An Age of Decline

When the Cataclysm of -7000 brushed aside the civilisations of the Thulian Continent, Picts and Atlanteans were offered their chance on the stage of history.  Although Atlantis proper had sunk, their continental kingdom was left relatively untouched, and welcomed thousands of refugees from the west.  The inhabitants of the Pictish islands were wiped out, but Pictish mercenaries was so omnipresent in the armies of the fallen Thulian kingdoms, that they were now a force to be reckoned with.

To the Continental kingdom of the Atlanteans, from sunken areas, swarmed myriads of beasts and savages — ape-men and apes. Forced to battle continually for their lives, they yet managed to retain vestiges of their former state of highly advanced barbarism. Robbed of metals and ores, they became workers in stone like their distant ancestors, and had attained a real artistic level, when their struggling culture came into contact with the powerful Pictish nation. The Picts had also reverted to flint, but had advanced more rapidly in the matter of population and war-science. They had none of the Atlanteans' artistic nature; they were a ruder, more practical, more prolific race. They left no pictures painted or carved on ivory, as did their enemies, but they left remarkably efficient flint weapons in plenty.

These stone-age kingdoms clashed, and in a series of bloody wars, the outnumbered Atlanteans were hurled back into a state of savagery, and the evolution of the Picts was halted. Five hundred years after the Cataclysm (circa -6500) the barbaric kingdoms have vanished. It is now a nation of savages — the Picts — carrying on continual warfare with tribes of savages — the Atlanteans. The Picts had the advantage of numbers and unity, whereas the Atlanteans had fallen into loosely knit clans. That was the west of that day.

In this western part of the Continent, changing conditions created strange forms of plant and animal life. Thick jungles covered the plains, great rivers cut their roads to the sea, wild mountains were heaved up, and lakes covered the ruins of old cities in fertile valleys. 

After the Pictish-Atlantean wars had destroyed the beginnings of what might have been a new culture, another, lesser cataclysm (circa -4500) further altered the appearance of the original continent, left a great inland sea where the chain of lakes had been, to further separate west from east, and the attendant earthquakes, floods and volcanoes completed the ruin of the barbarians which their tribal wars had begun.

A thousand years after the lesser cataclysm, the western world is seen to be a wild country of jungles and lakes and torrential rivers. Among the forest-covered hills of the northwest exist wandering bands of ape-men, without human speech, or the knowledge of fire or the use of implements. They are the descendants of the Atlanteans, sunk back into the squalling chaos of jungle-bestiality from which ages ago their ancestors so laboriously crawled. To the southwest dwell scattered clans of degraded, cave-dwelling savages, whose speech is of the most primitive form, yet who still retain the name of Picts, which has come to mean merely a term designating men — themselves, to distinguish them from the true beasts with which they contend for life and food. It is their only link with their former stage. Neither the squalid Picts nor the apish Atlanteans have any contact with other tribes or peoples.

In the distant east, cut off from the rest of the world by the heaving up of gigantic mountains and the forming of a chain of vast lakes, the Lemurians, having escaped the destruction of their islands and fled to the eastern coast of the Thurian Continent, were enslaved by the ancient race already dwelling there.  This situation lasts for millenia, before the Lemurians unite, rise and destroy their masters, becoming savages stalking among the ruins of a strange civilization. 

The event is however of considerable importance for the West, for the survivors of the toppled civilisation, escaping the fury of their slaves, have come westward. There they fall upon that mysterious pre-human kingdom of the Thulian South - a civilisation of serpent-men which survived the Cataclysm - and overthrow it.

These refugees from the East incorporate the now abased serpent-men into their own civilisation, worship certain manifestations of them, and forge a new nation, which they call Stygia (circa -3800).  Worshippers of Set, the priests of Stygia terrorise their uncivilised neighbours.

In relatively close proximity to Stygia is another island of civilisation, that of the Zhemri, survivors of a Thulian kingdom who, after a heroic exodus, found refuge in the low mountains of the southeast.

The Lemurians also have a more direct impact on the West when a large group of them migrate westwards, circa -3100.  Their alliance with their ancient Stygian rivals shows that evil knows no boundaries.  The Acheron Empire was born, worshipping Stygian Set and indulging in foul necromancy.  They preyed on the weak peoples surrounding them, sacrificing thousands on their altars and piling up a pyramid of their heads in their capital city of Python.

The civilisations of Acheron and Old Stygia were contemporary with another, centred around the city of Kuthchemes, in the great desert to the south-east of Shem, a week's ride from the frontier of Koth.  A dark evil dwelt in the ivory dome atop a great marble pedestal, protected by the hieroglyphs that are the script of the ancient serpent-folk of Thuria.  It had a name : Thugra Khotan, a Stygian sorceror but no friend of Stygia, with a heart blacker than the desert night.  In his great hall, chained captives knelt by the hundreds during festivals to have their heads hacked off by the priest-king in honour of Set; and from a nearby pit climbed a nameless amorphic monstrosity to which screaming victims were fed.

In the far north another people are slowly coming into existence, whose destiny will be to wash away some of the stains of this evil, before succumbing to others born of more human passions.  According to their legends, they escaped the Cataclysm (the Great Cataclysm, according to their legends, but no doubt it was the Lesser one that followed) thanks to their God-King Bori, who led them into safety in the icy wastes of the north.  All such tribes who claim descent from Bori are called Hybori, or Hyborians.  They have spread over the north, and are now (circa -3000) pushing southward in leisurely treks. So far they have not come in contact with any other races; their wars have been with one another. Fifteen hundred years in the north country have made them a tall, tawny-haired, grey-eyed race, vigorous and warlike, and already exhibiting a well-defined artistry and poetism of nature. They still live mostly by the hunt, but the southern tribes have been raising cattle for some centuries.
As Hybori population increased, their southward movement became extensive : the following age would be an epoch of wandering and conquest.