Ikiri

The Ikiri are moderately sized humanoid amphibians, averaging 1.3 meters tall and weighing 34 kilograms. Their soft skin requires high levels of moisture, forcing the Ikiri to live near bodies of water to bathe themselves in intermittently. Their cities and empire dominated the coasts and rivers through the First Era and until the end of the Second Era, when humans drove them from the Southern Continent. Their culture would continue to influence and dominate Sappira until the Suddon Crusaders and eventually the Rub Crusaders would kill the last of the Ikiri.

History

Appearance

The Ikiri emerged from the Great Ikiri Swamp in the First Era and established several colonies on the eastern coast of the Southern Continent, fleeing the rapidly changing environment of their ancestral home. In 762 First Era, the Ikiri Empire was formed, unifying the scattered independent cities across the continent. For the next 1000 years, the Ikiri would spread and cover almost all the coastlines and rivers of the Southern Continent, building vast cities and monuments to their pantheons. Near the end of the First Era, colonies were established on the continent of Sappira, marking the greatest extent of the Ikiri.

Dark Age

The appearance of humans in the Cloudy Steppes coincided with assassination of the Ikiri emperor in 34 Second Era. The close proximity of events meant that the Bloodseekers did not eradicate the humans like they had the dwarves, instead becoming engaged in the bloody civil war that ravaged the Ikiri people. By the end of the Ikiri Civil War, the empire was restored, but had lost vast stretches of their territory to nature and human colonization and even lost contact with its colonies on Sappira. The Ikiri would begin the War of Purity against the growing human chiefdoms in the highlands, a long conflict that would result in the total destruction of the Ikiri Empire and the annihilation of the Ikiri people from the Southern Continent.

Third Era

The Ikiri of the Sappiran colonies would not discover the total destruction of the Ikiri Empire until 140 Third Era, when human colonists fleeing the Suddon Wars of Succession would discover that there were Ikiri still alive. The humans and Ikiri began peaceful relations, letting both of them thrive in the empty lowlands of Sappira. The Ikiri would establish the Second Ikiri Empire, building several cities and covering most of the Emerald Coast and floodplains of the Thyr River. Their culture and technology would thrive until the Great Conquest, where thousands of human crusaders from the Suddon Empire would attack and destroy the Second Ikiri Empire. What remained of the Ikiri fled to their human allies in the East, the Konai. While able to defeat the crusaders at first, more reinforcements and colonists from the Suddon Empire led to their eventual defeat. The last of the Ikiri would escape and settle at the banks of the Talking River and the Southern Talking River, migrating as far as Lake Enivo. The Ikiri would survive for several centuries until finally in 578 Third Era, they would be discovered by the Rub Empire and would ultimately be destroyed, ending the last of the Ikiri in Sappira and beginning the Fourth Era.

T'Ikiri of Hugh's Landing

During the initial colonization of the Southern Continent by the Ikiri in the First Era from the Great Ikiri Swamp, several Ikiri tribes migrated eastwards into the Endless Ocean, unknown to the rest of the Ikiri. These Ikiri would become known as the T'Ikiri, and they colonized several of the remote island chains that dotted the water. While most of these colonies would end up failing over the Second Era due to famine, war, and volcanic activity, the colony on Hugh's Landing would survive well past the genocide of the Ikiri, with their existence becoming known to various modern nations and empires throughout the Fourth Era.