The year is 109,420 A.D. I am writing from the Imperial Library of Vak Xri Pob, the Great Crystaline Wolkeburg of the north.
Wolkeburgs, a name adopted from a now extinct ancient language, can translate into “city in the clouds” or “city people” - both would be correct readings. These things are both cities in the clouds and cities on top of living intelligent beings. We call them burgs for short though. Humons have been living on them for at least the last 12,000 years, which is as far as the archaeological record goes back.
Historical documents have found the name Gitis Polimetapodia that translates to “land of the walking cities,” and the most ancient record calling us Adnati Alaku Barumu Birtu, that means “the world of wandering heavenly castles,” but for modern purposes we call our known world and loose collection of city states and societies - Burg Land.
I have begun writing this comprehensive multi volume tome because Greater Burg Land history has very well reached its end. Through many of my colleagues’ research, and conclusive findings I can definitively say that Burg Land’s technological, and cultural innovations have more or less halted, interconnectedness has severely dropped and overall greater civilizational complexity has reduced. I repeat this once more, with much dismay: we have reached the end of our history. We are slowly returning to a pastoral life, where humon achievements and milestones are not marked by the decades or even the years, but by generations, and centuries. I am hoping when I, and my academic colleagues pass from this earth that our logs and records of our history will help to maintain Burglandian cultural and societal memory, for that we can perhaps rise from the ashes of this total collapse.
My plans for this tome is to not just have the regular non-fictional format of telling history, but also to collect multiple stories, in many forms, mediums and types of documentations. On one end there are tales and myths from early Burg Land history, another end are historical first hand accounts and diaries, and from another, abstract pictographical artworks. I wish to extensively portray the life of this history, and I believe through this method I can do so. I will give context and information when I find it suitable to the stories.
The first story I have is from a fairly modern diary account from a well known writer denizen, Pool Finriz from the burg Xylrok, in the year 108,999 A.D. watching as the society of a neighbouring burg, Bogo, collapses into ruin through a bloody civil war. Her account is harrowing and detailed, and luckily for us her husband was a famous painter who contributed new works of his to the final published edition of this story of which you will read presently.
Civil war
Today is the crossing festival. It happens after usually 9-10 lunar cycles, but sometimes it can be much longer. My friend's father, Krimbo Toll - a patriarch, told me that we used to be able to accurately predict which Great Burg would cross paths with our Lesser Burg. He said some even used to stop which would allow us, the denizens, to go across and speak and trade and make friends with the peoples of the foreign burg. Family legends tell, during one such visit, that my great great aunt had decided to stay on a burg called "Quarforg." She is said to have married a great forge master, who made the finest armours and swords. We have a sabre as a parting gift from them, now a family heirloom. Nowadays we get lucky to even be able to make out the silhouettes of people waving at us. Binoculars and monoculars are the hottest selling items around this time, for obvious reasons.
I have seen about 18 crossings in my lifespan, so far. 15 of the crossings were during the predetermined crossing festival, always a fun time with fireworks, and sugar cakes, but now if i must admit, a bit unexhilarating. But the other 3 were random occurrences. The closest I’ve seen a burg is during one of these “random occurrences.”
I was walking home up from the valley when clouds of smoke started forming as I walked uphill. When I reached the top, my view of a burg aflame filled my peripheral. I stared as I saw a man inflamed screaming across from me on this other burg. Canon fire snapped me out of my daze. I ducked behind a brick wall, but soon realized after closer examination that the denizens of the other burg were firing at each other, not us. An unplanned instance of close proximity, and it was war that was being brought to our step. The opposite burg, that I would later learn was called Bogo, was moving at an unnaturally slow pace, as if it were slowly dying from the civil strife atop of it. We all watched as complete and total chaos passed us by at a snail's pace.
I later learned that we had received 37 new denizens who escaped from Bogo. The burg had erupted in a political civil war, started by two brothers. Starvation had become a major problem on Bogo in the last 46 lunar cycles but due to poor leadership, all food was at a lower point then it even should have been in the first place. Two brothers had proposed a redistribution effort, and had been met with a firm rejection by their Council of Patriarchs, enforced by what the Bogoans called “the evil flame wands.”
Bug farmers and myths in 89,001 A.D.
This is an artist image of Cripox Lox and how we think it looked.
It was a central northern hemisphere burg that due to its prolific food production fed, for what I have read, 190 burgs directly and indirectly - an incredibly impressive number if true for such an ancient civilization. Due to Cripox Lox’s unbelievable size, coordinates and orbital patterns, it crossed paths with 102 burgs annually, and those burgs were then able to supply the other 88 within their smaller orbits in the entire northern hemisphere. Due to this level of farming and trade wealth, Cripox Lox, often referred to as the “breadbasket of antiquity” had become a central power and governing body in this loose confederation of burgs. This time period is known as “the First Northern Burgian Zenith”, and the story I am to share is a myth passed on through the burgian ancestors of Cripox Lox. Many of the motifs and symbolism would be passed on through early burg civilization until the “End of Zenith” - a dark age beginning in 98,899 A.D. lasting until the rise of Loppo Dominion in 100,069 A.D., as you should know.
This myth’s central character is Barthelo Trippu, she was the matriarch of her large family - a dynasty of bug farmers, a noble profession in that time. Many of Cripox Lox’s royalty and regimes would claim connection to Trippu, no matter how tenuous this would become. In the myth Barthelo was tasked with going on an epic quest to retrieve the most ornate tooth of Cripox Lox. She had made a dirty deal with the invading barbarians known only as the Groop. I have chosen the most complete record of hieroglyphics from a provincial vassel burg: Binti Go. They were made about 200 years after Barthelo Trippu and her farm existed, but I chose them due to their beautiful details and remarkably intact accurate colour - which you will see, enhance the understanding of this ancient legend.
Barthelo Trippu is accompanied with her remarkable companion Pill, a now extinct flightbug - a large flying bug not meant for eating, but for as a use of transportation across large swathes of territory. These creatures may explain the extreme interconnectedness of this early confederation of vassel burgs.
