A Concise History of the Mizungu War

A Concise History of the Mizungu War

(Excerpted from the CHRONICLES OF NABATTI)

By Dale Rippke

A thousand rains prior to the birth of Imaro a demonic invasion from the island of Atlan scarred the soul of the nations of Nyumbani. This invasion was referred to by the inhabitants of that continent as the Mizungu War. The war was so savage and terrible that even a millennia later there are people who can remember with great clarity the events of the time.

The seeds for this war could be traced back to events that took place seven millennia before. A group of demonic beings believed to be Elder Gods called the Mashataan discovered that the veil separating their dimension from earth was very thin. They found a way to enter the dimensional plane of earth and began to destroy and corrupt the inhabitants of the continent of Nyumbani. The chieftains of the Watu-wa-Kwanza, the First Tribes, rose up against them. Their uprising failed and the evil Mashataan captured them, using powerful magic to transform them into composite half men-half stone golems called mangabaan. The Mashataan turned Nyumbani into a living nightmare, until after a time another group of "outsiders" hurtled the Mashataan off of the dimensional plane of earth. This other group called themselves the Cloud Striders, a group that sought to uplift and enlighten the inhabitants of Nyumbani.

There now existed a balance between the power of the Cloud Striders and the power of the Mashataan. Most of the time the power between the two groups remain balanced and the people of Nyumbani were free to do as they wanted. Occasionally the balance would shift and one side would gain influence at the expense of the other. Whenever that happened, the two powers would come into conflict, and the result would be chaos and upheaval. For their own reasons, neither side sought the destruction of the world and so no longer attempted to directly intervene. They would vie for influence through the use of human intermediaries.

The Mashataan, their memory still long and lusting for vengeance for the defeat they had suffered in Nyumbani millennia past, came up with a way to shift the balance. The greatest of the Mashataan, a demon by the name of Yugg-Thuggathoth, corrupted the priesthood on the island-continent of Atlan in the Bahari Magharibi--the Western Ocean.

The people of Atlan were a race of pale-skinned warriors. They sought to emulate the bravery of a man named Herkal, hero of a dozen Atlantean sword sagas. These warriors were duped into attacking Nyumbani by the false priesthood of Yugg-Thuggathoth. These priests had sown a malignant suggestion in the minds of the Atlanteans: the belief that the people of Nyumbani were subhuman, fit only for slavery or the sacrificial altars of Yugg-Thuggathoth.

The warriors of fair Atlan sailed eastward with their barbarian allies from Thule, landing upon the western coast of Nyumbani and using terrifying war beasts and magical weapons to enslave the native population. Though the sons and daughters of Nyumbani fought mightily, the sorcery of the Mashataan had given the Atlanteans--named by their victims the "Mizungu" or "those-without-mercy"--a seemingly insurmountable advantage, and the kingdoms of the west Coast were crushed beneath the pale men's heels. Thousands upon thousands of shrieking black captives were dragged to the altars of Yugg-Thuggathoth and the other Elder Gods and thousands more were shipped off to labor as slaves in Atlan. For a half a century of rains, the Mizungus laid waste to the western half of Nyumbani, ravaged the jungle kingdoms south of the Gulf of Otongi, and crossed the Ataissan Mountains to wreck havoc on the vast grassland nations and empires of the Soudan.

The Mizungu fought the natives of Nyumbani with eldritch devices and creations of the Mashataan: the mangabaan created millennia before, the hibi (a humanoid sea-dweller), the irimu (a type of lion-demon), the izingogo (a quadrapedal, carnivorous human), and the unthlatu (a race of reptilian-scaled men). But the most terrifying of these were the azuth (a saber-toothed ape-bull).

Then the people of Cush, an ancient land in the far north of the continent, got involved in the war. Thutanas, a scientist of Cush, bred huge, black lions that were more than a match for the azuths. The Cushite forces fought with the domesticated animals of Nyumbani: gunkwu (a gigantic, two-horned war beast), ikenga (a horse-sized antelope), and their famed war-elephants. But more important than anything else, the priesthood of Cush sought to arrange an intervention by the Cloud Striders.

It was at this time that the Mizungus had overrun the West Coast and the Forest Kingdoms, the empires of the Soudan, and were undermining the East Coast kingdoms. There were those of Nyumbani who betrayed their lands, who succumbed to the temptations of the Mizungu gods and their alien sorcery. Though few in number, that number included a tribe called the Bana-Gui. The sorcerers of the Bana-Gui had been promised the magical power of the Demon-Gods and did not believe that Nyumbani would ever unite to drive out the Mizungus. And they did not believe that the Cushites could arrange an intervention by the Cloud Striders. They were wrong.

The priests of Cush discovered a means by which the Cloud Striders could be summoned back to the land from which they had driven the Mashataan ages ago. And the Cloud Striders, the gods-who-were-not-gods, had come. The sorcerous power the Mashataan had bestowed upon their Mizungu acolytes was now reclaimed for their conflict with the Cloud Striders.

In the clouds, Cloud Striders engaged the Mashataan in a conflict that shook the sky. This was the battle that marked the beginning of the end of the Atlantean conquest. Yugg-Thuggathoth and the other Mashataan fled the earthly plane, nullifying the power of the Mizungu's eldritch devices and leaving the Atlanteans alone to face the hordes of vengeful blacks inflamed by the triumphs of their gods-who-were-not-gods. Their task done, the Cloud Striders departed.

Bereft of their magic, the Mizungu became vulnerable to the vengeful fury of the people of Nyumbani. The broken kingdoms of the conquered west arose in rebellion. Cush and the other kingdoms not yet subdued by Atlan joined forces with rebels in the conquered lands to drive the Atlanteans inexorably westward into the sea. Atlantean forces were swamped and dissolved into a chaotic mass. Although a large number of Mizungu and their allies escaped to return to Atlan, some of their forces were left behind. The victorious armies of the west scoured their land of all signs of the presence of the pale men, slaughtering without mercy any they found. Some managed to escape the slaughter and found refuge in the most inaccessible corners of Nyumbani.

An Atlantean force under Vorstos had been forced to flee to the east, for their way westward was blocked by thousands of black horsemen. Many Atlanteans died before Vorstos had found refuge in a remote jungle area. It was in this forest that the Atlanteans built the "lost" city of Yahannis; a redoubt to await rescue by the reorganized forces of Atlan.

After the Mizungu defeat, the attention of the victorious blacks turned to the people of Nyumbani who had betrayed the continent to the Atlanteans. The East Coast kingdoms fell upon the Bana-Gui like a pride of angry lions and they were banished completely from the world aboveground.

About fifty years after the end of the war, for reasons unknown, the land of Atlan sank beneath the waves of the Bahari Magharibi. And nobody ever came to rescue the pale men of Yahannis.

01/07/00 09:12:53 PM