TEXT:  
   
   
   
  The Sky People
  The Sky People
  The Sky People
  The Sky People    
   
  By sholari James 
   
   
  Among the highest mountains of the Per’Kulai valley of western Thantier and high amidst the 
  Thodic mountains bordering this valley, can be found lofty temples and villages high above 
  the tree line. Many of these are only mysterious crumbling ruins, while others are inhabited 
  but strange monks and shy villagers. These dwellings are known to few but thodicean hillmen 
  and belong to the mysterious and fairly unknown Sky People. 
    
  The Sky Culture once stretched among all the 
  mountains of the Per’Kulai valley. Three large 
  towns and numerous villages and monasteries 
  could be found in high inaccessible places. 
  However, the Sky people did not always live 
  among the high mountains. Originally they lived 
  in the great Per’Kulai Valley and among the lower 
  v ales of the Thodic Mountains. In 95 PC they 
  were forced to retreat into the valley from the 
  great onslaught of the cleash coming out of the 
  Sharras jungle lands in 95 PC. The threat of the 
  cleash drove them to safe havens among the 
  mountains and in 220 PC they had become the 
  Sky People, a culture adapted to mountain 
  survival. Their villages and towns were always 
  built in hidden and easily defended places, high 
  up in the mountains.  
  The Sky people often expanded abandoned shantic dwellings or went through great 
  endeavours to conceal their villages and towns on inaccessible plateaus and hidden valleys. 
  Two of the larger Sky towns were cut into the sides of the mountains and had meadows for 
  livestock on small, high, inaccessible mountain plateaus. The three major towns, whose 
  names are lost to history, were built upon the mountains: Hallivo, Torinuu and Hus’ika.  
   
  As the merciless cleash established towns and forts in the valley in 450 PC, the Sky people 
  soon found themselves constantly under siege and cut off from the rest of the shattered 
  Empire. However, one of the legendary Thanterian Advisors slept within the walls of a Sky 
  monastery and she awoke in 483 PC to help the Sky people when they were under the worst 
  siege of the cleash. Among the devices invented by the Advisor to buy respite from the 
  cleash, were hot-air balloons and airships filled with tepinna gas, tepinna bombs, Cloud Elixir 
  (adapts the body to living in high altitudes), mountain durlig, watch posts and sentinel 
  telescopes. Of greatest importance were the tepinna balloons, which served as lookout 
  platforms and means of transportation and communication among the towns. They also 
  Sign of Immoran 
  
   
   
  2
  allowed the Sky people to bombard advancing cleash armies. In this way the Sky people 
  developed a culture among the clouds and often moved their villages by airships to 
  inaccessible parts of the mountains whenever cleash were advancing. 
  However, the Advisor fell terminally ill in 492 PC and placed herself in cryogenic sleep 
  again. Her location became a secret carefully guarded by the Sky monks.  
  The cleash and their scarmis hordes finally managed to destroy the three towns of the Sky 
  people in a great cataclysmic war known as the Sky Weeping War in 790-810 PC. 
  One 
  by 
  one, 
  the 
  villages 
  also 
  succumbed until only a few remotely 
  hidden monasteries remained. Slowly 
  the Sky people declined until there 
  were 
  only 
  the 
  monks 
  of 
  the 
  monasteries and small villages left. 
  When 
  humans 
  returned 
  to 
  the 
  Per’Kulai valley after the cleash had 
  disappeared in 1100 PC, they did not 
  notice the few remaining hidden 
  monasteries among the mountains. The 
  mysterious ruins of the Sky towns and 
  their old unreadable scriptures remain 
  a mystery for most Thodiceans. 
  However, a rare few people have 
  discovered or been allowed to enter the 
  secret monasteries of the dying Sky 
  people that remain. These monasteries 
  and their small villages still wield their 
  ancient airships, unseen in the clouds 
  among 
  the 
  misty 
  mountains 
  of 
  Per’Kulai Their religion reveres the 
  stars and sun as holy places or realms, 
  which can be astrally visited by their 
  monks in order to gain guidance and 
  insight. Their language, Sky Tongue, 
  is related to Than. Among the 
  Thodicean people there also exists a 
  legend of a secret valley, beyond the 
  highest mountain, filled with riches 
  and prosperity. Some hillmen know 
  that this legend is actually true. 
  [See Thantier essay for more details on 
  the Sky people.] 
   
   
  Sky monastery of Reaching Moon 
  and a tepinna ship. 
  
   
   
  3
  TIMELINE 
   
  It becomes clear to many surviving colonists that shantha avoid killing humans who do not 
  carry Earth-tec, but hunt down individuals with subtronic equipment, tec-tons or those located 
  near Earth-tec installations. Recommendation is broadcasted from a colony near Jasp to bury 
  all earth-tec in cryo-bins to survive; retrieval of equipment in small amounts can come later. 
  Details of how to do this and where to later search is broadcast by the Jorune Science Board 
  survivors. This broadcast is later to be known as “Jason’s Will” after the presenter of the 
  message. Survivors in Burdoth, Temauntro, Jasp and Drail heed the message, while the 
  survivors in Thantier struggle to hold onto civilisation and continue warring with the shanta. 
   
  5 PC Twenty terran scientists and colony administrators heeding the warning of the Jaspian 
  colony place themselves in cryosleep together with earth-tec equipment among the remains of 
  the Ithaca Research Stations in the Doben-al and the Binhauer Research Stations in Thantier. 
  They hope to elude the shantic warriors and awaken one day to help future generations. They 
  later become known as the Sleepers (Ithaca scientists) and the Advisors (Binhauer scientists). 
  The other human survivors of The Ithaca Research Stations either travel north, trying to reach 
  Northfield Research Station or stay behind to guard the sleeping scientists. 
   
  12 PC colony survivors in Thantier calculate that their chances of survival would be better on 
  the island of Tan-iricid. They try to invade the island but the thriddle use unknown energy or 
  weapons to drive off the invaders. Most of the southern survivors advanced earth-tec is 
  destroyed.  
   
  23 PC The last survivors guarding the sleeping Ithaca scientists succumb to diseases or are 
  killed by shantic warriors. The sleepers are never awakened. 
   
  42 PC Last eleven original survivors of Newfield Research Station establish a network of 
  trails and stations to keep as much contact as possible between the various camps of survivors 
  in Thantier. 
   
   
  70 PC A people living in the Per’Kulai Valley and the lower vales of the Thodic Mountains 
  rally under their Black Elite (actually African descendants). They form the Ajawi tribes and 
  coordinate their farming and defences against the shanta. 
   
  90 PC Cleash begin to come into Thantier. They come through the warps that the shanta open 
  between the Ice Fields of Gilthaw and the Sharras and Trinnu Jungle lands. The heavily 
  decimated shantic race is too weak to fight the strong survivor civilisation in Thantier and 
  decide to use cleash as pawns.  It is a dangerous game. First contact between Thanterians and 
  cleash results in major battle leaving over one hundred colonists and twenty cleash dead.  
  Ensuing skirmishes show that at first cleash kill with little provocation; after human 
  retaliation, they begin to attack on sight. Using the growing population, humans in Thantier 
  begin to build and live in fortresses. 
   
  95 PC Cleash insurgence into Thantier becomes much stronger. Rumour of the monstrous 
  cleash reach the Per’Kulai Valley and the Ajawi people. Through the wisdom of their elders, 
  they start preparing havens hidden among the valleys. 
   
  
   
   
  4
  98 PC The cleash masses and their minions reach the Per’Kulai Valley. The Ajawi of the 
  region are prepared and flee to their mountain havens. Those that stay do defend their homes 
  are slaughtered. All human life in the valley is exterminated. 
   
  101 PC Ajawi refugees of the mountains learn much about the mountain hideouts and start 
  referring to themselves as the Sky People. They also study the cleash and then start raiding 
  their lowland neighbours. As the great cleash insurgence pushes eastward, the cleash do not 
  have time to retaliate and find the Sky People. 
   
  137 PC The Sky People found the town of Ashamta among old shantic ruins cut into the side 
  of mount Hallivo. Livestock and crops survive on sheltered mountain plateus. 
   
  165 PC The town Hamansa is founded high on the hidden northern slope of Mount Torinuu. It 
  soon grows to become the largest and most well defended of the Sky towns. Its lofty mountain 
  top temples survey the entire valley. 
   
  219 PC The town Kavanta is founded on the slopes of Mount Hus’ika among the Thodic 
  Mountains. Only the hardiest of the Sky People survive in this cold city, situated at the 
  extreme altitude of 6000 m above sea level. It is built upon subterranean shantic ruins that 
  lead into a hidden, tropical, thermally heated valley. 
   
  220 PC The Sky Culture is now fully established and perfectly adapted to mountain living and 
  survival. They place their towns and villages in inaccessible places among the Per’Kulai 
  Mountains, often expanding abandoned shantic ruins. Towns are found on high plateaux 
  hidden by clouds or cut into high mountain sides. The three main towns of the culture are the 
  ones placed upon the mountains Hallivo, Torinuu and Hus’ika. 
   
  Approx. 350 PC As the cleash insurgence into Thantier stabilises, the cleash build permanent 
  forts, towns and breeding pits in the Per’Kulai Valley. Cleash retaliation against Sky raids 
  become more frequent. 
   
  450 PC The cleash start fortifying the Per’iKulai Valley and the Sky people soon find 
  themselves under constant siege. They are cut off from the rest of the humans in Thantier and 
  disappear from the known annals of Thantier. 
   
  483 PC The terran scientist Emanuella Sanchez, sleeping in a sacred Sky Monastery, is 
  awakened by Sky monks. In legend she will be remembered as one of the Advisors. The sky 
  people plead for her help in saving them from the cleash. Emanuella immediately presents her 
  people with numerous devices to defend them against the cleash, such as tepinna gas balloons, 
  lookout platforms and airships. The Sky people can now roam the high mountains more freely 
  and move their villages around when cleash appear. They can also assail the cleash from 
  above with tepinna bombs. Emanuella also helps the Sky People adapt better to high altitude 
  living by creating the fabulous Cloud Elixir and mountain durlig. Under her rule, the Sky 
  people witdraw into the mountains and avoid the cleash. 
   
  492 PC Emanuella Sanchez, the Advisor of the Sky people, falls terminally ill. She writes a 
  number of scriptures to aid her people and then places herself in cryosleep again. Invigorated 
  by her, the Sky Culture continues to develop. Her sacred tomb is hidden well under the 
  foundation of a grand Sky monastery. 
   
  
   
   
  5
  598 PC Kavanta becomes the capitol of the Sky people and their Monks of Divine Wisdom. 
  The tropical Mas’ka Valley is settled and decorated with the beautiful Sky Towers, which 
  serve as watchtowers. Many large Sky villages spread into the interior of the high Thodic 
  Mountains as Tepinna gas is found in abundance there.  
   
  699 PC The Sky people complete their High Fleet of tepinna ships. Filled with confidence 
  they start raiding the cleash again and become more daring. Many of the Sky monks have 
  forgotten the true teachings of Emanuella (knowing her now as The Immoran) and resort to 
  finding mystical answers in drug induced dream states. 
   
  736 PC Varricks’sa the new Sro’liccr (army leader and colony lord of central western 
  Thantier) is enraged by the elusive Sky People’s attacks. She becomes determined to destroy 
  them and starts a campaign of pursuit. The number of minor cleash forts also increase among 
  the foothills. King Kibetto of the Sky People releases the High Fleet upon the new cleash and 
  destroy one of their towns in the inner reaches of the Per’Kulai Valley. Filled with pride and 
  confidence he acts contrary to the holy teachings of the Immoran to keep his people hidden. 
   
  737 PC Infuriated by the retaliation of the Sky People, Varrick’sa starts breeding scarmis and 
  cleash clones along with kelenn beasts that will plague the air. She also drives her hordes of 
  cleash, scarmis and beast-machines high up into the mountains to destroy the Sky People. 
   
  780 PC Moss’la, the crairrick (Overlord) of Thantier understands the threat of the Sky 
  people’s tepinna fleet. He demands Varrick’sa to be punished and orders the Sky people 
  destroyed. Varrick’sa is reprimanded physically and deformed by ceremony. Trek’srarr, 
  Trocrarr (warlord) of Varrick’sa is beheaded for his incompetence and his head presented to 
  the crairrick. Varrick’sa personally takes over the war effort against the Sky people. 
   
  790-810 PC The Sky Weeping War.  
  Maddened by hatred and old age, Varrick’sa unleashes her horde of cleash and scarmis bred 
  for the purpose of destroying the Sky People. Many dangerous machine-beasts, noxious gases 
  and plague stricken prisoners are released into the mountains. Her most successful weapon is 
  the terrible winged kelenn beasts that attack the tepinna ships. The greatest cities of the Sky 
  people fall one by one. Kavanta falls in the final year of the war. Having driven her minions 
  to utter exhaustion, Varrick’sa is attacked by her own offspring as she enters the city. The old 
  and severely wounded Sro’licrr drags herself upon the Emerald Throne of Kavanta to die. 
  Nobody dares to remove her and her dried plates and bones remain there to this day – in the 
  haunted halls of the demon-king. A few of the fleeing Sky people of Kavanta manage to seal 
  the passage to the Mas’ka Valley. The cleash hordes, tired of the high altitude siege, return 
  home without finding it. After the terrible losses of the war, the Sky culture diminishes 
  rapidly into a few hidden villages around remote mountain monasteries. 
   
  950 PC Cleash wars escalate in all of Thantier, as cleash unleash terrible beasts in Thantier 
  and in the Ceridis Sea. Their forts are numerous and their numbers steadily increasing. 
  K’crikss ships starts harassing the Tan-Iricid coasts and only the massing of Corastin there 
  prevents them from invading the island. The true intentions and cleverly hidden plans of the 
  cleash rulers to take Tan-Iricid becoms clear to the shanta. Shanta start controlling the cleash 
  and even attacking those that do not obey. Thanterians suffer terribly and many towns fall to 
  the merciless cleash. 
   
  
   
   
  6
  1105 PC After the pleading of Gjassum, the last Advisor, in Meshka-Tra the shanta act swiftly 
  upon the cleash menace. Even when summoning all their new-won strength the shanta have 
  problems controlling the cleash pawns they once unleashed. Acting just in time and before the 
  cleash manage to solve the mystery of warp travel, the shanta manage to force the ancient 
  cleash rulers in the Ice Field of Gilthaw to recall their minions. Cleash abandon their forts and 
  strongholds and vanish mysteriously from Thantier in less than a year. 
   
  1498 PC Erucians scout the Per’kulai Valley. They find no remaining traces of human 
  settlements in the valley but numerous abandoned, crumbling cleash forts. The Erucians 
  assume that the valley has never before been visited by humans and claim it as their own. 
  However, apart from some minor outposts and some ore mines, the valley is largely left 
  unsettled.  
   
   
   
  Traditional spread of the Sky People 
  at the beginning of the Sky Weeping War 
   
  Red       = The major cities and villages 
  Striped = Spread before the arrival 
                  of the cleash 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  THE SKY PEOPLE TODAY 
   
  The last of members of the Sky people live in a stagnant 
  and secluded culture amidst the high peaks of the southern 
  Thodic Mountains overlooking the Per’Kulai Valley. Their 
  monks keep the traditions alive and do not tolerate any 
  contact with the Lower World. The villages serve the 
  monasteries and receive spiritual guidance and protection 
  from evil in return. Many of the Sky People have also lived 
  on Cloud Elixir for so many generations that they would 
  have serious problems surviving on low altitudes. 
  The simple villagers tend to their crops of mountain durlig and watch over their flocks of 
  flightless ozrill birds. The only colourful remnant of their culture resides in the hidden Mas’ka 
  Village in the form of a high monk known as the Sky Childe and King Hataka who rules his 
  people among the downfallen, overgrown ruins of his forefathers. Tepinna ships are used only 
  as lookouts and for safe travel during clouded days or dark nights. All Sky monasteries are 
  filled with images of the dreaded cleash and all monks believe that their existence depends 
  upon their secrecy and devotion to the spiritual worlds of the stars and the sun. 
  Cloud Elixir 
  
   
   
  7
  RELIGION 
   
  The religion of the mysterious Sky people is known as 
  “Immorans”. Holy monks revere the stars and the sun as 
  holy places or realms, which can be astrally visited in order 
  to gain guidance and insight. Small monasteries and 
  villages seeing to the needs of these is all that remains of 
  the elusive culture that once spread between the 
  inaccessible mountain plateaus of the Per’Kulai Mountains 
  of western Thantier. 
  The name Immoran comes from the very first wise woman among them, Emanuella Sanchez 
  who was (is) an immortal. She had descended from the stars but spent most of her existence in 
  a Dream State. She awoke from time to time to help her people and presented great inventions 
  that helped them avoid the invading cleash and enabled them to fly between their havens of 
  the mountain plateaus. According to legend, Emanuella became weary and sick of the world 
  filled with the evil cleash and chose to never awaken again. According to ancient scripts, she 
  sleeps until this day in a hidden monastery among the clouds of the mountains. 
  Like Emanuella, the Immoran monks tried to find answers to their worldly problems by 
  sleeping and visiting the Holy Realms were all wisdom can be found. The Immoran monks 
  therefore spent much of their lives in a natural or drug induced dream state, where they could 
  pass over the boundaries of time, matter and distance. They visited the distant past, travelled 
  to the star and sun realms and found some of the lesser answers. The first monks acted as 
  advisors to their people and lived in the high towns cut into the mountainsides. With the 
  demise of their culture and the destruction of their greater towns, the monks turned to the 
  deeper mysteries and away from their people. They were originally supposed to find answers 
  to more mundane everyday problems but now turned to life’s greater mysteries. As the culture 
  dwindled the monks became drug addicts that would spend most if their life in Dream 
  Chambers pondering upon the mysteries of life. Strange rituals not understood by the villagers 
  are conducted from time to time to keep the veil of time intact around the unaging culture. 
  Villagers know no other way of life and tend to the monks and their old monasteries and do 
  not meddle with their Dreaming except when they are in dire need of their advice. 
  Today, small villages support the last crumbling monasteries hidden from the sight of other 
  humans among the high Per’Kulai Mountains. Only a select few monks know about the great 
  treasure of knowledge from the terran colony that is hidden among one of their abandoned 
  monasteries. 
   
   
  LANGUAGE 
   
  Sky tongue is related to Colonial English, but has more in common with the Than dialect than 
  Entren. However, the dialect has been isolated for such a long time that pronunciation differs 
  greatly from Than and has to the ear become a language of its own. 
  Sky Script is written with the original Latin alphabet intact although spelling has changed 
  slightly from Colonial English. Readers of Sky Script would therefore understand written Sky 
  Tongue better than spoken. 
   
   
  Eye of Wisdom 
  
   
   
  8
  SKY ARTEFACTS AND SECRETS 
   
  Cloud Elixir 
  A special brew that allows the body to 
  function with less oxygen and store more 
  oxygen in its cells, thus avoiding Acute 
  Mountain 
  Sickness 
  (AMS) 
  and 
  haemorrhages of the lungs, eyes and brain. 
   
  Tepinna Balloons 
  Great balloons filled with the volatile 
  tepinna gas that can be found in thermal 
  areas among the Thodic Mountains.  
  Lookout platforms, boats and entire ships 
  can be fastened to these. 
   
  Tepinna Bombs 
  Pots filled with samara mud, which has attracted great quantities of tepinna locked within the 
  mud as bubbles. Upon impact or other great kinetic movement or friction, the mud will 
  sparkle. With the tepinna inside – it explodes. Ideal for bombing from tepinna ships. 
   
  Mountain Durlig 
  Small durlig adapted to mountain cultivation. Can endure frosts better and high altitudes, as 
  well as the strong sunlight of the mountain peaks. 
   
  Sentinel Telescopes 
  Big telescopes with great lenses. Placed and hidden on mountain tops to watch for 
  approaching enemy or signals between Sky settlements. Very few are used today. Some can 
  be found in the abandoned watch towers, which originally were created to watch out for 
  approaching cleash armies. 
   
  Immoran’s Tomb 
  Three interlinked chambers within the Great Temple of Mas’Ka. Sealed since centuries 
  against intruders it can only be opened by the two Eye of Immoran amulets, placed in the 
  safekeeping of the Sky King and the Sky Childe. Inside lies the sleeping Goddess Immoran 
  herself. In reality, after the deluge of the Sky culture when the cleash invaded their capitol 
  city of Hamansa, the cryo tube of Immoran and its power pile was removed to the remote and 
  now abandoned mountain top monastery of Gobey’s Moon. Not even the present Sky King 
  or the Sky Childe are aware of this. After the monastery was abandoned, the last resting place 
  of Immoran became unknown. 
   
  Breath Helmets 
  In order to easier breath the very cold and thin air of the mountains and the strong sun, the 
  Sky Ice Warriors that patrol the skies around Mas’Ka Valley wear breath helmets with filters 
  and fore-chambers to warm their breath. The helmets also have tinted glass to protect their 
  eyes from the sun. Their voices sound monstrous and growling through this helm and its 
  appearance, along with the feathered armour, has been created to intimidate trespassers. 
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Sky Realms of Jorune/Sky Realms of Jorune - The Sky People.pdf