Editing Tumerok Lore (section)

== History ==
=== On [[Ezheret]] ===

The Tumeroks call their home world [[Ezheret-Hazahtu]], although they only live on the body they call [[Ezheret]]. This requires some explanation. While a sun does rise and fall in the sky, Ezheret actually orbits another, larger planet called [[Hazahtu]]. Hazahtu, or “The Blind Eye,” is an enormous, cloud-shrouded grey-blue orb. Legend holds that when the eye of Hazahtu loses its occlusion, the Tumeroks will be judged for their stewardship of the world.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok>2001/11 [[Dark Majesty]] - [[AC:DM_CD_Lore/Bestiary/Derethian_Bestiary#Tumeroks|Bestiary: Tumeroks]]</ref>

Ezheret is hot, humid, and prone to extended periods of foul weather. Gales and hurricanes are frequent, perhaps due to the unusual sparseness of dry land. The Tumerok tribes are spread across myriad archipelagos, separated by hours or days of journey by boat. <ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/>

The Tumeroks share Ezheret with the scavenger [[Drudge]]s, as well as the perpetually warring [[Banderling]]s and [[Mosswart]]s.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/> <ref name=TheoriesofEzheret/>
During Asheron's visit to the Moon of Ezheret, he mentions that the Tonk appeared to have seen Empyreans before, several of their structures appeared to be influenced by the architecture once prominent on Ireth Lassel, though certainly more crude and rudimentary. The basis for their art and their understanding of magic as a tribal gift from the gods that sang throughout the cosmos, as they referred to the suns, was also reminiscent of the Empyreans first steps into grasping magical talents. <ref name=TheoriesofEzheret/>

=== On Dereth ===

Tribal warmongers by nature, Tumeroks were rejected as slaves by the [[Olthoi]] for being too brutish. <ref name=OrigManual64/> 

The face of the Tumeroks known to humanity was that of warlike humanoids. In the early years after the retreat of the Olthoi, Tumerok raider bands were a constant threat to human settlements, sacking towns from Holtburg to Yanshi. Humanity rarely came out the better in these engagements; at one point the entire adult population of Holtburg was slaughtered or taken as slaves.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/>

This was not the true nature of the Tumerok. They once enjoyed a peaceful, communal culture, rich in oral tradition, and a unique magic system based on ritual drumming.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/>

But as humans always arrive on this world at one of the nine portal-nexus towns of Osteth, so do the Tumeroks always arrive on the [[Marescent Plateau]] of [[Marae Lassel]]. This trapped them on a much smaller landmass. They found themselves in a life-or death struggle with the brood of a second Olthoi Queen – not the one slain by [[Thorsten Cragstone]] and [[Elysa Strathelar]]. The Tumeroks found a way to pen in the Olthoi (which they call “Wharu”) that was as idiosyncratic as their culture.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/> <ref name=PaintingTumerok>2010-/06 [[Shifting Gears]] - [[Tumerok (Town Network Painting)]] </ref>

=== Tumeroks and Virindi === 

Perhaps they could have lived in peace, if the [[Virindi]], known as the "the atual arutoa"<ref name=TahAhurenga>2001/10 [[Dark Majesty]] - [[The Tah of Ahurenga]]</ref> to the Tumeroks, had not discovered them.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/> 

At some point prior to 0 PY,<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/> <ref name=HistoryofFortWitshire>1999/11 [[Release]] - [[History of Fort Witshire]]</ref> the Virindi discovered the Tumeroks trapped on Marae Lassel.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/> The cloaked creatures struck a deadly bargain with [[Aranpuh]], an embittered young outcast.<ref name=TahAhurenga>2001/10 [[Dark Majesty]] - [[The Tah of Ahurenga]]</ref> Aranpuh was taken and altered – perhaps the same alteration chronicled by the Aluvian [[Candeth Martine]] and possibly by Aerbax itself <ref name=DestructionsAndBeginnings> 2003/01 [[The Slumbering Giant]] - [[Destructions and Beginnings]]</ref>) to look more human. So empowered, Aranpuh returned with a host of other angry young Tumeroks, and seized control of the Hea tribe.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/>

After [[Aran]] successfully took control of the Hea tribe of Tumeroks and gained the name [[Hea Arantah]] <ref name=TahAhurenga/>, all of his new tribesmen were altered in the same way. At some point after the alteration of the Hea, but before the Hea invaded the mainland (though after 0 PY<ref>2001/11 [[Dark Majesty]] - [[AC:DM CD Lore/Early Dereth Texts/Lilitha's Bow|Lilitha's Bow]]</ref><ref>2001/11 [[Dark Majesty]] - [[AC:DM CD Lore/Early Dereth Texts/The Legend of Lilitha|The Legend of Lilitha]]</ref>) [[Lilitha]] was captured by [[Hea Temenua]] on [[Marae Lassel]].<ref name=TheOneNamedLilitha>2001/11 [[Dark Majesty]] - [[The One Named Lilitha]]</ref> She was given to the Virindi, who told the Hea, ''"Here are the ones we have gifted you in the image of. Behold! We will open Wind and Light to you, that you may go among their holdings. Bring them to us. We wish to understand them, and the one they are protected by."''<ref name=TheOneNamedLilitha/>


In return for doing the bidding of the Virindi, the Hea are granted Virindi weapons and passage to the freedom of mainland Dereth. But there was one last condition of this bargain. In order to serve as “infiltrators,” the Virindi altered the bodies of the Hea from their natural form to something more….human.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/> <ref name=PaintingTumerok/> It is “[[Hea Arantah]]'s” warriors who have bedeviled humans for so long. <ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/> In the early years after the defeat of the [[The One Queen]]<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/><ref name=HistoryofFortWitshire/> (the exact date is unknown, some time between 0 PY<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/><ref name=HistoryofFortWitshire/> and 7 PY <ref name=OrigManual25>1999/11 [[Release]] - [[Asheron's Call Manual]] p. 25 - Rithwic</ref>) Tumeroks first began to attack human settlements. The loose siege maintained around [[Dryreach]], for example, is used by the tribe as a brutal training ground for new Tumerok warriors. <ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/> <ref name=PaintingTumerok/>  It wasn't until [[Dark Majesty|Leafcull, 12 PY]] when Marae Lassel was opened that humans discovered the true nature of the relationship between Tumeroks and Virindi.<ref name=AC:DMBestiaryTumerok/>