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MORDHEIM - CITIES OF
GOLD
AMAZONS I (New Style)
THE AMAZON TRIBES
The dense jungles of Lustria are teeming with small tribes of Savage Orcs, Pygmies and
Men. These tribes in the main have failed to develop into sprawling civilazations like the
men of the Old World. However, there is one unique tribe which has developed into a
civilization deep in the jungle. They are the Amazons, a tribe of made almost entirely of
women. While the are collectively called the Amazon's, their empire consists of small
villages spread throughout the land of Lustria. Each village is led by a chieftan, each of
which has pledged their alligence to the Amazon Queen, who rules the Amazon Empire from
her throne room in the secret fortress of Ithralia, hidden on the small island known as
Amazon Island. Only a select few tribal chieftans, and those in the court of the Amazon
Queen, know the location of the fortress. To the casual observer, and in fact to even the
mighty Slann Mage Priests, it appears that the Amazons are little more than a few savage
tribes.
THE BIRTH OF THE AMAZON TRIBES
But this teeming secret empire hidden deep in the jungles didn't appear over night, nor
to the strange all women nature of it. The Birth of the Amazons can be traced down to
before the Coming Of Chaos, whilst the mighty Old Ones still inhabited the Warhammer
World. The Amazon tribe was one of the largest of the tribes which inhabited the jungles.
At this point it was unremarkable to the other tribes, and their society was male
dominated. The Males were the warriors, while the women tended to the crops of Manioc
beans and yams, grown by their system of shifting agriculture. The tribe developed
unhindered by their neighbours. Until the one fateful day when a massive army of Lizardmen
marched towards the Amazon village. The proud and arrogant warriors marched out to meet
the scaly invaders. None returned. The women folk of the tribe scattered across the width
and bredth of Lustria.
The women of the Amazon tribes felt very cheated by the males. Having trusted them to
protect them, they had all failed them. The smaller tribes of Women had to endure the
hardships of the life in the Jungle on their own, without their menfolk to protect them.
They became very reclusive tribes, only rarely having any contact with the other tribes of
Lustria. When they did, it was mainly to trade goods and themselves to the men of the
other tribes in order to procreate their race. A culture of seeing males as weak
developed, as the small tribes of warrior women learned how to fight, and learned how to
fight well.
Why the Old Ones had deemed it necessary to attack the Amazon tribe remains a mystery.
Perhaps it was simply that the tribe threatened to interfere with the Old Ones great
plans. But considering that the Amazon Empire now is much greater than it ever was when
the Old Ones attacked them suggests that the answer to this question may not be so obvious
after all. The Old Ones were a very enigmatic race, and perhaps the Amazons will at one
point serve the purpose of their great plan is not yet known. No one truly understands the
thinking of the Old Ones, not even the wise High Elf mages in the Tower Of Hoeth.
Unfortunatly, maybe the Slann who have inherited the legacy of the Old Ones, or the
Amazons themselves know this, as there has been fighting between Lizardmen and Amazons as
the Amazons seek to get their revenge. Maybe the Old Ones forsaw this. Maybe they even
wanted it. By creating conflict, it has been theorised, that the Old Ones were in fact
encouraging the development of both the Amazons and the Lizardmen for the tasks they had
in mind for them, way into the future. It is not a topic which is widely discussed. The
Amazons are masters at hiding within the jungles, and it is a subject of some debates
between the scholars of Elves and Men whether the Amazons do exist, or whether they are
simply a myth.
THE COMING OF VALARIA
The Amazon tribes, while having developed pretty much in the same way as tribes of
warrior women, were scattered all over Lustria. Before the Coming of Chaos there came one
Amazon warrior, known only has Valaria. Her prowess as a warrior was unmatched by anyone
within the Amazon Realms, and she always went to battle with a strangely shaped sword in
each hand, made of an unknown blue crystal. Where she came from, no one knows. But she
wandered the jungle, righting wrongs and slowly united all of the Amazon tribes together.
Valaria was the first Amazon Queen, and was she who found the complex network of natural
caves and caverns hidden behind the massive waterfall of Swallow Falls. She was the one
which started the construction of the fortress-temple of Ithralia. When the Time of Chaos
came, Valaria headed Northwards. She appointed her favourite subject, Zenia, as Amazon
Queen, and headed off to fight the great darkness - never to be seen again. Since then,
there has always been an Amazon Queen, the ruler of the all of the Amazon Kingdom. The
current Queen is Helena. Valaria ascended into godhood. The true facts to the rise of
Valaria and the establishment of the Amazon Kingdom is all but impossible to establish
accurately. Valaria is the goddess of the Amazon people, and has become so much embroiled
into mythology and folklore that the facts are very blurred. The Amazons are primarily a
warrior tribe, and keep few records apart from the odd carving on a Totem pole, and the
enscriptions on the walls of Ithralia - a place where no man has ever set foot inside, and
no outsider has ever visited. In some cases Valaria is depicted as a women warrior with
six arms, carrying a sword in each. It is thought that this is symbolic of the way that
Valaria was set to wield her swords with lightening speed and agility. However, due
to the mysterious nature of Valaria's background, and the fact she just seemed to appear
from nowhere suggests that the hand of the Old Ones can't be ruled out.
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