In which the wondrous Mythusmage expounds once more on a fantasy creature, and shows off his scattershot education. In this installment the Indo-Europeans, elves, dwarfs, and orcs show up to give Dragon Earth's kobolds more grief.

The Coming of the Horse People.

Around 7,000 BC the people of Central Asia began to ride horses. From the best evidence available this was a cult practice, part of the worship of wind and rain, of the veneration of the storm god. With time the horse went from a cult object to a helper, a domestic animal used for communication, herding, and war.

Central Asia is a hard land, life is difficult and harsh. With the horse the local tribes were able to do things they couldn't before. Herd cattle and more effectively hunt antelope and bison for instance. Where once they had struggled to survive, the locals could now thrive. And thrive they did.

With a burgeoning population the tribes found it necessary to migrate out of Central Asia. To the north is the Taiga of Siberia, to the east and the south mountains. To the west was the Russian Steppes, and then the North European Plain. Naturally, the first substantive migrations were westwards, and among the peoples in the way were the kobolds.

A People of the Forest

The coming of the Indo-Europeans changed everything. With their horses and their cattle they could support higher populations than before, and larger polities. The diseases they brought with them helped to cut down on the opposition. In a few generation they had effectively supplanted the earlier settlers, and even expanded into areas their predeccessors had not.

As a result the non-humans were forced to retreat into marginal terrain. The dwarfs - just then starting to expand out of the Alps - found it necessary to stick to the mountains, while the elves - themselves entering Central and Western Europe from what is now the Pripet Marshes of Russia - were forced to stay largely in the forest of Northern Germany. Of the Human species the only one that adapted to the presence of the Indo-Europeans were the gnomes, and even they suffered loss.

For the kobolds things were very bad. They were displaced, hunted like wild animals. Tales and legends emphasizing their malign nature became popular among the Indo-European tribes. There was conflict. It is at this time the kobold became a creature of the deep forest, relying on hunting, trapping, and scattered garden plots to support themselves. Once again the European kobold faced the possibility of extinction.

A Man of War

The arrival of the orc around this time didn't help matters any, at first. Descended from Homo neanderthaliensis some 30,000 years ago in the mountains of Central Asia, the orc had spread throughout Northern Asia during the last Ice Age. With the end of the Ice Age they had suffered population loss themselves as humans and elves from further south migrated into their territory. The conflict gave rise to a tough, determined species of Human that was eventually able to not only survive, but even thrive.

But they also became creatures of the waste places, the deep forest among them. Their arrival in Central Europe around 3,0000 BC meant the kobold faced another source of competition for scarce resources. Competition that outclassed them. The possibility of extinction loomed larger than before.

Next: The Dark Times