The Origins of Dust Flag
An account by Tu’San the Chronicler
It took the threat of mutual demise for the western tribes to join in confederation - thus, the coming of the Catalysm Winds was the event that formed Dust Flag.
True, a widespread calamity of lesser severity could, perhaps, have bought together the scattered western tribes: the rise of a truly mighty warlord, threatening them all in equal measure; or a second coming of the dreaded Ezatta swarms (I still cannot hear that word without tensing). Though as it happened, it was neither.
Weather, like the fickle will of gods, had always been the greatest deciding factor of whether a tribe would move or make extended camp. When the skies and dunes were calm, tribes would travel many thousands of leagues in search of game, trade and harvest. When winds were ideal, those making heavy use of sail could travel to Korash’s furthest corners.
During the storm seasons, however, most tribes could do little more than wait. Those that could dig would dig, burrowing down to bedrock to mine, or seek forgotten vaults and tunnels - or simply to bide their time. Those that could capture vapour collected precious water; those with turbines gathered power; and those possessing windsifters harvested mineral grains carried on the winds. These fallow days were spent filling silos, telling stories, and waiting for the storms to pass.
Some tribes - marauders, such as Rust Banner - had enough recklessness and skill at badweather navigation to use these times to raid, riding in defiance of the storms or dodging the worst drifts completely, racing from safehaven to safehaven. Rust Banner in particular rarely abided time not spent on the move (the reason for which, in this author’s humble opinion, is that without constant raiding they would collapse into infighting. Note that I have little respect for this tribe’s barbaric practices).
However, this storm season would be different. Midseason came and went - but the storms did not abate with it. Rather, they worsened. With each day the winds grew more fierce, the sky darker, and more red, and it began to dawn on the increasingly concerned tribes that this would not be the usual punctuation to their eternal journeying. And by the time the Cataclysm Winds had begun in earnest, no storm in memory or record could match their fury.
Red lightning wracked those dust-dark skies. The sun had vanished. Sands stripped the flesh from the bones of folk & creatures left exposed to the wind (save the most thick-skinned of wurmkind, and those able to retreat into molluscine shells). By some accounts, entire sandships - those vast, mobile fortresses of the desert - were lifted from the ground and sent careening over the dunes.
And yet the storms would not abate. All wisdom taught that a storm’s fury dissipated over time - that the ire of whatever god or spirit had sent it would eventually be spent. But not these.
Navigators’ assurances to their tribes sounded thinner with every passing day. Priests worked rituals to appease divinities new and old, reaching with growing dread to ever more ancient scriptures to draw their incantations from. Mystics and wyrdworkers rose and fell in favour with tribal elders as, one by one, they were given sanction to bring increasingly elaborate arcane methods to bear. But all to no avail. The storms continued.
As I understand the tales, it is because there was nowhere to move but downwards, beneath the dunes, that the Ome’kher - the ‘passageweb’ - was discovered. It was always known that tunnels from the previous age crisscrossed beneath Korash. Until now, however, their full extent was not realized.
Two critical, desperate methods of communication arose. The first was by the efforts of the daring passageweb messengers. Many perished attempting to navigate those twisting mazes - forever lost, or taken by sightless things in the darkness. The second were those legendary riders with skill and luck enough to survive travel on the surface by navigating rare ebbs in the tempest (amongst these tales, this author’s favourite is that of the hero T’Bret D’Set and her magnificent autochariot. Truly a page turner).
It was via these most treacherous lines of communication that word spread: a handful of tribes - a rare and blessed four - could, somehow, work a subtle influence upon the storms around them. Of those four, three* are critical to this story: Hur’ai, or “Brass Serpent”; Ak’Tu, “Sires of the Sacred River”; and Odendesh, “Red Shroud”. They would soon learn that each - like themselves - possessed a rare and powerful artifact from the Age of the Magi: a Storm Tower.
Even before the Cataclysm Winds there had been rumour that these three had means to influence the weather. Tales were told of Brass Serpent sailships ever with favourable winds behind them, and half-believed stories persisted of Red Shroud priests who, with enemies bearing down upon them, called savage windstorms to bury their foes in sand. The rumours now confirmed, and with little left to lose, an accord was brokered.
(*The fourth tribe where the “Acolytes of Se’tir”. The reason for their exclusion in this tale is that, unlike the other three, they refused to treaty. They would never confirm their supposed control of weather, and have never since been known to possess a storm tower - all of which this author finds highly suspicious. But I digress).
Though communication was sparse, and extremely difficult, the three devised a desperate plan: each would gather as much power and fuel as they could, and begin the perilous journey inland to Mount Gematara, the highest point in the western expanse. They would rely upon their storm towers - each carried aloft on their tribes’ sole sandship - to ease the catastrophic winds in a swathe around them as they made their perilous journeys. And there on the mountain, closest to the high atmospheric streams, they would attempt to end the calamity.
They would be travelling blind - the storms allowed no sight, save what little local reprieve each tower would bring. And they would need to travel quickly - the power consumption of each tower was great, and they could only gather so much in the preceding days.
Each tribes’ journey across the stormwracked desert is a tale of adversity and trial worthy of its own tale. Folk, beasts and engines were lost in great number, buried in devouring sands or swept into the atmosphere like grains of dust. More than once the towers failed, only to be repaired, or their power restored, before the winds could take them forever.
But after many days and terrible losses, each reached the mountain. As the towers were brought closer, painstakingly hauled by beast and cable towards the summit, the air around the mountain grew calmer. As the last tower was raised to stand with its sisters, tranquility set over the summit - even as the storms still raged not a hundred leagues away. This was taken by all three tribes as a profound omen.
And in that rare sphere of calm atop Mount Gematara, an accord was held. Engineers and technomancers shared mechanical secrets long kept, as tribe elders discussed the terms of alliance that would see each through the storms, and beyond them into the future. They called themselves ‘Dust Flag’, named for the flapping banner that now marked the mountain’s highest peak.
Slowly, slowly, the towers worked their power upon the high atmosphere. Like the gradual shifting of seasons, winds whipped unto cataclysm where soothed. From fury, to torrent, the winds would soon be turned to mere gust. With the worst abating, the newly formed Dust Flag sent out envoys to the other tribes, making contact with those who had survived, and to determine those who had not. Those that did soon joined under the alliance’s banner. Those that did not had simply vanished, buried amidst oceans of shifting sand.* Their bones, and the remnants of their machines, are still occasionally uncovered by diggers and gleamdelvers to this day.
(*Authors note: I feel it here worth mentioning that a hypothesis has been put forward by some scholars, particularly some of a more technical bent, that a third fate could perhaps have met those storm-beleaguered tribes - one that is neither extinction, nor eventual recovery: that they simply kept digging. That their wholesale disappearance does not necessarily imply a tragic death by sand-burial; rather, that the right tribe, with the right knowledge and equipment, could - perhaps - have simply continued to descend into the subterranean depths. An interesting (though in this author’s mind, uncompelling) case has been made - especially by Tal’dun, et al. - that given sufficient access to aquifers and a large enough stock of breeding animals, a modest population could sustain itself beneath ground indefinitely. While I find it highly unlikely, I mention it here as a curiosity of consideration. It would be a fate that lay somewhere between salvation and perishing, and a far stranger fate than either).
We come now, dear reader, to perhaps the most contentious part of this story - did those early envoys of Dust Flag arrive as benevolent rescuers? Or where they sent as vassalising conquerors? Accounts of convoys bearing supplies of water and medicine are widespread and detailed enough to be (at least in this author’s mind) believable, and it is hard to imagine that a confederation formed in the name of mutual cooperation, and survival, would not have then extended that benevolence to their less fortunate kinfolk. However tales persist of tribes being bought into the alliance not by goodwill, and admiration of Dust Flag’s heroic deeds - but by the sword. Reth’Adan - the “Moon Hawks” - in particular claim that warriors riding under dust-brown banners approached their ancestors, and what little remained of their camp, surrounding them and taking them prisoner; even that their tribe elders were killed, in violation of one of the most sacred of tribal laws (even Rust Banner - who are, in my opinion, loathsome barbarians - will not slay the elders of a tribe; one of their very few redeeming features).
I would prefer not to believe such things - and in truth, we likely shall never know. The Cataclysm Winds were generations ago now, and though today Dust Flag are fine record keepers, scant few details of that time where taken in logs, or written down for posterity. Was the intention of those early Dust Flag forces benevolence, or conquest?
The truth, if I am to be truly honest in my accounts, likely lies somewhere in between. No tribe is wholly benevolent, no tribe wholly evil; the desires of humankind are complex. The temptations of power are great - to vassalise those weaker, to seize resources and quell opposition. But so too is the desire to embrace the common bonds of kinship: to aid, to give succour; to be, truly, the hero.
Part 1: Calm
True, a widespread calamity of lesser severity could, perhaps, have bought together the scattered western tribes: the rise of a truly mighty warlord, threatening them all in equal measure; or a second coming of the dreaded Ezatta swarms (I still cannot hear that word without tensing). Though as it happened, it was neither.
Weather, like the fickle will of gods, had always been the greatest deciding factor of whether a tribe would move or make extended camp. When the skies and dunes were calm, tribes would travel many thousands of leagues in search of game, trade and harvest. When winds were ideal, those making heavy use of sail could travel to Korash’s furthest corners.
During the storm seasons, however, most tribes could do little more than wait. Those that could dig would dig, burrowing down to bedrock to mine, or seek forgotten vaults and tunnels - or simply to bide their time. Those that could capture vapour collected precious water; those with turbines gathered power; and those possessing windsifters harvested mineral grains carried on the winds. These fallow days were spent filling silos, telling stories, and waiting for the storms to pass.
Some tribes - marauders, such as Rust Banner - had enough recklessness and skill at badweather navigation to use these times to raid, riding in defiance of the storms or dodging the worst drifts completely, racing from safehaven to safehaven. Rust Banner in particular rarely abided time not spent on the move (the reason for which, in this author’s humble opinion, is that without constant raiding they would collapse into infighting. Note that I have little respect for this tribe’s barbaric practices).
Part 2: Calamity
However, this storm season would be different. Midseason came and went - but the storms did not abate with it. Rather, they worsened. With each day the winds grew more fierce, the sky darker, and more red, and it began to dawn on the increasingly concerned tribes that this would not be the usual punctuation to their eternal journeying. And by the time the Cataclysm Winds had begun in earnest, no storm in memory or record could match their fury.
Red lightning wracked those dust-dark skies. The sun had vanished. Sands stripped the flesh from the bones of folk & creatures left exposed to the wind (save the most thick-skinned of wurmkind, and those able to retreat into molluscine shells). By some accounts, entire sandships - those vast, mobile fortresses of the desert - were lifted from the ground and sent careening over the dunes.
And yet the storms would not abate. All wisdom taught that a storm’s fury dissipated over time - that the ire of whatever god or spirit had sent it would eventually be spent. But not these.
Navigators’ assurances to their tribes sounded thinner with every passing day. Priests worked rituals to appease divinities new and old, reaching with growing dread to ever more ancient scriptures to draw their incantations from. Mystics and wyrdworkers rose and fell in favour with tribal elders as, one by one, they were given sanction to bring increasingly elaborate arcane methods to bear. But all to no avail. The storms continued.
Part 3. Contact
As I understand the tales, it is because there was nowhere to move but downwards, beneath the dunes, that the Ome’kher - the ‘passageweb’ - was discovered. It was always known that tunnels from the previous age crisscrossed beneath Korash. Until now, however, their full extent was not realized.
Two critical, desperate methods of communication arose. The first was by the efforts of the daring passageweb messengers. Many perished attempting to navigate those twisting mazes - forever lost, or taken by sightless things in the darkness. The second were those legendary riders with skill and luck enough to survive travel on the surface by navigating rare ebbs in the tempest (amongst these tales, this author’s favourite is that of the hero T’Bret D’Set and her magnificent autochariot. Truly a page turner).
It was via these most treacherous lines of communication that word spread: a handful of tribes - a rare and blessed four - could, somehow, work a subtle influence upon the storms around them. Of those four, three* are critical to this story: Hur’ai, or “Brass Serpent”; Ak’Tu, “Sires of the Sacred River”; and Odendesh, “Red Shroud”. They would soon learn that each - like themselves - possessed a rare and powerful artifact from the Age of the Magi: a Storm Tower.
Even before the Cataclysm Winds there had been rumour that these three had means to influence the weather. Tales were told of Brass Serpent sailships ever with favourable winds behind them, and half-believed stories persisted of Red Shroud priests who, with enemies bearing down upon them, called savage windstorms to bury their foes in sand. The rumours now confirmed, and with little left to lose, an accord was brokered.
(*The fourth tribe where the “Acolytes of Se’tir”. The reason for their exclusion in this tale is that, unlike the other three, they refused to treaty. They would never confirm their supposed control of weather, and have never since been known to possess a storm tower - all of which this author finds highly suspicious. But I digress).
Though communication was sparse, and extremely difficult, the three devised a desperate plan: each would gather as much power and fuel as they could, and begin the perilous journey inland to Mount Gematara, the highest point in the western expanse. They would rely upon their storm towers - each carried aloft on their tribes’ sole sandship - to ease the catastrophic winds in a swathe around them as they made their perilous journeys. And there on the mountain, closest to the high atmospheric streams, they would attempt to end the calamity.
They would be travelling blind - the storms allowed no sight, save what little local reprieve each tower would bring. And they would need to travel quickly - the power consumption of each tower was great, and they could only gather so much in the preceding days.
Part 4. Convergence
Each tribes’ journey across the stormwracked desert is a tale of adversity and trial worthy of its own tale. Folk, beasts and engines were lost in great number, buried in devouring sands or swept into the atmosphere like grains of dust. More than once the towers failed, only to be repaired, or their power restored, before the winds could take them forever.
But after many days and terrible losses, each reached the mountain. As the towers were brought closer, painstakingly hauled by beast and cable towards the summit, the air around the mountain grew calmer. As the last tower was raised to stand with its sisters, tranquility set over the summit - even as the storms still raged not a hundred leagues away. This was taken by all three tribes as a profound omen.
And in that rare sphere of calm atop Mount Gematara, an accord was held. Engineers and technomancers shared mechanical secrets long kept, as tribe elders discussed the terms of alliance that would see each through the storms, and beyond them into the future. They called themselves ‘Dust Flag’, named for the flapping banner that now marked the mountain’s highest peak.
Slowly, slowly, the towers worked their power upon the high atmosphere. Like the gradual shifting of seasons, winds whipped unto cataclysm where soothed. From fury, to torrent, the winds would soon be turned to mere gust. With the worst abating, the newly formed Dust Flag sent out envoys to the other tribes, making contact with those who had survived, and to determine those who had not. Those that did soon joined under the alliance’s banner. Those that did not had simply vanished, buried amidst oceans of shifting sand.* Their bones, and the remnants of their machines, are still occasionally uncovered by diggers and gleamdelvers to this day.
(*Authors note: I feel it here worth mentioning that a hypothesis has been put forward by some scholars, particularly some of a more technical bent, that a third fate could perhaps have met those storm-beleaguered tribes - one that is neither extinction, nor eventual recovery: that they simply kept digging. That their wholesale disappearance does not necessarily imply a tragic death by sand-burial; rather, that the right tribe, with the right knowledge and equipment, could - perhaps - have simply continued to descend into the subterranean depths. An interesting (though in this author’s mind, uncompelling) case has been made - especially by Tal’dun, et al. - that given sufficient access to aquifers and a large enough stock of breeding animals, a modest population could sustain itself beneath ground indefinitely. While I find it highly unlikely, I mention it here as a curiosity of consideration. It would be a fate that lay somewhere between salvation and perishing, and a far stranger fate than either).
Part 5. Contention
We come now, dear reader, to perhaps the most contentious part of this story - did those early envoys of Dust Flag arrive as benevolent rescuers? Or where they sent as vassalising conquerors? Accounts of convoys bearing supplies of water and medicine are widespread and detailed enough to be (at least in this author’s mind) believable, and it is hard to imagine that a confederation formed in the name of mutual cooperation, and survival, would not have then extended that benevolence to their less fortunate kinfolk. However tales persist of tribes being bought into the alliance not by goodwill, and admiration of Dust Flag’s heroic deeds - but by the sword. Reth’Adan - the “Moon Hawks” - in particular claim that warriors riding under dust-brown banners approached their ancestors, and what little remained of their camp, surrounding them and taking them prisoner; even that their tribe elders were killed, in violation of one of the most sacred of tribal laws (even Rust Banner - who are, in my opinion, loathsome barbarians - will not slay the elders of a tribe; one of their very few redeeming features).
I would prefer not to believe such things - and in truth, we likely shall never know. The Cataclysm Winds were generations ago now, and though today Dust Flag are fine record keepers, scant few details of that time where taken in logs, or written down for posterity. Was the intention of those early Dust Flag forces benevolence, or conquest?
The truth, if I am to be truly honest in my accounts, likely lies somewhere in between. No tribe is wholly benevolent, no tribe wholly evil; the desires of humankind are complex. The temptations of power are great - to vassalise those weaker, to seize resources and quell opposition. But so too is the desire to embrace the common bonds of kinship: to aid, to give succour; to be, truly, the hero.
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