Hello everybody,

Our release date is getting closer and we feel like it's a great time to start expanding on The Exiled's deep history and story. Moving forward, we will be revealing more about the world of The Exiled every Monday. Not only that, but we will also be holding a giveaway on our Facebook page.

Last week's story reveal - Introduction: http://www.the-exiled.co/post/156941147702/story-introduction-and-pre-launch-giveaway-news

Giveaway Details:

The way it works is each Monday we will share more story details here and later in the week (at random), we will ask a question on our Facebook page. For those who answer the question correctly, you will be entered into a random drawing and we will pick 1 winner each week. That winner will get a Steam key for The Exiled.

Below is this week's story reveal, the past. Since the past holds such a rich history, we are breaking it into 2 parts. Check back next Monday for part 2 and don't forget to like us on Facebook for the giveaway question.

The Past - Part 1

Why is the valley this way, you ask? Why choked, poisoned, dried to dust and walled off from the world around? Why are folk prisoned here? Why do the Katakani guards keep us in check? It is a long story, and one of which I only know the bare bones.

The Mekari

Once, fisherfolk, farmers and herders lived along the river that ran through this valley. It was the Mekar river, and they called themselves Mekari in its honour. None now know where they came from; they had always been here. They told tales of a time that they might have been more - old artefacts, strange formations of stone and ruined buildings showed that the valley had been greater once. But they were simply tales; none knew what the truth might be.

The river Mekar flowed from north to south through this valley to where it opened into the sea, its mouth a delta of sand and rock. The Mekar had cut deep into the surrounding land, the walls of the valley steep, craggy and inaccessible. The only route was to the sea.

Katakan - A Jewel in the East

The valley was a fertile, rich place, a place of fish and farming, of lush greenery and burgeoning wealth. It was due to the valley’s wealth that the fishing port of Katakan at the river’s delta became a trade destination for many up and down the coast, growing from a few stilted huts to a bustling city of bridges and riverways. Because of the upper valley’s inaccessibility, Katakan became the gatekeeper of the wealth of the valley, controlling the traffic of the river Mekar. It became rich, and rose in power and craft, becoming known as Katakan, Jewel of the East. None equalled it in sea power, the long craft of Katakan a familiar sight along the coast. The Sayatchi riders from the north west traded with the city, as did the Atiba caravans from the north-eastern desert, even the Ticaret sailors from over the sea. They became familiar figures. Some stayed. The city broadened in outlook, becoming something more than Mekari.

Katakan had been ruled by a group of elders, as was the case for all Mekari settlements. This group widened to allow advisors from amongst those foreigners who settled. In time, those advisors were treated as elders in their own right, and it became a full council.

The Mekari valley rose in power as Katakan rose. Wealth flowed from the city up the valley in the form of forged tools, woven cloth and other finished goods, medicines, even a few luxuries; raw resources flowed the other way. With wealth, more settlers came.

The valley’s resources started to be stretched - leeched by the flow of goods down the river to the city. Fish stocks were overfished, fertile ground became overfarmed, forests vanished faster than they grew. But this could be reversed, surely, over time, as more techniques were introduced?

Then the stars fell.

Starfall

Three nights of chaos as fire rained from the sky across all of the surrounding lands. The fertile valley was bombarded, destroying crops, killing livestock, sending up great gouts of steam from the Mekar. And Katakan burned. The air was grey with choking ash for weeks, and it ate away at lungs and skin.

It passed. The Mekari people survived. But the world was changed. The northern stretches of the Mekar were poisoned, and the foulness spewed filth downriver towards Katakan and the sea, killing and altering many plants and animals. The land, already weakened by over-farming, could not cope with the flood of poisoned water, and our once-fertile valley became desolation.

Wrecked and scorched, Katakan survived. The citizens set about rebuilding. But they decided that the sick waters of the Mekar could not be allowed to pollute the sea, and so the great dam was constructed at Katakan; and at the valley’s head, many of the smaller streams were diverted away from the valley to feed new irrigation. That decision signed the death warrant of the valley and those in it.

Tangam - A World Forged Anew

Over time, the world discovered what else the rain of fire had brought - a great quantity of ore-bearing rock. This star-metal was mined, reworked, found to offer great strength despite its lightness. Tangam, it was called, and became the chief material of the rebuilding and, later, the focus of all trade for those outside the valley. Tangam was flexible, easy to work and held a keen edge. Before that we had used copper, tin and bronze, and they could not compare - tangam opened up a wide range of new tools and weapons. Those who controlled the tangam controlled the future, and many peoples across the world found their way of life changed; some for the better, but some - the slower to adapt - were ground under heel.

The people who were isolated in this valley scraped a living, but were forgotten, lost, as Katakan rebuilt its links with the world and shuttered them away. They became known as the Sasar, the Lost. The name Mekari changed, and was nothing more than a name for the people of a particular heritage who lived in Katakan and on the surrounding coast.

The memory of Katakan’s old glories did much to strengthen it now in the minds of others. Through careful negotiation and trade, it rose once again, relying now on resources from the sea and from trade rather than from the valley.

The Mekar river, poisoned and polluted, dwindled and dried leaving only sick and silted pools. The valley, choked with poison, became desolation. Only at the far north was there greenery, amongst the waterfall-riven rocks. There, as the waters dried up, ruins were revealed - ghosts of an older time.

The Rise of Dian Batari

In the city hard choices were made. Katakan no longer lived off the wealth of the valley; it had to fight for its place, relying on skilful trade and a long reputation. But it seized the moment and it grew. Trading houses rose based on Katakan’s position as a meeting point of sea-trading nations. These houses were families of power and distinction, winning their places by treading on others. The rule of the city became the rule of the merchants. And the merchants’ council, by popular acclaim, was chaired by a first amongst equals, First Speaker.

‘First amongst equals’ and ‘popular acclaim’ quickly became ‘de facto dictator’ and ‘whoever has the most money’, as such systems often do.

Within the span of a hundred years after Starfall, House Batari were the effective rulers of Katakan, and Dian Batari rose to become the First Speaker. You know of her, I think. She is a shrewd woman and a skilled orator, with the money to have a strong military force on her side, and the support of several of the larger religious sects. She sent Katakan troops regularly patrolled the lands up and down the coast, seeking out tangam ore and making sure that they controlled it.

The Revenants and The Outcasts

Patrols even braved the valley of the Mekar, seeking fallen stars. But instead they found desolation, ruin, and strange mutated beasts. It seemed that the human survivors were no more; they had changed, mutating into horrific forms haunting their former settlements. Patrols who survived long enough to explore found fallen stars, but no tangam ore. Here, unlike anywhere in the surrounding lands, the fallen stars were worthless.

The Katakani called the creatures Revenants. The valley was sealed as too dangerous; with no tangam present, no wealth, there was no need to search for it.

Instead Dian Batari declared the place a dumping ground, both for the trash of the city and for those who had no place in her modern Katakan - criminals, political opponents, those resisting Batari takeover bids, and anyone else who resisted Dian’s drive for authority . Katakan laws have evolved from tribal custom and merchant statutes - it is not a simple matter to simply kill criminals convicted of lesser crime, or to slaughter the undesirables. Life is sacred, after all. Instead, Batari invoked the old law of tribal exile; the unwanted are herded into the valley and left to their own devices.

Others made their own way to the valley. Some followed stories of treasures, in the belief that Katakan was hiding something behind the wall. Some sought knowledge. Some simply sought adventure against the creatures there.

Whoever they are, those who have come to the valley are called Outcasts and, my friends, you are amongst them now.