Geography

The geography of present-day Cabotton, Ereautea before modern human settlements was very much like the remainder of rural Ereautea, consisting of low rolling hills covered by a natural patchwork of forests and meadows. Flora consisted of maples, beeches, oaks, grasses, ferns, flowers, bushes, and berries; while fauna included birds, deer, bears, wolves, eagles, and a variety of rodents.

Indigenous Nomads

Nomadic indigenous groups roamed the area in the time immediately after the Ashen Years but two groups, the Mundaes and Camarans, prevailed as the most dominant. According to a legend, around the 800s BCE, the Mundaes, an indigenous group of wolf-riders led at the time by a figure named Indor, came to the area in the springtime, as they regularly did, to hunt game for food, while the Camarans, an indigenous group of eagle-riders led at the time by a figure named Roke, would come in the autumn weeks to gather berries and other sources of plant food to prepare for the winter to come.

Also in the region roamed an indigenous group of stag-riders known as the Emorans, led at the time by a figure named Miri. Miri, one day, made a visit to Roke, leader of the Camarans, and informed him of a certain mysterious power she was able to cast upon the land to make the food being gathered more plentiful and better able to last the Camarans better during the winter. The power was a mysterious one, though historians today believe that this may have been darkfire and thus served as the origin of the darkfire quarry present in the Lake Maern Reserve.

Roke and the Camarans agreed to Miri's idea for the casting of her mysterious power, and thus it was done. However, Miri warned the Camarans about the wolf-riding Mundaes who she and the Emorans had seen frequenting the same piece of land in years past, stressing that they must never know of her secret power, "lest this land of peace shall forever become a land of blood and war."

Some of the Camarans resolved to stay behind over the winter that followed in order to protect their blessed land from any Mundaes that may in the spring. However, one of the Camarans, named Saer, had fallen in love with a Mundae named Ieda, and had confided knowledge of the secret power with her. Ieda told the other Mundaes about this. And so the following spring, the Mundaes arrived and slaughtered the Camarans protecting the land in an attempt to gain knowledge and control over the secret power. The remainder of the seasonal Camaran group arrived and thus began a great battle. Both sides lost a great number of people in this conflict.

Saer and Ieda fled from this battle and informed Miri of the Emorans of the events having passed, asking her for help. Saer and Ieda confessed their wrongdoings to Miri and promised to cast aside their differences, to which Miri responded with forgiveness and promised to exempt them from the punishments to come to the Camarans and Mundaes. Furthermore, she accepted them both as members of the Emoran nation.

Miri and the Emorans mounted their stags and wiped out the warring Camarans and Mundaes. Afterward, she damned the Mundaes for eternity and also punished the Camarans by reducing their eagles to ravens. Meanwhile, the stag-mounted Emorans overtook the land and pronounced it to be that of "everlasting peace to honor the dead, and furthermore a place of knowledge and wisdom for those accepted as Emorans in the future."

In the time afterward, a great road was built by ancient Remikran nations to pass through this land, which was consecrated by these nations despite religious differences. As a custom, every traveler passing through this land was expected to tie to a tree a string with a special knot representing a lost loved one in order to "commit them to a state of peace in the afterlife." If during this custom one spotted a stag, it supposedly meant that said traveler had become accepted by the divine of the Emoran nation and was mandated to join them in the search for the knowledge and wisdom needed to bring about world peace.

However, this would all change with the modern expansion of Combrian society starting the 1200s CE.