The little stunties are back. And this time they learn how to read and write. (The consequences of which lead to the first kobold tribes.)

The Write Stuff

The world recovered from the death of Thira. New cultures, new civilizations replaced the old. The Assyrians rose for a third time and enjoyed a period of pre-eminence, only to fall to a confederation of Mede and Chaldean. The Medes themselves giving way to the Persians, who would in their turn bid fair to conquer the ancient world.

The Phoenecians arose around this time. Descendents of refugees from Canaan and the inhabitants of Levantine port cities (some of whom dated back to Akkadian times), the Phoenecians rather effectively took the place of the once mighty Minoans, and brought trade back to the eastern Mediterranean.

And they went further. Whereas the Minoans kept largely to the eastern sea, the Phoenecians went further west. To Sicily, Iberia, and beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic.

With them they brought writing. Not the ideographs of Egyptian heiroglyphics or the Ugaritic syllabary, but an alphabet. A method of writing where each symbol can stand for certain sounds, and in combination with other symbols other sounds. It was a way of writing that could be used by many different languages, not just the one it was originally designed for.

The early Hellenic Greeks - successors to the now vanished Achaean Greeks - took the Phoenecian alphabet and made some changes. It was this Greek alphabet that was spread throughout Europe in the wake of Greek merchants and traders.

It was adopted by a number of peoples. Most of whom saw it as some sort of magic. A very useful magic. Indeed, you could not only keep records with it, you could also record spells for later use. But it had its drawbacks.

For one thing, you needed something like papyrus, parchment, or vellum to write it on. If all you had was a knife and a chunk of wood, the Greek or Phoenecian letters were hard to make.

Then the orcs got involved.

Carving Out a Name

The orcs in question belonged to tribes living along the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. They would later be forced north across the Baltic into Scandinavia, and east into what are now the Baltic States and Russia. For now they were hunters and farmers living a semi-nomadic life.

For orcs names have always been powerful magic. With writing they had a way to record important names, powerful names. But all too often they had no way of accurately recording those names. Until a number of orcish shamans got together and adapted Greek writing.

The style of writing they produced in their conclave would become know as runic. Also known as Futhark, and often credited erroneously to the Norse. With these runes the orcs were able to make life better for themselves, and for a time enjoy some measure of dominance over the other races.

But the secret spread, and soon enough elf, human, and even dwarf had runes of their own. It even got as far as the kobolds, who took to it with a vengeance.

On Kobold Runes

Rune magic gave kobolds something they had never had before, an nigh unassailable advantage on their home ground. A carefully crafted, enchanted rune would keep trespassers off kobold hunting grounds, insure prey fertility, and boost garden production. Through the assidious application of the proper runes kobold territory was made more productive, more fruitful. The kobold population soared.

But runes made other enterprises more 'productive'. War for example. With the population boom came a boom of a different sort, an explosive growth in the number of young males looking to make a name for themselves.

Not that the kobolds had no knowledge of war. But before war had been against non-kobolds. Now full blown war occured between kobold troops, and much damage was done as a result. And many lives lost.

In the midst of a new found plenty it appeared as if the kobolds would destroy themselves. Constant fighting, new magics dedicated to woe and destruction. For every rune blessing a glade or meadow there appeared to be a dozen cursing that very spot. Something had to be done.

Kobolds as a Tribal People

Kobolds have always been a conservative people. More than any other sophont they are a social animal, and they have a strong need to be a part of a group. This places a strong emphasis on the need to conform. Even in their darkest days ere now they resisted organizing into tribes as their neighbors had done long ago. But now things had changed.

If the kobolds of Central Europe were to survive they had to come together as a people.

It wasn't easy, but as time passed troops began to cooperate. In limited fashion at first, but as time passed such cooperation became stronger and more comprehensive. In time certain troop groupings became known by a common name. Became, in a word, tribes.

But then the Romans showed up.

Next: Philip of Macedon Conquers the Known World