The Great Lands: Historical Atlas (25k BP)
For many thousands of years, the Great Lands remained divided. The early Smith-folk had the northern continent to themselves, while the Common-folk spread across the southern continent. The two land-masses approached one another in the narrows of what would one day be called the Sailor’s Sea, but there was no land bridge to facilitate interaction. Only at the height of the glacial age did the two peoples finally come into sustained contact.
In the north, the Smith-folk had evolved a distinctive way of life. A few bands wandered far and wide across the northern continent, following a primitive hunter-gatherer existence. Others gathered in specific upland areas, alpine valleys or mountain slopes that proved especially congenial. There, they used their growing skills with spirit-magic to build and support extended communities. Hundreds of people might live in close proximity, staying in the same area for years at a time, supporting skilled specialists in the arts of tool-making and spirit-binding. These early tribal communities were the first seeds of the Smith-folk holdfasts of later millennia.
The Smith-folk had long since been aware of the southern continent, but it was not until the Last Glacial Maximum (about 25,000 years before Krava’s time) that some of them found a way across the narrows. Overcoming their natural aversion to the sea, enough tribes made the crossing to establish two new communities on the southern continent. There, they came into contact with the Common-folk, leading to trade and the exchange of ideas. The southern Smith-folk tribes soon became the largest and wealthiest of their kind.
From their new neighbors, the Common-folk learned of the vast new lands to the north. Some of them soon began to venture their own crossings of the narrow sea. It was a slow process, taking many centuries, but over time the Common-folk became well established on the northern continent. Some of them turned west, living in caves and sheltered coastal areas, mostly living on fish, shellfish, and small game. Others, more ambitious, turned north or east, hunting the megafauna of the plains. When the Ice began to retreat, tribes of the Common-folk were there to take advantage . . .