History of Altayuna.

Altayuna is a vast land, filled with several biomes and climate types. It is situated south of the equator, and as such has its summers in the second half of the year, and winters in the first half of the year. The island is bisected by the Granda mountain range, which spans much of the island's midsection.
This mountain chain had serious impact on Altayunan culture, as it prevented prehistoric peoples from easily interacting with each other: as a result, tribes of the northern Alta Highlands are linguistically, artistically and behaviorally distinct from those in the southern Yuna Valley. Until relatively recently in history, a large volcano known as "Daiyamo" was settled on the eastern section of this mountain range, and was a highly sacred object.

Prehistoric Altayuna
Altayuna was entirely uninhabited by humans, with biodiversity unmatched in any other location on the planet at the time. The geographic isoation of the Altayuna subcontinent enabled the survival of hundreds of classes of organisms that had perished elsewhere. Recent archaeological evidence has suggested the presence of early hominid species on the northern coast until the year 7000BCE, where they may have come into contact with human settlers.

In the year 10,000 BCE, the subcontinent of Altayuna was colonized by wandering peoples from Southeast Osterland following the Third Little Ice Age. The Third Ice Age devastated emerging civilizations worldwide, and it is possible that the ancient Altayunans are refugees from a dying empire, just as the settlers that founded the Allied States or the Kingdom of Vinstin. Although genetic evidence has confirmed their origins in the tropical southeast of Osterland, there is almost nothing known about the Altayunans' ancestral homeland.

Following their arrival, these settlers expanded to all corners of Altayuna and formed all three levels of political organization. In the northern regions, the more arid climate contributed to smaller tribes that rarely settled in one location. In the southern lowlands, more temperate landscapes allowed for sedentary communities and chiefdoms over large regions. These southern chiefdoms would become very powerful in the following centuries, controlling large swaths of territory and resource access. The southern chiefdoms also were the source of critical developments of a state-level society, including the wheel, irrigation systems, and a written language based around pictographs.

Imperial Altayuna

In the year 3075 BCE, legend says that a prince named Kunahundar became chief of the Manuyuno people, situated on the slopes of the Median Mountains. Due to their location, the Manuyuno had contact with both the northern nomads and other southern chiefdoms, and was arguably the most powerful of them all. The Manuyuno were also much feared due to their domestication of a large mountain bird called the Moa-moa, which was large enough to carry a human rider both on foot and at low-level flight or glide.

Kunahundar was an ambitious man, and wanted to create the largest chiefdom that man has ever known. Utilizing carefully crafted political alliances and a large army of aerial cavalry, Kunahundar rapidly conquered or annexed the surrounding chiefdoms, ordering the construction of stone roads in order to expediate the flow of trade goods to allies and supplies to armies and captured villages. Kunahundar also utilized his chiefly lineage to insinuate that he was descended from the gods, and through the sheer luck of a volcanic eruption, convinced several tribes that he could control the Great Mountain.

Within 30 years, Kunahundar controlled the entire Yuna Lowlands region, though at an extreme loss of life. Though he desired to expand beyond the Median Mountains into the Alta Highlands, he instead focused on securing his authority over the south. In the years that followed, he erected over 200 stone temples in his name, all with statues in his likeness praising Kunahundar as the savior of Yuna. Furthermore, he divided his land into distinct provinces, most of which followed the original boundaries of the chiefdoms he incorporated, and appointed the chiefs and some of his kinsmen as the provincial lords. Kunahundar himself became the "Great Chief," and situated his capital on the coastal settlement of Kapaharo.

Unknown to the rest of the world, Kunahundar had created the Altayuna Empire.

When Kunahundar died sometime in the late 3000BCE, he was succeeded by his son, creating a dynasty which was technically unbroken for several centuries. Under his great-grandson's reign, the northern tribes in the Alta Highlands were subjugated, placing the entire subcontinent under control of the Empire. Without much threat to their authority, the Empire commissioned the construction of large monuments all across Altayuna. Kapaharo expanded from a large fishing settlement to a bustling port, filled with people of all sorts of occupations and walks of life. A currency was established sometime in the 1500BCE based on gold, which was to be found in large quantities in the Median Mountains.

The Empire also developed technology quite rapidly, and developed a primitive form of steam power in the year 200BCE. This would lead to the development of mechanical gears and eventually, self-propelled land vehicles. Large vessels capable of overseas travel also were developed, and it is believed some Altayunans may have contacted traders in Osterland in the year 1000CE. Archaeological evidence of a large blast crater in Kapaharo suggests that the Altayunans may have also experimented with the fundamental ingredients of gunpowder, though it appears unlikely that it was fully developed, due to being seen as dangerous, and worse, heretical.

While this prosperity lasted for well over 2000 years, it is known that the empire came under frequent pressure from within. Crises of succession were common and rebellions happened every few generations. Dynasties changed several times as a result, and the imperial capital was frequently ransacked and restored. While the Empire became very technologically advanced for its time, much of this was devoted to warfare and construction of monuments, meaning that many Altayunans remained quite underdeveloped. By the year 500CE, it was clear that the Empire was in definite decline. The Great Chiefs were forced to rely on ever larger tools of war and destruction to intimidate their opponents, though many parts of the Empire were beginning to fail economically and agriculturally. This came to a head in the year 574, when the Great Chief Hundar III constructed a large, mechanical automaton known as "Kunahundar's Hammer." Combining the first Great Chief's religious significance with an awe-inspiring display of firepower, Kunahundar's Hammer rumbled across Altayuna, terrifying potential rebels and allies alike.

Successive Great Chiefs constructed similar automatons or maintained their predecessors. While this proved effective for some time, it was ultimately unable to prevent a rebellion of the Manuyuno province in the year 800, the center of metal industry in the Empire and ironically the homeland of Kunahundar himself. Gaining the support of neighboring provinces, the so-called "Snake Kingdom" promised to end the tyrannical rule of the Great Chiefs and restore prosperity to the common peoples. Initially very popular among commonfolk, it began to lose that support as the Snake Kings resorted to some of the same methods as the Great Chiefs, such as rule through intimidation and constructing their own automatons. The two sides had their days of reckoning on the slopes of the Great Mountain in 1195, with each army possessing multiple automatons and tens of thousands of soldiers. Records of this battle are scant but appear to tell of among the greatest battles in history, with the titanic automatons engaged in furious combat with each other as soldiers clashed below. As the Snake Kingdom appeared to gain the upper hand, the engagement was interrupted by none other than the Great Mountain itself.

While imperial scribes kept frequent records of volcanic activity, no one had heeded their warnings during the final war, during which the mountain was seen to emit more smoke and seismic activity than ever before. When the predicted eruption finally occurred during this monumental battle, the explosion was of such force that it blasted down trees for hundreds of miles, creating a plume of ash several miles in height. The sound of the explosion would have been audible in several locations worldwide. Both armies were almost entirely wiped out by the blast wave, and several nearby communities were blanketed by hot volcanic ash. The ash cloud covered almost the entire subcontinent, devastating already fragile agriculture and livestock. While regional authorities scrambled to try and maintain order, they found themselves unable to survive the massive famine and cold temperatures that had resulted. Those that survived largely abandoned cities and farms, and returned to hunting and gathering practices. Machinery was left to rot, the operators dead or unable to find time to maintain them in the absence of a stable source of food. When the ash clouds cleared, Altayuna had returned to its pre-Imperial state.