This article
originally appeared in REHUPA #163
On the easternmost region of the antediluvian
Thurian continent existed a mysterious xenophobic race that had
originally inhabited a shadowy land that lay far to the east, across
the sea (Mu?). Robert Howard never gave us a name for these strange
people, but certain apocryphal texts refer to these people the Khari.
They were an ancient race of dusky-skinned, hawk-faced humans and
their only infrequent intercourse at the time was with the
saffron-skinned people of the Lemurian Archipelago.
This idyllic time came to an abrupt end when a
disaster that came to be called the Great Cataclysm rocked the
foundations of their world. The majority of the lands of Mu and
Lemuria sank beneath the waves of the ocean and forced the survivors
to find a new land in which to dwell.
The
Khari, through a wonderful act of geography,
managed to not only survive the Great Cataclysm, but keep the
majority of their society intact. The most notable of the challenges
that this race had to face in the wake of the world-spanning
disaster was the problem of Lemurian refugees entering the lands
under their dominion. They solved it by enslaving the Lemurians, who
endured such a brutal servitude that they were almost reduced to a
bestial level of existence.
Approximately fifteen hundred years later the
strange civilization of the Khari was destroyed when the Lemurian
slaves successfully rose in revolt. Their cities in flame, the few
surviving Khari people and clergy fled to the west to escape
destruction at the hands of their former slaves. They joined with
the armed forces protecting the western frontier from the barbarian
that lived beyond. The ruined bones of their once-great civilization
they left to the vengeful Lemurians.
The loss of their homeland must have cut deep
into the Khari soul. There were only several thousand of them left.
Where were they to go? To the west lie thousands of miles of barren
steppe (what would eventually become Hyrkania) and southwest of them
stretched the impassable ramparts of the Himelian and Afguli
mountains. They had to go somewhere and it was clear that there
could be no peace with the Lemurians.
I would speculate that during this time the
ancient wizard-priests assumed the Khari leadership role. One can
imagine that the idea of finding or winning a homeland took on
almost religious fervor. It would be the Khari equivalent of Moses'
Israelite refugees wandering in the desert for forty years. It would
come to mold the soul of the nation.
Thus began the Great Khari Migration. They
traveled southwest along the edge of the mountains. Conflict arose
during their journey as nascent civilizations were just beginning to
form along their route. These people were displaced, destroyed or
absorbed, usually as slaves. Almost imperceptibly their numbers
began to swell.
Eventually they reached the area south of the Sea
of Vilayet. Of how long it took to get there, not a word is
mentioned. It may have taken several generations; it may have taken
several centuries.
It was here, at the edge of the Kharamun desert,
that word reached them of a fabulous nation, with cities made of
cyclopean stone structures lying strewn like discarded toys along
the banks of a rich and fertile river and its attendant sea. This
would prove to be their Promised Land.
The land before them was old, existing since long
before the Great Cataclysm rearranged the face of the world. This
evil land was generally referred to as Elder Stygia in later days.
It was the dark, prehuman nation of the white-skinned Giant-Kings;
its real name lost in the mists of history (one could make a case
that its actual name was Acheron). It boasted cities with fabulous
names like Luxor, Pteon, Sabatea, Erkulum and Qarnak (the last two
are from apocryphal texts concerning this time). And it seems quite
probable that the paramount city of this land was the great eastern
citadel of Kuthchemes.
Like the Khari nation, it had survived the Great
Cataclysm reasonably intact and had grown in the intervening years
to encompass the western reaches of the Nilus River and the lands
surrounding the ever-shrinking sea to its east. It had grown
northward, establishing cities along the lengths of the Tybor River.
Also like the Khari nation it was built on the subjugation of the
area's nomadic tribes and blacks from the lands to its south. Since
it had no real opposition in the region, the Khari had a unique
opportunity. The Land of the Giant-Kings had grown decadent and soft
because its prehuman masters placed too much reliance on its human
infrastructure. This was a flaw that the Khari exploited ruthlessly.
The first city of any importance to face the
invading Khari was the citadel of Kuthchemes. The walled city, which
up until this time had to never contend with anything larger than
infrequent nomadic raids found itself facing a large disciplined
army of invaders intent on its capitulation. The vastly
under-defended city fell in short order. The capture of Kuthchemes
gave the Khari a base to accomplish the subjugation of the rest of
the Nilus valley cities.
The armed forces of the Giant-kings were hampered
by mutiny from within of the subject humans that comprised it. Its
sorcerers were hindered by unseen forces conjured by the Khari
wizard-priests. Refugees fleeing from the cities of the east tied up
the resources of the remaining cities in knots. Treachery unwove the
fabric of society as various Giant-King noble houses made secret
deals with the Khari to betray the rest of their number for a place
in the succeeding order.
The empire of the Giant-Kings rapidly dissolved
in blood and flames. Refugee groups taking as much as they could
carry fled the nation by ship for the sanctuary of Acheron's Tybor
River cities. The remaining hostile prehuman giants were killed as
the Khari invaders consolidated their gains. The Promised Land along
the Nilus River now belonged to the Khari. The Great Migration was
over.
The conquerors substituted their own culture on
the lands along the Nilus, although it was extensively modified by
the contact with the Elder Race. They admired the great, dark
pyramids and looted the prehistoric tombs for magic relics. They
began to call the Nilus River by a new name, the River Styx. They
ceased to be the Khari at this point, commemorating their new
beginnings by referring to themselves as Stygians.
The treacherous noble houses of the Giant-Kings
that aided the Stygians were incorporated as promised into the upper
tier of Stygian society. They were the glue that held together the
amalgamation of the two cultures and helped to ease the transition
time.
One mystery of this era was the reason the
Stygians began to worship Set, the great serpent god of the
Giant-Kings. I believe that the Stygians felt their old gods had
abandoned them during the Lemurian revolt and that they were led by
divine intervention to this new homeland. The fact that Set did
nothing to aid the Giant-Kings was not lost on the dusky-hued
Stygians, who took it as a sign of their ascension into Set's favor.
The Stygians proceeded to worship Set with a fervor unmatched by the
unlamented Giant-Kings. It became the state's paramount religion,
and was based in Erkulum, the City of Set.
This, then, was the history of the First Great
Migration. The new nation of Stygia was formed and the Giant-Kings
passed from this place and time in history (they would shortly
return as the Tybor River cities became the nation of Acheron). The
stage was now set for the Second Great Migration, that of the
Hyborians. That will be the subject of my next installment of
"Mysteries of the Hyborian Age".
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