arts, medicine and architecture, the empires had not found it worthwhile to pursue advances in military technologies.
When it became clear to the ruling elites of the Akiron empires that they could not match the Athenians militarily, they quickly began cooperating with them instead in order to keep their privileges.
The Akirone painters are respected for their arts even by the Athenians, and they travel all across the Hegemony to sell their skills to the wealthy.

WATCHROSS

Colonized: 2230
Original Culture: Advanced Bronze Age
Two distinct cultures existed on Watchross before the Athenian arrived. Each had its own religion, language and traditions. The Watchi culture was the ruling culture. It provided the kings, earls, lords, etc. that ruled in the various kingdoms and nations of Watchross. And in each of these the commoners were of the Ossar culture. No one on Watchross can remember things being any different.
Of course this system was upset with the arrival of the Athenians, and today many Ossars have learned to be politically ambitious, though the Watchi still rule those areas of Watchross not under direct Athenian control.

KIKKURUTZ

Colonized: 2235
Original Culture: Nomadic Iron Age cultures
Kikkurutz has some of the largest unbroken grass plains of any garden discovered by the Athenians. The large grass eating animals such as the black buffalo, the giant kirox and mammoths can be found in herds numbering millions during migration seasons. As a result the nomadic tribes of Kikkurutz could grow to enormous size as well, and many lived in moving cities numbering several hundred thousand.
Their warlike nature and inter-tribal wars ensured that the Athenians had no shortage of willing local mercenaries to help them defeat the larger tribes.
Even today many of those original mercenary tribes still serve the Athenians all over the Hegemony.

HAVEEN

Colonized: 2248
Original Culture: Late Bronze Age
This garden is home to the famous Wall Painters, a group of semi-religious artist who make incredible works of art on pretty much any type of surface. Their works of art are inspired by their trance sessions where they imbibe various hallucinogenic plant extracts.
By studying these paintings the ancient history of Haveen can be constructed, and it seems to be quite ordinary; small tribes of hunter-gathers becoming agriculturists and then creating small nations.

A handful of major kingdoms and a hundreds of minor ones were scattered over the fertile areas of this garden at the time the Athenians arrived. And after the defeat of the Wolof Empire in the early days of 2250 the local rulers accepted the new state of affairs peacefully.

ALCALON

Colonized: 2252
Original Culture: Late Bronze Age/early Iron Age despotic empires
The Alcalon three cultures that dominated the two largest continents each had their own language, religion and very despotic god-emperors. Though wars had been common between the three dominating cultures the Athenians arrived at a time of relative peace and prosperity. Capturing the god-emperors and their families ensured that the uneducated and religious masses did not rebel.
Today Alcalon is largely the dominion of Megara, one of the major city-states of Athens and the de-facto capital of Megara is no longer their old polis on Athens but the fantastic blue-marble city, Ganymepolis.

VESTROSS

Colonized: 2255 (lost 2338, re-conquered 2340, independence 2370)
Original Culture: Early Renaissance Age
An interesting cultural divide existed on Vestross between the peoples of the valleys and lowlands and those of the mountains and highlands. Often two men from the highlands, living 2000 kilometers apart had more in common with each other than with those living in the valleys just 2000 meters below.
The Athenians were mostly interested in controlling the fertile and populous valleys and so found natural allies in the highlanders and mountain tribes.
During the Sakalid War Vestross was lost briefly, then re-conquered and then gained independence as part of the peace agreement between the Sakalids and the Athenian Alliance.

GEGAMAL PRIME

Colonized: 2256
Original Culture: Early Renaissance Age - Merchant houses sharing a monotheistic religion
Even though this garden has a ratio of 40% land to 60% water, it has no continent of any significant size, but is dominated by large islands and archipelagos. In their distant past there were several different cultures with no significant similarities in traditions, religions or languages. The only common feature of these ancient cultures was that they were all skilled in sea-craft and lore, a logical result of their closeness to the sea – no where on Gegamal Prime is the sea more than 50 kilometers away.
Over the centuries some of the less sturdy societies died leaving a plutocratic and monotheistic culture as completely dominant.
The Athenians quickly established many colonies on Gegamal Prime, occasionally with local aid, and trade between the two gardens exploded almost immediately. Over the decades the peoples of Gegamal Prime have managed to buy back most of their own garden from the Athenians and today you find them all over the Athenian Hegemony doing business, often using poor Athenians as straw men (officially a barbarian is not allowed to own a space ship of Athenian origin).

VERGMALE

Colonized: 2258
Original Culture: Late Iron Age
This garden was pleasantly easy to colonize for the Athenians when they arrived. There was a single dominating culture which had come into dominance in the centuries prior to the arrival of the Athenians. The Huli culture and empire had more or less integrated or destroyed at least nine other distinct cultures, leaving only scattered reminiscences. As a way to control this massive empire, the ruler ordered that only his personal guard, the Haroli was allowed to carry any weapon longer than a hand.
So when three Athenian invasion barges arrived they were met by the impressive army of fifty thousand fanatical Haroli warriors of the Huli Empire, but once they had obliterated them they found no more resistance.

LACKMEL

Colonized: 2260
Original Culture: Early Industrial Age
Some decades prior to the Athenians arriving on Lackmel, competition over scarce resources led to a bloody war between the Land of Punt and the so-called Dervish State and their allies.
The war lasted almost thirty years and led to the complete destruction of the Dervish State as a political entity. But in victory the Land of Punt and its allies had laid the groundwork for their own destruction.
When the Athenian arrived they quickly found willing allies in the Dervishes and despite the advanced level of technology possessed by the Lackmeeli, the entire garden was completely pacified in only a couple of years.
The Dervish mercenaries continued to serve the Athenians loyally, and in return they were given tiny holdings all over the Hegemony where they settled their families.

SWEBA and WASKA

Colonized: 2261
Original Culture: Industrial Age
Even before Sweba and Waska were observed for the first time by an Athenian scout ship in 2245 it was clear that these gardens were special.
Sweba and Waska do not circle each other, they circle a single sun but at the exact same distance and almost one on top of the other. When approaching the star of Sweba and Waska from space it seems that the two gardens are actually touching. They are not, but standing on the northern hemisphere of Waska looking up, the southern hemisphere of Sweba fills the sky completely and vice versa.
The cultures of Sweba and Waska are only slightly different and mostly with regards to arts, architecture and religion. The Swebians are monotheistic, believing only in one almighty creator while the Waskans are polytheistic believing in a large number of twin gods each representing positive and negative aspects of all things. The Swebian architecture is heavy and enclosed with the centre of any housing being the heath and shrine to the one god, where as the Waskans architecture is much more delicate and open.
Both cultures are very militaristic, and by the time the Athenians arrived, they had developed several deadly weapons, most famously their rock-thrower which was quite capable of burning through bio-ceramic armor.
In addition they had prepared for an invasion from space and had many nasty surprises for the Athenian hoplites when they arrived.

Even to this day it is debatable how much control the Athenian colonists have over Sweba and Waska, and rebellions are more frequent and bigger here than anywhere else in the Hegemony.

UZLENE

Colonized: 2264
Original Culture: None
A pleasant garden with a relatively stable weather and only moderately dangerous indigenous animals, Uzlene is still unique among the gardens found by the Athenians in that there were no humans living there. Some stones found on the fertile islands close to the equator suggest that there might once have been a Stone Age culture there, but so far no human bones or other solid evidence have been found.
Since all workforce has to be imported to Uzlene, the colonization of this garden has actually progressed much slower than normal, and today it still only has a population of a couple of million.

UBBERVEI

Colonized: 2271
Original Culture: Stone Age – but with an advanced literary and philosophical culture
Most of this garden was still wild nature when the Athenians arrived, though some tribes had begun building something resembling nations. Interestingly though, the Logicians of this garden had largely been used as story-tellers, messengers and teachers traveling between the scattered tribes in small bands. Perhaps as a result of this, one single language, called Moksha, dominated Ubbervei at the time the Athenians arrived. A very elaborate system of writing had also been developed and the tribes had used stories and philosophical musings written on animal hides as currency in their bartering. Today they are again highly valued by collectors of barbarian artifacts.
During the Sakalid War Ubbervei experienced a great influx of colonists, and the local population, already few in numbers, is today in minority to the Athenians and barbarians from other gardens.

RHINTLE

Colonized: 2271
Original Culture: Iron Age
Even from orbit this garden is strange. It has a land-ocean ratio of almost 9/10 land. Maybe as a result of this Rhintle also has the single largest desert of any known garden. It also has a very stable weather system that is so reliable that all storms and rainfalls occur on the exact same times each season. Finally Rhintle also has two very large moons that combined are almost half the mass of the planet itself.
While the desert is quite rich in animal life, the human population is mainly concentrated along the tropical coast of the largest inland sea. Bizarrely for a garden with such a large landmass, the main occupation on Rhintle is fisher, and the seven dominant cultures that surrounding the inland sea when the Athenians arrived were all mainly concentrated on defending their fishing territories. As a matter of fact, the Athenians met almost no opposition when they conquered the cities of the various kingdoms and nations. Each time, the king or ruler simply escaped with his men to the sea and stayed there waiting for the Athenians to give up and go home. That was the way war had traditionally been waged on Rhintle, and on the fertile sea an army could survive forever, while the dry season would starve out the occupier on land. Only the Athenians didn’t starve and they didn’t go home.
Slowly this realization began to creep in with the local rulers, and they began making deals to come back ashore in return for vassalage to the Athenians.
Rhintle was attacked several times during the Sakalid War, but each time the Athenians managed to throw back the attacking Sakalid forces, often helped by large numbers of local warriors.

ELTHINA

Colonized: 2273 (lost 2340, re-conquered 2344)
Original Culture: Iron Age
Home to a multitude of religious beliefs, Elthina has seen its share of meaningless violence, but also interesting cultural peaks. Though killing people of another fate has been commonplace throughout the history of Elthina, there is a certain respect when it comes to religious symbols and buildings of other religions.
When the Athenians arrived they found a dozen major kingdoms that opposed them vigorously, most notably the Kingdom of Cochin and Mahishuru, and using thousands of very well trained war elephants they posed an interesting tactical problem to the Athenian commanders. Despite some heroic efforts, both kingdoms had to sue for peace or face destruction.
During the Sakalid War the Sakalids managed to conquer Elthina, not without help from local nationalists who wished the Athenians gone. The Sakalids, however, proved to be cruel masters, and when they methodically began destroying all religious buildings, the population began rebelling in earnest.
After a five year occupation the Sakalids were pushed out by a joined force of locals and Athenians. It still took almost nine months to clean out all the final remnants of the Sakalid forces, and rumors persist that there are still some left in the deep jungles, hiding among the tiger people and avatars of the gods.
The indigenous peoples commonly refer to their garden as Kerala, though their oldest stories also speak of their world as Elthina (pronounced El-Thee-NAA), and since the arrival of the Athenians that name has again come into use.

REEF

Colonized: 2279 (lost 2333, re-conquered 2340, lost again 2367, independence 2370)
Original Culture: Iron Age kingdoms
This garden is aptly named. From orbit the oceans of this world are clearly crisscrossed with reefs often thousands of miles in length. The eight continents of the Reef are scattered evenly across the surface with several significant island groups in between.
There was not a single dominant culture when the Athenians arrived. Rather there were six distinct cultures living in relative peace with each other, though often fighting quite bloody civil wars internal dominance. The fact that each culture had its own whole continent, suitably separated from the others by a large body of water may be part of the explanation for this relative world peace.
The first contact with the Athenians quickly changed this.
The Athenians played one culture against the other, securing their own interests in the process.
During the Sakalid War both the Athenians and the Sakalids lost control of Reef twice each and in the end the local ruler of the Yoruba and Bariba tribes managed to gain independence from both sides.
Almost all people of Reef who do not venerate the Athenian pantheon believe in a spiritual divinity called Olodumare who stands above all beings (even the Athenian gods, which has caused some theological trouble).

HAWT

Colonized: 2282
Original Culture: Early Industrial Age
One of the outermost colonies in the Athenian hegemony, Hawt was conquered quite easily, despite being a relatively advanced culture.
The Nanmin, as the people of Hawt calls themselves, believe they are refugees from Tian He (“Heavenly River”) and that they were driven from this paradise by an evil demon and his army of mortal men. So when the Athenians arrived in 2282 ac they were convinced that the demon and his army had followed them and resistance was fierce to say the least.
The major empires of Hawt quickly united and faced the invaders. Though not able to match the Athenian in weapons or armor, the Nanmin were organized and had impressive logistics, such as wind driven railroads, stationary steam engines and very large floating river fortresses that acted as movable strongholds.
But unfortunately for the defenders, the first Athenian forces to arrive were old allies from Knossos, Gortyna and Zarax, and furthermore, two of the commanders had already fought together and were friends. Without asking permission from their respective leaders, the three commanders joined forces and concentrated on taking out the first Nanmin emperor. They deliberately did not crush the armies, but simply made a single deadly attack on the emperor’s palace and took him out. Immediately the coherency of the Nanmin forces disintegrated. The generals of the dead emperor tried to take control of the army, fighting each other viciously, and the remaining Emperors in the alliance started to get nervous. Even before the Athenians took out the next emperor the alliance had seized to exist in all but name. It still took thirty years until the last Nanmin Emperor officially surrendered, though the final outcome had not been in doubt for decades.

During the Sakalid War only few Nanmin served alongside the Athenians, mostly due to Hawt’s remote location. Slowly though, the Nanmin are getting more common across the Athenian Hegemony.

REGA

Colonized: 2283 (lost 2337, re-conquered 2341, independence 2370)
Original Culture: Renaissance Age
The original geography of Rega was a balanced one with nine continents spread fairly evenly across the planet. Though there were several marginal cultures living in remote areas, two civilizations had risen to domination just before the first Athenians arrived. The southern civilization was based around a firm belief in a set of philosophical scriptures and a strong caste system. Though not a unified empire the various nations of this culture only rarely engaged in internal wars. Only a fraction of this civilization has survived and large parts of its holy scriptures are lost due to the destruction of the southern hemisphere in 2337.
The northern civilization was much more bellicose and had a less structured religion based mostly on the veneration of the ruling Tsar as an almost divine being.
The Athenians never totally controlled Rega before the Sakalid War broke out, but they had a strong alliance with the Tsar of the north, and he supplied many of the troops that helped halt the Sakalid invasion in 2337.
Rather than accept his defeat, however, the Sakalid commander crashed most of his space fleet into the garden-planet at high speed. Such were the massive explosions, firestorms and dust clouds that half of Rega was virtually cleaned of life and the other half suffered from a never-ending winter the next many decades.
This insane tactic forced the remaining Athenians to retreat and Rega suffered almost five years of horrible terror at the hands of the Sakalids before the garden was again liberated.
As part of the peace treaty between Sakalid and Athens, Rega was granted independence.

TOTH

Colonized: 2288
Original Culture: Late Bronze Age
The humans on Toth are considerably smaller than the average inhabitant of the Athenian Hegemony, an adult male rarely reaching 1.50 meters in height. Strangely enough the fauna of this garden has several species of animals that are considerably larger than those found on other gardens.
Other than this particularity, the human societies on Toth follow pretty much the same direction as the other cultures, albeit with an overweight of legends and stories about heroes defeating monstrous creatures.
By the time the Athenians arrived, the majority of the Toth nations had arrived at a fairly stable level of technology that allowed them to keep their populations safe from the hostile fauna. Though there was some who chose to resist the Athenians was largely met with awe and respect by the locals, many of whom viewed the strangers as gods (a misconception the Athenians did little to contradict).

DULCA

Colonized: 2291 (lost 2338, re-conquered 2345, lost again 2360, independence 2370)
Original Culture: Powerful late Iron Age empires oppress less developed peripheral tribes
This fertile garden was home to several strong empires by the time the Athenians arrived, most of them interlocked in a complicated web of alliances and marriages. In the wilderness areas of Dulca tribes of less developed peoples supplied the empires with convenient excuses to wage war and thus keep their own populations under control.
When the Athenians arrived, the nobility quickly realized that they could only hope to stay in power if they allied with these newcomers.
In many ways the nobility of Dulca managed to integrate into the Athenian system so well that it led directly to the Dulca rebellion, where two Athenian governors suddenly thought they could claim independence from Athens and create their own nation. A huge army of Spartan mercenaries destroyed this rebellion savagely, killing more than three million natives and two hundred thousand Athenian rebels in order to make an example.
During the Sakalid War Dulca changed hands several times, and in the end it was a ravaged and desolate place that both sides in the war were more than happy to grant independence rather than rebuild.

KAR

Colonized: 2293
Original Culture: Iron Age
This garden is suffering from some rather extreme weather conditions, mainly caused from the fact that it is titled almost forty degrees from its own axel. It also has a very low ratio of water to land, only about thirty to seventy. The seas are more like four huge inland lakes and none of them are big enough to regulate the weather in any significant way. As a matter of interest Logicians and historians has realized that the amount of open water is growing each year at a rate of about fifteen thousand cubic kilometers each year.
The people of Kar belong to one of two distinct cultures; the Belano or the Xo’Kar.
The Belano culture is largely settled around the equator, where the seasons are a little less vicious than elsewhere, and is based on early agriculture and herding. They had a polytheistic religion, much similar to the Athenian pantheon.
The Xo’Kar are purely hunters and live both north and south of the equator. They are not nomads, but it is common for young men to spend a dozen years traveling after reaching puberty, which explains how the culture has been able to stay fairly consistence despite being separated by the equator. They venerate only one god; the Axe god, though they accept that there might be other (weaker) gods out there.
The Athenians easily colonized the Belano, but the Xo’Kar, while quite willing to serve as mercenaries if paid, are virtually impossible to control. They seem to be interested only in fighting. Whether it is the giant armored dinosaurs of their home garden or warriors from other cultures seem to matter little.

CARDINALE

Colonized: 2295 (lost 2337, re-conquered 2356, independence 2370)
Original Culture: Early Industrial Age
The dominating nation on Cardinale, Hexagone, intrigued the Athenians when they arrived. Their capital was named after one of the characters of Homer’s Iliad, Paris, they seem to have their own version of Athena, called Jeanne, and they even claimed to have once lived in Europa, a land also mentioned in the ancient texts of the Athenians.
At the time of the arrival of the Athenians the republic of the Hexagone had managed to establish a world empire and had entered a time of enlightenment with rapid development of technologies. Rather than risk a war with the advanced Hexagone nation, the first Athenian colonists settled in smaller nations and started peaceful trade instead.
During the Sakalid War the politicians of the Hexagone hoped to stay neutral and did not help the Athenians resist the Sakalids. News of how the Sakalids had treated Rega arrived too late and by the time the Hexagon armies finally mobilized the Sakalids was already in complete control.
The Sakalid occupation of Cardinale was among the most horrific of the war, costing the lives of untold millions. When the Athenians finally returned they were greeted as liberators and many people from Cardinale finished the war in service of the Athenians.
As part of the peace agreement after the war Cardinale was given independence.

KERSHIN

Colonized: 2299 (lost 2339, re-conquered 2353)
Original Culture: Iron Age
Some of the tallest mountains in the Hegemony are found on Kershin and among these the king is the twenty eight kilometers high peak of Mount Lhasa. Many of the valleys of Kershin are still at several thousand meters above sea level.
Some genetic variation in their make-up have made the people of Kershin able to survive at heights that would render most other people unconscious, an advantage that they took advantage of in their resistance to both the Athenians and later the Sakalids. As a matter of fact, most natives of Kershin are uncomfortable at sea level, preferring the lighter air.
As a result of this the Athenians found the fertile valleys and coasts of Kershin quite empty and ripe for settlement. True, the indigenous animals were often hostile and quite dangerous, but no match for Athenian weaponry.
The Kershin fought against the Athenians whenever they felt their territories threatened but, though annoyed at their presence, left them alone most of the time.
The Sakalid occupation during the war was much more unpleasant. The Sakalids seemed very interested in their genetic anomaly and took thousands prisoners and performed horrible tests on them. In response the Kershin nations formed an army of “ironmen” who were able to fight the Sakalids even at the uncomfortably low altitudes.
When the Athenians returned to re-conquer Kershin many of the ironmen joined the Athenians and fought alongside them for the reminder of the war.
Today treaties have given the Kershins free rule over all land higher than 2000 meters above sea level, while the Athenians control the rest.

FREEDLAND

Colonized: 2300 (lost 2334)
Original Culture: Late Renaissance Age
Freedland was a beautiful garden with most of its landmasses concentrated on the northern hemisphere. It had several prospering cultures and was experiencing a period of enlightenment when the Athenians arrived. An unexplained peak in the number of Logicians had occurred only decades before, and had had a significant effect on the organizing of knowledge and inventions of new technologies.
The Athenians only managed to establish a few smaller colonies, most of them without need for violence, before the Sakalid War swept the over the garden.
Two attempts to free the garden where made in the final days of the war, but the Sakalid commanders on the garden were both inventive and resourceful and threw out the Athenians.
Little is know of the fate of the garden today.

WELL

Colonized: 2305 (lost 2335, independence 2370)
Original Culture: Early Renaissance Age
Rich with unique animal life the most successful cultures on Well had managed to domesticate many of these. From gargantuan multi-limbed tortoises upon whose back you could construct moving castles, or the armor plated rhinoceros, to the giant flying lizards that could carry a fully armored knight through the air, the nations of Well used them all.
The first (and only as it turned out) Athenians to arrive on Well chose to negotiate with the locals rather than face the strange looking armies of animals and men. Embassies were established and trading outposts established.
The Athenian ambassadors on Well had warned the local nations of the Sakalid invasion, and as a result the resistance was much more organized other gardens in the early stages of the war, and it continued throughout the war, causing the Sakalid governors and commanders much grief.
After the war Well was granted independence as part of the peace treaty between Sakalid and Athens.

NITORRI

Colonized: 2308 (lost 2334)
Original Culture: Iron Age/Early Renaissance Age
The history of Nitorri was never fully understood before the Sakalids arrived, but it seems that this otherwise very fertile garden has been hit by not only one, but several deadly plagues in its history. Despite this, the Athenians found several emerging empires when they arrived, and they had to fight hard to establish their first colonies.
But they did not have time to harvest the riches of Nitorri before the Sakalids threw them out.
In 2367, near the very end of the war, an attempt was made to liberate Nitorri, but it failed. If the surviving soldiers are to be believed then they saw no signs of the original population, only Sakalids.

LANCHIA

Colonized: 2309 (lost 2333)
Original Culture: Post apocalypse Renaissance Age
About one hundred years prior to the arrival of the Athenians, this garden seems to have been hit by a meteor of a significant size, though the locals claim it to have been the vengeance of their monotheistic god. The ensuing firestorm, volcanic activities, earthquakes and tsunamis killed at least three quarters of all human life on the garden. In the darkness and winter that followed the remnants of the original cultures survived in scattered groups wherever conditions allowed it.
When the Athenians arrived the garden had recovered somewhat, though the climate was still unpleasant.
As a result only two minor colonies were established, mostly to keep an eye on the garden until conditions improved.
But when the Sakalids came conditions became much worse.

LOKIN

Colonized: 2312
Original Culture: Renaissance Age/Early Industrial Age
Lokin is dominated by one elongated continent that stretches from the North Pole to the southern Arctic Circle. A multitude of tribes with very diverse cultures, traditions and languages are spread out over continent. At the time of first contact with the Athenians two cultures had something resembling empires; the mountain based Inca-empire and the Aztecs in the fertile subtropical valleys of the central continent. But the Athenians jumped to conclusions. The real emerging power lay not in the ancient and decaying empires, with the coalition of northern tribes known as the Sioux-nation. In the century preceding the arrival of the Athenians this coalition of tribes had managed to develop not only gun-powder but also metalworking and steam engine technology. The mixture of nomadic, semi-nomadic and permanently settled traditions within the tribes of the Sioux-nation made it very flexible and innovative, constantly adding to the wealth of the members of the nation.
     The arrival of the Athenians did not change this much. The Aztec empire quickly crumbled, and its territory was divided into Athenian colonies, while the Inca-empire fought back for a few decades before their last cities fell.
     Many of those who survived the attack of the Athenians left and joined the nomadic Sioux, swelling their numbers even more.
     Thier decendents started seeing dreams of Tezcatlipoca, a oracle of their people. New weapons and ideas started to emerge among the tribes who had taken in the refugees from the great Aztec and Inca Empires.

Soldiers sometimes used bone and rust colored weapons.

     An expedition into the Sioux-nation by a phalanx of “diplomats” turned out to be a disaster. Negotiations between a local chieftain and the Athenian colonists quickly turned into a bloodbath and the tiny tribe was wiped out. Reprisals were quick to fall upon the Athenians, however, and the “diplomats” were killed with the exception of two who were ordered to go back and tell their governors to stay out of the Sioux-nation.
     This might normally have resulted in the Athenians launching a major offensive to “teach the barbarians a lesson”, but this was in 2337 and the Sakalids were on the verge of completely overrunning the Athenian hegemony, so the governors on Lokin were left with a bare minimum of hoplites to control their vast colonies and the Sioux-nation was left to its own affairs.
     Peace arose in time. Most Athenians stayed true to their traditions, but others adapted some of the native traditions and ideas as their own. Some Athenian colonists have even gone completely native and adopted the Sioux ways.
     Illegal trade of native weapons (in particular the Thunder Guns) started and expanded to other worlds. Smugglers permeate all aspects of the Athenian garrisons and trade on Lokin.

ALMOND

Colonized: 2314 (lost 2333)
Original Culture: Early Renaissance Age
This garden was dominated by two competing cultures when the Athenians arrived. One culture was highly nomadic, constantly following the huge migrations of various hoofed animals; the other was agricultural, living in and around the most fertile rivers and inland seas. The division of culture was further intensified as the two cultures shared the same mythology, but venerated directly opposed gods within that mythology. Inevitably nomadic people would every now and then pass through cultivated lands and war would follow. At the time the Athenians arrived the settled culture was slowly driving the nomads further and further into the wilderness. They had developed deadly weapons such as crossbows and paper-rockets with primitive explosives and heavy layered armor which could easily withstand the spears and arrows of the nomads.
But against the Athenians and their hoplites these weapons were useless, and huge numbers of Almondians died in futile attempts to throw out the invaders and over the next decade the Athenians consolidated their hold over the fertile lands, but made little effort to control the nomadic culture which had little to offer in terms of wealth anyway.
The Sakalids found the locals to be very helpful in destroying the still meager Athenian forces on the garden.

TURPI

Colonized: 2315 (lost 2332)
Original Culture: Late Iron Age warring tribes
Unlike most gardens the tens of thousands of minor tribes on Turpi never united into political entities of much more than a few thousand individuals. Some Athenians speculated if it could be a variation of the Curse of Kings, but studies were never completed before the Sakalids invaded the garden.

SKAIL

Discovered: 2316 (conquered by the Sakalids 2328)
Original Culture: Iron Age/Renaissance Age?
Though this garden had been predicted by the Oracle it was only found by coincidence when a colony ship stopped nearby to make recalculations. The coordinates were kept secret by the captain for more than a decade, and when he finally revealed them it was to an interrogator after he had been captured by the Sakalids.
Other survivors from the colony ship that discovered Skail tell varying stories of the natives, few of which are completely believable.

NUIIN

Colonized: 2318 (lost 2326)
Original Culture: Early Industrial Age competing nations and nationalities
When the Athenians first reached Nuiin the humans living there were on the verge of entering a period of industrialization. The most advanced nations had already laid out railroads between their major cities and steamboats braved the world’s oceans.
The arrival of the Athenians caused a great upheaval in an otherwise quite stable division of power between the nations of Nuiin. The lesser developed countries quickly saw the invasion as a chance to get a boost in the internal power struggle. As a result several wars sprang out all over the garden, many of which had nothing what so ever to do with the Athenians. The situation was complete chaos for the better part of seven years.
Then the Sakalids arrived and made it worse.

SAKALID

Discovered: 2318
Original Culture: Industrial Age military dictatorship
The Sakalids have no official history. Even so it is clear that the Sakalids have suffered some sort of world spanning conflict some centuries prior to the arrival of the Athenian scouts. All logic dictates that a civilization would not be militarized to such a point if it had not had use for its weapons.

ICEMARK

Colonized: 2324 (lost 2329)
Original Culture: Industrial Age nomadic culture
Contrary to what its name might suggest, Icemark is not a frozen ball, or even particularly colder than other worlds. It does have a very unpredictable climate since it has an irregular orbit around its star.
The most successful human culture on Icemark, and for that matter the most successful animals, have adopted a very peculiar nomadic lifestyle, constantly adapting to whatever strange conditions the garden presents them with.
Such is the level of adaptability that the dominating cultures have managed to make their entire civilizations able to move within a few weeks.
The Athenians did have to fight a few of the lesser nations to prove their dominance, but most of the Icemarkers only laughed at the Athenians’ attempt to make permanent settlements.
The irregular orbit of Icemark seems to date back at least three hundred years. The reason why an entire garden-planet would begin to “wobble” was never fully understood before the Athenians were forced to retreat by the Sakalid invasion.

SHISIA

Colonized: 2326 (lost 2330)
Original Culture: Early Renaissance Age
Until they were presumably destroyed by the Sakalid invasion in 2330 the Shisia cultures were more or less following the path of civilization that the Athenians had experienced on most gardens. On Shisia the dominating cultures were entering a period of great discoveries and advances when the Athenians arrived.
A handful of settlements, outpost rather than proper colonies, had been established by the time the Sakalids invaded.

ACHINOR

Discovered: 2327 (conquered by the Sakalids 2330)
Original Culture: Early Industrial?
Achinor has only been visited very briefly by a single scout ship, and the reports are unconfirmed. Apparently the scouts were driven off by flying vehicles or perhaps very large winged creatures (depending on who you believe). In any case the initial reports caused many poleis to divert their invasion barges to Shisia or Almond around that period.

WEMO

Discovered: 2328 (conquered by the Sakalids 2328)
Original Culture: Late Renaissance Age?
Fairly certain scout reports talk about at least three distinct cultures, one of which at least had developed gun-powder.
Unconfirmed reports also talk about the presence of gigantic lion-men over three meters tall.

JADINAR

Discovered: 2332 (conquered by the Sakalids 2333)
Original Culture: Late Renaissance Age?
A handful of reports from scouts reveal the existence of at least one fairly advanced culture on this garden. No Athenian colony was ever made.

SAKALID CONQUERED GARDENS:

De-Narr, Harge, Gavox, Pepaal, Elko, Reseria, Evol, and Teebee.
Very little is known about these gardens and their cultures, except that the Sakalids claimed supremacy over them during the peace-negotiations more than thirty years ago, thus affirming that they exist (as the Oracle had predicted).

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Created by: Magnus. Last Modification: Sunday 16 of May, 2010 09:36:20 UTC by Magnus.

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