The following piece is a fragment of backstory or world history from an unreleased role-playing game. It was written by Cindy Vanous, copyright Sierra On-Line, 1998.

The Sivlingrat (Nation: Habrenye, "Burning Reach")

One of the oldest cultures on Athyr, the Sivlingrat inhabit the great desert known to outsiders as the Burning Reach. The Sivlingrat word for their home is Habrenye, which means "Heart-held", or beloved. A modern visitor to the Burning Reach might be puzzled by the name, since the desert holds little to endear it. But the Sivlingrat remember a time when their houses were shaded by fern-like trees and their crops nurtured by the waters of two mighty rivers. They remember the halcyon age of their civilization. Once, these people were a highly-developed civilization whose glasswork, stone carving, textiles, and musical compositions were famous throughout the world. Sadly, on the Night of Tears, the Mirabilis wave shattered their cities and, worse, vaporized the vast mountain glacier which fed the twin rivers.

In an attempt to survive, the Sivlingrat abandoned their cities and learned to live with the desert instead of despite it. The contemporary Sivlingrat dwell underground, in homes excavated from the desert sands. These tunnels and caverns are usually built under or in the shadow of rock outcroppings for added insulation. The layers of sand, soil, and rock help to keep Sivlingrat homes cool even in the blistering height of summer. They have no central government, and families live widely spaced from each other, in order to ensure that enough resources are available on each homestead.

Family units are deliberately small, and children are born only when the matriarch of the family is certain that their resources can support another person. Adult children are rarely allowed to remain in the family home, but are married off as soon as possible or merely sent out on their own to make room for a new baby. Often the family will help the newly-married couple or cast-out offspring to dig a new home, but if water stores are low, they will just as readily refuse to spend so much time out in the sun, leaving the new adults to build their own tunnels and fend for themselves. This is why most marriages are arranged in the spring, when water is easier to come by. Sometimes, the outcasts are lucky and find an abandoned home to occupy.

Water is gathered for storage during the late spring and early summer, when the seasonal rains in the western mountains and foothills cause temporary rivers and streams to wend their way hundreds of miles into the heart of the desert, creating a swampy inland delta. The desert dwellers make the long journey from their homes to the delta several times during the weeks-long wet season, collecting each time as much water as they can manage. Extended families will reunite for the occasion, gathering together to help with the hauling of massive wheeled sledges, each one carrying dozens of casks and barrels.

The Sivlingrat ration their water stores scrupulously, and supplement their supplies by harvesting new growth from barrelpulp plants. The barrelpulps are useful for more than just moisture... the tough outer skin of the plant is fibrous, and can be stripped and woven into durable cloth. The pulp itself, once the water has been pressed out, can be dried and ground into a palatable gruel. Other food staples are gathered during the yearly trek to the delta: fish to be dried, sand rye to be ground into flour, several varieties of mammalian grazers to be smoked, and a variety of short-season berries to be dried or fermented. Fresh meat can be obtained for much of the year by any sharp-eyed spear-hunter who can tell a good lizard from a poisonous one. Sivlingrat clothing is lightweight, loose-fitting, and pale in color, to avoid attracting heat.

The mages of the desert practice a very unique art. Their magerie deals entirely with dreams, and is inextricably intertwined with the Sivlingrats' simple religion. These somnomancers are rare, and their powers make them a source of pride for the families lucky enough to produce them. Somnomancers can see the possible paths of a person's future, and can just as easily view the recent past. They can send sleep-carried messages between households, bring pleasant night-time visions of their green ancestral home, and banish nightmares from a troubled mind. The main goal of Sivlingrat somnomancers, though, has little to do with their fellow humans. They believe the spirit of their homeland to have been ensorcelled on the Night of Tears, cast into a deep sleep from which she cannot awake. The mages strive to contact her, night after endless night, but find nothing but the visions of past and future, which they believe to be Habrenye's dreams.

The laws of the Sivlingrat are few, simple, and absolute. Water is difficult to obtain, and is vital to continued life. Death is the province of the desert, and comes frequently even when not invited. Therefore, resource-theft and murder are both repaid with brutal retribution -- the perpetrator is tied out in the sun and left to die and desiccate. Unplanned children are also "given to the desert", that they might not be a burden on the resources of their family. Any woman who would protest the taking of her child's life is given the option to accompany it, and fend for herself with an infant.

Each Sivlingrat, by necessity, knows a variety of skills. Instead of specializing in hunting, or weaving, or food preservation, or excavation, or pottery, or any one of the other talents necessary for survival in their harsh world, each desert dweller is proficient or at least capable in all of them. A Sivlingrat must be able to survive alone, as they never know when this might be necessary. But as certain people are always more gifted than others in a given skill, true craftsmen have emerged from the people of the desert, and their work is prized by all and used for trade between the families.

As a culture, the desert people have lived in this manner for nearly eight hundred years, with no great advancements or innovations. To an outsider, it would seem that they are waiting for something, and this is indeed the case. The Sivlingrat have held fiercely to the words of a centuries-old prophecy, that one day Habrenye will awaken from her sorcerous slumber, recognize her children, and care for them again with plentiful water and temperate weather. And so, for now, they simply abide until the prophecy is fulfilled, keeping their people alive so that the next generation, or the generation after that, might be blessed.

The cities of Habrenye have been partially rebuilt, although they stand empty of living residents. The only occupants of the silent streets and brooding walls are thousands upon thousands of seated figures. These foot-tall idols, carved of stone or shaped of clay, are the death-gods of fallen friends, placed within the cities so that some part of the unfortunate dead might be present to see the rebirth of the Sivlingrat when Habrenye finally awakens. Each idol bears upon it some remnant of the deceased -- a finger bone, a woven string of hair, a tooth or other such corporeal fragment. Even those who are given to the desert for theft or murder are idolized in this manner after their death, as their crime does not change the fact that they are Sivlingrat born.

Once a year, the abandoned cities come alive with the sights and sounds of festival. This is the annual meeting-time, in the dawn of spring when the harshest times are over and a season of new resources is about to begin. Surplus food and goods are traded between families, marriages are arranged and performed, and the year's unfortunate dead are lamented and their idols placed among the sculpted throng.

Sivlingrat Night of Tears Legend

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