Hypoc

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The nation of Hypocria owes it’s creation to one man, Hypoc. Although little evidence survives from that ancient time that follows is the most common rendition of the Tale of the Beast Slayer.

Over two millennia ago a fleet of ships landed on the southern shore of the continent now known as Verdana in the region now called Atlantian Oceania. Whether these ships found that shore by accident or design is not recorded. On board the ships was a tribe looking for a new home. They landed near the mouth of a mighty river and established a village. The natives of the land soon gathered their strength and attacked the settlers but were defeated by the warriors of the tribe led by their chief. And so stalemate descended on the land with the settlers never strong enough to fully drive the other tribes away and the tribes unable to better the warrior chief.

But where the weapons of man failed, nature would succeed. The settlers had encountered the Hyppos, or ‘water beasts’ in their tongue, many times since their arrival and had learnt to give the huge river creatures a wide berth. The beasts largely did the same. Until one fateful day when their warrior chief was crushed by one of them. The settlers were devastated at the loss of their leader and the rival tribes gathered their strength once again. Leaderless and with all hope seemingly lost the settlers prepared to abandon their new homes and flee. Until a saviour arrived.

A young warrior ventured out and found the Hyppo that had killed his lord. Legend has it that he decapitated the mighty beast with a single swing of his blade. Following which he took the name Hypoc, or ‘Beast Slayer’. For a people who valued courage more than any other he was the natural man to lead them. And lead them he did. He led his people into battle and routed the rival tribesmen. But where the old chief had been content to drive off their enemies his successor showed now mercy and crushed his beaten foes utterly, killing their men and enslaving the women and children.

He took the war to his enemies and defeated one rival tribe after another. Soon villages flung open their gates at the very sound of his name rather than face his army in battle. These were absorbed into his expanding realm. In less than a year every tribe from the river to the mountains in the north and east had been subjugated or slaughtered. The following year he drove his forces west and claimed new swathes of land for his own. Satisfied with his conquests he founded a city on the banks of the great river in the centre of the realm he had created. It would be his capital and from there Hypoc, the warrior who became a chief and the chief who became a king, reigned over the land that now carried his name. That land was now known as Hypocria, ’the Land of the Beast Slayer’.