That made a great deal of sense. He drifted closer to the Heart, looked up into the eyes of his Goddess, and felt her power and her love. He had to fight through the adoration of that to form his thoughts. "What caused the division, Mother?" he asked.
"Would you like to hear a story of ancient times, my kitten?" she asked. "It's been a very long time since I've told a story, and this one has always been one of my favorites."
"Of course I would," he replied, hovering closer to her.
An image appeared before him, an image of four beings. One was human, one looked Dwarven, and the other two were unknown to him. The first looked vaguely like a Bruga, with a wide nose and tusks, and the other was a very lithe form, much taller than a human, tall and thin and delicate, with pointed ears and long, four-fingered hands. He would call it Selani, but this being looked nothing like a Selani. "In the very beginning of this world, my kitten, the Elder Gods set forth on the land these four sentient races. The Humans, the Dwarves, the Goblins, and the fourth, whose name has been lost over the mists of time."
"You know what it is, don't you?"
"Of course I do, but until someone discovers it, I have to keep it a secret," she replied with a light voice. "They were placed in the world and allowed to go their own way, to build their own places in ways that pleased them, but they were only given a basic understanding of things like tools and society. Those prehistoric beings used rocks tied to sticks for weapons, and the ones that did wear clothing wore untanned skins. Such basic knowledge was not known to them.
"But as time went on, the four races evolved. They became smarter, more experienced, and began forming the basics of the society you know today. They also spread out and found new environments, new challenges. Those distant travellers were altered by their environment, adapting to it to survive, until they became so separate from the others that they became a race of their own. The Gnomes were descended from the Dwarves in this fashion, as were the many different branches of the Goblinoids you know today. The nameless race also began to diverge from its core, splitting into two separate groups. One became known as the Mishin, who grew progressively smaller and smaller and concentrated on happiness and joy. The other branch became known as the Urzani, who clung to the tenets of martial prowess and magical power. They were a dark-hearted branch, and it is said that their skin turned dark to mirror the darkness within their souls. They grew to hate the Mishin, hate them with a passion, hated them for the joy that was lacking from their own lives. So, being what they were, they gathered together and destroyed the Mishin.
The image changed, going from an image of those four races to a large army of dark-skinned warriors wearing gleaming armor. "After destroying their cousins, the Urzani began a great war with the other races. It was called the First War, and it was something unexpected for the Goblins and the Humans and the Dwarves. The war was fought and ended, with the Urzani controlling most of the Known World. The Dwarves retreated to the high mountains, where the Urzani could not defeat them in battle, and the remaining free humans fled across a vast desert to unexplored lands.
The image changed again, to a huge, impressive city that would rival Dala Yar Arak. "This began the Age of Dynasty. The Urzani ruled the world for nearly three thousand years, but so much time without enemies to fight or lands to conquer ate at the society like a cancer. They were warriors without anything to fight, conquerers with nothing left to conquer. So the culture of the Urzani slowly turned on itself, became decadent, until at last the mighty Urzani empire fell to the Humans, Dwarves, and Goblins who had once been in its thrall. After the destruction, the Urzani fled from their former slaves, and it caused the re-establishment of the humans, Dwarves, and Goblins in the world.
The image shifted to that city in ruins, and then it was rebuilt in another architectural style. "But the Urzani couldn't hide forever. After some centuries, they slowly re-emerged. Having no lands to call their own, they were forced to live with the other races in small groups. The lust for war had been bred out of the Urzani over the time of their rule, and the Urzani that remained were allowed to live with the other races in peace, for they were still strong and formidable warriors, and were also strong in magical power. The word Urzani came to mean Trusted over time, and came to be integral components of the societies in which they lived, respected and admired by all races. The Urzani bound the rest of the world together, giving all races a common ground on which to negotiate, through their native Urzani population.
The image turned gray, and then refocused on a scene of two armies, their numbers in the hundreds of thousands, clashing on a vast, flat plain. "But then came the Blood War. The Urzani rose up along with the Humans and the Dwarves, the Goblins and the Gnomes, to fight the Demonspawn for their very survival. I won't go into the specifics of all that, for you know what eventually happened. The Demonspawn were exiled from the world, but it came at a cost too staggering to describe.
"The effect of the Blood War on the Urzani was horrific. They had survived, but the entire race had been traumatized by what had transpired." The image faded, then reformed to show four robed Urzani, beaten and bloody and bruised, with horrified expressions. "They were traumatized to the point where the entire race began to divide again, separating into distinct groups who had reacted to the Blood War in different fashions. One branch had been horrified by the tremendous destruction, and they devoted themselves to ensuring that such an event never happened again. They also threw down their weapons, knowing that they had been no use against the Demons, and exclusively studied the myriad forms of magic. These, over time, came to be known as the Sha'Kar, the Beings of Light, a race of powerful magicians, pacifistic in nature but ever watchful should the Demons return.
"The second group of the Urzani had placed the blame for the Blood War on the humans. The thousands of years of living with other races had been wiped away by the Blood War, reverting them to a xenophobic group that wanted nothing to do with any other race. They gathered together and searched long and hard for a place devoid of any other race. The beginnings of what is now the Desert of Swirling Sands called to them, called them to a place where no other race could survive, and they found it to their liking. They became known as the Selani, the Wanderers.
"A third group hadn't been greatly affected by the war, but they were affected by the destruction left behind. They didn't want to rebuild the world. They argued that it would be best if everyone left the shattered lands of Sennadar, left for those unknown lands far beyond the sea, which hadn't been damaged during the war. They argued that it would be best to live there until nature restored the damage done during the war, instead of trying to live in the destruction. The Humans and Goblinoids refused to leave their homes, so those Urzani built many ships and sailed into the western sea and disappeared, and were eventually forgotten.
"The Urzani that remained were far too few to maintain the society that they had built before the war. Over time, they became fewer and fewer, until their society was absorbed by their Sha'Kar descendants. And that is how the Urzani as they were known at that time came to be no more.
The image faded away completely. "So you see, my kitten, the Selani and the Sha'Kar are indeed related, but the bonds of that relationship are much older than you first expected."
Tarrin mulled over her story. It explained why the Goblinoids were called Goblinoids. It made sense, seeing as how there were no Goblinoids called Goblins. He hadn't known that the Gnomes were descended from the Dwarves, but the little he knew of the two races reinforced the idea. Both races were reputed to be short beings with tremendous skills in stonework and architecture. But she had left some races out.