Khufkey people

History
The ancestors of the Khufkey people were the same as those of Geri people. The split happened around 150 AGS, when some Geri tribes decided to move away from the others.

Tribe conflicts forced certain tribes to be on the move constantly over many generations and have lesser power than other tribes. Migration got tied with the religion of the tribes. Myths about a "promised land" where they could settle for eternity began to develop. The tribes grew a bit distinct from other tribes. The religious leaders noticed that they could gain power by enforcing these ideas about the promised land. Some of these lesser tribes developed alliances with each other. Their language was completely intelligible with the other tribes, though. After one of the largest conflicts in a few generations, some of these allied tribes got onto the run and started running in a random direction away from other Geri people. The tribe leaders supported this heavily, as it allowed them to use the idea of promised land and gain a lot of power. The tribes had to change their location anyway. At the beginning, the people had strong faith in the predictions of the religious tribe leaders. Eventually they ended up in the desert, and the conditions made the life of the people in the tribes horrible. Faith in the leaders dropped, and an uprising removed most of the old leaders from their positions or forced them to comply. With the old power structure gone, escape from the desert was almost impossible, as it required coordinated effort, which wasnt possible anymore. It was also an unpopular idea, as the last time the migrations had ended terribly. These Geri tribes decided to settle down in the bare desert.

They settled in the desert in the year 180 AGS. At first, there were many famines and child mortality was high. The main religion set by the new leaders of the tribes directly opposed earlier ideas that the now overthrown old tribe leaders had held. The existance of the ”promised land” was denied and traveling was deemed evil. The old religion was focused on order, while the new religion focused on chaos. However, not all of the old leaders were killed, but some were only forced to comply. These leaders grew old religion movements in secret. This eventually allowed the old religion to gain a foothold in some of the tribes, and conflicts between the tribes increased. The conflicts were easily justified with religious reasons, but were more clearly linked to fighting over food. A big conflict started in 205 AGS, but slowly faded out.Eventually a peace was agreed upon. New types of meetings between the two religions were made, which tried to reach agreements on different issues. The first meeting with representatives from all of the tribes was held in 235 AGS. The conflicts decreased and the coordination increased. In 200 AGS-280AGS all tribes adopted at least some farming of cacti for food. The tribes that started early  gained more power. This lead to the gradual weakening of the cross-religion meetings. A lot of tribes dropped out of them. The tribe relations reached a stable situation for now.

The Meetings were held at a small temple located in the desert. It was built with a combination of orderly and chaotic architecture. Green fog was sometimes seen eminating from the temple. This was actually a swarm of Khyekys, but it was called ”divine cloud”. Only a few of the tribes participated in the meetings anymore. A small raid on the temple occurred in 298 AGS. Some of the priests died, but the raiders were defeated. This was the first time purple fog (in reality Khyekys) was seen in the temple. Several priests noticed the fog, and it passed as a folk story.

Khufkey history 300-799 AGS

After the raid, the position of the Temple significantly weakened, as the amount of people habiting it fell down. Some of the inhabitants moved to other parts of the desert, and founded new, but smaller temples there. These new temples often kept contact with the main one. The tribes formed private agreements with each other, and the temple wasn't needed anymore. Eventually only 3 of the tribes participated regularly in the meetings anymore.

The culture around temple was quite odd, as it was a mix of the cultures of many of the other tribes. Religious meetings were held at the temple. Originally the people holding the old religion events and the new religion events were separate, but over time the same people started holding both types of events. Free syncretism was often practised in the temple. Around the year 345, the population in the main temple started growing again, as people from the other temples moved back to the original one. Some people also moved to the other temples, spreading the culture of the main temple to them as well. Because of the distinct culture, the area around the main temple was given as private property to the temple, and no tribe owned it.

The tribe stucture remained stabile for a long time. There were no proper conflicts. Three tribes were considered biggest ones. One of them had the new religion as the main religion. Another one the old religion. The last one had both types, and it was the only one of the three that attended the meetings and was usually allied with the temple.

Around 420 AGS there was a large wave of heat, and vast season of sandstorms. One of the biggest 3 tribes, the one that was allied with the temple, collapsed, sending immigrants all over the desert and causing a large scale migration.

The migrants caused many of the smaller tribes to also collapse, creating more migrants. The old system of 3 main tribes and then more lesser ones completely broke down.

Tensions increased between the two remaining biggest tribes and their allies. A war broke out in 126AGS. At first, the temple people were left unharmed.

However, after the war had gone out for 14 years, and it was the year 440, the temple was attacked. Some people in the temple were killed, and purple gas was seen again. However, the temple held. To make a better defense, the temple recruited locals and people around the major temple and the minor temples to fight possible future invasions. 2 years later, the other side made attacks to some of the minor temples. The temple people were successful in defending, and even captured some area.

Next attacks occurred in 448. The now more powerful temple people went to a counter strike and captured more towns. They brought order into territories devastated by war, and their messages about  trying to make peace, and making the war end as quickly as possible proved successful recruiting tools. The area controlled by the temple grew to be a nation, which was called Temple.

In 456, the Temple controlled most of the area. The two other tribes had gradually lost both manpower, motivation, and resources. Both of the previous leader tribes fell, bringing peace.

During the war, usage of the desert turtles became more common in warfare. As the temple nation gradually became larger, it had also discovered more purple fog(actually purple khyekys), which was ”discovered” to appear in places with lots of so called ”emotional power”. Gradually the existance of grey fog, appearing in places with both green and purple fog. Shortly before the end of the war, the ability to give the grey fog orders was discovered, but it wasn’t used during the war.

After the war, investigations into the grey fog were being done, but they were stopped in 500 AGS. The concept of the fog became ingrained in the religion. Writing slowly evolved, but it wasn’t used widely. The main temple was expanded a lot, new temples were made, and old temples were made larger. Food production was on the rise. The towns were managed by the Temple nation.

During the war a military assistant was hired to work for the leaders, which were priests at the time.

Even after the war these so called military assistants worked at the temple, but they were not doing war related tasks anymore, and they instead focused on the general management of the new nation.

Eventually the role became hereditary, and the assistants started gaining more power. There was only one assistant at the time. In 560, a soft split happened, when one of the largest temples split off from the main  one. The assistant still managed both of the temples, which increased his power. In 583, the title was changed to emperor, and Temple officially became an empire.

In 686 AGS, a slightly insane person managed to gain the leadership of one of the largest temples. He sent small armies to raid and destroy the two largest temples, the ones that had split off in 560. The motivation for this act was the wish to invade them and rule over the entire desert. When his assistant learned of this, he killed the person and overthrew him. The emperor was very pleased with the assistant, and gave him a promotion.

However, the armies couldn’t be stopped in time, and the two temples were partially both raided and destroyed. However, the armies were eventually caught and punished. The attemped coup didn't succeed.

In 691, the Emperor started a new project to build a temple next to the large mountain roughly in the middle of the desert. This temple was meant to be a place for managing the whole empire, and controlling the other temples. The mountain was called temple-mountain, which is Fkey in Khufkey. The new temple was supposed to act as a replacement for the old ones.

In the years 700-800, the following events happened: 712 AGS: New extensions were added to the temple on Fkey. 736 AGS: Writing became so widespread knowing it was made mandatory by the law. 745 AGS: The priest caste dropped in power as a massacre occurred in eastern part of Khey (the name of the desert where Khufkey people live) 755 AGS: An order of priests trying to use radical measures to defend their beliefs was launched 771 AGS: The order assasinates the current emperor. The new emperor swears to destroy the order and kill all who are or were part of it. 772 AGS: The order founds a base underground, where they experiment with ”Magic”. 783 AGS: The emperor tries to establish his position as the leader. A wall between Khufkey and Telehe empire is built. The system of management is decentralised. The remaining troops of the order that are overground get hunted out. The emperor dedicates more power to the priests to keep them happier. 789-792 AGS: Food production goes down because of terrible weather conditions. This creates protests and unrest. A way to manipulate the Khyekys to manipulate is discovered, which eventually brings the food production up. 800 AGS: The order of priests underground discovers lots other settlements, including the largest one. Most of the settlements get annexed or join voluntarily. Some of the loot collected gets sold overground, leading to rumors about the underground.