Irekei: Civilization Development

Irekei: Civilization Development

Hey gang!

Actually, I have one or two more lore tibits to throw out regarding just this topic.

It occurs to me, the Irekei probably weren't always the way they are now. They spent a REALLY long time in the newborn desert as the Khalinviri, all by their lonesome, for something like three millennia. I've begun to work under the assumption that during that interval they deliberately concocted their own high civilization, devising their own language along with styles of art and architecture that were a step or two removed from Old Elvish. I can see a brutal empire, very Dynastic Egypt in flavor.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

The War of Flames pretty much ended that culture, which reached its apex when Khalikryst transformed the Irekei into their current physical incarnation. All of the ancient cities are lost, the empire shattered into nomadic clans, who were forced by adversity to take up the lifestyle the Irekei still live today. I figure they've finally climbed back to the point where new cities are possible, places where the echoes of the Old Irekei Civilization still linger, though thousands of years of nomadism have left new impressions on the Irekei culture.

Just like the Elves they so love to hate, the Irekei once had a glorious civilization, and they lost it in a cataclysm. Depending on how each individual Virakt wants to interpret it, those obelisk-raising, city building ancients were either sacred ancestors whose memory is to be cherished and revered, or (far more likely, I think) degenerates whose emulation of Greenlander ways left them arrogant and weak - they deserved to fall to the Hateful Ones. Luckily, the strongest of them survived, and became the modern Irekei, who must remember the follies of the past so they are not repeated.

Just a thought....